Chapter 48: Quarter

Two fleets of Oligarchical vessels slid silently into place beside those already in formation. Jack recognized the Valhalla Vehicleworks insignia on one set of vessels. The original parts of the Mother Goose bore the same logo.

The new vessels joined the seven Oligarchical fleets burning from Algreil Prime. In theory, the combined forces almost equaled the Federal Navy's Second Fleet.

In theory.

Nobody was counting the size of the ships in the Fed fleet. If you counted by tons or guns, the Oligarchical forces looked a hell of a lot smaller.

And outnumbered? Oh hell yeah. In mecha if not capships, the Feds would have them outnumbered three to one. Maybe more like five to one. Maybe ten. Otto kept those numbers to himself, which never meant anything good.

Then, of course, there was the fact that the Second Fleet was two out of ten. First Fleet wouldn't stray from Etemenos and the Federal Senate, but the rest of the Fed assets would bring the hammer down on Algreil Prime if the 'garchs somehow managed to win this first fight.

Otto claimed they'd have Chloe by then.

He claimed they'd have a lot more ships, too.

He claimed they'd win this fight without them.

He was the self-confessed best bullshitter in the galaxy.

Jack didn't see what Otto had to gain from getting his whole fleet – hell, his whole company – wiped out, but then, maybe the Oligarch didn't think he had anything to lose, either. The Feds planned to take him down whether he fought back or not.

"Look alive, Devil Rays." Otto's voice, still infuriatingly confident, crackled over their com systems. "According to our projections, Second Fleet is almost in-system."

We are so, so dead, Jack thought. "Roger, Devil Ray Leader."

Otto was nominally in command of the whole fleet, but since he was the best mechaneer they had, he led from the front. Jack wasn't sure who was in charge on the huge Algreil Aerospace cruiser, but it wasn't his once-and-current boss.

Devil Ray Leader was not actually piloting the Stingray for which his unit was so famous. Neither were his squadron leaders, Jack included. The production model Epee in which Jack sat hadn't impressed him at the Wellach Cup. He hoped it would perform better in real combat than it had in the tournament. Still, he had to admire the thing's power. It hummed beneath him, responding fluidly to his slightest command. In performance if not reliability, he trusted it to outperform any Fed mecha.

Hell, it practically made him feel invincible.

Which was maybe more dangerous than the Feds and the mecha's own questionable coolant system combined.

Jack knew what the nobs had done when they felt invincible. Gone and lost the Civil War.

"Let's give them a welcome to remember," Otto said. "All ships, flank speed. We're attacking the Feds as they come out of their compression tunnel."

The capital ships swept forward.

The Devil Rays hovered around their parent vessel, dragged by its gravitic shields as if they were in the orbit of a planet. Their mecha never could have moved so fast on their own. Nonetheless, the journey seemed agonizingly long. By the time they finally neared the weirdly-distorted space that marked the Feds' compression tunnels, Jack was sure the entire enemy fleet would have emerged.

They hadn't. The lying bastard of a clock wedged amidst Jack's various tactical readouts claimed only minutes had passed.

What had emerged were a pair of escort carriers, the only two they expected from the Reformer's battlegroup. These disgorged a swarm of mecha to screen the advance of the remaining ships.

It was probably suicide on the part of the carrier crews. Their shields couldn't distort space enough to deflect a direct hit from the Oligarchical cruisers.

As for the carriers' mechaneers, well... sacrificing them was pretty much standard Fed doctrine. The Devil Rays were the leading element of the Oligarchical battlegroup because they were the best. The Feds followed a different practice. The mechaneers swarming into them were second-tier at best, expendable to the elites who would jump through with the larger ships.

Jack almost felt sorry for the poor bastards.

Okay, he did feel sorry for them.

It didn't stop him from returning their fire when they started to blaze at the onrushing Oligarchical fleet, or from slamming the Epee's claws through one's cockpit as he passed, or tossing another mecha into his wingman's killing grasp. The Devil Rays blew through the cloud of mecha in a fraction of the time it had taken either side to reach the battlefield, hurtling toward the comparatively undefended escort carriers. No casualties, not on the Oligarchical side.

Jack started to dip toward one of the carriers.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Ignore that trash," Otto snapped. "Let the second-line units clean them up."

"We're gonna be surrounded," Jack said.

"Bound to happen sooner or later."

Jack sighed. The plan was all too typical of Otto. Since the oligarch had been right often enough to stay alive through dozens of such crazy plans, Jack followed him in.

The Devil Rays shot past the Federal Navy front line. Jack's rear instruments noted the explosion of one of the escort carriers. The Journeyman or one of its sister ships must have managed to put an anti-ship shell clean through the small vessel's shields.

Jack had no time for pity.

In contrast to the usual Fed doctrine, the Reformer and its sister ships were the next out of their tunnels, and they were already launching mecha behind a wave of anti-mecha gunfire. Two Stingrays and an Epee blew apart before their pilots could correct for the sudden attack. Otto's machine nearly banged into Jack's as both men swerved away from shells that outmassed their mecha.

"He knew we were gonna try this, Otto," Jack shouted. "Avalon knew –"

"I know," Otto said. He sounded deadly calm now. A bad sign. When Otto let himself calm down, it meant he'd really, truly lose it if he didn't keep himself under control. "Just go with it. We're dead if we turn around and let those guns chew us up."

Unable to argue, Jack followed the oligarch into the second wave of Federal mecha. The rest of the surviving Devil Rays followed.

A line of Wyverns met them, the gleaming gold of the Divine Auric Drake at their center. If Marcel Avalon had already launched, he had to be gunning for a killing blow before the Oligarchical fleets could reorganize. Most Fed commanders played it safe and relied on their superior reserves of men and equipment. Avalon was going for a big reward, but he was taking a hell of a risk, too.

If the Devil Rays could kill him before he killed them, they might just have a chance.

In atmosphere, in a planet's gravity well, the Devil Rays' Stingrays had handily beaten the Wyverns of the Federal elites. The Oligarchical mecha were some of the few that could truly call one gee 'favorable terrain,' at least against other mecha.

They weren't in favorable terrain this time.

"We aren't in Stingrays, either," Jack muttered. Hell, if Otto's little brother could take Marcel Avalon on in an Epee, how bad could the machine be?

"Listen up, Devil Rays," Otto said. "Our targets are the Divine Auric Drake and the Reformer. We're gonna slag Admiral Avalon's flagship, and on the way, we're gonna do the same to him. The Feds can pour all the men and material they want into this mess, but without their chain of command, they'll be helpless. Clear?"

A chorus of "Sir!"s answered him, Jack's included.

Otto made it sound possible. Maybe even plausible.

Jack wished he didn’t know better.

His communications system buzzed. The hell? It should have automatically picked up any transmission from a friendly. He willed it active without glancing at the communications window, not wanting to take his eyes off the battle line his Epee was soaring towards.

"Colonel Hughes, I presume," Marcel Avalon said.

Jack was startled enough to risk a glance at the window. The Admiral's infuriatingly handsome face, weirdly pale on one side, gazed back at him.

"I'm glad to see the rumors were true and my men and I did not inadvertently cause your death on Wellach, Colonel."

"Wish I could say the same," Jack said.

He'd supposedly changed to a private channel at the com system's prompting, but he figured Otto could still listen in. The next time the oligarch trusted anybody would be the first. Hopefully, he wouldn't get the wrong idea. Jack didn't look forward to having both sides shooting at him.

"You believe I am your enemy," Avalon said.

"The part where you kidnapped my wife and tried to kill me kinda tipped me off, yeah." Jack eased his Epee sideways to line him up with the rapidly approaching golden mecha. If Avalon wanted to distract himself with a chat, might as well take advantage of it.

"I saved your wife, sir," Avalon said. He was either genuinely offended or one hell of a good liar. "As to our battle on Wellach, I need not remind you who it was that fired the first shot there. I never wanted to fight."

"You sure threatened like you did," Jack said. "But I guess you were hoping we'd just hand Chloe over, huh?"

"I hoped as much, yes."

"Fat chance," Jack snarled. "You bastards'll never get your hands on her."

"Yet you would make your daughter Otto Abeir Algreil's living weapon?"

Jack was almost glad the lines met then and he had to focus on dodging a thrust from the lance of one of the leading Wyverns. Wasn't like he could say with a straight face that Otto wouldn't do that.

Jack smashed his opponent aside with the butt of his rifle and snagged the Fed mecha's flailing leg with the Epee's claws. The monomolecular edges went right through the armor and the broadening composite behind them tore a trail of artificial muscle and wire loose to drift through the vacuum.

"I am trying to help your daughter," Avalon said. "And I am trying to prevent your death."

"You're a ballsy liar, Avalon," Jack said. He lined himself up with the admiral again. "But you've got to be kidding me."

"I am not," Avalon said. He matched Jack's flight path, parting a wave of the smaller Wyverns as he approached. "I am asking you, on Ellie's behalf and at her request, to stop fighting and listen to what I have to say."

"Ellie's –!" Jack's lip curled back in a snarl. "That's some kinda nerve, after what you bastards did to her!"

"Nerve or no," Avalon said, "it is on her behalf I speak. You are right: terrible things were done to her under the auspices of the Federal Senate, things that can never be made up for. Do not add her husband's death to the list!"

"If that's what you're worried about, Admiral, don't."

Avalon sighed, relieved or damn good at pretending to be. "You will hear me out, then?"

Jack put a round from his mecha's rifle through the Divine Auric Drake's shoulder.

"Nah," he said. "I'll just make sure I'm not the one doing the dying."