Perilous Shield Read online

  ACE BOOKS BY JACK CAMPBELL

  THE LOST FLEET

  The Lost Fleet: Dauntless

  The Lost Fleet: Fearless

  The Lost Fleet: Courageous

  The Lost Fleet: Valiant

  The Lost Fleet: Relentless

  The Lost Fleet: Victorious

  The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught

  The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible

  The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

  THE LOST STARS

  The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

  The Lost Stars: Perilous Shield

  WRITTEN AS JOHN G. HEMRY

  STARK’S WAR

  Stark’s War

  Stark’s Command

  Stark’s Crusade

  PAUL SINCLAIR

  A Just Determination

  Burden of Proof

  Rule of Evidence

  Against All Enemies

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

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  A Penguin Random House Company

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  Copyright © 2013 by John G. Hemry.

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  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-62588-0

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Campbell, Jack (Naval officer)

  The Lost stars : perilous shield / Jack Campbell. — First Edition.

  pages cm. — (The Lost stars ; Book 2)

  ISBN 978-0-425-25631-2 (hardcover)

  1. Space warfare—Fiction. 2. Imaginary wars and battles—Fiction. 3. Science fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.A4637L67 2013

  813'.54—dc23

  2013010872

  FIRST EDITION: October 2013

  Cover illustration © Craig White.

  Cover photographs © Mr Twister / Shutterstock; © Eky Studio / Shutterstock.

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Ace Books by Jack Campbell

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  The Midway Flotilla

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  To Mary Hughes Gaudreau,

  for all the good you strive to do in the world,

  and for being such a long-standing

  and excellent friend to the Indomitable S.

  For S., as always.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I remain indebted to my agent, Joshua Bilmes, for his ever-inspired suggestions and assistance, and to my editor, Anne Sowards, for her support and editing. Thanks also to Catherine Asaro, Robert Chase, J. G. (Huck) Huckenpohler, Simcha Kuritzky, Michael LaViolette, Aly Parsons, Bud Sparhawk, and Constance A. Warner for their suggestions, comments, and recommendations. Thanks also to Charles Petit for his suggestions about space engagements.

  THE MIDWAY FLOTILLA

  Kommodor Asima Marphissa, commanding

  (all ships are former Syndicate Worlds mobile forces units)

  ONE BATTLESHIP

  Midway (not yet operational)

  FOUR HEAVY CRUISERS

  Manticore, Gryphon, Basilisk, and Kraken

  SIX LIGHT CRUISERS

  Falcon, Osprey, Hawk, Harrier, Kite, and Eagle

  TWELVE HUNTER-KILLERS

  Sentry, Sentinel, Scout, Defender, Guardian, Pathfinder, Protector, Patrol, Guide, Vanguard, Picket, and Watch

  Ranks in the Midway Flotilla (in descending order), as established by President Iceni

  Kommodor

  Kapitan First Rank

  Kapitan Second Rank

  Kapitan Third Rank

  Kapitan-Leytenant

  Leytenant

  Leytenant Second Rank

  Ships Officer

  CHAPTER ONE

  THIS day hadn’t started out badly, but now it looked very much as if one of the next few days would end with him dead. The most important questions General Artur Drakon still faced were exactly who would pull the trigger, exactly when it would happen, and how many other people would die along with him.

  “Two hundred twenty-two alien warships,” Colonel Bran Malin reported with an impressive show of calm. Above and behind Malin, the planetary command center’s main display portrayed the entire Midway Star System and every ship within it in depressingly accurate detail. The warships of the alien enigma race were four and a half light-hours distant, having arrived at the jump point from the star Pele, which had been occupied by the aliens decades ago. “We face overwhelming odds even if the Syndicate flotilla commanded by CEO Boyens joins with our forces.”

  Our forces. Drakon focused on the depictions of those for a moment, trying not to let his gloom show outwardly. Many workers were at their control consoles in the command center, all of them supposedly focused on their work, but all of them certainly watching him for the first sign of panic or even uncertainty.

  Near this planet orbited the main body of the grandly named “Midway Flotilla.” Two heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and twelve small Hunter-Killers. A pitiful force by the standards of the recent war between the Syndicate Worlds and the Alliance, but Syndicate losses had been so heavy in the last part of the war that this now ranked as a decent-sized flotilla within the territory where the authority of the Syndicate Worlds once ran unchallenged. About a light-hour distant, at the space dock orbiting a gas-giant planet, were a battleship and two more heavy cruisers. That looked more impressive, except for the fact that the recently constructed and recently named battleship Midway (recently stolen from a Syndicate-controlled dockyard at the star Kane, where it was being outfitted) did not yet have any working weapons.

  “They’re not really our forces,” Drakon said to Malin. “The Kommodor in charge of the Midway Flotilla answers to President Iceni.” She might call herself President now, but a few months ago Gwen Iceni had been a Syndicate CEO, just as Drakon had also once been. “We banded together out of necessity to overthrow the authority of the Syndicate Worlds in this star system be
fore the Syndicate could order our deaths, but you know how little we can afford to trust each other.”

  “President Iceni has not double-crossed you,” Colonel Malin pointed out.

  “Yet. You know the words used in the Syndicate for CEOs who trust other CEOs. Stupid. Betrayed. Dead. Are you sure she hasn’t tried to call Boyens and make a deal for herself?” The Syndicate flotilla controlled by CEO Boyens consisted of a battleship, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and ten HuKs. The Midway Flotilla had faced a desperate and probably hopeless fight against that force until the aliens called enigmas had shown up in overwhelming numbers to menace all humans in this star system.

  “Absolutely certain, General. If you and President Iceni can barely trust each other, neither of you is likely to trust CEO Boyens to honor any deal he agreed to,” Malin insisted. “Even if Boyens wanted to play it straight, the snakes with his flotilla would demand that both you and Iceni die for your leadership roles in the revolt.”

  He could see the humor in that. “I have the Syndicate Internal Security Service to thank for being certain that Iceni won’t betray me to Boyens. That’s the first time the snakes ever made me feel more secure.”

  “Yes, sir. But Boyens and his flotilla are a relatively minor problem at the moment. It is possible that he will agree to a proposal from you and President Iceni that he join forces with us against the enigmas.”

  Drakon shook his head. “No, he won’t. There’s no percentage for Boyens in joining with us. He came here under Syndicate orders to defeat us and retake this star system, but now that the enigmas have shown up, every human at Midway is very likely doomed. Why should he die fighting a hopeless battle trying to save us?”

  “He won’t,” President Gwen Iceni answered as she walked up to Drakon, her every movement and tone of voice carefully controlled to portray a calm confidence that in a lesser person would have seemed ridiculous under these circumstances.

  But, Drakon admitted to himself, Iceni could carry it off.

  “CEO Boyens,” Iceni continued, “is a practical man. There is no hope for us there,” she added in a matter-of-fact way at odds with her words.

  Drakon turned to Iceni. “You’ve talked to the enigmas in the past. Is there any chance of a deal with them?”

  Iceni shook her head, her own expression calculating rather than fearful. Like Drakon, she knew that it was critically important for leaders not to show fear. A display of fear communicated weakness, and in the Syndicate system, weak CEOs became targets for those under them. Workers might panic if they saw their leaders openly afraid, or senior subordinates might decide an assassination-driven change in leaders might improve their own chances of survival, or believing the situation to be hopeless, the workers themselves might rise up and wreak last-ditch revenge on their leaders for past suffering.

  “The enigmas,” Iceni continued, “don’t talk with us, they talk to us. When they deign to speak to us, they make demands and never respond to anything except agreement. I would be very surprised if they even bother communicating with us this time before they kill us.”

  “Is this Black Jack’s fault? Did he stir up the enigmas like we feared?”

  “It’s possible.” Her gaze went to the main display floating in the middle of the command center. “Black Jack did promise to defend this star system against the enigmas.”

  “I don’t see Black Jack’s fleet,” Drakon replied, his voice harsh, “and I don’t think the enigmas will be impressed by our telling them that we’ve got that promise. Black Jack took the Alliance fleet into enigma territory, raised hell, very likely got blown to pieces, and now the enigmas are here to finish the job they wanted to do several months ago.”

  He didn’t bother adding that, unlike that previous time, on this occasion the Alliance fleet under the command of the legendary Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary wasn’t here to stop the enigmas. Until about a year ago, Geary had been thought dead for the last century, but he had reappeared to wreak havoc on the forces of the Syndicate Worlds and compel an end to the war everyone had resigned themselves to believing to be unending. In the process, Geary had also shattered any claim by the Syndicate government to be representing a superior system and annihilated the great majority of the Syndicate warships that had been a major factor in ensuring Syndicate control of the planets under their rule.

  But Geary had taken his fleet into enigma territory to try to learn more about the first alien intelligent race encountered by humanity. No Syndicate incursion into enigma space had ever returned.

  “The situation . . .” Iceni paused before continuing in a thoughtful tone “is difficult.”

  “Very difficult,” Drakon agreed, surprised that he could let a trace of dry humor into his own voice at such a time. Damn, she’s impressive. “All of my ground forces in this star system are coming to full combat status, but none of them stand a chance against the enigmas if the aliens bombard us from orbit.”

  “All of my mobile forces are also being brought to full combat alert,” Iceni informed him. “Those at the gas giant saw the arrival of the enigmas an hour before we did, and we just received the status update from them. They are as ready as they can be.”

  “Too bad we didn’t have time to get that battleship operational.”

  “Yes,” Iceni said. “It would have been useful,” she added in a masterpiece of understatement. “There’s only one thing left to do besides trying to bluff the enigmas, and that is trying to arrange a truce with the Syndicate force.”

  “You just agreed with me that Boyens wouldn’t fight alongside us,” Drakon said bluntly.

  “I said truce, not merger. Our very slim chance of bluffing the enigmas into leaving will be improved slightly if Boyens appears to be part of the defensive force instead of another invader. And Boyens has reason to assist us in that bluff. His masters on Prime want this star system back. If the enigmas take it, or destroy it, Boyens will not have succeeded in his mission.” One side of her mouth curved in a humorless half smile. “As you and I both know from painful experience, the Syndicate government won’t let the fact that it is impossible for Boyens to succeed in the face of the enigmas influence their decision that he failed, nor will it mitigate the punishment they mete out for that failure.”

  Colonel Roh Morgan had arrived while Iceni and Drakon spoke, and now saluted Drakon. Morgan’s eyes glinted with a strange light, as if the prospect of a desperate fight excited her. “Colonels Rogero, Gaiene, and Kai report their brigades are ready for action and are stiffening the locals.”

  Drakon nodded, his mouth twisting in annoyance. “The locals are nervous, I suppose.”

  “It’s not like there’s anywhere to run,” Morgan said. She stepped close to Drakon, so close they almost touched. Her voice came out whisper-soft yet still clear despite the background noise in the command center. “Nowhere for them to run. I have a special forces shuttle standing by. Full stealth configuration. We can lift without being spotted and be boarding one of the heavy cruisers in orbit within half an hour while decoy comms make everyone think you’re in the ground forces headquarters.”

  He frowned, thrown off momentarily by her nearness and the memories Morgan’s body aroused of a drunken night he wished had never happened. But it only took a moment to shake that and focus on her words. “Leave the rest?” he asked in the same quiet tones. A glance at the readouts on his wrist confirmed what he had suspected, that Morgan had personal jammers active that were blocking anyone else, even those nearby, from hearing what they were saying.

  “Sorry about leaving Gaiene and Kai,” Morgan said in tones that held no trace of actual regret. “But we can’t take anyone else without tipping off what we’re doing.”

  She hadn’t mentioned Rogero or Malin, of course, neither of whom ranked high in Morgan’s opinion. Drakon eyed her, knowing the rest of Morgan’s plan without its having to be spelled out. He had, after al
l, made his own way up the ranks of the Syndicate hierarchy and learned the lessons that had to be picked up along the way. He and Morgan would hijack the heavy cruiser and head for a jump point, leaving everyone else here to fight against impossible odds. With that heavy cruiser’s firepower, they might be able to establish control of some other, weaker, star system.

  And everyone else at Midway would die, or whatever the fate was of those the enigmas captured. No one had ever learned what happened to humans who had fallen into the hands of the aliens.

  “No,” Drakon said, his eyes returning to the situation display and the enemy forces arrayed there.

  Morgan sighed with exasperation. “All right. We can take Malin, too.”

  She probably thought that was a major concession given the level of mutual hatred between Malin and Morgan. But Drakon shook his head. “That’s not the point.” How to explain it in a way that Morgan would accept, when even he didn’t fully understand his own reluctance to do what Syndicate CEOs were taught to do in a crisis? “I know the rule in a situation like this is to throw as many subordinates to the wolves as necessary. But I don’t abandon people. You know that. That’s how I ended up exiled to Midway.” And I guess that may be why I die here.

  Morgan leaned a little closer, her face almost touching his now, eyes blazing. “It is important that you and I survive. We can set up business elsewhere and come back here someday with enough firepower to retake this star system and avenge—”

  “I’m not interested in avenging people I left to their fates.”

  “You didn’t get to be a Syndicate CEO by making looking out for other people your first priority, General. We both know that.”

  Drakon shook his head stubbornly. “I also know that if I leave here first, before President Iceni does, I’ll look weaker than her. I’ll also leave her in control of this planet and this star system.” That was the sort of logic even Morgan could accept.

  Morgan paused, her eyes going to Iceni. “Maybe you won’t leave first. Maybe she’s halfway out the door.”