A Titan's Vengeance (The Great War Book 2) Read online

  A Titan's Vengeance Final

  The Great War

  Ralph Kern

  Published by Ralph Kern, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  A TITAN'S VENGEANCE FINAL

  First edition. March 25, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Ralph Kern.

  Written by Ralph Kern.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to all the readers who bought, read and reviewed book 1. That you did so, in such numbers, is humbling.

  And thanks to Caroline, once again, for putting up with me while I hunkered down on this project.

  To Tom Edwards, who created an amazing cover. Steve for his awesome typography. Shay for her editing. Tim and Don, for their great proofing and suggestions.

  And a heart-felt thanks to all those who serve.

  Mailing List:

  www.Ralphkern.com

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  Facebook: Ralph Kern

  Email:

  [email protected]

  Pre-order Book 3 of The Great War here:

  A Relentless Fury

  Chapter 1

  Captain Cutter

  Ishtar System – The Sphere – KSS Achilles

  The fleet of seventeen immensely powerful warships drove forward on furious plumes of plasma fire. Their destination: a ramshackle collection of girders and old-fashioned modular components which clustered together to form Algon Station. A place which offered harbor for the most destitute of ships, unable to afford the berthing costs of other, more respectable, homes.

  And, in a manner of speaking, that was still true for those who had found respite here now. The chaotic lattice-grid arrays, evolved rather than designed for tramp freighters, asteroid miners, and Sphere boats, instead held the shattered remnants of the Orillion Republic Navy’s once proud and powerful fleet.

  Captain Hal Cutter looked over the sprawling base through the theater-sized forward screen, a sense of tragic sadness washing through him. The ships of what had once been one of the finest navies in the Arcadian Sector had found refuge here from the Hegemony armies spreading across their worlds. They’d fled far from home, hiding under the shadow of the mysterious, ancient Ishtar Sphere encompassing the system’s primary star.

  The bridge staff sat subdued as Captain Hal Cutter looked on, his arms folded. A woman’s face appeared, looming large, obscuring Algon station. Her features should show exhaustion, lined with stress and worry from carrying the weight of a star nation through the most trying of times.

  Total war, which spanned the Sector from the skies and space over the capital of the Kingdom to the far side of Hegemony space.

  Yet, instead of weariness, her visage showed an icy calm.

  Slowly, and with intent, Prime Minister Isabelle Lattimore began speaking, “It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now”—her voice was firm, enunciating every syllable at a measured pace. Cutter had already read the wording. Her speech had been carefully scripted, to cover the government both legally, and politically. There had to be no misunderstanding of what she was saying. Her resolve had to be obvious and clear. That was the only way lives of friendly spacers could be saved—“to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the Neo Hegemony enemy.”

  Lattimore paused a moment, her eyes burning through the display. “We are determined to fight on until the end, and if we win—as we think we shall—we shall never forget that the Orillion Republic was our ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is the Neo Hegemony.”

  Cutter flicked his gaze to the tactical holotank lying recessed in the center of the bridge. The fleet formation began to spread, like a hand grasping over the patchwork of the station. Within the makeshift slips lay four of the Republic’s mighty battleships, five of their destroyers, and a carrier. A force which could change the course of the war... if it fell into the wrong hands.

  “Should we conquer, we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of the Republic. For this purpose, we must make sure that the best ships of your navy are not used against us by the common foe.”

  KSS Achilles slipped into her position on the right flank of the huge battlecruiser, KSS Cronus, Admiral Rihanna Albright’s sleek flagship. Beyond her, Achilles’s sister ship, Ajax, took the left position. Between them, the two cruisers, Spartan and Knight, and nine accompanying destroyers filled the gaps.

  “In these circumstances, the Kingdom Government has instructed me to demand that the Republic Fleet now at Algon Station shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives.” Lattimore stared hard into the camera, leaving no doubt as to her resolution. Cutter shifted his weight to his other foot, his stomach churning. Then remembered himself. Image was everything before the crew, especially when they might be called upon to do something questionable. He clasped his hands behind his back to stop his fidgeting.

  This was the moment when they would find out whether they would have to shed blood this day. “Join with us and continue the fight until victory against the Neo Hegemony enemy...or return to Starbase Victory with us under a reduced crew, who would be repatriated at the earliest moment. If either of these courses is adopted by you, we will restore your ships to the Orillion Republic at the conclusion of the war, or pay full compensation if they are damaged.”

  Now it was time for the sweetener; Cutter leaned forward. There was no way in hell any Republic ship would fight against the Hegemony, not after the Neo Executors had let it be known they’d gathered up as many friends and families of the refugee crews as they could find. They would have them installed as “guests” in their facilities before the day was out...an honor from which they would never return.

  To the aft of Cronus, another huge ship, the carrier Corvus, began dispensing a blinking line of icons. The transponders were on, blaring the Cyclone torpedo bombers’ presence. Letting the Republic see the launch of even more opponents, hoping that would ease their decision even more.

  “Alternately, if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Hegemony lest they break the terms of your armistice, then you must demilitarize to our satisfaction, or perhaps allow your vessels to be entrusted to, say, the Federation and remain safe until the end of the war.” r />
  The Cyclones flocked around their hold points. The ships of the fleet were where they needed to be to rain fire down on the base. Everyone was in position. Everyone was ready to go.

  Cutter lowered himself into his seat, his fingers tapping unbidden on the leather of his armrest. The churning in his gut was even worse than during the headlong rush to rescue the expeditionary force from the deathtrap of Port Rorian. Only, this wasn’t nerves. It was shame, for what they were about to do if the Republic’s admiral in charge over there didn’t do what he needed to do to save his spacers’ lives.

  “If you refuse these fair offers,” Lattimore’s voice lowered, genuine sorrow lacing her words, “I must with profound regret, require you to scuttle your ships. Finally, failing the above, I have orders from the Kingdom Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into Hegemony—or their allies’—hands.”

  The prime minister allowed silence to fill the comm for long seconds. Letting her words settle into the listening ears. This theater was as much for the spacers of the Kingdom fleet as for the enemy. They had to know that the Republic was being given every possible chance. For this, if the Kingdom’s offer was rebuffed, to be the Republic’s fault. For their own consciences, if nothing else. And, Cutter supposed, for historical record.

  “You have one hour to state your intentions.”

  Lattimore’s face disappeared, replaced by that of Admiral Rihanna Albright, the flag officer in charge of the expedition out here in the Ishtar System.

  “Ladies, gentlemen,” Albright spoke, and her voice held none of the regret—false or otherwise—that Lattimore’s had contained. Instead, she spoke with utter clarity and conviction. And even, if Cutter was hearing it right, eagerness.

  It wasn’t often an admiral got to unleash the firepower of their entire fleet, especially one as impressive as Albright commanded. “This may be a grisly business we are about to undertake. Rest assured, whatever happens this day, the Republic fleet must not fall into Hegemony hands. And we will do whatever it takes to ensure it does not.”

  She paused, her eyes boring through the screen, her head aggressively tilted forward as if she were a fighter going into the ring. “If they move without signaling their surrender, then my intention is to open fire. I do not expect delay or hesitation when...if I give that order. They are having their chance as we speak. Whatever happens this day, it’s on them. Albright, out.”

  Tap, tap, tap. Cutter’s fingers beat against the armrest. What would he do if faced with an ultimatum like the Pubbys had just received? Sitting, near defenseless, having fled to a strange foreign base. Low on fuel. Low on friends. Still burning with the need to battle against the occupation. Yet knowing that fighting on would mean his wife and child would be consigned to the Neo’s torture chambers and execution rooms as an example to others not to defy the will of the Hegemony.

  Tap, tap, tap. But if those ships switched allegiance or were captured and flew under the Hegemony’s flag...then the cost in lives and ships it would take to destroy them in open space—dare he say it, in a fair fight—would be unbearable.

  The clock ticked closer to Lattimore’s deadline. Other than the soft chatter from the comm, a melancholy silence reigned over the bridge. Cutter leaned back, his gaze drifting up from the holotank beneath his command podium, showing blinking icons of the ships around Achilles to the huge screen wrapping around the forward section of the oblong-shaped bridge.

  Algon Station swept over the Ishtar Dyson Sphere. Half of the massive, ancient artefact was dark while the other side was lit by the distant binary companion to the star within.

  What, Cutter mused, would whoever created that huge thing think of humanity and their conflicts? Even this, a war which was quickly ramping up to be the biggest ever to be fought, must seem petty and insignificant for a race which could build an artifact around an entire star.

  No matter—they had long gone, leaving their arid desert and cloying jungle-filled legacy behind.

  “I’m showing a spike in Republique’s reactor,” Lieutenant Commander Eve Banning suddenly barked, her taut voice breaking through Cutter’s pondering. “And Pride and...all ships, sir. They’re spooling up their fusion reactors, getting ready to move.”

  Damn it. Don’t do this. Do not call our bluff. Cutter leaned forward. He felt a tremor reach his hands. He clenched his fist—he’d been in combat before, but this? This was going to be different. This was going to be murder.

  Don’t make us do this.

  “They’re retracting moorings, sir. I’m showing Republique is activating her EW shroud.” Banning turned to him, her eyes wide. “I have a signal from Admiral Albright.”

  This was it. The order he dreaded was about to be spoken. He gave a terse nod.

  Albright appeared on his console, the tendons in her neck protruding. Perhaps even she was feeling the tragedy of what was about to happen.

  But, her next words were simple, and to the point. “All ships. Open fire.”

  Cutter didn’t delay; he turned to Lieutenant Commander Haynes, his gunnery officer. No matter his personal feelings, duty trumped it all. “Open fire. Heavy Pulse. All turrets, go on.”

  “Aye aye,” Haynes snapped back.

  Thumps resonated through Achilles’s massive hull as her heavy pulse cannons fired. Explosions blossomed over the station, savage in their violence but pinpoint in their accuracy. They weren’t there to destroy the base and kill the scavengers, traders, and families within. They were simply innocent bystanders to what was happening.

  No, they were there to destroy their former allies.

  Confined to their slips, still preparing to move and unable to bring the full weight of their weapons to bear, the Republic ships took shot after shot. The Cyclone torpedo bombers surged forward. Pouncing on the ships, their own fearsome torpedoes lancing ahead of them, streaking into the once-friendly vessels.

  The massive armored frames of the battleships shuddered under the horrendous punishment. Fire and gasses billowed out of the gaping chasms torn in their flanks.

  The first died. Republique simply crumbled. She ablated away under the weight of fire as if she were a melting candle. Debris fell off her in the withering fire. A roiling maelstrom of explosions replaced what was once a mighty battleship.

  Then her sister ships followed, one after another.

  The barrage lasted an hour. Thousands of pulse rounds riddled the vulnerable ships, reducing them to wrecked carcasses, still trapped in their moorings and slips. The proud warships didn’t even have the chance to offer more than a token resistance of the occasional blue bolt of a pulse shot, easily absorbed by the Kingdom vessels’ dispersion shields.

  And then the Republic fleet was no more.

  Admiral Albright appeared. Her normally aggressive features were subdued. She shook her head slightly, as if even she were saddened by what she had just seen.

  “All ships,” she said, “it’s time to go home.”

  There was nothing else to say. No verbal backslapping. No gleeful boast of victory. Nothing.

  In perfect formation, the Kingdom fleet banked away from Algon Station, the Cyclones swarming back to the flight deck of their carrier.

  The Republic ships had been reduced to shattered ruins lodged in the mooring slips which had become their graves.

  And nearly thirteen hundred Republic spacers were dead along with their vessels.

  Chapter 2

  Admiral Sarven

  Vadir System – Thoth Shipyard

  Admiral Valin Tor Sarven stood, his hands clasped behind his back, staring through the sloped window at the broken gray crags and pitch-black, shadow-filled craters of the asteroid.

  The light of the desolate system’s star washed over the surface and through into the room, the red of its glow reflecting the somberness of his mood. Next to him, his captain, Redora Lasik leaned forward, the look of eagerness on her face a complete contrast to the hidden nervousness of his own
feelings.

  Anytime now, he’d be here. The architect of their current situation, why good boys and girls were being sent into the meat grinder of a war which should never have been waged. Yet, he admitted to himself, the campaigns that had been fought had been the most successful in history.

  Flashes of incoming jump drives rippled in space. A dozen. More. The specks of objects poured out of the dissipating cascades of exotic particles.

  Wolf space-supremacy fighters, arrayed in tight pairs, streaked over the dark rocky surface of the asteroid’s surface, so close their engine wash kicked the dust up from the surface, leaving billowing clouds which would take days or longer to settle in the low gravity of the asteroid housing Thoth Shipyard.

  The elite fighters were guarding against any last-minute security breaches, even out here in one of the most secretive places in the Hegemony. The Kingdom Aerospace Forces would be desperate for the opportunity to be here, to strike against him. The course of the war would be changed in a heartbeat. Or maybe the reports of his ever-increasing paranoia were true. In which case, the fighters were here as much to act as a show of strength for any itinerant officer with aspirations beyond their station.

  Perhaps he was the subject of that message.

  Sarven gave a scoff. Maybe he was as paranoid as their guest these days. At his barely subdued outburst, Lasik looked at him quizzically, then gave a shrug as if disregarding her commanding officer’s odd ways.

  Something bigger arrived amidst another twinkling cascade of exotic particles. A jump-capable troop transport. It was standard, as far as Sarven could see. Nothing special about it, except for what it contained. For whom it contained.

  He’d arrived.

  Sarven turned on his heels, hooking a finger into the collar of his tight dress uniform to relieve the pressure of the starched material on his throat.

  Best behavior, Valin.

  “Come, Redora. It’s time to greet our guest.”

  ***

  General Aria Tor Hest sat in the plush leather chair, her chin resting on her fist as she looked through the window of the jump-transport.