Desperate Glory (Morningstar, #4), page 1
Desperate Glory
Morningstar III
Book I: Exiled to Glory
Book II: Stolen Glory
Book III: Tarnished Glory
Book IV: Desperate Glory
Christopher G. Nuttall
Cover By Tan Ho Sim
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All Comments Welcome!
Contents
Cover Blurb
Author’s Note
Introduction
Prologue I
Prologue II
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
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six: Leo/Admiral Blackthrone
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Leo/Admiral Blackthrone
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five: Leo/Admiral Blackthrone
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Admiral Blackthrone/Gayle
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
How To Follow
Cover Blurb
After a cataclysmic interstellar war that came very close to exterminating humanity, the Daybreak Republic has risen from the ashes and embarked upon a mission to unite hundreds of human colony worlds under its banner, in hopes of preventing a second and final conflict that will complete the destruction of the human race. But not everyone agrees that the empire’s ends justify the means.
In the aftermath of Leo Morningstar’s last mission, war has erupted between the Daybreak Republic and the Secessionist Alliance, stretching the navy’s resources to the breaking point. Admiral Blackthrone’s fleet is pinned down, unable to go on the offensive without leaving key worlds exposed, as rebels raid shipping lines and make Daybreak look weak ahead of a major assault. Desperate to break the stalemate before it is too late, Admiral Blackthrone places Leo Morningstar in command of a ragtag fleet of outdated starships and charges him with harassing the enemy, buying time for the navy to assemble the force they need to strike back.
But with resentful subordinates within his fleet and enemy plans finally coming into the light, it may be too late to save the sector – or Daybreak itself.
Author’s Note
In the previous three volumes, the entire book (save for the prologues) was written from Leo Morningstar’s point of view. In this book, and probably any successive volumes, I need to write several chapters from the point of view of other characters, notably Admiral Blackthrone and Gayle. These chapters have specific headings, identifying the POV character.
I apologise for any confusion this may cause.
Thank you.
Chris
Introduction
From: Leo Morningstar: Hero Or Villain? Baen Historical Press. Daybreak. Year 307.
The great contradiction of the Daybreak Republic is this: in a desperate attempt to prevent a second great interstellar war, the Republic made such a war inevitable. From forcing every planet into a de facto empire, willing or not, to imposing strict limits on non-Daybreak military power, the Republic was sowing the seeds of what would become the second great conflagration of the interstellar era. It would be difficult to convince the rest of the human sphere that such amalgamation was necessary under any circumstances, but Daybreak made no attempt to treat the planets brought under its banner with anything resembling diplomacy. Indeed, exploitation was often the name of the game. Is it any surprise that this fuelled resentment, hatred, and eventual rebellion?
There were very few political figures of any note in the Republic who were able and willing to do anything about the growing crisis. This seems surprising, until you consider the nature of the Republic. Military success fuelled political success, on one hand, and Daybreak’s senators/admirals were unwilling to give up the prospect of a victory that would catapult them to the very highest level. On the other hand, Daybreak’s massive predominance gave its interplanetary and interstellar corporations an immense advantage over their competitors, and they had no intention whatsoever of allowing any sort of free competition. It should be obvious, therefore, that the corporations used their immense political and economic clout to ensure that any suggestion of reform was firmly quashed before it was too late. The relative handful of officers (de facto proconsuls) who tried to uphold the ideals of Daybreak often found their careers being undermined, even destroyed, by enemies back home. By contrast, those who looked the other way at the right time could expect to go on to long and glittering careers.
The resentment spreading through the colonies and even the so-called allied states, therefore, is difficult to exaggerate. Some packed their bags and fled beyond the Rim, hoping to find a planet they could settle and develop before the swelling wavefront of Daybreak’s expansion washed over them. Others attempted to invest in research and development, hoping to identify a silver technological bullet that would compensate for Daybreak’s overwhelming firepower. Still others tried to accommodate themselves to the new galactic order, immigrating to Daybreak and trying to find a place within its society. And still others plotted a new interstellar war.
As we have seen in the preceding volumes, Leo Morningstar found himself on the front lines of a growing insurgency against Daybreak. His first encounters with rebel starships were clear proof, in his opinion and that of his superiors, that someone – almost certainly a client state – was quietly supporting the rebels from a safe distance. He was tasked with tracking down and infiltrating rebel cells, a mission he carried out with his customary zeal and determination, and discovered – to his horror – that the rebels were a great deal more organised than anyone believed. The supposed ragtag fleet of modified freighters and other commercial starships was, in fact, made up of genuine warships, some surprisingly innovative and others with no clear purpose. He was unable to prevent the rebels from starting their war against Daybreak, at least partly due to the interference of a spy within his command, but he was successful in damaging rebel logistics to the point that their planned strike against military assets within the sector had to be cancelled. It was not his cleanest victory, as he acknowledged in his memoirs, but it was hardly a defeat.
However, the incident and the birth of a new interstellar war created a political crisis on Daybreak. The spy who compromised the mission was a recent immigrant, hardliners argued in the Senate, someone who took advantage of Daybreak’s generosity and used it to put a knife in Daybreak’s back. There had always been a certain reluctance to wholly trust immigrants, for all sorts of reasons, and the incident seemed to confirm all their fears. It was therefore decided that all immigrants, no matter how much they had proved themselves, would be removed from any position in which they could harm their benefactors.
The hardliners told themselves that they were safeguarding the state. In reality, they were pouring fuel on the fire that threatened to bring Daybreak down once and for all ...
Prologue I
“Jump completed, Captain.”
Commander Stacy Callahan swallowed the urge to make a sarcastic remark as her stomach churned violently, threatening to expel everything she’d eaten for the last few decades onto the deck. She’d known they’d be jumping at speed, their arrival making one hell of a splash, but there was nothing they could do to prepare for the sensation of being punched in the chest by a ghostly fist. The medicine the crew had taken beforehand was little more than a placebo. She calmed herself with an effort. There was nothing to be gained by snapping at a crewman, even if he was telling her something she already knew.
“Noted,” she said, instead. “Did Haydon and Rupert arrive as planned?”
“Haydon came out right behind us,” Lieutenant Jackson said. “Rupert ... isn’t visible on our sensors.”
Which may not be a bad thing, Stacy thought, although she’d had a bad feeling about the mission ever since Commodore Blackthrone had briefed her. Her ship and Haydon were meant to make their arrival as obvious as possible, the gravimetric splash bright enough to hopefully conceal the arrival of a third frigate from watching sensor grids, giving her time to cloak before it was too late. It was a manoeuvre they’d practiced before, time and time again, but never carried out against a real enemy. If we can’t see her, the enemy shouldn’t be able to see her either.
She kept the thought to herself as the display filled with icons. Sanctuary – or so the rebel secessionists had named the system – was a handful of rocky planets and asteroids orbiting a dull red star, perfect for anyone who wanted to remain unnoticed. There was a wealth of raw material in the system, waiting to be mined, but few corporations would invest in local development when there were countless other systems with habitable planets and gas giants to provide fuel. It was unlikely the system would draw any attention, under normal circumstances, which was probably why the rebels had chosen it. Sanctuary was so far into the Beyond, beyond the Rim, that the navy couldn’t afford to regularly patrol the system, even carry out the kind of brief fly-through missions that were so common near the core worlds. If the rebels had been a little more careful, and killed Leo Morningstar and his crew on the spot, they would have remained undetected.
“The energy signature is very low, Captain,” Jackson said. “I’d say they’ve abandoned the system.”
Stacy sucked in her breath. The rebels should be scrambling now they knew two frigates were inbound, trying to trap and destroy her ships before their drives cycled ... instead, they were doing nothing. It was possible they were trying to set up an ambush, she supposed, but they’d have to have outright precognition to station warships in position to intercept her without using their realspace drives. The only real option was to jump their ships on top of hers and hope she couldn’t get away in time, but her drives were cycling already. The enemy commander was running out of time ... if there was an enemy commander. She’d seen bigger energy signatures from worlds that shunned anything more advanced than clockwork.
“I’m picking up some wreckage orbiting Sanctuary itself,” Jackson added. “But no trace of any active enemy presence. We haven’t even been scanned!”
“They knew we were coming and they bugged out,” Midshipwoman Combs said, her tone hovering between disappointment and relief. “They fled!”
“Perhaps,” Stacy said, neutrally. “A star system is still a pretty big place to hide something.”
Her eyes narrowed as she contemplated the display. The rebels didn’t need elaborate cloaking technology to hide from her sensors. They could simply shut down all active emissions and go dark, trusting their warships and industrial nodes couldn’t be distinguished from random pieces of space junk. The rebels had to know that the navy was coming, from the moment it had become clear that they’d failed to keep Leo Morningstar and his crew from reporting back to Yangtze, and bugging out made a certain kind of sense. They might be more organized than anyone had realised, before Sanctuary had been discovered, but she doubted they could stand up to a battlecruiser squadron. There was nothing to be gained by waiting to be blown up when they could get their ships and resources out before it was too late.
“Helm, take us closer to the planet,” she ordered. “Communications, order Haydon to remain on our planned course.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Stacy leaned back in her chair, bracing herself. The enemy could easily be lurking close to the planet itself, ready to engage her ships or jump out if they felt the odds were against them ... not, she noted, that that was particularly likely. Frigates were designed for long-range scouting missions, not tussles with enemy warships at point-blank range. A lone destroyer could give her ships a very hard time, and the enemy had a number of bigger warships under their command, warships that shouldn’t have existed. Some should have been scrapped, others ... they appeared new. That was worrying. It suggested the rebels had access to a first-class shipyard. And that meant they had support from a core world.
Unless there is a shipyard out here, far from civilized space, she thought, grimly. It was hardly impossible. The Beyond wasn’t empty. There were countless worlds settled by refugees from the war, and later Daybreak, and some were surprisingly advanced for their relative youth. The prospect of the Beyonders getting organised as a unit had worried Daybreak for years, although so far they hadn’t seemed inclined to try. Our intelligence on this part of space is clearly lacking.
The display continued to update, revealing nothing beyond a cloud of floating debris. Sanctuary had been evacuated in good order, the settlements Waterhen had noted on the surface destroyed ... presumably after being stripped of everything that could be moved. They’d used nukes to make sure there was nothing else to recover ... she wondered, suddenly, why the rebels hadn’t taken the time to clear the orbital debris and leave the investigators with nothing. Perhaps they’d booby-trapped the wreckage or perhaps they considered it unimportant, now the war was underway. The rebels had struck deep into the Yangtze Sector, and Sanctuary was now even further behind the lines than before.
Or perhaps it’s a taunt, she thought, coldly. A reminder they built all this under our very noses.
Jackson glanced at her. “Captain, we could land search parties ...”
“Negative,” Stacy said. She understood the impulse, but the last thing she needed was an away team on the surface when the rebel fleet returned. If it ever did ... there was just no way to know what the rebels were planning. “They nuked their bases. There’ll be little to recover.”
Her lips twisted. The rebels knew they couldn’t stand up to the navy in a straight fight. Secrecy and obscurification were the order of the day, with brain implants and mental conditioning used to ensure prisoners couldn’t be made to talk. They’d cut their losses with a kind of ruthlessness that was almost Daybreaker in its intensity, making absolutely certain there was nothing left to lead the navy to the next rebel base. Sure, it was possible they’d made a mistake – it wouldn’t be the first time some piece of seemingly completely innocuous information had proved to be the missing link that let the spooks locate their target – but she dared not count on it. Her orders were clear. Her ships were not to be risked without very good cause.
“Communications, signal Rupert,” Stacy ordered. The protocol was designed to make it look as though she was signalling Haydon, passing orders to the cloaked starship without knowledge of her exact location – or making her presence obvious. It had never been tested against a real enemy, and that worried her. Pirates rarely had the latest sensor gear, which gave the navy an edge, but the rebels were far too advanced for her peace of mind. “She is to remain in the system, as planned, observing events from a safe distance. She is not to reveal herself under any circumstances.”
“Aye, Captain,” Combs said.
Jackson looked up. “Captain, do you think they’ll return?”
Stacy contemplated the display for a long moment. Sanctuary had been surprisingly developed, only a couple of months ago. Evacuating everything that wasn’t nailed down would have been one hell of an accomplishment, if it was what the rebels had actually done. It was quite possible the bastards had concealed vast stockpiles within the asteroid cloud, or left them drifting within the interplanetary void. If so, the rebels would eventually try to recover them ... and if they thought themselves unobserved, they might provide the navy with vectors that could be traced to their next base. The odds were against it, but who knew? It was worth a try.
“We’ll see,” she said. “Now, prepare to jump out.”
She leaned back in her chair. The mission hadn’t been completely useless. They knew the rebels had abandoned Sanctuary now, which meant their operations had to have been disrupted beyond easy repair ... even if it had also deprived the navy of a viable target. The war was already underway, and any sort of disruption was worth it ... she hoped. This wasn’t a punitive strike against a rebellious world, or a pirate base, but a full-scale war. Daybreak was about to be tested once again ...
And she was sure, deep inside, that her people would meet the challenge.
Prologue II
“Congratulations on your promotion, Uncle.”
Admiral Alexander Blackthrone kept his thoughts to himself as his nephew, Lieutenant-Commander Francis Blackthrone, entered the war room. Francis wasn’t a complete fool, thankfully, but he lacked the seasoning he needed to serve as a proper commanding officer, winning glory for himself and the Blackthrone family. The humiliating disaster of his first command was a grim reminder that a name, even one as prominent as Blackthrone, couldn’t make up for a certain lack of common sense. If it had been up to him, Francis would have been given more time as a Lieutenant – certainly enough to overcome the stench of stupid greenie lieutenant – before being put in a position of actual responsibility.
