Fighting For The Crown (Ark Royal Book 16)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “The fleet’s completed its transit, Admiral,” Richardson reported. “They’re forming up as ordered.”

  “Good,” Susan said. She hadn’t expected trouble. The transits had been spaced out enough to ensure that none of the ships collided upon emergence, yet ... she put the thought out of her head. Nothing had gone wrong. Yet. “Order the fleet to deploy as planned.”

  She studied the display, silently running the calculations through her head. They were ten light minutes from the alien fleet. It would be ten minutes before the fleet saw them, then another ten minutes - or longer - before she knew if they’d decided to challenge her before she could threaten the planet. They had no choice, but the virus might think differently. It might even prefer to take the risk of her bombarding the planet, rather than let its ships face her alone.

  They probably felt safe, this far from the front lines, she thought. The system was hardly undefended - she wouldn’t have wanted to stumble across it in a survey ship - but it didn’t have anything like enough mobile forces to drive her out of the system. So they drew down their mobile forces here.

  Her lips twitched as more and more data flowed in front of her. The analysts were hard at work, telling her things she didn’t want to know about the system’s industrial capability. They weren’t trying to hide the probes now. The virus had to know the haze was being stripped away, piece by piece. Susan already knew enough to plan an offensive, but more data never hurt. She wondered, idly, if the virus was hoping she’d be intimidated and back off. The more she learnt about what was waiting for her, the greater the chance she’d decide to break contact ...

  And we can do that at any time, she thought. If we encounter something we can’t handle ...

  “Captain,” Richardson said. “Their fleet is moving onto an intercept course.”

  Susan nodded. The virus knew it was outgunned - unless it hadn’t seen all of her ships, or thought some of them were decoys - but it didn’t want her hurling missiles anywhere near the industrial nodes. Even if she hadn’t wanted to hit the planet, the odds of her doing so were far too high. The virus would probably prefer to batter her ships as much as possible, even if it cost their entire fleet. It might dissuade her from pressing the offensive against the planet itself.

  The display sparkled with red lights. “Report!”

  Richardson stared down at his console as the red lights blurred into a single mass. “Admiral ... they launched every last shuttle at us.”

  Susan blinked. Her sensors were having trouble figuring out precisely how many shuttles there were ... she hadn’t seen that since the last war, when sensor tech hadn’t been so advanced. The virus was desperate. It had to be. There were so many shuttles that a number were bound to get through the point defence and crash into her ships, weakening her formation before the capital ships arrived. It was a neat tactic, she conceded, even if it did damage the system’s industrial base. But it would be easy enough to borrow shuttles from other systems until they could be replaced.

  They didn't have time to cram nukes and missile racks into the craft, she told herself. The virus had planned and executed an effective counterattack, far quicker than any human could match. But if they start ramming our ships, it isn’t going to matter.

  “Launch starfighters,” she ordered, calmly. She’d hoped to keep the pilots in their launch tubes for a little bit longer, but it couldn’t be helped. “We’ll go with Tango-Two.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  Susan nodded as the alien shuttles raced past the capital ships and roared towards her formation. Tango-Two would hold back a third of her starfighters to cover the bigger ships, while the remainder engaged the alien shuttles. They’d expected to face enemy starfighters, but the principle was the same. Susan frowned, wondering what had happened to the alien starfighters. They should have been launched by now. She didn’t dare believe they didn’t exist. The virus had had plenty of time to assemble a truly awesome force to cover its industrial node.

  She nodded to herself as the alien craft materialised, keeping pace with the capital ships. Clever, she supposed. There were so many shuttles ahead of them that the starfighters would be more dangerous to their allies than their enemies. They’d let the shuttles absorb her fury, then swoop in to take revenge. She wondered, idly, if the virus would have problems coordinating so many craft. There were no brainships in the oncoming fleet.

  Not that they’re needed, she mused. They’re not that far from the planet.

  “Reprogram a handful of shipkillers for counter-fighter detonations, then fire them into the alien shuttles,” she ordered. It wouldn’t do much damage, but it was worth a try. If nothing else, it would keep them on the hop. “And then let the starfighters have their fun.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  Susan leaned forwards. The tidal wave of incoming shuttles looked like an unstoppable juggernaut. She was too experienced an officer to believe they’d smash her fleet to atoms, but they’d do a lot of damage. The shipkillers didn’t slow them down for more than a second or two. There were just too many of them. She frowned as the starfighters crashed into the alien shuttles, shooting hundreds of them out of space. The remainder just kept coming. It didn’t look as though they were armed.

  “Admiral,” Richardson said. “The point defence is going live ... now.”

  The alien shuttles started to evade, whipping back and forth like crazy as they closed the range. Susan wasn’t surprised. It was a standard starfighter attack technique, although not one she’d seen from shuttles. She doubted they were designed for such rapid shifts in course and speed. Marine shuttles were, but even they would have trouble matching the alien craft. A handful lost their drives and spun out of control, heading away from the fight. They’d die in interplanetary space, unless the virus won the battle and deigned to pick them up. The remainder kept coming, closing rapidly. Susan watched hundreds upon hundreds evaporate as the point defence picked them off. And ...

  She cursed under her breath as the shuttles started to ram. They were concentrating on the bigger ships ... a blessing, although she didn’t feel that way. The damage started to mount rapidly. Seven shuttles crashed into USS George Bush, crippling the carrier; thirty-nine crashed into Stalin, blowing the Russian battleship into a cloud of debris. Susan glanced at the Bush’s damage report and swore, again. The carrier would have to be abandoned and scuttled. There was no way in hell they could repair the ship without a proper shipyard.

  Thunderous vibrated, just for a second. Alarms howled. Susan studied the display, feeling oddly detached from the crisis. The damage wasn’t that bad. The damage control teams were already on their way. If it had been her ship ... she shook her head. Captain Bushier could handle his command. It had been a long time since she’d taken command of Vanguard in the middle of an engagement. Thunderous had a captain who knew what he was doing. Susan had made sure of that before asking him to serve as her flag captain.

  “The enemy starfighters are advancing, Admiral,” Richardson warned. “They’ll be engaging our pilots in two minutes.”

  “Recall the pilots, have them merge with the CSP,” Susan ordered. If she was any judge ... yes, the virus’s fleet was picking up speed. They’d be coming into weapons range in five minutes. “Signal the fleet. They are to launch ballistic missiles in one minute.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Richardson said.

  Susan watched the last of the alien shuttles die, silently assessing the damage. Five ships destroyed, damaged beyond easy repair ... the remainder hurt, but still intact. The damage control teams would be able to seal the breaches in the hulls, then wait for peace to return before they started replacing the destroyed weapons and sensor nodes. It looked as though she’d come out ahead. And yet, she knew it was an illusion. The shuttles had sold their lives dearly. They might have done enough damage to force her to break off.

  “Missiles away, Admiral,” Richardson reported. “Decoy drones launching ... now.”

  “Signal the fleet,”
Susan ordered. They had to keep the enemy off balance, long enough for everything to get into place. “Prepare to come about on my mark.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  Susan nodded, counting down the seconds. Let the virus think it had driven her off, just for a few more seconds. It had overcommitted, sending its ships too far from the planet for its own good. She hadn’t given it much choice, but still ...

  “Mark,” she ordered, quietly.

  She braced herself, half-expecting disaster. They’d put the fleet through countless manoeuvres in the simulators, but they hadn’t had time to try them in real life. The odds of one ship crashing into another were very low, yet ... not zero. She waited, not daring to breathe, as the fleet started to bank away, the alien ships altering course to match. Susan couldn’t help a hot flash of resentment. The virus’s formation was ruthlessly practical, without even a hint of elegance, and yet it worked. There was nothing cumbersome in its movements at all. A single intelligence was directing every movement.

  The virus might not be life as we know it, she told herself. But it is intelligence.

  “Admiral,” Richardson said. The display updated, rapidly. “The manoeuvre has been completed.”

  “Let it think it has us on the run,” Susan said. If she’d timed it right ... the fleet should have exposed its flank. “And order the missiles to go live in ten seconds.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Richardson said.

  And hope Lion is in position, as planned, Susan thought, grimly. This could still go horribly wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tobias had the uneasy feeling, as the seconds ticked away, that he was trying to sneak up on someone who knew perfectly well he was there. There was nothing he could point to that suggested they’d been detected, no sensor pulses sweeping across the gunboat’s hull, but he couldn’t help feeling naked and alone in the darkness of interstellar space. The planet was growing in front of him, a tiny blue-green orb that belied its immense size; he felt, as he kept a wary eye on the sensors, that the entire planet was alive and watching him. It was no consolation to know that an uncountable number of alien starfighters had been hurled at the fleet, currently several light minutes from the planet. He was entirely sure the virus had kept some starfighters in reserve. It was what he would have done.

  Marigold cleared her throat as the countdown ticked towards zero. Tobias nearly jumped out of his skin. He had no idea how the video stars managed to stay so calm, as their fleets flew towards starships straight out of nightmares. They were probably used to it ... it helped, he supposed, that the enemy goliaths weren’t actually real. Tobias had initially been blasé about combat simulations, even though he’d been ordered to take them seriously. The first real taste of combat had ended poorly.

  “We’ll be in engagement range in two minutes,” Marigold said. “Are the missiles primed and locked?”

  Tobias glanced at his console, although he already knew the answer. The gunboat sensors had located hundreds of targets, from immense orbital fortresses to industrial nodes built on the remains of asteroids. He’d seen the sensor images from Unicorn, during the mission briefing, but he hadn’t grasped the sheer scale of the system until he’d seen it with his own eyes. It was so huge he had the feeling they could take shots at it for years and not even scratch the surface. The analysts claimed that taking out a relative handful of the facilities - and hitting the planet itself with the BioBombs - would render it effectively useless, but Tobias wasn’t so sure. The virus might have to rebuild the machines to rebuild the machines to repair the damage, yet it wasn’t short of resources or time. It could probably put things back together at terrifying speed.

  “Yes,” he said. The process was largely automatic. “The missiles are ready to go.”

  The timer hit zero. Tobias jabbed a finger at the console, watching in awe as the sensor decoys came online. Hundreds - thousands, millions - of targets suddenly sparkled to life, an endless tidal wave of destruction heading towards the alien planet. The vast majority of the targets were nothing more than sensor ghosts, but the virus would have to take them all seriously until it devised a way to separate the ghosts from the real contacts. It wasn’t going to be easy. The decoys looked much more dangerous than the real missiles.

  He sucked in his breath as the enemy point defence came to life. The virus had concentrated an insane amount of firepower around its planet, hundreds of stealthed platforms revealing themselves as they opened fire. Beyond them, Tobias saw a relative handful of starfighters launching from the orbital fortresses ... not enough to make a difference, he thought, but enough to take out the gunboats as they reversed course and tried to escape. He kept a wary eye on them, noting how the virus seemed more interested in using them as mobile point defence platforms then hunting down the gunboats. It was ruthlessly practical. The gunboats were largely immaterial now. All that mattered was protecting the system.

  A human might not be quite so practical, he thought, as the gunboat altered course and headed away from the planet. He’d want to hunt us down even though the missile ships don’t need us any longer.

  He watched, grimly, as the missiles lanced into their targets. The navy had spent a great deal of time and effort devising newer and better nuclear warheads, including a cluster designed to smash asteroid settlements to rubble. It was hard to believe anything could survive so much megatonnage, that the blasts would not do staggering damage to everything in orbit. And yet ... he frowned as he saw orbital fortresses and even a handful of industrial nodes survive direct hits. It was hard to tell how much damage they’d done, although it looked as if one of the fortresses had been disabled. And yet ...

  A handful of missiles lanced past the fortresses, plunging into the planet’s virus-ridden atmosphere. Tobias had seen the recordings of viral clouds drifting through the air, of seas tainted with viral cells, but ... he shuddered as the surviving missiles began to detonate. The mission planners claimed that infecting the virus clouds would disrupt the virus’s ability to coordinate its defences, although they’d been cagey on just how long it would take for the BioBomb to spread over the entire world. Tobias suspected it would be several days, at the very least. The fleet would have to hit the world time and time again if it wanted to speed the process up.

  His terminal bleeped an alert. “They’re coming!”

  “Understood,” Marigold said. “Open fire as soon as they enter range.”

  Tobias nodded as the enemy starfighters boosted their drives well past the point of sanity. He was no expert, but he was fairly sure the enemy ships would burn out their own drives well before they could return to their bases. If, of course, their bases survived. The system was dying. The virus probably wanted to hurt the invaders as much as possible before it was too late. Tobias gritted his teeth, feeling the gunboat starting to vibrate as Marigold pushed the drives to the limits. They didn’t dare boost their own drives. The risks of losing power were just too high.

  His hands darted across the console as the datanet came online, linking the gunboats into a single entity. There was no point in trying to hide any longer, not now the enemy starfighters had their scent. Their world was dying. The enemy would try to ram the gunboats, if he was any judge. Why not? They had nothing to lose.

  “Enemy craft entering range now,” he said. “Firing ... now!”

  ***

  “Captain, the first wave of missile strikes caused immense damage,” Sibley reported. The tactical officer kept his eyes on his console, as the display updated time and time again. “I have passive locks on the enemy point defence platforms.”

  “Target them with railguns and open fire, then launch the next salvo of missiles,” Thomas ordered. The enemy was alert now, spitting fire in all directions. The railguns would hopefully weaken their defences long enough to let the missiles get through. “Do we have an impact assessment on the planetary strikes?”

  “No, Captain,” Sibley said. “Projections suggested it may be some time before the
virus begins to die.”

  Thomas scowled. A handful of analysts had insisted the shock of being infected would be enough to disrupt the virus’s defences, although Thomas had thought that fanciful. The virus wasn’t linked that closely together, not outside the planet’s atmosphere. The remainder had suggested it would be several days, perhaps several weeks, before the infection spread out of control. There was even a possibility of the virus dropping shipkiller warheads on its own world, trying to cauterise the wound and burn out the counter-virus before it was too late. It might have no choice. And yet, in doing so, it would do a hell of a lot of damage to itself.