The Barbarian Bride (The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire Book 3)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Order the reserve starfighters to launch their attack,” he said. “And send in the gunboats!”

  * * *

  Tracy cursed, savagely, as the display blossomed with red lights. The enemy fortresses might not be inflicting much damage, but they were keeping her forces jumpy. Now, hundreds of additional starfighters and gunboats had joined the offensive. And their timing had been excellent. She’d had to recall her fighters to rearm, which meant they had to choose between turning and fighting or trying to rearm and return to the fray while the enemy craft were surrounding the fortresses.

  “Order the starfighters to turn and engage with plasma guns,” she ordered. Their life support would hold out for a while longer, she thought. “And then direct the CSP to cover us as the gunboats close in.”

  She forced herself not to lean forward as the two groups of starfighters converged. Her pilots were tired and it showed, while the enemy starfighters had clearly had plenty of time to prepare themselves for the mission. One by one, starfighters started to vanish from the display while the gunboats roared onwards, trying to get into position to launch missiles towards the fortresses. And then they started to spit missiles at the starfighters...

  “Order the CSP to back off,” Tracy snapped, although she has a nasty feeling that it was already too late. “Now!”

  “Antimatter warheads,” the tactical officer said, as dozens of green icons vanished from the display. “They’re using shipkillers against starfighters!”

  “It seems to be working,” Tracy snarled. The gunboats had just swatted dozens of starfighters out of space, for nothing. And now they were swinging around to resume their charge at the fortresses. “Blow them out of space!”

  Her eyes narrowed as the gunboats came closer, overloading their engines to give them an additional burst of speed. The radiation would be instantly lethal to humans, but aliens? She hadn’t seen any data on the aliens who’d joined the Outsiders... could they handle such radiation in small doses? Or were they just trying to get themselves killed...?

  “Watch those ships,” she snapped, as they raced closer. She’d studied the reports from a hundred skirmishes with the Outsiders. “They’re trying to ram!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Marsha, it should be noted, were fighters, plain and simple. They had no conception of any victory that did not end with their foe being beaten into submission, nor could they escape the idea that retreat was something shameful. A glorious defeat was more to be feted, they thought, than a retreat that would allow them to fight again another day.

  —The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199

  Alexis/Ruthven, 4101

  “The ramming ships have entered attack range,” Lieutenant Juneau reported. “They’re closing in on their targets.”

  General Charlie Stuart sat back in his command chair, fighting down a growing sense of respect for Admiral Garibaldi. It was easy to nurture a grudge against the officer who’d done so much to beat the Outsiders — and come alarmingly close to winning the war outright. And yet he had to admire someone who was willing to draw the line — and switch sides, if necessary — to prevent his former commander from committing genocide.

  Who knew? Maybe there was hope for the alliance after all.

  “Keep monitoring them,” he ordered. Sending the Marsha out to die no longer troubled him, not when they wanted to carry out the mission. And besides, weakening the Marsha might help in the long run. “And ready missiles for when we enter missile range.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Juneau said.

  Charlie nodded, watching grimly as the Marsha gunboats closed in on their targets. Four gunboats were blasted out of space, the explosions wiping out five more, but the remainder slammed into their targets and detonated, removing two of the defending fortresses. The remaining three held together, barely; he couldn’t help noticing that the enemy shields had weakened and their fire had slacked badly. They had taken heavy damage.

  “Signal the flag,” he said. “The missions were completed successfully.”

  * * *

  Tracy clung on to her command chair for dear life as the fortress shuddered around her. It was rare, vanishingly rare, for anything to shake a fortress, even when she fired a full salvo from her missile batteries. And to think, only one gunboat had made it through the point defense! It had to have been crammed to the gunwales with antimatter.

  “Report,” she barked. Red lights were flaring over the system display, warning her that her command had taken heavy damage. “Status report!”

  “We’ve lost all but two of our shield generators,” the engineering officer reported. “Major damage throughout the structure, including the loss of our command datanet. We’re isolated, Commodore! Point defense is down to thirty percent!”

  Tracy looked down at her console, then back at the tactical display. The enemy fortresses were still crawling forward, save for one that appeared to have stalled; the enemy starfighters were regrouping, readying themselves for another offensive. And there was a formidable force of capital ships coming into range, no doubt readying themselves to add their missiles to the swarm closing in on her remaining fortresses. The defense of the near side of the Asimov Point had come to an end, but she had seven more fortresses on the other side, just waiting for the enemy to poke their nose into Ruthven.

  “Pass the word,” she ordered. “We’re evacuating the fortresses.”

  She took a breath. It wouldn’t be easy, not in the midst of a battle. Lifepods were taken for weapons all the time and swatted out of space before the shooter realized the mistake. She’d taken the precaution of evacuating as much of her crew as possible, once the rebels had invaded the system, but she still had over a thousand men and women to get through the Asimov Point to safety.

  “Switch weapons to automated firing mode, designate the warships as primary targets,” she added. It was unlikely the enemy could get a fortress through the Asimov Point, although she wouldn’t put it past the rebels to try. They’d lose nothing worth mentioning if the fortress was torn apart by gravity tides. “Add the fortresses as secondary targets.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” the tactical officer said.

  Tracy nodded as she rose from her seat. There was the option of surrendering — she was fairly sure her crews would be treated decently, whatever propaganda said about how the Outsiders fed their prisoners to alien cannibals — but she knew her duty to Marius Drake. As long as there was a chance to delay the enemy, to wear the traitors down, she had to take it. She doubted the automated firing systems would do more than cost the rebels whatever it took to complete the destruction of her remaining fortresses, but at least it would cost them something.

  And delay their advance to the Asimov Point, she added. That’s worth doing, I fancy.

  “Send an updated drone to Commodore Houseman,” she ordered. “Tell him... tell him to prepare to receive refugees.”

  * * *

  “I think they’re evacuating the fortresses, sir,” Lieutenant Thompson said. “They’re launching a number of shuttles into the Asimov Point.”

  Roman nodded. The enemy fire had slackened, after the gunboats had rammed home, but even after they restored much of their firepower it lacked a certain something. Unless he was very wrong, the enemy had switched to automated firing systems to keep him busy while they fled through the Asimov Point. The Federation Navy’s computers were among the best of the galaxy — the Outsiders didn’t seem to have made any significant advances — but they lacked the initiative and insight of human intellect. After a handful of near-disasters, the human race had lost all interest in trying to manufacture a genuine AI.

  “Contact the fortresses,” he ordered. “They are to continue firing at the enemy fortresses until they are destroyed. Our ships are to hold position here until the fortresses are crippled.”

  Captain Yuma looked up. “Sir,” he said. “Wouldn’t that give them time to prepare an ambush on the far side?”

  “I doubt it will
matter,” Roman said. Captain Yuma — the Outsider liaison officer — had an irritating habit of questioning Roman’s decisions, although this was the first time he’d done it in the heat of battle. “They’ve had—” he glanced at the timer “—over two hours to get ready to meet an offensive. Very few tactical planners can count on having so much time.”

  He considered, briefly, attempting to target the shuttles... and then damned himself to hell for losing perspective. There was no way he’d lose sleep over killing enemy spacers who were trying to kill him, but slaughtering helpless men and women would be a step down the slippery slope. Besides, he rather doubted any of them were important, certainly not to the Emperor’s war effort. Cold logic might argue that they should die, but cold logic could go take a flying leap out the airlock.

  “We gain nothing by expending the missiles to destroy the fortresses quicker,” he added, as he settled back in his command chair. Belaboring the obvious got old very quickly. “And we risk losing the battle when we plunge onwards into Ruthven.”

  Long minutes passed as the two groups of fortresses converged. Lacking a damage control team, along with human-directed point defense, the enemy fortresses started to take increasingly heavy damage until antimatter warheads were striking directly into their armored hulls. A human crew would have been trying to surrender at this point, unless they believed there was no hope of anything other than a quick execution, but the electronic loyalists kept firing until the stations were damaged well beyond any hope of repair. In the end, missiles detonated inside their hulls and completed their destruction.

  “Take us to the Asimov Point,” Roman ordered. They had only minutes before the first of their fortresses sought to plunge into the Asimov Point. “And alert all ships to be ready for a coordinated assault.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Thompson reported. “Starfighters are reloading, sir, but the remainder of the fleet reports that it’s ready to jump.”

  “Good,” Roman said. He braced himself as the first of the fortresses reached the Asimov Point. “Let’s see what happens, shall we?”

  * * *

  “Commodore, I’m picking up major disturbances in the Asimov Point,” a sensor officer reported. “Something big is coming through!”

  “They’re actually trying to plunge one of the fortresses into the Asimov Point,” Tracy said, torn between wonder and a kind of grim horror. She’d barely had time to board the battlestation on the far side before the enemy pushed the offensive through the point. “Stand at the ready.”

  She sucked in her breath. An oversized bulk freighter, complete with a working drive, was hard enough to steer through an Asimov Point; a fortress, which had barely anything beyond manoeuvring thrusters, had to be an absolute nightmare. And yet, they were still trying to get the immense structure through in one piece. She hoped, absently, that the sensor records would be beamed to Ruthven and the courier boats before the fortresses were destroyed, if they failed to keep the enemy from gaining a toehold in the system. There was genuine, original science to be explored.

  “Good grief,” Commodore Houseman said. He’d surrendered command to her without a fight the moment she’d disembarked from the shuttle. “They have to be out of their minds.”

  Tracy couldn’t disagree as the fortress emerged from the Asimov Point. Its shields had failed, half of its hull seemed to have been mangled and the tugs that had pushed it into the Asimov Point were gone. Behind it, the gravity tides whirled in and out; she wondered, just for a second, if the fortress was going to be sucked back into the Asimov Point. And then the fortress opened fire with its remaining weapons.

  “Kill it,” she snapped.

  She shook her head in disbelief. The rebels, deliberately or not, had turned classic Asimov Point assault doctrine on its head. They’d sent a heavier unit through first, allowing its weapons a chance to sweep space clear of mines while gathering targeting data for the assault pods... no, she realized as a second fortress lumbered out of the Asimov Point, they’d sent two heavier units! And the cascade of debris that followed it suggested that the third fortress she’d seen hadn’t made it through the Asimov Point.

  “Impossible,” Commodore Houseman muttered.

  Tracy was tempted to agree. No one in their right mind would build a warship the same size as a fortress, yet she could see some advantages. Maybe, when peace returned to the galaxy, it would be time to consider the possibilities. If, of course, they could overcome the many problems in actually making such a warship...

  And the bastards are even sucking in our mines, she thought. As tough as they were, the fortresses wouldn’t last forever, but it wouldn’t matter. Their mere presence was clearing the way for dedicated assault units. This battle may have been lost before it even began in earnest...

  “The enemy fortresses are launching drones,” the tactical officer snapped.

  “Warn all of our fortresses,” Tracy said. “Assault pods are about to start transiting the Asimov Point. Order the CSP to be ready to intercept.”

  * * *

  “That’s the enemy location,” Lieutenant Thompson said. “They’re holding a pretty strong position.”

  Roman shrugged. “Signal all ships,” he ordered. “Download targeting instructions from the datanet, then deploy assault pods on my mark.”

  “The assault pods are ready, sir,” Lieutenant Thompson said.

  “Deploy,” Roman snapped.

  * * *

  “Assault pods, unknown class!”

  Tracy winced, unsurprised. The CSP was already rocketing forward, trying to kill as many of the assault pods as they could, but she knew their efforts wouldn’t be enough. There were just too many pods, spread out over too wide an area of space. And then the pods started to unload, launching hundreds of missiles towards their targets.

  “Stand by point defense,” she ordered, grimly. Having knocked all her plans out of alignment, the enemy was now going to smother her in missiles. They could afford to fight a conventional war now. “Fire at will; I say again, fire at will.”

  “A second bunch of assault pods have materialized,” the tactical officer warned. “They’re spawning already.”

  “Engage the missiles when they come within firing range,” Tracy ordered. One of the two surviving fortresses was dying, its hull finally shattering as it was ripped apart by her missiles, but it hardly mattered. The damned fortress had done its job. “And...”

  “Commodore,” the tactical officer interrupted. “A third wave of assault pods has transited the Asimov Point!”

  “Send a full tactical download to Ruthven and the courier boats,” Tracy ordered. “And copy it to Commodore Ross. Tell him... tell him to prepare to assume tactical command.”

  She turned back to the display as the wall of missiles raged towards her fortresses. Hundreds fell to her point defense, but hundreds survived to slam into their targets. She braced herself, knowing there was nowhere to run, as the missiles pounded the station, systematically weakening the shields. One by one, the shield generators started to fail...

  “Commodore,” the tactical officer said. “They’re throwing another wave of assault pods through the Asimov Point!”

  They must have found a way to use the first set of missiles to update the later waves, Tracy thought, numbly. And they seem to have unlimited reserves...

  “Send a final download up the chain to Earth,” Tracy ordered.

  “Incoming,” the tactical officer said. “Shields failing...”

  Tracy closed her eyes. “It’s been an honor serving with you all,” she said. Survival was no longer possible. “I thank you.”

  * * *

  “Five of the seven fortresses have been destroyed,” Lieutenant Thompson reported. “The remaining two have taken heavy damage.”

  “Start sending through the first assault wave,” Roman ordered. Given the number of pods he’d deployed, more than enough to smother the defenses, he was surprised that two fortresses had survived. “And tell them to att
empt to get the remaining fortresses to surrender, if they can.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Thompson said.

  Roman forced himself to wait as the first wave of ships vanished through the Asimov Point, wondering just how long the enemy would choose to hold out. They had to know their position was untenable, even though the Asimov Point had wiped out two of the four fortresses for them. But Ruthven was heavily defended in its own right. They might fear watching helplessly as the fortresses were turned against the planet they were supposed to defend.

  “Admiral, the final Marsha fortress has been destroyed,” Lieutenant Thompson reported, shortly. “Neither of the enemy fortresses are responding to our hails.”

  “Send through a final wave of assault pods,” Roman ordered. He studied the status display for a long moment, noting the hundreds of mines floating outside the enemy fortresses, and then made his choice. “And then move the first battle squadron through into the system.”

  He settled back in his command chair as the assault pods vanished into the Asimov Point, completing the task of destroying the enemy fortresses. The minefields alone wouldn’t pose a major threat, not when they could be swept by starfighters or starship-mounted energy weapons. But the real question was just what had happened to the enemy ships. Ruthven didn’t have any superdreadnaughts — God knew he would have raided the system for superdreadnaughts during the early stages of the war — but she had a small fleet of battlecruisers, heavy cruisers and destroyers. Where were they?

  “The first battle squadron has transited,” Lieutenant Thompson said. “They’re sweeping the mines now.”

  “Order them to launch a full shell of recon drones,” Roman ordered. The time delay was irritating, but there was no way to avoid it until Valiant went through the Asimov Point herself. “And angle a number towards the planet. I want the starships found.”

  He frowned as the next set of updates popped into view on the display. The records claimed that over forty ships had been assigned to Ruthven, but long-range scans hadn’t picked up anything apart from a handful of freighters heading into deep space and a number of asteroid miners. Not that that meant anything, he reminded himself. He’d kept his fleet concealed in Alexis for two weeks while preparing his attack on Ruthven. It didn’t take a particularly skilled commander to keep forty ships hidden while trying to decide what to do next.