Opening Moves

by James Traynor

  “How many, and where?” Gwythyr barked. He needed details to formulate a response.

  “Estimates are twenty-five hundred ships!” the controller's voice trembled. “All three main formations are on the move!”

  Gwythyr grunted like a boxer who had taken an unexpected hit. His hands clasped tightly around the edge of the nearest console; he had to steady himself as if he truly had taken a physical blow. Twenty-five hundred...!

  This was the biggest attack yet, and looking at the ships queuing up it looked like the Dominion was counting on this to deliver the hammer blow that would shatter the defenses' backbone. And it might do just that.

  Gwythyr – and Central Command with him – had counted on the Ashani pressing for a quick victory in the style of the ferocious 'L'audace! L'audace tojour!' spirit they had shown at Senfina. Drawing them into his fields of fire while keeping his own mobile reserve at hand to deliver crushing, mortal blows he was certain he could have defeated this very type of stubborn advance.

  But the Dominion hadn't humored him. There had been a battle on the first day which had bloodied the damn cats' noses, and there had been plenty of incursions after that. But aside from that first clash the others had been by fighter squadrons and small units trying to map paths through the minefields. By now the wrecks of Ashani fighters, gunboats and frigate-sized vessels out there must have numbered in the thousands.

  The problem was that he had prepared his plan for an enemy who came at him with a hammer. Yet, for the past three days the Dominion had gone after his defenses with a scalpel. The asteroids, the incursions, the long-range missile barrages; they all had thinned his defenses and his stocks of heavy weapons. Part of it was a lack of firing discipline on part of the inexperienced Érenni operators, but there was nothing he could do about that. He ground his teeth.

  “Alert the ready forces. Have our ships ready to plug any gaps in the lines,” he ordered gruffly, staring at the enemy armada half a million kilometers away. Slowly, like a single boulder waiting to become and avalanche, it edged closer. “Orbital defenses lock on and fire the instant they reach range. Ground defenses, stand by.”

  The control room ran with silent energy as the operators activated their particular area of sky. With the minefield thinned out during the past days he Ashani slowly moved closer, gradually wearing down the defenses there through attrition and sacrifice. The satellite weapons whirred into life once more, adjusting slightly to bring their lasers and missile tubes to bear. Warships gathered just beyond the curve of the planet, ready to dash forward if the need arose while the few ground based missile batteries opened their silo doors and prepared.

  Gwythyr looked up at the changing display, his face so furrowed in worry that his facial tattoos conflated into one black mass. They were out of tricks and traps by now, and both sides sensed it. The only thing they had left rely on was courage, a trait many believed the Érenni lacked. Today would finally answer that question.

  Heavy Cruiser PERISAI, Republican Defense Force.

  Captain Natara felt the acceleration as her ship moved into its assigned station as part of a small flotilla of 'firefighters'. Across the inner perimeter of their passive defenses small pockets of warships were gathering and joining forces, leaving unaffected sectors to bring their weapons to bear on the expected assault. Nuclear explosions dotted the sky, small suns erupting suddenly and fading away just as quickly. Like an implacable spring flood Ashani warships gradually closed on them.

  “All stations, report,” she asked with a calm that was all too superficial. Inside she was facing an onslaught of emotions, not the least of which was fear.

  “Weapons are primed and ready,” Batal, the Komerco mercenary announced, his voice devoid of any emotion. He was being paid to take part in a battle likely to end in the demise of the people who owed him his salary, a battle just as likely to claim his own life.

  “Sensors ready.”

  “Engines ready...”

  Natar listened to the steady stream of readiness reports, but her heart wasn't in it. She had family down on Akvô, too. A husband and three co-wives and scores of children they brought up together, as much as her schedule and deployment allowed it. The idea of losing them to a ball of nuclear fire or one of the Dominion's bio weapons made her blood boil. Her hands clasped around the edges of her seat, gentle long fingers digging deep into the cushion.

  Officer Torok Sen stepped up to her captain, maintaining the same unreadable mask for a face she had worn all these past days as she offered her salute. “All sections report ready. Ship and crew are prepared to defend our people.”

  Only slowly did Natara withdraw her eyes from the image of her race's home world. Mechanically she looked up at her executive officer and nodded, accepting the report. The Érenni Defense Force had barely had the time to become a true navy, but they still had their traditions and rituals. Captain Natara recognized the importance of observing this formal protocol as a way of setting the crews' minds on the task at hand. Rigid structures helped to prevent them from getting lost or scared, now that the full scale of what was at stake was becoming obvious to each and every one of them.

  “Understood, XO. Assume combat formation and get to your station,” Natara fastened her shock frame and shut her helmet. The rest of the bridge crew followed her lead. “Prepare to jam the enemy and power up our full electronic warfare suite. Set all defensive batteries to automatic fire and wait for orders.”

  “We're not moving to the front, captain?” Batal asked in puzzlement.

  “No, Mr. Batal. We'll stay out of the fixed defenses' line of fire until the Dominion vanguard approaches the edge of the minefields. Once they think they're through, we hit their flanks while the orbital defenses meet them head on.”

  The ship cut its engines and settled into position with the rest of its group. Gunships, tasked with anti-fighter duty, moved up from bases on the planet to assume covering positions beside the heavier vessels. Central Command had barely six hundred ships ready to fight, but nearly a fifth of them had already sustained battle damage in the clashes during the prior days. Even with the planet's concentric defenses the odds were still very poor.

  Natara doubted they could win, but she was prepared to meet her fate doing the best she could to fulfill her duty.

  “Enemy ships have entered effective firing range,” Torok Sen said quietly, her eyes fixed on her own displays. “It's begun.”

  * * * * * * *

  A great plume of white smoke rushed up into the sky, funneled upwards by the underground silo, a one hundred and fifty megaton warhead riding at its top. As the Ashani threat had grown, the government recognized that, despite the peaceful beliefs the Érenni held, these terrible weapons might one day be all that stood between death and survival. The missile rose on its pillar of fire, slowly at first as it overcame gravity, pushing up from the surface and clearing the thick forest its silo had been hidden in, burning nearby trees and stripping away leaves. It joined eleven other weapons from the same facility. In the distance the trails of hundreds more launching across the hemisphere towards space could be seen. It was a sight no Érenni wished to see, yet their distaste for the weapons was tempered by the gratitude they felt for the service the missiles provided. Every weapon launched changed a bit of Érenni civilization, but more crucially, every launch also saved and preserved it, too. It was a hard balance to accept, but in the end nobody truly doubted that a spiritual breakdown was something preferable to physical annihilation.

  In the same instant as Érenni missiles began to launch into space, warheads coming from the vanguard of the Dominion ships began to fall down. The blocky Stormwave-class missile ships, untypically angled and lacking the grace of their comrades, slowly expended their magazines in salvo upon salvo of nuclear missiles meant to saturate the planet's defenses. Even so, they had little chance to do much actual damage. However, they kept the defenses occupied while the fleets closed in. Fighter wings raced to the front of two of the advan
cing fleets to intercept the defenders' missiles. Only the third fleet's fighter escorts seemed to ignore these very same missile as they went after defense platforms and satellites in squadron-sized, coordinated strikes. The two volleys of missiles passed each other in the dead of space between the two battle lines. For a few moments, all eyes on all sides were focused on that same patch of space. Then the firing began.

  Dreadnought SUNBURST, 12th Dominion Fleet

  Swiftpaw fighters began picking off incoming Érenni missiles and defense platforms while the defense network surrounding Akvô fired on its own targets. The spectacular display hid its true nature in garish beauty. Realistically, the Érenni could not afford to let a single missile past the defenses as each weapon held the potential of carrying a bioengineered, self-replicating and adapting virus far more lethal than any nuclear warhead.

  Despite the massive exchange of fire the Dominion vessels still kept their battle lines in good order, maximizing their defensive fire by forming overlapping zones of fire and slaving their own fire control systems into networks to coordinate their efforts. The few missiles that got through the fighter screen were quickly disposed of by the interlocking point defense arcs of the fleets' formations without even slowing the advance.

  “We've got defense platforms, satellites and gunships blocking our way, Ma'am,” Captain Farwalker reported, her voice echoing through Pyshana's helmet's speakers.

  “No warships?” the young female strategos shot her an irritated frown.

  “No warships, Strategos. It appears the Érenni are keeping them back.”

  Pyshana chuckled coldly. “Fools. This is our chance to overwhelm their defenses, just as I planned. Once we're in position, no amount of Republican reserves or trickery will do them any good.”

  “Shall I release our ships, Ma'am?”

  “No, not yet. Hold formation and coordinate your fire,” she ordered. “Keep us in line until the last possible moment.”

  The 12th Fleet slowly slipped out of the minefield – and into the staggered spheres of defense platforms and satellites. The larger Érenni guns began firing now. Destroyer-level anti-ship plasma lasers began to chew into the Ashani lines, hundreds of them, thousands, bringing down the first casualties. Their mangled wrecks spun away as their fighting comrades passed them, burning hulks and seared metal devoid of any life.

  “Return fire, but hold formation,” Pyshana commanded. SUNBURST was in the center of the vanguard and therefor well within range of the Érenni fire.

  One of the increasingly rare Republican missiles broke through, killing a destroyer in a single hit. Two more vessels fell to concentrated laser fire, and a third struck a hidden mine, the vast explosion burning away much of its belly. Holes began appearing in their formation, much as they had during previous assaults as the Ashani line started to wear thin.

  “Close up the gaps!” Pyshana stared at the constantly shifting tactical plot. “Keep a solid front!”

  Vessels moved up from the second wave to replace damaged or destroyed ships at the front. With every second Republican defense sats and platforms blinked out of existence, but in these very same seconds the dead and dying defenders pulled far too many Ashani ships and soldiers with them into the abyss. As the range decreased so, too, did the time available to intercept Érenni missile volleys or destroy platforms before they threw their might against them, and the battle groups kept on thinning, losing their cohesion.

  “Hold them together!” Pyshana snarled. “We must concentrate our forces! Hold them!”

  The space above Akvô was a lightning storm of fiery red and sickly green plasma laser beams and small, quickly fading suns, and the gap between attacker and defender was now shrinking rapidly.

  A thousand little duels played out in the crowded space as Swiftpaw fighters and Érenni small craft duked it out Ashani pilots sought to destroy the thinly armored defense satellites. The Dominion's pilot corps was highly experienced and motivated, but the Republican defenders fought with such fierce determination that the Ashani squadrons found it hard to tackle the fixed defenses.

  “Send in more ships! More ships, damn it!” Pyshana shouted in growing frustration. “This attack must not stall!”

  A hailstorm of fire met her demands as the defenders threw every weapon they had in range against her, from surface batteries to satellites and gunships. Yet, the Republican ships still did not show up. They were out there, waiting. Worse still, the static defenses seemed to be doing a good enough job on their own, crippling and destroying ships faster than their positions in the Ashani attack formations could be replaced

  “No,” Pyshana growled in growing fear and frustration. “No! Not like this. We must break through. We must!” Gods, no. She could see nothing but failure and shame awaiting her if she did not get in here. Her first command as Strategos of the Fleet, and it looked a lot like it would already be her last.

  “Enemy fire is too great, Ma'am!” Farwalker's voice was tight reported. “We just can't advance into it! We've already lost more than thirty percent of our ships!”

  “Lies!” Pyshana snarled, staring wildly at the chaos unfolding in her tactical display as icons blinked out of existence faster and faster. “This attack is led by cowards! Get some true warriors on the front!”

  “They are not cowards, Ma'am!” Farwalker snapped, forgetting protocol this time. “They're the finest crews we have, but even our warriors of myth couldn't break through this. It's too much!” she almost pleaded.

  “We will not retreat!” Pyshana roared, a raw, guttural sound completely at odds with her own slender physique. “If this day is to be our last then let us make it one to remember!”

  “Yes, Ma'am,” Farwalker shook her head inside her helmet, sighing quietly, resigning to her fate. Yes, today would be remembered, if not for its glory then for utter its stupidity. More ships rushed forward, the SUNBURST included, but as the Érenni defense shifted it didn't make a difference.

  Supporting attacks went in to hit different parts of the defense grid as 12th Fleet expended its fighter complements. But the network was too well built, and with every destroyed satellite a new vicious series of crossfires and dead ends built into it opened up to drown the Dominion's ships in fire.

  Cold mathematics were winning the day for the Érenni defender, and for all their fanatic bravery the Ashani lost more and more ships and crews which could not be replaced. Worse, their senseless death endangered so much more. It was Corr'tane who recognized this, who saw that honor and the stubborn desire for victory or death in this battle was going to get their entire civilization killed unless he acted. This slaughter had gone on long enough.

  SUNBURST shuddered from a hit by a dreadnought grade Érenni laser. The proud ship's hull buckled as compressed energy bore through its layers of armor and opened up part of the main engineering section to space, the rapid decompression emptying the whole compartment of anything still alive in a storm of oxygen, flames and shrapnel.

  Alarms howled through the dreadnought, but the damage only served to fuel Pyshana's rage. It was the anger of a caged predator: the Érenni would not let her advance whereas romantic Ashani military tradition scoffed at the idea of retreat. She was trapped between two worlds, one physical and one in her heart, and both were crumbling her hopes. Losses to 12th Fleet were heavy – too heavy – and the supporting forces were little better off. There was no way, not like this.

  “Strategos Pyshana, respond,” a cool male baritone reached out to her through FleetNet, one she instantly recognized as that of her brother.

  “Strategos Corr'tane!” It took her a few moments to order her thoughts and log into a secure channel. She sighed with relief. “Brother, are you bringing your fleet to my aid?”

  “I bring my knowledge to your aid. You are defeated. Retire immediately and conduct a fighting withdrawal to the edge of the minefield,” she heard him say without a sign of affection. “I will shift my forces to provide cover in case the Érenni send ships to try
and rout you.”

  “Never!” Pyshana almost screamed at him, pressing against the restraints of her shock harness. “I will not abandon the attack.”

  “The attack has already failed.” His voice was so calm, so... detached. “All you're doing is wasting ships and lives in a futile gesture of pride, ships and soldiers we'll need later in this war.”

  “If we do not win there will be no campaign. It'll end here!” she snarled back at her brother. “The Pact will see we cannot defeat their most feeble members and will strike us down with all their might!”

  A muscle flexed in Corr'tane's jaw as he tried to both concentrate on the private conversation with his sister and on commanding his own fleet. It was a subtle hint that he was on the verge of losing his temper. “Every second you delay costs us another ship. There are other ways to fight this war. But for today the battle is over. We lost,” he said a lot more calmly than he felt. If only his fellow fleet commanders had put the good of their fleets and some caution before their egos...

  “Like how? How can we proceed with an enemy home world at our backs?” she spat back at him.

  “That's not a decision to take here and now,” Corr'tane replied almost soothingly, though he ground his teeth. “But now you must withdraw.”

  Pyshana stared at the battle around her and leaned back in her command chair, her expression as resolute as it had never been before. “I will not.”

  “I can make it an order,” Corr'tane warned, his patience for this folly running thinner with every second. “I can take your fleet from you.”

  “They won't follow you! They will join me in fighting through to victory or dying in the process.”

  “Do you so desire death?” he finally snapped in frustration and rising anger. “Would you so quickly throw away your life and that of tens of thousands of others? And for what? Honor?”