Pax Imperia (The Redemption Trilogy)

by Mike Smith

  With a look of surprise, then relief, David McNeill appeared on the view-screen. “Commander, are you a sight for sore eyes. Things were just about to get unpleasant.”

  “What’s the situation over there, David?”

  “The station is on full alert, with all our weapon systems armed and ready. I have my security team and the marines preparing to repel any boarders, the civilian crew are in medical, as that is the most heavily protected part of the station.”

  “Understood Lieutenant. This is what I need you to do. You are to give the order to evacuate the station, everybody is to make their way to the shuttles and wait for my order to evacuate. Once we are in position, the 4th Fleet we will provide covering fire for the shuttles to leave the station, and for you and the crew to escape.”

  “Commander,” David disagreed. “You cannot seriously mean to abandon Terra Nova. This is our home.”

  “Lieutenant,” Jon snapped. “We don’t have time to debate this. We don’t have the ships to defend the station. We’ll hold the line just long enough for you to escape. That is all we can hope to accomplish.”

  “Understood Commander,” David agreed, reluctantly. “We will await your signal to commence the evacuation.”

  “We’ll signal you when we’re in position,” Jon acknowledged, terminating the communication.

  “My Lord,” the Captain inquired confused. “I don’t understand. How can we protect the station? The enemy fleet is already between them and us.”

  Jon looked up into the face of the older officer, holding his gaze. It made him remember why he had argued with Sterling so long and hard against accepting this position. For he never wanted to command again, never wanted to be in this position. One where he had no other option but to order others to their deaths. “There is only one route,” he explained. Trailing his finger along the tactical display, from the current position of the Confederation Fleet to the station, his finger passing through the mass of enemy warships blocking their path. “We go through Malthus’s fleet, then we turn and face them—head on. We hold the line, just long enough for the shuttles to escape.”

  “Then what, my lord?” the Captain demanded, wide-eyed. “We will be trapped between the enemy armada and the station, with nowhere left to go.”

  Jon let his eyes close, as he whispered. “There we all die.”

  *****

  All over the Confederation 4th Fleet, captains, officers, enlisted crew—and marines, all fell silent as Jon’s voice echoed across every command deck, room and corridor throughout every ship in the fleet.

  “Men and women of the Confederation 4th Fleet I want to take this opportunity to address you all. If you have not already heard the rumours, the threat we face is real and significant. We face a hostile fleet far larger than our own. A fleet large enough to pose a substantial threat to the entire navy. A military force large enough to threaten the existence of the very Confederation.

  “We are unable to call for reinforcements, as they are currently blocking long-range communications. Additionally, we cannot withdraw, as they threaten a civilian station, which contains over three hundred men, women and children, including my own family.

  “We are left with very few options, none of which are good. The most rational option for us is simply to withdraw, to fight another day, at a place of our choosing, and hope the odds are more in our favour. All other roads most likely lead to defeat, and our eventual deaths.

  “From the moment we are born, there is only one certainty in our lives—that eventually we will all die. Many of us live long, promising lives, full of joy and happiness, to make the most of the short time that we have. In that time, many of us start our own families, to give us the impression of immortality. So that when we die, a small part of us will live on through our children. However, this is nothing but an illusion, as eventually even they will pass on, along with their memories of us.

  “Yet there is a way that each of us can obtain true immortality. Not through the lives we live but, instead, by our actions and words, our very deeds. For these will live on in the memory of others, long after we have passed away. They will echo down the dusty halls of history for all eternity, and reverberate through the minds of generations yet to come.

  “They can read how, although vastly outnumbered, we stood firm. They can hear how, although faced by almost certain death, we did not waver. They can understand that, although frightened, we did not succumb to fear.

  “You do not know the people on this station, but I do. They are just like you and I. They share the same hopes and dreams as all of us. They want to grow old surrounded by their friends, family and loved ones, but, unlike us, they are offered no choice. They will have to fight, and they will die. If we flee, then they will be condemned to a certain death, as we are the only glimmer of hope they have left.

  “I have spent almost my entire life in the Navy. I have tried to live my life by its founding principles of strength, honour, courage and sacrifice. If I am to die, then I cannot think of a better reason to do so, knowing that my death will have some meaning. Furthermore, our sacrifice will send a message that will reverberate throughout the Confederation—that we will not run, we will not hide, but we will fight for what we believe in. That is a powerful message indeed, for the enemy we face will know we will never surrender, but we will fight for every planet, every system. They will go into the next battle, and the next, knowing we will fight to the last. That no matter how many battles they win, there will always be another—and they will never win this war.

  “This is not your fight today, but it will be one day. When it is your loved ones who are threatened, who cry out for your help. Therefore today we draw a line. We will not give into threats and intimidation, but we stand tall and strong and let it be known by all that we will fight, and die, for our convictions, so that our families and children can live on, in happiness and freedom.

  “For today we reach for immortality.”

  The command deck of the Invincible fell silent as the last words of the speech echoed away, consumed by the silence on the bridge.

  “We’re really going to do this?” The Captain’s voice was still tinged with disbelief.

  Jon simply nodded, before turning to the Helm Officer. “Signal the rest of the fleet and set a course directly for the station, flank speed.”

  At a nod from the Helm Officer, everybody on the bridge could feel the vibrations from the ship’s massive engines, as they quickly went to full power, the fleet slowly, but with increasing speed, approaching the station—and the enemy fleet.

  “Three minutes until contact with the enemy fleet,” the Operations Officer announced.

  “Sirs, what about our fighters and missiles? We’ll soon be within range,” the Tactical Officer reminded them.

  “Keep them,” Jon ordered. “At this range, with the enemy forces bunched so tightly together, they will be ineffective anyway. We’ll keep them for point-blank range, when we are amongst their ships. There we can ram them down their throats and they can do the most damage.” Jon reviewed the updating tactical display, before pointing his finger at a spot near the centre of the enemy fleet. “We’ll pass through the enemy fleet there.”

  “But my Lord, that is where the enemy fleet is most concentrated,” the Captain exclaimed.

  “Exactly,” Jon agreed. “They will be so concerned about not hitting each other, they won’t give us a second thought.”

  “It’s going to be a tight squeeze manoeuvring between so many other ships.”

  “That’s why, instead, we’re going to punch a hole straight through them.”

  *****

  “Confederation ships accelerating, on an intercept course,” an officer shouted out across the bridge.

  “Ignore them. They are just trying to distract us. Continue with your assigned task,” Malthus disregarded the warning. “As soon as we are close enough, launch the assault shuttles. The sooner they depart, the sooner I will have Radec’s family in my gra
sp. Then we will see how confident he acts.”

  “Captain,” an officer interrupted Malthus. “We are detecting an energy spike in one of the asteroids that is in close proximity to the station.”

  Captain Miller frowned, before turning to Malthus in explanation. “We discovered a number of these orbiting the station. Sensors indicated that they seem to be hollow. It’s not unusual for these deep space stations to push out asteroids, and then mine them during the construction of the station. It’s cheaper than shipping out the refined alloys.”

  “Then perhaps you can explain why an empty, hollow asteroid is emitting a power signature?” Malthus demanded.

  Miller was about to reply when a blinding light suddenly erupted ahead of them. Brighter than any sun, it grew in intensity until the bridge crew had to shield their eyes. The light then suddenly leapt across the vastness of space, colliding with a frigate, a privateer that was the vanguard of the fleet. As the crew watched on in growing horror, the ship started to glow, first yellow and then red. After that, all that remained was a ball of white light, growing in size, before it vanished—along with the frigate.

  “Particle beam,” Miller breathed out, over the hushed silence. “The station has a particle cannon, order the fleet to open fire—”

  Before he could finish the sentence he was interrupted by a second bright pinprick of light, smaller than the first, but quickly followed by another, then another, and another. The darkened hull of the station suddenly seemed to come alive, as a growing swarm of sparkling lights spread out all along the circumference of the station. Then, as if upon a silent command, the lights simultaneously rose up, away from the station. A hundred sparking stars, all reaching out towards the heavens.

  Senator Malthus, Captain Miller and crew could only watch in growing dread, as the stars increased in speed, arcing up and up, before coming straight back down—on a direct intercept course with the oncoming ships. Like a hundred shooting stars, the deadly missiles easily locked on target, hardly able to miss the densely packed ships, all in such close proximity to one another.

  “Missiles, incoming!” Miller screamed out a warning, but it was already too late. With great trailing plumes of fire, the missiles slammed into the advancing ships, exploding, sending burning chunks of armour, hull and ship spinning helplessly off into space. The front-line of the armada visibly faltered, as wave after wave of the missiles slammed into them. Expecting little resistance, and most too shocked at the surprise attack, few activated their point defence systems in time, and therefore most missiles found their mark.

  Malthus watched helplessly as ship after ship fell to the relentless missiles, either critically damaged, their engines and flight control systems damaged beyond repair, or, with the missiles having penetrated through armour and hull causing the ships to explosively decompress, the crews killed instantly.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, turned on Captain Miller furiously. “Why are you not doing anything? Return fire.”

  “Senator, you ordered us to take the station intact,” Miller remind him. “You said that you wanted Radec’s family alive.”

  “Not at the cost of my entire fleet,” Malthus roared. “Do you know how many billions of credits those ships cost me? Commence firing immediately,” he snarled.

  *****

  David and Chris shared a vindictive smile as they tracked the missiles, observing them impacting into the enemy fleet, ship after ship shattering from the repeated blows.

  “I warned them,” David muttered darkly. “I told them what would happen.”

  “I’m just glad that we didn’t blow ourselves up,” Chris said, relieved. “I think some of those missiles were over two decades old.”

  “Don’t make ‘em like they used to,” David agreed. “Anyway, the Commander said that we could take whatever we needed, so I simply took everything that wasn’t nailed down. How many of them do we have left?”

  “Not many Lieutenant,” Chris shook his head. “We expended almost our complete inventory with that first volley.”

  “Well it was only going to work once,” David acknowledged.

  The very next thing they knew, both officers were grabbing at the nearest consoles as the station shook violently, the lights flickering, before extinguishing entirely, only to return a few seconds later.

  Both officers exchanged glances.

  “I think you must have pissed them off, sir,” Chris reported, grabbing at his console again as another jolt shook the station. “They’ve opened fire.”

  “Damage report?”

  “Light. Mostly restricted to the docking ring.”

  “We cannot keep this up much longer,” David frowned. “We’re a repair and resupply station. Not an Imperial battle station. Where is the Commander and the 4th Fleet?”

  “They are on an intercept course with Malthus’s fleet. They should be in range in a few more minutes.”

  “Very well, let’s see if we can buy them a little more time. Give ’em both barrels Chris.”

  “Lieutenant?” Chris replied confused.

  “I meant the guns. The pulse cannons and railguns, Chris. Fire both at will.”

  “With pleasure,” Chris said, passing full fire control authority for all the stations weapon emplacements over to the tactical computer.

  In what is often termed a target-rich environment, the tactical computer was not lacking for things to fire at. Therefore with the cold hard logic of a machine, the computer simply targeted the closest warship, with the highest probability of being hit, and ordered the closest gun battery to commence firing.

  A dozen heavy railguns and pulse cannons swivelled around on their mounts to target the enemy ship, still a dozen kilometres distant. Upon targeting the enemy ship, the guns paused, waiting for final firing authorisation from the station’s computer, which arrived a hundredth of a second later—

  The gun battery momentarily vanished in a blinding light, as, almost simultaneously, all the railguns and pulse cannons in the battery commenced firing. While the distance to the target was measured in kilometres, the time taken for the weapons fire to impact was practically instantaneous. While the railgun rounds were mostly invisible to the naked eye in the depths of space, the bright red glow from the ionised plasma of the pulse cannons was clearly visible to all as both weapons impacted the enemy ship amidships. The armour, already weakened from an earlier missile strike, peeled away at the overwhelming bombardment, triggering structural instability within the hull, the ship bursting apart into a cloud of blistered armour, hull and debris.

  While it was the first, it was far from the last.

  As the enemy ships continued advancing on the station, more and more weapon emplacements commenced firing, until all were firing in an almost continuous stream of weapons fire. The entire station lit up with the streams of glowing plasma; incandescent ribbons of death, reaching out and pushing back against the encroaching darkness.

  Like an enraged beast, the station dispatched death and destruction to all that approached.

  *****

  “You said that the station was defenceless,” Malthus cried, watching helplessly as ship after ship fell to the unrelenting and highly accurate weapons fire from the station.

  “I said that it was most likely defenceless,” Captain Miller corrected him. “It looks as though I was mistaken,” he added, watching slack jawed as the bow of another armed freighter crumpled under the onslaught of weapons-fire.

  “Confederation Fleet approaching. Time to intercept thirty seconds,” an officer called out across the multitude of shouts and cries.

  Thirty seconds? Miller thought. That doesn’t sound good.

  “I thought that you said Radec was only bluffing, Senator?” Miller snapped at him.

  “I might have been mistaken,” Malthus admitted.

  “Signal the fleet to come about,” Miller roared to be overheard.

  “What? I ordered you to secure that station, Captain. Which you have done a fairly
piss-poor job of doing, considering that it is still firing at us!” Malthus screamed.

  “I’m fully aware of the offensive capabilities of the station,” Miller replied. “Now,” he added. “However, I am even more aware of the combat capabilities of that fleet and what will happen if we don’t come about to bring our main guns to bear. It is quite possible that in a few minutes there will be nothing left of your precious fleet, Senator.”

  *****

  “Thirty seconds until contact,” the Operations Officer calmly reported. “Enemy ships are starting to come about.”

  “Signal the rest of the fleet, they are free to manoeuvre at will,” Jon felt that the order was fairly superfluous, as while passing through the enemy armada directly ahead, any ship that didn’t manoeuvre was likely to collide with something. “Order the outer escorts to fall into close formation. All ships fire at will.”

  Breaking over seven hundred years of naval doctrine, the outer circle of ships, the smaller escort frigates, tightened formation, as the inner defensive ring of heavy cruisers and destroyers moving further apart, making space for them. It was like a carefully choreographed ballet, where all the dancers suddenly shifted position. With the fleet formation now inverted, the larger, heavily armoured ships now shielded their much smaller, lightly armoured brethren. While passing through the enemy line, the only thing that was going to keep them all alive was the heavy armour of the capital ships, and none were more heavily armoured than the Invincible. The massive battleship started to pull away from the rest of the fleet, the leading edge of the now wedge-shaped formation, as its large bow guns swung around to face the oncoming ships.

  “Tactical,” Jon called out. “Open fire with the main guns. It’s time to punch us a hole.”

  Situated on the bow of the Invincible was the ship’s main armament, consisting of two ‘super-heavy’ railgun batteries. Being one of the oldest ships of the fleet, it lacked the modern energy-based weapons of the newer, more modern class of warships. What it lacked in modern technology, however, it more than made up for in brute force. For the ‘super-heavy’ railguns were the largest, most powerful ever fitted to a ship of war. The depleted uranium round that it fired weighed over two thousand, four hundred kilograms, with a muzzle velocity of over ten thousand meters per second.