On the display, General Napoleon started to fall back as the rebel attack roared towards her. Brent-Cochrane considered it absently, knowing that when a missile plunged past its target it was almost certainly not going to have the chance to alter course and engage. A smart missile would probably find itself another target towards the rear of the formation, or maybe just detonate and hope to confuse the sensors. The superdreadnaught staggered under the weight of so much fire, despite everything her sisters could do to defend her, and then fell out of line. For a moment, Brent-Cochrane allowed himself the hope that that would be the end of it, just before the superdreadnaught disintegrated into an expanding sphere of overheated plasma.
There was silence in the CIC. The Imperial Navy hadn't lost a superdreadnaught in combat since the First Interstellar War; technically, that hadn't even been the Imperial Navy. Ships had been damaged, mothballed, repaired and replaced, yet no superdreadnaught had been lost in a battle. Brent-Cochrane felt cold ice congealing in his chest. The Empire was dependent upon the superdreadnaughts to maintain order, using the ships to intimidate everyone else into behaving themselves. Time and time again, the Empire had displayed its will to crush dissent and punish rebellion a thousand times over, using the superdreadnaughts as the blunt instruments of its will. The superdreadnaughts were invincible. Even the mere threat of a superdreadnaught was enough to compel submission.
And now the magic was gone. Whatever happened, Brent-Cochrane knew that the entire galaxy would soon hear of the day a superdreadnaught – perhaps more than one – was destroyed by rebels. Word would spread from planet to planet, from ship to ship, and others would start wondering if it might be possible to beat a superdreadnaught after all. The loss of a single ship would ignite a fire that would burn the galaxy, even if the rebellions were smashed without further ado. His superiors would not be pleased.
“Continue firing,” he ordered harshly. The rebels might not have lost a ship, but their ships were clearly taking damage. “Do not let up on the bastards!”
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.
The superdreadnaught rocked as another missile slammed home. Brent-Cochrane saw another red light flare up on the internal systems display, before fading to yellow as the computers decided that it wasn't so dangerous after all. He clenched the handles of his command chair and ran through the tactical equations in his mind again, checking his first thoughts and concepts. No matter what the rebels did, they were going to enter energy weapons range in three minutes and then...they would see. Even if they wrecked his squadron in the crossfire, they would never survive being trapped in the unfriendly system.
***
Colin gritted his teeth as another wave of enemy missiles came slashing in towards his ships, a handful making it through the point defence and slamming into the shields. This time, they were unlucky as energy leaked through the shields and gorged into the hull, knocking out both missile tubes and point defence weapons. He tapped his console, bringing up a status display and scowled. The battering his ships were taking was reducing their ability to defend themselves, which ensured that the battering would only get worse. His crew worked hard to defend themselves, but the odds were slowly turning against them.
“Admiral, we have lost three more shield generators,” the damage control officer reported. Colin cursed under his breath. The work of a few hours in a shipyard, or even a day or two if they had to fall back on their own resources, was impossible when under fire. Even if the generators were recoverable, they had to be powered down and checked carefully before they risked reinstalling them. “If we lose one more...”
“Understood,” Colin said, tartly. There was no need to spell out the consequences. One more shield generator being destroyed, or knocked out, would mean that part of their hull would be permanently exposed to enemy fire, rather than small gaps appearing in the shields from time to time. The enemy would detect the sudden weakness and move to exploit it, aiming their missiles to go through the gap and slam directly into the shields. “Rotate the remaining generators to cover our rear.”
He leaned back in his command chair, watching the bloody inventory of damage flowing up in front of him. The enemy ships had to be taking the same battering – he knew that his ships were handing it out as well as taking it, even though the enemy had refrained from trying to target one of his ships specifically. He wasn't sure why the enemy had refused that...until it suddenly clicked in his head. If the enemy managed to knock out their flicker drives, they’d won. They’d just fall back and wait for reinforcements before closing in on Colin’s trapped ships. It was clever, too clever. He studied the enemy formation again, trying to pick out the command ship, but there was no way he could identify it. The enemy commander was too smart for that.
The timer was ticking down, showing three minutes to escape – if they lasted that long. The other timer was far less encouraging. In two minutes, the enemy ships would be within energy weapons range, and then all hell would break loose. At such short range, the battle would become one of mutual slaughter, but then...the Empire could afford to lose a superdreadnaught squadron or two if it stopped the rebellion.
***
Captain Travis Ward cursed as the enemy superdreadnaughts grew closer, although he wasn't sure who or what he was cursing. The enemy, for being clever enough to ambush the rebel fleet, Admiral Walker, for flying right into an ambush...or himself for being stupid enough to believe in a scarred woman called Hester Hyman. He’d fled one world as the Imperial Navy overran it, only to discover that the Empire just kept moving outwards, like a tidal wave of destruction that smashed everything it touched. Valiant, his cruiser, was the last remaining starship from the Kingdom of Thayne. The Empire had overrun the system with its normal calm efficiency and all Travis had been able to do was take his cruiser and go on the run. The Beyond had taken him and his crew in, given them a home, but there had been no hope for his world – or for his family, trapped under the Imperial Navy’s blockade. Travis had no way of knowing if they were alive or dead.
He could have jumped out and fled, yet something kept him in his place, something more than the fact that the Imperial Navy seemed to be ignoring the smaller ships. The Popular Front had given him hope and, even if he was more than a little cynical about their prospects, it had meant the world to his crew. Like Jason Cordova, they could never go home again, unless the Empire was beaten. And the best hope for defeating the Empire seemed about to die.
“Prepare to flicker,” he ordered, keying his console. If Admiral Walker needed time, Travis and his crew would buy it for him. Running was simple, but he had a far more dangerous stunt in mind. “And then remove all the governors from the flicker drive.”
His crew didn't argue, even though they understood what he was proposing. “Yes, sir,” the helmsman said. Turning and charging towards the enemy ships would be a quick way of committing suicide without harming the enemy, but he had another idea. “I have laid in the course, sir.”
“It’s been a honour, gentlemen,” Travis said. He keyed his console again, accessing files that he had never even looked at since he and his crew had gone into exile. His wife and children, permanently young and unscarred, photographs taken before the Empire had arrived. “Jump!”
Scientists had long known that it was possible to use a flicker drive to add additional velocity to a starship, yet it wasn't a practical tactic because the effects overwhelmed the compensators and killed the crew outright. Valiant, her course already laid in, flickered through space and rematerialised right in front of one of the superdreadnaughts. Before the enemy ship could react, the cruiser rammed the superdreadnaught and exploded.
***
“What the hell?”
“Unknown,” the tactical officer said, sounding equally puzzled. The explosion had been extremely powerful, powerful enough to burn out the superdreadnaught’s shields and drives, leaving it floating helplessly in space. “I don't know.”
Colin looked up at the timer.
The Imperial Navy ships seemed to have slowed, if only so their commander could figure out what had just hit him. Colin had no intention of giving him time to figure it out. If they kept slowing, they might just manage to escape...
***
Brent-Cochrane’s first thought was that the rebels had invented a new weapons system after all, but that didn't seem likely or his entire squadron would have been destroyed by now. The waves of distortion coming from the explosion was making it harder for his sensors to work out what had happened, or why. Doubtless one of the analysts would figure it out eventually, but until then...his ships had actually lost speed in the confusion. He cursed and ordered the ships to maintain course. Even through the rebels had nine superdreadnaughts to his seven, his sensors were making it clear that the rebels no longer had their full battery of firepower at their disposal.
He gritted his teeth. The battle wasn’t over yet.
***
“Flicker drives ready, Admiral,” the helmsman reported. Colin almost sagged with relief, but held himself together through sheer force of will. “We are good to go.”
“Get us out of here,” Colin ordered. “Jump us out now!”
A moment later, the damaged superdreadnaughts and their remaining escorts vanished from the Greenland System.
***
“They’re gone, sir,” the tactical officer said.
Brent-Cochrane shrugged. “So they are,” he agreed. It looked bad, but then, he’d damaged the rebel ships and prevented them from scoring another easy victory. And, if Public Information couldn't spin that into a great victory, they weren't worth the money the Empire lavished on them. “Signal to all ships; stand down from condition-one and forward updated damage reports to me.”
His grin grew wider. “And add a further signal,” he added. “Well done.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Just how bad is it?”
The Chief Engineer rubbed his forehead. The fleet had been holding position nine light years from Greenland while they conducted a preliminary assessment of the damage and planned repairs. Colin had also sent half of his crew to their bunks to rest, knowing that the stress of the battle would have tired them out, too much to risk allowing them to help with the repairs. The superdreadnaught’s Chief Engineer, a man who should have held a far higher rank in the Imperial Navy, had refused to be put to bed. His beautiful ship had been badly damaged.
“Not as bad as it could have been,” he admitted, finally. Colin wanted to shout at him, to demand answers, but they were both on the verge of collapse. His Flag Captain had urged him to get some sleep himself, yet he had refused, knowing that he had to oversee at least the preliminary repair work. “The main armour plating held up remarkably well.”
Colin nodded, impatiently. If the battle had gone on for a few more minutes, even without the enemy ships slipping into energy range, it would have been disastrous. The shields had been on the verge of complete collapse, rendering the hull vulnerable to enemy fire…even so, enough had leaked through the shields to leave parts of the hull scorched and blackened. The bombardment against the shields themselves had been almost as bad, leaving hundreds of components burned out or badly damaged. And seventeen crewmen were dead, killed by the enemy. After the number of loyalists Colin had killed, it seemed painful, almost as if he had killed them personally.
It was not a rational thought. But they’d followed him and now they were dead.
“So the structure is intact,” the Chief Engineer continued. “We have already begun swapping out compartments from the storage bins and replacing the burned-out systems. Given a few days, we should be back at roughly eighty percent, perhaps more if we manage to fabricate some new components here. If not, we will have to go back to base and complete the repairs there. The main priority is replacing the shield generators and we don’t have enough spares to replace them all.”
“And once they’re burned out, they can’t be repaired,” Colin said, in understanding. He had never been trained as an engineer – the Imperial Navy preferred to separate the various departments, mainly through invisible lines of command – but he knew the basics, if only through making himself the master of Shadow, back before the mutiny. Shield generators were built to withstand and contain vast levels of energy, redirecting it away from the ship or even into storage power cells, yet when they were overloaded they vaporised. Four of the deaths had occurred when shield generators had exploded and damaged the starship’s interior. “Can we fight?”
The Chief Engineer shrugged. “Depend what you want us to fight,” he said. “If we run into another squadron of enemy superdreadnaughts, one that is in top condition…we’re dead. The squadron we escaped might be able to kick our ass if they ran into us now, even though we did take out one of their ships and cripple another. Something smaller…a battlecruiser squadron, perhaps…I wouldn’t want to fight if we could avoid it. We are not in a good state right now.”
“Yeah,” Colin said. He’d been running through the entire battle in his mind. They’d been committed to a missile dual the moment the enemy superdreadnaughts arrived, ensuring that damage would be roughly even. The suicide of the Valiant and her crew had saved the lives of his crew – and saved the rebellion from coming to an abrupt end - yet he couldn’t order anyone to do that again. Guilt threatened to leech up and overwhelm him, even though he knew that he hadn’t ordered the suicidal tactic. “What about our drives?”
“The flicker drive is intact and usable, once we complete the first level of repairs,” the Chief Engineer said. Colin sighed in relief. Being stranded in interstellar space would have been disastrous. By the time they limped back to the nearest inhabited star – which was controlled by the Empire – the rebellion would be over. “We lost five drive nodes in the final moments of fighting and we need to replace them before we can power up the drive field to its fullest extent. I suggest that we don’t attempt any more high speed chases until we complete repairs.”
Colin snorted. The chances were good that he wouldn’t be the one making that decision. Or perhaps not; if they crawled back to Sanctuary, they could make repairs and return to the war as good as new, backed up by the arsenal ships and the other new designs the Geeks had produced. By now, the first squadron of arsenal ships should be ready for deployment. And, unless he missed his guess, some idiot was going to start second-guessing him and claiming that he should have waited for them to join his fleet before attacking Greenland.
“Get some sleep,” he ordered, finally. It was probably time to take his advice and get some rest himself. “We’ll stay here for two more days and then start flickering home.”
He’d considered the possibility of the enemy superdreadnaughts coming after them, but if they’d been able to track Colin through the jump they’d probably have been on top of him by now. It was a gamble, but with an overstressed squadron of starships Colin suspected that there was no other choice. If the drives and other systems were stressed much further, they might suffer a catastrophic failure, stranding the fleet. Or perhaps the enemy were just waiting for reinforcements. Colin hated being uncertain of what to do, or even second-guessing himself, and yet he couldn’t avoid it now. They’d come within a whisper of losing the battle and the entire rebellion. The Popular Front would be meaningless without his fleet.
The thought tormented him as he returned to his uncomfortably large cabin and settled down in the bed. Stacy Roosevelt hadn’t been content with a standard Navy-issue bed; no, she’d brought in a designer bed from some overpriced company on Earth and decorated it in her own frilly style. Colin had the bedding replaced, yet it was still too comfortable for his tastes, as keyed up as he was. He tossed and turned for nearly an hour before surrendering to the inevitable and injecting himself with a mild sedative. Even so, he was still tense when he awoke and climbed into the shower. The flow of hot water helped to calm his mood.
“I require an overall damage report,” he said, once he called his nine Captains and their Chief Enginee
rs to a conference. Their holograms had materialised in his quarters, apart from his own Chief Engineer, who was busy working on replacing the damaged drive nodes. “How badly off are we?”
He kept his face expressionless as the damage reports rolled over him. Six superdreadnaughts were in the same condition as General Montgomery, with minor damage that would take time and effort to repair. Two more had suffered worse in the battle, including some structural damage that had been caused by warheads exploding against the hull. No smaller ship could have survived such an impact, yet even so Colin knew that repairing the superdreadnaughts was vital. They couldn’t operate without the squadron.
“We need to replace two of the main struts running through the ship,” the Chief Engineer of General Grant admitted. Given that the General Grant had been badly damaged during the Battle of Jackson’s Folly, Colin suspected that some of the damage was caused by the remains of earlier damage, including damage that had been supposed to be repaired. No matter how hard they worked at it, field repairs were not comparable to work done in a shipyard. “Without those…”
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