by B. V. Larson
In return, most of the light units dueled with their attackers, reaping them like wheat. As Engels had predicted, the majority of the fleet strike was targeted at the capital ships of the Liberation. Behind the missiles, advancing enemy heavies would engage her skirmishers—and slaughter them, if she let it happen.
“Capital ships, independent fire, all weapons,” ordered Engels. “Threat order protocols, defensive.”
Now, the capital direct-fire weapons of the ships of the line joined the fight, and the fleet strike counts dropped rapidly—but not rapidly enough. Hundreds of weapons and dozens of attack ships rampaged among the screening escorts.
Engels slapped the tabletop again. “Dammit, we’re losing our screen.”
“They’re breaking,” Straker said, grim-faced.
Engels saw he was right. As a relative few enemy missiles homed in and destroyed corvettes, frigates and destroyers, the escort formation crumbled. Ships blasted in all directions, firing wildly rather than remaining together to interlink their defensive grids. “This is what happens when we don’t have discipline—or a good battlenet for the light units,” she said.
“Like barbarian warriors facing real soldiers,” Straker replied. “What do we do?”
“We know we can’t run, so we fight through. Pass to the capital ships: close up on the flag, full defensive battlenet links, and advance. Derek, keep trying to get the bug-outs to rally.”
“Aye aye, Madam Admiral.”
Engels smiled toward Straker in spite of herself and watched him move over to the dual communications stations to call back those captains who’d lost their nerve.
The count stood at 458 and 134. The fleet strike was tearing through the dissolving light units, with the enemy attack ships following in a disciplined mass, finishing off on any Liberation stragglers or holdouts they could reach without changing course. By its monolithic inevitability, it was a strategy tailor-made to chase away independent units.
But now, Engels’ capital fleet moved forward, her elite ships of the line compacted into a hard core. In space-combat terms, the ships stood shoulder to shoulder, with just enough room between them to ensure one fusion blast didn’t hurt two at a time.
No matter how dense the Liberation core, their weapons still reached far, and when the edge of its combined engagement zone touched the fleet strike mass, enemy missiles began to wink out by the dozens, bringing the number below 300.
Behind the oncoming wave, three fusion blasts, and then four more, erupted suddenly among the tightly packed attack ships. Their count dropped abruptly to 103, then 77, as over fifty died at once.
“Lovely,” Engels crowed. “But where… the Archers! Float mines! The attack ships have no detectors. Well done!”
Almost as soon as she cheered, the attack ships closed up and reformed. Despite their losses, they did this with a minimum of confusion.
“Those are some brave pilots,” said Straker as he retuned to the table.
“Yes, they are… unusually dedicated.” Engels chewed her lip. “I need an analysis of those attack ships’ vectors, Tixban. Project their courses, ignoring any deviations to finish off stragglers. Exactly where are they heading?”
“Working on that.”
“What are you thinking?” Straker asked.
“Drones,” she replied. “Tele-operated, semi-autonomous attack ships. Not as effective as piloted ships, but in a mass like this, nearly as good. They obviously prepped this task force to try to trap us, using whatever they had at hand to compensate for their lack of ship numbers. They must have stripped local defenses to create this fleet strike package, knowing full well that homegrown Mutual Guard pilots would never take such heavy casualties—so they automated them.”
Straker stroked his jaw. “If I were the enemy commander, I’d have added suicide fusion warheads to those attack craft.”
“True. Comms, pass that possibility to all ships.”
“Captain, my analysis is complete,” said Tixban. “Observe quadrant one of the holo-table.”
Above the table, the main tactical view shrank to make room for a separate detail showing the attack ships’ courses over time. Lines projected from the icons, with their headings sticking out like a forest of tiny spears.
The lines pointed directly at a single icon.
Wolverine.
“They know we’re the flagship, and they’re coming for us,” said Engels. “They probably figure you’re aboard, Derek, and if they get you, the Liberation is over.”
“They might not be wrong,” interjected War Male Kraxor. “You must preserve this ship.”
“You fear attack?” said Major Wagner with a sneer. “You wish to save your own skin?”
The War Male focused three eyes on Wagner. “I wish freedom for my homeworld. Only the Liberator can bring it. If he falls, so shall you—and Sachsen.”
Straker stepped between them. “There are no cowards here,” he said, giving Wagner a hard glare. “I’d love to go hand-to-hand with these bastards, but this isn’t that kind of fight. It might become one, though. If so, I’ll need you both.”
Wagner nodded, scowling, and Kraxor did the same.
Engels said, “We can use their single-mindedness against them, though. Tixban, pass your analysis to Comms. Comtech, attach the data to a message explaining that Wolverine is falling back in order to create a gauntlet cone for the attack ships, and they need to form appropriately. Helm, put us at the rear apex of the cone. Pass details to the other helmsmen.”
The core stretched out to create a cone of battle. The heavy cruisers took positions in the front, on the leading edge of the open part of the cone, and then the light cruisers, with their superior anti-missile suites and medium-caliber weaponry. Last came the battlecruisers, with heavier primaries optimized against ships of the line, Wolverine at the center: part flagship, part bait.
The fleet strike came on, backed by the attack ships. Both masses converged closer and closer, inevitably constricting their courses as they homed in on Wolverine. The numbers spun, falling, falling, as the integrated battlenet and the awesome firepower of the tight cone took its toll.
Then suddenly, the surviving hard-driven missiles and attack ships got among the core force. Ships of the line shuddered with near-misses of thermonuclear warheads and the hot lances of bomb-pumped beam strikes. Three of the four heavy cruisers, doing their work as shields of the fleet, took blow after hammer blow—until they cracked.
One vanished in a contact blast. The other two went dark, broken but not obliterated. One light cruiser spun off course, her engines damaged and power lost. The battlecruiser Ermine, surging forward to fill the gap, intercepted a final volley of missiles with a vomiting spray of submunitions, taking a heavy explosion to her reinforced nose before being driven aside, sorely wounded but still on her feet.
This marked the high water surge of the enemy missile wave. It crested, broke, and suddenly dispersed under the integrated defensive battlenet of the five remaining battlecruisers.
Unfortunately, more than forty attack ships remained on suicide courses, locked onto Wolverine. Engels resisted an impulse to order her flagship to escape. Exposing her tail was exactly the wrong move, though her hindbrain screamed at her to run! Run! Run!
Beams hammered at the dwindling formation of attack craft, but not fast enough. The small ships were each ten times the size of a missile, with uprated armor and countermeasures. They simply weren’t dying quickly enough. At least ten, perhaps twenty of them, would reach Wolverine within the next thirty seconds… and if they had fusion warheads aboard, she would surely die under their pounding.
And then, from the edge of the holo-table’s display, icons swept in to surround the flagship.
“What the hell are those? Zoom the view back!” said Straker.
The view expanded to show the area around the fleet core. At least three dozen auxiliaries—freighters and tankers—had broken from the noncombatant group and charged in. They threw their u
narmored bodies in the way of the attack ships. Some had small lasers, some nothing but their hulls. Many of them scored hits or attracted proximity detonations, vanishing in blasts of mutual annihilation.
In seconds, the threat evaporated as the last attack ships were finished off… along with more than twenty fragile transports.
Straker whooped. “They suicided the suiciders!”
“That’s—that’s—” Engels said, shocked and saddened. “So many dead… for us. They died for us.”
Without further orders, the cone of battle quickly used beams to vaporize all possible threats—pieces of ships and missiles that might contain warheads—and began to reorganize itself as the ship captains gave directions. At least these had held steady, and for that, Engels was eternally grateful.
“It appears the auxiliaries that helped us dumped their lifeboats and survival pods before rushing to our aid,” said Tixban. “Only a handful of lives were lost—pilots and minor captains, mostly, of low importance.”
“Low importance, my ass,” said Engels, straightening with a sudden welling in her eyes. “They were heroes, every damned one of them. Make sure we know their names.”
“I will make it so,” said Tixban.
“Yes, heroes…” echoed Straker. “Comms, tell those cowards that are still retreating to get their sorry asses back here and help us mop up these Mutuality scum.”
“We’re still in for a hard fight,” said Engels. “But we’ll win…as you ordered, Liberator.” She fought to keep reproach out of her voice. This was war, and they were both fighting it as well as they could, but the cost sickened her, especially since she found herself alive only because of the sacrifices of others.
But that was the way of war. Some died so others could carry on the fight. She resolved that she would never forget, and would try to live up to their courageous example.
Straker raised his voice. “Start moving forward again. Signal to all warships to form on the flag. We’re going to finish them off.”
Chapter 21
Shreve, Nawlins System, Battlecruiser Wolverine
The battle for the Nawlins system ended more favorably than Straker expected. The Liberation fleet outnumbered, outmassed and outgunned the enemy by half, and now it was the Mutuality forces at a disadvantage, in the position of not being able to run without being raked.
Had they launched their fleet strike and retreated immediately, they might have made it back to join with their orbitals around the planet of Shreve, but they’d elected to advance and support their missile attack. Now, they had to stand and fight.
To her credit, the enemy dreadnought fought to her doom, no doubt crewed by the best and most fanatical Mutualists available. She was finally cracked wide open by multiple contact strikes from the surprise shipkiller volley Engels had held in reserve. One of the enemy battlecruisers was also obliterated.
Once the dreadnought fell, the other People’s Mutual Navy ships found themselves ringed about by Breakers and their allies eager to avenge themselves, and they immediately signaled their surrender.
Not every such surrender was honored.
“Put me on widebeam broadcast, in the clear!” snarled Straker, watching in anger as some of his escorts continued to attack now-helpless ships.
“You’re on, sir.”
“All Liberation ships, this is Straker. Stand down! I say again, stand down and do not fire upon surrendered vessels, dammit! I’ll court-martial anyone who keeps shooting! I’ll blow your engines out from under you if I have to!”
Slowly, Straker’s words brought order to the aftermath, and combat operations gave way to salvage, rescue and recovery. He sent Wagner and Kraxor with their contingents to take possession of two surrendered battlecruisers, and within hours, most of the work was done and the fleet was put in some semblance of order.
“Tixban, run the record of the battle on the holo-table, will you?” Straker asked.
“Of course, sir.”
“Fast-forward until the fleet strike approaches.”
“Time index set. Displaying.”
“Expand and highlight any of our ships who turn tail and run, slow motion.”
“It will take a moment to program the parameters, sir.”
Straker fidgeted while Tixban fluttered his tentacle clusters over the console. Eventually the Ruxin nodded and the display began to move slowly. When any of the screening vessels fell back faster than those around them, they changed to yellow. When they actually turned around and presented their tail—and their vulnerable fusion engines—to the enemy, the icons flashed red.
“Isolate those flashing red ones. Run it forward fast—and then slow down again. Make them yellow again if they rejoined the battle to fight.”
After the sequence played out, Straker was left with only a handful of cowards. All but one of them continued outbound, clearly heading for flatspace and transition to another star system—probably their homes. No doubt they didn’t want to face his wrath, or the derision of their fellows. The final one rejoined the fleet after all combat was finished.
Straker said, “Create a data packet with all those runners—ship names, captain and crew names, all the information we have. Pass it to all our reliable ships with instructions to keep it on file for the future, and also to relay to their homeworlds via message drone or courier.” It may take a while, but he knew the information would eventually reach its destinations. He had no real power over the disorganized Liberation movement, but at least, perhaps, those nearest the cowards would be warned. “And tell that one last one there—what is the ship name, Lucky Struck? Tell them to go home too. I don’t want them in my fleet, or the Liberation.”
“We’re ready to move in on Shreve,” said Engels, walking wearily up to stand beside him. “Or we could wait a few hours. The crews are exhausted.”
“Let’s advance. I don’t want to give the defenses too much time to start believing they can win.”
“Agreed.” Engels moved to throw herself into her chair. “Comms, pass to all combat-ready ships: conform to the flag, disk formation. Badger, Sable, put one slug each across the paths of the orbitals. Show them we have the range to pound them to scrap. Then open a comlink to someone in command.”
Minutes later, a gray-haired rear admiral appeared on the main holoscreen. “This is Admiral Dwayne LaPierre, Nawlins Defense Command.”
Engels rubbed the nape of her neck beneath her short, jet-black hair. “Admiral, you have a command in name only, which I can destroy at any time. I’ve dismantled your fleet. You’re helpless. Surrender now and you’ll be treated in accordance in the laws of war. We’ll put you on a transport to a Mutuality world, along with any other loyalists who don’t want to join the Liberation.”
“Liberation?” The admiral snorted derisively. “You’re pirate scum, nothing more.”
Straker, seeing Engels exhaustion and her rising irritation, stepped into view of the vid pickup. “Derek Straker here, admiral. You might have heard of me. If you’re an honest man, you know we’re not pirates—otherwise you’d already be dead. And you don’t actually believe mere pirates could defeat a People’s Mutual Navy task force, do you?”
LaPierre’s face stiffened. “So… you have a large force of well-led pirates. That hardly matters. You’ll never take these worlds intact.”
“Really? How are you going to prevent me from doing so?”
LaPierre nodded to someone off-screen.
“Shreve Orbital One has fired its main railgun,” Tixban said.
“Evasive!” said Engels, sitting up and gripping her armrests.
“It did not fire at us.”
“At what, then?”
Tixban’s tentacles curled in upon themselves in a manner Straker recognized as indicating distress. “They’re bombarding the planet. Shreve’s second-largest city, called Jackson, has been obliterated.”
Engels stood, one hand still holding an armrest as if to steady herself. “How many dead?”
�
��Approximately one million.” Tixban’s tentacles curled tighter.
LaPierre nodded. “You see, Straker, I spoke truth. You may take these planets, but there won’t be anything left to plunder.”
“I don’t plunder. I liberate,” Straker said, appalled.
“Helm, hold position relative to Shreve,” called Engels. “Comms, tell everyone else to do the same. Cut the comlink.”
“Wait—” said Straker.
“Comlink cut, ma’am,” the watchstander said.
“Get him back!” said Straker.
“Belay that!” snapped Engels. “Commodore, wait. Think. That… that monster just murdered a million people as a bargaining chip. Don’t be hasty. We have to think this through.”
“I’m not letting him blackmail me.”
Engels move to stand in front of Straker and hissed, too low for most of those around to hear, “You? Blackmail you? How about us? How about all those dead people?”
Straker rasped, “We didn’t do that. He did. It’s on him.”
“I don’t care who’s to blame.” Her voice dropped further. “Stop thinking with your ego and start using that good judgment you’re always talking about. What’s our goal here?”
“To liberate this system.”
“Bullshit.” Engels grabbed Straker’s sleeve and shook it. “A few hours ago, we were trying to figure a way out of a trap. Now we won, the trap is gone, and we’re free to leave. There are at least fifty lightly defended systems out there to liberate. We can always come back here with Indomitable and crush him. Right now, we can’t stop him from obliterating a dozen cities before we take him down. So, let’s leave. LaPierre’s evil, and he wins, temporarily. So what?”
“No. We can’t let him win. We’ll think of a way.”
“How?”
Straker looked off to the side, at the holo-table. “The Archers. They’ll sneak in and crack the orbitals with float mines, starting with the one that fired. He deserves to die for what he did, and his crews too.”
“And if they have detectors? Not only could we lose Revenge and Liberator, we could lose millions more people, the people you’re supposedly trying to help!”