She pushed the thought aside, savagely. “Mr. XO,” she said formally, “is my command ready for operations?”
“Yes, Captain,” the XO said. “All stations report ready.”
Kat sucked in a long breath. She’d considered sneaking up on Verdean, just as she’d done to the penal colony, but too much could go wrong. Verdean had too many starships in orbit, too many sensors probing space for her to feel comfortable about slipping into pointblank range without being detected. No, she’d have to launch a more conventional attack and hope it was sufficient to brush the enemy’s defenses aside before they could be turned on the planet and slaughter the civilian population.
“We will proceed with Attack Pattern Delta,” she said firmly. “Inform the squadron.”
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said. “Attack Pattern Delta, confirmed.”
Kat nodded, feeling the tension rising within her chest. “Helm,” she ordered. “Set course for Verdean.”
“Aye, Captain,” Weiberg said.
They were already holding station within hyperspace, a bare handful of light days from the system itself. They’d be on their target within minutes, slamming out of hyperspace . . . and, perhaps, coming under fire the moment they showed themselves. Hell, it was vaguely possible that they’d already been detected, thanks to the oddities of hyperspace and the sheer number of ships making their way in and out of the system. Mermaid had reported no obvious attempt to prepare for an attack, but the Theocracy could be trying to lure them into a trap.
“Opening gates in twenty seconds,” Weiberg reported.
“Stand by all weapons,” Kat ordered sharply. “Fire on my mark.”
The gateway blossomed open in front of the flotilla, revealing a blue-green world surrounded by tactical icons. Kat stared, watching the stations rapidly taking on shape and form; the world looked surrounded, trapped by a web of steel. But it was an illusion, she knew; it was unlikely that more than a couple of the orbiting stations were armed. The dangers of a serf revolt were just too great.
“Fire,” she ordered.
Lightning belched missiles: a dozen targeted on the orbital weapons platforms, the remainder aimed at the largest orbital station. The enemy had more time to prepare this time, even if it was just scant seconds; the Theocracy’s electronic servants took control of the point defense and hastily opened fire, trying to swat down as many missiles as they could before they reached their targets. Kat smiled coldly—the orbital weapons platforms were aimed at the planet, not threats coming in from outside—as her missiles started to strike home. A dozen orbital platforms died in the first few seconds of combat.
“Enemy station is launching missiles,” Roach snapped. “They’re targeting the patrol boats.”
“Cover them with point defense, but keep firing,” Kat ordered. It was smart of the enemy to target her smaller ships, the ones lacking any real defenses. They might not know it, but they were weakening her ability to scout out new targets. “If any of the other stations open fire, target them too.”
“Aye, Captain,” Roach said. New icons flashed up on the tactical display. “Gunboats inbound; I say again, gunboats inbound.”
“Target them as soon as they enter range,” Kat ordered. There was no hope of evading them, not when they were easily twice as fast in realspace as any of her ships. Memories of them slamming antimatter missiles into 7th Fleet rose up in front of her eyes, chilling her to the bone. But 6th Fleet had been ready for them. “Continue firing . . .”
The enemy station’s shields flickered, then died. A missile punched through the hull and detonated inside the structure, destroying its integrity and blowing it into a cloud of debris that scattered in all directions. Most of the debris would eventually be pulled into the planet’s atmosphere and burn up, but some of the pieces were large enough to survive the fall through the atmosphere and hit the ground, doing real damage. She made a mental note to ensure they were broken into smaller pieces before time ran out, then looked back at the display. Seven gunboats were bearing down on Juno, firing constantly. They didn’t seem to be armed with antimatter missiles, she noted, but nuclear warheads were quite bad enough.
“Juno is taking heavy damage,” the XO reported. Two gunboats died, picked off by the point defense, but the remainder kept firing. “Captain . . .”
Kat winced as Juno vanished from the display. Seventeen officers and crewmen, some reservists, some conscripted from civilian life, some volunteers hoping to get on the fast track to command . . . they hadn’t stood a chance. There was no hope of picking up survivors, not when the Theocracy had a habit of taking potshots at lifeboats. All they could do was avenge the dead.
“Juno is gone,” Roach reported.
“Continue firing,” Kat ordered harshly. One of the automated weapons platforms was swinging back to cover the planet, readying itself to target population centers. Another launched a spread of missiles at Lightning, all of which were swatted out of space before they could strike the heavy cruiser. The platform itself died a moment later. “Take out the remaining weapons platforms, now.”
“Aye, Captain,” Roach said.
“Henry Crux is under heavy attack,” the XO warned. “She’s taking a beating.”
“Move up Mermaid and Max Mercury to cover her,” Kat ordered. Only three gunboats were left, but their crews were good. They’d even bolted missiles to their hulls . . . had they expected an attack, or had they merely sought to increase their mobile firepower? She would have to ask, assuming they took any prisoners. “Order Henry Crux to prepare to jump out if she cannot hold her position.”
The last gunboat flickered, then vanished from the display. “All enemy gunboats have been destroyed,” Roach reported. “The final weapons platform is under attack now.”
Kat nodded, then watched—feeling a cold wellspring of delight— as the last platform exploded into atoms. Maybe there were nuclear warheads on the surface, concealed within the cities, but at least the occupation force would no longer be able to call down fire from heaven. Unless, of course, any of the remaining stations were armed. None of them had actually fired a shot, at least not yet, but she knew better than to take that for granted.
“Picking up a gateway here,” Roach said, sharply. “Tactical computers think it’s a courier boat, leaving the system.”
“Understood,” Kat said, grimly. The clock had always been ticking, but now she knew the enemy would be alerted soon. Courier boats were the fastest things in hyperspace for a reason. It would be nice to hope that something unfortunate would happen to her in transit, but she knew better than to count on it. “Put a timer on the main display.”
“Aye, Captain,” Roach said.
Kat thought fast. The enemy presumably knew that help would be on the way, but would they try to hold out? If they thought they didn’t have a hope of escaping their own superiors, they might fight anyway, even though the battle was hopeless. Better to die quickly than slowly at the hands of the Theocratic Inquisition. Kat had seen a couple of their files detailing the precise way to handle sinners, defeatists, and traitors, and she had to admit they did tend to discourage surrender. But she had to try.
“Send the surrender demand to the orbital stations,” she ordered. The demand did include an offer to take future POWs back to the Commonwealth, well away from any possibility of recapture, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be believed. “Refine targeting solutions for enemy bases on the ground.”
“Aye, Captain,” Linda said.
“I’ve identified several hundred enemy bases on the ground,” Roach said. New icons popped up as the display centered on the planet itself. “Most of them look like military fortresses, Captain; there doesn’t seem to be much else.”
“Target them with KEWs, then open fire,” Kat ordered. Perrier and his men had told her about the Theocracy’s attempt to open schools to teach their religion, but she was damned if she was dropping KEWs on a school. There would be too much collateral damage merely from targeting
the military bases. “Take as many of them out as possible.”
“Aye, Captain,” Roach said. The squadron wasn’t set up for planetary bombardment, but it had enough KEWs to shatter the Theocracy’s grip on the world below. “Bombs away.”
“Picking up a message from the orbital stations,” Linda said. “There’s been an uprising, Captain. Most of the overseers are dead. The crews would like to surrender.”
“Inform them that Marines are on the way to take control,” Kat ordered. The crews would have to be taken away from the planet, unless they were determined to stay. She hoped not, if only because they had skills the Commonwealth needed. “They are to prepare themselves for transport once the orbital stations are under control.”
“Aye, Captain,” Linda said.
“A number of freighters are also making their escape,” Roach said. “They’re fleeing in all directions.”
Kat shrugged. “Target any that come within range and destroy them if they refuse to surrender, but otherwise let them go,” she ordered shortly. She would have liked to capture or destroy every freighter in the system, yet it would be impossible to take them all out without causing too many problems. “Dispatch Mermaid back to the freighters. It’s time for Perrier and his men to return home.”
“Aye, Captain,” Roach said.
“We fired off sixty percent of our missiles,” the XO said over the private channel. “Two of the light cruisers practically shot themselves dry.”
“We’ll have to reload,” Kat said. She doubted the enemy would only send a couple of destroyers to deal with her, not when they had two superdreadnought squadrons on hand. It was unlikely her own squadron would be able to defeat whoever turned up to investigate. “Send the empty ships back to the RV point to reload, then return here.”
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said.
Roach cleared his throat. “Captain, I have the first reports,” he said. “Eighty percent of our targets on the ground were smashed. The enemy command network is in tatters.”
And the planet will be falling into chaos, Kat added mentally. She couldn’t help thinking of Cadiz and the chaos that had run loose in the hours between the Commonwealth’s retreat and the Theocracy’s invasion. Unless the resistance manages to establish some order before it’s too late.
“If you detect any more enemy concentrations, hit them,” she ordered. “However, if you make contact with any of the resistance leaders, warn them we cannot stay in the system indefinitely. The Theocracy will be back and they will want revenge.”
“I could broadcast a message on an open channel,” Linda offered. “They’d be sure to be monitoring the channels, even if they’re not daring to broadcast.”
“Do it,” Kat ordered. “Everything else will have to wait for the freighters to arrive.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“The cloudscoop and seven freighters were destroyed, Captain,” Captain Minford Bannister reported. She was a short woman with an aggressive temperament that had already cost her a chance at a more normal command. “I picked up a handful of escape pods, but the passengers were quite violent and had to be sedated.”
“We’ll keep them on the freighters once we get back to the RV point,” Kat said. “Were there any other issues?”
“None, Captain,” Minford said. “There were a handful of small settlements on the moons, but I didn’t regard them as being worth destroying. They may have been established before the Theocracy rolled into the system.”
“Local files would seem to agree,” Davidson said. “The Theocracy didn’t seem to think they were worth considering a potential threat.”
Kat nodded. “Thank you, Captain Bannister,” she said. “And please extend my compliments to your gunnery crews.”
“Thank you,” Minford said. “Do you still intend to remain in orbit until the enemy counterattack?”
“For the moment,” Kat said. “We will see.”
She tapped the console. Minford’s face vanished from the display.
“I doubt we hurt the Theocracy that much,” Davidson said. “By any reasonable standards, the industrial nodes here are a tiny percentage of what they have to have, if they’re facing us on even terms. But losing them may cause problems in the future.”
Kat nodded. The intelligence teams had swarmed over the captured stations, discovering that they’d largely been keyed to producing farming and life support equipment for a dozen nearby colony worlds. A minor matter, with the possible exception of the cloudscoop, but it would cause them headaches in the future. Who knew what would happen if smaller colonies could no longer feed themselves? Or, more likely, if there were problems fueling the ships traveling from system to system? At the very least, they will have to start supplying the fuel from Aswan, she thought coldly. It might just hamper what they have available for sup porting the offensive.
She ran a hand through her long hair, dismissing the thought. “And the captured personnel?”
Davidson took a breath. “As you suspected, Captain, most of them came from Verdean,” he said. “They were conscripted into the workforce, their families held on one of the colonies on Verdean III. We’ve captured the bases and reunited families, but most of them don’t want to leave their homeworld. We may have to drag them off world by force.”
Kat winced. Tools and equipment were useful, but they were largely useless without a trained workforce to operate them. The Theocracy had to be short on the latter, which meant that removing the workers permanently—by force, if necessary—would hamper their war effort. But she didn’t want to take them and their families by force.
“See if Perrier can convince them to depart,” she said. “If not”—she took a breath—“they’ll have to come with us anyway, as prisoners. They will be treated well, and we will return them when it’s safe to do so, but they cannot be left behind. They’d be put back to work for the enemy.”
“Or shipped off somewhere else, now that there’s no point in keeping them here,” Davidson offered. “I’ll see to it personally, Captain.”
Kat nodded, relieved.
“We also captured a dozen additional freighters,” Davidson added. “Unfortunately, there was very little war material in the system and most of it was expended on us. I don’t think we have any realistic hopes of setting an ambush.”
“Understood,” Kat said. She had had hopes, but she knew better than to rely on capturing something useful from the enemy. “And the resistance fighters?”
“They’re on their way to the ground,” Davidson said. “I don’t think they’re going to have a very pleasant time of it, Captain.”
“I know,” Kat said. Verdean had taken a battering; the Theocracy had ruthlessly purged any traces of the old order, then she’d smashed the Theocracy’s military and government bases herself. Most of the planet’s cities were in chaos, a state that would last until the Theocracy returned and hammered any visible centers of resistance from orbit. “Is there anyone on the surface we should consider evacuating too?”
“Not as yet,” Davidson said. “We do have an open offer for anyone related to the resistance fighters, or anyone with useful skills, but so far no one has come forward and requested pickup. They may feel it’s a trap . . .”
“Or that we’re no better than the Theocracy,” Kat finished. No one had said so, but she was sure a number of innocent civilians had been killed in the bombardment. “Or that we won’t be staying long enough to pick up anyone.”
“True,” Davidson said. He cleared his throat. “What do you want to do with the freighters?”
“Put the former industrial personnel onboard, then send them to the RV point,” Kat said. “Under the circumstances, we can probably risk sending them straight back home, even if they do have to fly through the Reach. Admiral Christian will be pleased, I hope, with the reports of our success.”
Davidson nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I . . .”
He broke off as the console chimed. “Brilliant,” Kat said, glancing at it. �
��Rose MacDonald would like to speak with me.”
“We’re in the middle of a war zone,” Davidson pointed out. “You could refuse . . .”
“I may as well speak to her,” Kat said. She tapped the console, then nodded. “Go see to the industrial workers, Pat. Try and get them to come willingly, if possible.”
Davidson nodded, then left, the hatch hissing closed behind him. She sighed and gathered herself as best as she could before the door buzzed loudly, announcing the arrival of the observer. Kat brought up the near-orbit display so she could keep an eye on it—the timer, hovering over the planet, counting down the seconds until enemy forces could reach Verdean from Aswan—and then keyed a switch. The door hissed open, revealing the grim-faced observer.
“Captain,” she said, “why are we sending thousands of resistance fighters into a hopeless battle?”
“They want to return to their homeworld and make the Theocracy miserable,” Kat said as the door hissed closed. She waved the observer into a chair, then glanced at the display. “Who are we to stand in their way?”
“Most of them will be dead by the end of the week,” the observer said coldly. “I am no stranger to the power of orbital bombardment, Captain.”
“Nor is the Theocracy,” Kat sighed. “I would agree with you, Miss MacDonald, but anything that delays the Theocracy works in our favor.”
“Call me Rose,” the observer said. She met Kat’s eyes, unflinchingly. “Do you really believe the resistance here can make a major difference? Or are you just using them for your own aims?”
Kat kept her face expressionless. She knew, from her XO, that Rose had a political agenda, but the question was a fair one. On the face of it, the resistance on Verdean was doomed; the Theocracy would crush them from orbit, as the observer knew. And yet, they might have their uses when the Royal Navy took the offensive. Who knew what the future would bring? “The Theocracy is likely to start scorching worlds when we take the offensive,” she said finally. “They’d want to deny us the chance to liberate them, let alone make use of whatever resources those worlds could offer us. Having a resistance force on the planet might make the difference between successfully saving their world and watching helplessly as it burns to ash.”
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