Enterprise shuddered as missiles spat from her tubes, already hitting terminal engagement speeds. The enemy battlecruisers were hit directly and three of them exploded as antimatter warheads knocked down their shields and hit their hulls. The fourth staggered out of position, only to die after Roman launched a second spread of missiles before the enemy ship could recover and start firing back.
“Get the drives and shields up,” he ordered. “Reroute power and launch fighters as soon as possible.”
It crossed his mind that he’d just killed—directly—thousands of people. A standard battlecruiser had a crew of two thousand. Assuming the battlecruisers had been fully-manned, he’d just killed eight thousand people—and however many Marines had still been in their landing craft when Enterprise’s point defense blew them out of space. RockRats knew death, understood it in all its forms, and yet...he swallowed hard, desperately trying not to be sick.
“The starfighters have been launched,” Sultana informed him. “The Marines are reporting that they’re holding, although the enemy are pressing them hard.”
Roman allowed himself a moment of cold amusement. The enemy Marines had just lost all hope of escape, or even of victory.
“Bring up the active sensors and launch drones,” he ordered. It dawned on him that he had forgotten something important. “Send a data package to Admiral Drake and update him on our situation. Inform him that we intend to rendezvous with his force as soon as possible.”
Enterprise quivered as her drive came back online. With one drive unit destroyed—and another suffering from a dangerous drive harmonic—there was no way that they would be able to maintain the carrier’s standard acceleration rate. They’d be easy meat for any enemy superdreadnaught that happened to get into missile range, yet at least they would be moving and heading towards help.
At least he hoped so, as the time delay hadn’t allowed them to see what had happened to Admiral Drake—for all Roman knew, Admiral Drake might have been cut off from them, or destroyed. Seventy superdreadnaughts and over a hundred smaller craft wouldn’t go easily, yet Admiral Justinian might have the firepower to destroy them. Roman might only have postponed the inevitable.
He scowled as the active sensors started to fill up the holographic tank. There were hundreds of enemy starships out there, including swarms of starfighters that appeared to be attacking another enemy force. It took the computers several minutes to isolate the friendly craft from the enemy ships, but it didn’t look good. Admiral Drake’s ships were under heavy attack. Roman tried to think of something they could do to help, but there was nothing. They could barely help themselves.
The sensor board pinged, altering the display. One of the enemy fleets was a decoy, composed of nothing more than decoy drones. Roman tapped a command into the console, ordering the data forwarded to Admiral Drake, even as he ordered Enterprise to alter course. The fake enemy fleet couldn’t stop them from breaking through and escaping into interstellar space...
“Orders from the flag,” Sultana said. “We are to shift course as directed and prepare to link up with the remainder of the fleet.”
Roman grinned when he saw the projected course. It was the course he’d already ordered.
“Inform the admiral that we may require help evicting our unwelcome guests,” he said. The enemy Marines were still clinging on, refusing to surrender or to be wiped out. “And perhaps some additional damage control teams.”
* * *
Even with the improvised StarCom network, Admiral Justinian hadn’t the time to respond to the sudden change in his fortunes. Enterprise had somehow escaped capture—he had no illusions about how long his remaining Marines could hold out—and was heading towards one of his decoy fleets. The carrier’s sensor drones had to have penetrated the ECM, an annoying development considering he’d hoped that Admiral Drake would not be able to isolate the real formations from the decoys; worse, it had allowed Admiral Drake to alter course and avoid interception by two of his forces, either one of which would have been sufficient to destroy the damned Senatorial lackeys once and for all.
“Redeploy Beta Force and Gamma Force,” he ordered, wishing he had more troops available to deploy. But Delta Force was guarding the Asimov Point and couldn’t be moved, unless he wanted to cope with the enemy fleet suddenly reversing course to dive for the Asimov Point and escape. And Alpha Force was too far out of position to intervene. “They must move to intercept the enemy fleet before it crosses the mass limit and escapes.”
Once the computer projected the various fleet courses in front of him, he scowled. Apart from the starfighters and gunboats, there was no hope of a short-range missile duel, unless Drake’s fleet could somehow be convinced to reduce speed. Of course, it was possible that Drake’s lackeys would slow their speed long enough to escort their damaged ships out of the system, but he knew of Drake. The man was no fool, even though he was on the side of the Grand Senate, and would have to know better than that. Losing his entire force would be disastrous.
“And bring up the modified carriers,” he added. “I want constant starfighter attacks, wearing down their defenses before Beta Force is within range to finish the job.”
“Aye, sir,” Caitlin said.
Justinian adjusted the display until he was looking at an overall vision of the Jefferson System. The enemy fleet was heading away from the Asimov Points, which meant they must intend to cross the mass limit and escape in stardrive. It wasn’t a bad plan, but it had a big downside: they’d be exposed to missile fire for hours before they could escape. His ships could reload at will, while the enemy’s supply train was—quite literally—six hundred light years away. They wouldn’t be able to resupply until they escaped.
He allowed himself a smile. The battle hadn’t gone entirely according to plan, but then—what battle ever went exactly as planned? At least the Senate’s lackeys were on the run. All his forces had to do was keep piling on the pressure. Even if a handful of Drake’s ships escaped, the so-called Retribution Force would be broken and disorganized.
Once they were, he would be able to capitalize on his victory and claim the throne that was his by right. After all, his backers had promised him their full support.
* * *
Marius skimmed through the report from Enterprise with a growing sense of disbelief. The carrier had been crippled by precision strikes—using a new weapon that needed to be identified and countered—and her captain had been killed, along with the admiral. A mere lieutenant had taken command, a very junior officer who was nineteenth in the chain of command. How badly had the ship been hit?
On the other hand, the young officer, Roman Garibaldi, had been lucky—and luck was a quality that Marius had learned to value. And besides, it wasn’t as if he had time to appoint a new commander for the Enterprise and ship him over to the carrier.
And young Garibaldi might just have saved the entire fleet. By identifying one of the decoy fleets, he’d allowed Marius to alter course ahead of time, saving him from having to engage one of the enemy formations at close range while others came up behind his ships. Whatever else happened, Marius silently vowed, Garibaldi would receive the Navy Star—perhaps even the Federation Star—for his heroism. Under the circumstances, even the Senate couldn’t disagree.
He turned back to study the display as the next wave of enemy starfighters screamed towards his ships. Enterprise would be a very welcome flight deck for his starfighters, whatever the inherent limitations of their design, as most of his carriers had been picked off or damaged by Justinian’s forces. They weren’t the only ones. Two superdreadnaughts had been destroyed, and several more were badly damaged. The Zhan was on the verge of falling out of formation and being destroyed by the enemy. And yet, he might just get the entire fleet out of the trap...
“Admiral, Bogey One and Bogey Two are altering course—ah, have altered course,” the sensor officer reported. “They’re moving to intercept us.”
Marius swallowed a curse as the display
updated. There could no longer be any doubt—somehow, Admiral Justinian was transmitting orders at FTL speeds. How, Marius had no idea. Perhaps he’d simply pulled every StarCom he could find into the system and used them to coordinate his fleets.
Marius sucked in a breath. Three converging lines met on the display, just beyond the mass limit. He saw no way of avoiding a long-range missile duel, at the very least, not with Justinian’s starfighters snapping at their heels. He briefly considered turning and trying to tackle Bogey Four head-on, but Bogey Four had enough firepower to devastate his force if his maneuver didn’t work. So the only way out was through.
He silently cursed Parkinson under his breath as he considered the situation. His tired crews were about to run another gauntlet.
“Launch another set of sensor drones,” he ordered grimly. “And then arm half our fighters for antishipping strikes. Perhaps we can pay the bastards back in their own coin.”
Chapter Fifteen
In the event of a stern chase, starships that fall out of formation are to be regarded as expendable.
-Federation Navy Regulations, 3900 A.D.
Jefferson System, 4092
“I have missile separation—multiple missile separation,” the sensor officer sang out. “They’re launching from extreme range—emptying external racks.”
Marius nodded. There had been little respite for his battered Retribution Force over the last two hours. Admiral Justinian’s forces had launched repeated fighter strikes against his ships, forcing him to cover the carriers at all costs. Five more superdreadnaughts had been blown into flaming debris, along with a dozen cruisers and destroyers. Enterprise, it seemed, was the luckiest carrier in the fleet. Four others had been destroyed, and every one of them—including Enterprise—was damaged. Only sheer luck had saved two carriers from destruction.
Justinian’s fleet had been forced to close with the Retribution Force before they could start launching missile strikes, which was the only thing that gave the regular Navy a chance to escape. Marius had watched the enemy ships and their apparent courses and silently calculated the most likely moment when they would open fire. Their commanders had actually opened fire earlier than Marius had expected, in defiance of The Book and common sense. It would take nearly ten minutes for the missiles that had already been expended by Justinian’s forces to reach his ships, which was more than enough time for his point defense systems to calculate interception solutions and gird their mechanical loins for battle. And their own missiles, once his forces started to return fire, wouldn’t take nearly as long to reach their targets—Justinian’s fleet was rushing towards them, not trying to run away.
“Retarget the point defense,” Marius ordered.
He continued to study the enemy fleet’s formation. Admiral Justinian was playing it carefully, choosing to open fire at extreme range rather than wait until they closed in. That again suggested a certain sensitivity to losses, which in turn suggested that Justinian was rather less confident of overall victory than it appeared. Or perhaps he expected another Sector Admiral to declare his independence? Whether another admiral did so to join Justinian, or just for his own purposes, it would tear the Federation apart.
“Prepare to launch missiles, full spread,” he said calmly. He studied the trajectories, running through various possibilities in his mind. Starships, particularly capital ships, carried expendable external racks on their hulls that were loaded with missiles. This posed a considerable danger, particularly when antimatter warheads were involved, but it gave an opening salvo a far superior throw weight.
Up until now, his ships hadn’t been able to launch their missiles, as there was no point in using shipkillers to swat starfighters, even if it were possible. Two of his superdreadnaughts had died because enemy starfighters had managed to detonate their warheads, using the Retribution Force’s weaponry against itself.
But now, they could finally shoot back at their tormentors.
“Aim to disable rather than destroy,” he ordered, assigning targeting priorities. If they could knock some of the enemy fleet out of formation, it would reduce the number of starships chasing them, perhaps even forcing the enemy to fall back. “Launch attack starfighters in the wake of the missiles, then launch a spread of ECM drones.”
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.
There was a pause as the officer worked at his console frantically. The overall display updated, allowing Marius to see the weight of fire bearing down on his ships. The enemy had fired over ten thousand missiles towards his fleet. But most of them wouldn’t get into attack range.
“Missiles armed and ready, admiral.”
Marius smiled.
“Fire.”
Magnificent shuddered as she vented her external racks in one smooth motion, followed by launching the first spread of missiles from her external tubes. Every superdreadnaught in the Retribution Fleet fired at the same time, creating a massive salvo that merged into one coordinated entity. The controlling missiles, each carrying a command and control system rather than a warhead, angled towards their targets, utterly ignoring the spread of enemy missiles. There was little chance of collision between both spreads of missiles, Marius knew; the point defense would have to stop as many of the incoming missiles as possible. His starfighters launched from the carriers and fell into position behind the missiles. If they were lucky, the ECM drones would confuse the enemy long enough for the starfighters to sneak into attack position without being detected.
“Enemy missiles will enter point defense engagement envelope in one minute, thirty seconds,” the tactical officer informed him. “Point defense datanet is online and tracking targets.”
“Good,” Marius said. “You are cleared to engage at will.”
He watched as Justinian’s remaining forces fell back, leaving only Bogey One and Bogey Two to tackle his ships. It would have looked odd to a layman, but Marius had to admit that Admiral Justinian had no real choice. The other Bogeys could not have engaged his force, unless Drake decided to turn back and engage them himself. The battle had boiled down to one simple issue: either his Retribution Force crossed the mass limit and escaped, or they were hunted down and destroyed before they could flee the system. In the days before the continuous displacement drive, he knew, his fleet would have been doomed. Without a way to cross the interstellar desert, they would have had to punch their way through the Asimov Point, surrender—or die, once they were finally run down by the enemy.
“Enemy missiles now entering point defense range,” the tactical officer said. “The point defense is engaging...now.”
Unlike Justinian’s starfighters, the actual missile bombardment seemed more focused on Drake’s destroyers and smaller ships. Only an isolated handful of missiles were targeted on the capital ships.
Marius ground his teeth as he watched the projected trajectories and knew that Justinian was playing it smart as well as safe. The onrushing missiles would strip away the smaller—and less well-defended—point defense platforms first, ensuring that the following salvos had a greater chance of punching through to the capital ships. The blunt truth was that the destroyers and even the cruisers were expendable when compared to the remaining superdreadnaughts and fleet carriers, but in the long run the results would be fairly even. Justinian knew that he would have at least four hours to pound Drake’s fleet to wreckage before they could safely escape.
Hundreds of ECM drones spilled out of Magnificent, set to deception mode. The missile sensors, not the brightest of computers, would be seeing thousands of possible targets, forcing many to expend themselves on useless drones rather than real starships. Thousands more were swatted out of space by the point defense network, which was constantly updating its projections in real time.
Marius allowed himself a moment of relief once he saw how the enemy missiles reacted to the point defense —normally. His worst fear had been that Admiral Justinian had somehow developed a small FTL communications system, capable of being installed i
n a warhead, but it obviously hadn’t come to pass as he could tell that the missiles were on their own. The time delay made it impossible for the enemy to steer them directly.
Better yet, Justinian hadn’t even launched gunboats to give his missiles some additional support.
And then—Marius clenched his fists in rage as hundreds of missiles broke through the point defense. Many died once his ships switched to self-defense and used short-ranged pulsars to destroy the missiles, but others made it to their targets and rammed home. Antimatter warheads detonated against shields, knocking them down and allowing the tearing power of matter-antimatter annihilation to hammer away at the naked hulls. Some of the targeted ships were lucky and survived, if damaged; others were destroyed before their crews had a chance to run for the lifepods and escape. He kept his face as expressionless as possible once the damage reports started to come in. Seventeen ships had been destroyed, and over thirty were damaged. Four were on the verge of losing their drives and falling out of formation.
“Admiral, Rose Tyler reports that her drive is failing,” the communications officer reported. “Her commander is requesting permission to fall out of formation.”
“Denied,” Marius said. Rose Tyler was a light cruiser, armed and equipped as an additional point defense platform. On her own, however, she would be rapidly overwhelmed and destroyed—or worse, captured. Admiral Justinian had tried to capture the Enterprise and might try to board other ships, or force them to surrender. “All ships are to remain in formation as long as possible, and then attempt to surrender, following standard protocols.”
He scowled. There was no way around it. Some ships were going to be lost. The standard protocols had been drawn up when humanity had first fought the Snakes and hadn’t been revised since then, even during the Inheritance Wars. The crews would destroy the starship’s computers and drives, rendering the ship useless for anything other than scrap. The classified data in the ship’s computers would be lost, a vital consideration when fighting aliens who wouldn’t know anything about the Federation’s network of military bases and rapid reinforcement forces. Much of the data would already be known to Admiral Justinian, he knew, but there was no way to know what might help him plot his next move.
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