Barbarians at the Gates

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “There’s no time,” Marius said firmly. “Order them to destroy the planet’s defenses, and then return to the fleet.”

  He ignored Williams’ surprised look. The political commissioner had been determined to occupy all the worlds the fleet passed as it advanced up the chain, and Marius had been happy to oblige, but they’d run out of Internal Security troopers to detach from the fleet. Besides, the further they advanced up the chain, the greater the chance they would run into something hard enough to stop them, and he needed all of his destroyers with the fleet.

  He keyed his console as he checked the reports from his officers. The battle hadn’t been very costly, at least in men and starships, although he was sure that the bean-counters at the Admiralty would complain about the number of assault pods he’d wasted on the outdated fortresses. Marius found it hard to care. Assault pods could be turned out easily by industrial nodes, but starships and trained crewmen took longer to produce. There was no point in spending lives like water when there was an alternative.

  Sixteen starfighters, two destroyers and one heavy cruiser had been blown to atoms in the brief and furious battle. A handful of other ships were slightly damaged. They could carry out their repairs underway.

  “The fleet is to resume its course toward the Lombardi Asimov Point,” he ordered. “We will reunite with the Marines and assault cruisers before we charge into the next system. Deploy scout gunboats to cover our flanks and don’t hesitate to launch sensor probes if you think you have a ghost of a target.”

  He smiled as he cut the channel. The last system had seemed undefended until a handful of destroyers had appeared from cloak and cut into a pair of his ammunition freighters. It wasn’t a bad tactic if the enemy merely wanted to slow down his advance, as he’d been forced to redeploy some of his destroyers and escort carriers to protect the freighters. The farther they advanced up the chain, the more firepower the enemy would be able to hide under cloak until the time was right.

  Magnificent shivered slightly as her main drive went to full power. “The captain’s compliments, sir,” Raistlin reported, “and he wishes to report that we will be at the Asimov Point within twelve hours.”

  Marius had to grin at the formality.

  “Tell him and his bridge crew to get some rest,” he ordered. “The remainder of the fleet can stand down to condition-two unless the enemy shows his face.”

  He’d need some rest himself, although he knew that he wouldn’t sleep well, even in Tiffany’s arms. Bringing her along was in some ways a breach of regulations, and he’d thought long and hard about it as it also risked exposing her to enemy fire. But she’d pointed out that he’d let her go into the Bester System without a second thought, and won the argument.

  He turned back to the display, silently counting down the hours until the moment they encountered the enemy fleet. There were just too many unknowns; what had seemed like an excellent—indeed, brilliant—plan when he’d drawn it up in the privacy of his own head now seemed like an act of madness.

  Where was Admiral Justinian’s battle fleet? If he’d kept it at Jefferson, the Grand Fleet would have encountered it by now, but they’d seen nothing apart from a handful of light squadrons.

  And where was the admiral? It was too much to hope that he’d scattered his fleet all over his little empire, but had he been taken in by the deceptions? Or had he simply not seen the false intelligence at all? Had Marius overestimated his intelligence apparatus on Earth?

  “You seem concerned, admiral,” Williams said. “Is the enemy not dancing to your tune?”

  The political commissioner had come up behind him, moving silently across the deck. Marius would have been impressed under other circumstances.

  “The enemy will do whatever he can to frustrate me, as I will do whatever I can to frustrate him,” Marius quoted from a book of Navy proverbs. “That’s why he’s called the enemy.”

  He shrugged. “How much, commissioner, does the enemy know about us?”

  “I thought you fed him your fake plan, hook, line and sinker,” Williams protested. “You told me he was fooled.”

  Marius shrugged again. He’d exaggerated a little to keep the Commissioner happy, or at least quiet. “The enemy now knows that we are on our way, hammering our way up the chain towards Jefferson,” he said.

  He grinned at the commissioner’s sallow face.

  “He has to know, because they had plenty of time to get a message out,” Marius explained. “But...does he know our strength? We’ve kept parts of the fleet under cloak, or used ECM to exaggerate our strength...how much does he know? Does he think that we only have fifty superdreadnaughts, or did one of his skippers have the guts to slip close enough to peer though the ECM?”

  “I thought you could always detect a ship under cloak if it came close enough to read the letters on the hull,” Williams said.

  Marius sighed, concealing his irritation. Whatever criteria the Senate had used when it came to selecting commissioners, it hadn’t included any military background, let alone experience.

  “Or are our sensors worse than you suggested?” Williams pushed.

  “The enemy may have left a ship in our path, lying doggo,” Marius said. “Risky, very risky; if we detected the ship, we could pop off a single missile and vaporize her. On the other hand, very little chance of detection unless we used full-power active sensors. And her passive sensors would be enough to give them an accurate count of our ships.”

  He made a show of checking his wrist terminal. “As there’s no way to know what is going through Justinian’s mind right now, I suggest that you get some sleep, commissioner. In twelve hours, we go through it all again...unless we run into the enemy first.”

  * * *

  Midway and her consorts had been racing toward the Asimov Point that led into the Lombardi System. There were no fortresses guarding that end of the gravitational distortion, but there was a single light cruiser, watching the loyalist fleet as it advanced.

  “Captain, the light cruiser is retreating,” the sensor officer said.

  “Pity,” Roman said. “I wonder if...”

  The icon blinked once—the yellow flash that signified a successful transit—and vanished.

  “She went down the rabbit hole, sir,” the sensor officer reported. “There are no other enemy ships detected within the general area.”

  Unless they’re cloaked, or lying doggo, Roman reminded himself. The last two systems had been nightmarish; the cloaked enemy ships hadn’t been able to do more than sting, but they’d stung hard. Midway had accounted for two enemy destroyers and what his tactical officer had believed was a converted freighter, yet it hadn’t been enough. If the fleet had been operating with a long fleet train, they might have been in real trouble. Losing the supply lines would be disastrous.

  “Launch recon probes,” he ordered. “Let’s see what’s on the other side of the rabbit hole.”

  Only one of the probes returned, but the news it brought back was very encouraging. There was only one fortress facing the loyalists, another outdated design that dated all the way back to the Inheritance Wars. It would suffice to stop pirates and rebels in peacetime, but it wasn’t designed to stand up to a frontal assault. The hastily-laid minefield on top of the Asimov Point was clearly unprepared for action, but that wouldn’t stop it from being deadly. Roman conferred with his fellow captains and the commodore in charge of the assault force, and then checked with Admiral Drake. As he’d anticipated, the order was simple: attack.

  Midway transited into the system hard on the heels of the first set of assault pods. Most of the minefield had been destroyed by the assault pods, allowing his point defense crews a chance to pick off the remaining mines before they recovered from the assault and started to target the attacking ships. The commander of the fortress, he was relieved to discover, was a realist. Once he’d updated his superiors on the composition of the fleet that had forced the Asimov Point, he surrendered. A small team of Marines was sent to s
ecure the fortress while the remainder of the Grand Fleet transited in, one by one.

  “New orders from the flag, sir,” the communications officer said. “We are to proceed at once to the Roslyn Point and secure it.”

  Roman felt a tingle run down his spine. Roslyn wasn’t just a fully-developed system with a vast array of space-based industries and a formidable planetary defense network; it was the final stop on the way to Jefferson. If they could get into the system before the enemy reacted, they could threaten Jefferson from two Asimov Points at once...

  He shook his head, reminding himself that the attempt to coordinate two assaults over interstellar distances at the same time had doomed the Federation Navy’s attempt to seize Sapphire during the Blue Star War. Admiral Drake would not want to repeat that particular mistake.

  “Helm, lay in a course,” he ordered. “Maximum safe speed.”

  Midway hummed as she accelerated through space, heading right at the Asimov Point. The Lombardi System reminded Roman of his home system, even though his home system possessed no Asimov Points and had remained undiscovered until the Federation had developed the stardrive and used it to survey the worlds near Earth that had been settled via interstellar slowboats. The RockRats who’d settled the system had been astonished to discover that Earth had not only cracked the FTL problem, but had been exploring interstellar space for generations through the Asimov Points.

  “Captain,” the sensor officer said, “I think we have a problem.”

  “Show me,” Roman ordered.

  “There’s a fleet coming through the Asimov Point,” the sensor officer reported. New red icons flashed on the display. “I think that Admiral Justinian has sent his fleet to intercept us.”

  “I think you’re right,” Roman agreed. “Take us into cloak. Communications, signal the admiral and inform him that the enemy fleet has arrived, and that we will continue to forward data as long as we can.”

  “Aye, sir,” the communications officer said.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  When encountering one another in interplanetary space, two fleets may spend longer developing their formations and attack plans than they do actually fighting. Even so, a battle between two fleets is a slow, stately affair. If the fleets are evenly matched, the fight can go on for days.

  -Observations on Military Tactics, 3500 A.D.

  Lombardi System, 4097

  “Showtime,” Marius said.

  He watched as the enemy fleet slowly shook itself down into formation. It was evident from their deployments that they’d intended to reach the other Asimov Point first, allowing them to take up positions on top of the Asimov Point and hammer him when he tried to emerge. But they’d been too late by roughly an hour. Now, they had to make the best of a bad lot and get into an aggressive formation.

  The full might of the Grand Fleet was in-system now, but if they were lucky, the enemy would think that the Grand Fleet was weaker that it actually was. Of course, if they didn’t, the enemy might find a way to put together a fleet that could conceivably wreck the Grand Fleet, which would force Marius and his forces to withdraw.

  “Keep the ECM running,” he ordered. “Launch additional probes into the enemy ships—no need to use stealth. We want them to see the probes.”

  He smiled. Captain Garibaldi was trying to slip closer to the enemy ships, yet the enemy should be watching for anyone gutsy enough to try it. Launching the probes at such an extreme range might convince them that he didn’t have anyone in position close enough to try to count their ships before it was too late.

  But they might be careful and know to watch for turbulence anyway. There was no way for him to know.

  “Admiral,” Williams said, “shouldn’t we be launching starfighters?”

  “No point,” Marius informed him cheerfully. He felt better now that the enemy fleet had finally shown itself. “It will be six hours, at least, before we come into missile range. The pilots will be getting some chow and needed rest before we launch them to do battle against the foe.”

  “How powerful is the enemy fleet?” Williams swallowed visibly.

  “It’s hard to say at this distance,” Marius admitted. “The first counts weren’t too precise. Of course, they’re screwed.”

  Williams stared at him, speechless.

  “In this system,” Marius explained, “they have to stop us—and they know they have to stop us. If they fail to do so, we can cross the interstellar void to Harmony and take out Justinian’s capital world and all the industries he’s been building up over the years.”

  “Industries that our superiors wish to take intact,” Williams reminded him. “They feel that adding those industrial nodes to the Federation would help make up for shortfalls elsewhere...”

  Shortfalls caused by profit-seeking and a lack of basic maintenance, Marius thought coldly.

  The problem wasn’t with the workers, although the workers often barely had the education necessary to read a book or operate expensive and valuable equipment. The problem was with the industrialists who owned the industrial nodes instead. They pushed the limits as much as possible, trying to earn as many contracts as they could before the war came to an end. The civil war might have killed millions of people, but it had profited a handful of industrialists immensely.

  “We’ll do what we can,” he said tightly. It was a pity there was no way to claim the industrial nodes for the Federation Navy, but that was outside his control. At least the workers would be safe. They’d be needed to run the industrial nodes once they’d been captured. “In the meantime...”

  He turned back to the display, stroking his chin in the hopes of conveying an expression of deep thought. It might stop the commissioner from interrupting Marius before he was ready to outline his tactical plan. The Lombardi System had once been a worthless system with one tiny gas giant and four rocky and lifeless worlds orbiting a bright star. The Federation Navy had somehow been convinced—Marius suspected by enormous bribes—to test the latest planet-cracking antimatter bombs on the four useless worlds. The bombs had worked as specified; all four planets had been blown into clouds of asteroids, which had been mined to help supply the sector with the rare ores that were normally only found deep under a planet’s surface.

  Every space entertainment vid he’d seen as a young man had featured an implausible asteroid belt that forced starfighter pilots to dodge like maniacs as they raced through the asteroid field at maximum speed. Such asteroid fields were rare in real life, but the remains of the four worlds would make for tricky flying, even for superdreadnaughts. He preferred to remain well away from the asteroids as long as possible. As well as having to deal with the asteroids themselves, there was also the possibility of ambush, as it was very difficult to differentiate a starship from an asteroid when all drives, weapons and sensors were shut down.

  Fortunately, it looked as if his fleet was going to encounter the enemy fleet well below the system plane, away from the asteroids, unless the enemy decided to avoid action.

  He scowled. The irony was that he could break loose and cross interstellar space to Harmony, but the enemy would follow him at once. If the Grand Fleet lost there, it would be the end of them, and probably would spell the end of the Federation into the bargain. On the other hand, if he smashed the enemy fleet now—especially considering that Admiral Justinian couldn’t be keeping many starships in reserve—the war would be as good as won. And then the Federation could mop up the other warlords and restore peace and harmony to the universe.

  “Inform the fleet that I want to slip into Formation Omega-Nine when we approach,” he ordered after a long pause. “We will start by launching starfighter strikes, and then we will follow them up with the new gunboats. We’ll weaken the enemy ships before we close with them.”

  “It sounds impressive,” Williams said, “but can we win?”

  “War is a democracy, Commissioner,” Marius said, shrugging. “The enemy gets a vote, too.”

  * * *

 
“We’re too late,” Caitlin said.

  “It looks that way,” Admiral Justinian agreed.

  Caitlin was pleased to note that the admiral sounded much more confident now that he’d finally come to grips with the enemy. The Federation Navy had beaten them to Lombardi, which meant that they couldn’t be allowed to leave the system. It wouldn’t be an easy contest, but it would be decisive.

  “Launch probes towards the enemy ships and prepare for engagement,” the admiral ordered.

  Caitlin followed his gaze as he turned to study the main display. The Federation Navy was too far away for them to track properly, even using gravimetric sensors. She wished, suddenly, for the StarCom trick they’d used once in Jefferson, but not even throwing money at the researchers had allowed them to build a smaller and cheaper system. FTL communications, even on a tactical level, remained largely a pipe dream.

  The only good news was that the Federation Navy was definitely aiming to engage Justinian’s ships, rather than heading toward Harmony or even charging at the Asimov Point and attempting to secure it. They wouldn’t have to worry about the enemy refusing battle, although the darker part of her mind whispered that was the least of their worries.

  On the other hand, the Federation Navy might win the coming battle...and that would be the end. For her, as well as for the fleet.

  Caitlin had no illusions about her fate. She’d allowed Admiral Justinian to lead her into treason and, if the Federation won, she’d be on the wrong side of the war—the one that lost. She still believed that Admiral Justinian was right, that the Senate was corrupt and power-hungry. Eventually, the Senate itself would tear the Federation apart—but that hardly mattered. If they lost, she’d never see a universe without the Federation Senate.

  “Aye, sir,” she said finally. “Should we prepare a fallback plan?”

  “No need,” Admiral Justinian assured her. He sounded remarkably cheerful. “We live or die today.”