Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  And there was still one final card to play.

  “Signal Task Force Three,” he ordered. The whole tactic was a gamble, but it might just pay off. If nothing else, it would give the enemy a fright. “They are to engage the enemy at once.”

  “Commodore!” Wheeler snapped. “I’m picking up another wave of shuttles!”

  Kat frowned, puzzled. The enemy ships had lurked behind the warships, keeping their drives and weapons offline to ensure they weren’t detected. And yet, the situation was still odd. They had to know that nothing short of overwhelming numbers would be enough to get the shuttles through the point defense, so why had they held a third of their number back? Did they have something clever in mind?

  They weakened our datanet, she thought coldly. But it wasn’t weakened enough.

  “They’re blasting out ECM pulses,” Wheeler added. The wave of red icons doubled and then tripled, question marks hanging over a number of the returns. Some of the shuttles had been targeted before the ECM came online; others were now lost in the haze. “They’re trying to confuse us.”

  “They’re succeeding,” Kat muttered.

  “The flag is ordering the point defense to engage,” Wheeler reported. The display updated again as the point defense opened fire. “All enemy contacts are to be targeted.”

  Kat winced. The enemy had just upped their chances of scoring a significant hit. If every target had to be engaged, a great deal of time was about to be wasted. But the fleet had plenty of point defense.

  She cursed under her breath as hundreds of shuttles roared down on the fleet, a dozen vanishing from existence in colossal explosions even as their comrades kept moving. A destroyer was hit and wiped out in a giant blast, a heavy cruiser staggered out of formation, lifepods spewing from her hull; a superdreadnought was hit twice and blown into flaming plasma.

  “Commodore!” Wheeler yelled. “They’re targeting Hammerhead!”

  Kat opened her mouth, but it was too late. There were no orders she could give, not when the fleet’s point defense was aware of the danger. Five suicide shuttles made their final run . . . and HMS Hammerhead vanished from the display.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Commodore, Hammerhead has been destroyed,” Wheeler said. “I’m not picking up any lifepods.”

  Kat swallowed, hard. Had the enemy gotten lucky? Very lucky? Or had they somehow picked the flagship out of the fleet and marked her down for special attention? But it didn’t matter, not now. Her superior was dead . . . and she had to assume command.

  “Priority signal to the fleet,” she ordered. “Admiral Christian is missing, presumed dead. I am assuming command as of this moment.”

  She doubted that anything could have survived the explosion. Admiral Christian wouldn’t have been able to escape, even if he’d run for an escape pod the moment he realized that five shuttles were closing in on his ship. But she couldn’t unilaterally declare him dead, not yet. All that mattered was that he was unable to serve as the fleet’s commanding officer.

  Mourn later, she told herself savagely. The battle is not over yet.

  “Fleet datanet refocusing on Queen Elizabeth,” Wheeler reported. “It’s accepted you as the new commanding officer.”

  For the moment, Kat thought. Someone may try to challenge me after the battle is over.

  She pushed the thought aside and leaned forward. “Clear the remaining shuttles, then accelerate to engage the superdreadnoughts,” she ordered. The enemy ships were holding position, just out of firing range. She had a feeling they would try to lure her onto the fixed defenses if she wasn’t careful. “All starships are to engage as soon as we enter range.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” Wheeler said.

  Kat nodded, taking a second to survey the situation. Nineteen ships had been destroyed, seven more badly damaged. They would have to be withdrawn from the fleet, although she wasn’t ready to send them back yet. There was just too great a chance of running into enemy patrols as they tried to slip home. Even getting them to the mobile shipyards at the rendezvous point would be chancy.

  But we still have the advantage, she thought. And we will use it.

  “Entering missile range in twenty seconds,” Wheeler reported. “The enemy fleet is still holding position.”

  Kat’s eyes narrowed. Four squadrons of superdreadnoughts couldn’t hope to stand up to her fleet, with or without their external racks. The only viable tactic was to fall back on the planetary defenses, linking the orbiting firepower to theirs. But the enemy ships were just sitting there, as if they were trying to lead her on. Her eyes flicked over the sensor readings, looking for cloaked ships, stealthed mines, or other surprises but found nothing. The enemy practically seemed to be inviting her to destroy them.

  “Entering missile range,” Wheeler reported.

  Kat bared her teeth. “Fire at will.”

  “Admiral,” the operator said, “the enemy ships have opened fire.”

  “I can see that, idiot,” Zaskar snarled.

  He couldn’t help feeling a surge of dismay at the raw power roaring towards his ships. The missile swarm—his mind raced, trying to quantify it. If each superdreadnought could fire a hundred missiles in one salvo and if there were over a hundred superdreadnoughts . . . he shook his head, angrily dismissing the thought. There were enough missiles on their way to overwhelm his defenses and smash his entire fleet, even if a third of them somehow self-destructed along the way.

  “Return fire,” he ordered. “And then execute Operation Night.”

  He tensed. If one of his watchdogs, perhaps a crewman he’d least suspect of being tied to his overseers, hadn’t gotten the word, he was probably about to be shot. But he had no choice, not any longer. The Commonwealth ships were out for revenge.

  “Gateway generators online,” an operator said.

  Zaskar shivered. He’d sworn his life and his soul to the defense of his homeworld. The thought of abandoning her to the unbelievers was horrifying, even if there was a plan. But he had his orders.

  “Open the gateways,” he ordered. The enemy missiles were getting closer. Time was of the essence. “Get us out of here.”

  “Commodore, the enemy ships are escaping into hyperspace,” Wheeler reported. “They’re deploying antimatter mines as they leave.”

  Kat cursed. Chasing an enemy fleet into hyperspace was asking for trouble, but the damned antimatter mines made sure of it. There was no hope of escaping an energy storm, let alone an engagement where the odds would be even. The enemy ships had made a clean getaway for the moment. She’d honestly never expected the Theocracy to break and run. They’d rarely retreated and never surrendered, regardless of the odds.

  “Put the missiles on a ballistic trajectory and angle them towards the planet,” she ordered finally. “And set us on a course to follow them.”

  She keyed her console, checking the live feed from the stealthed drones. The enemy had picked off several of them, but a number remained intact, broadcasting back from the very heart of the enemy defenses. There was plenty of data now, allowing the tactical staff to isolate the ground-based PDCs and select potential landing sites. The marines on the Chesty Puller—she couldn’t help glancing at the ring on her finger—would have plenty of time to pick their landing site and establish a spacehead.

  “A handful of enemy gunboats are returning to the planet,” Wheeler reported. “They don’t seem to have many more ships in orbit.”

  “Good,” Kat said. “Prepare to engage.”

  Speaker Nehemiah had never liked the pit, the command bunker buried deep beneath the Tabernacle. It was as luxurious as any other part of the building, but there was something about the bunker that bothered him. Mankind wasn’t meant to live so far below the ground, so far below the sun and moon. But the pit was also the safest place on the planet. Nothing short of a planet-buster would crack the solid armor over their heads, while there were a dozen escape tunnels leading in all directions.

  The command chamber was
dominated by a massive hologram, showing hundreds of red icons slowly advancing towards the planet. Nehemiah was no military expert, but even he knew that was bad news. The enemy fleet had been hurt and hurt badly, yet it hadn’t been hurt enough. They were still advancing towards the orbital defenses.

  “Picking up a message,” an operator said. “It’s aimed directly at the orbital battlestations.”

  Nehemiah had no interest in talking to an unbeliever, but he had to know what his subordinates might be hearing. The last two days had been spent emplacing enforcers at all levels, a measure that would annoy commanders and military officers who’d clung with grim determination to what little independence they had. Some of them might just see value in listening to the unbelievers.

  “Put it through,” he ordered.

  “. . . is the Commonwealth Navy 6th Fleet,” a male voice said. “Your superdreadnoughts have fled, your orbital defenses are at our mercy. The war is over. Surrender now and we promise you your lives . . .”

  Nehemiah clenched his teeth. If he trusted the Commonwealth . . . but he didn’t trust the Commonwealth. And even if he did try to surrender, he knew the fanatics would oppose him with all their might. He wasn’t blind to the infiltration of new Inquisitors into the bunker or the upper levels of the building. The speakers might have already lost control over the Theocracy.

  “No reply,” he ordered when the message finally started to repeat itself. “We will continue to fight.”

  “They haven’t replied to our message,” Wheeler said. “There’s no sign they’re considering a surrender.”

  Kat nodded. The fleet was slowing as it approached firing range, careful to give the antimatter storage depot and the shipyards a wide berth. She had a feeling the former was probably empty, but there was no point in taking chances. Below her, the enemy defenses were coming to life, probing space and systematically targeting her ships. They were ready to give a good account of themselves.

  “Send in the gunboats,” she ordered.

  “Aye, Commodore,” Wheeler said.

  “Now this,” Lieutenant Tombs said, “is what I call a target-rich environment.”

  Isabel couldn’t disagree. There were so many automated weapons platforms holding position over Ahura Mazda that she had the feeling she could have gotten out of the gunboat and practically walked around the planet. And, below them, the giant battlestations were just waiting for the fleet to come into range before opening fire. But they hadn’t bargained on the gunboats.

  “Fire at will,” she ordered.

  The gunboats zoomed down into the planet’s orbital space, their crews jinking from side to side to avoid a hail of point defense fire. Tombs fired time and time again, blasting automated platforms out of space with wild abandon. Below them, other squadrons ducked through the defenses and launched giant shipkillers towards the battlestations. A number of gunboats blinked out of existence, but the survivors were more than enough to inflict real damage on the stations. And the stations had no opportunity to target their real tormentors.

  “We’re going to run out of space on the hull,” Tombs observed as he killed yet another automated weapons platform. Its partner swung around and opened fire, forcing Isabel to dodge before the attack killed her and her partner. “There just isn’t room for each and every platform I’ve killed.”

  “They’ll probably decide they don’t count,” Isabel said. She yanked the gunboat to one side as a missile shot past her, its targeting sensors locking onto the nearest battlestation. “Or we’ll just have to paint a number on the hull instead.”

  She caught sight of the planet and felt a surge of hatred. Ahura Mazda was the homeworld of a nightmarish religion, a monster that would kill unless it was killed. Part of her wanted to rain antimatter bombs on the surface until it cracked, the entire planet shattering into an asteroid cluster that would eventually fall into the local star. She’d been told there were innocents down there, innocents trapped and made helpless, yet those innocents had chosen not to question, not to resist.

  “Fuckers,” she snarled. Two more automated platforms died in fire. “Damn them to hell.”

  “The battlestations are taking damage,” Wheeler reported. “But they’re still holding the line.”

  Kat nodded. “Launch the ballistic missiles,” she ordered. “And prime them for engagement at close range.”

  She leaned back in her command chair and watched, grimly, as the missiles fell towards the planet below. There was one great weakness in wrapping so many defenses around a planet, she knew. The defenses were at the bottom of a gravity well. She could keep firing missiles down towards the battlestations, secure in the knowledge they couldn’t fire back at her. And with the gunboats tearing through the orbital sensor nodes, the Theocrats would have real problems defending themselves.

  “Squadrons Seven and Eight are requesting permission to target the enemy industrial nodes,” Wheeler reported. “Orders?”

  “Denied,” Kat said. “Concentrate fire on the orbital battlestations.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” Wheeler said.

  Kat smiled as the first battlestation shattered, explosions ripping it apart. Great clouds of debris flew in all directions, a multitude heading down towards the planet below. The enemy PDCs opened fire, breaking the debris up into smaller chunks before the detritus could make it through the atmosphere and do real damage. She allowed herself a moment of pure relief, then cursed under her breath as a stray missile struck an asteroid habitat. The structure disintegrated, raining more debris on Ahura Mazda.

  “The other battlestations are launching missiles,” Wheeler reported.

  They’re desperate, Kat thought. The battlestations could not hit her ships with powered missiles, not at their current range. But if they threw enough missiles, they might just score a hit when the missiles went ballistic. They know they’re losing.

  “Repeat the message,” she ordered. “And continue firing.”

  No response came as the planet’s orbital defenses were slowly hacked apart, chunk after chunk of debris falling into the planet’s atmosphere. Kat had a feeling that introducing so much material into the biosphere wouldn’t do the planet any good at all, although she found it hard to care. Her sensors tracked a number of smaller pieces dropping down and striking the surface, some landing in the ocean and setting off tidal waves. She hoped the locals had enough sense to head inland, but she doubted the Theocracy would bother to warn them, let alone give them permission to flee. They’d be nothing more than useless mouths, draining their resources.

  “Picking up additional targeting sensors,” Wheeler said. He blinked in surprise. “They’re moving a superdreadnought out of the shipyard!”

  Kat glanced at him. “Show me.”

  The display altered, showing her one of the enemy shipyards. A half-finished superdreadnought was slowly inching out of the docking slip, its tactical sensors already coming online. She stared in utter disbelief. The ship didn’t seem to have shields. Did it even have any weapons? She was torn between admiration for the crew’s determination not to give up and grim horror. Didn’t they know their ship was a sitting duck?

  “Her drives are at quarter-power,” Wheeler reported. “I don’t think she has shields.”

  “Target her,” Kat ordered. “Fire.”

  She mentally saluted the enemy officers as her missiles plummeted towards the superdreadnought, even though she had no idea what they’d hoped to accomplish before their deaths. Soak up a few more of her missiles? Or just give their ship a better sendoff than being killed in her docking slip? Or keep her from being captured? Explosions blasted through the incomplete ship, wiping her out of existence. Kat closed her eyes for a long moment, then dismissed the matter. There would be time to sweep up the debris later.

  “Target destroyed,” Wheeler stated.

  “Continue sweeping orbital space,” Kat ordered. “Do you have solid locks on their PDCs?”

  “Yes, Commodore,” Wheeler said. “There’s a
lot of them.”

  “And they’re all heavily shielded,” Kat mused as she studied the display. The Theocracy hadn’t stinted on ground-based defenses either. “We can’t take them out without doing vast damage to the planet.”

  She scowled. Most of the PDCs were easy to spot, but she was sure there were other ground-based stations that were carefully hidden. Picking off the military bases would be easy enough, yet she drew the line at dropping KEWs within a heavily populated city. She might have to make that choice, eventually, but not now.

  “Pass the updated information to Chesty Puller,” she ordered. “Inform them they can move as soon as the last orbital battlestation is gone.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” Wheeler said.

  Kat felt nothing, nothing at all, as the last battlestation writhed under her fire. The enemy had to know their position was hopeless, they had to know their world was naked and defenseless, yet they insisted on sacrificing the lives of thousands of their loyal defenders. She understood defiance, she understood determination, and yet, there were limits. Hundreds of thousands of men had died for nothing. Cold logic told her that their deaths would serve a greater purpose, that they wouldn’t be around to resist the Commonwealth after the war, but she didn’t want to embrace such thinking. The men had been sacrificed for nothing.

  And then the final battlestation vanished from the display.

  “Target destroyed,” Wheeler said. “All observed enemy defenses have been destroyed.”

  “Load targeting patterns for ground-based defenses,” Kat ordered. If nothing else, watching military bases be smashed from orbit might push the Theocracy’s population to rebel. “And fire on my command.”

  “Keep firing,” Nehemiah ordered.

  “They’re out of range of ground-based weapons,” an operator said. “The orbital defenses have been destroyed.”

  Nehemiah turned to glare at Inquisitor Samuilu. “What now?”