by Terry Mixon
Brad spent most of the three days en route to the intercept trying not to visibly pace where Incredible’s crew could see him. The eight ships with him were a subset of a subset of his fleet, but the fate of the entire Jupiter planetary system could ride on them.
He trusted Bailey to intercept some of the weapons, but the ships he’d left at Jupiter would be intercepting inside the chaos of Jupiter orbit. Their efficiency would be drastically reduced compared to catching them in deep space.
“We’ve got them,” Nah’s reported interrupted his determinedly sitting still. “On the course Hades projected, four hundred and eighty-five thousand kilometers ahead of us.”
“Intercept?” Brad asked grimly.
“We’ll enter range in six hours. We’ll pass within five hundred kilometers at our closest approach, but we’ll only be in range for about fifteen minutes.”
“It’ll have to be enough,” Brad replied. He updated his repeater screens, zooming in on the missiles.
Falcone had identified their course perfectly, but she hadn’t managed to ID every individual missile. Hades’s crew had estimated thirty to forty missiles.
Brad was looking at sixty-two. He couldn’t let any of them through.
“I know our hit probabilities suck with the big guns and torps,” he told Nah quietly. “We’re going to use them anyway. If it can fire, point it at those horrors and pull the trigger. Understand me, Captain?”
“Understood, sir.” Nah shook her head. “We’re not going to stop them all, sir. Not unless you have a miracle in your back pocket.”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Brad replied. It was moments like this that he wished he’d sent Bailey instead. Despite his demonstrated success as a fleet commander, he was cold-bloodedly certain that the ex-Martian Squadron Commodore was better than him.
Maybe she’d have seen something he didn’t. Right now, he had to hope that she could backstop his failures.
This wasn’t even a regular space battle, where he knew there were humans on the other side. The human involvement in this attack was already over. There weren’t even computers involved now. The missiles were set on a fixed course and would be set off by a pressure sensor.
No software. No humans. Just cold physics.
And one evil bastard who’d pulled the trigger.
“Firing…now.”
Incredible lurched beneath Brad’s feet as every one of her multitude of weapons fired simultaneously.
Fifteen-centimeter mass drivers and torpedoes had no place in this mission, but they fired anyway. The seven escorts opened fire as well, their smaller mass drivers joining in with the cascade from Incredible’s secondaries and their torpedoes joining the swarm.
Brad’s ships were hurtling across the missiles’ path. When they reached their closest approach, they were right in front of the weapons. Along the way, they laid down a hail of mass-driver slugs and torpedoes that looked almost thick enough to walk across.
The reality of space combat, though, was that there was nowhere near as many rounds out there as it felt like. Missiles died, but for every slug or torpedo that hit, Brad’s people fired a thousand useless shots.
They passed the missiles in space and his flotilla rotated, continuing to send fire after the enemy weapons for as long as they could.
When they finally slid out of range, Brad went over the data.
“Eleven, sir,” Nah said quietly, before Brad had even finished double-checking his numbers. “We got fifty-one and there are eleven penetrators still headed to Jupiter.”
“Send every ship in Jupiter orbit every scrap of data we have,” Brad ordered. “Not one missile gets though. Not one.”
By the time the missiles began approaching Ganymede, Brad hadn’t slept in about forty-eight hours. There wasn’t anything he could do from this distance—his ships were only starting to reach zero velocity relative to Jupiter—but he had to see.
If a world was going to die on his watch, he owed it to his people to see it happen.
With more time, more hulls, and more deployment restrictions, Bailey had still managed to set up a multi-tiered defense around Ganymede. The destroyers under the Commodore’s direct command formed the inner shield, dozens of mercenary and fleet ships forming a screen in front of the planet.
Then the cruisers made the next layer, twenty thousand kilometers farther out.
Then there were four layers of corvettes and frigates. Fleet, mercenary, and militia were hopelessly intermingled, but those hundred-odd smaller ships were Ganymede’s best hope.
The first layer wiped out four of the missiles and Brad held his breath for a few seconds, daring to hope that the rest would be as lucky. If they were, this entire threat would be over in moments.
The first layer, though, had been far enough out that the interference of Jupiter’s rings and other debris wasn’t affecting them yet. The rest weren’t.
A single missile died to the second layer. The third layer got two. The fourth didn’t get any and the cruisers nailed two more.
Two missiles charged toward the destroyers. They were hard to detect, hard to track, but Bailey’s ships gamely tried. The projections on Incredible’s screens intersected…and then the missile icons were gone.
“Everlit…what did she do?”
Brad heard Nah’s murmured comment and focused on the ships—to see a crimson circle around Commodore Sonja Gold’s All That Glitters.
“Commodore Gold maneuvered her ship to intercept the last missile…with her ship,” one of the sensor techs reported. “The warhead has not detonated—repeat, the warhead has not detonated.”
But All That Glitters now had a ten-meter-long tungsten spike embedded in her hull…and Brad wasn’t sure how patient the nuke actually was.
“Get her people off that ship!” he barked.
There was nothing he could do at this range except bark orders. Shuttles and lifepods started to spew from All That Glitters. Enough for a third of her crew…half…two-thirds.
By any math Brad could run, though, at least a third of the destroyer’s crew were still aboard when the two-hundred-megaton nuke went off in contact with her hull.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“She was an idiot,” Bailey said bluntly. “An abrasive, rough-edged, tactically clever idiot.”
“And she saved Ganymede,” Brad reminded her. “Did Gold survive?”
He was still ten hours out from Jupiter orbit, but the cleanup effort was done. Only the one ship had been lost. Ganymede went unpoisoned, and as soon as Brad’s flotilla returned to orbit, First Fleet was effectively concentrated at Jupiter.
There were still six older frigates in the trailing Trojan cluster supporting the Marines, but Papadakis had chosen her support carefully. Star-class frigates were small and under-gunned for even their size by modern standards. They were, however, perfectly capable of dropping mass-driver slugs wherever the Marines and ground troops needed them.
They wouldn’t be missed in the fleet action to come.
“Commodore Gold was not aboard All That Glitters when the nuke went off,” Bailey told him with a sigh. “Instead, she was with the engineering team outside Glitters’ hull that was trying to disarm the nuke.
“Most likely, she and her engineers never even knew they’d failed,” the Fleet Commodore concluded. “Her number two was Glitters’ captain, and he refused to evacuate his own ship, so he’s gone. I’m not sure who that leaves in charge of the Goldmisers long-term, but her senior surviving captain has taken temporary command.”
“I’m guessing they’ll inherit?” Brad asked.
“She doesn’t seem to think so,” Bailey told him. “And from the woman’s record, I wouldn’t in her place either. She’s a surprisingly decent captain, but a follower by nature. I doubt Gold didn’t know that.”
He sighed.
“We’ll be in place in ten hours,” he said. “Make sure the Fleet is fully restocked by the time we arrive. I’ll want Incredible and her escorts res
tocked ASAP.”
“You can have this damn command back anytime you want,” she said. “A few seconds’ time delay isn’t enough to keep you out of the loop at this point.”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“What, you’re not enjoying commanding the largest space fleet ever?” he asked.
“Madrid, if I’m still in charge when your forever-cursed brother makes his move, I’ll have to lead the largest space battle ever, and I’ll pass on that poisoned cup, thanks.”
Brad snorted.
“You’re probably better qualified than I am,” he told her. He was relying on that, in fact.
“I’d agree, but I don’t want to hang that millstone around my own neck,” Bailey replied. “Get your bestarred butt back to Jupiter and resume command, sir.
“And bring some clever ideas with you, or I’m stuck at ‘lure Immortal into range of the guns guarding Ganymede’.”
For the same reason that the OWA had launched the poisoning attack, the Fleet had long ago installed cruiser-grade heavy mass drivers above the main water-refining facilities. Those fifteen-centimeter batteries had twice the firepower of any of Brad’s cruisers, but they were still nothing compared to the fifty-centimeter batteries aboard Immortal.
“That isn’t enough,” he admitted quietly. “Is Hades back yet?”
“She’ll be here roughly when you are,” Bailey told him. “That’ll still leave them with the edge in carriers.”
“But we have more cruisers, and nobody thinks this battle is going to turn on the corvettes and frigates,” he replied. “Without Immortal, everyone knows how this fight would end.”
“Yeah, but your brother has Immortal. And we don’t.”
Brad smiled grimly.
“We have a plan,” he admitted. “It’s even more idiotic than Gold’s stunt…but it might be our only hope.”
“If you’ve got an only hope, Madrid, that’s one more hope than I’ve got,” she told him.
“It’s probably suicide,” Brad said.
“Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem,” Bailey said quietly. “The only hope of the damned is to give up hope for survival.”
Brad watched First Fleet gather around Incredible as she entered orbit of Ganymede, and marveled to himself. He’d been amazed enough when he’d first commanded an entire squadron’s worth of destroyers.
Now destroyers were barely worth counting in the balance of power. Three drone carriers and ten cruisers formed the core of his fleet, with over a hundred lesser vessels gathered around them—and the third drone carrier had shown up late, with a scratch crew built from the leftovers of four carriers.
It was the largest concentration of ships he’d ever seen in his life—and that was including both the Martian Squadron and the Earth Defense Force.
The only thing he was lacking to rival either of those forces was a battleship…and unfortunately, his enemy had a similar strength and had a battleship.
“I’ll want the Fleet Commodores, Buckley, and Kernsky aboard as soon as possible,” he instructed his staff. “If we can break Falcone away from her ship as well, that would be best.”
“Of course, sir.”
Brad studied the moon beneath him and sighed. His charge was to defend Jupiter, but it was almost impossible to defend a fixed target against an enemy willing to engage in attacks with long-range weapons of mass destruction.
Time was his ally in theory, but he didn’t know what resources the Outer Worlds Alliance commanded. Even Jupiter had yards that could build destroyers and corvettes—his own Vikings ships had mostly been built here.
They’d expand quickly, he was grimly certain. However this war ended, Jupiter was no longer going to trust the Fleet to protect them. There would be Jupiter-built cruisers soon enough.
The Commonwealth would answer that with Earth-built battleships…and Jupiter would match those. Even if the OWA was somehow rendered quiet and cooperative, the next decade would see new fleets and new warships built.
For half a century, humanity had had three battleships. Brad would put a significant quantity of money on the bet that that number would be doubled in a few years…which would also leave him with an unenviable question.
His commission was from the Commonwealth, but his heart was with Jupiter. If the Commonwealth and Jupiter clashed, whose flag would he fly under?
It was a problem for the future…for a future where the Phoenix was defeated and the Solar System made safe. Brad was grimly certain, though, that the genie wasn’t going back in the bottle.
By negotiating with Jupiter as an equal, he and Senator Barnes had accepted that there were going to be three nations going forward. The OWA couldn’t be brought back into the fold without more bloodshed than Brad was prepared to engage in, and Jupiter was going to walk away now.
It fell to Brad to give those nations a chance to grow and flourish on their own—to let the OWA become a true alliance, not a dictatorship. To let Jupiter decide how they wanted to go forward. To, perhaps, force the Commonwealth to accept a position as first among equals instead of the unquestioned master.
He only saw one way to make that happen…and if the price was his life, what was a future for all humanity worth?
Chapter Thirty-Six
Brad sat at the head of the conference room table as officer after officer filed in. Fleet took up one side of the table, with Bailey, Jahoda, and Nuremberg settling in with neat military decorum.
Across from them were Rear Admiral Kernsky, Commodore Buckley, and Commodore Hunt. Two mercenaries and the generally accepted senior officer of the Jovian Militia.
At the far end, facing Brad and looking as shattered as he felt, was Agent Kate Falcone.
“There’s a lot of Commodores around this table,” Brad said with a chuckle. “Fortunately, that thought occurred to me in advance.”
Given the way he knew the rest of this meeting was going to go, opening up with gifts was a good idea from his perspective—and if that should leave his subordinates looking for the other shoe, well, they weren’t wrong.
“Firstly, I had Blaze run what should have been obvious by the Council of Governors,” he told them. “They gave me the chance to play Santa, so here you go…Admiral Buckley.”
He slid the doubled stars of a Rear Admiral across the table to Giles Buckley. The rotund man flashed a surprised smile but put on the insignia.
“And, since it would be far too much of a headache to have militia and mercenary Admirals running around Fleet Commodores…Nuremberg, catch.”
Brad tossed an identical box of two stars to Iris Nuremberg. Her gaze was suspicious as she put them on, trading a look with Jahoda.
“Nuremberg, you’ll take overall command of the cruiser force, with Jahoda commanding your second squadron,” he told them. “All of you will be coordinating with Bailey here.”
If Nuremberg’s gaze was suspicious, Bailey’s was outright paranoid. He hadn’t handed her stars yet, but he’d just implied that everyone would be working with her.
“I talked to Admiral Orcho,” he noted as he met Bailey’s gaze. “Only the cloud of suspicion that fell over everyone after Immortal’s defection held up your promotion, so bumping you to Rear Admiral didn’t make sense to either of us.
“We’re officially declaring you the second-in-command of First Fleet, Vice Admiral Bailey.”
He slid the box of stars over to her and she looked down at it like it was about to grow fangs and bite her.
“This is a trap,” she said bluntly. “What are you setting me up for, Madrid?”
“Your fucking job, Angel,” Falcone said from the other end of the table. “Shut up and take the stars.”
Bailey’s suspicion flared to anger, and she glared at Falcone. The women knew each other…but not well enough for either of them to be using the other’s first name!
“Both of you, calm down,” Brad ordered. “You are the most experienced officer here, Admiral Bailey—and I don’t exempt myself from that ca
lculation. I need you at my right hand, not looking for knives in your back. Am I clear?”
“You’re clear. Sir.” Bailey took the stars and turned her glare on Brad. “And since you’ve just neatly set up an answer to who is in command if you charge off to do something damned stupid, what are you planning?”
Brad laughed. Bailey, it seemed, knew him well enough to guess what was coming.
He tapped a command that lit up the screen behind Falcone. On one side of the screen were icons representing his First Fleet. On the other was a different set of icons—also marked First Fleet, as if the situation needed more confusing.
“Ladies, gentlemen, this is the current estimated order of battle of our First Fleet and the OWA’s First Fleet,” he said quietly. “We have twice as many cruisers; they have an extra carrier on us. Escorts are a wash—we have a few more, but theirs are more modern.
“In a head-to-head clash of the two fleets, we would win without question,” he told them. “Except, of course, for Immortal.”
The icon for the battleship was to scale, which meant it was nearly ten times the size of the icons representing the cruisers.
“Immortal has as many fifteen-centimeter and lighter mass drivers as any five of our cruisers,” he reminded them. “On top of that, she has six turreted fifty-centimeter superheavy guns.
“Nothing in our fleet can take a hit from those guns and survive.” He shook his head. “Immortal alone could defeat our fleet. The rest of the OWA’s First Fleet just makes sure.
“We cannot face the Phoenix’s battle fleet and win.”
“There are options,” Buckley interjected. “We already have facilities working on assembling several seventy-five-centimeter cannons for orbital deployment.”
That was the first time Brad had heard about that. It tied disturbingly into his fears for the future, but he doubted it would turn the tide today.