Admiral Sahrye Yamani winced in pain as Admiral Yeltsin returned to normal space. She had never expected to be promoted, nor to be given such a big responsibility. But there were few experienced officers available and she had won a victory, of sorts. Public Information’s designated shills had already started turning her into a heroine, informing the public that she had won the greatest victory in history. Sahrye was mildly surprised that they hadn’t included the claim she’d faced the rebel CO in single combat and won, but no doubt it was just a matter of time. Public Information was not known for understating anything.
“Enemy fleet is in the projected zone,” the tactical officer reported, as the display lit up with red lights. “They’re altering formation now.”
But they’re out of place, Sahrye thought. They’d been so intensely focused on the Morrison Fleet that they would have to alter their formation to bring most of their weapons to bear on her fleet. We have a chance…
“Lock weapons on the enemy superdreadnaughts,” she said, as if that hadn’t been standing orders from the start. “Fire as soon as you have viable locks.”
“Enemy superdreadnaughts opening fire,” the sensor officer said. “Arsenal ships are holding back.”
“Weapons locked on target,” the tactical officer said. “Admiral?”
“Fire,” Sahrye ordered.
Her superdreadnaughts fired in unison, flushing their external racks and then unloading their inner tubes. Thousands of missiles roared into space, heading directly towards the enemy starships. Their smaller craft hastily started to move, placing themselves and their point defence between the missiles and the superdreadnaughts, but they were badly out of place. It would take several minutes to completely reconfigure their formation and they didn’t have the time.
Sahrye’s own smaller ships fanned out, their point defence already seeking targets. The enemy missile swarm might have been thinner than they’d been expecting, but it was deadly enough to inflict real damage. Would they try to strip away her point defence cover or go directly for the superdreadnaughts? She watched as the missiles sorted themselves out, then threw themselves at the larger ships. It seemed the rebels had decided that her superdreadnaughts were the logical targets.
“Admiral,” the communications officer said, “Admiral Wachter is deploying Omega.”
Sahrye smiled. She was the only person on the ship who knew what Omega was, after a very private briefing with Admiral Wachter. The rebels were in for a very nasty surprise if they tried to flicker out, once they realised that they might have bitten off more than they could chew. Unless, of course, they decided to be stupid and jump anyway…
“Understood,” she said, out loud. There was always a time when careful planning and forethought gave way to action. “Keep us pressing against their lines.”
She allowed her smile to widen. Admiral Wachter’s fleet was climbing up from the planet’s gravity shadow, while her own was moving forward like a dagger to plunge into the rebel side. And, if the rebels couldn’t jump out, they would have to alter course sharply and flee, allowing the Imperial Navy a chance to combine its two formations and give chase. This time, the rebels were facing superior firepower…
“Enemy missiles entering point defence engagement range,” the tactical officer rapped out. “Defences engaging… now!”
Colin silently cursed the enemy commander under his breath as the incoming missiles roared into his formation. With his smaller ships so badly out of place, there was relatively little point defence covering his superdreadnaughts, which had to fend for themselves. They were still part of the datanet, still combining their firepower for maximum advantage, but they couldn’t put out the sheer volley of fire they needed to protect themselves. The enemy didn’t look to have made any major improvements in their seeker heads, yet it didn’t matter. Their targets were far too obvious.
He watched, grimly, as his ships started to take damage. Superdreadnaughts were tough, but there were limits to how many missiles they could absorb before their shields started to fail and allow missiles to strike their hulls. Several ships staggered under colossal blows, one leaking plasma so badly it fell out of formation before vanishing into a fireball. There were no lifepods, as far as Colin could tell. Even if there were, abandoning ship in the midst of a battle ran the risk of being mistaken for a sensor drone or small weapon and being picked off by one side or the other. And then, the Empire would be unlikely to take prisoners — or keep them alive very long, if it did.
“Enemy-one is entering missile range,” the tactical officer said. “They’re locking missiles on us.”
“Flush the arsenal ships at them,” Colin ordered, “then order the arsenal ships to flicker out.”
New icons flared into life on the display as the arsenal ships opened fire. Hundreds of thousands of missiles roared out of his formation, plunging down towards Enemy-one. He could have sworn he saw the enemy formation hesitate, even though it was probably a product of his imagination rather than anything else. There were enough missiles in flight to inflict serious damage, no matter how effectively they’d prepared their point defence. Enough, perhaps, to cripple the enemy fleet…
“Force-one is opening fire,” the tactical officer said. He frowned, puzzled. “Sir, they’re deploying gunboats along with the missiles.”
“Curious,” Colin muttered. Gunboats had no place in fleet combat, everyone knew that. But the enemy commander had already proven himself a wily bastard. No doubt he had something clever up his sleeve. “Ramp up the point defence, then launch spoiler missiles.”
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.
Colin gritted his teeth. The enemy timing hadn’t been perfect, but it had been close enough not to matter. If he turned to deal with one enemy formation, trusting in his firepower advantage, the second one would attack from the rear, catching him between two enemy forces. His firepower advantage would be useless if he had to defend against two fleets at once. But the only alternative was to retreat…
“Alter course,” he ordered, grimly. Perhaps they could pretend to retreat, deliberately allowing the enemy to combine their two forces into one combined force. Then he could bring back the reloaded arsenal ships and hammer the enemy before they diverged again. His hands danced over his console, designating vectors. “Take us away from the planet.”
A dull shudder ran through the superdreadnaught as a missile struck home. His flagship had been lucky, Colin realised, as he pulled back and surveyed the damage. Three superdreadnaughts were definitely limping, with several more badly damaged. He might have to slow his fleet if he wanted to keep them with him, which would give the enemy a chance to catch up. Whoever was in charge on Morrison, he decided, had played his cards very well. Perhaps it was time, instead, to cut his losses and retreat.
“The arsenal ships are gone, sir,” the coordinator said. “They’ll be back within thirty minutes.”
Colin smiled, although there was little humour in the expression. Endless practice had cut the reloading times down to barely fifteen minutes per ship. The Empire couldn’t have matched it, but then the Empire had never seen the point of building ships that were basically missile carriers and little else. Besides, once the arsenal ships had shot their load, there was little else they could do.
He forced himself to watch as the second wave of enemy missiles approached his formation. A retreat under fire — and that was what they were doing, even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself — was hellishly complex at the best of times. Now, with missiles approaching from two different vectors, it was nightmarish. And then there were the enemy gunboats… what the hell were they doing? No one in their right mind would put gunboats in a major fleet action…
“The enemy fleet is turning away,” the tactical officer reported.
Penny nodded. The enemy might be altering course, but they’d fired a missile swarm of missiles towards the Morrison Fleet first. There were not only enough missiles to do serious damage, but also threaten the planet’s orbital industries if they got past the fleet. She gritted her teeth as the missiles flashed into the point defence engagement envelope, then started to vanish one by one. The improvements were definitely working, she noted; the ruthless drills the point defence crews had undergone were paying off. But enough missiles got through to take out three superdreadnaughts and heavily damage two more.
“General Pike and Admiral Villeneuve have taken heavy damage,” the coordinator reported, grimly. “Villeneuve requests permission to fall out of formation.”
Wachter glanced down at his console, then nodded. “Tell her to return to planetary orbit,” he ordered. “She may have to be scrapped completely.”
Penny winced. The icons on the display were nothing more than coloured lights, hiding the sheer hell that had been unleashed inside Villeneuve. Her compartments had been ripped open, depressurising large parts of the ship and taking out most of her drives. It was a testament to the sheer scale of redundancy built into superdreadnaughts that she hadn’t been destroyed, although it was a very lucky escape. As it was, Wachter was probably right. It would be cheaper to build a new superdreadnaught than repair Villeneuve.
“The gunboats are closing in,” she reported, looking down at her own console. “The command links seem to be working.”
“Good,” Wachter said. He grinned at her, then looked back at his console. “Continue pursuit.”
“The enemy missiles are showing an improved targeting capability,” the analyst muttered, through the intercom. “I don’t understand how…”
Colin looked at the display… and understood. “The gunboats,” he said, shortly. “They’re actually using the gunboats to help steer their missiles.”
Historically, the Imperial Navy had worked hard to improve seeker heads for its missiles, but they’d run up against some hard limitations. Building advanced seekers were either immensely costly or far too obvious to starship-mounted passive sensors, which then ordered the point defence to pick those missiles off first. And no one in their right mind wanted to risk a starship so close to the enemy formation.
But using gunboats worked… indeed, it was so obvious that Colin had to wonder why no one had ever thought of it before. Perhaps someone had, he speculated, and the beancounters had objected. Gunboats were too expensive to waste, they’d probably argued, even without outfitting them with better sensor suites and communication links. Hell, one could build a whole corvette for the price of a handful of gunboats. But whoever was in charge at Morrison had decided that the expense could go hang.
“The gunboats,” he said. But how to deal with them? The tiny ships were hanging on the edge of his point defence envelope; they’d dart out of range if anyone came after them. They were far faster than destroyers, let alone ponderous superdreadnaughts. “Target them with shipkiller missiles, then open fire.”
The tactical officer glanced up. “Sir?”
Colin understood his surprise. They were trading fire with at least fifty superdreadnaughts — the analysts weren’t sure if there were more, although Colin suspected that the enemy wouldn’t hold back now — and yet Colin wanted to fire on gunboats with missiles designed to take out capital ships? But there was no alternative. The gunboats could take control of enemy missiles and steer them towards their targets. It gave the enemy a major advantage…
“Use missiles to take out the gunboats,” he ordered. “Hurry.”
“They’re firing on the gunboats, sir,” the tactical officer said.
Wachter glanced over at Penny. “Took them longer than I expected to catch on,” he said. “But no matter.”
Penny nodded. Losing a handful of gunboats, no matter how expensive, was better than losing an entire starship. The two formations were slowly starting to converge into one, settling down to give chase to the rebels… assuming, of course, the rebels didn’t try to jump out. Had they tried? There was no way to know.
She watched as the remaining gunboats vanished from the display, then followed the progress of the next swarm of missiles as it flashed towards the enemy formation. The enemy were taking damage, all right. A battering match would be unpleasant for both sides, but the Morrison Fleet was right next to its repair yards while the rebels would have to travel thousands of light years to find a usable shipyard. And, by that time, the counteroffensive could begin.
General Clive rocked, violently. “Two direct hits,” the damage control officer reported. “We took minor damage to sectors…”
Penny looked over at Wachter. He didn’t seem bothered at all. Percival had been a coward, hiding on his giant space station, but Wachter had led his fleet into battle. If nothing else, Penny realised, he had more than earned his subordinates’ loyalty by sharing the same risks.
“The question,” Wachter said, “is do they know about Omega? And is it actually working?”
Penny nodded in agreement. From the handful of tests they’d performed, Omega seemed to work… as long as the original safety interlocks were still in place. The rebels knew that they were dangerously inferior to the Empire in raw numbers; logically, they would search for ways to improve their starships and technology. If they could get time between flickers down sharply, it would give them a major advantage. But that would mean removing the safety interlocks the Empire had installed.
“We won’t know,” she said. The rebels might just have calculated that a battering match would work in their favour, rather than withdrawing from the system. “We won’t ever know.”
“We shall see,” Wachter said. He cleared his throat, then looked over at the coordinators. “The fleet is to press the enemy closely.”
Penny smiled. “Energy range?”
“It won’t do any harm to let them think that’s what we have in mind,” Wachter said. “Besides, we need to press them as hard as possible.”
Colin hated to lose. It had been his determination to win that had guided him to then-Commodore Percival… and his determination not to let Percival destroy his career and future that had led him to mutiny. He took a certain amount of pride in winning far more battles, both real and simulated, than he’d lost. But the mystery CO of Morrison had beaten him, hands down. Colin scowled at the display, then reluctantly conceded defeat. There was no point in pressing the matter further.
The Imperial Navy was settling in for a long chase, exchanging volleys of missile fire with his ships. They were even gaining on the rebels, thanks to the number of damaged starships in Colin’s fleet. Given time, they would claw their way into energy range and rip his remaining ships apart. The Imperial Navy could afford to take the losses, Colin and the rebels could not. If they lost their superdreadnaughts, they lost all hope of victory.
“General signal to all ships,” he ordered. “We will jump out to the first waypoint in two minutes, then proceed to the second waypoint.”
He considered vectors for a long minute as the fleet acknowledged his command. For once, the Imperial Navy would have an excellent chance of following his ships through a jump. It would be chancy, he knew, but the enemy CO had shown no hesitation to take risks in exchange for a shot at Colin’s ships. Colin would have to repower his flicker drives at once and jump again, hoping his ships could escape before the enemy ran the calculations and jumped after them. Could they do it in time?
There was no way to know, he knew. There were just too many variables.
The superdreadnaught rang like a bell as four more missiles crashed against her shields. Long tendrils of energy reached through the failing force shields to caress her hull, brilliant red lights blinked up on the status display. Damage control teams were already on their way, Colin saw, but there were limits to what they could do. At least his teams were better than the enemy’s, if the long-range sensor reports were to be believed. The enemy didn’t seem to be as quick at repairing minor damage as the rebel ships. But it was impossible to be sure.
“All ships report ready to jump, sir,” the tactical officer reported.
Colin mentally saluted his opponent. Whoever he was, he had played a good game. And won. For a moment, he wondered what would happen to the enemy CO. If he was an aristocrat, he was likely to be removed from his position quickly, for fear of him becoming another Empress. And if he wasn’t, he was likely to end up dead.
“Jump,” he ordered.
Alarms rang through the hull. “Sir, the flicker drive is refusing to activate,” the tactical officer reported. He sounded shocked. “We’re caught in a gravity field!”
Colin’s eyes snapped to the display, but he already knew what he would see. Morrison was the closest gravity well… and yet they were already far outside the planet’s gravity shadow. For a moment, he found himself wondering if the enemy had managed to cloak a whole planet before dismissing the thought as completely impossible. A planet could be knocked out of orbit or blown into asteroids — the Empire had done both during the First Interstellar War — but not cloaked. The power requirements would be far beyond even the most advanced technology.
And yet they were trapped.
“Swing the smaller ships behind us to boost our point defence,” he ordered. If they were trapped… what if the Empire had managed to create an artificial gravity field? Why were the Geeks and Nerds the only people who could innovate? They weren’t — but the Empire rarely innovated. Everything else the enemy CO had shown them had been cunning uses of well-known technology. “And then continue firing.”
He thought, desperately. It had to be a trick. If the Empire could prevent starships from flickering out, it would have deployed the technology long ago.
But how the hell was it done?