Democracy's Right

Chapter Thirty-Six

Colin watched, as dispassionately as he could, as the first salvo of missiles from the superdreadnaughts roared into the teeth of his point defence. Missile after missile vanished as the datanet designated them as targets and picked them off, but there were always other missiles to take their place. The enemy commander had been canny enough to load his external racks before arriving at Greenland and it had given him the throw weight to take a massive toll on Colin’s systems. A handful of missiles slipped through the defence network and slammed against the shields, shaking the massive superdreadnaught as they struggled to remain on an even keel.

“No damage, but shields were nearly overloaded,” the tactical officer warned. Colin nodded, sourly. The tactical instructors at the Academy had warned them, time and time again, that the opening barrage was the most important and he’d wasted his opening barrage on the orbital fortress. It was damaged — the superdreadnaughts had hit it quite badly — but it couldn’t actually give chase. Moving with ponderous inevitability, the enemy superdreadnaughts were converging on his fleet, tightening the range. The only advantage the rebels had was that their missiles didn’t have to fly so far to hit their targets. Colin wasn’t unaware of the irony. He was in the same position as the enemy ships at Jackson’s Folly. “The damage control parties are moving up replacement shield generators now.”

The superdreadnaught rocked alarmingly as another missile slipped through the defences and struck the shields. It shouldn’t have been so dangerous, but with so many impacts in so short a space of time there was a good chance that one or more of them would overload and burn out a shield generator, rendering the hull vulnerable. Superdreadnaughts were the most heavily armoured ships in space, easily able to take one or more hits, but even they had their limits. When missiles started exploding inside the hull, the ship was very close to being destroyed or crippled. It wouldn’t make much difference, Colin knew; they were nowhere near friendly territory.

He looked up at the timer, counting down the seconds. He’d never intended to stay longer than an hour in the system, but he’d started recycling the flicker drives at once, just in case the defenders proved unusually robust. The enemy ships had ten minutes to cripple or destroy them before Colin could run; ten minutes… it might just be long enough. Their closing speed was slowing as Colin’s own ships fought to increase speed, but it wouldn’t be enough to save them from an energy duel. Two converging lines formed on the display as he ran through the tactical problem. The enemy ships would be within energy range for at least a minute before he could run, which meant… the rebellion was on the verge of failing.

I will not allow it, he thought, thinking hard. The smaller ships could escape, of course, but that would just leave the superdreadnaughts vulnerable to the enemy ships. The Imperial Navy was ignoring the smaller ships, choosing to concentrate on his superdreadnaughts, even though the smaller ships added a great deal of point defence to the formation. It wasn’t a poor tactic either. There were hundreds of rebel starships out there, but only nine of them were superdreadnaughts and, without the superdreadnaughts, none of the smaller ships posed a major threat. I will not…

He glared at the display, as if staring at it would somehow change reality. The basic fundamental tactics of space warfare hadn’t changed in centuries, even though the technology had been improved until there was little room left for improvement. He’d been trained in the traditional school… and all of his training was telling him that it would come down to a brute force encounter between two squadrons that were, at least on paper, equally matched. If the enemy had brought both of their superdreadnaught squadrons to the party, Colin knew, they would have had to surrender or they would have been certainly destroyed.

Or perhaps we don’t have to destroy them, he thought, suddenly. The tactical instructors had talked about the decisive victory, the victory that would destroy the enemy’s space navy and crush his systems in one blow. Small wonder, really, when the last war the Empire had fought against an alien race had been against one that possessed only nine star systems when they’d been discovered. The Empire had no concept of a long war, which meant…

“I want you to shift our targeting priorities,” he ordered. Both sides had been shooting at each other, merely concentrating on getting in a few hits per salvo. The damage, such as it was, would be largely random. “I want you to concentrate on disrupting their drive fields.”

The tactical officer looked up, new hope apparent in his eyes. Each of the enemy superdreadnaughts were surrounded by a drive field; knock out the drive field and the superdreadnaught’s speed would be instantly cancelled as the laws of physics reasserted themselves. It would take the superdreadnaught’s crew time to replace the damaged drive nodes and regenerate the drive field… the only risk was that the enemy ships would start doing the same to his ships. It couldn’t be helped. Given enough time, he was sure that the enemy commander would start thinking in the same terms.

“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said. His hands danced over his console. “Do you have any targeting preferences, sir?”

Colin hesitated. If they had been able to identify the enemy command ship, he would have targeted it on general principles, hoping that the enemy commander — it bothered him, absurdly, that he didn’t know who he was facing — would either relocate his ships to cover his ass, or would be killed. He’d checked the IFFs against the Imperial Navy registry, but the enemy commander — for whatever reason — had chosen to scramble his IFF signals, probably to prevent Colin from doing exactly that. It was against regulations, yet if he succeeded in killing Colin and breaking the rebellion, all sins would be forgiven.

“The closest enemy superdreadnaught,” he said, finally. “You may fire at will.”

“The enemy ships are altering their targeting priorities,” the tactical officer said. “They’re targeting General Napoleon specifically.”

“Interesting,” Brent-Cochrane mused. The two formations were still converging and there was nothing the rebels could do to prevent that, so had they decided to try and knock out one of his ships before they entered energy range? Or had they just decided to be annoying? The rebel ECM was better than anything he could deploy and it wasn’t easy to be absolutely certain of their actions. The disruption caused by the missile explosions were screwing up the sensors. Even hardened systems were having problems.

He watched as the rebel attack developed. Standard doctrine, at least when the two sides were evenly matched, insisted that each ship should pair up with an enemy ship and exchange fire. The rebels had clearly decided to throw standard doctrine out of the airlock… and he had to admit that it made sense. If they knocked out one of his ships, or even discouraged her from taking part in the general pursuit, they would find it easier to escape. He glanced up at the timer and swore. How long would it take for the rebels to power up their drives and escape? His ship shuddered as she launched another spread of missiles, adding to the chaos, yet the rebels were proving alarmingly effective at knocking them down. As far as their sensors could tell, the rebels had only lost a handful of shield generators and had managed to replace them before the Imperials could take advantage of it.

“Adjust our point defence to cover the Napoleon,” he ordered, slowly. The rebels might have just given the crews of the remaining ships a break, allowing the full point defence of his ships to be focused on covering a single ship. The rebels had launched full spreads from each of their ships towards her, yet… it would be an interesting struggle. “Continue firing on the rebel ships.”

On the display, General Napoleon started to fall back as the rebel attack roared towards her. Brent-Cochrane considered it absently, knowing that when a missile plunged past its target it was almost certainly not going to have the chance to alter course and engage. A smart missile would probably find itself another target towards the rear of the formation, or maybe just detonate and hope to confuse the sensors. The superdreadnaught staggered under the weight of so much fire, despite everything her sisters could do to defend her, and then fell out of line. For a moment, Brent-Cochrane allowed himself the hope that that would be the end of it, just before the superdreadnaught disintegrated into an expanding sphere of overheated plasma.

There was silence in the CIC. The Imperial Navy hadn’t lost a superdreadnaught in combat since the First Interstellar War; technically, that hadn’t even been the Imperial Navy. Ships had been damaged, mothballed, repaired and replaced, yet no superdreadnaught had been lost in a battle. Brent-Cochrane felt cold ice congealing in his chest. The Empire was dependent upon the superdreadnaughts to maintain order, using the ships to intimidate everyone else into behaving themselves. Time and time again, the Empire had displayed its will to crush dissent and punish rebellion a thousand times over, using the superdreadnaughts as the blunt instruments of its will. The superdreadnaughts were invincible. Even the mere threat of a superdreadnaught was enough to compel submission.

And now the magic was gone. Whatever happened, Brent-Cochrane knew that the entire galaxy would soon hear of the day a superdreadnaught — perhaps more than one — was destroyed by rebels. Word would spread from planet to planet, from ship to ship, and others would start wondering if it might be possible to beat a superdreadnaught after all. The loss of a single ship would ignite a fire that would burn the galaxy, even if the rebellions were smashed without further ado. His superiors would not be pleased.

“Continue firing,” he ordered harshly. The rebels might not have lost a ship, but their ships were clearly taking damage. “Do not let up on the bastards!”

“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.

The superdreadnaught rocked as another missile slammed home. Brent-Cochrane saw another red light flare up on the internal systems display, before fading to yellow as the computers decided that it wasn’t so dangerous after all. He clenched the handles of his command chair and ran through the tactical equations in his mind again, checking his first thoughts and concepts. No matter what the rebels did, they were going to enter energy weapons range in three minutes and then… they would see. Even if they wrecked his squadron in the crossfire, they would never survive being trapped in the unfriendly system.

Colin gritted his teeth as another wave of enemy missiles came slashing in towards his ships, a handful making it through the point defence and slamming into the shields. This time, they were unlucky as energy leaked through the shields and gorged into the hull, knocking out both missile tubes and point defence weapons. He tapped his console, bringing up a status display and scowled. The battering his ships were taking was reducing their ability to defend themselves, which ensured that the battering would only get worse. His crew worked hard to defend themselves, but the odds were slowly turning against them.

“Admiral, we have lost three more shield generators,” the damage control officer reported. Colin cursed under his breath. The work of a few hours in a shipyard, or even a day or two if they had to fall back on their own resources, was impossible when under fire. Even if the generators were recoverable, they had to be powered down and checked carefully before they risked reinstalling them. “If we lose one more…”

“Understood,” Colin said, tartly. There was no need to spell out the consequences. One more shield generator being destroyed, or knocked out, would mean that part of their hull would be permanently exposed to enemy fire, rather than small gaps appearing in the shields from time to time. The enemy would detect the sudden weakness and move to exploit it, aiming their missiles to go through the gap and slam directly into the shields. “Rotate the remaining generators to cover our rear.”

He leaned back in his command chair, watching the bloody inventory of damage flowing up in front of him. The enemy ships had to be taking the same battering — he knew that his ships were handing it out as well as taking it, even though the enemy had refrained from trying to target one of his ships specifically. He wasn’t sure why the enemy had refused that… until it suddenly clicked in his head. If the enemy managed to knock out their flicker drives, they’d won. They’d just fall back and wait for reinforcements before closing in on Colin’s trapped ships. It was clever, too clever. He studied the enemy formation again, trying to pick out the command ship, but there was no way he could identify it. The enemy commander was too smart for that.

The timer was ticking down, showing three minutes to escape — if they lasted that long. The other timer was far less encouraging. In two minutes, the enemy ships would be within energy weapons range, and then all hell would break loose. At such short range, the battle would become one of mutual slaughter, but then… the Empire could afford to lose a superdreadnaught squadron or two if it stopped the rebellion.

Captain Travis Ward cursed as the enemy superdreadnaughts grew closer, although he wasn’t sure who or what he was cursing. The enemy, for being clever enough to ambush the rebel fleet, Admiral Walker, for flying right into an ambush… or himself for being stupid enough to believe in a scarred woman called Hester Hyman. He’d fled one world as the Imperial Navy overran it, only to discover that the Empire just kept moving outwards, like a tidal wave of destruction that smashed everything it touched. Valiant, his cruiser, was the last remaining starship from the Kingdom of Thayne. The Empire had overrun the system with its normal calm efficiency and all Travis had been able to do was take his cruiser and go on the run. The Beyond had taken him and his crew in, given them a home, but there had been no hope for his world — or for his family, trapped under the Imperial Navy’s blockade. Travis had no way of knowing if they were alive or dead.

He could have jumped out and fled, yet something kept him in his place, something more than the fact that the Imperial Navy seemed to be ignoring the smaller ships. The Popular Front had given him hope and, even if he was more than a little cynical about their prospects, it had meant the world to his crew. Like Jason Cordova, they could never go home again, unless the Empire was beaten. And the best hope for defeating the Empire seemed about to die.

“Prepare to flicker,” he ordered, keying his console. If Admiral Walker needed time, Travis and his crew would buy it for him. Running was simple, but he had a far more dangerous stunt in mind. “And then remove all the governors from the flicker drive.”

His crew didn’t argue, even though they understood what he was proposing. “Yes, sir,” the helmsman said. Turning and charging towards the enemy ships would be a quick way of committing suicide without harming the enemy, but he had another idea. “I have laid in the course, sir.”

“It’s been a honour, gentlemen,” Travis said. He keyed his console again, accessing files that he had never even looked at since he and his crew had gone into exile. His wife and children, permanently young and unscarred, photographs taken before the Empire had arrived. “Jump!”

Scientists had long known that it was possible to use a flicker drive to add additional velocity to a starship, yet it wasn’t a practical tactic because the effects overwhelmed the compensators and killed the crew outright. Valiant, her course already laid in, flickered through space and rematerialised right in front of one of the superdreadnaughts. Before the enemy ship could react, the cruiser rammed the superdreadnaught and exploded.

“What the hell?”

“Unknown,” the tactical officer said, sounding equally puzzled. The explosion had been extremely powerful, powerful enough to burn out the superdreadnaught’s shields and drives, leaving it floating helplessly in space. “I don’t know.”

Colin looked up at the timer. The Imperial Navy ships seemed to have slowed, if only so their commander could figure out what had just hit him. Colin had no intention of giving him time to figure it out. If they kept slowing, they might just manage to escape…

Brent-Cochrane’s first thought was that the rebels had invented a new weapons system after all, but that didn’t seem likely or his entire squadron would have been destroyed by now. The waves of distortion coming from the explosion was making it harder for his sensors to work out what had happened, or why. Doubtless one of the analysts would figure it out eventually, but until then… his ships had actually lost speed in the confusion. He cursed and ordered the ships to maintain course. Even through the rebels had nine superdreadnaughts to his seven, his sensors were making it clear that the rebels no longer had their full battery of firepower at their disposal.

He gritted his teeth. The battle wasn’t over yet.

“Flicker drives ready, Admiral,” the helmsman reported. Colin almost sagged with relief, but held himself together through sheer force of will. “We are good to go.”

“Get us out of here,” Colin ordered. “Jump us out now!”

A moment later, the damaged superdreadnaughts and their remaining escorts vanished from the Greenland System.

“They’re gone, sir,” the tactical officer said.

Brent-Cochrane shrugged. “So they are,” he agreed. It looked bad, but then, he’d damaged the rebel ships and prevented them from scoring another easy victory. And, if Public Information couldn’t spin that into a great victory, they weren’t worth the money the Empire lavished on them. “Signal to all ships; stand down from condition-one and forward updated damage reports to me.”

His grin grew wider. “And add a further signal,” he added. “Well done.”