Democracy's Light

Chapter Thirty

“Admiral, the freighter has just returned from Ysalt.”

Admiral Katy Garland nodded once as the green icon popped into existence on the display. She’d sent the Freebooter ship into the system ahead of her fleet, just to provide an up-to-date reconnaissance report, and it seemed that her gamble had paid off. Admiral Wilhelm’s forces might have been using Ysalt as a supply base, but they’d clearly decided that it wasn’t worth the effort of providing it with a strong mobile component to enhance the fixed defences.

Unless they’re lurking under cloak and it’s a trap, she thought, rather sourly. She’d been caught out that way once before and this time she would be more careful, far more careful. Admiral Wilhelm had to know that she would be searching for vulnerable points in his defences, but would he know that she’d located one of his supply bases at Ysalt? How could he know, unless he knew that the freighter that had just flickered through the system — and the previous Freebooter ships that had paused in the system, hoping to sell their wares — were spying for her. If he knew that…

She shook her head and concentrated on the images flickering up in front of her. Ysalt had been heavily fortified back when the Empire had been expanding into the Cottbus Sector, but cold-blooded calculations had ‘proven’ that Ysalt was actually less useful as an fleet base than Cottbus. It actually possessed a small independent population, stubbornly refusing to commit themselves to the Empire, and forcing them to comply would have been pointless. They had had nothing that the Empire actually wanted and, as long as they stayed on the planet, they weren’t even a bad example as far as the Empire was concerned. Their only real use had been to convince the Imperial Navy that Cottbus was a much better base for future operations.

And that logic had just been turned on its head. Ysalt was the closest world in the Cottbus Sector to Earth and a logical supply base. Starships, particularly superdreadnaughts, might be able to fire and recharge their energy weapons effectively indefinitely, but missiles had to be constructed at industrial nodes, forcing the Admiral to run supply convoys through his space and into hostile space controlled by the Provisional Government. The Shadow Fleet had used covert bases and hundreds of freighters, but according to the analysts, Admiral Wilhelm shouldn’t have had enough freighters to supply his fleet. If it were to be operating in the direction of Earth, striking deep into the heart of the Empire, it would need a supply base. She doubted that Ysalt was the only one — no commander worth his salt would put all his eggs in one basket — but it made a convenient target.

“We’ll go with Plan Theta,” she decided, finally. The handful of starships in the system — the ones she could see, she reminded herself — wouldn’t be enough to deter her from launching the attack. They would probably choose to flicker out and run rather than be destroyed in a stand-up battle. “Helm, begin the countdown. We flicker out in five minutes.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral,” the helmsman said. A countdown timer appeared on the display as warnings echoed through the starship, warning the crew to brace themselves against flicker shock and nausea. No amount of bracing, in Katy’s view, would compensate for the effects of flicker shock, but the crew had to be warned. The handful of people who boasted of no ill effects after flickering through interstellar space tended to be liars, or deluded. “Flicker drive locked on coordinates and powering up.”

Katy leaned back in her chair and braced herself. The crew’s morale had skyrocketed after the brief violent encounter at Hawthorn, although she knew that they had barely dented Admiral Wilhelm’s war machine. He could suck up the loss of a handful of superdreadnaughts and keep going, although even he had his limits. The thought of just how many superdreadnaughts were going to be lost, on both sides, during the war chilled her. The Empire had never built enough, as far as the Imperial Navy was concerned, and replacements were slow in coming. The post-war Empire, whoever ended up running the government, was going to be very weak.

Perhaps that’s a good thing, she thought, as the final seconds ticked away. The Empire’s monopoly on superdreadnaughts and superdreadnaught construction had kept it firmly in power; none of the first-rank worlds could stand up to even one of the sector fleets, as Gaul had proven. If the Shadow Fleet hadn’t come to the rescue, Gaul would have been scorched… and it knew it. If the first-rank worlds started building superdreadnaughts as well, the entire basis of the Empire’s power might disintegrate. It would certainly be harder for anyone to throw their weight around.

“Flickering,” the helmsman said. The display blanked once as the starship flickered through interstellar space. At such range, barely a light year from the system, it was bare seconds before they flickered back into normal space. Katy braced herself, but the shock still stung, the cumulative effects of two shocks in close succession tearing at her. She winced, hearing the sound of someone vomiting on the deck, and pulled herself back together as the display started to fill up with new icons. “We have arrived in the system.”

“I had noticed,” Katy said, concentrating on the display. They’d drilled the battle stations drills long enough for her to be confident that the fleet would come to battle stations without her having to do more than issue basic orders. The fleet’s fire control system, years ahead of anything Admiral Wilhelm should have had, linked the fleet into a single weapon, under her command. The fleet should have been able to match two of Admiral Wilhelm’s squadrons without breaking a sweat, although without knowing just how far the new weapons had spread, Katy wasn’t inclined to run such risks. “Tactical?”

“Seventeen enemy starships detected, including four battlecruisers,” the tactical officer reported, calmly. The display continued to update as more enemy starships brought their drives online, some trying to form into a combat formation while others, probably freighters, started to run towards the edge of the gravity shadow and escape. It looked, very much, as if they had been taken by surprise. She could only hope that her first impression was correct. “Two destroyers have just flickered out; vectors suggest that they are flying to Cottbus itself and Nova Berlin.”

Admiral Wilhelm’s headquarters and one of his industrial nodes, Katy thought, as the fleet shook itself down into attack formation. She watched as probes sped away from the ships, hunting for any turbulence that might mark the presence of cloaked starships, while studying the defences of the planet below. The display kept updating as the defences, older fortresses and automated platforms that would have been a threat before the rebellion, came online, linking into the unified command network and preparing for action.

“Locate the main supply base,” she ordered, already knowing where it had to be. The tactical officer illuminated a series of old asteroids, once used as a source of metal and resources for the planet below, hanging in high orbit. They could have been spun up to generate gravity and converted into habitats, but instead they had been left drifting in space, which suggested that they were being used as supply dumps. The presence of modern missile systems defending them only convinced her that she was right. “Align our vector on them and prepare to engage.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral,” the helmsman said. The starship shivered slightly as the drive fields finally started to propel it through space. Katy watched, grimly, as the enemy fleet started to form up in front of them, knowing that a lot of good men and women were about to die for their master. They couldn’t stop the superdreadnaughts from wrecking the entire system and they had to know it.

“Hail them,” she said, quietly. She took no pleasure in mass slaughter of helpless men and women, even if they were on the wrong side. “Inform them that we will accept their surrender under the terms and conditions of the Moscow Accords.”

The thought brought back memories of her own period as a prisoner of war. Admiral Wachter had treated her and the remainder of the POWs well, against orders from the Thousand Families. She hadn’t realised until after the Fall of Earth just what the Thousand Families had had in mind for her, but she’d been supremely grateful to Joshua for saving her people. They would have been given to the mind techs and, after having been made to betray the rebellion, would have been sold as pleasure slaves. She’d had nightmares for months afterwards.

“No response,” the communications officer said. There was a long pause. “I am unable to even locate any ship-to-ship communications traffic.”

“Lasers, then,” Katy said, grimly. It wasn’t uncommon for starships to rely solely on lasers to communicate, but in a war situation it was generally regarded as a sign of hostile intent. It had always baffled her that the Imperial Navy used such a system, when it was impossible to prove that starships were using lasers to communicate or were just being silent, but it was doctrine and therefore not to be questioned by mere mortals. Rewriting the Imperial Navy Regulations, massive volumes covering every problem the Imperial Navy had encountered or was likely to encounter, was going to take years. There were times when she thought that it would be easier to burn the volumes and start again. “Tactical, lock weapons on targets and prepare to open fire.”

The enemy ships didn’t wait. As soon as she slipped into firing range, they opened fire, belching out a pitiful salvo of barely two hundred missiles, locked on her ship. She tensed, wondering if they had located her flagship, before realising that it had to be coincidence. Their only hope was to inflict enough damage to put her off carrying out further raids. She watched as the red icons mounted, slipping into an attack profile that would give them their best chance at getting a handful of missiles through her defences, and winced. It wasn’t going to work.

“Fire,” she said, calmly.

The superdreadnaught shuddered as it belched out its first salvo. The firepower of the Jefferson alone outmatched the firepower of the entire enemy fleet… and it was combined with the firepower of eight other superdreadnaughts. She’d held the arsenal ships in reserve, expecting the enemy ships to target them first, but they’d chosen to focus on her superdreadnaughts. She wasn’t sure if she admired their decision or not, but it made her angry. It was throwing away good men and women for nothing.

Idiots, she thought, wondering if it showed how Admiral Wilhelm’s government really worked. If they were that scared to break contact and escape — and they’d had enough of an opportunity to escape when she’d first arrived — what would he do to them if they lost the battle? It wouldn’t matter to them personally — only a miracle would save them now — but how would Admiral Wilhelm treat surviving losers? Admiral Percival would have punished them for the cardinal sin of losing a battle, making his people reluctant to admit that they couldn’t win… or willing to rebel.

The first wave of enemy missiles lanced into the teeth of her point defence and started to expire. The massed point defence of every superdreadnaught, and her escorts, could be deployed to protect her ships, with nothing whatsoever having to be held back to protect the remaining ships, which weren’t under attack. She realised, as missile after missile flickered and vanished into a puff of ionised plasma and dust, that she’d overestimated their penetration aids. They were being wiped out and her ship wasn’t even going to take a hit. The enemy were firing again, and again, but they weren’t even combining their salvos… and she suspected that even if they had, they would have done no good. They simply didn’t have the firepower to punch through her defences.

Her missiles roared into them and slammed home. Battlecruisers were tough, but they’d never been designed to stand up in the wall of battle, let alone stand off superdreadnaught-sized volleys of missiles. One by one, they exploded and died, barely having time to get even a handful of their crew off before they were destroyed. The cruisers and destroyers vanished just as quickly, their point defence trying desperately to save them from certain annihilation, only to fail. Explosions ripped through their formation and every successive death only made the next one more certain. Five minutes after they had opened fire, the last ship exploded and died.

“Opening hailing frequencies,” Katy ordered, her voice coldly furious. At least a hundred thousand people had just died at her command and, as far as she was concerned, their deaths had been completely unnecessary. They shouldn’t have had to die like that when they could have surrendered, rather than being committed to hopeless battle. She hoped, with a fury that surprised her, that their commanding officer was even now burning in hell. He had failed his crews spectacularly.

She waited for the communications officer’s nod. “This is Admiral Garland, commanding 2^nd Fleet,” she said, coldly. She had considered embracing a different designation — Task Force Vengeance, perhaps — but it would only have confused people. That might not have been a bad thing, but they were close enough to the planet for the sensors to get an accurate read of each ship’s unique drive field. “I have just engaged and destroyed your defence fleet and I intend to destroy the planetary defences and supplies.

“I am hereby ordering you to evacuate your defence platforms and supply dumps now,” she continued. “I will open fire in precisely ten minutes. Any attempt to engage my fleet or to transport supplies down to the planet will result in the deadline being cancelled and destruction commencing at once. I repeat, you have ten minutes to abandon the facilities before I destroy them.”

She watched, coldly, as the fleet settled down into attack position. The arsenal ships with their long-range missiles could destroy the supply dumps without having to dive into the gravity shadow, making escape easy if the destroyers managed to summon reinforcements from another system. There was very little point in actually destroying the planetary defences — they were outdated and, these days, effectively useless — but she’d included them in her threat anyway. They could evacuate the entire orbit of the planet… if they started at once and used life pods. They shouldn’t have had time to think about trying to save anything from the supply dumps, although she doubted that they would have time to save anything. It would take more time than she intended to give them, by quite a large margin, to transport everything down to the surface.

The timer ticked slowly down as the asteroids came alive with shuttles and life pods, even primitive skydiving pods that would normally be held in reserve for the direst of emergences. She’d heard that some people liked riding the pods for fun, plunging down into a planet’s atmosphere in a fiery trail, but it seemed insane to her. There was quite enough risk in her life already.

“Zero,” the tactical officer said. The stream of life pods and shuttles was slowly drying up. “Admiral…?”

“Signal the arsenal ships,” Katy ordered. She didn’t recognise her own voice. “They may fire when ready.”

The arsenal ships had been running targeting scans all the time, locating the best places to target with minimal force. One of them belched a hail of missiles, firing down into the gravity shadow, right towards the asteroids. She had expected the defenders to leave their point defence on automatic and it wasn’t a surprise when the asteroids’ point defence started to engage the missiles, but there wasn’t enough fire to put more than a dent in the missile swarm. She’d wondered if they had gone to the expense of fitting the asteroids with force shields beyond the standard counter-radiation shields, but it seemed that they hadn’t. The sheer number of generators required to cover such large asteroids would have daunted almost anyone.

She smiled as the first missiles struck home and the asteroids started to disintegrate under the pounding. They might not have been spinning, which would have sped the entire process of disintegration up, but they hadn’t been designed to contain the effects of nuclear blasts, even without secondary explosions among the stores. One by one, they blew apart into a wave of rocky debris, most of it falling down towards the planet below. She keyed her console and checked, quickly, but allowed herself a sigh of relief when it became clear that there wasn’t going to be anything large enough to survive the passage through the atmosphere and wreck destruction on the surface.

“Mission accomplished,” the tactical officer said.

“Good,” Katy said. She smiled at the icons representing the useless orbital defences. Their crews, either down on the planet, floating in orbit, or even remaining at their posts, had to be going mad with frustration. “Helm, take us out of her.”

An alarm sounded as new icons flickered into existence. “Admiral, we have a single superdreadnaught squadron,” the tactical officer said, grimly. “Should we engage?”

Katy shook her head. It was tempting… and they should have had the advantage, but it was too risky. She had to keep her fleet intact. It was the only consideration she would allow herself.

“No,” she said, finally. If nothing else, they’d definitely burned Admiral Wilhelm’s beard. There was no point in risking heavy losses, not now. “Helm, take us out of here.”

The stars vanished as the fleet dropped back into flicker space, leaving the destroyed supply dump behind. She smiled as soon as the fleet stood down from battle stations. After that raid, morale would be going through the roof… and Admiral Wilhelm would have to reconsider his plans.

We might even have stopped him from advancing, she thought, and smiled again.