“Form up on me,” he ordered as the strike commander designated targets. An enemy superdreadnaught blinked red in his display; that was his target. The other enemy ships would be ignored for now, although eventually they, too, would have to be dealt with. Jack knew they couldn’t allow the enemy to keep their command datanets, which linked their point defense into a seemingly seamless whole. He noted absently that the enemy’s point defense systems were putting out a staggering amount of firepower.
Of course, a single superdreadnaught possessed an awesome amount of firepower, while an entire fleet could render itself almost impregnable. But if he thought about that too long, he’d start worrying about his mission—and that would never do.
Jack gritted his teeth as his squadron zoomed into engagement range. None of the pilots, including himself, had seen action outside of simulations, and that lack of experience was going to get far too many of them killed. But he intended to be one of the survivors.
“Go!” he yelled.
The squadron rotated in place—a tricky maneuver at the best of times—and swooped down on its chosen target. The enemy ships retargeted their fire, sending thousands of plasma bolts and missiles flaring through space, picking off Jack’s fellow pilots one by one. They only had to get lucky once, while the starfighter pilots had to get lucky every time. Sooner or later, Jack knew, luck ran out. The only question was if he would manage to get off his missiles before the enemy got him.
“Prepare to engage,” he ordered his wingmates. “Fire on my command.”
The enemy fire hadn’t abated. Instead, it grew ever more savage. They knew—they had to know!—what he and the others were doing, all right.
It didn’t take a genius to realize that some overpaid admiral had decided to start a civil war. Jack paid as little attention to politics as he could get away with, but it was clear to him that some of the admirals positioned along the frontiers had been effectively operating as independent warlords for a long time.
Besides, the superdreadnaught he was closing in on was clearly of Federation design.
The enemy superdreadnaught drew closer, its weapons spitting deadly fire towards Jack and his incoming fighters. It was a monstrous hulk and it seemed unbelievable that it could be brought down by a bunch of swarming gnats, but Jack knew better. Individually, the starfighters were harmless; collectively, they were lethal. The enemy superdreadnaught was putting everything it had into driving off Jack’s fighters before it was too late.
“Fire,” Jack ordered. The fighter shuddered as it unleashed both of its standard missiles. A moment later, his remaining fighters added their own missiles to the barrage. “Scatter and retire; I say again, scatter and retire!”
He smiled as he yanked the fighter through a tight turn and accelerated away from the enemy ship. The Federation’s standard starfighter missiles carried a shield disruptor that allowed them to penetrate the enemy ship’s shields and detonate against the unshielded hull. They seemed the perfect weapon, apart from the minor detail that they had to be launched at close range and most of their weight was drives, which meant they couldn’t carry a heavy warhead. It was a shame that there had been no compressed antimatter on hand, but Federation Navy regulations were clear. Antimatter was not to be carried onboard starships and battlestations without an active state of war, as the risks far outweighed the benefits.
And earlier today, they’d been at peace. Or so everyone had thought, including Jack.
The enemy superdreadnaught flared with light as the missiles that made it through the barrage of point defense struck home. Explosions, each one devastating on a planetary surface, but almost unnoticeable against the vastness of space, billowed against her hull. For a moment, Jack allowed himself to wonder if the enemy ship would survive—superdreadnaughts were armored heavily to protect against just such an attack—before the superdreadnaught fell out of formation and exploded. The sheer fury of the explosion suggested that the ship had been carrying antimatter warheads, as well as the more conventional nuclear warheads.
Why would anyone fight for such people? Jack thought. What does their stupid admiral over there think he’s doing?
His computers shrilled with alarm, too late. An enemy fighter had drawn a bead on him; it was too late to evade. Jack reached for the emergency cord, hoping against hope that somehow he’d be able to eject before the ship was hit…
Then three plasma bolts slammed into his starfighter. In the instant before his ship blew up, Jack wished the invading admiral and all those who followed him to oblivion.
And then, there was nothing but a ball of radioactive fire where Jack’s ship had been.
Marius watched as dispassionately as he could as his cadre of starfighters swarmed around the enemy fleet, which had settled into a position that allowed them to exchange missile fire with the defenses of Earth. He had the uneasy sense that the enemy commander had definitely expected Earth’s defenses to be completely uncoordinated, for his tactics would have made perfect sense if he’d expected each battlestation to be thrown back on its own resources. As it was, he was giving the defenders of Earth time to reorganize and cripple his fleet.
And which of the admirals, he asked himself, would rely more in sneak attacks than brute force?
He turned to Fallon, who watched the display in disbelief. The commander was far too young to have seen service in the Blue Star War, but the scale of the engagement could hardly have come as a shock. After all, before the Federation had won the Inheritance Wars, many young men must’ve seen battles that had involved thousands of starships on both sides.
“As you will observe, commander,” Marius said, “you can see certain patterns appearing in the data.” He quirked an eyebrow, inviting Fallon to reply.
“Ah,” the commander stammered, “you mean their reluctance to risk serious losses?”
“Precisely,” Marius said. He had to smile. An orbital battlestation outgunned a superdreadnaught, but it was hardly as mobile, even with the orbital maneuvering drive units. Dodging incoming enemy fire wasn’t an option. “They could have won by now if they’d flown into orbit and engaged us at close range, yet instead they’re choosing to bombard us at extreme range. Why, I wonder?”
It wasn’t a question, but Fallon tried to answer it anyway. “Because they’re short on material?”
Marius shook his head. “They have to know that Home Fleet is around here somewhere, even if they think that Titan Base is still in blissful ignorance of events on Earth. The only way they’re going to win against Home Fleet is by taking the high orbitals and forcing the Senate to surrender on pain of bombardment. So why aren’t they trying to soak up the damage and punch through?”
He smiled as another enemy superdreadnaught was blown into flaming debris. The victorious starfighters broke off and headed back to the orbital fortresses for rearming before returning to the fray. And there was another interesting question; standard doctrine said that fighter platforms had to be obliterated to force the fighters to fall back, so why weren’t the enemy ships trying to take out the fighter bases?
The answer seemed clear.
“They’re wondering if they’ve been tricked,” he said finally.
Fallon frowned in incomprehension.
“Think about it,” Marius urged him. “Whoever they are, they’ve launched a series of sneak attacks on Earth that should have crippled our defenses. They came very close to crippling us, in fact, yet we’re still fighting. Could it be that whoever is in charge over there is having second thoughts?”