“Point defence engaging now,” the tactical officer said.
They might as well not have bothered, Admiral Wilhelm realised, his thoughts drawn back to the oncoming wall of red icons. The pulsars and point defence units mounted on the hull of the superdreadnaughts were doing what they could, but they might as well have been spitting into the wind. Hundreds of missiles died, but hundreds of thousand survived, falling into their terminal attack profiles and angling in towards his ships. He found himself grasping the handles of his chair as he braced for the impact he knew would be coming…
The first superdreadnaught, bringing up the rear of his fleet, was hit by seventy missiles in quick succession. It never stood a chance. Its shields went down almost at once and the remaining missiles poured into the hull, exploding within the starship’s interior and blowing it apart in a massive burst of superhot plasma. A second superdreadnaught staggered and, for a moment, he thought it had survived for a few moments longer, but then it exploded and joined its companion in death. A third and a fourth were badly damaged and fell out of formation, their drive fields billowing as their destabilised, while plasma and air leaked out of a dozen breaches in the hull. He looked at the datanet downloads from the ships, before they cut off abruptly, and knew that there would be no point in trying to repair them. They were far beyond the point where any shipyard, even the ones orbiting Jupiter, could repair the damage.
“Here they come, sir,” the tactical officer said. “It was a honour to have served with you, sir.”
Admiral Wilhelm looked up at the display and nodded once. The wave of missiles had targeted his ship and there were too many of them to stop, or even survive. The first hammerblows rang through the ship, knocking down the shields and destroying the shield generators as they struggled to cope with the massive feedback from the shields and their collapse, leaving the superdreadnaught defenceless. It heaved time and time again, massive red icons flaring into existence on the internal display, before the power failed and the gravity vanished. The inner core of the superdreadnaught, the most protected section of the ship, cracked and buckled under the pounding as consoles exploded and flames lashed through the ship.
He died before he had a chance to realise that there had been three fleets, not two, in the battle.
Penny watched Joshua watching in stony-faced silence as the two remaining squadrons of Admiral Wilhelm’s fleet were decimated. He’d seen such damage before, even inflicted such damage, but it was still terrifying. The post-war Empire, whoever ended up in control, would have to rebuild most of the Imperial Navy from scratch, just to remain competitive. The massive salvos of missiles, far more than had been imagined back in the old days before the rebellion, had changed the face of warfare.
“Admiral, the two remaining superdreadnaughts are signalling their surrender,” the communications officer said. The remains of the massive salvo had burned themselves out or expended themselves on smaller ships, allowing two superdreadnaughts to escape lightly. The sole survivors of eighteen superdreadnaughts, an invincible force before the war, had been damaged, but they were still capable of operations. Another salvo, however, would reduce them to dust and ash. “They’re asking that we accept before they lose control of their power cores and explode.”
Joshua altered the display, bringing up a near-space scan revealing the thousands of lifepods drifting through space, signalling for help. The long-standing convention had been that the victors would pick up the lifepods, but the battle was far from over and he couldn’t spare any ships to recover survivors. Penny found herself trying to recall her basic survival training. A lifepod could keep its recommended number of passengers alive for quite some time, but they were completely helpless if some sadistic bastard decided to start picking them off for target practice.
“Contact Admiral Wilhelm’s remaining light ships,” Joshua ordered, finally. “Inform them that they are our designated recovery ships. They are to pick up the lifepods and the crew from those superdreadnaughts.” He brought up a visual of the two damaged ships and frowned. “And then contact the superdreadnaughts. I want their weapons and shields completely deactivated now. If there are any signs that they have reactivated them we will open fire without further warning.”
He turned his attention back to the display. “And launch another flight of probes towards the defenders,” he added. “I want a complete update on their current status.”
“Admiral, Her Majesty wishes to address the rebels,” the communications officer injected. “She’s transmitting now.”
Colin hadn’t wasted the time that Daria’s fleet had brought him when it engaged Admiral Wilhelm at what was, effectively, point-blank range. He’d managed to get the remaining starships into a defensive formation, orbiting beside the command fortresses and the other defences. He’d also transferred himself from the assigned command fortress to a completely different fortress, aware that Daria had probably known which fortress had been assigned the task of coordinating the defence. It didn’t sit well with him, but he had already decided that he wasn’t going to run to the Rim, but die in defence of the new order he’d created.
“David, we’re going to need you,” he said, keying his private channel. He’d hoped not to have to deploy the final surprise, but there were four squadrons of superdreadnaughts out there, with escorts. They would get hurt, but they had the firepower to punch though Earth’s defences and force them to surrender. “Get your people into position now…”
“Admiral,” the tactical officer said, “we’re picking up a message from the fleet.”
“On screen,” Colin ordered.
Daria’s face appeared in front of him. She’d altered her face slightly, he saw, but it was still recognisably her. It took him a moment to realise that she now reassembled herself as she had been fifty years ago, before she had been forced to flee Earth and take up residence along the Rim. Unlike so many others who had fled the Empire, she had barely altered herself, either in a display of bravado or vanity. Cordova had told him, when they’d had a moment to chat before he had left to go to his starship, that there had even been a fashion to have pleasure slaves in the image of the Empress.
“They like to think that they were fucking her,” he’d said. “It was a power thing for that generation.”
Daria’s voice was icy cold. “I am the Empress Janice,” she said, her face cold and very composed, as if she had spoken to God personally and received answers she didn’t like. “I was forced to flee Earth by men and women of the Thousand Families who feared that I would upset their tidy little doomed worlds. I had acted to save the Empire from the doom that overtook it. My reward was to be forced to flee, with dogs snapping at my heels, and hide along the Rim until my time came again.”
She paused. “My time is now.
“In the name of the Empire, I call upon Earth to surrender without further struggle,” she continued. “Your position is hopeless. Bombarding the planet would be an easy task for my fleet. Your defences cannot hope to stand us off for long, nor do I have any incentive to spare the lives of those who oppose my rightful return to the throne. Give up the struggle, surrender yourselves, and you have my word that you will be treated with honour. Fight… and you will be destroyed. You have five minutes to decide.”