The commodore’s piggish eyes glared at him. “Warn them of what?”
“They’re lining up to be slaughtered,” Zulu said, and explained as best as he could. If the vectors kept merging, the Wakanda Space Navy would find itself unable even to escape the trap they’d walked into with their eyes wide open. They literally wouldn’t even have a chance to fire back at their enemies. “Sir…”
“My uncle is in command of the fleet,” the commodore said, dismissively. Somehow, questioning him had brought back part of his old personality. Zulu hadn’t missed it. “I’m sure that he understands the situation far better than a lowly sensor tech. Tend to your knitting and leave the brave decisions to others.”
Zulu rolled his eyes. “We’re picking up a signal on general channels,” a communications tech said, before the discussions could get any worse. “It’s coming up automatically.”
Admiral Wilhelm’s face appeared in front of them. “This is Admiral Wilhelm, commanding the Cottbus Sector fleet,” he said, calmly. Zulu could just hear the competence dripping from his voice and knew that his commanders were no match for the man, even if they’d had equal levels of technology and starships. “By the power vested in me, and my fleet, I declare this system to be part of the Cottbus Union, with all the rights and responsibilities that that implies. Stand down your starships and defences and prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be met with deadly force.”
He paused. “There will be no further warnings,” he concluded. “Any attempt to engage my fleet will result in the destruction of your forces and the imposition of punishment taxes and other retribution.”
His image vanished from the display. “This is the Clan Head,” a voice said, without a display. Zulu, who’d had a small side bet going with himself that the government would be trying to flee the planet just about now, was mildly impressed, although he suspected that the truth was that they hadn’t even bothered to plan out an emergency escape for their own people. “In the name of Wakanda, I reject your claim to authority. Any further attempt to impose your authority on us will be met with deadly force and soundly defeated…”
Zulu covered his head with his hands as the Clan Head went on, and on. It was a bluff. He knew it was a bluff. Worse, Admiral Wilhelm would know that it was a bluff. Worst of all, the people bluffing didn’t know that it was a bluff. They truly believed the crap that the Wakanda Space Navy spewed out to justify its existence, when a few investments and a slight lack of corruption would have paid much greater dividends. They might believe that it was only the Space Navy that had kept Wakanda from being attacked by pirates, or even the might of the Imperial Navy itself, but Zulu knew better. Wakanda simply had nothing worth the effort of taking it.
His display chimed. Admiral Wilhelm had gotten tired of listening to the Clan Head’s empty posturing and had issued orders to his fleet. As Zulu watched helplessly, one by one, the superdreadnaughts slipped into the gravity shadow, on a direct course for the Wakanda Space Navy and the other defenders. They were coming on faster than he had seen any ship entering a gravity shadow before and it would be bare seconds before they engaged…
“Now we’re going to see something,” the commodore said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “My uncle will kick them back out of the system.”
Zulu had the nasty feeling that he was half-right. They were going to see something.
“They’re locking missiles onto the Space Navy,” he reported, as calmly as he could. The enemy ships weren’t even bothering to hide or conceal their own emissions. They had locked on and were preparing to fire. His display sounded another alarm and he winced. “They’re opening fire.”
The Wakanda Space Navy had never invested seriously in missile production, with the effect that they had missiles that dated back several hundred years, without any of the more modern penetration aids. Admiral Wilhelm, by contrast, had hundreds of modern missiles and he wasn’t shy about using them. Before the Wakanda Space Navy had even managed to launch a single salvo, two of the superdreadnaughts — just two — had unleashed hell towards their opponents. Their missiles were unimaginably fast, equipped with the latest sensors and targeting systems… and the contrast was hopelessly unbalanced. The Wakanda Space Navy just didn’t stand a chance.
They fired, their missiles plodding towards their targets… and then the enemy missiles roared into their formation. The Black Panther, a battleship that dated all the way back to the foundation of the Empire and the fleet’s flagship, was targeted by twenty missiles, but ten would have been more than sufficient. The battleship blew apart into a burning fireball, lost with all hands. They hadn’t even had a chance to launch any life pods and escape the doomed ship.
Zulu couldn’t take his eyes off the display. A pair of cruisers that comprised Wakanda’s only modern ships — although with a definition of ‘modern’ that would have surprised most purists — were wiped out almost simultaneously. A flight of gunboats, useless for anything, but the simplest boarding action, were picked off neatly with individual missiles. The point defence network, barely capable of operating under the best of conditions, shattered and the remaining ships were blown apart, one after the other. Ships that had been outdated years before the Geeks and Nerds started to upgrade rebel ships to outmatch Imperial Navy ships died, one by one, and no one escaped alive. His console wasn’t showing even a single life pod.
“My God,” he breathed. There were over two hundred thousand personnel in the Wakanda Space Navy and two thirds of them had been on the starships. They were all dead… and the engagement wasn’t even over. The enemy ships were pushing through the debris, such as it was after the fearsome exchange of fire, and advancing on the orbital defences. Zulu knew, with a kind of numb disbelief, that they would have absolutely no trouble with the handful of orbiting fortresses, including his own. “We’re all dead.”
He looked around for the commodore. He was sitting on the floor, staring at nothing, a faint smell drifting up to touch Zulu’s nostrils. He’d just seen his uncle die, Zulu remembered, and watched the world turned upside down. It would have been easy to feel sorry for him, but Zulu remembered the way he’d treated his subordinates and no longer cared. He looked over at the communications officer and winced.
“Contact them,” he ordered. He no longer needed to care about the commodore. It was almost worth the possibility of imminent death. “Tell Admiral Wilhelm that we surrender.”
There was a long pause. “I’m picking up nothing from the incoming fleet,” the communications officer said. His voice twisted sharply as another voice, screaming something, rose up and then faded. “The Clan Head is screaming at us to pluck up our nerve and fight.”
“Ignore him,” Zulu ordered, savagely. He mentally traced out a firing pattern for the city of T’Challa. It would have been easy to destroy it, so easy, and Wakanda would be free of its government. Why could they not have done it before? “Repeat the signal…”
An alarm sounded. Admiral Wilhelm’s ships were locking their weapons on the station. They wouldn’t have any problems destroying it. The shields were outdated and the point defence network was already broken without having fired a single shot.
“I don’t think they’re interested in surrender,” the communications officer said. “I think…”
“No shit,” someone said, from the rear of the bridge. Zulu heard the note of defeat, and yet of victory, and smiled. They had escaped the government and were free men, for the few seconds it would last. “Should we not fire back?”
Zulu shook his head. “Why bother?”