“Contact the gunboats,” he said, regretfully, “and order them to fire into their drives to force them to halt.”
He watched as the gunboats arced towards the freighter, which was still moving, however ponderously, towards the fortress. The gunboats, being much smaller than the freighter, could accelerate to their top speed almost instantly… and, even this close to a planet, that speed was awesome. The freighter could have had a twenty-minute start and it still couldn’t have escaped. The popguns mounted on the gunboats would have no problem dealing with the freighter, even if they wouldn’t have dented an unshielded warship. There was nothing about the entire situation that made sense, unless it was some demented…
“Commander,” the tactical officer snapped, as the display suddenly flared with red icons. It took Roberts a moment to grasp what he was seeing. It was so unexpected. “They’re firing… oh, my god!”
Roberts flinched himself. He’d seen it, too late. It wasn’t a freighter at all, but an arsenal ship… and he’d allowed it into prime firing range of the fortress. Hundreds and thousands of missiles were pouring out of the hulk, their drives kicking in and launching them towards his station in an endless stream of death and destruction. There were bare minutes until they arrived… and he hadn’t even brought the point defence online. He hit the emergency alert key, knowing that his crew would race to their stations as quickly as possible… and that they would be far too late.
“Focus,” he snapped at the tactical officer. Her eyes were wide and staring, a faint smell revealed that she had urinated involuntarily. “Leave the precise targeting for now; bring the point defence online and authorise the computers to target the incoming missiles!”
She merely stared at him. Roberts pushed her out of the way with the arm of his chair and took over the console, keying up the point defence systems and triggering them with his override codes. Automated systems were never allowed to fire without human authorisation, at least not outside certain very specific situations, a paranoid safety measure that had cost them precious seconds. The point defence weapons hadn’t even been charged and ready for instant deployment. The mere process of charging them would eat still more of their remaining time…
“Hit that ship,” he ordered, tightly, as the missiles started to enter terminal attack vector, bringing up their drives to full power for their final suicidal attack. There was no point in targeting the arsenal ship, not now, apart from revenge, and that was all that he had left. The enemy ship had sat right under his missile launchers and he hadn’t even noticed! The government down on the planet wouldn’t had had any warning at all. “Take them down, hurry!”
The tactical officer looked at him, her composure completely shattered. She really was as young as she looked. “We’re going to die,” she said, flatly. “Aren’t we, sir?”
Roberts refused to lie to her. “Yes, Fran,” he said, surprising her. She hadn’t known that he’d known her name. It was written all over her face. “We’re going to die.”
The first missiles lanced in towards the point defence zone and passed through, barely touched by the weapons as they closed in on their target. The fortress’s shields had snapped up, at least, but they were still going to take a pounding. The massive structure shook, time and time again, as the missiles hammered away at it, the shields finally collapsing and allowing the missiles to lash into bare hull. The fortress was armoured heavily, but the sheer weight of missiles ripped through the armour and started to detonate inside the structure.
Roberts barely had a moment to realise that it was over before the power plant finally blew and vaporised the fortress, along with its crew. They’d barely managed to destroy the arsenal ship before it killed them.
“Decloak us, now,” Katy ordered, watching as Hell itself was unleashed on the orbital defences of Schubert. The planet was alarmingly close to Cottbus itself, with a small network of orbital defences, and targeting it had been one of the hardest decisions she’d had to make. Taking out the defences might be worthwhile, but it would inflict little damage on Admiral Wilhelm’s fleet and prove costly. “All ships, engage at will.”
It had taken nearly a week to slip into the system without triggering any alerts, but they’d managed it, sneaking an entire task force right up to Schubert. The defenders had had no warning at all when she’d sent the arsenal ship into their midst, the crew’s sacrifice having cleared the way for her ships. A single freighter, refitted to serve as an arsenal ship, had blown the command fortress away and inflicted severe damage on other facilities. If nothing else, Admiral Wilhelm’s people were going to be extremely paranoid about every other freighter that arrived, travelling on its own…
“Order the other arsenal ships to take out the remaining two fortresses,” she ordered, calmly. There was no need to force them to volunteer for a suicide mission. Now that the gloves were off, they could use the arsenal ships to their best advantage without worrying about the cost. The fortresses wouldn’t be able to stand off the missiles while trying to kill the empty ships. “Keep us on course for the main industrial node.”
The display updated as the superdreadnaughts, their true nature now exposed to the enemy, slid through space, diving into the gravity shadow at an thoroughly insane speed. She’d been tempted to issue the same warning as she’d issued to the other worlds she’d hit, telling them to evacuate their industrial stations before it was too late and she destroyed them, but Schubert was different. It was just too close to Cottbus to waste time. They had enough time, by her most pessimistic calculation, to close with the orbital defences, destroy them and the industrial facilities, and beat a retreat. They could not wait for the facilities to be abandoned.
“Incoming fire,” the tactical officer said, grimly. The display lit up as the orbital missile pods opened fire, unleashing a swarm of missiles towards her ships, which reacted to the threat as they’d been trained. Someone on the other side had clearly realised that if the missile pods weren’t expended, now, they would lose them without having a chance to hit something worthwhile. Any halfway decent industrial node could turn out hundreds of missiles; Schubert, clearly, had been doing just that. “Point defence is engaging now.”
Katy nodded, clutching the sides of her command chair as the red icons started to wink out, one by one. Schubert’s defenders were in a state of shock and, as long as she kept pounding on them, they wouldn’t have a chance to recover. They still commanded awesome levels of orbital firepower, but they just didn’t have time to coordinate it into a single unit. They could have beaten her off, or forced her to accept intolerable losses, but they just didn’t have the time.
The superdreadnaught rumbled as it unleashed another swarm of missiles, sending death racing through space towards the industrial facilities. Schubert had been a wealthy world once, if not quite up to first-rank status, and it had actually built a major orbital industry. That industry was dying now, blown apart by her missiles and reduced to flaming embers, floating down towards the planet. The defenders fought as best as they could, trying to save as much as possible, but they didn’t have a chance.
“Signal from the planet, Admiral,” the communications officer said. Her voice was almost beseeching, but Katy couldn’t understand why. “They want to discuss terms of surrender.”
Katy clenched her teeth. The Shadow Fleet had always given quarter when it was requested, but she couldn’t accept a surrender, on any terms. How could she? She couldn’t garrison the planet, nor could she wait for them to abandon their orbital facilities. By now, a destroyer or a courier boat could be halfway to Cottbus, warning them that her fleet was in the area… and they would have a clear shot at destroying it. They couldn’t afford to be caught in the gravity shadow, not now…