“We shall see,” Wachter said. He cleared his throat, then looked over at the coordinators. “The fleet is to press the enemy closely.”
Penny smiled. “Energy range?”
“It won’t do any harm to let them think that’s what we have in mind,” Wachter said. “Besides, we need to press them as hard as possible.”
Colin hated to lose. It had been his determination to win that had guided him to then-Commodore Percival… and his determination not to let Percival destroy his career and future that had led him to mutiny. He took a certain amount of pride in winning far more battles, both real and simulated, than he’d lost. But the mystery CO of Morrison had beaten him, hands down. Colin scowled at the display, then reluctantly conceded defeat. There was no point in pressing the matter further.
The Imperial Navy was settling in for a long chase, exchanging volleys of missile fire with his ships. They were even gaining on the rebels, thanks to the number of damaged starships in Colin’s fleet. Given time, they would claw their way into energy range and rip his remaining ships apart. The Imperial Navy could afford to take the losses, Colin and the rebels could not. If they lost their superdreadnaughts, they lost all hope of victory.
“General signal to all ships,” he ordered. “We will jump out to the first waypoint in two minutes, then proceed to the second waypoint.”
He considered vectors for a long minute as the fleet acknowledged his command. For once, the Imperial Navy would have an excellent chance of following his ships through a jump. It would be chancy, he knew, but the enemy CO had shown no hesitation to take risks in exchange for a shot at Colin’s ships. Colin would have to repower his flicker drives at once and jump again, hoping his ships could escape before the enemy ran the calculations and jumped after them. Could they do it in time?
There was no way to know, he knew. There were just too many variables.
The superdreadnaught rang like a bell as four more missiles crashed against her shields. Long tendrils of energy reached through the failing force shields to caress her hull, brilliant red lights blinked up on the status display. Damage control teams were already on their way, Colin saw, but there were limits to what they could do. At least his teams were better than the enemy’s, if the long-range sensor reports were to be believed. The enemy didn’t seem to be as quick at repairing minor damage as the rebel ships. But it was impossible to be sure.
“All ships report ready to jump, sir,” the tactical officer reported.
Colin mentally saluted his opponent. Whoever he was, he had played a good game. And won. For a moment, he wondered what would happen to the enemy CO. If he was an aristocrat, he was likely to be removed from his position quickly, for fear of him becoming another Empress. And if he wasn’t, he was likely to end up dead.
“Jump,” he ordered.
Alarms rang through the hull. “Sir, the flicker drive is refusing to activate,” the tactical officer reported. He sounded shocked. “We’re caught in a gravity field!”
Colin’s eyes snapped to the display, but he already knew what he would see. Morrison was the closest gravity well… and yet they were already far outside the planet’s gravity shadow. For a moment, he found himself wondering if the enemy had managed to cloak a whole planet before dismissing the thought as completely impossible. A planet could be knocked out of orbit or blown into asteroids — the Empire had done both during the First Interstellar War — but not cloaked. The power requirements would be far beyond even the most advanced technology.
And yet they were trapped.
“Swing the smaller ships behind us to boost our point defence,” he ordered. If they were trapped… what if the Empire had managed to create an artificial gravity field? Why were the Geeks and Nerds the only people who could innovate? They weren’t — but the Empire rarely innovated. Everything else the enemy CO had shown them had been cunning uses of well-known technology. “And then continue firing.”
He thought, desperately. It had to be a trick. If the Empire could prevent starships from flickering out, it would have deployed the technology long ago.
But how the hell was it done?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“They’re redoubling their fire,” the tactical officer reported.
Wachter smiled. “Omega must be working,” he said. “They would have jumped out by now if they could.”
Penny couldn’t disagree. The rebels had to know they would lose the battering match — or that they would win, only to have their fleet battered into uselessness. And they weren’t stupid enough to stay and fight when the odds were so badly stacked against them. No, Wachter was right. They should have retreated by now. If, of course, they could retreat.
The Admiral raised his voice. “Continue firing,” he ordered. “And launch the second set of gunboats.”
The spy cursed out loud as the superdreadnaught rocked, almost sending her stumbling into a bulkhead. Whatever was going on outside the hull had to be violent; her damage control team had been rushed from place to place, hastily removing and replacing components that had burned out during the battle. The more advanced teams, she’d heard, were actually working on the hull, even though the superdreadnaught was still fighting for survival. She wasn’t sure if that was bravery or sheer desperation.
Rogers caught her hand, then pulled her down the corridor towards the damage control station. The spy glowered at his back; they’d slept together once and now he was all protective? It wouldn’t have been so bad, she knew, if she hadn’t wanted some privacy and a chance to access the mainframe again. But then, perhaps she would have found his concern irritating even if she hadn’t had any other problems.
“Get these components replaced,” Engineer Richards barked. He shoved a datapad and a box of spare parts at Rogers, who took them and glanced at the instructions. The ship’s network was very good at identifying problems, the spy had to admit. But then, the superdreadnaught design had been established for hundreds of years. “Now!”
Rogers threw the spy one final look, then fled. The spy rolled her eyes, then looked up at Richards. He passed her a toolkit and a handful of spare parts, then another datapad. The spy looked at the pad, noted that she had to climb back into the tubes, then set off. It was less useful than working on the hull or patching up cracks in the bulkheads, she knew, but it gave her a chance to complete her own mission. Besides, while Rogers and several of the others had complained about not doing anything useful, keeping the ship’s various networks up and running was important to their survival. The datanet alone was a key part of the point defence network.
She clambered into the tube and climbed towards her destination. There was a faint smell of burning material in the air, suggesting that power surges had damaged or destroyed more than a few components. One of the shield generators had already failed, damaged beyond repair; the spy had helped the crew shut it down, then put it to one side. It would take hours to replace it, even assuming that they had the required components on hand. By then, the battle would be decided, one way or the other.
There was no sign of anyone else in the tubes, she realised, as she reached the workstation. She opened the hatch to make it look as though she was doing something useful, then spliced her datapad into the command network node. One of the little tricks few crewmen were ever taught was that it was possible to link directly into the network, without setting off any alarms. The spy braced herself, then tapped in the commands to send the message. An accurate update on the rebel fleet, she was sure, would be very helpful to her superiors.