Patrick nodded. The enemy faced the prospect of losing one of the two targets they absolutely had to protect. And if they allowed their ships to be caught out of position…
“Lock missiles on the enemy superdreadnaughts, then fire as soon as they come into range,” Cordova ordered. “Then jump us out. We can’t stand up to a battering match, not now.”
The seconds ticked down to zero as the enemy superdreadnaughts closed in. As soon as they entered missile range, the arsenal ships opened fire, spitting a hail of missiles towards their targets. They’d know they weren’t chasing superdreadnaughts now, Patrick knew; the arsenal ships were quite distinctive. But it no longer mattered. If the rebels were lucky, the imps hadn’t managed to recharge their drives yet….
“Get us out of here,” Cordova ordered. There was no time to wait around and see what happened. “Now!”
Space twisted around them and they were gone.
Tiberius watched, grimly, as the enemy ships flickered out, leaving a wall of missiles roaring towards the superdreadnaughts. Their point defence started to fire at once, sweeping dozens of missiles out of existence, but enough survived to crash headlong into the wall of battle. Three superdreadnaughts were destroyed outright, two more left streaming atmosphere as they staggered out of line. And the rebels, he saw, had jumped clean away. They hadn’t taken a single casualty.
“Damn it,” Lord Bernadotte said. His voice was coldly furious. One of the damaged superdreadnaughts belonged to his family, rather than the Imperial Navy. “I told you we shouldn’t have recalled the ships…”
“A courier boat just jumped into the system,” Admiral Porter snapped. “Terra Nova is under attack!”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hammer was an unusual arsenal ship. Unlike her peers, she had been designed to launch missiles one by one, without triggering their drives. Hidden behind a sensor mask, she could unload her missiles into space without being detected, even alarmingly close to the Terra Nova shipyards. No one had a clue that she was there.
Captain Kosovo felt his implants itching as he accessed the live feed from the ship’s passive sensors, downloading it directly into his head. Being so close to Earth bothered him, even though cold logic insisted that they were completely undetectable. The Geeks had not existed so long as a collective without knowing when best to take precautions and going so close to the Enemies of Science was not something they cared to do. But there was little choice. One by one, the missiles were pushed out and down towards their target.
“All missiles deployed,” the weapons officer said, finally. He didn’t bother to look at his commander as he spoke. Their minds were already touching in the computer network. “Forty minutes to likely detection range.”
Kosovo allowed himself a tight smile. The fortresses protecting the Terra Nova Shipyard — which didn’t actually orbit Terra Nova itself, yet another hint of the Empire’s regretful imprecision — were buried deep in the gas giant’s gravity shadow. Under normal circumstances, they would have plenty of warning before an enemy attack fleet could get into range. Even now, with Morrison gone and Earth itself about to come under attack, the fortifications were not at full alert. But then, he considered, the imps had no idea how to maintain their systems. Every time they went to battlestations, they took years off their technology’s lifespan.
Pathetic, he thought.
It didn’t help that the missiles were another Geek invention. They looked like standard Imperial Navy-issue missiles, but the Geeks had coated them in stealthy materials that would absorb radar and sensor pulses directed at them. There was no way they could remain hidden once their drives went active, of course, yet as long as they remained on their ballistic trajectories they would be effectively impossible to detect. They could drift right through the massive sensor network protecting the shipyard as if they weren’t there.
“Steer us out of the gravity shadow,” he ordered. “And then hold us at the planned observation point.”
The Geeks had two interests in joining the war. One was in securing the right to experiment as they pleased, without their technology being considered disruptive and threatening to the natural order. The other was in actually testing their more interesting theories and concepts. Kosovo knew himself to be far from the Geek ideal, yet even he was fascinated by the thought of actually seeing some of the new technology in war. Who knew if theory would live up to practice?
He glanced around his bridge. An Imperial Navy inspection team would have had a fit if they’d seen it, for it didn’t look clean or tidy at all. The consoles were open, exposing their innards; wiring lay everywhere and all four bridge crewmen were connected to the processors though implants inserted into their skulls. It was a mess. And yet, it was faster and more efficient than anything the Imperial Navy possessed. The Geeks looked forward to the day when everyone could merge with computers and expand their minds. They were sure that it would be a step closer to redesigning the human race as a whole.
“And send a laser signal,” he added. “The missiles are on their way.”
The gas giant didn’t look anything like as spectacular as Jupiter, Colin considered, as the rebel fleet crept closer to the gravity shadow. It was a massive blue-green ball of light, hanging in the darkness of space; there were no rings or clouds of space dust orbiting it for the tourists to admire. The gas giant’s only companion was a moon half the size of Earth, a moon that had been terraformed long ago. Now, it served as the barracks for the millions of shipyard workers and their families.
He had to admit that the shipyard itself looked impressive, though. There were hundreds of construction slips, industrial nodes and asteroid resource bases, surrounded by dozens of orbital fortresses and a small formation of enemy ships. Someone in the Bernadotte Family had to have paid out a large fortune in bribes, he decided, or perhaps there was some elaborate quid pro quo involved. The Household Troops were not supposed to have access to so many superdreadnaughts, no matter how important their possessions were.
“Admiral,” the sensor officer reported. “The enemy superdreadnaughts are powering up and inching out of the gravity shadow.”
Right on time, Colin noted. He glanced at the countdown and smiled to himself. Cordova would be demonstrating in the Sol System, showing himself and a fleet of illusionary superdreadnaughts to the enemy. He’d planned on the assumption that the enemy fleet wouldn’t withdraw, but it was nice to see the plan working. It would be a great deal easier to secure the shipyard without the superdreadnaughts.
“Keep us well away from their flight path,” he ordered. “We don’t want to be detected now.”
The cloaking devices had two major flaws, both of which had been hammered into his head at the academy. They couldn’t hide everything, thus a starship too close to a cloaked ship might well be able to detect it. And it was impossible to raise shields or fire weapons without breaking the cloak. If the enemy superdreadnaughts picked up a sniff of their presence, the rebel fleet would be hammered before it had a chance to respond. But as the superdreadnaughts advanced out of the gravity shadow, they missed the rebels completely. One by one, they flickered out towards Earth.
“They’re gone, sir,” the sensor officer reported.
Colin smiled. The timing had been perfect. “Order the missiles to engage as soon as they enter terminal attack range,” he ordered. “And then prepare to sound battlestations.”