Commodore Wilma Bernadotte watched the superdreadnaughts vanish, silently cursing the Families Council under her breath. The agreements that allowed the Bernadotte Family to operate superdreadnaughts of its own had never stipulated that they would be under Imperial Navy command, but the conditions attached to deploying an additional squadron of superdreadnaughts to Terra Nova had changed that — and not for the better. Now the Families Council was panicking and Terra Nova was being stripped of its defences, right after the loss of Wolf 359.
Wilma would have liked to gloat about the Sandakan Family’s misfortune. After all, losing Wolf 359 would hurt the Empire — but it would ensure more demands for products from Terra Nova. The economic slowdown that had seen half the slips left empty and industrial nodes idle would come to an end, she knew, once people realised they could start ordering their products from Terra Nova instead. And the Bernadotte Family would be well-placed to start taking advantage of its sudden prominence. There was no way the other two shipyards could be replaced in less than a decade, assuming the money could be found to rebuild them. Until then, Bernadotte would reign supreme.
She ran a hand through her purple hair as she surveyed the tactical display. The Bernadotte Family owned the gas giant and its companion moon completely, forbidding all others from entering the colossal gravity shadow. It ensured that anything that showed itself was considered a smuggler, a pirate or a rebel spy. Wilma had standing orders to engage anything that didn’t carry a secure IFF beacon, issued by the family. Even the Imperial Navy wasn’t allowed to enter the gravity shadow without her permission.
But she couldn’t help feeling worried. The shipyard was dangerously exposed — and almost certainly on the list of rebel targets. She’d seen what had happened at Morrison… and even though she’d ordered her crews to take precautions she couldn’t help worrying about losing her own point defence. The colossal investment she’d made in orbital weapons platforms and automated systems would be wasted if her point defence network went down. In fact…
Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by alarms howling through her command station. Red icons flared to life on the display, impossibly close to the defences. For a long moment, Wilma’s mind refused to accept what she was seeing. The passive sensor network would have picked up any starships, cloaked or not, that had come so close to the defences. There was no way those missiles could be real…
She understood, even as her crews scrambled to reach their duty stations. The rebels — and it had to be the rebels — had launched their missiles on ballistic trajectories. They’d solved the problem of burning out the missile drives by simply not activating them at all, right up until the moment detection was inevitable. And then the drives had gone active.
Her point defence was still frantically powering up, she realised. It was too late.
Colin felt his smile grow wider as the fleet dropped its cloak and went to full military power, heading down into the gravity shadow. The sneak attack hadn’t worked perfectly, but it had worked well enough to let the missiles get close to their targets. Normally, the enemy’s confidence in their defences would be fully justified. Now… the Geeks had upset their calculations once again.
Not that stealth missiles are beyond the Empire’s powers, he thought. They just never put the concept into practical use.
“One minute to impact,” the tactical officer reported.
“Transmit our message after the first impact,” Colin ordered. “And then prepare to engage the enemy.”
Wilma watched helplessly as the first laser head detonated, sending a ravening pencil of energy lashing out and burning against her station’s shields. Others followed, punching through the shields and digging into her hull. The station groaned like a living thing as the hull was broken in a dozen places, then shuddered violently as contact nukes slammed in and detonated against the hull. Red lights flared up on the status display until the entire board seemed to be coated in red light, seconds before all power failed.
And then the world seemed to explode into light around her.
“Five of the fortresses are gone, sir,” the tactical officer reported. “Three more are badly damaged; the remainder are largely untouched.”
“Transmit the message,” Colin ordered. There was nothing the defenders could do, now, to prevent him from ripping the shipyard to shreds. But there was a chance to make them surrender. “And then take us into bombardment range.”
Lieutenant Kitty Fergusson had never expected to find herself in command of one station, let alone the entire defensive network. But her CO was enjoying himself on the moon, having anticipated a week or two without any real trouble, and her other superiors were either dead or out of touch. She eyed the expanding cloud of debris that had been Defence Station Alpha and shivered, barely able to keep her shock under control. A station that had been supposed to be damn near indestructible had been blown into fragments, with ease.
The whole situation seemed like a nightmare. She pinched herself, only to discover that it was real. The enemy fleet was neatly out of range of the intact fortifications, but it was perfectly placed to shatter the shipyard itself. Given a few minutes, trillions of credits worth of investment would be utterly destroyed. The rebels had pulled off a daring attack and won.
“Lieutenant,” the communications officer said, “we are picking up a rebel message.”
Kitty almost cringed. She knew she’d only been promoted because her relatives happened to include a number of loyal Bernadotte clients. And, she suspected, because her CO rather liked looking at her, even though he’d never tried to lure Kitty into bed. She couldn’t think of any tactic that might drive the rebels off, certainly not without devastating the shipyard in the process. And if she destroyed it herself, her family would be expelled from the patronage network and left to grovel for scraps in the gutters. She knew what happened to those who failed so disastrously.
And, even if she did want to fight, would the others follow her?
“Let me hear it,” she said.
“The battle is over,” the rebel leader said. “Your position is hopeless. You can choose between joining us, accepting internment or being slaughtered. If the former, you will be welcome; we will reward those who join us with promotion and responsibilities they could not have dreamed of under the Thousand Families. If you choose, instead, to be interned, you will be treated well. But if you choose to fight, you will be rapidly destroyed. You have five minutes to make up your mind.”
Kitty felt stares boring into the back of her head. She’d never really had to face tough decisions in her life, let alone one that might draw disagreement from her subordinates. The thought of them turning on her had been unthinkable only mere hours ago. Now, she had to consider their reaction. Would they follow her if she sought to fight? Or would they simply stick a knife in her back and surrender themselves?
But, in the end, she knew the fight was hopeless.
“Signal the rebels,” she ordered, quietly. “Tell them that we surrender.”
“They’ve surrendered, sir,” the communications officer said.
Colin let out a sigh of relief. Destroying the shipyard would have been easy, but they needed the shipyard to start rebuilding the damage caused by the war. But it was also possible that Home Fleet could sortie and recover the shipyard before the war could be brought to an end.