“Return fire,” he ordered, hoarsely. It wasn’t the commanding voice he’d been taught to use at the Academy, but no one could have remained steady in the teeth of so many missiles. The fire of sixteen superdreadnaughts, external racks or no external racks, couldn’t hope to match the onrushing wave of destruction advancing towards him. Hell, the rebels should have had problems trying to coordinate that many missiles, yet somehow they were controlling them perfectly. “All point defence weapons are cleared to engage. I say again, all point defence weapons are clear to engage.”
Sixteen superdreadnaughts carried a great deal of point defence and they were escorted by sixty-nine smaller ships, all linked into a datanet that hadn’t been designed to handle so many incoming missiles at once. Its designers had assumed that there were limits to how many missiles could be deployed; never, in their worst nightmares, had they imagined a missile storm like the one advancing towards them. There were so many missiles that their emissions seemed to blur into one another, making it harder to even begin targeting them. Hundreds of missiles vanished as the point defence network struck them down, but thousands survived to make it through and hammer against his shields. Red icons flashed and vanished on his display as the smaller ships were vaporised — the rebels hadn’t restricted their targeting to the superdreadnaughts alone — their shields and defences unable to stand up to the onslaught. His superdreadnaughts seemed to cling together — as if they could provide mutual support by moving closer — but it was already too late. A deluge of missiles fell upon them.
“Signal the rebels,” Commodore William ordered. His career and the opinion of Admiral Percival no longer mattered. “Tell them we surrender!”
“It’s too late,” the tactical officer said. “They’re entering terminal attack phase…”
The missiles slammed home. The superdreadnaught might have shrugged off one missile or ten missiles or even a hundred missiles, but so many impacting so close together was beyond her ability to survive. As fireballs blazed out on her shields, the shield generators failed, allowing the rebels missiles to slam into the hull and start to explode within the hull. A series of tearing explosions blew the flagship into nothing more than expanding plasma. The remainder of the squadron followed it into death seconds later.
“My God,” Colin breathed, as the final superdreadnaught vanished. No one had ever seen sixteen superdreadnaughts destroyed so rapidly, not even during the First Interstellar War. Since time out of mind, the tactics of space warfare had been determined by weight of fire and, now, the Geeks had introduced a whole new variable into the equation. The arsenal ships might be a one-shot weapon, they might not have the shielding or armour of superdreadnaughts, they might have the manoeuvring capability of a wallowing pig, but they had just changed the face of warfare. Every Academy graduate knew that if the first punch was heavy enough, there would be no need to throw a second.
He watched, as if from a far distance, as Commodore William’s missiles roared into his fleet. The Commodore obviously hadn’t been able to sort the real superdreadnaughts out from the decoys — or perhaps he just hadn’t had time to update his command missiles with the new data. Of course, the sudden wave of missiles — far more than nine superdreadnaughts could launch — had been a very convincing argument. Colin rather regretted Commodore William’s death, even if he had been on the wrong side. The aging naval officer had been a good and decent — if limited — man.
“Only a relative handful of missiles tracked our real ships,” the tactical officer said. “The remainder went after the drones.”
Colin nodded. One of the other great limiting factors in space warfare was that missile drives — while overpowered to a level no manned starship could survive — burned out quickly. Once the missiles realised their mistake, if they realised their mistake, they would have no time to seek another target before it was too late. The debris of the battlefield would have to be swept carefully, in case a stray missile hadn’t been programmed to destroy itself once it lost power, but they were little threat to an alert starship.
The Empire wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice, Colin knew, but for the moment it hardly mattered. Besides, if some of the other programs the Geeks had talked about became a reality, Colin would never have to worry about running out of tricks.
“Open a channel,” he ordered. He waited for the channel to open. “Admiral Percival, as you can see, my fleet is no bluff.” And now, he knew, he was bluffing. The arsenal ships would have to withdraw, reload from the ammunition ships and return before he could launch a second massive salvo. And even then, he might not have enough to crack the defences of Camelot. “I have killed thousands of your loyalists in proving that I can destroy you.”
He took a breath. “Surrender now and you will live,” he added. He didn’t want to make any promises, yet… did he have any choice? “If you continue to resist me, I will be forced to destroy Camelot and its orbiting facilities.”
Penny had done something she knew was stupid, but she no longer gave a damn. Instead of obeying Percival’s orders and going back to her quarters — which she barely used, as Percival had been fond of ordering her to sleep on the couch in his quarters — she had gone into the smaller back-up communications room and evicted the two officers on duty. They, at least, hadn’t heard about her disgrace and relief — and if they saw the mark on her face, they said nothing. She had watched in disbelief and horror as sixteen superdreadnaughts were rapidly destroyed. The rebels hadn’t been bluffing, yet…
She thought about it, tossing possibilities over and over in her head. They couldn’t have captured so many superdreadnaughts without Percival hearing about it and she’d heard everything that Percival had heard, apart from a handful of private discussions with Stacy Roosevelt. It had to be a trick of some kind, yet the missiles had been very real. How had they done it? She listened as the rebels broadcast their demand for surrender and shook her head. Percival wouldn’t have the sense to surrender, which meant that the fortress — and the other eight in orbit around Camelot — were about to be destroyed. Penny reached down and touched the pistol at her belt. She could use it, gun down Percival and surrender to the rebels.
The hatch opened and two Blackshirts — their eyes dull with the effects of the drugs they used — stepped inside. Penny read her fate in their eyes and reached for her pistol, but it was too late. One of them threw himself at her, knocked her to the deck and tore the pistol away, before yanking her hands behind her back and securing them with a single strip of malleable metal. He hauled her to her feet, searched her roughly, and started to march her towards the hatch — and stopped. Another pair of Blackshirts was standing there, holding stunners.
Her captor blinked. “Who are you?” He asked, in a cold dead voice. “What are you doing here?”
The newcomers stunned him and his mate. Penny swayed, barely able to keep her balance, as they collapsed to the ground like sacks of potatoes. The second pair of Blackshirts — they looked more alert, as if they hadn’t been taking their drugs — looked at her. She had the uneasy feeling that they were communicating with each other in a manner she couldn’t detect, or understand. Who were they?