“Our missiles out-range theirs, and we’ve refined our targeting systems to beat their jammers—which, by the way, are still losing ground to our own—but if we stay beyond their range, we can’t get our warheads in close enough, either. Not without bigger salvos than most of our ships can throw. As long as they stay far enough out to use their micro-jump advantage, as well, we can only fight them on their terms, and that’s bad business.”
“How bad?” General Ki asked.
“Bad. We started out with a hundred and twenty battleships, twice that many cruisers, and about four hundred destroyers. We’re down to thirty-one battleships, ninety-six cruisers, and one hundred and seven destroyers—that’s a loss of five hundred and thirty-six out of an initial strength of seven hundred and seventy. In return, we’ve knocked out about nine hundred of their ships. I’ve got confirmed kills on seven hundred eighty-two and probables on another hundred fifty or so. That’s one hell of a lot more tonnage than we’ve lost, and, by our original estimates, that should have been all of them; as it is, it looks like a bit less than fifty percent.
“What it boils down to is that they’ve ground us away. If they move against us in force, we no longer have the mobile units to meet them in deep space.”
“In short,” Horus interjected softly, “they’ve won control of the Solar System beyond the reach of Earth’s own weapons.”
“Exactly, Governor,” Hawter said grimly. “We’re holding so far, but by the skin of our teeth. And this is only the scouting force.”
They were still staring at one another in glum silence when the alarms shrieked.
Both of Brashieel’s stomachs tightened as Vindicator moved in-system. The Demon Sector was living up to its name, Tarhish take it! Almost half the scouts had died striving against this single wretched planet, and if the scouts were but a few pebbles in the avalanche of Great Lord Tharno’s fleet, there were many suns in this sector—including the ones which must have built those scanner arrays. It could not have been these nest-killers, for none of their ships were even hyper-capable. But if these nest-killers had such weapons, who knew what else awaited the Protectors?
Yet they were pushing the nest-killers back. Lord of Thought Mosharg had counted the nest-killers they had sent to Tarhish carefully, and few of their foes’ impossibly powerful warships could remain.
Still, it seemed rash to press an attack so deep into the inner system. The nest-killers were twice as fast as Vindicator when he could not flee into hyper. If this was an ambush, the Great Visit’s scouts could lose heavily.
But Brashieel was no lord. Perhaps the purpose was to evaluate the nest-killers’ close defenses before the Hoof of Tarhish was released upon them? That made sense, even to an assistant servant like him, especially in light of their orders to attack the sunward pole of the planet. Yet to risk a half-twelve of twelves of scouts in this fashion took courage. Which might be why Lords Chirdan and Mosharg were lords and Brashieel was an assistant servant.
He settled tensely upon his duty pad as they emerged from hyper and headed for the blue-white world they had come so far to slay.
“Seventy-two hostiles, inbound,” Plotting reported. “Approximately two hundred forty additional hostiles following at eight light-minutes. Evaluate this as a major probe.”
Isaiah Hawter winced. Over three hundred of them. He could go out to meet them and kick hell out of them, but it would leave him with next to nothing. Those bastards lying back to cover their fellows with hyper missiles made the difference. He’d lose half his ships before his energy weapons even engaged the advanced force.
No, this time he was going to have to let them in.
“All task forces, withdraw behind the primary shield,” he said. “Instruct Fighter Command to stand by. Bring all ODC weaponry to readiness.”
Adrienne Robbins swore softly as she retreated behind the shield. She knew going out to meet that much firepower would be a quick form of suicide, but Nergal had twenty-seven confirmed kills and nine probables, more than any other unit among Earth’s tattered survivors, and letting these vermin close without a fight galled her. More, it frightened her, because whether anyone chose to admit it or not, she knew what it meant.
They were losing.
Vassily Chernikov made a minute adjustment through his neural feed, nursing his core tap like an old cat with a single kitten. He’d been right to insist on building it, but all he felt now was hatred for the demon he had chained. It was breaking its bonds, slowly but surely, under the strain of continuous overload operation in a planetary atmosphere; when they snapped, it would be the end.
Lieutenant Samson’s belly tightened as he watched the developing attack pattern. They were coming in from the south this time—had they spotted the core tap? Realized how vital to Earth it was?
Either way, it made little difference to Samson’s probable fate. The Iron Bitch was right in their path, floating with five other ODCs to help her bar the way … and the planetary shield was drawn in behind them.
“Red Warning! Prepare for launch! Prepare for Launch! Red Warning!”
The fighter crews, Terra-born and Imperials distinguishable now only by their names, charged up the ladders to their cockpits. General Ki Tran Thich settled into the pilot’s couch of his command fighter and flashed the commit signal over his neural feed. Drives hummed to life, EW officers tuned their defensive systems and weaponry, and the destruction-laden little craft howled up from their PDC homes on the man-made thunder of their sonic booms.
Brashieel blinked inner and outer lids alike as his display blossomed with sudden threat sources. Great Nest! Sublight missiles at this range?
But his consternation eased slightly as he saw the power readings. No, not missiles. They were something else, some sort of very small warships. He had never heard of anything like them, but, then, he had never heard of most of the Tarhish-spawned surprises these demon nest-killers had produced.
“Missile batteries, stand by,” Gerald Hatcher ordered softly. This was going to be tricky. He and Tao-ling had trained to coordinate their southern-hemisphere PDCs, but this was the first time the bastards had come really close.
He spared a moment to be thankful Sharon and the girls were safely under the protection of Horus’s Shepard Center HQ. It was just possible something was coming through this time.
Andrew Samson swallowed as the interceptors drilled through the shield’s polar portal and it closed behind them. They were such tiny things to pit themselves against those kilometers-long Leviathans. It didn’t seem—
“Stand by missile crews.” Captain M’wange’s voice was cold. “Shield generators to max. Deploy first hyper salvo.”
The hyper missiles floated out of their bays, moored to the Bitch by chains of invisible force, and the Achuultani swept closer.
“All ODCs engage—now!” Isaiah Hawter snapped.
Nest Lord! Those were missiles!
Slayer and War Hoof vanished from his scanners, and Brashieel winced. The nest-killers no longer used the greater thunder; they had come to rely almost entirely on those terrible warheads which did not explode … and for which the Nest had no counter. Slayer crumpled in on himself as a missile breached his shields; War Hoof simply disappeared, and the range was far too long for his own hyper missiles. What devil among the nest-killers had thought of putting hyper drives inside their missiles that way?