Winterhome

by Blaze Ward

  If those people had any clue about orbital physics right now, they would scram whatever emergency jump they probably had programmed, and just hop a quarter orbit away, somewhere behind his ships. They would be safe, for now, because Kigali again wasn’t doing it like they were supposed to, slowing as they closed so the two sides could go hammer and shield on each other.

  Hell, if they just sat and took it, all three ships would probably survive, and could just sit and fire into his squadron’s ass as they kept going.

  Of course, you would have to believe Second Squadron was going to do the absolutely insane as a next step to take such a risk. Nobody would believe this.

  The second salvo from the Bubble Guns was much more ragged. Variance in charging cycles, lack of a coherent order to hold and fire. The works. Two hits. Then one. Then a final one. This was less cataclysmic.

  Maybe a crème brûlée, rather than a scorched turkey.

  The beams made up for it.

  Again, ragged, but that actually worked in his favor, as every woodpecker tap had the opportunity to bleed into gaps and hit the hull, even when the panels held.

  And darkness.

  All three ships gone. Just like they were supposed to do when facing the potential for being overwhelmed by superior local forces.

  “Second Squadron, this is Kigali,” he intoned in a severe, vengeful voice. “Proceed to Phase Seven.”

  Chapter XXXI

  Date of the Republic November 25, 402 IFV Indianapolis, Severnaya Zemlya

  Jessica took a deep breath as the words came over the comm.

  “Second Squadron, this is Kigali,” he said angrily. “Proceed to Phase Seven.”

  She checked the boards. Bedrov had designed the flag bridge on Indianapolis to closely replicate what she had enjoyed on her Star Controller, with a few improvements he had picked up along the way. It wasn’t as spacious, and she didn’t have that mind-bogglingly-huge projector in the center of her table, but Enej was here, even if Aranyani had stayed behind on Vanguard to help Denis.

  The station was still where she had left it in April. Most assuredly, they had repaired all the combat systems by now, but just seeing all the repair shuttles and equipment, as shown by Ballard, had told her that they had skipped the rest of the work, or at least slowed it way down.

  Probably, they had sent everybody to Yenisei to help repair the devastation she had unleashed there, confident that they had major forces here. Hopefully, The Eldest was still thinking in linear terms, defending borders on maps, expecting her to pounce on Samara or Ninagirsu, rather than what she was really doing.

  Every day he was busy fighting Thermopylae was another day he wasn’t facing her in the Peninsular War.

  Because now, it was going to get rather ugly.

  The Megalodon and the Tigersharks had fled rather than face her. But they would only jump out into the darkness long enough to undock from the Energiya module and come back. That was a battleship, five cruisers, and eleven frigates, facing her. Against what she had brought to the field of battle, it would be a slaughter, but she was going to give them the chance to level that field, if they were smart.

  “All vessels, this is Jessica Keller, aboard Indianapolis. I have the flag,” she said carefully. “Phase Seven initiated. Conform maneuvers to Vanguard and form up for fleet maneuvers.”

  Twelve Fast Strike Bombers. Fourteen GunShips. Thirteen Corvettes. Seven Cruisers. Two Heavy Dreadnaughts.

  With most of the defenders out in deep space, her force had about eight minutes before any of the sharks could come back to fight. Maybe twenty minutes, if the two forces took the time to coordinate themselves before returning.

  In sixteen minutes, First Expeditionary Fleet would be in range of the station’s guns. And vice versa.

  Kigali’s team was moving faster, but they had the greatest distance to travel. An Imperial admiral, one of the types that Em had finally retired over the last few years, would have slowed down now and brought everyone together into a nice, massive force, trundling around orbit to go after the station as a unit. Like had failed so many times at Samara.

  Nils Kasum had cleared away the RAN’s deadwood of the Noble Lords six or eight years ago, starting with Loncar. In those instances, that left the fighters in charge, rather than glad-handing politicians.

  Today, the cruiser force would catch up to the dreadnaughts, just as everyone got into range with the station, going as fast as they could accelerate in two units. The ships would be too deep in the gravity well to just jump to safety, like Buran’s ships could. But they would be headed up and away, and that line of safety wasn’t all that far away.

  And if that Megalodon took too long, he might miss all the fun.

  Vanguard pivoted on the boards, engines still running all out. This would deflect the ship, and his whole squadron, onto a different orbital path. Ships several light-minutes away wouldn’t be able to see it until they jumped back in, hopefully aiming for that spot where Denis would have been without the sideslip.

  Kigali was doing the same thing, with the addition of a max burn on every engine that could push. Signals intelligence could only predict where your enemy was, if nothing changed. Those ships would hopefully land badly out of position when they went to intercept her, and then have to jump again, giving her team an extra minute to prepare.

  Otherwise, it was going to get messy around here.

  Jessica took a minute to study the rest of the orbital traffic. Several industrial stations shared orbit with them, but most of them were at a much lower altitude, not needing to maintain a geo-synched location over a city below. The number of civilian ships was dwindling rapidly, as everyone ran for the hills, obviously cognizant of what she had done at Yenisei or Stanovoy.

  Good; lessons were being learned that the cost of subjugating the galaxy would have to be paid by citizens here, and not just those planets that got conquered by The Eldest and his Warriors. Or bombarded from orbit.

  Below them, a busy planet, with fields of lights representing cities on a black fabric as they flew over the night side of the planet. It would be child’s play to start blasting some of those targets from here. She didn’t have any primary beams, but this depth of atmosphere wasn’t going to degrade a Type-4 beam enough to prevent it from setting fires or imploding skyscrapers.

  She had no intentions of doing that, tempting as it might be. Seeker had suggested that there might be orbital shields protecting the inner portion of the major cities, perhaps a zone a few kilometers across over government buildings or military bases, but most of the civilians on the ground were at her mercy.

  And she had mercy. Some.

  There was still the next part of this campaign. That would go beyond what she had done at Trusski. It was, however, the next, logical step.

  A signal chirped and brought her eyes up.

  Enej smiled grimly.

  “That was the eight-minute mark we estimated as best, possible return time,” he said. “Now they might show up at any moment.”

  “Let everyone know,” she replied. “We should have enough space to get one clean miss out of them. Assuming they don’t intentionally jump wide to locate us, but even then, we should spot them, with both CM-404 and Hans Bransch out there looking.”

  “On it,” he said, typing away furiously.

  “What’s Valiant doing?” she asked, noticing Provst’s ship moving slightly ahead of Vanguard, up with the faster GunShips.

  “Note here from Denis says that Provst is working on the theory that they think we’re still on Vanguard,” Enej replied. “He’s expecting them to target Denis anyway, so he’s trying to goad them into either letting him get closer, or engaging Valiant first.”

  “Good idea,” she said. “Send them both a gold star for that one.”

  Little things, like competent commanders working together, over and above her plans, to confuse the enemy. Doing the hard things in the scrum that it took to win, rather than worrying about who would get the credi
t.

  “Contact,” someone’s voice came across the team comm. “All guns forward now.”

  The display she was watching took almost two seconds to catch up to the data. Guns were already firing by the time a new target appeared.

  Oh, crap.

  Jessica made a note to adjust her own thinking next time. Both of her squadrons had gone sideways when maneuvering, but otherwise stayed relatively on plane. That Megalodon had just jumped into a spot where he obviously expected to be firing into Vanguard’s outer flank as it went by. Instead, he was sitting almost directly in front of First Squadron. With all six of his Hammerheads in close, defensive orbit on Vanguard’s port side as they charged.

  At least everyone over there was facing slightly the wrong way, still turned sideways rather than bow on. And orbital space, as small as it appeared in the projection, was still huge and completely empty.

  It only looked like an impending ten-vehicle-pileup on a crowded freeway.

  The Buran ships were almost at rest, relative to the station. First Squadron was going to blow by them at high speed. And hopefully miss, because there was simply no time to maneuver at these speeds.

  Indianapolis’s guns cut loose, pausing only long enough for the ship to roll onto her side so both Type-4 guns could bear. Bedrov’s Gator Roll. The rest of Second Squadron did the same, ignoring for the moment the possibility that the Tigersharks were probably coming soon.

  And then it was done.

  One cataclysmic moment, where the amount of energy on the sensors went off the chart, and then a gap appeared between the two forces, growing by the second.

  “Flag, this is Valiant,” Provst’s voice came over the team push. “Scratch one battleship, but I’m pretty much done for the rest of this battle.”

  He transmitted a first pass damage report from his Chief Engineer, showing the amount of injury to the ship. Apparently, the Megalodon had misidentified dreadnaughts, pouring all of his fire, plus his escorts, into Valiant, and ignoring the rest of the ships passing.

  Bubble Gun offline.

  Two Type-4 beams damaged, with one possibly destroyed.

  Half of the port guns at least damaged, if not worse.

  Shields tattered down the whole side, plus bow and some starboard.

  Valiant was a mess.

  But then Hans Bransch sent his scan of the Megalodon.

  You could kill a ship with icepicks. First Squadron just had. Jessica was amazed the shark hadn’t exploded. Or melted from the concentrated fury. But it wasn’t going anywhere.

  Jessica wasn’t entirely sure that the ship would be able to hold orbit.

  “Acknowledged, Valiant,” Jessica replied quickly. “Maintain formation and put everything into shield facings, rolling as you need to keep a wall between you and them. Vanguard and Kigali can take it from here.”

  “Roger that,” Provst said, cutting the line.

  It was a high cost to pay, but she had known these risks. Everyone had. And Valiant could still limp home, while that Megalodon was dead.

  “Flag, this is Hans Bransch,” another man came on the line. “Confirm target. I have two of the Tigersharks that have just landed close to the station in a defensive posture. Relative speed zero.”

  Jessica smiled. It was a terrible, cold thing that she felt take up residence on her face. Like Kali-ma returning for the first time in years. Even Enej, seated across from her, recoiled the slightest amount, looking at her.

  She found the file she wanted, gamed out ahead of time, and even reviewed by Tobias Brewster in his spare time, partly to prepare himself, and partly because he had turned into another version of her as a tactical commander.

  One Mako or Roughshark. Two Tigersharks, one of them slightly damaged but making a last stand. Seven Hammerheads, including five of the six that had been escorting the Megalodon. One had remained behind for now.

  All sitting in the shadow of the station and its guns.

  She routed firing assignments out to her team, approaching the defenders at high speed. Last time, the Fast Strike Bombers had come out of jump cold, almost on top of the station, firing into low-powered absorption panels and bringing them down with overload, just before her smaller squadron came blasting through.

  And ignoring the defenders completely.

  She hoped they were about to make the same assumption today.

  “All ships,” she said calmly, a professor handing out their final exams and looking over half-glasses with a stern eye. “Acknowledge targeting and prepare to engage.”

  Green lights from everyone a few seconds later. Most of them had seen it coming.

  At this speed, Ishfahan could have been deadly effective, but nobody would have imagined that yesterday. Just launch a wall of missiles as the fleet closed, like a strike carrier following its wing into battle.

  It was like the idea Denis had to mount a single-shot Primary on the bows of a thousand corvettes and fire them all at once. Just overload the smaller, more nimble fleet, because they had chosen maneuverability over durability.

  And that wouldn’t help on defense.

  Suddenly, she was Xerxes, and that Mako was Leonidas.

  The station opened fire. A panicked shot, apparently, because it was only one, at such an extreme range that even the Type-4’s were more like flashlights than sledgehammers.

  Still, it marked the next phase of the battle. Valiant had shifted again, drifting aft and starboard, as the rest of his friends went portward. It wouldn’t protect him, if the station was intent on hitting that dreadnaught, but it put other warships closer. Including Vanguard, which should be the target everyone was expecting to attack.

  Chariot of the dreaded Jessica Keller.

  “Merman, this is Keller,” she called out to the commander of II Augusta’s flight wing.

  The Fast Strike Bomber was designed as a short-range jumper, moving inside the gravity well like Buran’s ships. They weren’t as accurate in motion, but this would be a short hop.

  Normally, they bounced in and out. Today, they had been with First Squadron long enough to actually recharge their batteries, so they could make two jumps now, instead of one.

  Hopefully, yet another surprise.

  “Merman,” he called back, somehow combining superiority, sarcasm, and grumbling into two syllables. But he was a pilot.

  “Execute your jump,” she ordered.

  Rather than answer, his whole team vanished. Indianapolis was expecting it, so the twelve fighters reappeared quickly in her projection.

  All of Jessica’s forces were coming at the station at high speed, more or less on a single orbital plane. Jumpfighters didn’t have to worry about that. They came out of their jump on the side of the station, suddenly raking a flank. All twelve opened up with every beam they had been recharging.

  Against a station asleep, that could overload. Here, the defenders were awake, and every power absorber panel was empty and waiting. The attack was messy, but nothing that would overwhelm that flank.

  Wasn’t the point.

  Surprise was.

  Linear thinking.

  The ships leapt to safety before any gunner on that flank could react.

  But every head was suddenly turned to port, even if just psychologically.

  Jessica Keller had just attacked the station again. They needed to move to defend it from her.

  The big guns on the station opened up, as did the Tigersharks.

  “First Expeditionary Fleet, engage,” she ordered simply.

  She actually took a breath and released it, consciously leaning back into the chair behind her and reaching a hand for the sippy cup of warm coffee she had put down half an hour ago and promptly forgotten.

  Surprise.

  Chapter XXXII

  Date of the Republic November 25, 402 CA-264, Severnaya Zemlya

  Once upon a time, Tomas Kigali had commanded a tiny vessel named CR-264. The last Revenue Cutter still in RAN service, on a forgotten and ignored border with Fribour
g where the war never actually intruded.

  In those days, he had spent his leave time on feats of individual sailing and navigational exploits for the record books. Longest solos through dense asteroid belts without autopilots. Fastest point-to-point navigations.

  Stuff that had earned him the nickname The Navigator and the respect of people for whom that sort of thing mattered.

  Before Jessica Keller recognized him as a warrior the equal of Alber’ d’Maine, if less vocal and hostile about it.

  He smiled benignly as he looked around his tiny bridge on CA-264, the dangerous successor to CR-264, designed specifically for him by Yan Bedrov to kill things.

  Ballard didn’t kill things. Kanda and Elzbet might be the very best at what they did, but they weren’t here today. Certainly weren’t in the warship closest to the enemy, even if the cruisers behind him were still capable of ranging further.

  Jessica had just spoofed those bastards.

  Again.

  She was like that.

  Tomas smiled.

  Right about now, all those Type-4s were just about to range on the station, so the two sides could engage in an epic firefight, a jousting pass with lances and shields and big, stupid warhorses.

  The ships in front of him apparently believed it, as they all began to pivot away from the charge, so they could fire into his kidneys and ass as he went by.

  “First Squadron,” he growled into the microphone. “Break and fire.”

  Boy, won’t you be in for a shock.

  A Bubble Gun actually moved just slow enough to appear on a screen as an object, rather than a symbolic line indicating beam fire. Six of them went downrange around CA-264 and his four, deadly assistants.

  Four Hammerheads. One Mako.

  First Squadron poured everything they had into those five ships, ignoring the station completely. Guns went to overload in places, especially the Type-1-Pulse turrets that normally had nothing to do, because Buran didn’t fire missiles, and had learned not to close with all those rending teeth.