“We don’t have much choice either way, do we?” she asked.
“No, Your Grace.”
#
Hours passed as the Kanzi sorted out their formation and Annette started to wonder if perhaps Sade had managed to kill the Kanzi commander. It would certainly fit with the complete chaos she was seeing in their formation.
If the odds had been remotely close to even, that chaos would have been the perfect opportunity to take her fleet in and smash the Kanzi squadrons to pieces. As it was, even disorganized and uncertain, those fourteen battleships and their escorts would crush Earth’s defenders.
So, Duchess of Terra and her companions rested in orbit. Shifts changed, the Captains cycling their crews to keep fresh sets of eyes on deck, but Annette and Villeneuve remained on the super-battleship’s flag deck, watching. Waiting.
“There we go,” she said quietly, pointing out the shift to Villeneuve. The Kanzi ships had been adjusting and moving around for a while, but now they were dropping into combat formations. The battleships formed two lines of seven, one five thousand kilometers above the other, and the cruisers and destroyers formed into wider lines above and below the capital ships.
“Wall of battle,” he agreed. “Not much subtlety to it; just a giant mass of firepower.”
“They think it’s all they’ll need, I suppose. Are we going to disabuse of them that idea, Admiral?”
“Unless they’re insane, they know they can’t close with the constellation until they’ve removed the beam platforms,” he replied. “If they wanted to court a close engagement right now, I’d cheer.
“But they won’t. They’ll push for a missile engagement while they reduce the constellation’s weapons platforms. Thanks to the Swords and Bucklers, they’re not going to enjoy that result.”
“Your Grace, Admiral,” a squat com tech named Shang called.
“What is it, Specialist?”
“They’re transmitting,” he replied. “Broadband, wide-focus. Anyone on Earth who’s paying attention is going to pick it up.
“Show me,” Annette ordered.
The holotank flickered, and then the image of an immaculate flag deck appeared in the middle of it. The Kanzi equivalent of her own location was a massive circular room of dark gray metal, broken by dozens of consoles in concentric rings that were each lower than the one closer to the center.
At the center was an almost throne-like chair. Its occupant looked eerily humanlike, for all that he was covered in dark blue fur and, given Annette’s experience with his race, at most a hundred and fifty centimeters tall.
His fur had been pure blue once, without the splotches of white she’d seen in most Kanzi, but silver and gray had long woven their way across his skin and face. He wore a crisp black uniform with a silver insignia of a clenched fist on his collar.
“People of Earth, I am Fleet Keeper Osan Alwa,” he said. It took Annette a moment to realize what was strange, and then it hit her: he wasn’t using a translator. Alwa was actually speaking English with a thick but almost musical accent.
“You have been lied to about your place in this universe,” he told them. “The A!Tol would tell you that you are but one of many. I tell you that you stand at the right hand of God, a mirror, imperfect but whole, of the true face of divinity.
“I am here to bring you the truth and the light, children of the Divine, and to show you the way.”
He smiled and a shiver ran down Annette’s spine. She’d seen aliens’ fake smiles before. His was natural…like it was a gesture his species used as well.
If you took away the blue fur, so much about the Kanzi was so very human.
“My First Priest has sent me to bring you to the path,” he continued. “I am obedient to Her in all things, but the blood of my warriors has already been shed. I must warn you, fellow children of God, that further resistance risks not merely your mortal lives but your very immortal souls!
“Yield, people of Earth, and you will learn your rightful place in the universe alongside the Kanzi!”
The transmission cut off and Annette swallowed. That hadn’t been what she’d expected from the Kanzi at all. She’d known that they were religious, that their government was a theocracy, but she’d always mentally focused more on the “slaver” aspect of their society.
“Anyone else getting televangelist flashbacks?” Shang finally asked, the com tech’s voice shaky but loud in the silent room.
“Sleazy used-car salesman, actually,” Villeneuve replied after a few moments, the Admiral’s voice stronger. “Should we reply, Your Grace?”
“Yes,” Annette replied, her voice firmer than she’d expected to manage as she massaged her resolve. “And send it to Earth as well,” she told Shang. “Let everyone know what I have to say.”
A tiny drone popped up into the air, suspended by the flag deck’s systems as the camera focused on her, showing the busy crew behind her as she gave Fleet Keeper Alwa her coldest look.
“Fleet Keeper Alwa,” she greeted him. If she understood his rank correctly, he was equivalent of a Vice Admiral. He might have been the original commander…but she suspected not.
“You are not the first to come to this world with honeyed words and silken promises,” she told him. “We have brought them to each other a thousand thousand times, and then the A!Tol came.
“We have tested the A!Tol promises and we know their measure, Fleet Keeper. We do not know yours.
“The Kanzi we have met have been slavers, murderers, scum—and you come here with a fleet, for conquest, not discourse.
“So I greet you, Fleet Keeper. I am Duchess Annette Bond, guardian and leader of this world by the will and swords of my people.
“I have sworn fealty to one foreign power, whose soldiers have bled and died to earn my trust.”
She smiled, but her smile was for the people of Earth, not the Kanzi commander.
“You speak to me of God, but we all seek our own paths to the Creator. If you come to this world, we will fight you. We will defy you. We recognize the serpent when he comes to our door, Fleet Keeper Alwa, and by the oaths I have sworn and the people I guard, I swear this to you:
“You shall not conquer here.”
#
Chapter 58
Andrew watched his crew’s spines stiffen as their Duchess threw her defiant words in the face of the Kanzi commander. The loss of Queen had hurt, but his people knew she’d done them proud before she’d died, and Bond’s words were the spark they needed.
“They’re moving,” Maksimov reported. “Estimate ten minutes to range.”
“Do we have the squadron network fully set up?”
“We’re locked in,” Maksimov confirmed. “Tornado and Geneva are dialed into our systems; we’ll fire past them with no problems and they’ll cover us from incoming fire.”
And Duchess of Terra would handle her own defense. The upgraded super-battleship had more defenses than the rest of the squadron put together. In many ways, Andrew’s command was the least-defended ship present.
The sheer power of her shields meant she wasn’t the least survivable, at least, but every missile that Tornado and Geneva shot down was one Andrew’s shields didn’t have to absorb.
“Any new orders from the flag?” he asked.
“Negative.”
Andrew nodded.
“Then we stick to the plan. Hold position behind the escorts and stand by to fire. We won’t get many launches from the constellation, so let’s make the first one count, shall we?”
The defense constellation had over a hundred missile launcher platforms, but their shields wouldn’t stand up to battleship missiles. Once the Kanzi salvos started arriving, the constellation would start disappearing—and its designers had known it. Those satellites only carried five missiles apiece.
“Enemy in range,” his tactical officer reported.
“Hold fire till the constellation engages,” Andrew reminded them. “The Admiral has the shot.”
�
��Receiving target designations.”
Despite his faith in Admiral Villeneuve, Andrew studied the data as it came in. They were going to focus the massed firepower of the defenses plus the warships on one battleship at a time, killing the capital ships one by one until the constellation had taken too many hits to be useful.
“Kanzi have fired.”
“Wait,” Andrew ordered. It went against the grain, he knew, not to respond. Especially when the Kanzi fleet was unleashing an incredible torrent of firepower in their direction.
The order flashed across the network.
“Now!”
The defenders unleashed their answering torrent: three space stations, two super-battleships, a cruiser, a destroyer, and over a hundred missile platforms opening up with every missile launcher they had.
Even against the firepower of fourteen battleships, it was a more than respectable response—and the defenders had a surprise for the Kanzi.
“Drones are linked into the network,” Maksimov reported. Emperor of China had no turrets or drones of her own, which made her crew purely spectators in this part of the battle. “Sword and rainshower defender turrets online. Missiles in active defense range…now.”
The Kanzi had never encountered active defenses—at least, not on ships of the A!Tol Imperium. The missiles weren’t evading, weren’t trying to hide their locations. Their electronic warfare suites were dedicated to penetrating their targets’ ECM, not defending themselves.
The salvo ran into the plasma bolts and laser beams of the rainshower defender and sword and buckler systems…and died.
Andrew had expected them to gut the salvo, to reduce the damage the constellation took. Instead, they annihilated it. A bare handful of missiles tore through, slamming into the constellation platforms.
Most of the shields held. A single launcher platform, unlucky enough to be the target of over half the surviving missiles, blew apart with three of its missiles still aboard.
“Look at the bastard burn,” Maksimov hissed, and Andrew turned his shocked gaze to their enemy.
The battleship they’d target writhed in the fire, trying to evade the seemingly endless swarm of missiles crashing in on it. Two cruisers tried to relieve the pressure with their own shields. One judged it perfectly, sweeping a chunk of missiles away and escaping with her own shields flickering but intact.
The second didn’t, and the missiles flung its shattered wreckage into the battleship it had tried to defend. The wreckage might not have been the last straw, but it hit just as the shields failed…and multiple point seven five cee hammers slammed home.
#
“I do think we surprised them,” Annette murmured as she watched the kill counts rack up for the defense sweep.
“It won’t last,” Villeneuve warned.
“Of course not,” she replied, tapping the second salvo to zoom in on it. “They clumped the missiles together for focused impacts in the first salvo. That let the rainshower drones and cannon shred multiple missiles with each shot.
“They’re breaking those up already in the second salvo, trying to introduce evasive maneuvers.” She shook her head. “They don’t have enough time to save that one.”
The missiles ran into the defensive zone as she spoke and started to die. The crews running Tornado’s rainshower defenders had more combat experience than all of the Sword and Buckler teams combined and it showed, but both types of drone were carrying their weight.
The Kanzi’s early attempts to salvage their salvos weren’t much, but they tripled the number of missiles that made it through. A half-dozen weapons slammed into Defense Two, the station’s shields rippling as it shrugged aside the blows.
Four of the automated platforms—three missile launchers and a proton beam—died. A pathetic result for the vast amount of firepower the Kanzi were unleashing.
“They’ve ordered their salvo to begin rudimentary evasive maneuvers,” Villeneuve noted. “That’ll cut our success rate.”
“Any impromptu modifications can only make so much difference if they don’t have real pre-programmed evasion routines,” she replied. “Look!”
Another Kanzi battleship died as their second salvo struck home. The defense constellation was rated to engage a single battleship. Backed by the firepower of the two super-capital ships and the defense platforms, they were ripping a hole through the Kanzi fleet.
“They’re pulling back to maximum range,” Shang reported.
The tech was right. With two battleships gone, Alwa was trying to play it safe, using his ships’ speed to reduce the impact of the missiles that swarmed in on him.
It kept all of his ships alive through the third Terran salvo, while his own salvo now started delivering serious damage to the constellation. They were still shooting down over ninety percent of the Kanzi missiles, but there were so many of them.
The fourth salvo finished the job of smashing the constellation to pieces, leaving only a scattered handful of proton beam satellites in place. The missile platforms had already shot themselves dry, though, and two more Terran salvos crashed in on the Kanzi.
A third battleship died, and the destroyers hurled themselves into the path of the last salvo, trying to absorb just enough hits to not collapse their shields.
No more battleships died to the last salvo, but five Kanzi destroyers came apart in the process.
“They’re running!”
The reduced Kanzi fleet flashed away from Earth at half of lightspeed, leaving the wreckage of nine of their siblings behind them as they dodged out of range of Earth’s defenders.
“No,” Annette replied. “They’re regrouping. They know we’ve shot the constellation dry, so all we have left are the ships and the platforms.”
“They’ll pre-program better evasives into their missiles now,” Villeneuve agreed. “When they come back, they’ll be ready for all of our tricks.”
“This is Tanaka,” Duchess’s Captain’s voice came over Annette’s headset. “Do we pursue?”
“Negative, Captain,” the Admiral replied. “We still can’t take them head-on; the drones will be less effective if we’re moving as well.”
“Again, we wait,” Annette said. “Let’s see what our friend Alwa does.”
#
The Kanzi didn’t withdraw far. They reorganized themselves, a single line of eleven battleships with the cruisers split into two lines of twelve, one above and one below.
The seven remaining destroyers floated in front of the heavier ships, screening them from any attempt by the Terrans to sortie.
Not that Jean Villeneuve was feeling suicidal today. Even if every escort was removed from the equation, those eleven battleships could smash their way into Earth orbit and take control of the system. Everything they were doing was buying time.
“Are we picking up any radio leakage from them?” he asked Shang.
“A little, but it’s fragmented and encrypted,” the specialist replied. “The computers say some of it is definitely missile-programming code, but I’m not sure how they’re deriving that.”
“The Imperial software is still better than we even begin to understand,” Bond reminded them. “How long do you think?”
Jean shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m not sure our people could code entirely new evasive maneuver routines into our missiles in less than a week, but their technicians will be far more familiar with the hardware involved than we are.”
“Ten to fifteen hours,” Ki!Tana told them as the A!Tol drifted into the flag deck.
Jean watched Colonel Wellesley’s hand go for his gun, then relax as he glared at their alien friend.
He had his doubts about Ki!Tana’s intentions and resources, but Jean didn’t doubt that the big alien was Earth’s friend. Or at least Annette Bond’s, which was much the same so far as both he and Bond were concerned.
“I’m torn between ‘that little?’ and ‘that long?’ as questions,” he admitted. “Are you sure?”
“This ship’s computer, with a fully trained crew, could do it in ten,” Ki!Tana told him. “I, given access to Tornado’s computers, could do it in six. Kanzi software is better but their hardware is worse. It may balance out, or they may take longer.
“So. Ten to fifteen hours,” she repeated.
“That’s not enough time,” the Duchess said. “They’ve only been here twenty-four hours at this point.”
“Eight more days,” Jean concluded. “We’ll get one more as they reprogram their missiles, then…”
“Then we need to kick their asses hard enough to make them hesitate again,” Bond told him. “Any ideas?”
Jean studied the tactical plot. Forty-two alien ships. They’d wiped out almost half the capital ships. More, in fact, than he’d dared to hope for.
He’d stack his remaining ships against, oh, six Kanzi battleships. The escorts alone rendered it a fight they couldn’t win.
Right now, Jean Villeneuve was remembering a different time and a different command deck. The A!Tol had brought fewer ships than the Kanzi, and he’d had dozens of warships under his command, not four.
And yet…
The odds were still better this time.
“We’ll find a way, Your Grace,” he told Bond. “I will not fail again.”
#
Chapter 59
Annette could have sworn she’d just got to sleep when the alarm went off, but a glance at the clock said she’d been out for five hours.
The Kanzi shouldn’t have been moving for another four, but the alarm insistently triggered again, someone, presumably from the flag deck or CIC, trying to urgently reach her.
She rolled off her bunk, checked that the uniform she’d fallen asleep in wasn’t too badly rumpled, then hit accept.
“This is Bond,” she snapped.
“Your Grace, this is Commander Sier in CIC,” a voice she recognized as Tanaka’s Yin First Sword—executive officer—told her calmly. “We have a new hyper portal forming just inside the asteroid belt. I presumed you would want to be informed.”
Duchess of Terra (Duchy of Terra Book 2) Page 39
