Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  Chan shivered.

  “With the Militia and Tan!Shallegh’s fleet, that’s over a thousand warships,” the chief of staff said.

  “Do you know how many of those war-dreadnoughts the Republic has?” Pat asked. “Because Imperial Intelligence doesn’t—but their best estimate is five hundred.”

  He shook his head.

  “Keep that quiet, Chan,” he ordered, glancing around his flag deck to make sure only his chief of staff had heard his depressing musings.

  “We will do our duty. The truth is, the Imperium isn’t important enough for the Republic to go to war with us. That’s a sad shield to hide behind, but it’s no less real for that.”

  #

  “Incoming transmission,” Chan reported. “Directed to you, sir, from the Pincer.”

  “Well, at least he’s talking this time,” Pat said. “Put him on. What’s the time delay?”

  “Still about five minutes. They’re still closing, sir.”

  “Understood.”

  The image of the scarab beetle–like Laian commander appeared on the screen. His claws were shivering, a trembling disquiet that Pat had only seen in Laians once or twice before. It had never been good news.

  “Vice Admiral. There has been much talking between your race and mine,” Kandak snapped. “I am a warrior. I will not claim honor or law when such is irrelevant.

  “You too are a warrior, a guardian of your homes and worlds. So, I will be blunt.”

  That was probably not a good sign.

  “There was flexibility when I came to your Duchy. Your Duchess spoke of honor and equality, and these are words of meaning to the Republic.

  “But there are other words of meaning: survival. Power. The harsh necessities of history.”

  Kandak’s claws calmed and he leveled his large black gaze on the camera.

  “You have a Forerunner scout ship on the planet you have colonized,” he said flatly. “My orders from the Grand Parliament are clear, specific, and direct.”

  Which meant that the politicians hadn’t even gone through Kandak’s superiors. He’d received a direct order from the Republic’s leaders. What the hell had Wolastoq found down there?

  “You will surrender the Forerunner ship to me. If you do not, I will destroy your fleet, seize the ship, and bombard your colony to make certain there are none to carry word of what happened here.

  “I do not desire to hold your civilians hostage, but if I must destroy you, the galaxy can never know what happened.

  “You know how this will end if you fight me, Vice Admiral. Yield.”

  The message ended and Pat exhaled, looking around his bridge.

  “Well, at least that makes it straightforward, doesn’t it?” he said with forced cheer. “I don’t see a reason to send the Pincer a response. Orders to the task force, people.

  “Prepare to engage the enemy.”

  #

  The Terran/Imperial task force began to move. The Militia’s Capital-class destroyers, accompanied by the four Imperial ships under Teykay, swept out first. They put half a light-second between them and the heavy cruisers, with their Buckler platforms moving out another fifty thousand kilometers.

  Then the sixteen Imperial Stalwart-class heavy cruisers and five Terran Thunderstorm-class heavy cruisers followed, their own Buckler platforms fifty thousand kilometers ahead of them.

  Pat Kurzman and his two super-battleships came last, a full light-second behind the destroyers. A third shell of Bucklers hovered fifty thousand kilometers in front of Emperor of China and President Washington, creating a three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-kilometer-deep, six-layered missile defense network to protect the two super-battleships.

  Pat wasn’t one for speeches, but the moment seemed to call for one, and he activated his camera again.

  “All hands, all hands, this is Admiral Kurzman,” he said calmly. “The Laians have informed us that if we do not surrender the alien ship we discovered on the planet beneath us, they will destroy this fleet, take the ship, and bombard the colony to remove any witnesses.

  “Neither the Duchy of Terra nor the A!Tol Imperium is prepared to negotiate in the face of threats of terror. We will not be bullied. We will not be threatened. If the Laians want this damned ship, then they can come and take her.

  “I trust that every sentient of this fleet will do their duty. That is all.”

  The message went out. Hopefully, it was enough. Pat didn’t expect to win this fight—the entire formation was set up to mitigate the Laians’ overwhelming advantage in missiles—but he had no choice but to fight it.

  “Captains,” he continued, linking in all of the ship and formation commanders. “We don’t know what the Laians have for beam weapons, only that they completely replaced the plasma lance in their service with it. I want us to keep the action at at least ten light-seconds and focus on self-defense.

  “We’re going to hammer Harvester as hard as we can, but our job isn’t to win this fight. Our job is to drag this mess out until Echelon Lord Tanaka gets here. Our first and primary objective is to keep the Laians away from Hope—but our second task, almost as important, is simply to stay alive.”

  “Estimated range of the Laians’ missiles in sixty seconds, sir,” Chan reported quietly.

  “We must test their resolve,” Kurzman told his people. “And we must still be here when our reinforcements arrive.

  “Let’s make this happen.”

  #

  Kandak’s resolve, as it turned out, was pretty solid. Thankfully, A!Tol Imperial Intelligence’s estimate of the range of Laian missiles had actually been too high. They’d estimated that the Laian weapons had a ninety-second flight time at eighty-five percent of lightspeed.

  The reality appeared to be seventy-five seconds. It was still a range of well over a light-minute, and ten light-seconds more than Imperial missiles, which had five seconds’ less flight time and a tenth of lightspeed less velocity.

  And…

  “My god, they’re thick enough to fucking walk on,” Chan exclaimed.

  Pat wanted to tell off his chief of staff, but he was certain the thought was being shared by everyone else aboard Emperor of China.

  The Laian battle group had launched over two thousand missiles. The massed launchers of all thirty-five of Pat’s ships could only put out a thousand.

  This was going to suck.

  “Open the range,” Pat ordered. “Hold us at fifty light-seconds for as long as you can.”

  “He’s got a point oh five lightspeed edge on us,” Captain Fang reported from the bridge. “Plus…we can only keep the range open for so long without leaving him a clear path to Hope.”

  “Do what you can.”

  The tsunami of metal flashed toward them and hit the outer perimeter of the missile defenses. Buckler drones spun in space, rapid-cycling lasers lashing out at the cee-fractional weapons desperately.

  The salvo crossed the defense perimeter in under three seconds—but the Duchy of Terra Militia had spent three years writing the Imperium’s missile defense doctrine, and the A!Tol Imperial Navy had proven able students.

  Hundreds of missiles hit the perimeter—and hundreds died. Failing interface-drive bubbles popped like sparks of starlight, a cascade of flickering diamonds on Pat’s tactical displays that reached for his two super-battleships.

  Shields flickered as missiles hammered home—and held.

  “Return fire.”

  A second Laian salvo was already in space, but now the Terran and Imperial ships’ launchers thundered. They turned away from the incoming battlegroup, their curve a course that would keep the range open while holding position between the inbound Core Power fleet and Hope.

  “Range is dropping,” Chan reported. “Twelve million kilometers. Time delay is causing both of us major targeting issues. If they close the range, sir…”

  “Then our defenses won’t hold. So, we keep the range open and pound him.”

  “Plasma fire on the scopes,” a repor
t echoed. “Their drones are out and sweeping. Zero penetration. I repeat, zero hits.”

  “Damn,” Pat said, studying the screen. Humanity’s Buckler drones were based on old Laian rainshower defender antimissile drones, and he guessed it wasn’t a surprise that the Laians had advanced their defenses along with everything else.

  “Hard to localize them, but I think we’re looking at at least half again as many drones as we have,” Chan concluded after a moment. “And they could easily be…three, four times as effective. We’re not going to get any missiles through, sir.”

  Warnings flickered on Pat’s display. Both of his super-battleships were taking missile hits. They were stopping over ninety percent of the Laian missiles, but that was still splitting a hundred missiles between the two ships.

  They were super-battleships. They could take those hits.

  But not forever.

  “We may need to bring them to beam range, sir,” Chan suggested. “Our proton beams and the Thunderstorms’ lances—”

  “Are almost certainly shorter-ranged and weaker than whatever the hell that war-dreadnought is carrying for beam weapons,” Pat replied. “Switch target priorities. Hit the drones—open a gap and start picking off cruisers.”

  “That won’t let us hurt Harvester,” his chief of staff objected.

  “No. But if we take out even one of his ships, I think we’ll make Kandak blink.”

  #

  Pat knew that if the Laians broke their single-minded focus on his super-battleships, he’d start losing escorts. For now, however, the war-dreadnought and her cruisers were only targeting his capital ships—a targeting decision that was saving lives for now and would doom his force the instant even one of the two went down.

  His own refocus meant they gave up completely on hitting Harvester herself. Their missiles swarmed in on the much smaller targets of the plasma-cannon drones. The defensive drones were harder targets than the capital ships, but they were also closer and much less heavily shielded.

  “Six hits,” Chan reported. “That’s what its taking us to take each drone out. And we’re only getting a quarter of our missiles even to the drones.”

  Pat nodded silently. The massed firepower of his entire fleet had taken out barely ten percent of the Laians’ drones. That exchange rate…wasn’t going to work.

  “President Washington reports they have a localized shield failure. Multiple hits—armor is holding, Captain Robertson is rotating the ship to protect the damaged shields.”

  Four salvos. It had taken the Laians four salvos to start collapsing the shields of his most powerful ships. Emperor of China’s shields were still intact, but that wouldn’t last. He wasn’t bringing down enough drones.

  “We’ve got new drones deploying,” one of his officers reported. “Their screen will be back up to strength by the time our next salvo arrives.”

  “This isn’t working,” Chan said.

  “No.” Pat shook his head, searching for an answer in the tactical display. “Step down the velocity of the next salvo,” he ordered. “I want two salvos stacked to arrive target at the same time at lower velocities, targeting the drones.

  “We’ll lose a higher percentage, yes, but we’ll get more hits overall. Focus them here.” He highlighted the lower left portion of the Laian drone screen. “Then I want a full-speed salvo arriving two seconds after those missiles, heading straight for these two cruisers.”

  “We could be throwing away three salvos for nothing,” Chan warned.

  “We’re throwing away every salvo right now,” Pat snapped. “It’s a Hail Mary, but it might be all we’ve got. Do it!”

  President Washington lurched as another series of Laian missiles struck home, overwhelming the battleship’s shields. The super-battleship seemed to tremble—but kept firing, her shields snapping back up in time to intercept the next salvo.

  “Robertson reports they’re still here, but their shields are fluctuating on them. He’s not sure they can take another series of hits.”

  “Fang is moving Emperor to shield her,” Chan reported. “Thirty seconds to your Hail Mary.”

  The super-battleship rang like a bell. Safety straps kept Pat in his chair as the starship jumped.

  “Report!”

  “Twelve hits to Emperor’s hull. Armor is compromised in several sections; we have casualties.”

  His flagship’s survival was Captain Fang’s concern. Pat turned his attention back to the tactical display, just as his doubled salvo went in. None of the missiles were moving at anything approaching full speed, and the plasma drones took a brutal harvest.

  But enough made it through to completely gut a quarter of the Laians’ defenses—and a thousand missiles followed their slower sisters at full speed into the gap.

  At over ten million kilometers, Pat couldn’t tell how many missiles actually made it through. They had no idea how many missiles crashed home on the two attack cruisers he’d marked for their attention. At least dozens. Possibly hundreds.

  When the radiation cloud of the missile impacts cleared, however, both ships were still there, still moving in formation alongside Harvester of Glory.

  One slowed as he watched, however, dropping out of formation as its crew slowed, reducing the demands on damaged engines as they struggled to keep her together.

  The second stayed at full speed, cruising alongside the rest of the formation, apparently undamaged, for five seconds. Six. Seven.

  And then it came apart in the bright flash of an overwhelmed interface drive, the strange interface between real-space gravity and hyperspace that propelled the ship suddenly unleashing all of its energy into the ship that had ridden its thunder.

  “We got one,” Chan breathed.

  “And they’re breaking off,” Pat said. “Watch.”

  A moment later, what he’d seen became clear to the rest of his staff. Harvester of Glory was swinging around to cover the damaged cruiser with her own hull, and the entire Laian battle group was withdrawing at the point four cee that was all the battered ship could reach.

  “Let them go,” Pat ordered. “Time is our friend, not theirs.”

  #

  Chapter 31

  Harold watched the battle unfolding with ill grace from the surface. There was very little the type of person who commanded a warship liked less than sitting on their hands doing nothing, but even he had to acknowledge his injury.

  If nothing else, he knew that the pain blockers and regeneration meds he was on slowed his mind, dulled his thoughts. He could still get to the same place, but it was taking him longer—and that delay could be deadly in combat.

  His brain finally catching up to his paranoia, however, resulted in his walking calmly into the military command post at the dig site with Ramona Wolastoq following behind him.

  “Captain Sommers, what’s our status?” he asked.

  “We have heavy armor on patrol, one company suited up and ready for action,” the Guard officer replied crisply. “Antiaircraft systems are online. We’re keeping our eyes open, but the space forces should be able to warn us before anyone reaches us.”

  “How?” Harold asked.

  Sommers looked at him strangely.

  “Sir? They’re in orbit, we’re not…”

  “And did we spot the Wendira coming, Captain?” Harold asked gently. “Did we see those Kanzi after they entered orbit?

  “Hell, Captain, we know there’s a Wendira covert carrier out there, and I’d be shocked if she doesn’t have stealthed landers.”

  Sommers looked vaguely ill.

  “We…didn’t think of that, sir.”

  “My area of expertise, not yours, Captain,” Harold replied. “Ramona.” He turned to the woman behind him, feeling a warmth thrill through him at the sight of her, despite the situation.

  “How quickly can we get the civilians out of the site?”

  “A full evacuation?”

  “The Militia and the Navy can’t stop people sneaking stealth-fielded ships down
,” he told them. “But they can’t steal the ship without going through the Guard and the Marines. This place is going to be a battlefield, and we don’t need civilians in the middle of that.”

  She nodded.

  “Of course. We kept it in mind after the first attack,” Ramona admitted. “We can have most of the people off site in twenty minutes. I’d rather have an hour; that’ll let us get most of the useful samples away, too.”

  “Start now,” Harold told her. “Make sure we get at least one sample of the hull away with us, too. If all of this goes to hell, what you take with you right now might be all we get out of this damned mess.”

  “All right,” she confirmed. “I’ll get started.”

  “Good luck.”

  She gave him a meaningful nod and exited the command center, leaving Harold alone with the other military officers—and Sommers giving him an odd look.

  “The good doctor has definitely mellowed,” the Guard said calmly.

  “She got to poke around the guts of the most important artifact in Imperial, let alone human, history,” Harold pointed out genially. “If I’d been handed that kind of dream opportunity in my own field, I’d be happy too.”

  “Our field doesn’t lend itself so well to that kind of opportunity,” the ground-pounder admitted. “I’m passing orders for the entire battalion to suit up. Anything else you’d suggest?”

  “Start scanning for atmospheric turbulence,” Harold recommended. “Most of the satellites we have upstairs are glorified weather satellites—which means they can tell us if there’s an air pressure wave that’s out of place.”

  “Because, say, an invisible ship is coming down at several thousand kilometers an hour,” the Guard said. “We’ll get on it.”

  “I also need to see the list of what we brought down,” Harold continued. “I saw something unusual on the list, something I wasn’t sure why we brought down…but that we might just need after all.”