Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  #

  “Formation numbers are consistent with nine Grand Wings,” Chan reported. “CIC is still resolving numbers, it’s a lot of signatures to break down, but that would be almost exactly twenty-three hundred starfighters.”

  Pat nodded, watching as the swarm of red icons moved across the holographic display.

  “Stand by for orders from the Imperial flag,” he ordered. “But expect that we will open fire at twelve million kilometers with onboard launchers and pre-deployed missiles at eight million.”

  “Passing instructions on to the task force,” Chan confirmed.

  The silence on Emperor of China’s flag deck was thick. Thanks to the Laians’ decision to try and screw over their traditional enemies, they now knew far more about the Wendira than they ever had before

  That information wasn’t going to be enough to save them, Pat suspected, but it would be enough for them to buy time. They now knew, for example, that the miniaturized point-eight-five-cee interface-drive missiles carried by Wendira starfighters only had ten seconds of endurance, a two-and-a-half-million-kilometer range.

  The Wendira would fire their missiles at roughly the same time his two Thunderstorms tested how well their plasma lances worked on starfighters.

  “Status of the antimissile net?” Pat asked.

  “Back in triple-echelon formation; first screen of Bucklers is out six hundred thousand kilometers from the capital ships.” Chan shook his head. “CIC isn’t willing to make a guess on whether the Bucklers’ lasers will have any impact on the starfighters.”

  “I thought the Laians said their drones did.”

  “Laian drones fire focused plasma bolts,” his chief of staff replied. “So do the half a dozen of old rainshower drones that Tornado still carries. Our drones use high-intensity ultraviolet lasers, and the energy transfer pattern is completely different.”

  “Anyone willing to put odds on it?” Pat asked with a chuckle, watching the timers tick down.

  “Ha! No,” Chan laughed. “The Laians gave us everything, but they’ve never fired a laser at a Wendira starfighter. So, we have no idea how they’ll handle lasers.”

  “Well, then, I guess we get to experiment with something the Core Powers don’t know,” Pat said. “Any update from Tanaka?”

  Chan checked his systems, reviewing the communication logs.

  “Just got it,” he confirmed. “Her orders are the same as yours: on-board launchers at twelve, pre-deployed at eight.”

  “We had the same teachers,” Pat told him. Tanaka had been senior to him in UESF service and Pat had basically been a drafted civilian, but they’d both gone through the very abbreviated tactical course Annette Bond had assembled for interface-drive tactics.

  Chan had gone through a more detailed A!Tol-designed training program after the desperate defense of Earth against the Kanzi. Sometimes, his superior envied him that; the learning-on-the-job aspect of Tornado’s exile had been one of its least pleasant aspects.

  “Range in thirty seconds,” Chan announced. “Task force tactical net is active and we are linked into the Imperial flag and our escorts.”

  Seconds ticked away in silence, and Pat took one last long glance at the display.

  “Order our ships to target the center of each Grand Wing’s formation,” he said quietly. “Let’s see just how arrogant the ‘superior’ Core Powers are.”

  #

  Chapter 40

  No other power in the galaxy had developed a starfighter except the Wendira. The “acceptable losses” required to carry out a successful fighter strike were anathema to any race that didn’t have an intelligent subspecies that was easily trained via genetic memory and grew to adulthood in four Terran years.

  The Laian data revealed another downside Harriet hadn’t guessed, too: the reason even the Core Powers didn’t have starships running point-seven-cee drives was that the internal warping effects, unnoticeable except when transitioning to hyperspace at lower speeds, became far more dangerous.

  The internal warping was part of why missiles only had limited lifespans, but there were ways to adjust for it. Those ways just weren’t enough at point seven cee, which meant every time one of the Wendira Drones strapped on a starfighter, they were easily cutting months or years off their life expectancy.

  She didn’t think most of the races in the A!Tol Imperium could be convinced to sign on for that. Some humans, probably. Harriet had no illusions about what some people could be convinced to do, but she doubted they could get enough people to sign on to make it worth it.

  The Wendira had an entire short-lived subspecies whose only hope for immortality was to be remembered. The Drones had produced many of the Wendira’s great heroes, artists, and musicians from that drive to survive past their own deaths.

  They’d also marched to those deaths in countless droves along the way, and that was what the fighter pilots in Alpha Centauri were doing.

  “Initiating missile engagement,” Ikil reported. Green icons marking the missile salvo speckled Harriet’s display, and she watched in silence.

  The main Wendira force was still hanging back, watching for someone they’d regard as an actual threat to appear. The starfighters continued their advance, ignoring the Imperial missiles as they swarmed out.

  Harriet didn’t expect them to be ignored forever. Her missiles might be obsolete by Core standards, but they were still more than deadly enough to wipe the starfighters from existence if they hit.

  She watched the range counters drop, waiting for the response she knew had to come.

  When the fighters finally responded, it was over in the blink of an eye. Their plasma cannons went live at two light-seconds, firing near-lightspeed packets of energized matter at the incoming missiles. By the time the packets and missiles intercepted, they were barely a light-second away from the fighters—and the starfighters were continuing to fire.

  The entire exchange lasted two seconds from the moment the starfighters opened fire to the last handful of missiles missing their targets and flying off into deep space.

  There were definite gaps in the Wendira formation, entire wings of starfighters obliterated as dozens of missiles had swept through…but they weren’t large gaps.

  “Ikil? Analysis?” she asked.

  “We destroyed approximately one hundred and fifty fighters,” the Indiri replied after a moment. “Second salvo impact in ten seconds.” Ikil sighed wetly. “Their anti-missile doctrine is extremely effective, and the fighters themselves are maneuverable enough to require multiple missiles for a guaranteed kill.”

  “Keep hammering them,” Harriet ordered. “And stand by the pre-deployed swarm. Make sure to coordinate it with our onboard launchers.”

  “Stand by, launching…now.”

  Harriet’s fleet fired again, another two thousand missiles streaming into space. This time, however, the over forty thousand missiles they’d preplaced joined the salvo. Tens of thousands of missiles lunged in at their targets.

  “That’s strange,” Ikil murmured.

  “Commander?”

  “Their defense against the second salvo was measurably less effective.” He paused. “The Militia ships targeted the central formation of each Grand Wing. It appears they succeeded in removing at least some of the strike leaders.”

  “Duplicate Kurzman’s targeting orders,” Harriet barked. “Hit the bastards with everything we’ve got.”

  “The preplaced missiles launched too late,” the Indiri admitted slowly. “They’ll launch their missiles simultaneously with that intercept.”

  “Damn,” she said mildly. “Make sure everybody knows. We need to stay alive.”

  This time, the starfighters reacted. Forty thousand missiles required more than sheer arrogance as a defensive measure. The formations split, arcing wider and taller as they expanded, forcing the missile swarm to expand as well.

  With over twenty missiles per starfighter, however, the missiles easily spread out to cover their prey. If there was a
ny chance at all that Harriet’s people were going to survive this, it was going to be in this single overwhelming strike.

  Then the starfighters launched their own missiles, faster and deadlier than Harriet’s fleet’s weapons. There were still enough of them that almost four thousand missiles leapt at the defenders—a mere tenth of the salvo crashing down on the starfighters, but each missile carried twice as much force and was easily half again smarter.

  The mass salvo smashed into the starfighters moments later, too late to prevent what Harriet knew was going to be at least the decimation of her fleet. Thousands of the Imperial missiles exploded as plasma bursts hammered into them.

  Thousands more simply missed. The interface drive didn’t require continuous vectors. Complex and random evasive maneuvers were easily done, the starfighters dancing around the deadly weapons trying to kill them.

  Fifteen hundred starfighters died in a single moment of fiery glory. Another hundred evaded long enough to buy themselves fractions of a second more—but no more.

  One second, two thousand starfighters swarmed towards the defending fleet.

  The next, a mere four hundred charged.

  And then it was the Imperium’s turn. Two thousand missiles swept in at eighty-five percent of the speed of light. Buckler drones and Sword turrets sprang to life, but the weapons had been targeted with malicious foresight.

  The starfighters hadn’t been relying on the missiles to kill Harriet’s fleet. They’d left that job for themselves. The missiles’ role was to clear the path.

  Buckler drones died first. Then destroyers. Then cruisers, as the missiles hammered a spike of fire through the triple-echelon defense network. Half of Harriet’s destroyers were gone along with six of her Imperial cruisers—and the starfighters charged into the hole their missiles had torn.

  They’d missed the two remaining Thunderstorms, though, and plasma lances lit up the gap. The lance might have been designed to kill capital ships, but the projected magnetic containment field latched on to half a dozen fighters at a time—and they had neither the shields nor the armor to survive the plasma strike.

  “Target them with proton beams and Sword turrets,” Harriet ordered. “Take them out!”

  They came for her capital ships through the hole they’d blasted in her escorts. They ignored the fire from her remaining destroyers and cruisers, driving toward the seven capital ships at the heart of her fleet.

  Somewhere along the way, whoever was left in charge of the fighter strike changed target priorities. They didn’t have the strength left to punch out all seven Imperial and Terran capital ships—so they went for the weakest.

  Barely three hundred starfighters reached the capital ships to clash with the proton beams and laser turrets of the heavy ships—and seventy of them hurled themselves onto each of the Imperial fast battleships.

  It was over in seconds. The shattered wreck of the fighter strike, barely two hundred strong, passed Hope in a blur, leaving behind the battered defending fleet.

  None of the four Imperial fast battleships survived to see them leave.

  #

  Emperor of China hadn’t made it through unscratched, and Pat coughed against the acrid smoke as the ship’s air circulators desperately tried to stabilize the burning odors on the flag deck. No one was injured—electrical backlash wasn’t going to risk lives in the most protected areas of the ship—but multiple breakers and fuses had blown to create a terrible smell.

  He sealed up his emergency helmet, taking a long breath of reserve oxygen, and then opened it again. His “uniform” contained hours of air, but it was better preserved for actual need—as opposed to avoiding the smell of burning wires.

  “Anything critical, Captain Fang?” he asked his flag captain.

  “Negative,” the other man replied shortly. “We weren’t their primary target; we were just a target of opportunity of what was left of the strike that took out Oceanfang. Our shields got overloaded and we took some hits along critical power infrastructure, hence the blackouts, but we’re already back up on the secondaries.”

  “And how long for full primary function to be restored?” Pat asked carefully.

  “Six minutes,” the Captain said immediately. “Drones are out laying new wiring as we speak, and we have a team moving in several spare high-density power conduits. Some systems will be running on backup fuses for longer, but the primary power lines will be back in place in six minutes.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  He stood, crossing to the main hologram and studying it carefully. All six of the destroyers lost had been Militia ships. His ships, commanded by men and women he’d known for years. The seven Imperial cruisers and four fast battleships weren’t unimportant, but he could name twenty people who’d died on those destroyers he would have considered friends.

  And yet.

  “We got off lucky,” he said softly into his channel with Tanaka. “They came in fat, dumb and happy.”

  “Their Grand Wings’ commanders were in the middle of their formation, easy targets,” she agreed. “They didn’t go for true dispersed defensive formations until we threw forty thousand missiles at them. They didn’t think this was going to be a real fight.”

  “And they paid for it,” Pat said, studying the loss figures. Nine Grand Wings had launched the assault, twenty-three hundred starfighters. Two hundred and six had survived to return to the star hives.

  “So did we,” Tanaka reminded him. “They won’t be that arrogant again, which means even one star hive’s wing will be enough next time.”

  “Overconfidence is a flimsy shield,” he agreed. “One I’d love for them to rely on some more.”

  “They won’t,” she said flatly. “The Wendira keep fighting the Laians, and neither of them has actually managed anything more than a bloody draw yet. That’s not the sign of a fleet that makes too many mistakes.”

  “Other than repeatedly fighting the same enemy, that is?” Pat asked.

  “There’s that. I don’t suppose Admiral Villeneuve has magically called you to give you an update on his progress?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Three to five hours. That’s our earliest relief. Tan!Shallegh?”

  “Three cycles. Seventy hours, minimum,” Tanaka replied. “We’ll do what we can, Pat.”

  “We will. Any brilliant suggestions?”

  “Let me know if you think of any,” the Imperial officer told him. “I’m fresh out past ‘die standing.’”

  “I don’t like that one much.”

  “Neither do I.”

  #

  Chapter 41

  “So, that’s what it’s supposed to look like,” Piotr Han said dryly as the Wendira started moving again. “Dispersed, rapidly rotating formations. We can’t get a solid lock on numbers, and our missile targeting data is going to be trash.”

  “Not to mention what we can see suggests that at least a portion of the strike has sacrificed their missiles for electronic warfare and antimissile pods,” Ikil added. “Seeing this, I am almost insulted at how poorly they estimated us.”

  “Given how badly they hurt us when they underestimated us, I’m not complaining,” Harriet told the Indiri analyst. “What are we looking at?”

  “They’re still holding one Grand Wing back to protect the star hives,” Han reported. “They’re making up any shortfall by anchoring their attack with four of those battleships. It’s going to hold back their fighters, but it also means they’re more likely to survive to missile launch.”

  “And beyond,” Harriet concluded. “Do we have a chance in hell of hurting those battleships? The Laians gave us data on them as well, right?”

  Ikil blinked his heavy-lidded eyes and gestured. The tactical display shrank on the main hologram, allowing the fleet tactical officer to add a display of a shape that reminded Harriet of nothing so much as a dog turd, a double-ended series of circles growing to the largest at the middle.

  “We’re not sure of the class,” he concluded
. “But all of their ships share a similar range of defenses.

  “They have heavy, single-piece, compressed-matter armor hulls with a higher compression ratio than ours. They are manufactured in place as a single shell, removing the vulnerability our vessels have along the join lines.

  “The primary disadvantage to this is cost and time. It produces a superior defense but not that superior, so even the Wendira restrict it to their battleships,” Ikil said. “The additional compression is a bigger problem; it provides significantly greater tensile strength and impact resistance. Their hulls are approximately six times as damage-resistant as Duchess of Terra’s.”

  And that was despite the battleships being seven million tons smaller. This was going to be unpleasant.

  “Their shields, in turn, are relatively inferior by Core Power standards, as are their active defenses.”

  “And what does that mean from our Arm Power standards?” Harriet asked dryly.

  “Nothing good. Their shield generators are roughly fifty percent more powerful on a ton-for-ton basis. Depending on the class, they could be roughly equivalent to Duchess’s or slightly superior. Active defenses are based around rapid-fire plasma cannon similar to those used by their fighters, roughly equivalent to modern Laian systems.”

  “So, three hundred or so years more advanced than ours,” she concluded.

  “Ours have proven more effective than we expected from the Core Powers’ focus on plasma defenses,” Ikil pointed out. “The Sword turrets on our capital ships were responsible for a large portion of their starfighter losses on the final pass.

  “Apparently, our lasers are effective against their fighters.”

  “That’s good to know,” Harriet allowed. “I don’t suppose we could just fling all of our Bucklers at them and have them destroy the starfighters?”

  “The Bucklers would inevitably be localized and destroyed by long-range proton-beam fire,” Han interjected. “Their effective range is far lower than traditional energy weapons.”