Citadel

by John Ringo

  "You sound as if we are already defeated," Star Marshall Gi'Bucosof snapped.

  "We are, Star Marshall," the colonel said calmly. "And all the bluster in the universe does not change that. The best we can do is as much damage as possible while we die."

  "Where is your trick, Gi'Bucosof?" Lhi'Kasishaj said. "You said that it would fail. That you had an inside agent."

  "Any moment now," Gi'Bucosof said. "Any moment..."

  —|—

  "I've got a destroyer accelerating into our basket, sir," Sharp said. "Permission to keep him from phoning home?"

  The Rangora had already triggered the gate, creating a rippling surface of quantum discontinuity leading to the Glalkod system.

  "Make sure the pieces go through the gate," Kinyon said. "Clean up is always such a bitch. Other than that, permission granted."

  "Main laser," Sharp ordered. "Take down the shields then cut him in half. You'll need to dial down the power appropriately."

  —|—

  "Now would be good, Star Marshall!" Lhi'Kasishaj snarled as the destroyer Ayachor was cut in half with almost mathematical precision. The destroyer from the Yo'Phafodolh battle group had been the closest to the gate and safety. Or what seemed it might be safety. The entire battle group was entering range to be engaged by the enemy's lasers. Which meant they were all about to be ravaged.

  "I don't know..." Gi'Bucosof said. "It should have been rendered impotent by now! But... it is not firing missiles. Perhaps it is... out? There was a great battle in the Sol syst—"

  "Missile launch," Colonel Koax reported. "Low-rate fire from one sector. Target is the Yo'Phafodolh."

  —|—

  "Who's your daddy?" Sharp said as the stream of missiles hit the shields of the Aggressor. The breacher missiles cracked the hard-held shields like an egg then the following wave slammed into the side of the battlewagon, turning it into so much chaff.

  The main laser was, in the meantime, reaching out with almost delicate precision and shredding the smaller vessels of the battle group. Cruiser shields lasted less than a second under the hammer of the multi-emitter laser, turning reflective and then black before failing utterly. The laser cared even less for their heavy armor, cutting through them like a blowtorch through light snowfall. Destroyer and frigate shields failed like a popped soap bubble.

  The gate was still open and the shredded masses of the vessels were being cleaned up by exiting into the next system. There might even be survivors. There were certainly enough distress pods.

  —|—

  "This isn't going to work," Lhi'Kasishaj said. "That... thing can destroy the entire fleet. We must scatter."

  "We don't have the acceleration to come back around," Gi'Bucosof said.

  "By we I meant the many thousands of Rangora you have brought to this defeat," Lhi'Kasishaj said. "The other we, meaning the Dwarf Marauder, will battle the station to cover their retreat. Some of the cruisers and destroyers can survive at least. If the Terrans do not hold this system, those may be able to make it back to Rangora space."

  "Never," Gi'Bucosof said. "They will screen our retreat through the gate. I will not sacrifice myself to—"

  His pronouncement was cut off as Lhi'Kasishaj slid a pain stick, set to lethal, into his back. The high marshall jerked and grunted for a moment, until Lhi'Kasishaj let up on the trigger, then slumped to the floor.

  "Send the order to scatter," Lhi'Kasishaj said. "Tell the captain to maneuver so as to catch the fire of the station and screen the fleet. Full power to screens."

  "Yes, Star Marshall," Koax said, keying in the orders.

  "The good news is that getting hit by a missile is, I understand, a rather quick death," Lhi'Kasishaj said as two spacemen quietly dragged the high marshall from the CIC. "The way things were going, Kazi was going to keep us alive for years."

  "Screaming," Colonel Koax said.

  —|—

  "Change in delta," Captain Sharp said. "Their fleet isn't trying to make the gate anymore. They're scattering."

  "All of them?" Kinyon asked. "That's not good."

  "Yes, sir, tracking them all down will be a good bit of work," Sharp said. "And yes, sir, they're all scattering. Not even maintaining unit cohesion. All laser fire has stopped. Except the AV. It's still on course for the gate. And still wasting its laser on North. Some of the battleships aren't going to get out of our basket. Depending on how long it takes to take down the AV, we'll still be able to get most with missiles."

  "Range?"

  "Twenty thousand kilometers," Sharp said.

  "Maneuver control, rotate to engage the AV," Kinyon said. "Open fire as you bear, Captain Sharp."

  "Aye, sir!" Sharp boomed. "Arrrh!"

  —|—

  "Troy's drive has ceased operation," Colonel Koax reported. "Fire is still engaging anything that enters its basket. Whoa! Heavy grav signatures. Not sure what..."

  "It's rotating," Lhi'Kasishaj said. He'd been watching the visuals, unlike the colonel. "It's rotating to engage us."

  "This is going to be unpleasant," Koax said, sitting back and lacing his fingers across his chest. "And, I suspect, not particularly quick. Permission to speak frankly, sir?"

  "What am I going to do about it?" Lhi'Kasishaj asked. "Denounce you?"

  "Didn't care for you much until a moment ago," the colonel said. "Don't like you high-born much at all. But somebody finally killing that idiot Gi'Bucosof was a sight for sore eyes."

  "Not surprising," Lhi'Kasishaj said. "Except for people that matter, I don't try to be charming. And you don't matter. You don't survive in upper circles by being nice to minions. You save that for your superiors."

  "I shall keep that in mind, sir," Koax said. "For about thirty seconds. Missile launch."

  —|—

  An AV mounted six hundred and eighty-three laser defense clusters. The clusters could rapidly engage and retarget missiles, permitting each cluster to take out multiple inbound vampires.

  As long as there wasn't something in the way like a previously destroyed missile filling space with chaff. Then not only were following missiles screened by the material, even if they could be targeted the laser, often as not, hit some bit of a previous missile and scattered.

  The Troy was down to firing a thousand missiles per second. Normally, they would be impossible to detect with the naked eye. But the track of the missile stream headed for the AV was easily followed as a rolling storm-front of explosions as missiles sacrificed themselves on the altar of pawns.

  The tide slid inexorably closer and closer to the embattled AV. Finally, the wall of moving fire reached the screens of the battlewagon, which went black under the power of hundreds of penetrators.

  The missiles clawed at the screens for a moment before they failed.

  The AV rolled frantically, trying to spread the damage. All that did was kill more and more shields as a thousand nuclear wasps turned the Dwarf Marauder into the system's largest navigational hazard.

  —|—

  "Admiral, we're down to low yellow on missiles," Sharp said. The series of previous battles had lowered their missile stores. Taking out the AV was essentially depleting them.

  "Finish it off with the laser," Kinyon ordered. "Take it all the way out. I don't want anything larger than a sedan drifting into Glalkod. Retarget remaining missiles on the fleeing battleships."

  "Aye, sir," Sharp said. "Retargeting."

  "Admiral," Captain DiNote said. "We've got shuttles returning from Objectives One and Two for resupply and reinforcements. They're having a good bit of trouble subduing the Rangora holding the docks."

  "Maneuver control," Kinyon said. "Get us reoriented to return to the docks area. Seems we need to indicate our interest."

  "I think they'll get the picture," Sharp said.

  —|—

  Colonel Bolger looked through the hole in the overhead at the mass of the Troy drifting above, then slightly lower at the Rangora commander of Objective One. Bolger wasn't a small guy. Th
e Rangora overtopped him by a good three feet.

  "We've got a couple of choices here," Bolger said, rolling his chew from one cheek to the other, then spitting. "I can pull my guys out and then the Troy can do to you what it just did to your AV. Or you can play nice and we'll take you to Earth and you can rebuild a couple of cities for us. We even feed you guys, which is a really good deal."

  Arranging the cease-fire had been a bit tricky. The Rangora were sort of territorial by instinct. Having human Marines running around in one of their docks was not their idea of acceptable behavior.

  "What terms are you offering?" the admiral asked.

  "Binary solution set," Bolger said. "You surrender and we don't kill you."

  "Repatriation for myself and my officers," the admiral said.

  "Why?" Bolger asked. "You're going to have your heads on a block when you get back. This way you might live."

  "That is a valid point," the admiral said. "What about our wounded?"

  "You've got docs," Bolger said, shrugging. "We don't kill off the wounded if that's what you mean."

  "Then... I formally surrender," the admiral bit out. He reached for his sidearm, carefully, and handed it over butt first.

  "Gonna make a nice souvenir," Bolger said. The pistol was the size of a laser carbine. "Admiral Kinyon, Objective One has surrendered."

  "Roger that," Kinyon commed. "Two is still fighting but I think that's the Pathans, to tell truth. They don't seem to understand the concept of cease-fire. Ask the admiral to come up to the Troy to discuss details."

  "Gung ho, sir," Bolger said. "And... we're done here. Except for the fiddly bits."

  EPILOGUE

  "Send a missile through the gate to Glalkod," the President said as she watched the replay of the battle. "Set to broadcast. Tell the Rangora it's time to negotiate."

  "Yes, ma'am," the new secretary of state said, shaking his head. "Parameters?"

  "Earth control of E Eridani is the minimum I'll accept at this time," the President said. "Start with withdrawal by the Rangora to the positions they held before the Multilateral Talks."

  "That is... broad," the SecState said. "Give up not only the Glatun Federation but all the bordering star systems? They won't go for that."

  "No, they won't," the President said. "But they will eventually. Eventually, they'll accept unconditional surrender."

  —|—

  "What am I looking at?" To'Jopeviq asked. The holo was an activated gate with... something coming out. Beor had slid the data crystal in and started his holo without as much as a word of explanation.

  "Holo from the Glalkod squadron," Beor answered as the view zoomed in. Manually based on the unsure movements.

  "That is... was a destroyer," To'Jopeviq said as the view panned with the remnants of a Gufesh. It moved back to the gate as more debris started coming through. Most of it was unrecognizable. Occasionally he could pick out bits from parts of ships. Bits of Cofubof, Gufesh and Sheshibas. Half an Aggressor. It looked as if someone had taken an entire fleet and run it through a shredder. There were lights of distress pods among the debris. At least some of the crews had survived.

  Then there was a mass burst of debris. It had spread out so it nearly filled the gate and its trajectory was going to scatter it throughout the system unless someone got busy on clean-up soon.

  What it had been...?

  "And that is what is left of the Dwarf Marauder," Beor said. "Marshall Gi'Bucosof and Marshall Lhi'Kasishaj's flagship. The largest single piece, other than escape pods, was nine meters on a side. Which had to be deliberate. Most of it was laser fire."

  "What happened?" To'Jopeviq asked.

  "The Troy is mobile," Beor replied. "It entered the E Eridani system and engaged the fleet there."

  "Mobile?" To'Jopeviq said. "How?"

  "The answer still has everyone hissing in disbelief," Beor said. "The Terrans left after taking possession of the AV docks and support ships. We have intelligence from survivors. Including some ships that scattered and successfully hid from their sensors. You'll have access to all of it. High Command has increased the importance of this working group. I'm... not privy to internal discussions. The information I've received was that someone pointed out that so far we've been right and command has been consistently underestimating the Terrans. That has to stop."

  "I'm not sure it is possible to overestimate them," To'Jopeviq said, standing up. "Bring that to the briefing room along with whatever other intelligence we got. Get the rest in there. We have work to do."

  —|—

  "Absent companions," Bill Erickson said, raising his glass.

  The Acapulco was still under reconstruction. Moving Troy had involved a certain amount of... slosh. Most of the roof had been ripped off. Xanadu, in general, looked as if it had been hit by a tsunami. But it was open for business and people couldn't live forever on air and food alone. A certain amount of beer was paramount.

  "Absent companions," Dana said, clinking glasses with Rammer.

  "And there's a bunch of those," Chief Barnett said, sitting down at the bar. There was a small guy with her, bearded and clearly civilian. "This is Butch, guys. He's a friend of BF."

  "Where is BF?" Bill asked.

  "Bought it," Butch said.

  "How?" Dana asked, her eyes widening.

  "We were clearing a stuck laser tube," Butch said. "Got hit by a missile. Figure the plasma got him."

  "Damn," Bill said, raising his glass. "Absent companions again."

  "Lost a lot of good people," Barnett said, taking a sip of her beer. "But that's what war's all about. And change. Speaking of which, Dana. The orders aren't cut, yet, but you're transferring to the Thermopylae."

  "What?" Rammer said. "Why?"

  "The One-Four-Three is monumentally screwed up," Barnett said. "They finally screamed for help. You're going to be going over there as part of that. I didn't want to give you up but the CO correctly pointed out that sending only our crap couldn't be defined as help. So... last call, so to speak."

  "I guess this is as good a time as any, then," Dana said, sliding out of her chair and pulling off her T-shirt. She turned around so her back was to the group. "What do you think?"

  The technical term was "back-plate," a tattoo that covered the entire back. In this case, a spear-armed and heavily armored hoplite, crossing spears with a similarly armored Rangora against a starfield. Between them a comet streaked across the firmament. At the very core was a Myrmidon shuttle. The artist had managed to convey that the shuttle was both intact and part of the fire of the comet.

  On her left upper arm was the symbol of the Troy, a Trojan's helmet with the words Winter and Born above and below, respectively.

  "That is smokin'," Butch said.

  "Cost me a good bit," Dana said, trying to crane her head around to look at it. "But I think it was worth it. The ink's a Glatun nano formula that's regenerating so it's gonna last more or less as long as I do."

  "Just one problem," Barnett said.

  "Which is?" Dana asked.

  "Now you're going to have to get a Thermopylae tattoo. One of them upside down Vs."

  "Yeah," Dana said, climbing back onto her seat. "What's up with that?"

  —|—

  Tyler watched, his arms crossed, as the weavers got to work on the North sector of Troy. "Glory to the Brave" boomed through the Starfire loud enough that it could probably be heard in space.

  The upper quadrant had been thoroughly mauled in the battles, the hull gouged down nearly two hundred meters. Fixing it was a major job. A plate of steel formed from a good sized asteroid had been welded into place by SAPL and now they were getting serious with armor. The same weavers that had created the lines and supports for the Bespin gas mine were perfectly capable of weaving fullerene armor. Since North seemed to take most of the damage, they were starting there.

  The main bay was open and modules were sliding through to be installed. New crew quarters, shuttle bays, missile fabbers and everything else
that made it a battlewagon were being produced at prodigious rates by Alliance countries as well as the fabbers in the Wolf system.

  One of those, though, was moving. He looked to his left as the gate activated and nodded as the mass of Hephaestus trundled through. Paw tugs surrounded it like baby chicks, herding it carefully towards the main bay. Some of the ships had taken damage in the battle and there were a dozen shuttles to replace. After that, the fabber would get to work producing shield generators for the battle globe.

  Station Three was already on its way inward, slowly cooling behind its solar shield. It would be in place before the repairs were completed on the Troy. And Four was about to be ballooned while Five and Six were in various processes of production. The total work was absorbing a good bit of the resources that Troy needed. But there would always be repairs, upgrades, improvements. More power. More missiles. More lasers. More deadly. More fell.

  Troy was mobile. And unless the negotiations over the Eridani system went Earth's way, it was going to need all of that and more.

  Troy was no longer a battlestation. Troy was a ship in all but name.

  Ships lived to move. Battleships lived to move forward. To seek the enemy and destroy it. The best defense is a good offense.

  It might take some time, but Troy was going forward.

  And she'd be bringing friends.

  AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD

  Yep, it's another eulogy.

  As noted, my mother was born in Brooklyn, oldest of three children, during the Roaring Twenties. She still remembered the recipe for "bathtub gin" since her parents, Irish and Swedish descent, were not Prohibitionists. (Nor, as shall become apparent, was she.)

  She grew up attending Catholic and New York public schools, at the time some of the best schools in the country if not the world. Despite what would now be considered an academic schedule similar to the top-end private schools, she graduated from High School (PS 129) at sixteen. She would have graduated at fourteen but her mother insisted that she be "held back" twice. (Fourth and eighth grade.)