“Eight minutes, thirty seconds to impact,” Roslyn reported. “Now we get to see the cycle time on the gunships’ launchers.”
“At least their vector change bought us more time,” Armbruster noted. “I make it eight hours to Mage-Admiral Medici’s arrival now.”
“For the first time in my career, I’m wishing it was remotely likely we’d miscalculated a Navy task force’s arrival time,” Kulkarni said whimsically. “Until we’re in our own missile range, please use our missiles in defense mode, Lieutenant Chambers. I’d like to live through this if we can.”
Roslyn activated one of the programs she’d been working on. The destroyer was linked in to the sensors of every other ship in the defending fleet, and those sensors were giving her detailed information on the incoming fire.
Give it a few minutes to build a vector and a performance for the salvo, and she’d have a decent chance of interception with each of her missiles. Of course, she only had twenty-four launchers. Even a hundred percent kill rate wasn’t going to make that much of a dent in what was coming.
“Second salvo launching,” she reported aloud. “I make the cycle time forty-five seconds.”
That was basically identical to their own cycle time. Another area where the Republic ships weren’t superior, at least.
“Time until our range?”
“They’ll hit us first, we’ll launch, then they’ll hit zero vee and go the other way,” Roslyn reeled off. “About nine minutes.”
There was a good chance they’d have to weather the entire missile capacity of the gunship strike before even one of their missiles reached the enemy. A third salvo lit up on Roslyn’s screens as she spoke, with the first salvo still seven minutes out.
“Counter-missile targeting distributions coming down from the flag,” Armbruster reported. “Transferring to tactical.”
“Got it,” Roslyn confirmed. “And…firing.”
The destroyer shivered as she opened fire. These missiles didn’t have the endurance to reach the gunships yet. They were just heading out to intercept the missiles coming toward them.
“Flag has ordered five counter-missile salvos,” she reported aloud, continuing to sequence up her fire. That was a third of Stand in Righteousness’s magazines. Mage-Commodore Jakab clearly agreed with Kulkarni on their priority: survive.
“We are past the forty-five-second mark from salvo three,” Roslyn continued after a moment’s check. “There is no fourth salvo. Enemy gunships appear to only have three rounds per launcher.”
The counter-missile salvos were doing their work. The first intercept was always the most effective, as hundreds of gigaton-range antimatter warheads had their own natural jamming effect.
None of the first Republic salvo even made it to the Protectorate force. That took almost the entirety of the five salvos they’d launched in defensive mode, though, and the second salvo still had almost a thousand missiles as it plunged into the intercept range.
“Targets from the flag for offensive fire,” Roslyn reported. It was almost an afterthought. She flagged the ship in question and told Stand’s systems to fire.
Her own focus was on the incoming missiles. She had more RFLAM turrets than she had missile launchers, and automated as they were, targeting priorities and programs were her responsibility.
The destroyer’s electronic warfare suite came to life as well. Transmitters intended for complex siren songs in normal battles were reduced to jammers, blasting the incoming missiles’ sensors with massive amounts of garbage returns.
Despite everything, missiles made it through. Stand in Righteousness flipped in space as the first missiles crashed toward her and Lieutenant Coleborn earned some measure of forgiveness for his attitude as he danced the warship around the two missiles Roslyn had missed.
As the last salvo charged in, he synchronized his maneuvers to her active defenses. It felt like there were far too many missiles coming at them for one single destroyer, but that was the battlespace they were in.
She shot down missiles and he dodged missiles, and for a few seconds they were working like a finely-honed team…and then one missile made it through.
Stand in Righteousness jerked in space like she’d been kicked by an angry mule…and then it was over.
For now.
They were one of the lucky ones. There were ships in the defending fleet that hadn’t been hit, but over three-quarters of the ships present had taken at least one missile.
Their armor was good—Stand in Righteousness hadn’t even lost anyone to the warhead that had hit her hull—but nothing could stand against that kind of firepower for long.
Four RMN and two ASDF destroyers were gone. One of the ASDF cruisers was badly damaged. The rest of the fleet was rattled and damaged—but combat-capable.
Roslyn held her breath as their own fire swept down on the gunships. The Republic ships hadn’t had the advantage of counter-missile salvos like the Protectorate fleet had. What they did have, it turned out, was three lasers apiece that served perfectly well in the antimissile role.
Hundreds of lasers lit up space, slicing through the incoming fire with terrifying ease. Like their missiles’ electronic brains, it seemed the gunships’ computers were better than the Protectorate’s equivalent.
Roslyn was unsurprised. Every trick in the Protectorate’s electronic warfare arsenal was known to the Republic, and they’d built their systems to counter them. None of the clever tricks programmed into their missiles did anything except cost power.
Sheer numbers, at least, did something. The gunship strike had handled the defenders roughly, but it by no means went entirely their way. Over two hundred gunships had come after Roslyn Chambers and her comrades.
A hundred and fifty escaped. A poor trade, perhaps, for over twice their mass in destroyers, but it was what the Protectorate would have to take.
“It won’t go as much their way next time, I suspect,” she told Kulkarni as Armbruster listed off the damage to the fleet. “We know their computers now. Until we come up with some new clever tricks, we’re stuck with brute-force jamming—but that’s hardly useless.”
“Better than wasting power, I suppose,” the Mage-Captain said, her tone cold. Thousands of people had just died. It wasn’t going to be a good day.
“The capital ships and remaining gunships are maneuvering now,” Roslyn reported. “Heading our way, three gravities. If they’re heading for the planet, turnover in six hours. Twelve hours until they’re in orbit.”
“We’ll see what Jakab orders,” Kulkarni said. “In his place, I’d pull us back to Ardennes orbit. Let the bastards come.
“We know our reinforcements are on their way. They don’t.”
“We hope,” Roslyn muttered. They hadn’t seemed to have very many surprises for the Republic so far, after all.
33
“That’s the last jammer, my lord,” the exhausted-looking Marine Major reported. She’d taken off her exosuit helmet and had locked the suit’s muscles in place. The armor was the only thing holding her in place as she leaned against it.
“We should have contact with everybody now.”
“Thank you, Major,” Damien told her. He looked over at Romanov, who looked only slightly less exhausted than the other Marine. “Romanov, can you get us a link, please?”
They’d done a lot with his wrist-comp…but not enough for him to be able to establish a communication link with it. Not without using voice commands he wasn’t going to trust sitting in the back of an APA armored personnel carrier, anyway.
“Your Marines saved a lot of lives today,” the owner of said APC told him. Brigadier General Seoirse Frank was the unlucky individual in charge of the rapid-response brigade positioned next to the Ardennian capital. It was an odd honor for a man whose main claim to fame had been surrendering his then-battalion without a fight when the rebellion had happened.
He’d earned it, however, by being one of the few senior officers whom the ensuing criminal investiga
tions hadn’t flagged as guilty of something and then stepping up when a lot of those left were retiring.
“Our job,” Major Porcher replied. “Not often we have to drop into nuclear blast zones, thankfully, but we train for it.”
Damien was grimly certain they couldn’t have saved everyone. They’d saved a lot of people, but a fifty-kiloton nuclear bomb going off on the edge of a residential neighborhood didn’t spare many people close by.
He’d almost have preferred that this set of infiltrators had managed to get the bomb into the RTA. The same solid stone exterior that had saved the RTA from the external explosion would have saved the innocents around it if they’d managed to smuggle it in.
“We’ve got a link to the Mage-Commodore,” Romanov told him. “Transferring to your wrist-comp.”
“My lord, you’re all right?” Jakab asked.
“Nouveaux Versailles stands,” Damien replied. “I’m fine. A lot of innocent people aren’t. There are going to have to be consequences for that. What’s your status?”
“We’re not doing much better up here,” the naval officer replied. “We lost six destroyers to their gunship strike. The rest of the fleet is battered, too. Appalachian is basically crippled, so we’re down a cruiser. Keeping her in formation mostly as a bluff.”
“Understood.” Damien gestured to Romanov, who was already bringing up the downloaded telemetry on the APC’s screens. “I’m heading for the rapid-response brigade facility near the city. Seemed wisest to get my over-promoted butt out of the line of fire.”
“I don’t know about the locals, but I’d be extremely relieved to see you and your abilities back aboard my flagship before I go into combat with a few times my tonnage of Republic warships,” Jakab replied. “This is just a delaying action at this point, my lord, and your help could make all of the difference.”
“I’m meeting one of Major Porcher’s shuttles at the brigade’s armor depot,” Damien told him with a chuckle. “If you want one semi-functional Hand on your bridge, I can be there in an hour or so.”
“‘Semi-functional?’” Jakab asked with a tired chuckle. “You, my lord, underestimate yourself. If we can accelerate getting that shuttle up here, let me know.”
“And the fleet?”
“We’re falling back to Ardennes orbit. With Ground Command Alpha still in the locals’ hands, that gives another sixty or so launchers from the orbital platforms, and I need to restock ammunition. We shot off two-thirds of the destroyers’ missiles against the gunships.”
“I’ll meet you in orbit, then, Mage-Commodore. We’ll see how brave our friends are feeling—and how punctual Mage-Admiral Medici is today.”
“Good luck, my lord,” Brigadier General Frank told Damien with a crisp salute. “The shuttle is refueled and should be able to get you to Duke of Magnificence as quickly as possible.”
“Thank you. Will you be all right?” Damien asked.
Frank shook his head.
“It’s bad,” he admitted, “but we have the situation under control. We’re rounding up the remaining infiltrators, and we have the rad medications and hospital space to take care of everyone. We’re airlifting some of the lower priority-radiation cases to other cities for treatment.
“We can’t bring back the dead, but the living are going to stay that way. I promise you that.”
“So long as we hold in orbit,” Damien murmured.
“That’s on you, Mage-Commodore Jakab, and Admiral Vasilev,” Frank told him. “If you fall, we’ll fight. They won’t take Ardennes easily, not after this.”
“I hope it won’t come to that. Good luck to you, too, Brigadier General Frank.”
Frank saluted and Romanov led the way onto the shuttle. The landing field was covered in the spacecraft, RMMC assault shuttles haphazardly parked wherever they would fit. Mobile refueling trucks were moving across the space, carefully loading the ships with more fuel so they’d be ready to go if needed.
The Marines themselves were scattered across the city and surrounding area now. Some of the worst radiation cases were being handled in military hospital units set up next to the blast zone. Marines couldn’t expect to find friendly doctors, so they dropped with their own. Today, those doctors were mostly dealing with the locals.
“We’re getting a vector cleared,” the pilot reported as Damien boarded. “It’s an honor to fly you, Hand Montgomery.”
“Let me know if you still feel that way after we’ve been shot at,” Romanov told the other Marine with a chuckle. “When do we get upstairs?”
“Five minutes to takeoff, forty-three-minute flight,” the pilot replied after a moment’s hesitation. “Roughly fifty minutes and we’ll have you back aboard Duke of Magnificence.”
“Good.” Damien checked his wrist-comp. There were only two things on the screen: the estimated time until the Republic carrier group ranged on the ships in orbit…and the time until Mage-Admiral Medici was supposed to arrive.
Once back aboard his ship, Damien went straight to the bridge. Carefully keeping out of Jakab’s way, he dropped into an observer’s seat. He hadn’t really meant to go unnoticed, just without bothering anyone—but he was still surprised when the seat screens and controls mirrored his flag-deck setup a moment later.
The entire crew, of course, knew about his injuries. No one seemed willing to stop him getting into the middle of a firefight, but they were still going to baby him when they could.
It was more heartwarming than anything else, most of the time, and he carefully tapped in commands on the touchscreen buttons sized for the heel of his hand.
“All ships have completed rearming,” Petty Officer Rustici reported. “Everyone except Appalachian is reporting eighty percent or better combat-readiness.”
“And Appalachian?” Jakab asked.
“Mage-Captain Bonaparte has ordered the evacuation of all but a minimum crew,” Rustici told him. “She reports she has fourteen launchers online in central control. If there’s any further issues, well…”
“She no longer has the crew to fix them,” Jakab concluded. “That’s a brave woman. Not sure how smart she is, but she’s damn brave.”
The Commodore turned his chair to look at Damien.
“It’s good to have you back aboard, my lord,” he greeted the Hand. “The moment of truth is fast approaching. The enemy will make turnover in an hour. Mage-Admiral Medici should arrive between one and two hours after that. It is entirely possible, my lord, that the Republic may decide that their only safe way out is through us.”
“Or to jump out close to the planet,” Damien replied. “Either way, this is going to be educational.”
“‘Educational,’” Jakab echoed, repeating Damien’s words back to him for the second time in as many hours. “I’m not sure that means what you think it means, my lord.”
“Have they attempted to communicate at all?” Damien asked, brushing aside Jakab’s feeble joke.
“Nothing. We’ve heard more from the prisoners on the surface than we have from the fleet moving against us…and no one is so much as sending me interrogation transcripts yet.”
“Well, I guess the missiles were a communication of a sort,” the Hand said with a sigh as he leaned back in his chair.
“Fight your fleet, Mage-Commodore. Let’s see if we can get out of this alive!”
“Turnover.”
The murmured word echoed like a dropped pin in the silence of Duke of Magnificence’s bridge. Damien should probably have returned to the flag deck and taken his usual place, but this battle was already decided. If the Republic Interstellar Navy decided to press their attack, everyone in orbit above Ardennes would die.
“I make it just over seven hours to zero velocity in Ardennian orbit,” another officer reported.
“How long until they couldn’t jump if they were our ships?” Jakab asked.
“Depends. There are officers who’d risk a jump straight from orbit if they had a reason,” the navigator pointed out. “They’ll
hit our usual safety margin for even emergency jumps in about three hours.”
“So, they’ll be able to jump when Medici—”
“Jump flare! Multiple jump flares.”
The sky lit up with the bright blue of Cherenkov radiation as Task Group Peacemaker arrived, almost two full hours early. It took a minute for it to resolve into a fleet of twenty warships, led by the immense hulls of two Royal Martian Navy battleships.
Damien closed his eyes in relief.
“Check the masses, decrypt the IFFs,” Jakab ordered. “Get me IDs.”
“We’re making it two battleships, six cruisers and twelve destroyers.” There was a long pause. “It’s Pax Marcianus and Peacemaker with the Third Destroyer Squadron.”
There was another pause.
“That still leaves a cruiser squadron and a destroyer squadron,” Jakab pointed out. “Who am I looking at, people?”
“Sorry, sir,” Rustici cut in. “Had to double-check the codes; our system didn’t have them in the active IFF listings.
“That’s the Second Heavy and Fifth Light Defense Squadrons of the Tau Ceti Security Fleet. Six Dragon-class heavy cruisers and six Cataphract-class destroyers.”
System Militia ships. It hit Damien like a supernova. He’d been focused on the Royal Martian Navy and the Ardennes System Defense Force without even thinking about it. Tau Ceti had sent half their cruisers and a sixth of their destroyers to relieve Ardennes, and while Tau Ceti had the largest System Militia, they were hardly the only one.
“When this is over,” he murmured aloud, “I need to get to the RTA.”
“I think I see why,” Jakab replied. “Do we have coms from Admiral Medici?”
“Yes, sir, just finished decrypting now.”
The main hologram dissolved into the form of the Mage-Admiral. Medici was a small man, barely taller than Damien himself, but the grim set to his face warned of terrible things for the Republic fleet in his way.
UnArcana Stars Page 21
