I shook my head. “No, sir. You see, the boats stayed with the rocks. They’re making constant corrections to insure that doesn’t happen, as well as accelerating the rocks. The rim tramp is following along on minimal power and hiding behind one of the asteroids, so as to avoid detection. But we had to be able to rotate boat pilots. It’ll be just over six months from the time they launched the rocks until they cross Haven’s orbit, still guided. We’ll launch our attack just before that time.”
“I see. And what’s to keep Jonas from simply moving out of the way? Those rocks will mass far too much to be moved.”
“Actually, not much,” I admitted. “But they’ll be approaching from behind Haven, if we’ve timed it right. Of course, he’ll also have a bit of a battle to occupy his attention. I’m hoping he won’t notice the rocks in time to light off Nemesis’ inertial drives. Dreadnoughts are not very maneuverable, you know.”
“Can’t he destroy them?”
I shrugged. “To tell you the truth, sir, I don’t know for sure. A dreadnought carries some sizable fusion warheads. But I don’t know how sizable, other than the five planetbusters she carries. He can’t use those, of course. They take almost half an hour to prepare and launch. But, we have four rocks. By the time they reach Haven, they’ll be in a row, seconds apart.” I shrugged again. “I’m sorry, sir, but it was the best I could come up with. We simply didn’t have time to build a fleet large enough to tangle with a dreadnought.”
The clock ticked down to our launch time. Valkyrie and the thirty-two armed rim tramps . . . ah . . . privateers all carried holds full of attack boats. Other boats, already in the system, were driving in from our asteroid base, hopefully too small to register on Jonas’ detectors. Predator escorted Relentless and Valkyrie.
Our fleet lifted and drove for the jump point. The die was cast. There was nothing more for me to do until we emerged in Haven’s system. Despite my best intentions, I found my eyes coming to rest on Suli, immersed in her jump calculations. I wished I’d found a way to leave her behind on Bolt Hole.
Our rim comps let us emerge at a jump point far farther inside the Haven system than would have been possible for Empire vessels. I scanned my monitors anxiously. Suddenly a speck of light swung into view around Haven, and one screen resolved it into the kilometer-wide globe of Nemesis, still in her standard Fleet orbit. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and began looking for Dauntless and Raptor. There! Dauntless preceded Nemesis in her orbit. Finally, Raptor emerged from behind Haven. Other screens showed me my own fleet. Cargo locks on all of the privateers were open, and they were spewing clouds of boats as they drove for the orbiting warships. This was the showdown.
Even from our advanced jump point, and at full acceleration, we were hours from Haven. My largest concern was that Jonas would break orbit with Nemesis. It was vital that he keep her in orbit. I did expect Dauntless and Raptor to break orbit to gain fighting room.
I was wrong. It must have been Jonas’ orders that kept them from moving out. Surely, both captains realized that by staying in orbit they compromised much of their ships’ fighting ability.
At any rate, the three ships simply maintained their orbits and cleared for action. Nemesis launched almost a hundred Strengl and Wasp fighters, Dauntless twenty more.
As planned, the privateers broke into three attack groups, and each headed toward one of the enemy ships, accompanied by a cloud of armed boats. I cursed as Valkyrie slowed; but she wasn’t a combatant, she was a flag C&C ship, and had no place in the line of battle.
Six privateers and a dozen armed boats had headed for Raptor. Suddenly, Raptor broke orbit and began frantically transmitting surrender messages. Evidently, her captain had simply been waiting for his chance to desert Jonas’ forces. I had one privateer approach her and board. In moments, the privateer’s captain confirmed the surrender of the destroyer. I left two more privateers and their attendant boats to guard Raptor, and rerouted the other three and their boats to one of the other targets.
The captain of Dauntless had worries of his own. His own sister ship, Relentless, a destroyer, Predator, and over ten privateers, as well as more than fifty armed boats were attacking him. The Strengls and even the Wasps had been simply brushed aside, out flown by the boats, and outgunned by the privateers. The boats swarmed so thickly around Dauntless that they were getting into Relentless’ and Predator’s lines of fire.
Again the boats were putting on their space ballet, dancing, weaving, pirouetting, then suddenly arrowing in, slicing with their lasers, and bouncing away, to resume their evasion dance.
Dauntless’ captain tried to fight a textbook battle against Relentless and Predator, as he’d been trained. However, his training hadn’t included small, heavily armed ships that could maneuver like fighters, but carried the armament of frigates. Then there were the boats . . .
The plan had been to concentrate on Dauntless and Raptor, and simply keep Nemesis too busy to come to their aid. Once the battle cruiser and destroyer had been defeated or destroyed, we’d be able to focus completely on Nemesis, even if the asteroids failed.
It seemed to be working, or else Jonas was cooperating, behaving as stupidly as we’d hoped.
Nevertheless, flares began to appear, each marking the death of one of our privateers or boats. Dauntless was beginning to show her damage. Her shields were dangerously weakened in several areas, and nearly a third of her weaponry was apparently disabled. However, she was taking a serious toll on my fleet. Her battle comps might not be able to deal with the boats, but they could track the privateers. Track them and attack. The flares became more numerous.
When two more flares announced the deaths of two more privateers, I lost patience, and called in one of our unconventional weapons. A privateer broke free of the battle, swung away, and drove at maximum into an orbit exactly opposite the battle cruiser’s. Once clear of both Dauntless and Nemesis, she opened her cargo hatch, and a crewman gently nudged a long cylinder out of the hull. The privateer slowed and altered course to blast back to the battle as the cylinder sped at several thousand kilometers per second around Haven and toward the battle cruiser on a collision orbit.
I followed the beacon it carried until it disappeared behind the planet, and waited anxiously for several minutes until it reappeared. I triggered a control, and a flash announced the disintegration of the cylindrical container, revealing a packed mass of fist-sized rocks.
The flash must have been noticed aboard Dauntless, too. She began frantically firing at the mass of rocks. But her powerful lasers merely fused small rocks into larger ones. Her particle beams were simply absorbed. Missiles and projectiles only scattered the rocks a bit, making them even more dangerous.
Armed boats and privateers scrambled out of the way as the rocks closed on the cruiser at incredible velocity. The thousands of rocks impacting her weakened shields at ten kilometers per second simply overwhelmed them. When the mass of rocks passed, they left a shredded, airless hulk in their wake.
The destruction was so complete and sudden that for a moment, everyone in the battle was stunned. Even Nemesis stopped shooting. Then Relentless, Predator and the remaining privateers changed course and engaged Nemesis.
Nemesis was ready. Her crew had plenty of notice to make their preparations. This was what I’d been dreading. I’d hoped to be able to find a way to beat Jonas without having to slug it out with the dreadnought. However, even if my asteroid plan worked, we’d have to keep Nemesis busy until they arrived . . .
Nemesis was old, and in my opinion obsolete. However, she was still one of the most powerful weapons systems ever designed by man. It was going to be a very expensive distraction, in ships and people.
I gritted my teeth and ordered our forces to concentrate on the old warrior. But even my repeated warnings couldn’t prepare my people for the reality of a dreadnought.
Nemesis carried more weaponry than the planetary defenses of most civilized worlds. Her huge lasers and particle weapons were pum
ped by their own independent fusactors, and were of a size usually mounted on moons. Her battle comps, though obsolete, were huge, and were capable of directing the fire of the nearly seven hundred weapons stations that she mounted.
We’d been inflicting damage, and of course, her age and background as a showboat and flagship were showing. Entire weapons emplacements were going dead as their ancient control systems failed under the pressure of the attack. Shields weakened. Battle comps began failing under the stress of trying to deal with our non-standard weapons and attack patterns. Given enough time, I felt sure that we could eventually beat the old monster.
Of course, we wouldn’t be given enough time. I doubt it was Jonas, but someone aboard her had imagination and initiative. The laser and particle beam emplacements stopped firing at points, and began trying to slash the beams across their targets. It was a devastating tactic, especially against the privateers. With their incredible maneuverability, the boats were less vulnerable to it. But privateers began dying with distressing regularity.
Suddenly, Relentless spouted a huge cloud of vapor, and began drifting away. A few of her weapons continued to fire over the growing distance, but it was clear that she was no longer an effective fighting vessel. I could hear Jax desperately trying to reestablish communication with her. However, she was obviously no longer under command. I considered breaking off the attack and retreating. Nemesis was simply too tough a nut to crack with our small fleet. But if we drew off, Nemesis might detect our asteroids in time to light off her inertial drives. Retreat was not really an option.
Damn it, people were dying out there! I glared at the timer counting down to the first asteroid’s arrival. The damned thing had to be broken! It must have been about this time that Nemesis’ sensors detected the first asteroid swinging around the planet.
First one, then several of her laser and particle beam weapons began firing ineffectually at the huge boulder. However, Jonas had evidently learned something from the destruction of Dauntless. Despite the continuing attacks of our ships, he launched a missile. When that one was intercepted and destroyed by an armed boat, he fired another, and our sensors detected that Nemesis’ inertial drives were powering up.
The second missile impacted the asteroid with a tremendous nuclear flash. Jonas’ gunner wasn't stupid. He’d known he couldn’t destroy the asteroid; he’d aimed the missile to deflect it, and it had worked.
Unfortunately, he had deflected the asteroid away from the planet, in the only direction that Nemesis could have taken to break orbit. It was only when the asteroid moved relative to the ship that Jonas could see the second asteroid, some five seconds behind the first. There was no time to maneuver, no time to launch another missile.
A kilometer-sized ship is huge; but a kilometer-sized boulder is just as huge and much denser. Nemesis’ shields were never designed to handle impacts of that magnitude; they burned out in microseconds. The boulder pushed more than halfway through the dreadnought, whose remains appeared simply pasted to its front.
The impact had slowed the boulder, though. Its orbit began to decay, and I yelled for the boats to nudge it away from Haven. A swarm of boats flocked around the boulder, pushing frantically to keep it from falling into Haven’s atmosphere, while others diverted the remaining two asteroids. They succeeded, but the remains of Nemesis slipped from the front of the rock, and became a blazing smear across Haven’s sky. Only a few charred pieces have ever been recovered.
And that quickly, the battle of Haven was over. At least, the fighting was.
The dismal job of cleaning up the aftermath of the battle continued for days. Once the shock of watching Nemesis’ end as a shooting star on Haven faded, I’d dispatched a privateer to report and to fetch back Cord. Most of my part of the job was finished. Now his part began in earnest.
The casualty reports were appalling. Over five thousand men and women had died with Nemesis, including, of course, Rear Admiral Micah Jonas and Captain Jamin Van-Lyn. Three thousand more had died aboard Dauntless. Surprisingly, forty-seven people had been found alive aboard Dauntless, trapped in sealed compartments that had not been holed.
Ninety-two of our hundred-twenty four armed mining boats had been destroyed. Six of those pilots had managed to trigger their emergency beacons, and were recovered alive, but we didn’t stop until we’d recovered as much of each body as possible. That gave us a casualty rate of just over sixty-nine percent for the boats, an appalling rate.
Relentless had two hundred seventy-six dead and a hundred thirty-four wounded. She was once more under control, but it would take months of effort even with Thaeron's facilities to make her a combat vessel once more. Predator had suffered thirty-four dead and six wounded. Sri Bendo was recovering from decompression effects suffered when his bridge was hit.
Fourteen of the thirty-two privateers with whom we’d entered combat had been lost, a casualty rate of over forty percent. Cord had his victory. I hoped it was worth the cost. Suited men carefully examined every bit of debris looking for bodies or wounded — especially wounded.
When they were found, wounded were rushed to Relentless. As soon as they could be stabilized in her sickbay, they were evacuated to hospitals on Haven.
Cord arrived, and lost no time grounding on Haven and crowing about our victory. I remembered a line of ancient poetry I’d encountered at the staff college: ‘Another such victory and I am undone!’
Chapter XV
Unfortunately, it didn’t take Cord long to learn that I’d been hiding out on Valkyrie, refusing to go down to the planet and ducking dozens of well-wishers, hangers-on and social invitations.
“Buck up, Admiral,” he instructed. “You’ve had your battle. Now you have to face the music.”
“I’d rather face another dreadnought!”
He grinned. “I’m sure you would. Unfortunately, you’re not being offered that option.” He sobered. “Consider it a duty of your rank, Admiral. Consider it anything you want — but get down here and start hero-ing!”
I cast about desperately. “Uh, I have to plan for an assault on Thaeron, sir.”
He shook his head. “Won’t work, Admiral. Thaeron will wait. They no longer have any offensive capability. They can just wait until you get around to them.” He leaned close to the vid and pointed his finger at me. “Now, get down here and let them make you a hero!” He started to cut off, and then paused. He looked at me with pity.
“I will offer you a piece of advice, Admiral. You possess the unfortunate characteristic of being unattached. You’d be much safer if you were life-mated. Since you aren’t, I’d suggest that you comb your fleet for an unattached female that can accompany you and keep the sharks away. Otherwise, you won’t get a moment’s peace.”
I sighed. “How long will you give me, sir?”
He grinned again. “One day, no more. Don’t try to stall me, Admiral. I’ve already heard that you have a young lady aboard that . . . ah . . . interests you. Bring her along, and get down here!” He cut the connection, which was fortunate. I could feel my face warming.
I agonized for an hour before summoning up the duty roster and learning that Suli was off duty. I temporized for another half-hour in desperation before taking my courage in both hands and heading for her cabin.
She answered the door in that same maroon robe I’d seen before—but this time, it was obvious that there was nothing under it but Suli. I almost forgot why I’d come.
She looked surprised at seeing me. “Why, Admiral!”
Heat flared in my face. “Uh . . . Ms Fjolking . . . I . . . uh . . . I need your help. May I come in?”
She purpled and those beautiful eyes widened in panic. Then, suddenly, the flush faded and the eyes steadied. She stepped backward. “Of course, Admiral. Please come in.” That blinding smile flashed.
I stepped in and she closed the door. The cabin was tiny. A single chair and minuscule desk occupied a cubbyhole opposite her bunk. Everything was perfectly orderly. The cabin hardly looked
lived-in. “Have a seat, Admiral,” she said, grinning.
“Thank you, but I’ll stand,” I said firmly. Sitting would mean one of us sitting on the bunk.
She shrugged and sat down . . . on the bunk. “Well, Admiral, what can I do for you?”
“Well, I uh . . . The Viceroy has ordered me down to Haven. I have to let them make a hero out of me.” My face warmed again.
“Good.” she said firmly. “It’s about time, and highly deserved, too!”
I felt myself flush again. “Come on, Suli, you were here. You know I was no hero. The heroes were out there.” I waved vaguely.
She sniffed. “Too right, I was here. Sure, there were heroes out there. But there was a hero in here, too.” The passion faded from her face, to be replaced by puzzlement. “But what’s that got to do with me? You said you needed my help.”
I writhed in embarrassment. “Well, you see, I’ve been flooded with invitations to social events—dinners and the like. I’ve been ducking them, but the Viceroy caught me, and he’s insisting that I begin attending them.”
She just regarded me silently. “You see, He . . . uh . . . I, Oh Sheol! Cord suggested that I arrange for a female to accompany me to these events, to keep me from being bothered by a bunch of women!”
She collapsed in a paroxysm of laughter. My acute embarrassment began to fade into resentment. “Excuse me,” I said stiffly, “I’m sorry I bothered you.” I started for the door, but she put her hand on my arm.
“Please,” she said between peals of laughter. “Don’t leave!” She began to sober as she saw my irritation. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I really am. I wasn’t laughing at you. It was just the . . .” She suppressed a giggle before continuing, “It was just the idea that the great Admiral Val Kedron, Savior of the Rim, Commander of thousands, needs me to protect him from predator females!” She trailed off into more gales of laughter. I began to see the humor in the situation myself, and in a moment, we were both howling. As our laughter began to fade, she added, “me, a Frejan!” and we both roared again. It took several minutes for us to regain our composure.
The Emperor's Conspiracy Page 22
