The Oncoming Storm

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We will not lose.

  “We will fight,” he continued. “We will fight them at Cadiz. We will fight them at Gamma Base. We will fight them at Cottbus, Hebrides, and Iceland. We will fight until they are pushed out of our space, then carry the offensive into their territory. We will keep fighting until we are standing in the ruins of Ahura Mazda, dictating peace terms to the so-called believers. For who can dare claim to believe in God when they slaughter civilians merely to gain a slight advantage?”

  He took a long breath. “We will win this war,” he concluded. “And when we are done, the galaxy will be a better place.

  “Dismissed.”

  Kat cut the channel and watched as the images of her fellow commanding officers popped like soap bubbles. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes before they would know if Force Two would have its chance to redeem itself or if they would just fall back into hyperspace and wait for the admiral. She sat for a long moment, then rose to her feet and headed for the bridge. Whatever happened, she told herself as she walked through the hatch, she would meet it squarely.

  “Captain on the bridge,” the XO said.

  “I have the bridge,” Kat said. She sat in her chair and surveyed the display. “Do we have direct datalinks established with Force Two?”

  “Aye, Captain,” the XO said. He sounded confident. They’d improved the command and control system considerably during their flight from Cadiz. “They’re reporting that they’re ready to move.”

  Kat nodded, although she had her doubts. They’d only had two days outside hyperspace to exercise the nine warships and five troop transports the admiral had placed under her command. If she’d had more time . . . she smiled, tightly. If there had been more time, the admiral might have put someone else in command, reasoning that the new commander would have enough time to meet his subordinates and learn how they thought. She knew she wouldn’t be allowed to retain command once the front lines settled, but for the moment she would enjoy it.

  And give the Theocracy one hell of a bloody nose, she thought.

  “Then take us to the first waypoint,” she ordered. On the display, Force One was already heading towards its target. It looked invincible . . . and yet she knew the Theocracy had more raw firepower. “Try to keep us away from any potential guardships.”

  She thought briefly of the message her father had sent to her. It had been short and sweet, sweeter than she’d expected. He’d told her about his new job, at least in vague terms, yet thankfully, he hadn’t tried to pressure her to return to Tyre. Even in wartime, her father could presumably have influenced her commanding officers to order her home. Kat was relieved, more than she cared to admit.

  I will see this out to the end, she thought, coldly. And I will not leave anyone behind this time.

  “We’re approaching the first waypoint,” Weiberg reported.

  “No sign of any guardships,” Roach reported. He sounded perplexed. They’d trained to avoid any starships near the planet. “Local hyperspace near Cadiz appears clear.”

  Kat and the XO exchanged a look. Standard procedure was to keep a guardship in hyperspace near a planet, particularly in a war zone. Who knew when the enemy might be sneaking up on an unsuspecting target? But the Theocracy might have concluded there would be no immediate counterattack . . .

  . . . or they might have something else up their sleeve.

  “Hold us here,” she ordered. There was no time for worrying, not now. “We’ll wait for the admiral’s signal.”

  And then go on the offensive, her own thoughts added. Let the dice fly high!

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Admiral, I’m picking up vortexes—multiple vortexes,” the sensor officer snapped, as alarms howled through the Sword of God. “They’re opening near Cadiz VII.”

  “Show me,” Admiral Junayd ordered. “And then bring the fleet to battle stations!”

  He looked up at the display, thinking hard. Commonwealth’s 7th Fleet was in no state for a counterattack—unless, of course, the current fleet commander preferred to die heroically rather than report home and face the Commonwealth’s judgment for losing a battle. And there were more superdreadnought-sized vortexes than there should have been, if it were 7th Fleet alone. It suggested the Commonwealth had moved reinforcements into the sector quicker than he would have believed possible.

  The display cleared as the vortexes closed. There was no way to track the intruding starships in real-time, not now. They’d have to take the fleet a great deal closer to have a hope of tracking, then engaging the enemy. He thought fast. Cadiz was important, but right now the facilities orbiting Cadiz VII were far more important. Losing them and their crews to enemy fire would make his deployment’s supply problems, already bad, far worse. The facilities had to be defended.

  And yet, the enemy would know he had to cover Cadiz VII. They could be setting a trap.

  “Set course for Cadiz VII,” Junayd ordered. The forces on the ground could take care of themselves now that his fleet had deployed the orbital bombardment platforms, which would hammer any traces of opposition from high overhead. “Open vortexes on my mark, then plot exit coordinates here.”

  He tapped a point on the display, well outside Cadiz VII’s gravity well. If this was a trap, if the enemy outgunned him significantly, he could retreat back into hyperspace rather than fight a losing battle. Theocratic intelligence had already failed once. If there were more than three squadrons of superdreadnoughts waiting for him, he wasn’t too proud to retreat.

  “That’s quite some distance from the planet,” the cleric observed. “Are you sure you don’t want to come out closer to the facilities?”

  “We need room to maneuver,” Junayd pointed out. The hell of it was that the infidels could devastate the platforms before his fleet arrived if they hurled themselves straight into the gravity well. There was simply no way to rewrite the laws of interstellar travel to get the fleet there any faster. “And we can try to trap them against the planet.”

  Assuming they don’t outgun us, he added, in the privacy of his head.

  “Vortex generators online,” the helmsman said.

  “Take us out,” Junayd ordered.

  Moments later, they slipped through the vortex and headed into hyperspace.

  “Captain,” Roach said, “I am picking up enemy ships entering hyperspace.”

  Kat nodded. Hyperspace rolled and boiled as superdreadnought after superdreadnought plunged through the vortexes and slid into hyperspace, then set course for Cadiz VII. She had to admire their determination, although she knew it was driven by fear of losing what they’d captured. Normally, navigating through hyperspace within a star system was a tricky proposition, even though it was safer than trying to fly through an energy storm. But they didn’t really have a choice if they wanted to protect their facilities.

  She looked at her console, frowning. “Have they seen us?”

  “I don’t think so, Captain,” Roach said. “But it’s impossible to be sure.”

  “They would have closed to engage, surely,” the XO pointed out. “Or simply launched a few missiles in our direction and fled.”

  Kat nodded. Hyperspace was always oddly twisted near a gravity well. Few officers would have dared to lurk so close to a planet’s hyperspace shadow, knowing their sensors and communications would be utterly unreliable. If the fleet they were seeing hadn’t matched the known configuration of the Theocratic fleet they’d observed earlier, she would have feared that it was another series of sensor ghosts.

  “Give them five minutes,” she ordered, “and then prepare to take us out of hyperspace.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Weiberg said.

  “I did a head count,” the XO said. “They left behind five destroyers, at least.”

  “Then we’ll deal with them,” Kat said firmly.

  She sucked in her breath as the minutes ticked away. The destroyers alone posed no real problem, but the real danger was enemy gunboats—or one of their ships jumping out
in time to alert the main fleet that Cadiz was under attack. She had no illusions about the balance of firepower. If the enemy fleet doubled back, she would have no option but immediate retreat, leaving the people on the ground to an uncertain—probably unpleasant—fate.

  “Prepare to raise shields as soon as we exit hyperspace,” she ordered as the seconds ticked down to zero. “Take us out . . . now.”

  Her stomach clenched as the vortex flowered to life in front of her, then Lightning surged forward and burst out into real space. The display flickered, then updated; a handful of red icons circled the planet in high orbit. Destroyers, she noted, and a handful of captured freighters, all Commonwealth designs. It looked as though there were no Theocratic freighters at all.

  They must have wanted to capture freighters too, she thought, with grim amusement. They can’t fight a war without bullets and beans.

  “Target the enemy ships,” she ordered, as the makeshift squadron spread out round Lightning. “Fire at will.”

  The destroyers had their shields up, she noted, but they clearly hadn’t seriously expected an attack. Cadiz was largely worthless, after all, compared to the facilities. Kat watched with grim satisfaction as her starships belched missiles, launching far more than strictly necessary to smash the enemy ships. The destroyers, their vortex generators powered down, didn’t have a hope of escaping. One by one, they were overwhelmed and destroyed. The freighters died moments later.

  “All targets destroyed,” Roach reported. He paused. “Automated weapons platforms are swinging to target us.”

  “Take them out,” Kat ordered. They didn’t seem designed to engage starships, judging from the surveillance records, but that didn’t stop them from being dangerous. And, more practically, they might well have orders to bombard the planet indiscriminately if they believed they were about to lose control. “Then attempt to raise the PDC.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Roach said.

  “Standard communication links are down,” Ross added. “I’m attempting to make contact through laser now.”

  Kat wasn’t surprised. The Theocracy had blanketed the planet in jamming, according to the surveillance reports. It would be a nuisance to their operations, but absolutely nightmarish to any surviving Commonwealth forces. She had the strong feeling that anyone who’d remained alive would have gone into hiding, convinced they were the only surviving Commonwealth personnel on Cadiz. Or they might have been wiped out by the insurgents or the Theocracy.

  “See if you can locate the sources of the jamming,” the XO suggested. “We would make much faster progress if we could use radios.”

  “Aye, sir,” Ross said.

  “Captain,” Roach snapped as the display washed red. “We were just swept by an active tactical sensor.”

  Kat blinked in surprise. There were no other enemy starships in orbit and the orbital platforms were being smashed, one by one. They didn’t even have a chance to shoot back, not with weapons intended to bombard a planet rather than engage starships. But why bother with an active sensor sweep, running the risk of revealing one’s position, if there was no way the information could be used? She didn’t like the potential implications.

  “Find the source,” she snapped. “And then bring up long-range sensors and sweep the entire orbital sphere.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Roach said. He started to work his console, then swore. “Captain, I’m picking up missile emissions in orbit.”

  Kat stared as new icons appeared on the display. The Theocracy hadn’t managed to get a supply convoy into the system since they’d booted the Commonwealth out of it, unless the observing destroyers had missed something. But if they were critically low on missile stocks—she knew how many they’d fired during First Cadiz—they wouldn’t have unloaded so many into orbit just to help defend the planet. It would have rendered their superdreadnoughts largely defenseless . . .

  And then, as the display identified the missiles, she knew the truth.

  “They took our missile stockpiles,” she said, mentally cursing Admiral Morrison. The stockpiles that should have been used to prepare 7th Fleet for battle had been captured by the Theocrats. They hadn’t been able to transfer them into their starships, but that hadn’t stopped their commander from finding a use for them. “Order the transports to fall back, then brace for missile attack.”

  “Suggest we use our IFFs too,” the XO added, as the missiles came to life. “We might manage to disarm them.”

  Kat nodded. “See to it,” she added. “And use our own shipkillers to thin the herd.”

  She braced herself as a tidal wave of missiles roared towards her tiny squadron. If they’d had time to jump out . . . she checked the display and realized they had another five minutes to wait before they could make their escape, no matter the danger. Her shipkillers detonated ahead of Lightning, blowing holes in the enemy missile formation, but there were hundreds of missiles inbound. She gritted her teeth, knowing she might be about to lose her ship, her life—and the entire squadron. They should have anticipated such a trick from an enemy commander who had proved himself alarmingly wily.

  “Deploy decoys,” she ordered. If there was one silver lining to the dark cloud, it was that her personnel knew their missiles intimately. Spoofing them would be easier than spoofing a missile of unknown design. “And stand by point defense.”

  “Missiles entering terminal attack phase now,” Roach said. “Point defense going active . . . now.”

  Kat watched, helplessly, as missile after missile raced into attack range. Thankfully, they’d had several days to test their point defense datanet—they weren’t caught by surprise, not like 7th Fleet—but there were just too many missiles for them all to be blown out of space. Hundreds died, others fell to the decoys and expended themselves harmlessly, but dozens made it through the point defense network and rammed home.

  Lightning rang like a bell, twice in quick succession. Kat grabbed hold of her chairs as the compensators fought to keep her ship and crew intact. She saw hundreds of red icons flash up on the ship’s status display. Most of them vanished within seconds, but the remainder glared at her accusingly. Her ship had taken one hell of a battering . . . and yet she’d survived.

  “Graceful and Princess Royal have been destroyed,” the XO reported. “Cornwall and Jackie Fisher have been badly damaged.”

  Kat cursed under her breath. The missiles had specifically targeted the battle cruisers, the largest ships in the squadron. It was probably the only thing that had spared Lightning from destruction. And each of them had had over a thousand officers and crew . . .

  She pushed the guilt aside, promising herself she would pray for them later. There was no time to waste.

  She keyed the console. “Damage report?”

  “Five shield generators are gone,” Lynn reported. The chief engineer sounded harassed. “Major damage to . . .”

  Kat cut him off. “Carry out repairs as quickly as possible,” she ordered. It looked as though they’d been lucky. Lightning’s shields had been weakened, but her drives and most of her weapons remained intact. They could still fight. “We don’t have time to withdraw.”

  She turned and looked at the tactical display. It looked as though they’d swept the planet’s orbitals clear of anything threatening, but it was impossible to be sure. And yet she knew it didn’t really matter. They had to move fast before the Theocratic fleet returned and caught them in the act.

  “Check with the Marines,” she ordered. “Have they located the enemy bases?”

  “Aye, Captain,” Roach said. “They’ve established a number of facilities in and around the planet’s major cities.”

  She took a moment to study her squadron’s status, then nodded to herself. “Cornwall and Jackie Fisher are to withdraw into hyperspace,” she ordered. Cornwall didn’t have a working vortex generator, but now that the missiles had stopped exploding, Jackie Fisher could take both ships into hyperspace. “They are to head directly to Gamma Base.”

 
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said.

  “The remainder of the fleet is to close in on the planet and start destroying the bases on the ground,” Kat added. “Do we have a link with the PDC yet?”

  “No, Captain,” Ross reported.

  Kat grimaced. If the PDC was monitoring near-orbital space, they should know that the Theocracy’s ships and orbital installations had taken a pounding, but what if they couldn’t tell the difference between friend and enemy? What if they fired on her ships, on the assumption the Royal Navy wouldn’t be able to mount a relief mission so soon? Still, there was no time to delay any longer.

  “Engage the bases on the planet as soon as possible,” Kat ordered. She glanced at the planetary display. It was dark near Gibraltar, just after midnight. Hopefully, most of the civilians would be in bed, away from the occupation forces. “And then warn the troop transports to prepare to launch shuttles.”

  She watched, grimly, as bases on the planet started to die. It looked so simple on the display, as if it was nothing more than a computer game, yet she knew the reality behind each icon as it flared, then darkened. People were dying—and not all of them enemies. There was no escaping the fact that a number of civilians—and perhaps captured Commonwealth personnel—would be caught in the blasts and killed, but there was no alternative. She had no time to land Marines who would eliminate the hostiles while preserving the civilians—and besides, she knew the Theocracy couldn’t be allowed to develop a habit of using human shields. It was easy to imagine them using human shields everywhere if they thought it would deter the Commonwealth from attacking.

  And yet, she told herself, the simple survival of the PDC was reassuring. The Theocracy had refrained from using weapons that would take out its shields, knowing it would devastate the entire planet.