Every Last Mother's Child
Page 235
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Alice Jones was working feverishly to get the defense computers back on line. She had not tied into the main com network. Choosing instead to keep linked with her team and the computers. She had surprised her sergeant when she had calmly opened her blouse and plugged herself into the defense computer AI. She finally got the main computer just about back onto the system when the weapons barge detonated. She saw the immense explosion that expanded out for half a light minute. Nothing survived in the fireball. Not even the asteroids that the Republican fleet was hiding among. Unfortunately, the blast did not stop the rest of the asteroids from coming in. It did destroy one of the larger ones that would have been the first to hit the planet. But the explosion did nothing to stop the advancing asteroids. It only delayed the first impacts by a couple of hours, so that the first impact would strike the City of Trenaport instead of the western continent. It gave the evacuation command an additional 12 hours. It didn’t need it.
Just as the weapons barge detonated, the rest of the republic’s battle fleet ghosted in. It had expected to see the first fleet firing on the combined Thonian, and Imperial fleets. Instead they had found both fleets, and the Trenan defense forces unmolested. The republic feet couldn’t recycle their star drives for an hour at least while the star drives recalibrated. The fleet now became the target. Both the Imperial fleet and the Thonian fleet in a maneuver that seemed practiced, turned away from now devastated remains of the Republic’s first invasion to the new threat. As one unit the combined fleet opened fire and rained death down on the still reacting Republican fleet. In the space of an hour the republican fleet was decimated. The two Republican fleets were destroyed. Their destruction began the melt down of the Republic of the Stars.