Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  She pushed the thought aside. “General signal to the fleet,” she ordered. “The battle line will advance to engage the enemy.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” Wheeler said.

  Kat sucked in her breath. “The fleet is to open fire the moment we enter missile range,” she added. “I want their point defenses swamped.”

  She shared a grin with William. The enemy ships seemed oddly hesitant to advance, even though their only real chance of scoring a major victory lay in closing the range as much as possible. But then, they’d be torn to ribbons by her energy weapons even as they savaged her fleet. She would have tried to use her remaining ships as a bargaining counter rather than risk everything on one final battle. And yet the Theocrats had nowhere to go. Why not place their fate in God’s hands?

  They won’t have any support to build their new homeworld, she thought, as the range narrowed sharply. This time, they’ll be completely on their own.

  She felt an odd flicker of admiration for Ahura Mazda’s founders. They’d clearly planned well, taking years to build up supplies even though they’d told their own people that they’d been chained up at gunpoint and marched into the colony ships without even the clothes on their backs. She couldn’t deny the magnitude of their accomplishment, even as she hated what they’d become. Perhaps the original Theocrats would be as horrified as Kat if they set foot on modern-day Ahura Mazda. Or perhaps they’d see it as their due, the holy society they’d wanted all along.

  But their intentions no longer mattered.

  “Entering missile range,” Wheeler reported. “Missile batteries engaging . . . now.”

  Kat nodded as Queen Elizabeth shuddered, flushing her external racks and internal missile tubes. The display seemed to blur as thousands of missiles raced towards their targets, the enemy opening fire at the same moment. She winced at the sheer volume of missiles bearing down on her ships, then forced herself to relax. There were no freighters here loaded with antimatter, no unpleasant surprises . . . the battle would be conventional, fought and won by warships and missiles. And she had more advantages, she suspected, than the enemy realized.

  “Our gunboats have taken out four ships,” William reported, “but they’ve taken heavy losses.”

  “The tactical officers insist that the enemy has improved their point defense systems,” Wheeler added. “They’re no longer running a hierarchical command structure.”

  Kat nodded. She’d expected the Theocrats to make the switch months ago, after they realized the Commonwealth point defense systems were vastly superior to theirs. The change wouldn’t have required much more than some reprogramming, except for a switch in mindset that the Theocrats would have found painful. She understood from her conversations with Junayd that the Theocrats flatly refused to grant autonomy to their junior officers, even at the cost of weakening their fleets.

  But the lesson took them too long to learn, she told herself firmly. They don’t have time to learn the other lessons we might have taught them.

  “Our missiles will enter the enemy point defense range in ninety seconds,” Wheeler reported. “Their missiles will enter our range in one hundred and ten seconds.”

  “The point defense is to engage at once,” Kat ordered.

  She braced herself. The enemy fleet was in poor condition. If she was lucky, she might just be able to cripple it with the first barrage.

  And if I can’t, she thought darkly, I have plenty more missiles to fire.

  Speaker Nehemiah jerked awake as his intercom bleeped. He pulled himself away from his junior wife and keyed a switch, accepting the call.

  “Yes?”

  “The fleet has arrived,” Inquisitor Samuilu said. “You are ordered to make your way to the situation room.”

  Ordered, Nehemiah thought. The Inquisitor wasn’t even trying to pretend any longer. Power had shifted. And they may refuse to take me if they think I’m powerless.

  His junior wife opened her eyes as Nehemiah climbed out of bed, watching him as he hastily pulled on his ceremonial robes. Nehemiah opened his mouth to rebuke her for showing unseemly interest, then decided such talk wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, he knew what was coming. It was unlikely that any of his wives would survive, even down in the bunker.

  The thought cost him a pang of guilt. He had no sons any longer, thanks to the war and his political enemies. It wasn’t common to love daughters, yet he did . . . even though he knew his daughters would go, one day, to another household. He didn’t want to leave them behind to die, let alone fall into enemy hands. And yet he had no choice. The entire Theocracy hung in the balance.

  He hurried down the corridor, noting just how few guards there were now. Inquisitor Samuilu and Lord Cleric Eliseus had been rearranging everything after a number of soldiers had turned on their masters in a brutal mutiny that ended badly. They didn’t want to add more armed men to the mix, not when they were planning to flee. Nehemiah wished, suddenly, that he had a weapon, although he wasn’t sure what he would do with it. Take the shuttle for himself? Or kill the fanatics before they killed him?

  The main display was practically glowing with red and green icons. Nehemiah cast a practiced glance over it, silently noting the two fleets converging on one another. They were committed to a close-range engagement, he thought. He hoped he was wrong. The Theocracy needed to preserve some ships, if only to ensure the safety of their next homeworld.

  “Speaker,” Lord Cleric Eliseus said, “God has granted us an opportunity.”

  “Of course,” Nehemiah said. He ignored the older man’s babbling as he studied the ground-side display. The enemy had launched a major assault on a town, clearly trying to bring relief to a mutinous garrison. No doubt the traitors would surrender as soon as they could, giving the enemy a chance to plan an assault against the more solid defense lines further towards the Tabernacle. “I assume you intend to use it?”

  “Of course,” Inquisitor Samuilu said. “It’s time to leave this sinful world.”

  “Enemy missiles entering point defense range,” the operator warned. “The point defense gunners are engaging now.”

  Zaskar kept his eyes firmly on the tactical display as red icons started to vanish. He’d underestimated the ability of the enemy forces to reload their external racks, he noted. Either that or the unbelievers had managed to cram more missile tubes into their superdreadnoughts. He wondered, absently, how they’d done it as the remaining missiles bunched up, picking their targets and thrusting forward.

  But the decentralized point defense is working, he thought. Nearly half of the incoming missiles had been killed . . . and the remainder were being picked off, one by one. We are holding our own.

  He gritted his teeth as the enemy missiles slammed against their targets. A dozen superdreadnoughts, their shield generators already in poor condition, were blown out of space, seventeen more taking heavy damage. He cursed, inwardly, as thirty-seven smaller ships were wiped out of existence. They’d absorbed missiles that would have damaged his larger ships, he knew, but they’d also mounted enough point defense to make a difference when the enemy launched their second barrage.

  “Sir,” the operator said, “the enemy is closing the range.”

  Zaskar bit off a venomous curse. He couldn’t afford a close-range engagement, not when it would leave both sides in pieces. And yet he couldn’t retreat either. The speakers were depending on him to keep the enemy distracted long enough for them to escape. Who knew what would happen if he retreated?

  “Order the fleet to reverse course,” he snapped. The move would confuse his people at the worst possible moment, but there was no choice. The enemy ships were already firing their second barrage. “And continue firing!”

  “Aye, sir,” the operator said.

  Zaskar took a moment to study the enemy formation. Their point defense was damned good, but five of their superdreadnoughts and a dozen smaller ships had been destroyed. Seven more ships were clearly disabled, two of them leaking plasma as they stagger
ed out of formation. Another was dead in space, lifepods spewing from her hull. A moment later, a stray missile struck her unshielded hull and vaporized her.

  Wasteful, Zaskar thought. The missile’s seeker head had probably gotten confused, but it was still annoying. That missile could have damaged a live ship.

  “Pull the formation back together,” he ordered after a moment. “And recall the remaining gunboats.”

  “Aye, sir,” the operator said.

  Queen Elizabeth shook as an enemy missile slammed against her shields, then shuddered violently as she unleashed another spread of missiles. Kat hung on to her command chair and watched, keeping her expression under tight control, as the missiles raced towards their targets, their controllers seeking out weak points within the enemy’s defenses. The Theocrats clearly weren’t used to a devolved command system, she noted absently. Their firing groups seemed to be all over the place.

  But they still have a chance of preserving their strength, she thought. We’re not damaging them enough to make a difference.

  “The enemy fleet is reversing course,” Wheeler reported. “They’re trying to head out into interplanetary space.”

  Drawing us out of position, Kat asked herself, or trying to avoid a close-range engagement?

  “Pursuit course, best possible speed,” she ordered. She was tempted to check the situation on the ground, but that would be nothing more than a pointless distraction. There was certainly nothing she could do about it, whatever was happening. “Continue firing.”

  She allowed herself a cold smile as the fleet slowly picked up speed. Coordinating hundreds of starships wasn’t easy, but the enemy would have a difficult time reversing course before the range had narrowed sharply. And the closer the range, the harder it would be for their point defense to pick off her missiles. The same was true in reverse, of course, but she was confident her point defense crews had the advantage. She definitely had an advantage in missile tubes.

  “The enemy fire is starting to slack,” William commented. “They’re not putting out as many missiles per barrage.”

  Kat nodded in agreement. The enemy hadn’t lost that many ships. She had a feeling the Theocrats were finally running out of antimatter and nuclear-tipped missiles. And they had no hope of finding more, not after she’d devastated the industrial nodes orbiting Ahura Mazda. Their fleet wouldn’t be able to threaten anyone, even if it escaped her.

  She allowed her smile to widen as she watched her missiles sinking into the enemy armada, her tactical staff picking out firing groups and targeting their command ships. Brief confusion would ensue among her vessels if the enemy took out a command ship, but she’d drilled her crews extensively to set up a new hierarchical network if the original command ship was destroyed. The Theocracy, it seemed, hadn’t realized they needed to train, if indeed they’d had the time. Every time they lost a command ship, their point defense network fragmented and needed to be rebuilt from scratch.

  “Entering sprint mode range,” Wheeler said.

  “Signal all ships,” Kat ordered. The enemy fleet was picking up speed, but it was too late to escape now. “Switch to rapid fire.”

  “Aye, Commodore,” Wheeler said.

  Kat watched as the enemy ships writhed under her assault. They seemed torn between trying to close the range and simply escaping, although she had to admit that their CO was doing an excellent job of holding the formation together. But their fire was slacking off badly.

  Keep pushing, she told herself as another enemy ship vanished from the display. Two more fell out of formation, one apparently powerless. She’d try to board her later, if her crew didn’t trigger the self-destruct. Keep pushing and the entire formation will come apart.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “I feel naked,” Sergeant Bones commented.

  Pat nodded in grim agreement as marine platoons surveyed the farmhouse from the forest. They couldn’t bring their powered armor with them, not if they wanted to sneak up on the farmhouse without being detected. Instead, they’d donned camouflage rural combat uniforms, knowing the outfits wouldn’t provide nearly enough protection if they were caught in an ambush. Pat had plenty of experience fighting with and without the armor, but he felt naked too. The enemy could have prepared all sorts of surprises for anyone who stumbled across the farmhouse.

  But it didn’t look as though they had, he noted. His marine team didn’t have any active sensors, but passive sensors weren’t picking up anything more than a pair of heat sources in the lower bedroom. The farmhouse itself looked more like a vacation home than any of the farms he’d seen elsewhere, like the country resort Kat had once taken him to, instead of a place where people lived and worked. But that was par for the course in authoritarian societies. The great and the good always had nice places they could relax.

  “Two people in the lower bedroom,” he muttered. The heat sources looked like people, although he couldn’t be sure. “No others, as far as we can tell.”

  Pat glanced at the lead platoon. They knew as well as he did that the sensor results could be spoofed. A man wearing a set of BDUs would be almost invisible to a heat sensor, even without taking any additional precautions. But they couldn’t wait in the forest indefinitely, not when the diversionary attack was already underway. And, worse, the enemy fleet had arrived.

  We might run into the bastards coming the other way, he thought as he used hand signals to issue orders. They won’t try to fly straight out of the Tabernacle.

  Bracing himself, he slipped forward. Crossing the neatly mowed front lawn and sneaking up to the door was risky, offering the greatest chance of being spotted with the Mark-I Eyeball, but there was no choice. He tested the wooden walls—someone had placed wood over reinforced concrete, confirming that there was something very odd about the farmhouse—and then scrambled up the slats and through the open window. The guards would be watching for someone coming in the door, he suspected, but they wouldn’t expect someone coming down from above. They already knew the upper floors were deserted.

  Sergeant Bones followed him as he slipped forward. The interior of the bedroom was just as odd as the rest of the building, a giant bed that rested on a concrete floor. He tested his footing carefully as he inched forward, then glanced into the next bedroom. A man lay on the bed, fast asleep. Pat walked into the room, covered the man’s mouth with one hand and pushed an injector tab against his neck. The man started, too late. The drug took effect seconds later.

  He’ll sleep for hours, Pat thought as they checked the rest of the upper level before heading to the stairs. And by the time he wakes, it will all be over.

  He heard someone walking down the corridor and drew his knife just as the man came into view. The Theocrat’s eyes opened wide with shock, but Pat threw the knife, watching it punch through the left eye and embed itself in his brain before the stranger could say a word. Pat hurried forward and straight into the next room, where two men were playing cards. Neither man had a chance to sound the alarm before they were both killed.

  “The building is clear,” Bones reported. “I’ll bring in the rest of the platoon.”

  “We need to find the way to the bunker,” Pat said. The reports had suggested the tunnel entrance would be in the basement, but he had a feeling it would be hard to find. “Get the sweep team in here.”

  He was almost disappointed, ten minutes later, when the hatch to the basement proved to be hidden under a carpet in the living room. The tech hacked it open within seconds, allowing Pat to drop down into the darkened compartment. Another door could be seen at the rear of the compartment, half-hidden within the shadows. He couldn’t help thinking, as he sneaked up to it, that it looked like a banker’s safe.

  “It’s designed to be easy to open,” Corporal Nigel Rothschild reported. “But I have no idea what might be lurking on the far side.”

  Pat glanced at him. “You can open it from this side?”

  “Technically, no,” Rothschild said. He smirked. “But whoever desi
gned this system never heard of the electron-tunneling effect. I can hack into the command system and open the hatch.”

  His smirk grew as he started to work. “Idiots really should have kept the entire system on manual,” he added. “You just can’t hack a manual hatch.”

  Pat nodded, his body heavy. There was no point in trying to see what was going on in space or over at Town #46. Everything depended on him. He resisted the urge to pace, barely, as Rothschild carefully unlocked the hatch. Kat was up there, fighting the largest space battle in recorded history.

  “Done,” Rothschild said.

  The hatch hummed, then hissed open. Pat raised his weapon, but there was nothing on the far side save for a long concrete tunnel sloping downwards into the darkness. There were no lights, something that puzzled him more than he cared to admit. Was it a security measure or something more sinister? He slipped his night-vision goggles into place, then led the way forward. Time was definitely not on their side.

  “There,” Bones said.

  Pat nodded. A small tram sat at the bottom of the tunnel, waiting for them. He’d hoped to find something like it, although he hadn’t counted on such a discovery. The Tabernacle was nearly forty miles away, after all. The Theocrats weren’t going to be walking that distance in a hurry.

  “Get the first platoon into the tram,” he ordered. “We’ll send it back as soon as we reach the far end.”

  The tram hissed to life on command, an antigravity cushion powering up moments later. Pat braced himself as they started to move, picking up speed rapidly. He’d crept through darkened tunnels before, during basic training and later exercises, but this was different. He could hear a faint hum in the air as they glided towards the Tabernacle, followed by strange whispers and echoes that seemed to have no discernible source. His implants picked up flickers of electronic traffic, suggesting that the tunnel was part of a landline system as well as an escape hatch. They’d have to take the system apart to be sure.