Barbarians at the Gates (20 page)

And this one’s not going to be the first…not if I can help it,
he thought.

The enemy battlecruisers were much closer now, their targeting sensors sweeping
Enterprise’s
hull. Roman hoped that didn’t mean they had missiles ready to fire. A single antimatter warhead would vaporize the entire carrier. He braced himself as the final seconds ticked down, keying the tactical console and uploading precise firing instructions. All four battlecruisers had to be targeted and destroyed in the opening barrage.

“I have a message from the damage control parties in the starboard flight decks,” Sultana said. “They report that we can launch starfighters once they reroute power to the launch catapults. Many of the ready craft were destroyed when the ship was hit, but the remainder were held in their cradles and check out as being ready to fly.”

“Tell them to get ready to launch,” Roman ordered. He caught himself a moment later. “No, belay that; no power emissions until we open fire. We don’t want to scare them off.”

He looked back at the tactical console. The four enemy battlecruisers were just entering point-blank range. In terms of space travel, they were close enough to touch.

“Fire,” he ordered, keying the switch.

Enterprise
shuddered as missiles spat from her tubes, already hitting terminal engagement speeds. The enemy battlecruisers were hit directly and three of them exploded as antimatter warheads knocked down their shields and hit their hulls. The fourth staggered out of position, only to die after Roman launched a second spread of missiles before the enemy ship could recover and start firing back.

“Get the drives and shields up,” he ordered. “Reroute power and launch fighters as soon as possible.”

It crossed his mind that he’d just killed—directly—thousands of people. A standard battlecruiser had a crew of two thousand. Assuming the battlecruisers had been fully-manned, he’d just killed eight thousand people—and however many Marines had still been in their landing craft when
Enterprise’s
point defense blew them out of space. RockRats knew death, understood it in all its forms, and yet...he swallowed hard, desperately trying not to be sick.

“The starfighters have been launched,” Sultana informed him. “The Marines are reporting that they’re holding, although the enemy are pressing them hard.”

Roman allowed himself a moment of cold amusement. The enemy Marines had just lost all hope of escape, or even of victory.

“Bring up the active sensors and launch drones,” he ordered. It dawned on him that he had forgotten something important. “Send a data package to Admiral Drake and update him on our situation. Inform him that we intend to rendezvous with his force as soon as possible.”

Enterprise
quivered as her drive came back online. With one drive unit destroyed—and another suffering from a dangerous drive harmonic—there was no way that they would be able to maintain the carrier’s standard acceleration rate. They’d be easy meat for any enemy superdreadnaught that happened to get into missile range, yet at least they would be moving and heading towards help.

At least he hoped so, as the time delay hadn’t allowed them to see what had happened to Admiral Drake—for all Roman knew, Admiral Drake might have been cut off from them, or destroyed. Seventy superdreadnaughts and over a hundred smaller craft wouldn’t go easily, yet Admiral Justinian might have the firepower to destroy them. Roman might only have postponed the inevitable.

He scowled as the active sensors started to fill up the holographic tank. There were hundreds of enemy starships out there, including swarms of starfighters that appeared to be attacking another enemy force. It took the computers several minutes to isolate the friendly craft from the enemy ships, but it didn’t look good. Admiral Drake’s ships were under heavy attack. Roman tried to think of something they could do to help, but there was nothing. They could barely help themselves.

The sensor board
pinged
, altering the display. One of the enemy fleets was a decoy, composed of nothing more than decoy drones. Roman tapped a command into the console, ordering the data forwarded to Admiral Drake, even as he ordered
Enterprise
to alter course. The fake enemy fleet couldn’t stop them from breaking through and escaping into interstellar space...

“Orders from the flag,” Sultana said. “We are to shift course as directed and prepare to link up with the remainder of the fleet.”

Roman grinned when he saw the projected course. It was the course he’d already ordered.

“Inform the admiral that we may require help evicting our unwelcome guests,” he said. The enemy Marines were still clinging on, refusing to surrender or to be wiped out. “And perhaps some additional damage control teams.”

* * *

Even with the improvised StarCom network, Admiral Justinian hadn’t the time to respond to the sudden change in his fortunes.
Enterprise
had somehow escaped capture—he had no illusions about how long his remaining Marines could hold out—and was heading towards one of his decoy fleets. The carrier’s sensor drones had to have penetrated the ECM, an annoying development considering he’d hoped that Admiral Drake would not be able to isolate the real formations from the decoys; worse, it had allowed Admiral Drake to alter course and avoid interception by two of his forces, either one of which would have been sufficient to destroy the damned Senatorial lackeys once and for all.

“Redeploy Beta Force and Gamma Force,” he ordered, wishing he had more troops available to deploy. But Delta Force was guarding the Asimov Point and couldn’t be moved, unless he wanted to cope with the enemy fleet suddenly reversing course to dive for the Asimov Point and escape. And Alpha Force was too far out of position to intervene. “They must move to intercept the enemy fleet before it crosses the mass limit and escapes.”

Once the computer projected the various fleet courses in front of him, he scowled. Apart from the starfighters and gunboats, there was no hope of a short-range missile duel, unless Drake’s fleet could somehow be convinced to reduce speed. Of course, it was possible that Drake’s lackeys would slow their speed long enough to escort their damaged ships out of the system, but he knew of Drake. The man was no fool, even though he was on the side of the Grand Senate, and would have to know better than that. Losing his entire force would be disastrous.

“And bring up the modified carriers,” he added. “I want constant starfighter attacks, wearing down their defenses before Beta Force is within range to finish the job.”

“Aye, sir,” Caitlin said.

Justinian adjusted the display until he was looking at an overall vision of the Jefferson System. The enemy fleet was heading away from the Asimov Points, which meant they must intend to cross the mass limit and escape in stardrive. It wasn’t a bad plan, but it had a big downside: they’d be exposed to missile fire for hours before they could escape.
His
ships could reload at will, while the enemy’s supply train was—quite literally—six hundred light years away. They wouldn’t be able to resupply until they escaped.

He allowed himself a smile. The battle hadn’t gone entirely according to plan, but then—what battle ever went exactly as planned? At least the Senate’s lackeys were on the run. All his forces had to do was keep piling on the pressure. Even if a handful of Drake’s ships escaped, the so-called Retribution Force would be broken and disorganized.

Once they were, he would be able to capitalize on his victory and claim the throne that was his by right. After all, his backers had promised him their full support.

* * *

Marius skimmed through the report from
Enterprise
with a growing sense of disbelief. The carrier had been crippled by precision strikes—using a new weapon that needed to be identified and countered—and her captain had been killed, along with the admiral. A mere
lieutenant
had taken command, a very junior officer who was
nineteenth
in the chain of command. How badly had the ship been hit?

On the other hand, the young officer, Roman Garibaldi, had been lucky—and luck was a quality that Marius had learned to value. And besides, it wasn’t as if he had time to appoint a new commander for the
Enterprise
and ship him over to the carrier.

And young Garibaldi might just have saved the entire fleet. By identifying one of the decoy fleets, he’d allowed Marius to alter course ahead of time, saving him from having to engage one of the enemy formations at close range while others came up behind his ships. Whatever else happened, Marius silently vowed, Garibaldi would receive the Navy Star—perhaps even the Federation Star—for his heroism. Under the circumstances, even the Senate couldn’t disagree.

He turned back to study the display as the next wave of enemy starfighters screamed towards his ships.
Enterprise
would be a very welcome flight deck for his starfighters, whatever the inherent limitations of their design, as most of his carriers had been picked off or damaged by Justinian’s forces. They weren’t the only ones. Two superdreadnaughts had been destroyed, and several more were badly damaged. The
Zhan
was on the verge of falling out of formation and being destroyed by the enemy. And yet, he might just get the entire fleet out of the trap...

“Admiral, Bogey One and Bogey Two are altering course—ah, have altered course,” the sensor officer reported. “They’re moving to intercept us.”

Marius swallowed a curse as the display updated. There could no longer be any doubt—somehow, Admiral Justinian was transmitting orders at FTL speeds. How, Marius had no idea. Perhaps he’d simply pulled every StarCom he could find into the system and used them to coordinate his fleets.

Marius sucked in a breath. Three converging lines met on the display, just beyond the mass limit. He saw no way of avoiding a long-range missile duel, at the very least, not with Justinian’s starfighters snapping at their heels. He briefly considered turning and trying to tackle Bogey Four head-on, but Bogey Four had enough firepower to devastate his force if his maneuver didn’t work. So the only way out was through.

He silently cursed Parkinson under his breath as he considered the situation. His tired crews were about to run another gauntlet.

“Launch another set of sensor drones,” he ordered grimly. “And then arm half our fighters for antishipping strikes. Perhaps we can pay the bastards back in their own coin.”

In the event of a stern chase, starships that fall out of formation are to be regarded as expendable.

-Federation Navy Regulations
,
3900 A.D.

Jefferson System, 4092

“I have missile separation—multiple missile separation,” the sensor officer sang out. “They’re launching from extreme range—emptying external racks.”

Marius nodded. There had been little respite for his battered Retribution Force over the last two hours. Admiral Justinian’s forces had launched repeated fighter strikes against his ships, forcing him to cover the carriers at all costs. Five more superdreadnaughts had been blown into flaming debris, along with a dozen cruisers and destroyers.
Enterprise
, it seemed, was the luckiest carrier in the fleet. Four others had been destroyed, and every one of them—including
Enterprise
—was damaged. Only sheer luck had saved two carriers from destruction.

Justinian’s fleet had been forced to close with the Retribution Force before they could start launching missile strikes, which was the only thing that gave the regular Navy a chance to escape. Marius had watched the enemy ships and their apparent courses and silently calculated the most likely moment when they would open fire. Their commanders had actually opened fire earlier than Marius had expected, in defiance of The Book and common sense. It would take nearly ten minutes for the missiles that had already been expended by Justinian’s forces to reach his ships, which was more than enough time for his point defense systems to calculate interception solutions and gird their mechanical loins for battle. And their own missiles, once his forces started to return fire, wouldn’t take nearly as long to reach their targets—Justinian’s fleet was rushing towards them, not trying to run away.

“Retarget the point defense,” Marius ordered.

He continued to study the enemy fleet’s formation. Admiral Justinian was playing it carefully, choosing to open fire at extreme range rather than wait until they closed in. That again suggested a certain sensitivity to losses, which in turn suggested that Justinian was rather less confident of overall victory than it appeared. Or perhaps he expected another Sector Admiral to declare his independence? Whether another admiral did so to join Justinian, or just for his own purposes, it would tear the Federation apart.

“Prepare to launch missiles, full spread,” he said calmly. He studied the trajectories, running through various possibilities in his mind. Starships, particularly capital ships, carried expendable external racks on their hulls that were loaded with missiles. This posed a considerable danger, particularly when antimatter warheads were involved, but it gave an opening salvo a far superior throw weight.

Up until now, his ships hadn’t been able to launch their missiles, as there was no point in using shipkillers to swat starfighters, even if it were possible. Two of his superdreadnaughts had died because enemy starfighters had managed to detonate their warheads, using the Retribution Force’s weaponry against itself.