“Aye, Admiral.”
“They’re picking up speed,” Kitty reported. “Admiral, they’re heading right towards us!”
Kat had expected as much. The Theocracy had no qualms about using suicide tactics when necessary, even though they knew as well as she did that this was their last fleet. But then, they had no hope of getting out of the trap anyway. Ramming her ships was their only hope of taking a few of them with her. None of their missiles had broken through the point defense network.
“Order missile tubes to go to sprint mode,” she said. “They are not to be allowed to enter energy range.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
Kat leaned back in her chair, projecting an air of calm as the enemy ships advanced on her position. Normally, they’d be spitting missiles at a terrifying rate; this time, their fire was slacking off rapidly. They were either running out of missiles or trying to conserve them against some hypothetical future contingency. She shook her head. That was unlikely. Their only hope of hurting her ships involved firing so many missiles that her point defense couldn’t swat them all out of space. But their tubes were falling silent.
They need to get into energy range, she thought. The damage was mounting up rapidly, but the enemy ships were still coming. She would have been impressed if the situation hadn’t been so dangerous. And I can’t let them get into energy range.
An icon—an enemy cruiser—vanished from the display, followed by a pair of destroyers and an armed freighter. Their superdreadnoughts kept advancing, even though their tubes had stopped firing. They really were determined to just come to grips with her. She watched, coldly, as one of the superdreadnoughts staggered, bleeding atmosphere and debris into the icy vacuum of space. It fell out of formation, then exploded into a ball of superheated plasma. Kat grinned, savagely. Of the four enemy superdreadnoughts confirmed to have survived the battle over Ahura Mazda, two had been destroyed and a third was a powerless hulk. The final superdreadnought wouldn’t last long.
“Concentrate missile fire on the superdreadnought,” she ordered. “The smaller ships are to be engaged once they enter energy range.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
“Admiral . . .”
“I saw,” Zaskar said stiffly. He had one superdreadnought left. Deep in his heart, he knew his ship was about to die too. “Keep us heading straight towards the enemy and . . .”
His ship shook, violently. The lights dimmed, just for a second, before the emergency power came online. He felt lightheaded as the gravity field weakened, suggesting that he might find himself floating at any moment. A number of consoles went dark and refused to boot up again, no matter how many times their operators kicked and swore at them.
Admiral Zaskar found his voice. “Report!”
“The drive section has been destroyed,” the tactical officer said, after a moment. “Power is down throughout most of the ship. Shields are gone, weapons are offline . . . we’re drifting out of formation!”
And doomed, Admiral Zaskar thought numbly. He could feel the ship dying. The constant thrumming of the drives was gone. There’s no hope any longer.
“Get me a link to the rest of the fleet,” he ordered. “Now!”
The communications officer paled. “Admiral . . . communications are down too.”
“I see,” Admiral Zaskar said. The unfortunate officer looked surprised that he hadn’t been summarily shot. “What do we have?”
“Nothing, sir,” the tactical officer said. “The internal datanet is barely functional, external sensors are offline, and . . .”
Admiral Zaskar held up a hand to cut off the list of failed or failing systems. The ship was definitely doomed. That much was true. And they no longer had even the faintest hope of taking an enemy ship with them. It was a minor miracle they’d survived the impact that had taken out the drives. A powerless ship was a sitting duck. Soon the enemy would either blow them to dust or land marines on the hull. And then . . . it would be the end.
My crew will survive if I surrender, Admiral Zaskar thought. Or if they get into the lifepods in time . . .
“Order the crew to head for the lifepods,” he said. “This ship has to be abandoned.”
The tactical officer’s head exploded. Admiral Zaskar stared at the headless corpse in shock, then spun around. Askew was holding a gun in his hand, sweeping it around to target everyone in the CIC. Zaskar reached for the pistol at his belt, but it was already too late. Askew was pointing his gun directly at Admiral Zaskar’s head.
“What . . . ?”
“It hasn’t been a pleasure,” Askew said. The foreign agent’s face looked different. “And we don’t want any of you taken alive.”
“You’ll die too,” Admiral Zaskar managed. He’d expected that Askew would eventually find it convenient to betray them, but not like this. “You’ll . . .”
A dull rumble ran through the ship. The gravity reversed itself a second later, sending them both flying upwards. Askew fired, but the sudden change in perspective caused him to miss before he crashed into the ceiling. Zaskar heard a dull thud as his head cracked open, the gravity reversing itself back again seconds later. He fell back to the floor, landing badly. His leg shattered under the force of the impact.
He’s dead, Admiral Zaskar thought through the pain. His vision was already blurring. He’s dead and . . .
Askew’s body exploded.
“The enemy superdreadnought has lost power completely,” Kitty reported. “She’s streaming atmosphere and lifepods.”
“Order the marines to board,” Kat snapped. It was risky—the enemy might be waiting for her marines to come within range before they triggered the self-destruct—but she needed whatever information could be drawn from the superdreadnought. They had to take the chance. “And mop up the remaining enemy ships!”
She gritted her teeth as the final starships plunged into her point defense like lemmings running over a cliff. They didn’t have a
