I fucked up, she thought, stiffly. It had been sheer luck the enemy had come out of hyperspace so far from the planet. If they’d risked opening a gateway closer to Judd, they would have been on top of her before she’d had a chance to respond. And everyone is going to pay for it.
“Edinburgh and Aberdeen are standing by,” the communications officer reported. “They’re ready to engage the enemy.”
Amy fought to keep her face expressionless. Three light cruisers were no match for the immense firepower bearing down on them. She was morbidly certain that at least one of the superdreadnoughts had to be real, perhaps more than one. But she wouldn’t know until the probe started to pick out the real ships from the fakes, or the real ships opened fire. The sensor ghosts wouldn’t be able to fire missiles . . .
Her mind raced, searching for options. There weren’t many. She could open gateways and run, but that would mean abandoning Judd to its fate. If those were Theocratic ships . . . she wouldn’t give two crowns for Judd’s continued survival. The Theocrats would probably smash the planet flat from orbit, then piss on the rubble. There was no one around to stop them either. It would take at least four days for reinforcements to reach the doomed world, assuming they were dispatched at once. And no one knew reinforcements were needed.
We should have extended the StarCom network out here, she told herself savagely. Perhaps if I’d argued for it . . .
“Communications, contact Aberdeen,” Amy ordered. “They are to disengage and fly directly to Ahura Mazda. Once there, they are to inform Admiral Falcone of the situation and request immediate reinforcements.”
“Aye, Captain,” the communications officer said. There was a pause as he worked his console. “Captain, Aberdeen’s skipper is protesting . . .”
“Tell him that that is an order, which he may have in writing if he wishes,” Amy said. She didn’t quite recognize her voice. It was so cold. She understood the man’s desire to stay, even though doing so was certain death, but she couldn’t allow it. Someone had to warn Admiral Falcone that the war wasn’t quite over. “He is to leave, now.”
She turned back to the display. Her ship didn’t have a superdreadnought-sized tactical deck, but her crew was doing the best they could. A handful of enemy superdreadnoughts had already been flagged as prospective sensor ghosts, while a dozen more had been marked as potentially suspect. A couple had even been positively identified as real . . . not, she supposed, that it mattered much. A single superdreadnought had more missile tubes than two entire squadrons of light cruisers.
Their ECM is good, she thought. Better than it should be.
“Deploy ECM drones, then stealth platforms,” she ordered, dismissing the thought. There would be time to worry over who was supplying the enemy later. If there was a later. “And then angle five of the probes to record what happens here. I want to leave a message . . .”
The display sparkled with red lights. “The enemy have opened fire,” the tactical officer said, sharply. “Captain, their missiles are roughly comparable to our Mark-XVs!”
Someone’s been giving them help, Amy reminded herself. She’d thought she had more time before the enemy opened fire. What sort of idiot sells them advanced missiles?
“Stand by point defense,” she ordered, although she knew the gesture would be futile. “And engage as soon as they enter weapons range.”
She glanced at the planet on the display, feeling a stab of guilt. The enemy superdreadnoughts—and only three of them were real, judging by which ships had opened fire—were going to take the high orbitals. There was nothing she could do to stop them. They’d blow her two remaining ships out of space and wreak devastation on the world below. And there was nothing the planet’s inhabitants could do to stop them either.
They don’t deserve this, she thought as the enemy missiles roared into engagement range. They were free.
But she knew, as her ship started to fight for her life, that what the planet deserved didn’t matter.
“You fired off a great many missiles,” Askew commented as the second enemy cruiser vanished from the display. “Overkill, hey?”
Admiral Zaskar ignored him. Firing the missiles had been immensely satisfying, even though he knew he’d be cursing himself later. Askew was right. It was overkill. But he’d wanted to eliminate all chances of enemy resistance, and he’d succeeded. Watching the two enemy cruisers die had merely been the icing on the cake.
“Launch probes,” he ordered instead. “Tactical, isolate potential targets on the planet’s surface.”
“Aye, sir!”
“And find those camps,” he added. “I want the troops ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.”
“Aye, sir!”
Askew coughed. “Our intelligence suggests that there are no enemy ships within a day of Judd.”
“We can’t take that for granted,” Zaskar pointed out as the first set of targets appeared on the main display. “If an enemy superdreadnought shows up at the worst possible time . . .”
“God is with us,” Moses assured him. “He will not let us die so easily.”
God helps those who help themselves, Admiral Zaskar thought. It had once been the Theocracy’s motto. Somewhere along the way, it had become verboten. And if we neglect basic precautions, we’re finished.
“Admiral,” the tactical officer said, “I have a list of targets.”
Zaskar studied them for a long moment. The enemy had been building rapidly over the last year. Judd no longer had any space-based industry, beyond a cloudscoop he intended to destroy on his way out of the system, but they’d repaired and expanded their cities and ground-based industrial estates. A handful of military bases and spaceports were
