“We’ll start once Primrose returns,” he added. “And once the rest of the ships arrive, we can . . .”
He stopped as the alert bleeped. “Captain,” Lieutenant Yang said, “a courier boat has just dropped out of hyperspace. She’s transmitting a priority-one signal to us and the planet.”
William sucked in his breath. A priority-one signal meant . . . what? An imminent threat to the planet? They’d only just gotten to Asher Dales! He forced himself to think, fast. Who’d be attacking them? There was nothing that might draw an interstellar power to attack Asher Dales . . . was there?
“Have the signal copied to my terminal,” he said. “And then request the courier boat to hold position.”
“Aye, sir,” Yang said.
Tanya cleared her throat. “What is it?”
“Bad news,” William guessed. The message blinked up on his terminal. “You may have to call your father.”
He read the message with a growing sense of disbelief. An enemy force, a Theocratic force, had attacked Judd, leaving the planet in ruins. The recording made disturbing viewing, even though the analysts had noted that most of the enemy superdreadnoughts were no more than sensor ghosts. A lone superdreadnought would have no difficulty turning his squadron into atoms, then trashing the orbiting space station and the planet below. Three, or four, or five were overkill. But the enemy had already shown a disturbing fondness for overkill.
“. . . Shit,” he said slowly. He swung the terminal round so Tanya could see the message. “You definitely have to call your father.”
“I will,” she said. “But it may take some time for everyone on the surface to stop panicking.”
They’ll have a point, William thought. He had no idea how Barrington had financed the purchase of four destroyers, but he had to have pushed his resources to the limit. Losing them would be utterly disastrous. Asher Dales is practically defenseless against anything larger than a light cruiser.
He forced himself to think as Tanya watched the message again and again. The enemy ships would have reached Asher Dales by now if they’d flown directly from Judd. Looking at the time stamps on the reports, he could see that the attack had actually taken place seven days before the alert had been dispatched. There was no reason to assume, he told himself firmly, that Asher Dales was about to be attacked. But that might change. Anyone intent on causing problems, both for the Commonwealth and the liberated worlds, would want to destroy Barrington’s investment in nuclear fire.
And smash the planet-side industries too, William thought. He’d been brought up to think that industrial nodes should be in space, where there was limitless energy and no need to worry about pollution, but he could see why Asher Dales didn’t have any choice. They could bomb Asher Dales back to bedrock in an afternoon.
“I have to call my father,” Tanya said. “Do you mind if I use your terminal?”
“Not at all,” William said. “Do you want me to stay?”
“He’ll probably want to speak to you,” Tanya said. She smiled weakly. “I’ll call him now.”
William brought up the starchart and studied it quickly. The worst-case assumption, according to ONI, was that the enemy had five superdreadnoughts. William privately doubted that figure—he doubted the rogue Theocrats could keep five superdreadnoughts operational without shipyards and supplies—but the scenario still had to be taken seriously. The enemy could ravage the sector and . . . there was very little the Commonwealth could do to stop them.
Too few potential targets too, William thought. Ahura Mazda and Maxwell’s Haven were probably the bigger ones, the targets the enemy would love to hit, but they were both heavily defended. The Theocrats would be blown to atoms if they faced the Royal Navy in open battle. We might be quite high up their list of realistic targets.
“That’s the long and short of it, Father,” Tanya said. She raised her voice, drawing William’s attention. “We may be attacked at any moment.”
“I see,” Barrington said. “William? Do you concur with this assessment?”
“I don’t see any reason to panic,” William said after a moment. “The situation is grim, let us not think otherwise, but it’s not a complete disaster. There is a good chance we will be targeted . . .”
“As I said,” Tanya commented.
“. . . But we have no way to know when, or even if, we will be hit,” William finished. “I don’t think anyone knows that you’ve assembled a small fleet, at least not yet. They might not consider Asher Dales to be a particularly important target.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Barrington’s voice was very cold. “What happens then?”
“We lose,” William said flatly. “There is no way that four destroyers can stand off five superdreadnoughts. But there are ways we can make them pay . . .”
Or possibly even deter them from attacking, he thought. It wouldn’t be that hard to rig up a pair of drones to pose as superdreadnoughts. The illusion wouldn’t last for long, but it might just convince the enemy that Asher Dales was too big a target to be hit safely. They wouldn’t want to tangle with superdreadnoughts even if they had numerical superiority. As long as we don’t have to open fire, we should be able to fool them.
“There’s no way they can be made to pay enough,” Barrington said savagely. “What are they thinking?”
William shrugged. It was possible the rogue ships were reaching the end of their lifespan. It wouldn’t surprise him. A superdreadnought needed one day in a shipyard for every ten days on active duty, and the Theocrats had lost all their shipyards. Their commanders might have decided to go out in a blaze of glory, or, perhaps worse, think they could wear the defenders down with atrocity after atrocity until the Commonwealth withdrew from the sector, leaving them to pick up the pieces and rebuild the Theocracy. They might manage
