“I suppose,” Elizabeth said. The freighter was maneuvering like a wallowing pig. She’d seen superdreadnoughts handled with more grace and elegance. She couldn’t tell if the crew were unsure of themselves or unsure of the station itself. Anything built by the Theocracy couldn’t be wholly trusted. “I should ask her captain to dinner this evening.”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate a change from shipboard rations,” Randy agreed. “Even station-board rations would be an improvement.”
Elizabeth nodded. Her crew had been eating ration bars for the first two months of their deployment, although, as the planet managed to repair the damage to its farms, their diet had been supplemented with meat and veg. It was a shame they couldn’t spend more time on the surface, she’d often thought, but she was short-staffed as it was. The Royal Navy had refused to assign more than a handful of officers and crew to the station. Falladine simply wasn’t as important as a dozen other worlds.
The freighter docked, gingerly. Elizabeth glanced at the manifest again, wondering if the ship was also carrying fine china. But anything truly fragile would be in a stasis field . . . wouldn’t it? Perhaps the freighter couldn’t afford stasis pods. It was possible, but she doubted that they’d risk carrying anything fragile and expensive without them.
“They’re opening the hatches,” Randy said. He tapped a switch, putting the live feed from the security monitors on the display. A pair of customs inspectors were already waiting by the inner airlock. They’d check the crew’s certificates before allowing them farther into the station. “I . . .”
He broke off as the inner airlock exploded into a hail of flying debris. Elizabeth stared in horror as a team of black-clad men stormed out of the freighter, weapons at the ready. The two inspectors, already injured, were stunned before they could react. Dozens of men flowed into her station, spreading out in all directions.
The ship had been a Trojan horse, and she’d let it dock!
“Seal the hatches,” she snapped, shaking off her paralysis. The intruders would presumably have more shaped charges or even cutting tools with them, but they would need some time to cut through every hatch. “And get everyone on alert . . .”
Her mind raced. There were no marines on her station. Her staff weren’t even armed; they didn’t need to be armed to do their jobs. And they were probably already badly outnumbered as well as scattered. She couldn’t imagine her team delaying the intruders for long, let alone long enough for the marines on the naval ships to get over to the station. The display was insisting that the intruders were already cutting their way through the next set of hatches.
She had a feeling she was going to lose her station before help could arrive.
“Tell everyone in the lower sections to make their way to the escape pods,” she ordered grimly. “They’re to blast free as soon as they’re aboard . . .”
New alerts sounded. The near-space display filled with red icons. Elizabeth stared in horror as three superdreadnoughts materialized from cloak, launching missiles with terrifying abandon. The naval patrol—four cruisers and a destroyer—had gone to battlestations as soon as she’d sounded the alert, but there was no way they could stop so many missiles from tearing their ships to atoms. She hoped . . . she prayed . . . that one or more of them would have the sense to open vortexes and run, even with missiles heading directly towards the planet itself. There was no way they could stand against such firepower.
“The planetary defenses are coming online,” Randy reported.
Elizabeth snorted. The planetary defenses might frighten a pirate, but not a trio of superdreadnoughts. They were already smashing every orbital installation within range, save for her station; they didn’t seem to know, or care, if they were hitting genuine targets or merely smashing installations that had been defunct for years. The cruisers were picking up speed, attempting to get away from the planet, but it was too late. Elizabeth watched as, one by one, they died.
“The escape pods are launching now,” Randy said.
“Tell them to go dark,” Elizabeth ordered. Escape pods were designed to start screaming for help the moment they were launched, but in a warzone . . . there was a good chance they’d draw fire. It might not even be deliberate. An automated system might mistake an escape pod for a mine and blow it out of space without ever realizing the error. “And . . .”
The deck shuddered beneath her feet. “They’re in the lower shaft,” Randy said. “They’ll be here in a moment.”
“Purge the datacores,” Elizabeth ordered. She’d lost the station. The only thing she could do was minimize the damage as much as possible. “And then we have to . . .”
She swore as the hatch exploded inwards. A team of men advanced into the room, their weapons sweeping for targets. One of them pointed a stunner at her . . .
. . . and the world went black.
“The boarding party was a success, sir,” the communications officer reported. “They never had a chance to resist.”
“God was truly with us,” Moses agreed.
Admiral Zaskar kept his thoughts to himself. He’d never admit it out loud, but he’d deliberately sent some of the most fanatical of his people on the boarding party. If they’d been killed . . . it would have been annoying, yet it would have worked in his favor too. His fleet didn’t need people who were more interested in dying gloriously than in making the enemy die gloriously.
“They’ve taken twelve prisoners,” the communications officer added. “Five of them are women.”
Poor souls, Admiral Zaskar thought.
He pushed the uncomfortable thought out of his mind. “Order them to transfer the prisoners to the ship, then start looting the station,” he said. “I want everything that can be of use transferred to the freighter as quickly as possible. The enemy reinforcements will already be on their way.”
“Aye, sir.”
Admiral Zaskar turned to the main display. Falladine was surrounded by a small halo of debris, hundreds of pieces already falling out
