Not that it’ll take them that long, he thought. A lone destroyer could sweep up most of the debris in a few weeks.
“Take us into high orbit,” he said. “Have you locked KEWs on our targets?”
The weapons officer hesitated. “Admiral . . . some of our targets do not appear to exist.”
“Impossible,” Moses snapped.
“They may have been moved,” Askew pointed out smoothly. “Or they may never have existed at all.”
Admiral Zaskar ignored the byplay. “Target the ones we can see from orbit,” he said. “And if you locate any other possible targets, take aim at them too.”
He watched as the targeting list was rapidly updated. Falladine, unlike Judd, had known there was a prospect of being attacked. They hadn’t had enough time to upgrade their defenses to the point where they could scratch his paint, but they’d certainly had the time and opportunity to relocate facilities, disperse their planet-side industry, and scatter their population. He would be very surprised if the bombardment killed even one member of the planetary government. In his experience, unbeliever governments did everything in their power to guarantee their safety. They feared to meet God after they died.
“I’ve located a handful of additional targets,” the weapons officer reported. “But sir . . . some of the energy signatures look too good to be true.”
Decoys, then, Admiral Zaskar thought. But we have no way to find out for sure.
“Target them anyway,” he ordered, curtly. KEWs were cheap; it was easy to mine asteroids for rock, and it was easier than explaining to the cleric why he hadn’t bombed an obvious target. “And then you may open fire.”
“Aye, sir,” the weapons officer said.
Admiral Zaskar nodded and watched as, one by one, the targets blinked out of existence. It was hard to be sure that some of the targets truly were targets, but there were enough real targets included in the list that Falladine would need years to recover. By then . . . either the Theocracy would be reborn, or his fleet would have been wiped out. His eyes narrowed as he saw a freighter dropping back into realspace a few light-seconds from the planet, only to reverse course as soon as her commander saw what was going on. He tapped his console, detailing a pair of destroyers to try to run the freighter down. She’d run straight to the nearest enemy base and scream for help.
“The bombardment is complete, sir,” the weapons officer reported. “All targets were hit twice.”
“Very good,” Admiral Zaskar told him. Falladine would definitely need years to recover. “And the station?”
“They’re sorting through the manifests now,” the communications officer said. “But everything appears to be a little out of place.”
“Tell them to grab everything they can,” Admiral Zaskar ordered. Even farming equipment would be useful, if there came a time when they had to set out for unexplored regions of the galaxy. “But they have to hurry.”
He ran through the vectors in his head, once again. There hadn’t been a strong enemy presence at Falladine, which meant . . . there might well be one close by. How close? He had no way to know. An hour away? A day away? A week away? The countdown had already started. He just didn’t know how long he had until it reached zero. They’d just have to grab everything they could and head out for the RV point. By then, the ships he’d sent to Dorland and Asher Dales would probably be back too.
“They have six hours,” he said, finally. “After that, we’re leaving.”
And we’ll make sure to blow up what remains of the orbital station as we go, he added to himself. They won’t find it easy to rebuild.
Elizabeth awoke slowly, her body fighting her every inch of the way. She honestly wasn’t sure what had happened. She hadn’t felt so vile since her friends had taken her out for a night on the town when she’d won her place at Piker’s Peak, when they’d drunk so much that they’d nearly been arrested by the police. Her head was pounding, her throat was hellishly dry, her arms were stiff and uncomfortable and immobile . . . She started as she remembered what had happened.
The station had been attacked.
I was stunned, she remembered through a haze of pain. Stunners sometimes caused short-term memory loss, or worse. They boarded the station and stunned me and . . .
She forced herself to concentrate. She was lying facedown on a hard metal surface, her hands firmly bound behind her back. It was dark, too dark. She’d been blindfolded. Her hands felt numb; her uniform felt as if someone had searched her roughly, just to make sure she wasn’t carrying any weapons. Elizabeth needed a long moment, in her confused state, to realize that someone had also removed her rank badges. She couldn’t help thinking that was surprisingly petty.
Her blood ran cold as reality hit her. She was a prisoner of the Theocracy. She’d heard all the horror stories, all the tales of atrocities perpetrated on prisoners . . . particularly female prisoners. A handful of women had escaped over the years, particularly Princess Drusilla and her sister, and the stories they’d brought with them had horrified the galaxy. Elizabeth had wondered, privately, if the stories were exaggerated. How could anyone keep such a system going indefinitely? She had a nasty feeling she was about to find out.
I am a naval officer, she told herself as she heard footsteps crossing the deck. It is my duty to survive and escape if I can.
A strong hand grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. Elizabeth winced in pain. She
