“Contact the fleet, inform them that I am assuming command,” she ordered. “All ships are to deploy their remaining ECM drones and decoys, then prepare for a high-speed pass.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Jackie forced herself to think as the remainder of the escort squadrons oriented themselves on Invincible. They needed to buy time, and they needed to give the freighters a chance to run and hide . . . They could simply cut their drives, once they were out of immediate danger, and go dark. It wasn’t ideal, but Maxwell’s Haven would have already sounded the alert. If there were any reinforcements nearby, they’d be on their way by now.
Her hand danced across her console. “All ships are to engage with energy weapons as soon as they enter range,” she added. Once they opened fire, the enemy would know which ships were real and which were sensor ghosts, but that wouldn’t matter. Their superdreadnoughts would have immense difficulty in reversing course once the battlecruisers had made their pass and vanished into deep space. “On my command . . .”
She braced herself. “Go!”
“Admiral,” the tactical officer said. “They’re deploying ECM . . .”
“I can see that,” Admiral Zaskar said with heavy sarcasm. The display was suddenly full of contacts, ranging from hundreds of warships to thousands of freighters. There were so many contacts and simple sensor disrupters that it was suddenly impossible to tell which freighters were real and which were fake. His lips thinned in disapproval. He’d done the same to the enemy, once upon a time. “Reset the tactical computers, then start tagging the ships that actually fire missiles.”
He felt his expression darken as the display filled with static. Sensor disrupters were relatively rare, if only because it was normally easy to locate and destroy them. They bought time for whoever had deployed them, sure, but only a few minutes. Here, though . . . he had to admit they might serve a useful purpose. It was suddenly very hard to track the fleeing freighters, let alone destroy them. His ships might waste their time trying to hunt down and destroy a flotilla of sensor ghosts.
“Launch probes of our own,” he ordered. “And redirect missiles to take out the sensor disrupters . . .”
“Admiral,” the tactical officer interrupted, his voice filled with alarm. “They’re charging us!”
“Prepare to intercept,” Admiral Zaskar snapped. Nineteen warships were racing towards his position, firing as they came. The two fleets were converging with terrifying speed. He silently saluted his enemy’s bravery, even though he knew that there was no way he could replenish his losses. “Fire at will.”
He braced himself as the enemy ships came closer, two falling out of formation and vanishing from the display. They were expending their fire on his superdreadnoughts, rather than his smaller ships; he acknowledged their cunning, even as he cursed it. A civilian might count the number of ships destroyed, but losing even one of his superdreadnoughts would cut his effective firepower in half. The Commonwealth could sacrifice the entire flotilla for one of his superdreadnoughts and still come out ahead.
In hindsight, he honestly wondered why the Tabernacle had launched the war. Had they simply never realized the vast potential of the Commonwealth’s industrial base?
“They’re entering energy weapons range now,” the tactical officer reported. “Firing . . . now!”
Admiral Zaskar gritted his teeth. The enemy ships were coming alarmingly close . . .
“Direct hits, decks five through seven,” Commander Hanford reported. “Damage control teams are on the way.”
Jackie looked at the display and knew it was useless. Invincible’s drive field was already starting to collapse. She’d lost too many drives in the last barrage to keep the field operational long enough to get out of the enemy’s range. Most of the squadron would survive, she was sure, along with the remaining freighters, but not her. She didn’t even have time to order her crew to abandon ship.
“Point us straight at the nearest superdreadnought,” she ordered. They should have enough power left to do that. “And then reroute all remaining power into the shields.”
“Aye, Captain.”
At least I got to die on a command deck, Jackie thought. We . . .
“Admiral,” the tactical officer said. “Faithful One . . .”
Admiral Zaskar swore out loud as the enemy battlecruiser slammed into the superdreadnought, both ships vanishing in a colossal explosion. Faithful One had survived a dozen skirmishes with enemy superdreadnoughts, only to be destroyed by a battlecruiser . . . It was not to be borne. But it was too late. His fleet had taken a beating . . . No, it had been crippled. They’d need weeks, if not months, to do what few repairs they could.
And Askew and his backers might not be able to replace the missiles we expended, he thought grimly. We burned up two-thirds of our remaining stock.
He looked at the display, but he already knew that the enemy sacrifice had not been in vain. The remainder of the enemy warships were already out of range, while their freighters were going dark or running towards the planet. Half of them were probably sensor ghosts, he thought, making their presence a little too obvious. In hindsight, he should have fired one barrage and then retreated at high speed, thus saving his fleet from losing a third of its capital ships.
“Order the fleet to open vortexes and retreat to the first waypoint,” he said. The cleric would complain, but there was nothing to be gained by prolonging the engagement. Enemy reinforcements would be on their way. “And then we’ll go home.”
He allowed himself a smile of smug satisfaction as the fleet broke off the engagement and returned to hyperspace. Losing the superdreadnought and its crew had hurt, he couldn’t deny that, but he’d given the enemy a real bloody nose. And then . . . He felt his smile grow wider. If he increased the tempo of attacks, hitting worlds right across the sector, he might just manage to convince the Commonwealth that it was going to lose. Cold logic would
