Barbarians at the Gates (57 page)

“Thank you,” Williams said. He sounded tired, as if he were struggling to hold back a yawn. “How long until we launch starfighters?”

“Ten minutes,” Marius informed him. “We don’t want to strain their life support packs too much.”

He settled back to watch the final approach. The enemy ships were turning slightly, presenting their broadsides to the Federation Navy. That wasn’t too surprising—indeed, he’d ordered his own ships to begin a comparable motion—and it suggested that Admiral Justinian was thinking along conventional lines. If Captain Garibaldi’s estimate of their strength was accurate, Admiral Justinian was outnumbered and outgunned. The question was simple: did he understand his weakness? A weakness could be turned into a strength if used properly.

“Record,” he ordered the communications officer. “Admiral Justinian, this is Admiral Drake. You are outnumbered and outgunned. In order to spare the lives of our crews who will die in the coming battle, I wish to offer you a chance to surrender. I am authorized to offer you and your senior staff a chance to go into exile, along with your families, if you surrender now. Your junior crews will receive a full pardon. You have five minutes to respond.”

He looked up at Williams, who nodded. “Transmit the message,” Marius ordered. “Wide-band transmission. I want them all to hear it.”

* * *

“Admiral, we’re picking up a message,” the communications officer said. “It’s a wide-band transmission, direct from the enemy fleet.”

“Trace the source,” Admiral Justinian ordered. “Let’s hear it.”

They listened to the message in silence.

“Do you want to surrender?” Caitlin asked, finally. “Your family could live...”

Justinian shook his head. His backers had warned him that the Senate would make many false promises to gain victory. He wasn’t blind to the use of the wide-band transmission either, or what it implied. One of his junior officers would get a free pardon if he stuck a knife between his ribs. And yet, he’d picked all of his subordinates for loyalty. They’d stick with him.

“No,” he said sharply. The enemy ships were just coming into engagement range. “Launch starfighters. All batteries lock weapons on target and prepare to commence firing.”

“I can’t trace the source,” the communications officer reported. “They relayed it from all of their ships, sir.”

Justinian nodded, unsurprised. The Book said to keep the flagship’s identity concealed as long as possible, after all, and it was one piece of wisdom that everyone followed. They’d learned from Admiral Parkinson ...

“Starfighters away, sir,” Caitlin reported. “They’re falling into attack patterns now.”

“Good,” Justinian said. He’d win the battle yet. “Order them to press the offensive as hard as they can. No mercy.”

* * *

“There was no response, sir,” the communications officer reported.

“I think they’re going for the old boot in the head response,” Marius said and smiled. The display was sparkling with new icons as the enemy starfighters launched from their carriers, turning towards his fleet and preparing to attack. “Launching starfighters is a pretty good way of saying
fuck off
.”

He looked over at the communications officer. “Record a second message,” he ordered. “This is Admiral Drake, Commanding Officer of the Grand Fleet. Your admiral has rejected a demand for his surrender, even though we offered to guarantee his personal safety and that of his subordinates. I am extending the offer to his entire fleet. Cut your drives and weapons and stand down; we will accept your surrender and treat you as honourable foes under the Articles of War. I say again; surrender now and live...”

“No response,” the communications officer said after a moment.

“Are they insane?” Williams frowned.

“Perhaps they’re loyal, or perhaps they don’t believe us, or perhaps...they’re not in a position to surrender,” Marius countered. “He could have loyal troopers on the bridge of every one of those ships, enforcing his orders.”

“But they’ll die, too,” Williams protested.

“Of course they will,” Marius agreed tiredly. “It doesn’t really need that many idiots to turn a brief confrontation into a raging war. Just ask the admiral who lost the Battle of Spider Bite.”

He snorted at Williams’ expression. Evidently the man hadn’t believed that Admiral Justinian would stand and fight.

“Launch all starfighters,” Marius ordered Admiral Mason, “but hold the CSP in reserve, as planned. It’s time to test out what the new units can do.”

“Aye, sir,” the CAG said through the intercom. Admiral Mason had drilled the starfighter pilots extensively and it showed; they were responding at astonishing speed. “Permission to launch fighter strikes?”

“Granted,” Marius said. “Just make sure that you avoid our engagement envelope.”

He allowed himself a tight smile as the two clouds of starfighters raced away from their respective fleets. In a few moments, no less, he’d know if his gamble had paid off...or if he was about to command the greatest disaster since the Battle of Athens.

His lips twitched. After everything else, there was one important point to recall about that battle: Despite how bad the Battle of Athens had seemed at the time, the Federation Navy had actually won the day.

Individually, starfighters aren’t dangerous opponents to a starship. But when operating in sufficient numbers they can be deadly.

-Observations on Military Tactics
,
3500 A.D.

Lombardi System, 4097

Flight Leader Joe Buckley was not a happy man.

First, he had allowed himself to be seduced into joining Admiral Justinian years ago, lured by the promise of merit-based promotion and a fairer deal for the newly-settled colonies, such as the one his family lived on. Second, the admiral had lost the opening battles of the war and had found himself condemned to a war of attrition, a war that Joe was convinced the admiral couldn’t win. And finally, Joe was leading a strike force right into the teeth of enemy firepower.

Joe was no coward—no one who flew a starfighter into combat could be called a coward—but the odds were badly against the rebels, and he knew it. The sane course of action would be to fall back to Harmony or Jefferson, daring the lickspittles to do their worst.

“All wings, form up on me and prepare to kick some serious ass,” he ordered. The Senate’s lapdogs had formed a fairly typical formation, with the lighter units moving into position to shield their bigger brothers from oncoming starfighters and missiles. They’d probably charge in, launch their missiles and then charge out again. “Prepare to...”

He broke off in surprise. He’d expected the enemy starfighters to move out to counter his men’s strike in order to engage them in a brutal dogfight. Instead, they were moving
away
, as if they intended to dogleg around his force and attack the carriers and superdreadnaughts.

For a few seconds, he puzzled over their tactics, and then decided that the scumbags thought their point defense would suffice to deal with his strike. The thought made his lips curl back into a pitiless smile. His pilots had been drilling constantly since the war had stalemated and knew everything there was to know about their craft. They were the most experienced pilots in the universe. If the sons of bitches wanted to give them a free shot at their hulls without having to worry about opposing starfighters, it was fine by Joe.

“Prepare to engage,” he ordered. “On my mark...go!”

The starfighters wheeled around, rocketing at their new targets. It would have been more amusing if the enemy fleet had been turning and trying to escape, but no superdreadnaught could hope to outrun a fighter, at least in the short term. In the longer term, they’d have their chance to escape while the fighters returned to their motherships for rest and replenishment…yet oddly, they weren’t even trying to run.

He frowned as his HUD illuminated with new search radars and active sensors, wondering just what the enemy had in mind. The starfighters, ducking and weaving as they were, presented an almost impossible target. Any hits to any of the ships under Joe’s command would be made at least partly through sheer luck.

“Leaders, designate your targets,” he ordered as the enemy ships grew closer. They still weren’t engaging his ships with point defense, something that made almost no sense at all. Even if they didn’t hit a single fighter, they would still scatter his formation and make it impossible for Joe and his men to launch a coordinated strike.

Superdreadnaughts flashed red in front of his eyes as he marked targets, knowing that the ugly ships couldn’t hope to escape. An individual starfighter, even one armed with antimatter missiles, wasn’t that dangerous, but the swarm would kill. He ignored anything smaller, knowing it could be mopped up later.

“Prepare to separate...” Joe ordered, but then broke off. “
Jesus Christ
!”

The small enemy ships, the ones he’d dismissed, opened fire. They put out an impossible rate of fire, thousands of plasma bolts, pulsar bursts and antifighter missiles blazing from their hull, straight into the teeth of Joe and his men. He and his fighter jocks were well-trained and aware of the dangers of enemy point defense, but they’d never—not even in their worst nightmares—dreamed of such a savage defense.

His formation scattered as some of his starfighters began to explode, picked off by Federation ships...
dear God,
he realized,
they must have packed the ships full of antifighter weaponry and nothing else.
The Book frowned on single-purpose ships, yet it was clear that the designer of this little stratagem, probably Admiral Drake, hadn’t read The Book. Or hadn’t paid attention. And it had paid off for him handsomely.

“All units, abandon current strike plan,” Joe ordered. “Form up on me and hit those point defense ships!”

He desperately threw his starfighter into a series of twists and turns that should make it impossible to track and hit his craft. Even so, the assholes might score a hit on his ship by pure luck; as no one had ever built a starfighter that could carry shields, a single hit would destroy his ship. If he were lucky, he might manage to eject into space before the ship went critical.

He cursed under his breath as his formation gradually reassembled. Squadrons and wings had been scattered by the point defense storm, leaving each starfighter’s assigned unit well under strength. His squadron had lost five pilots—
five
out of twelve—and few of the others were in any better shape. No wonder the enemy starfighters had refused to engage; they’d known precisely what kind of shit-storm Joe Buckley and his pilots were about to encounter.

As the fighters formed up on him, he barked orders. He knew, without consulting with the CAG, that they had to take out the new starships first. Their point defense would be even more effective against missiles, which meant that Admiral Justinian’s fleet would be fighting at a severe disadvantage. On the other hand, taking the starships—the battle computers rated them as nothing more than cruisers—would cost the lives of hundreds of his pilots.

But there was no choice, he realized. One look at the overall tactical display revealed that the two fleets were too close together to avoid engagement.

“All units, designate your targets and follow me in,” he ordered, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “Here we go...”

The starfighter tilted and dived at its target, a light cruiser spitting fire and death. His pilots followed him, carefully keeping their trajectories random, although that didn’t save a dozen more of his pilots from being blown out of space in the first few seconds. Joe mourned their deaths with one part of his mind, even as another part tracked the enemy craft and silently plotted revenge. A cruiser couldn’t hope to soak up the same amount of fire as a superdreadnaught, so only a handful of missiles would be needed to blow the bastard out of the sky.

He selected his missiles, flew straight for as long as he dared—about four seconds—and fired two shipkillers at his target, just before yanking his craft out of the path of a plasma bolt that would have wiped him out of existence. The enemy computers, tracking the battle as best as they could, were
good
.

He had the satisfaction of watching seven missiles strike home. The cruiser begin to disintegrate into a ball of fire and light.

And then an errant plasma bolt scored a glancing hit on his fighter’s drive array. The starfighter spun out of control, right for one of the other anti-starfighter cruisers. He reached for the ejection handle and started to pull it, hoping he could get out in time.

But it was too late. He didn’t even have time to curse before a second plasma bolt struck his ship, vaporizing it instantly.

* * *

“Admiral, their fighter assault has been blunted,” Raistlin reported. “They’re preparing to launch missiles.”

Marius studied the display. He’d had to use all of his clout to get the anti-starfighter cruisers into production, fighting against an entrenched design bureaucracy, but it had been worth it. Half of the enemy starfighters had been destroyed before they had a chance to launch their missiles. And he knew that Justinian’s fleet would have to strip away the Grand Fleet’s cruisers first, before Justinian’s men could even try to take out the heavier ships. That should give Marius time to act.