Opening Moves (28 page)

In that instant Pyshana knew she had won. Her ship was the first through the gap, and there before her was the colony itself, wide open and her for the taking. More ships followed through and began expertly reforming their battle lines. There was still work to do.

“Form on me!” she shouted triumphantly, the sensation of surviving the race to the planet giving her extra energy. “Roll up the enemy forces from behind. Second division: take that battle station! Onward, on now, we've got them beaten!”

The Ashani cruisers passed through the gap and now turned sideways and engaged the Érenni warships openly at close range. Without the interlocking defenses and after such a brutal fight the Republican forces were giving way. Unused to war fatigue and the fear mastering them, their responses were too slow to the threat. The Ashani began to dominate the battle and Érenni ships began to rapidly fall apart.

* * * * * * *

“
We've got some power to the engines, but not much.” Torok Sen reported glumly, her eyes glued to her console's readouts. “We can move into the firing arcs but even a rock could outmaneuver us now, Ma'am.”

“
Bring us about,” Natara said regardless. “Fire at any targets in range.” Her voice was hollow and her eyes empty. So this was what war, what defeat really looked like. As far as she was concerned the battle was already over. With the defenses breached they had to take on the Ashani head to head, and in a battle like that the Érenni were finished.

“
With respect, Captain, it isn't over yet,” Batal noted as if reading her mind. “If you accept defeat in your mind the Ashani have already won. Your people are still fighting and dying for this world and so long as they do it, it is not over.”

She smiled thinly. “Thank you, Mr. Batal. I assure you that we will do our duty.” She began to feel more confident, an emotion which lasted about five seconds.

Her heart sank as she saw the battle station which anchored their defenses surrounded by Ashani warships, its few available guns striking hard but with little real effect. A pair of tumbling, twisted wrecks crashed into the great base, fulfilling in death what they could not have achieved when they were still crewed by living, breathing beings. Atmosphere leaked from a dozen rents in the hull while storms of evaporating oxygen howled into the silent reaches of space from smoldering holes dozens of meters wide. But the
Fathal
-class still fought on, the wreckage of enemy ships and fighters surrounding its two and a half kilometer long spindle-like form like a halo, while yet more vessels pounded it in the hopes of subduing the colony's last bastion.

Four cruisers of the defense fleet swept forward, destroying two already badly damaged Dominion vessels and trying to relieve the pressure on the station. But against the remaining forces of the Dominion's fleet four ships were but a drop in the bucket. More long range fire hit the massive target, and squadrons of fighters blazed at the relief force, distracting it and causing it to move away into the firing arcs of yet more Ashani vessels. And yet, the station still resisted. Plasma lasers peppered its hull and missiles drove through its armor, bathing it in artificial sunlight. Battered but not beaten, the great facility remained unbowed and struck back, carving up an Ashani cruiser that strayed before its guns.

A lone
Hunter
-class destroyer fired its frontal batteries at the station, its weapons scarring the hull but with little more effect than the other ships. The battle station's armor, scarred and dented as it was, was still too strong to be impressed by a mere destroyer's firepower. The
Hunter
's captain must have realized that, too. The ship accelerated on, heading straight for the base. Greenish plasma laser beams connected with the looming
Fathal
-class station again and again, and a handful of anti-ship missiles left the destroyer's sole remaining missile battery, racing towards their target. That caught the base's attention. It engaged, every heavy weapon it could muster focusing on the inbound enemy vessel, turning its bow into a shattered and molten mess. But the ship sped on, heedless of its wounds and disdainful of the enemy fire. Érenni lasers lashed out at it again and again, its armor giving way and emptying the contents of its hull into space with a shower of debris and brief flames. But even as plasma and atmosphere erupted from a thousand wounds its fuel pumps still fed reaction mass to its powerful drives. Like a long flaming sword it sliced headlong into the base, crashing deep into its hull before exploding and ripping away the entire front of the battle station's central spindle section.

Amazingly, the
Fathal
still held on. Its few remaining defenses kept engaging and central command issued its final orders from the mortally wounded station.

Inspired by the sacrifice of their comrade the Dominion's onslaught intensified once more. Fighters made suicide runs on the last guns and even flew inside the massive hole left by the
Hunter
in an attempt to crash onto the station's vulnerable and irreplaceable innards. It was a slow death by a thousand paper cuts.

As if to take mercy on a wounded prey one
Dawnhunter
-class dreadnought, its whole bow a mangled ruin of twisted and molten metal, maneuvered into position for the finishing stroke. Only ten thousand kilometers away from the still massive battle station it stopped. A swarm of missiles erupted from tubes hidden behind protective bulkheads. The heavy anti-ship weapons sped up with forces equaling tens of thousands of gravities and in an instant vanished through the gaping hole of the
Fathal
. For a moment nothing seemed to happen. The mighty station bucked like a horse. Liquid fire rolled out from its insides, consuming all around it until twenty two-hundred megaton shipkiller nukes united into one large artificial sun in Senfina's orbit.

* * * * * * *

Captain Natara realized at that point there was nothing they could do. With the battle station gone there was nothing which could realistically stop the invasion. What was left of the defense fleet was outnumbered and woefully outgunned. Worse, they had lost hope and the will to win, and Natara couldn't blame them for it. What chance did they have against the ruthless onslaught the Ashani had executed so far? No matter how many of the damn cats they killed they just seemed to keep coming. No, whatever happened now the Ashani would win.

“
We had a final message from Sector Command,” Torok Sen somberly reported. Sector Command had been located in the depth if the
Fathal
-class, the admirals and generals constituting it now dead or trapped and dying on the destroyed base as its debris slowly fell into the planet's atmosphere. “It ordered us to retreat to Akvô and strengthen the garrison there, and to save as many of our people as we can.”

Natara watched the remnants of the mighty station tumble into the atmosphere, coronas of searing heat meeting each particle as it descended. The larger pieces wouldn't evaporate and would impact with the force of a hundred fusion warheads.

And as devastation on the planet became inevitable so it did in space. The Ashani ships now easily pushed aside the remaining meager resistance. It had seemed that victory was assured, that the defenses were impenetrable and that faced with such massive losses the Dominion's attack would break. A short flare-up of a war that was bound to end at the peace table.

But it hadn't. No, it hadn't. The enemy had rallied and hit back with even greater determination and ruthlessness, and now Senfina, one of the Republics' oldest colonies, was wide open.

“Engines?” she inquired calmly.

“
About forty-five percent capacity, Ma'am,” engineering reported. The sounds of frantic repairs echoed through the ship's intercom. “We had to seal off the flow of reaction mass to the damaged engines. I strongly advise against pushing the machines any harder than that or we're bound to loose containment on our reactors.”

The engineer didn't have to elaborate what that would herald for the PERISAI. Nuclear fusion was a rather safe way of producing clean energy; that is, as long as the reaction remained contained and regulated. If the containment broke one usually went from clean energy to clean explosion in a rather short time.

“Understood. Helm, come about. Comm, inform the remaining civilian ships in orbit to escape while they can. We'll try and escort them out of the gravity well.”

“
Yes, Ma'am.”

She took one last look at the battle station falling away, the symbol of the Érenni's mastery of defensive systems now nothing but scrap metal about to fall on the very site it was defending. They had failed. Now they must redeem themselves.

* * * * * * *

“
Crap, that's
not
good.”

Nobody on the flight deck even muttered in agreement. They all looked at what Alexej was referring to. The Érenni defenses were crumbling and now Ashani ships were spreading out to finish off anything that moved.

“I think this is our cue to leave,” Tarek said darkly. “Duchess, get us out of here.”

Alexej only grunted at the nickname his foible for lacquered fingernails and girly drinks had earned him.

“Wait, what about the minefield? What about fighters? What about the ships running interference?” Rául rattled off quickly in a bout of rising panic.

“
We'll have to take our chances,” Tarek answered as the MAIDEN's bow turned to face out into space.

“
Message on the Érenni military channels, boss,” Llyr looked up from his console. “They'll provide an escort for any freighters in the area.”

“
There, see?” Tarek smiled despite being utterly terrified. The only value an Érenni escort had was to draw the Dominion's fire. “Who said our luck was all out? Set course, we'll follow the warships and let them keep us safe.”

“
Like they kept the planet safe?” Rául grunted but went back to work on his station.

“
Quit being so negative,” Tarek frowned. “It's better than running through all that alone, don't ya think?” He pointed to the sensor display in which the front line seemed to be getting rapidly closer. “Now, get strapped in and make sure baggage is safely stowed in the overhead lockers, I've got a feeling this is going to be a close run thing.”

Dreadnought CLAWBLADE, Foldspace.

For the eighth time he straightened his tunic, the deep crimson contrasting nicely with the golden trim signifying his rank. Corr'tane resumed his pacing, going back and forth, seemingly endlessly in the confines of his quarters, his boots wearing into the luxurious carpet which was a privilege of his rank and station. The strategos glanced at the clock. The battle would have been going on for two hours by now. There should have been some word from 8
th
Fleet and his sister by now.

He stopped and took a few deep breaths, forcing his heart rate down. He scolded himself a bit for these thoughts. He of all people should have realized that the realities of battle meant  communications would be difficult while the fighting raged on, and it was unlikely a ship would leave battle just to get a signal to command and report on how things were going.

But he still couldn't silence his lingering doubts, that part of him that looked for the worst and believed it. It said the attack had failed and none had survived. That the entire force had been ambushed or had been decoyed by false readings in the fold and lost forever in the maelstrom, sucked into one of the great storms. He simply couldn't balance the two, so took his mind off it by once again pacing.

The cabin's intercom beeped, and within literally one second he had it activated. “Corr'tane here.”

“Strategos Corr'tane,” his XO's voice sounded through the speakers. “You wanted to know the instant we received information from the attack on Senfina.”

“
What do you have?”

“
A courier transitioned into foldspace a few minutes ago and uploaded some data to fleetnet. Strategos Drushan is dead, sir. His vessel and its escort wing were totally destroyed in an Érenni ambush. Analysis shows they maneuvered into the middle of a field of 'dumb' mines which the Republicans then detonated.”

Corr'tane felt his heart fall through the floor like nothing supported it, a great cold chasm opening swiftly in his soul. His only living relative...

“The first waves were almost completely destroyed, but our forces recovered and the battle goes on. That's all we know right now.”

“
Casualties?”

“
Higher than anticipated, sir. Much higher.”

His mouth was drying up and he knew if he spoke more than one word the waver in his tone would be detected. “Specifics, XO?”

“None, sir. Full casualty lists are not available at this moment. Communication with 8
th
Fleet is sporadic at best, but they seem to have gained the upper hand. Also, Strategos Tear'al is about to lead his ships into Tuathaan space. Shall I alert your forces?”