Opening Moves (53 page)

“
To become coldhearted killing machines,” Mairwen said flatly.

“
Exactly. Because that's what it will take to save your people,” Gwythyr in an equally flat tone. “Prepare yourself, Mairwen. For even if we survive to fight another day, nothing will be the same after this.”

Dreadnought CLAWBLADE, 3
rd
Dominion Fleet

1
st
Day of the Attack.

“Status of enemy defenses?”

“
We've used the asteroid strikes to map a significant part of their minefields, sir,” Captain Pryatan reported. “The Érenni are moving in mines from the rest of the field, but we're tracking those. We have two paths almost four thousand kilometers in diameter, more than eighty percent through the colony's main field.”

A new image appeared in Corr'tane's command display. “Enough playing,” he stated. “Launch the next group of asteroids, then send in the missile ships right after them. Let's get this done quickly.”

Some of the asteroid strikes had only been intercepted as they exited the inner edge of the minefields, and in so doing had revealed where the Érenni had concentrated their defenses. Corr'tane now focused his advance on one of the strongest locations aiming to destroy a majority of the defenders in one sudden concentrated attack. The missile ships popped open their bays and began firing a steady carpet of projectiles, each one with a massively powerful nuclear warhead. Republican defenses responded, the platforms and ships of the colony bringing down the missiles by the hundreds before they reached range, but sheer numbers ensured the barrage was getting closer and closer.

Lines of Ashani warships moved in silently behind the strikes, the waves of missiles passing above them and distracting the planetary defenses, allowing the ships to enter firing range almost unscathed. Across the battlefield further Dominion ships began their advance on the home world, using their numbers to press every inch of the Érenni defense and keep their forces busy and unable to shift strength. Some of the ships moving along the corridor through the minefields to the front caught errant mines, nuclear explosions lighting up in Corr'tane's command display. But 3
rd
Fleet's first echelon had made it across already and established a beachhead on the other side.

“
Move the rest of the fleet into position. Let's keep this as clean as possible for us,” he ordered, and seven hundred ships began to move forward to end all life on the world growing larger in front of them.

Érenni Central Command

“
We're badly outnumbered,” Mairwen observed with forced calmness, seeing a defense platform vaporized in a multi-megaton blast. In the vast holotank in front of her it was just one of many blips that flicked out of existence, but twenty people had died with it. It was only with detachment that she remained in the room to see the battle unfold.

“
True, and they're a lot more cautious than at Senfina,” Gwythyr remarked. “Still, the Ashani are overconfident. It doesn't seem as if they've discovered our little force multipliers.”

“
Our what?” Mairwen blinked.

“
Let's just say that sheer numbers aren't everything,” the Tuathaan smiled a cold smile. “Surprise is not just a tool the Dominion knows to use.”

Dreadnought CLAWBLADE, 3
rd
Dominion Fleet

“Leading elements in range of the defense platforms,” Pryatan looked over her shoulder at Corr'tane, her long hair formed into a braid. “They're firing now.”

The enhanced video images on the forward screens of graceful cruisers and blocky destroyers gave Corr'tane a sense of invulnerability, like a superior being wielding the tools of Armageddon. He had realized at Dunnan Gal that he had reached a place no other sentient being had occupied for centuries. He had both the means and the will to wipe out whole civilizations. It was a heady feeling, something that almost threatened to override the care and caution he had lived by in his earlier life. But now he was a strategos – and unstoppable.

The first rank of warships began to take hits from the fiery red beams lashing out at them from satellites and defense platforms circling the colony. One or two fell away, but most of the Érenni defenses were engaging the missile strikes. It would have been a deadly choice had there actually still been a population on the planet. But the Dominion didn't know that, and the Republican operators waited with a steely patience for the enemy ships to come closer.

It was, therefore, a great surprise when the wedge of thirty ships in front disintegrated in a series of tremendous flashes of light, utterly engulfing them and fading to show just empty space where the warships had been. At the same time, the other platforms switched their fire from the incoming missiles to the nearby Ashani ships.

“Report! Now!” Corr'tane demanded angrily.

“
The forward echelon was hit by a nuclear strike originating from the satellite defenses,” Pryatan said, and as she spoke the fleets moving against Akvô also met a nuclear barrage.

Around them, 3
rd
Fleet suddenly found itself entangled in a knife fight with hundreds of satellites and defense platforms which had chosen to ignore the missile barrage.

“
All hells!” Corr'tane growled, more to himself than to anybody else. “Naval Intelligence said the damn Érenni didn't change their satellites' setup!”

Pryatan's face was tight. Her eyes darted over her screens. “Looks like they were wrong, Strategos.”

Corr'tane's own eyes blazed with cold fury. He was ready to tear the head from Strategos Tear'al and his 'intelligence agents'. The man wasn't worth the air he breathed, let alone the rank and position he now held! Twice now, he had cost the Dominion heavily and sent thousands of Ashani to an unnecessary grave in the cold dark of space. The point here was to
save
their people, damn it!

He forced down the rage and calmed his mind, letting cool logic flow over hot passions and his burgeoning ego. That was what you got if you didn't do everything yourself. He should never have attacked without counter-checking the recon data their attack plans had relied on. The last scout's transmissions before they had fallen back into the system had only been a garbled mess. Corr'tane ground his teeth, the sharper points of his canines biting into his gums. He had trusted others and not planned for this eventuality, and the result was totally unacceptable for a strategos.

“Regroup the lines,” he said coldly. “Deploy fighters on missile interception duty and deploy a quarter of our ships in pickets linked together to interception duty. The rest is to continue the attack.” He had made a mistake, and now he needed to correct it. They couldn't break off and try again later. The Dominion had a tightly scheduled battle plan, and every day this campaign took made an intervention by other Pact powers more likely. No matter what propaganda filled the heads of their people, the Ashani couldn't fight a war on half a dozen fronts and win it. Not... conventionally. “Continue the attack,” he ordered flatly as a second wave of Érenni nukes met their interceptor screen, some of them breaking through to reduce more ships to dust. “Kill them all.”

“L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!”

-
Motto of the French Armed Forces at the Beginning of World War One

C H A P T E R  1 3

Dreadnought CLAWBLADE, 3
rd
Dominion Fleet

4
th
Day of the Attack.

August, 2797 C.E.

Sieges were a messy business, Corr'tane thought sourly and not for the first time today as a wave of fighters and frigates got bogged down in the face of intense fire. They had tried to come to the aid of a group of minesweeper which had tried to clear a path towards Akvô. Republican ships had overwhelmed them. They fought well, but the simple weight of fire destroyed them faster than reinforcements could possibly advance. The colony was a smoking ruin, it's cities and military facilities wiped off the map by orbital strikes with warheads strong enough to bathe whole regions in nuclear fire. And what these didn't kill his plague bombs surely would finish off. The knowledge of having neutralized the colony gave him a measure of comfort, but it wasn't much. Despite their best efforts, 3
rd
Fleet had been incapable of preventing the escape of a quarter of the ships that had initially defended the colony. Now these ships backed up Akvô's already considerable defenses.

The Érenni had learned from their earlier mistakes, and far quicker than most of High Command had anticipated. A part of Corr'tane's mind was tempted to blurt a smug 'I told you so'. Few things were as foolish and dangerous as underestimating an enemy, especially when said enemy was fully aware of the odds of failure. Peaceful as they might be, the graceful aliens were in no hurry to vacate their place in the universe, and as he stared at the blue orb of Akvô in his dreadnought's bridge holotank, Corr'tane could understand why.

It was a beautiful world, a fact that made his task all the harder. Using asteroids as a means to thin out the minefields had outlived its usefulness by now, as the risk of them hitting the planet was becoming too great – and the Ashani wanted Akvô largely intact. To that end, being hit by a one kilometer long rock at one percent the speed of light was probably not the best course of action.

The mines were more spread out by now, sure, but the Érenni had chosen not to be passive bystanders in this fight. The only way to clear a path for a fleet now was to send in minesweepers. Unfortunately for the Dominion – and for Corr'tane's patience with his superiors and fellow strategoi –- the defenders had begun to move laser satellites into the gaps, and their mobile reserve of ships could move through the still comparably dense minefields at ease. The only crafts that could move through the fields from outside with relative impunity were the Ashani fighters, but after the third day of the battle, Corr'tane had chosen not to send them in by themselves any longer. Against a coordinated defense like the one the Érenni Central Command had put up the losses they were suffering were atrocious, and Corr'tane would be damned if he threw away the elite of the Dominion Navy in blunt frontal assaults.

“At least they got closer than the previous attack,” Captain Pryatan noted without any conviction, managing just barely to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Even with an open minded commander like Corr'tane there were limits as to what a subordinate like her could presume to do.

In this case, her caution was unwarranted as Corr'tane himself felt it hard to contain his misgivings. “Why, yes, at this rate we'll only need four hundred thousand ships to take the planet – or five years of siege,” he grated, running his fingernails in irritation through his obsidian hair, drawing deep furrows.

They couldn't afford a siege. For one, every day, every
minute
the war with the Érenni and the Tuathaan dragged on the chance rose that the rest of the Pact of Ten Suns would grow a spine after all. A siege would be an infinite resource hog, binding ships and a substantial portion of the fleet's supply train for little direct gain. And secondly, the sooner this was over the sooner they could start saving their own people from extinction. Because, for all of the flaws that would've sent a psycho-analyst running away in horror, Corr'tane
cared
.

A soft chime emanated from Pryatan's console. She stifled an irritated sigh. “Priority message from FleetNet:
All forces in the system are to launch a joint attack at the soonest possible time
.”

“
Coordinating that one will be interesting,” Corr'tane grunted. “Which fleet will hold the nominal command?”

Pryatan swallowed, unconsciously dry-washing her own hands. She didn't want to pass on this particular bit of information.

“I asked a question, Captain,” Corr'tane repeated softly.

“
The 12
th
Fleet, Strategos. Lead by your sister.”

With Tear'al away from the frontlines what had been left of his command had been hastily filled with reserve units and sent back into the fray under Pyshana's new command. Corr'tane had hoped she would receive a reprieve to adapt to her new responsibilities. In fact, given that more than half her units were fresh out of mothballs it would have been the only prudent course of action. But he had had no say in the decision. Such was the nature of the chain of command.