Where would they go, once they boarded the ship? Justinian must know they’d destroyed the bridge and the secondary facilities, so…engineering? They hadn’t landed anywhere near the engineering compartments, but perhaps they intended to secure the interior of the ship first. Boarding actions were rare, so Roman couldn’t be sure; as it was, he couldn’t recall a single example of a successful boarding action against a carrier or a superdreadnaught.
And this one’s not going to be the first…not if I can help it, he thought.
The enemy battlecruisers were much closer now, their targeting sensors sweeping Enterprise’s hull. Roman hoped that didn’t mean they had missiles ready to fire. A single antimatter warhead would vaporize the entire carrier. He braced himself as the final seconds ticked down, keying the tactical console and uploading precise firing instructions. All four battlecruisers had to be targeted and destroyed in the opening barrage.
“I have a message from the damage control parties in the starboard flight decks,” Sultana said. “They report that we can launch starfighters once they reroute power to the launch catapults. Many of the ready craft were destroyed when the ship was hit, but the remainder were held in their cradles and check out as being ready to fly.”
“Tell them to get ready to launch,” Roman ordered. He caught himself a moment later. “No, belay that; no power emissions until we open fire. We don’t want to scare them off.”
He looked back at the tactical console. The four enemy battlecruisers were just entering point-blank range. In terms of space travel, they were close enough to touch.
“Fire,” he ordered, keying the switch.
Enterprise shuddered as missiles spat from her tubes, already hitting terminal engagement speeds. The enemy battlecruisers were hit directly and three of them exploded as antimatter warheads knocked down their shields and hit their hulls. The fourth staggered out of position, only to die after Roman launched a second spread of missiles before the enemy ship could recover and start firing back.
“Get the drives and shields up,” he ordered. “Reroute power and launch fighters as soon as possible.”
It crossed his mind that he’d just killed—directly—thousands of people. A standard battlecruiser had a crew of two thousand. Assuming the battlecruisers had been fully-manned, he’d just killed eight thousand people—and however many Marines had still been in their landing craft when Enterprise’s point defense blew them out of space. RockRats knew death, understood it in all its forms, and yet…he swallowed hard, desperately trying not to be sick.
“The starfighters have been launched,” Sultana informed him. “The Marines are reporting that they’re holding, although the enemy are pressing them hard.”
Roman allowed himself a moment of cold amusement. The enemy Marines had just lost all hope of escape, or even of victory.
“Bring up the active sensors and launch drones,” he ordered. It dawned on him that he had forgotten something important. “Send a data package to Admiral Drake and update him on our situation. Inform him that we intend to rendezvous with his force as soon as possible.”
Enterprise quivered as her drive came back online. With one drive unit destroyed—and another suffering from a dangerous drive harmonic—there was no way that they would be able to maintain the carrier’s standard acceleration rate. They’d be easy meat for any enemy superdreadnaught that happened to get into missile range, yet at least they would be moving and heading towards help.
At least he hoped so, as the time delay hadn’t allowed them to see what had happened to Admiral Drake—for all Roman knew, Admiral Drake might have been cut off from them, or destroyed. Seventy superdreadnaughts and over a hundred smaller craft wouldn’t go easily, yet Admiral Justinian might have the firepower to destroy them. Roman might only have postponed the inevitable.
He scowled as the active sensors started to fill up the holographic tank. There were hundreds of enemy starships out there, including swarms of starfighters that appeared to be attacking another enemy force. It took the computers several minutes to isolate the friendly craft from the enemy ships, but it didn’t look good. Admiral Drake’s ships were under heavy attack. Roman tried to think of something they could do to help, but there was nothing. They could barely help themselves.
The sensor board pinged, altering the display. One of the enemy fleets was a decoy, composed of nothing more than decoy drones. Roman tapped a command into the console, ordering the data forwarded to Admiral Drake, even as he ordered Enterprise to alter course. The fake enemy fleet couldn’t stop them from breaking through and escaping into interstellar space…
“Orders from the flag,” Sultana said. “We are to shift course as directed and prepare to link up with the remainder of the fleet.”
Roman grinned when he saw the projected course. It was the course he’d already ordered.
“Inform the admiral that we may require help evicting our unwelcome guests,” he said. The enemy Marines were still clinging on, refusing to surrender or to be wiped out. “And perhaps some additional damage control teams.”
Even with the improvised StarCom network, Admiral Justinian hadn’t the time to respond to the sudden change in his fortunes. Enterprise had somehow escaped capture—he had no illusions about how long his remaining Marines could hold out—and was heading towards one of his decoy fleets. The carrier’s sensor drones had to have penetrated the ECM, an annoying development considering he’d hoped that Admiral Drake would not be able to isolate the real formations from the decoys; worse, it had allowed Admiral Drake to alter course and avoid interception by two of his forces, either one of which would have been sufficient to destroy the damned Senatorial lackeys once and for all.
“Redeploy Beta Force and Gamma Force,” he ordered, wishing he had more troops available to deploy. But Delta Force was guarding the Asimov Point and couldn’t be moved, unless he wanted to cope with the enemy fleet suddenly reversing course to dive for the Asimov Point and escape. And Alpha Force was too far out of position to intervene. “They must move to intercept the enemy fleet before it crosses the mass limit and escapes.”
Once the computer projected the various fleet courses in front of him, he scowled. Apart from the starfighters and gunboats, there was no hope of a short-range missile duel, unless Drake’s fleet could somehow be convinced to reduce speed. Of course, it was possible that Drake’s lackeys would slow their speed long enough to escort their damaged ships out of the system, but he knew of Drake. The man was no fool, even though he was on the side of the Grand Senate, and would have to know better than that. Losing his entire force would be disastrous.
“And bring up the modified carriers,” he added. “I want constant starfighter attacks, wearing down their defenses before Beta Force is within range to finish the job.”
“Aye, sir,” Caitlin said.
Justinian adjusted the display until he was looking at an overall vision of the Jefferson System. The enemy fleet was heading away from the Asimov Points, which meant they must intend to cross the mass limit and escape in stardrive. It wasn’t a bad plan, but it had a big downside: they’d be exposed to missile fire for hours before they could escape. His ships could reload at will, while the enemy’s supply train was—quite literally—six hundred light years away. They wouldn’t be able to resupply until they escaped.
He allowed himself a smile. The battle hadn’t gone entirely according to plan, but then—what battle ever went exactly as planned? At least the Senate’s lackeys were on the run. All his forces had to do was keep piling on the pressure. Even if a handful of Drake’s ships escaped, the so-called Retribution Force would be broken and disorganized.