Once they were, he would be able to capitalize on his victory and claim the throne that was his by right. After all, his backers had promised him their full support.
Marius skimmed through the report from Enterprise with a growing sense of disbelief. The carrier had been crippled by precision strikes—using a new weapon that needed to be identified and countered—and her captain had been killed, along with the admiral. A mere lieutenant had taken command, a very junior officer who was nineteenth in the chain of command. How badly had the ship been hit?
On the other hand, the young officer, Roman Garibaldi, had been lucky—and luck was a quality that Marius had learned to value. And besides, it wasn’t as if he had time to appoint a new commander for the Enterprise and ship him over to the carrier.
And young Garibaldi might just have saved the entire fleet. By identifying one of the decoy fleets, he’d allowed Marius to alter course ahead of time, saving him from having to engage one of the enemy formations at close range while others came up behind his ships. Whatever else happened, Marius silently vowed, Garibaldi would receive the Navy Star—perhaps even the Federation Star—for his heroism. Under the circumstances, even the Senate couldn’t disagree.
He turned back to study the display as the next wave of enemy starfighters screamed towards his ships. Enterprise would be a very welcome flight deck for his starfighters, whatever the inherent limitations of their design, as most of his carriers had been picked off or damaged by Justinian’s forces. They weren’t the only ones. Two superdreadnaughts had been destroyed, and several more were badly damaged. The Zhan was on the verge of falling out of formation and being destroyed by the enemy. And yet, he might just get the entire fleet out of the trap…
“Admiral, Bogey One and Bogey Two are altering course—ah, have altered course,” the sensor officer reported. “They’re moving to intercept us.”
Marius swallowed a curse as the display updated. There could no longer be any doubt—somehow, Admiral Justinian was transmitting orders at FTL speeds. How, Marius had no idea. Perhaps he’d simply pulled every StarCom he could find into the system and used them to coordinate his fleets.
Marius sucked in a breath. Three converging lines met on the display, just beyond the mass limit. He saw no way of avoiding a long-range missile duel, at the very least, not with Justinian’s starfighters snapping at their heels. He briefly considered turning and trying to tackle Bogey Four head-on, but Bogey Four had enough firepower to devastate his force if his maneuver didn’t work. So the only way out was through.
He silently cursed Parkinson under his breath as he considered the situation. His tired crews were about to run another gauntlet.
“Launch another set of sensor drones,” he ordered grimly. “And then arm half our fighters for antishipping strikes. Perhaps we can pay the bastards back in their own coin.”
Chapter Fifteen
In the event of a stern chase, starships that fall out of formation are to be regarded as expendable.
Jefferson System, 4092
“I have missile separation—multiple missile separation,” the sensor officer sang out. “They’re launching from extreme range—emptying external racks.”
Marius nodded. There had been little respite for his battered Retribution Force over the last two hours. Admiral Justinian’s forces had launched repeated fighter strikes against his ships, forcing him to cover the carriers at all costs. Five more superdreadnaughts had been blown into flaming debris, along with a dozen cruisers and destroyers. Enterprise, it seemed, was the luckiest carrier in the fleet. Four others had been destroyed, and every one of them—including Enterprise—was damaged. Only sheer luck had saved two carriers from destruction.
Justinian’s fleet had been forced to close with the Retribution Force before they could start launching missile strikes, which was the only thing that gave the regular Navy a chance to escape. Marius had watched the enemy ships and their apparent courses and silently calculated the most likely moment when they would open fire. Their commanders had actually opened fire earlier than Marius had expected, in defiance of The Book and common sense. It would take nearly ten minutes for the missiles that had already been expended by Justinian’s forces to reach his ships, which was more than enough time for his point defense systems to calculate interception solutions and gird their mechanical loins for battle. And their own missiles, once his forces started to return fire, wouldn’t take nearly as long to reach their targets—Justinian’s fleet was rushing towards them, not trying to run away.
“Retarget the point defense,” Marius ordered.
He continued to study the enemy fleet’s formation. Admiral Justinian was playing it carefully, choosing to open fire at extreme range rather than wait until they closed in. That again suggested a certain sensitivity to losses, which in turn suggested that Justinian was rather less confident of overall victory than it appeared. Or perhaps he expected another Sector Admiral to declare his independence? Whether another admiral did so to join Justinian, or just for his own purposes, it would tear the Federation apart.
“Prepare to launch missiles, full spread,” he said calmly. He studied the trajectories, running through various possibilities in his mind. Starships, particularly capital ships, carried expendable external racks on their hulls that were loaded with missiles. This posed a considerable danger, particularly when antimatter warheads were involved, but it gave an opening salvo a far superior throw weight.
Up until now, his ships hadn’t been able to launch their missiles, as there was no point in using shipkillers to swat starfighters, even if it were possible. Two of his superdreadnaughts had died because enemy starfighters had managed to detonate their warheads, using the Retribution Force’s weaponry against itself.
But now, they could finally shoot back at their tormentors.
“Aim to disable rather than destroy,” he ordered, assigning targeting priorities. If they could knock some of the enemy fleet out of formation, it would reduce the number of starships chasing them, perhaps even forcing the enemy to fall back. “Launch attack starfighters in the wake of the missiles, then launch a spread of ECM drones.”
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.
There was a pause as the officer worked at his console frantically. The overall display updated, allowing Marius to see the weight of fire bearing down on his ships. The enemy had fired over ten thousand missiles towards his fleet. But most of them wouldn’t get into attack range.
“Missiles armed and ready, admiral.”
Marius smiled.
“Fire.”
Magnificent shuddered as she vented her external racks in one smooth motion, followed by launching the first spread of missiles from her external tubes. Every superdreadnaught in the Retribution Fleet fired at the same time, creating a massive salvo that merged into one coordinated entity. The controlling missiles, each carrying a command and control system rather than a warhead, angled towards their targets, utterly ignoring the spread of enemy missiles. There was little chance of collision between both spreads of missiles, Marius knew; the point defense would have to stop as many of the incoming missiles as possible. His starfighters launched from the carriers and fell into position behind the missiles. If they were lucky, the ECM drones would confuse the enemy long enough for the starfighters to sneak into attack position without being detected.