“The gunboats sent a message, sir,” Lieutenant Lester reported. “They found nothing.”
Commodore Amir Sandakan nodded, sourly. Wolf 359 was never visited, save by the family’s starships and the occasional smuggler who thought he could slip into the shipyard and make a few new contacts. Normally, they were chased away quickly by the security patrols, if they didn’t think better of it after looking at the brooding fortresses. Besides, the Sandakan Family paid the best rates in the Empire. There were few discontented workers in the massive complex and those who were openly discontented tended to leave quickly.
“Tell them to return,” he ordered. The brief detection of a flicker pulse might have been nothing more than a glitch… or a starship, jumping out instead of jumping in. Maybe someone had tried to sneak into the system, then withdrawn as covertly as they had arrived. “We can run a tracking exercise on them as they come.”
“Understood, sir,” Lester said.
Amir turned and looked up at the massive display. There had been no way to avoid realising that Wolf 359 had been slowing down for years, ever since the Empire had stopped producing new superdreadnaughts. Indeed, demand for smaller starships and commercial starships had been falling too. The more he’d looked at the figures, the more he’d started to realise that the family was on the verge of serious problems. It took a major investment to keep Wolf 359 operating and that investment might no longer be forthcoming…
But Jupiter is gone, he thought, wryly. And the rebels might ensure we get more contracts.
Alarms sounded, cutting into his thoughts. “Commodore,” Lester said, panic evident in her voice, “enemy contacts! Right on top of us!”
Amir stared in disbelief. Someone had flickered right into the shipyard!
“Red alert,” he ordered, numbly. New icons had appeared on the display, right in the centre of the complex. The giant explosion that had blown one industrial node to hell suggested that one of the enemy starships had interpenetrated, flickering into space already occupied by the node. That almost never happened, at least outside simulations. “Order the starships to intercept the intruders.”
But he knew that it was already too late.
“Mother’s Milk is gone,” the tactical officer reported. “Everyone else made it.”
“Open fire,” Cordova ordered. “Blast everything in range with energy weapons, reserve the external racks for the defenders.”
Patrick shook his head. They’d jumped into a crowded region of space and survived the experience, only losing one ship. And now, with the shipyard facilities at point-blank range, they could be ripped apart with ease. Random Numbers opened fire with her energy weapons, punching through the weak shields and setting off a chain of fission explosions that started to rip the structure apart. The shipyard was designed to be taken apart and reassembled quickly; it couldn’t even hope to stand up to such a barrage. He caught a brief glimpse of a half-constructed light cruiser blown into flaming debris, before it was gone.
“Enemy gunboats closing in,” the tactical officer said. “Enemy superdreadnaughts are on their way.”
“Keep our distance from the superdreadnaughts, if possible,” Cordova ordered. Their immediate targets had been wiped out, leaving them to advance towards the secondary set of targets. “Lock missiles on the asteroids, then fire at my command.”
Patrick gave him a sharp glance. Launching missiles at the asteroids meant that Cordova had given up on the idea of engaging the defenders, although they couldn’t hope to win a running battle. But, in the long term, taking out the shipyard was much more important than taking out nine superdreadnaughts and their escorts. The superdreadnaughts couldn’t be replaced quickly if the Empire had to rebuild the shipyard first.
“Missiles locked, sir,” the tactical officer said.
“Fire,” Cordova ordered.
Patrick felt a dull glow of triumph as the missiles screamed towards their targets. The giant asteroids and industrial nodes had no point defence, even though the gunboats altered course rapidly and gave chase in hopes of overrunning the missiles before they struck home. One by one, the asteroids shattered, scattering their contents out into space. He felt a moment’s pity for the inhabitants, many of them skilled workers, but he knew they were too dangerous to leave alive. It would take the Empire years to rebuild the workforce, assuming they bothered to try. Ignorant workers, the Empire believed, were happy workers. But they were also much less effective.
“Incoming fire,” the tactical officer snapped. “The fortresses have a lock on us.”
“Deploy ECM drones,” Cordova ordered. The enemy CO had evidently forgotten any concerns he had about firing shipkillers into the heart of the structure. But then, most of the shipyard was already gone. “And keep powering up the drive.”
“Two minutes, sir,” the helmsman reported. “Taking evasive action…”
Patrick braced himself as the fortresses went to rapid fire. If the enemy overwhelmed them before the flicker drive powered up, they were dead. But the enemy had already lost the shipyard, to all intents and purposes. It would take years for them to rebuild, assuming they could afford it…
Amir watched helplessly as his worst nightmare developed in front of him. The shipyards were fragile structures; one by one, they were ripped apart by the demon-spawned enemy fleet. Beyond them, the asteroids were tougher, but not tough enough to stand up to shipkiller missiles. The workforce that kept the shipyard going was being slaughtered, right in front of his eyes. And there was nothing he could do to stop the slaughter.
“Sir,” Lester said, “we have clear locks on their hulls…”
“Keep firing,” Amir ordered. But he knew it would be futile. Even if the entire enemy fleet was wiped out, it wouldn’t make up for the destruction they’d inflicted. The shipyard would need years to replace. “And order the gunboats to close to minimum range.”
Random Numbers shuddered, violently, as a missile struck home.
“Dashing Dave is gone,” Patrick snapped, looking down at his console. “Thunderbird is losing shields, rapidly.”
“Flicker drive powered up,” the helmsman reported.
“Get us out of here,” Cordova snapped.
Patrick braced himself. A second later, the universe flickered and faded away to nothingness… and then reformed in front of him. The pain struck him a second later, a blow so powerful he was convinced his heart was about to fail. He slumped in his chair, stunned by the force… and he wasn’t the only one. Red alarms were sounding, but it was so hard to care. Helplessly, he slid into darkness…
“They’re gone, sir,” Lester reported. “They all jumped out.”
“They must have disengaged all of the safety interlocks,” Amir muttered. He knew more than a little about interstellar drives; the rebels had to have modified their systems extensively to allow them to jump twice in such quick succession. Chances were that one or more of the ships wouldn’t make it through the jump intact. “Tell the defenders to stand down, then report in to me.”
He watched, in numb horror, as the final toll scrolled up on his display. All, but one of the shipyards had been blasted to smouldering rubble. Nine of the ten asteroids had been destroyed, taking their inhabitants with them. Hundreds of thousands of workers and their families were dead. And over seventy percent of the industrial nodes had been wiped out, shattering their ability to repair the damage without calling for help from Earth. All in all, he realised, the rebels had scored a stunning victory.