And yet there was something wrong. He was sure of it. The nine superdreadnaughts seemed to be legit, with the proper IFF codes, but something kept nagging at his mind. He had the galling feeling that if he’d had some proper military experience, he would have known what was wrong. He couldn’t place it at all.
“Sir,” he said, slowly. “I think you should take a look at this.”
Commander Darius Falcon looked over his shoulder. The Commander wasn’t a bad person, although he refused to mingle with his subordinates and seemed to have the delusion that he was an aristocrat himself. Personally, Bart didn’t give a damn. The Thousand Families ran the Empire and if they had all the power, at least they weren’t trying to crush his soul. They’d even done him a favour, of sorts, when they’d brought him into the Household Troops. He would certainly not have received such a high salary in the Imperial Navy.
“They’re legit,” the Commander said. “What is it about them that is puzzling you?”
“I’m not sure,” Bart admitted. The Commander didn’t have any more military experience than Bart did — he’d got his post through connections — and he might not have understood. “There’s just something wrong about them.”
On impulse, he brought up the display and showed the feed from one of the live sensors. The superdreadnaughts were lumbering forward — there was little beauty or grace in their movements — and heading right towards Alpha Station. Under Alpha, in a lower orbit, the massive orbital docking station waited, its crews already preparing to receive the superdreadnaught squadron. The Roosevelt Family would probably be quite happy to allow their client’s crew to have leave on the station, even if they didn’t allow them to go down to the planet.
And the superdreadnaughts were coming closer and closer.
“You’re not exactly an expert in superdreadnaughts,” the Commander pointed out. He wasn’t being unpleasant; he was merely stating a fact. It was one of the traits that made him bearable, unlike some officers Bart could have named. “They might not be…”
It struck Bart, just a second too late. “Those ships,” he gasped. Now he saw it, he wondered at his own slowness in accepting it. He should have seen it at once. “They’re in attack formation!”
Colin watched on the display as Alpha Station grew in front of him, a manmade moon bristling with weapons and defences. Not unlike a superdreadnaught, or an Imperial Navy starship in a suspect star system, it had its shields and weapons on alert, although they weren’t powered up and ready for launch. The station itself was ugly, a strange bulky shape that suggested sheer power and iron determination. The weapons scattered across its hull only made it look incredibly unwelcoming.
“Passive systems only,” Colin ordered. So close to the station, they would detect an active targeting scan the second he ordered it. And then they would flash-charge their shields and open fire. It wouldn’t matter; the station was emitting enough energy to allow him to target it, even without active sensors. The first warning they would have would be when his missiles were fired from his ships, roaring towards the station at incredible speed. “Lock weapons on target.”
“Weapons locked, sir,” the tactical officer said, very quietly. There was something about the brooding presence of the station that forced them to whisper, even though there was no way that sound could travel through a vacuum. “The missile tubes are ready to open on your command.”
Colin nodded. The external racks were loaded, of course, but that wasn’t unusual when a squadron left one sector for another. The enemy wouldn’t think anything odd about that. Their radars, however, were sweeping across the superdreadnaught’s hull and might well pick up the opening tubes. He shrugged. They were committed now anyway.
“Open the tubes,” he ordered. He braced himself, knowing that time had run out, before tapping his console and unlocking the weapons. He’d just put the trigger in the hands of his tactical officer and other junior staff. “You may fire at will.”
The tactical officer keyed a switch.
A second later, the superdreadnaught launched its first massive barrage towards the station.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bart watched the attack develop on his console, too late.
All nine superdreadnaughts opened fire, eight of them targeting Alpha Station with every missile they could bring to bear on the station, while the ninth opened fire on every automated weapons platform and orbiting sensor within reach. The cloud of missiles — they were too densely packed for his systems to provide him with an accurate count — had been fired, just seconds before Alpha Station snapped over onto high alert. At such short range, their drives could be boosted into sprint mode and accelerate within seconds of being launched, making it far harder for the defenders to calculate intercept vectors and start targeting point defence before it was too late. It wasn’t impossible to intercept missiles in sprint mode, it was just extremely difficult — and, naturally, the rebels weren’t going to sit around and wait for the defenders to react. They were going to continue pressing their advantage.
Bastards, he thought, as Alpha Station’s shields started to charge up. It would be nice to think that perhaps, just perhaps, the formidable fusion reactors onboard the station could power the shield generators enough to hold off the onslaught, but he knew better. The shield generators would burn out if they were forced to absorb or redirect so much power, something that would bring the interlocking generator network crashing down. The station’s point defence started to engage, pumping out plasma bolts and railgun rounds as if there was no tomorrow — which there wouldn’t be for the defenders — yet it was already too late. The missiles were roaring towards their targets.
“Get the drones out,” the Commander ordered, frantically. He hadn’t seen; he hadn’t understood. Bart understood. Alpha Station was going to be badly damaged, at the very least; the odds weren’t good that any of the crew would survive. No amount of drones — automated gunboat-sized craft — would change the odds. “Get the automated platforms online.”
“They’re online,” Bart assured him. The missiles the ninth superdreadnaught was launching were tearing through the network, expending an entire shipkiller on each of the undefended platforms. A part of Bart’s mind admired the precision of the attack. Platforms that might have helped save Alpha Station were being forced to devote their energies to remaining intact. It didn’t seem to make much difference. The missiles were entering terminal attack range now. “I think we need to think about evacuating.”
“Nonsense,” the Commander said. It had just dawned on him that he was in command of the defences of the entire system while an attack was underway. If he survived, if the enemy was beaten off, he would be promoted. “There is no reason to believe that they know about this facility.”
Bart had to admit that he was right. The Roosevelt Family — in a direct break with tradition — had placed their System Command on the planet’s surface, under a mountain. If the enemy wanted to kill them, he would have to find them first — and then it would take several shipkillers to batter a way down to the bunker, or collapse the mountain on top of it. The planet’s ecology would be badly damaged. Of course, if they were Imperial Navy starships up there, they’d probably scorched entire planets before. Wrecking a single continent would be nothing compared to that.