He looked back up at the display. The missiles were finally hitting their target.
There was something raw, almost primal, about the explosions billowing up on the massive station’s defensive shields. Colin watched, struggling to keep his face expressionless, as the missiles exploded in wave after wave, knocking down shield sections and burning out shield generators. Bursts of energy were making their way through the shields as they failed, licking and burning their way into the station’s armour, further weakening the structure. The station, which was better armoured than even the latest superdreadnaught design, might well have a chance to survive. Its shield network was knocked down, yet it sprang back into place. They had power and shield generators to spare.
The fortress had barely had a chance to spit back a single salvo of missiles before its shields failed completely, allowing Colin’s missiles to pound the fortress’s hull without hindrance. Nuclear explosions flared out in the darkness of space, melting their way into the heart of the fortress, yet still it survived. The interior of the fortress was heavily armoured too, meaning that Colin could blow parts of the fortress into radioactive debris and the remainder would continue to fight on. Other warheads were detonating inside the structure — he wouldn’t have given much for the safety of the fortress’s personnel — tearing into its very heart. Entire sections of weapons failed, dying just before their base started to twist and explode. The fortress didn’t explode like a starship. It simply fragmented into countless pieces of junk.
A testament to what the Empire can build, Colin thought, impressed despite himself. The Empire had never lost a Capital-class orbital fortress. Coming to think of it, the last time the Empire had lost any kind of fortress had been back during the First Interstellar War. Since then, the Empire had always been doing the attacking. It had rarely been attacked itself. Unlike a starship, with weight penalties for packing too much mass into the hull, the fortress had been able to pack far more armour. The designers had known what they were doing.
“Record a message,” he ordered. The communications officer nodded. “Attention, defenders of Piccadilly. This is Admiral Colin Walker of the Popular Front to Reform the Empire. I intend to destroy this system’s orbital facilities. I will give you ten minutes to abandon them and then I will open fire.”
The superdreadnaught shook as a missile from one of the automated platforms managed to slip through the point defence and explode against the ship’s shields. “There will be no further warnings,” Colin added. “The countdown will begin upon the transmission of this message.”
He looked over towards the communications officer. “Transmit the message on all bands,” he ordered, tartly. “We may as well give them fair warning.”
Colin, Hester and Daria had discussed the issue in some detail. Hester had pointed out that the Roosevelt Family’s workers were certainly compliant in the crimes the Family had committed, but Daria had countered by pointing out that they hadn’t been offered a choice. Colin had settled the argument by reasoning that the orbital facilities could not be rebuilt quickly — certainly without a new Annual Fleet — and destroying them would limit the world’s ability to take part in the war. By the time the facilities were rebuilt, he hoped, they would have won or lost — and if they lost, it didn’t really matter what happened on Piccadilly.
Besides, he added in his own mind, unlike Stacy or Percival himself, he felt no rage for the workers. They had never committed crimes against him personally; their sole crime, if it could be called a crime, was being part of the system.
“The message has been transmitted,” the communications officer said. “No response.”
Colin shrugged. He hadn’t expected one. “Monitor the orbital facilities closely,” he ordered, as the superdreadnaught shook again. “Let me know if they seem reluctant to evacuate.”
He smiled as he studied the display. Percival would probably not have hesitated to use human shields and would have seen any concern for the workers as a sign of weakness. He doubted that the Roosevelt Family’s representative on the planet’s surface would be that stupid, if only because it would be a good way to lose all of the Family’s clients at once. A trained and experienced workforce wasn’t something to just throw away; besides, Colin had no intention of slaughtering helpless workers. If it could be avoided, that was.
The other two stations, as he had expected, weren’t firing — but then, there was little point in firing. Colin’s ships were shielded by the planet itself. The remaining warships in the system were attempting to reform into a new formation, although several of them were missing, probably having flickered out to warn other systems of just what had gone wrong. Colin glanced down at his terminal, watching the counter ticking towards zero. His worst-case estimate was that it would take at least thirty minutes for Percival to dispatch reinforcements into the system… and that relied upon him having forces on hand, ready to go.
He ran through a tactical check. His ships had been hit, but none badly — although that would change if they tried to go up against the remaining fortresses. There was no point in trying to take the system; the only thing they could do was wreak havoc and then take their leave. He checked that the tactical staff were handling the running battle and pulled up the sensor records. No matter how he worked it, there seemed to be nothing special about the planet, certainly nothing that explained the trillions of credits the Roosevelt Family had spent on it.
Colin tapped a switch, transferring the records into a secure datachip he could give to Daria — perhaps she could shed some light on it — and turned back to his task. The enemy warships seemed to be heading away from the planet’s gravity well, and then they halted, as if they were waiting for Colin to give chase. He saw no reason to indulge them. His superdreadnaughts couldn’t catch the lighter units in normal space and they’d just flicker out if he got too close anyway. It looked… odd.
“Launch an additional flight of probes,” he ordered. “I want to know if they move even a single cloaked ship close to us.”
“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer said. There was no longer any need to use stealthed probes. “Launching probes… now.”
“Incoming fire,” the deputy tactical officer said. “The stations are firing on us!”
“Relay the control signals through the warships,” Bart ordered. It was a far from conventional idea, yet it seemed to be the only way to drive the rebels away from Piccadilly. Their countdown was proceeding, marking the fact that his world had only two minutes before years of investment were destroyed, blown to flaming atoms by rebel starships. “I want them to focus the missiles onto their targets.”
“Do as he says,” General Roosevelt added. He’d come into the command station, relieving Commander Falcon. The fortresses had raised objections when a lowly Specialist had asked them to start routing their commands through the starships. “This isn’t the time for a argument over procedure.”
Bart smiled. The starships and orbital fortresses had one thing in common; they both had to control missiles they launched, in order to direct them towards their targets. A rogue missile became a danger to both sides in a battle. A superdreadnaught could control vast numbers of missiles at once — using command missiles to ensure a degree of tactical flexibility — but a cruiser or a destroyer had vastly more limited capabilities. Bart had pointed out that the stations might not be able to launch their missiles directly at their targets, but they could send them around the planet, handing over control to the warships in observation positions. It had taken some reprogramming to make it possible — the Empire wasn’t keen on making it possible for outside forces to take control of its missiles — yet they’d done it.