The system wasn’t as efficient as it would have been if the stations had been in direct control of their weapons. The smaller ships kept losing control of individual missiles, even though they were routing their commands though slaved command missiles and attempting to switch from missile to missile before they lost them permanently. Even so, it had been a nasty surprise for the rebels, all the more so because they were being fired on from all sides at once. Bart had redeployed the ships to allow them to control multiple missiles, even ones circling around the planet from the other side.
It was risky, he admitted; a shipkiller hitting the planet would be disastrous. There were good reasons why the Empire disliked missile duals anywhere near a planet’s gravity well. Yet, if it worked, it would drive the rebels away and it had been his idea. He was the one who would be rewarded.
“They can probably swat them off indefinitely,” the Commander said. He was pacing, doubtless worried about the effects on his career. “We cannot hope to overwhelm their defences at this range.”
“That’s not an issue,” the General countered. “All that matters is to keep them off balance until reinforcements arrive.”
Colin swallowed a curse as the missiles roared into his point defence network and started to die under his fire. At first, he’d thought that the Empire had slipped a pair of battlecruiser squadrons into orbit under cloak and opened fire, but it hadn’t taken long to realise what was actually happening. Some clever bastard on the planet’s surface had managed to get the warships working to steer missiles fired from the station!
“Clever,” he said, as the last of the first salvo of missiles died. The attacks were growing in power now as more ships were added to the command network. The attacks were even coming in from odd directions, as if they were fighting in a two-dimensional environment. If he sent his ships after the control ships, they’d simply flicker away, leaving his ships at the mercy of the fortresses. He checked the timer and smiled to himself. The defenders had run out of time. “Did they get everyone off the orbital facilities?”
“I believe so,” the sensor officer said. “They certainly launched a great many shuttles and lifepods, all of which are now heading down into the planet’s atmosphere.”
Colin nodded. Standard procedure was for lifepods to remain in space until they could be recovered, but he didn’t blame them for sending them into the atmosphere to land on the ground. In a combat zone, the odds of having them mistaken for weapons or mines and accidentally destroyed were just too high. Besides, it helped prove that the stations were definitely abandoned — unless, of course, they deliberately intended to trick him into carrying out an atrocity. Percival thought like that; he hoped — prayed — that the Roosevelt Family thought differently.
“Target the orbital stations,” he ordered. The tactical officer brought up the firing plan, the one that they had worked out just after Alpha Station had been destroyed. “Destroy them.”
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said. “I am launching missiles… now.”
Given enough time, Colin would have preferred to use energy weapons to destroy the orbital facilities, but time was ticking away. Besides, using missiles helped ensure that fewer chunks would survive the fall through the planet’s atmosphere to crash-land on the surface. He watched dispassionately as years of work and trillions of credits burned under his fire, wondering how long it would be before the Roosevelt Family could rebuild. They had probably had the planet’s facilities insured, but if he knew the Thousand Families, there would be caveats built into the agreements. And besides, if they attempted to pay out, it would probably wreck large parts of the economy.
“The targets have been destroyed,” the tactical officer reported, finally. “The enemy fortresses are increasing their fire.”
Colin was mildly impressed. Whoever had thought of that tactic was on the wrong side. He doubted that it was a tactic that would become commonplace, yet perhaps… it would certainly make hitting any planet harder. He shook his head in irritation. It wasn’t as if they had a monopoly on tactical innovations. If they were lucky, Admiral Percival would decide that the genius who had thought up the idea had been too clever and dispatch him to a remote mining colony… no, that wouldn’t happen. Whoever had thought of it would be working directly for the Roosevelt Family. Percival would only have limited authority over him.
“Take us up,” he ordered. They’d dallied too long already. “Prepare to flicker us out as soon as we reach a safe distance.”
Unsurprisingly, the incoming fire doubled as they pulled away from the planet, the fortresses realising that their prey was escaping and trying to cripple or destroy a superdreadnaught before they could escape. Colin didn’t bother to return fire. At such extreme range, it was unlikely that they would hit any of the smaller starships, while the fortresses might as well have been invincible. It would just be a waste of missiles.
He pulled up the planetary data again and shook his head. Why was the planet so important?
It made no sense. The survey data didn’t suggest that the planet had played host to intelligent life before the Empire had stumbled over it and given the settlement rights to the Roosevelt Family. Studying alien tech made sense, yet an alien race advanced enough to be worth the effort of studying it would be clearly noticeable from orbit, even if it had died out centuries ago. And besides, the survey data would have noticed the alien settlement and an Imperial Navy team would have taken over the planet. Was it a crashed alien ship, perhaps? Also possible, yet why wouldn’t they take it into the Empire, to somewhere more secure?
And what else was worth the amount of resources they’d lavished on the world?
“We have reached minimum safe distance, Admiral,” the helmsman said. “The flicker drives are powering up now.”
Colin took one final look at the mysterious planet, vowing to come back one day and ferret out its secrets. If he’d kept Stacy Roosevelt as a prisoner, perhaps he could have asked her… he shook his head, annoyed at himself. There was no point in questioning his own decisions, not now. What was done was done.
“Take us out of here,” he ordered. The other timer had reached zero. Percival’s reinforcements could be expected at any moment. It was tempting to spend time wrecking the cloudscoops and mining facilities, but it wouldn’t assist the cause. “It’s time to take our leave.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“It’s the flicker drive node, My Lady,” Accrington said. “I’m afraid that it has finally given up the ghost.”
Lady Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham scowled. The Misfit was one of three freighters, her own personal property, that she’d assigned to the mining project at Tyler’s Star. Unfortunately, the ship was also older than she was and on its last legs. The only reason it had been so cheap was because the owner had thought he was selling it for scrap.
“So the freighter cannot jump outside the system,” Hannelore said, carefully. She had a fairly comprehensive education in mining technology — her mother and father had taught her never to depend on outsiders to run crucial family businesses — but she couldn’t have put a flicker drive together even if someone had given her the parts and detailed instructions. “Can we still use it inside the system?”