She shook her head. Whatever the origin of the smaller ships, the superdreadnaughts alone were more than powerful enough to destroy her command, which meant… standing still and waiting to be hit probably wasn’t a good idea.
“General signal to all ships,” she ordered. Her tone, she hoped, would discourage anyone from questioning her too closely. “I want every warship in orbit to form up around the flag. The monitors are to be dispatched at once to the waypoint” — her hands danced across her terminal, designating a set of coordinates — “I have selected, where they are to wait for further orders. If I do not issue orders within the week, they are to make their way back to Camelot and report to Admiral Percival.”
She saw another icon blinking on her display — General Branford wanted to talk to her — and ignored it. There was nothing she could do for him and his men now. The simplest tactic would be to power up the flicker drive and jump out, but it went against the grain to leave without taking a bite out of the enemy first. Of course, the enemy had bigger weapons and might take a much bigger bite out of her… she pushed that thought aside and waited for her orders to spread through the command network. There was too much to be done.
And to think I was bored and stressed, she thought, mockingly.
“Communications; transmit directly to the Petunia and the Dudley,” she ordered. “They are to separate from their squadrons and fly directly to Camelot, where they are to report to Admiral Percival and recommend that he dispatches a superdreadnaught squadron to reclaim this system.” She scowled. Her enemies would probably accuse her of defeatism, but then her enemies weren’t looking at nine superdreadnaughts with blood in their eyes. “Inform me when they have flickered out.”
The enemy superdreadnaughts were still bearing down on her with ponderous inevitability, but her small fleet was already forming up around the Violence. She called up the tactical display and ran through several different options. There was no way they could actually hope to win — which, in some ways, simplified the tactical situation enormously — but perhaps they could bluff. And who knew; maybe the horse would learn to sing.
“The fleet is to follow the designated course,” she ordered, as the command datanet tightened up. Her hands danced over the panel, drawing out a course that would allow them to fly away from the planet in normal space, while also allowing her to take a few long-range shots at the incoming ships. It was lucky, she told herself, that she’d insisted on deploying and maintaining the external racks, even though her crew had grumbled endlessly about it. “Any starships within the outer system — most particularly Fabricator — are to head out of the system and rendezvous at the first waypoint.”
She scowled. There was no way to mask her actions as anything other than a retreat. The freighters and the manufacturing ship would require time to power up their flicker drives, far longer than a warship or even commercial fast transport. If she held out long enough before flickering out, she might manage to keep the rebels concentrated on her, rather than hunting down targets that couldn’t run. And who knew — perhaps there was a superdreadnaught squadron within range that could come to her rescue.
The two fleets and their projected courses appeared in front of her. If she was right — if the enemy commander didn’t have a plan of his own — they would have around thirty minutes of long-range missile fire before she had to flicker out, perhaps less. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do.
“Signal to General Branford,” she ordered. “My intentions are to fight a running battle before leaving the system. You are urged to safeguard your positions and hold out. The Navy will be back.”
Colin watched the enemy fleet’s deployments with something akin to awe. If Percival had been so badly outmatched, he would have set a new speed record fleeing the system, without bothering to consider the multiple ways he could delay and even harm the advancing rebel juggernaut. The enemy commander present in the system, however, was brave and shrewd enough to realise that if they held out, they might successfully damage his fleet before they left the system.
“Impressive,” he mused. The enemy fleet’s monitors were already rising out of the planet’s gravity shadow. If he’d risked jumping in closer, he might have been able to intercept them, but then… that risked scattering his fleet. Besides, monitors were the one class of starship that Percival wasn’t actually short of; destroying five or six of them wouldn’t crimp him for long. “And it puts the ball in my hands.”
He tossed different ideas around in his head. If the monitors had remained in orbit, he would have ignored the remaining Imperial Navy starships and gone for them, but instead there was no point in charging at the planet. It wasn’t going anywhere. The enemy commander was tempting him with a chance to destroy nearly sixty starships, or perhaps force them to surrender and add them to his fleet. And it wasn’t a opportunity he could refuse, not only for the chance to weaken Percival, but also for the possibility of removing a dangerously-smart enemy commander from the playing field. The commander, whoever he or she was, had pulled him into a neat little trap.
“Alter course to intercept,” he ordered. The battlecruisers and other smaller ships that made up the Imperial Navy’s occupation squadron had one advantage over his ships; they could simply outrun his ships, even in normal space. The sublight drive fields that provided propulsion might have the same top speed for all craft, but the superdreadnaughts, with their far greater mass, had a far lower rate of acceleration. The enemy missiles would have a far shorter flight time than his own missiles — his missiles would be chasing an enemy, while his ships would be flying towards the enemy missiles — which gave them another advantage. But then, he told himself, if it became evident that they meant to keep the range open, he would simply break off the chase. “Prepare to open fire.”
He keyed his switch. “Commodore Ismoilzoda, you are cleared to break off and perform your own mission,” he added. “Good luck.”
“They took the bait, Captain,” the helmsman said. “They’re coming after us.”
Angelika smiled, dryly. The helmsman was young, the youngest person on the bridge. He wasn’t old enough to realise that nine superdreadnaughts in hot pursuit wasn’t actually a good thing… well, it was at the moment, but it wouldn’t remain that way. Given time, the range would stabilise and then the superdreadnaught’s superior firepower would begin to tell. And then her ships would have to flicker out or die.
“Good,” she said, concealing her own thoughts. Every Imperial Navy officer had to come to terms with his or her own mortality, yet they were also used to carrying the biggest stick in the known universe. A battlecruiser should have been secure against anything pirates or rebels could throw at it, but instead Violence felt fragile with nine superdreadnaughts bearing down on her. Angelika wondered, absently, if she had remembered to update her will. It seemed so silly to worry about mundane things when the enemy ships were about to attack.
She looked up at the tactical display. Unless the rebels had somehow developed long-range missiles with additional speed, their firing range would be identical to hers, which meant that when the red circle marking powered missile range touched the enemy ships, they could open fire on her. Or would they wait and allow the range to fall a little more? What was the enemy commander thinking?
“Bring up the point defence and prepare to engage enemy missiles,” Angelika said, calmly. There was no point in panic, even though the red circle was sliding ever closer to the enemy ships. “Lock weapons on the lead superdreadnaught and prepare to engage.”