Hannelore looked up, surprised. “You mean… we’re not going to do anything to help?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Cordova said, sadly. He looked angry and helpless, his fists clenched against an unreachable enemy. It was the first time, Hannelore realised, that she had seen him without the mask he used to cover his thoughts and feelings. “If we attempt to draw the battlecruisers away, they will either ignore us or dispatch one of their ships to chase us and leave the rest besieging Sanctuary. All we can do is watch and wait.”
“But…”
She broke off. She wanted to argue, to tell him that there had to be something they could do to save their cause. She hadn’t even realised how much it had become her cause until it was in mortal danger, yet… there was nothing they could do, apart from committing suicide on their behalf. The Imperial Navy had come to call and brought along enough firepower to render any defence irrelevant.
“Don’t worry,” Cordova said, as if he had read her mind. “This isn’t the only base. There are others and the Imperial Navy will never find them all.”
They weren’t supposed to be able to find this one either, Hannelore thought, sourly.
“They have not responded,” the communications officer said, as the timer ticked down to zero. “They didn’t even attempt to discuss terms.”
“We offered,” Angelika said. The asteroid’s population was either part of the rebel leadership or supporting the rebel leadership. The former would go in chains and be transported to Camelot; the latter would be sent to a penal world. It made perfect sense for the rebels to refuse to surrender, which opened up its own risks. They might believe that they could destroy their asteroid and take out hundreds of Imperial soldiers at the same time. “Prepare to close to engagement range.”
She smiled as the enemy defences, the pitifully weak defences they’d installed, came into range. “Target the enemy weapons platforms first,” she ordered. “You may fire at will.”
A second later, Violence launched her first salvo against the rebel base.
The command centre was filled with panic, Neil was disgusted to discover. The rebels hadn’t had a formal command structure for the base — it hadn’t been designed for permanent occupancy — and most of the workers worked for one group or another, rather than pledging themselves to a single force. Sanctuary had no real government or defence force. His Marines — and the recruits they’d been running through combat training — were the only defence the asteroid had.
“They’ve opened fire,” an operator shouted. Neil cursed his luck. In the Imperial Navy, an operator who started to panic while on duty would be summarily removed from duty and transferred to a posting where they couldn’t do so much harm. Even the well-connected would tend to be removed from their positions. “They’re firing on us!”
“Get a grip, man,” Neil snapped, using his best Drill Sergeant voice. It had an immediate effect. As he had thought — and prayed — the staff wanted someone to tell them what to do. “They’re not firing on the asteroid; they’re firing on the defence platforms. Unlock them and get them firing back, now!”
Most of the operators got to work, but one of them folded his arms and looked defiant. “Who are you,” he demanded, “to give us orders?”
Neil could have explained, pointing out that he had more active combat experience than everyone in the room, but he didn’t have the time. He settled for punching the speaker in the head and knocking him out, leaving his body to collapse on the floor. The remainder of the staff took one look and suddenly became a great deal more attentive, although Neil had to remind himself to watch his back. He wouldn’t put it past some of them to draw their weapons and shoot him in the back when they had the chance.
He keyed his personal communicator and linked into the private frequency used by high-ranking officers. “Mrs Hyman, we have to defend the asteroid,” he said. He had already considered all of the possible means of escape, only to conclude that there was no way out of the trap. The Imperial Navy could destroy any ship before it had a chance to power up the flicker drive and escape. Attacking into the teeth of such firepower would be suicide. Perhaps he could slip a handful of people out in a stealthed ship with powered down drives and weapons systems, yet even that was doubtful with so many sensors operating at full power. The Imperial Navy certainly wasn’t bothering to hide. “I need your permission to coordinate the defence.”
“Granted,” Hester said. Whatever else she was — and Neil still harboured a trace of the old disdain for those the Imperial Navy called terrorists — she was decisive. She would have made a good Marine if she had ever gone through the training centre. “Do whatever you have to do to secure the asteroid and defeat the invaders.”
Neil relaxed slightly. With Hester’s backing, the operators should do as they were told without any more backchat. He leaned over the main display — it had been designed by the Geeks and operated on a different scale than the ones he was familiar with — and scowled to himself. The Imperial Navy was easily swatting down the weapons platforms, while their probes swooped closer to the main asteroid, looking for future targets. It wouldn’t take long for the starships to turn their attention to boarding the asteroid and by then he had to be ready.
“Put a general signal through the asteroid,” he ordered, trying to deduce what the enemy intended to do. If he was facing fellow Marines, they would try to land on the rocky surface and burn through into the inhabitable sections of the asteroid, denying him any warning of where they intended to land. But if the reports were true, if the remaining Marines in the Sector had been removed from duty, they were facing Blackshirts instead. Where would Blackshirts choose to land? “I want my Marines and trainees to assemble, in full combat armour, in Section 45-66-K.”
He leaned back, suddenly feeling a great deal more certain. The Blackshirts weren’t trained for raiding asteroids. The chances were good that they would try to come in through the spaceport facility, an isolated section towards the front of the asteroid. They wouldn’t have any difficulty in locating it either, not with the crews of nearly thirty starships struggling to power them up and escape before the Imperial Navy got there and opened fire. They didn’t know it — or didn’t want to believe it — but they had already lost. The battlecruisers were well within missile range.
“Women and children are to go to the core of the asteroid and remain there,” he added. “They are to wear their suits and prepare for explosive decompression. Armed men are to assemble in the inner circle and prepare to defend the women and children against the incoming threat.”
“There are a lot of arguments, sir,” one of the operators said. He was casting nervous glances at the unconscious figure on the deck, wondering if he was going to be the next one hit and knocked out. “They want to get into the front lines and start fighting the enemy.”
“Tell them that they will get their chance,” Neil said, impatiently. He drummed his fingers on his knee as he considered the possibilities. What did the Imperial Navy want? If they had wanted to destroy Sanctuary, they could have done it by now and nothing the rebels had could have stopped them. No, they had to want to take the leadership alive, as well as everyone else they could catch. Locked up inside their brains, waiting for the mind techs to come along and investigate, were the names and coordinates of most of the other rebel bases. “I’m sure that they will get their chance.”