Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

Admiral Wilhelm clutched the side of his command chair as an impossible fleet spawned an impossible flight of missiles, over three hundred thousand missiles racing towards his position. He had known that he was winning the fight… and then somehow Colin and his rebels had pulled a massive surprise right out of their hats. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at; the commander of that fleet had to be a madman or a genius or both. No one would have risked coming out so close to the gravity shadow with superdreadnaughts unless they were completely insane…

But it didn’t matter. “Hold our position and swing the point defence around to engage,” he ordered, falling back on older orders from his Academy days. The enemy ships had caught them right out of position, but he still had some fight left in him. “Lock missiles on the enemy fleet and fire as you bear.”

The superdreadnaught rocked as it unleashed half a broadside towards the enemy fleet, the missiles altering course and flying directly into the heart of their formation, followed by hundreds more. It was pitiful compared to the wall of missiles bearing down on them, but it would hopefully force the enemy to devote time and attention to covering themselves, rather than pounding on his fleet. He didn’t know how Colin and his rebels had pulled off such a masterpiece of coordination, but it was clear now that he had underestimated them from the start. If he’d known that Colin had been so capable, he would have swallowed his hopes to make himself Emperor and accepted whatever position he could obtain in the new order.

“Missiles away, sir,” the tactical officer said. “Enemy missiles entering point defence range now.”

Our inner point defence range , Admiral Wilhelm thought grimly. The destroyers, gunboats and cruisers that mounted the outer point defence systems were all badly out of position. Gunboats and destroyers could flit here and there like birds, rather than the ponderous superdreadnaughts, but it still took time to get them to the right positions… and the coordination network was about to take a hammering. He knew that without having to think about it. His fleet was about to have the living shit beaten out of it. The losses might even include a superdreadnaught called…

“Point defence engaging now,” the tactical officer said.

They might as well not have bothered, Admiral Wilhelm realised, his thoughts drawn back to the oncoming wall of red icons. The pulsars and point defence units mounted on the hull of the superdreadnaughts were doing what they could, but they might as well have been spitting into the wind. Hundreds of missiles died, but hundreds of thousand survived, falling into their terminal attack profiles and angling in towards his ships. He found himself grasping the handles of his chair as he braced for the impact he knew would be coming…

The first superdreadnaught, bringing up the rear of his fleet, was hit by seventy missiles in quick succession. It never stood a chance. Its shields went down almost at once and the remaining missiles poured into the hull, exploding within the starship’s interior and blowing it apart in a massive burst of superhot plasma. A second superdreadnaught staggered and, for a moment, he thought it had survived for a few moments longer, but then it exploded and joined its companion in death. A third and a fourth were badly damaged and fell out of formation, their drive fields billowing as their destabilised, while plasma and air leaked out of a dozen breaches in the hull. He looked at the datanet downloads from the ships, before they cut off abruptly, and knew that there would be no point in trying to repair them. They were far beyond the point where any shipyard, even the ones orbiting Jupiter, could repair the damage.

“Here they come, sir,” the tactical officer said. “It was a honour to have served with you, sir.”

Admiral Wilhelm looked up at the display and nodded once. The wave of missiles had targeted his ship and there were too many of them to stop, or even survive. The first hammerblows rang through the ship, knocking down the shields and destroying the shield generators as they struggled to cope with the massive feedback from the shields and their collapse, leaving the superdreadnaught defenceless. It heaved time and time again, massive red icons flaring into existence on the internal display, before the power failed and the gravity vanished. The inner core of the superdreadnaught, the most protected section of the ship, cracked and buckled under the pounding as consoles exploded and flames lashed through the ship.

He died before he had a chance to realise that there had been three fleets, not two, in the battle.

Penny watched Joshua watching in stony-faced silence as the two remaining squadrons of Admiral Wilhelm’s fleet were decimated. He’d seen such damage before, even inflicted such damage, but it was still terrifying. The post-war Empire, whoever ended up in control, would have to rebuild most of the Imperial Navy from scratch, just to remain competitive. The massive salvos of missiles, far more than had been imagined back in the old days before the rebellion, had changed the face of warfare.

“Admiral, the two remaining superdreadnaughts are signalling their surrender,” the communications officer said. The remains of the massive salvo had burned themselves out or expended themselves on smaller ships, allowing two superdreadnaughts to escape lightly. The sole survivors of eighteen superdreadnaughts, an invincible force before the war, had been damaged, but they were still capable of operations. Another salvo, however, would reduce them to dust and ash. “They’re asking that we accept before they lose control of their power cores and explode.”

Joshua altered the display, bringing up a near-space scan revealing the thousands of lifepods drifting through space, signalling for help. The long-standing convention had been that the victors would pick up the lifepods, but the battle was far from over and he couldn’t spare any ships to recover survivors. Penny found herself trying to recall her basic survival training. A lifepod could keep its recommended number of passengers alive for quite some time, but they were completely helpless if some sadistic bastard decided to start picking them off for target practice.

“Contact Admiral Wilhelm’s remaining light ships,” Joshua ordered, finally. “Inform them that they are our designated recovery ships. They are to pick up the lifepods and the crew from those superdreadnaughts.” He brought up a visual of the two damaged ships and frowned. “And then contact the superdreadnaughts. I want their weapons and shields completely deactivated now. If there are any signs that they have reactivated them we will open fire without further warning.”

He turned his attention back to the display. “And launch another flight of probes towards the defenders,” he added. “I want a complete update on their current status.”

“Admiral, Her Majesty wishes to address the rebels,” the communications officer injected. “She’s transmitting now.”

Colin hadn’t wasted the time that Daria’s fleet had brought him when it engaged Admiral Wilhelm at what was, effectively, point-blank range. He’d managed to get the remaining starships into a defensive formation, orbiting beside the command fortresses and the other defences. He’d also transferred himself from the assigned command fortress to a completely different fortress, aware that Daria had probably known which fortress had been assigned the task of coordinating the defence. It didn’t sit well with him, but he had already decided that he wasn’t going to run to the Rim, but die in defence of the new order he’d created.