Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“Missiles away, sir,” the tactical officer reported, as the superdreadnaught shuddered violently, firing her missiles in anger for the first time in her entire career. A superdreadnaught was rarely called on to do more than show the flag along the Rim — no pirate in their right mind would tangle with a superdreadnaught — but Wolfsan had insisted on regular drills anyway. Combined with the firepower of the other superdreadnaughts, and the massive arsenal ships, the rebels had flown right into a firestorm.

He leaned back and surveyed the position. The rebels hadn’t moved into the gravity shadow, but if they’d timed it right, they shouldn’t have been able to flicker out before the first wave of missiles struck them anyway. They hadn’t fired back on his ships, missing the chance to inflict serious damage before his forces could raise their shields, which argued that they had indeed been completely surprised. In hindsight, they had to be cursing themselves, but Admiral Wilhelm had played them beautifully. Even now, they had to be seriously considering fighting it out, or headlong retreat, and either one suited them just fine.

“Reload and fire a second barrage,” he ordered, calmly. The arsenal ships and the external racks had both shot themselves dry, but his superdreadnaughts were only just beginning. By the time the rebels reacted, they would have already lost. “Locate their command ship and target it specifically.”

For a long moment, Katy’s mind just froze, trapped in memories of First Morrison. The Shadow Fleet had been trapped there, forced to stand off a wave of missiles rather than flickering out and running for their lives, and she’d been captured there. The display’s frantic attempts to inform her of just how badly she’d miscalculated — and she had miscalculated — only made matters worse. Admiral Wilhelm had laid a trap for her and she had walked right into it like a Midshipwoman on her first cruise.

“Lock the arsenal ships onto their superdreadnaughts and fire them dry,” she snapped. One eye flew to the display showing the countdown to flickering out; two minutes. By then, they were going to take at least one beating, perhaps two. Her overconfidence had trapped her until her ships could spin up their drives and escape, trapped her long enough for her fleet to be bled. “Spin the superdreadnaughts and return fire, now!”

Jefferson shuddered as the mighty superdreadnaught fired its first salvo towards the enemy ships. Katy watched, pushing her fear and shock to the back of her mind, as the enemy fleet resolved into view. Their cloaking devices were far better than they should have had — she should have seen them coming — and they’d played their cards very well. The fleet list was terrifying. The enemy had deployed sixty-six superdreadnaughts, seventy battlecruisers and heavy cruisers, backed up by over two hundred escorts. Studying the sensor records, she realised that at least some of the escorts had been configured for point defence service, adding yet another advantage to the enemy fleet. The calculations about relative strength had just been proven so much scrap paper.

They must have brought in ships from the other sectors , she realised, numbly. The hell of it was that she could still inflict horrendous damage on the enemy forces… if she were prepared to accept the total destruction of her fleet. They might have had external racks and arsenal ships, two more items she’d hoped were a rebel monopoly, but they didn’t have the firepower or survivability of the Independence -class ships. She could bully her way down to the shipyard and annihilate it, or even scorch the planet herself, but it would mean the destruction of her fleet. The Shadow Fleet simply couldn’t afford such losses.

“Turn us away from the planet,” she ordered, watching as the point defence network was frantically reshuffled to handle the oncoming storm. They’d configured it to intercept missiles coming from Cottbus and its orbital installations, not missiles coming from the other side of the formation, and they’d been caught badly out of place. The enemy might not have known it — and she wouldn’t have bet her life on it — but they’d caught her with her pants around her ankles. If they’d timed it right, she wouldn’t be able to bring over half her point defence into play until it was too late.

She cleared her throat. “Deploy all of the ECM drones and sensor ghosts,” she ordered, knowing that it was probably futile. The dumb little brains in the onrushing missiles might be tricked, but if they had direct feeds back to their motherships they would adapt and compensate for her trickery. “Lock missiles onto the surviving enemy superdreadnaughts” — and there are going to be dozens of them , her mind gibbered inanely — “and prepare to engage them.”

The wall of missiles flashed into the teeth of her point defence. Gunboats, the fastest ships under her command, flew into the onrushing wave of missiles and started to pick them off, one by one. Their laser cannons and pulsars blew missile after missile into flaming dust, while their sensors burned through the ECM-equipped missiles that were trying to confuse the point defence, but there were too many missiles to be stopped that easily. They raged on into the destroyers, hundreds more flashing out of existence as they were struck by bolts of charged plasma or counter-missiles, while dozens more were decoyed away onto harmless drones. Some of the missiles even targeted the destroyers, blasting away some of her point defence platforms, wiping out entire ships before they could escape.

Katy gritted her teeth. “This is the Admiral,” she said, keying the intercom. “All hands, brace for impact. I repeat, brace for impact.”

The superdreadnaught’s point defence opened fire as the missiles roared into their terminal attack vectors, boosting their drives forward as they sought mutual annihilation. The lights dimmed slightly as power was redirected to fission beams and other energy weapons, sweeping missile after missile out of space, but it wasn’t enough. Katy barely had a moment to grab the handles of her chair before the first missile struck home. A rolling series of thunderclaps shook the mighty ship.

“Report,” she snapped. Nasty-looking red icons had flashed up on the display, but nothing seemed to be failing dramatically. Of course, part of her mind whispered, if a fusion bottle had failed dramatically, the entire ship would have been so much vapour by now. “Damage report!”

“Minor damage,” the engineering officer said. Katy barely heard the details as she glared down at the enemy fleet in the display. They were struggling to survive her missiles, but they had far more ships than she had. “Admiral…?”

“Get the repair teams on it,” Katy snapped, and broke the connection. Either they could flicker out and escape within a minute, or they were dead. There was no middle ground, not this time. She refused to even consider surrender. There was no way she could allow a reasonably intact Independence to fall into enemy hands. “Tactical, fleet report?”

“We lost seven superdreadnaughts,” the tactical officer said, grimly. Katy looked at the display and winced again. She’d thought that the Jefferson was the focus of the enemy’s attack — that, somehow, they’d locked onto her as the flagship — but no, they’d barely been harmed. Other starships were sending damage reports, some of them far more serious… and seven superdreadnaughts and nine other ships were gone. “The enemy fleet lost four superdreadnaughts, but nine more are significantly damaged.”

Katy glanced at the timer. Thirty seconds to flicker. “Target their undamaged superdreadnaughts and open fire,” she ordered. There were still enough superdreadnaughts to seriously damage the enemy fleet, even though the battle would now sink down into more conventional patterns. “Contact all ships. As soon as the flicker drives are ready, we flicker out to the first waypoint!”