Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“Now approaching the gravity edge,” the helmsman said. Arun allowed himself a moment of relief, even though the enemy fleet had remained at Mars, daring him to do anything about them. They hadn’t even bothered to bombard Mars, although it would have been a pointless exercise in brutality. “Flicker drives online and…”

“ Emergence ,” the tactical officer shouted, as the display filled with red icons. Arun had barely a moment to realise that the entire battle scene had changed before the newcomers opened fire. The entire battle had turned upside down. “Incoming missiles, incoming missiles…!”

Admiral Wilhelm’s arsenal ships spat almost two hundred thousand missiles right into the teeth of the Shadow Fleet.

“ Jesus fucking Christ .”

“As you were,” Arun barked. The enemy had pulled a rabbit out of their hats in an amazing — and seemingly impossible — burst of flying, but it wasn’t perfect. They might have had better luck if they’d sneaked the arsenal ships up on Earth, but few officers would have dared to try that against Earth’s defences. The missiles were coming at them in clumps, targeted on three of the point squadrons of superdreadnaughts, rather than one massive swarm. They might just have a chance. “Unlock the point defence, now !”

A commander from before the rebellion would have frozen, faced with such an impossible attack. Arun had commanded such destruction before, ordered it unleashed against the Imperial Navy loyalists during the war, even faced it during the terrifying moments when the Shadow Fleet had seemed trapped at Morrison. They had trained endlessly to face such monstrous assaults, improving their point defence systems to the point where they could target and track even missiles fired at point-blank range, but there were just so many missiles. They could take out three-fourths of the assault and still take horrendous damage.

Above them, barely noticeable against the swarm of missiles, Admiral Wilhelm’s starships were emerging from flicker-space, falling into position for engaging the Shadow Fleet after the arsenal ships had handed out a pounding. They had played that part of their plan more carefully, he saw; they’d brought their ships in out of missile range, preventing him from trying to even the score. There was no point in targeting the empty arsenal ships now. Shot dry, having unloaded all of their missiles within a minute of the firing command, they would only absorb his missiles for no return. Admiral Wilhelm had played a masterful trick.

“Point defence is engaging now,” the tactical officer said. The display zoomed out, showing the missiles as an unbroken wall of red icons, falling on his ships like wolves on a flock of sheep. Counter-missiles were being launched, followed by energy weapons and pulsars, but they seemed so weak and frail compared to the torrent of missiles. It seemed endless, even to his experienced eyes, and he knew that some of his men were going to die. “Admiral, the commander of the arsenal ship squadron is requesting permission to move up and engage.”

“Denied,” Arun ordered tightly. The arsenal ships might well be prime targets, but there was no point in allowing them to move forward to engage, not when the incoming missiles would just get them first. In Admiral Wilhelm’s shoes, he would have programmed the missiles to take any shot they could get at an arsenal ship… and, despite their firepower, the arsenal ships had barely any more armour than a freighter. They would be blown away like a leaf in a hurricane and their firepower would be lost. “Tell them to fall back and let the big boys take the first blow.”

The superdreadnaught’s lighting flickered slightly as it opened fire with its heavy energy weapons, sweeping hundreds of missiles from the incoming swarm out of existence, breaking them down to their component particles. The fission beams ripped their targets apart, rending and tearing the bonds that held matter together, normally intended for use on other superdreadnaughts. They were terrifying weapons, altering the entire face of warfare when they were first invented, and few superdreadnaughts would risk coming into energy range of another superdreadnaught. Missiles were survivable, even at such a vast cost, but fission beams could rip even superdreadnaughts apart. If the weapons could be fired constantly, the missile swarm would simply have creased to exist…

The missiles came on and on, into the teeth of his point defence. Hundreds were diverted, expending themselves uselessly on decoys, while others were picked off and destroyed instantly by the point defence. Thousands survived to make it through the first line of defence and onwards into the inner defence zone, hacking their way through the gunboats and point defence escorts by sheer weight of numbers. Arun realised, with a moment of muted relief, that Admiral Wilhelm had made one mistake. Given a perfect opportunity to strip the Shadow Fleet of most of its escorts, he had targeted, instead, the superdreadnaughts. It was an understandable mistake, but it might prove a costly one, even with his numerical advantage. Arun would be able to safeguard his own ships…

“Missiles entering final engagement vectors now,” the tactical officer said. “Incoming…”

The superdreadnaught heaved as three missiles struck home against its port shields, then plunged as two more missiles slammed home against the prow shields, shaking the entire ship as the shield generators struggled to compensate. Arun clutched onto his command chair as red icons flickered up on the display, warning of damage to a dozen seconds as the missiles continued to pound. If they had all been fired at the General Grant , the result would have been disastrous, but instead they had been spread out over three squadrons. He forced himself to stare into the display as the pounding continued, watching the destruction of some of his ships, refusing to look away as losses mounted.

A superdreadnaught lost its shields and, before they could be re-established, four missiles slipped through and slammed into the unprotected hulk, burning through the armour and detonating inside the ship. The superdreadnaught drifted out of position and then exploded into a ball of plasma, vaporising completely as the damage soared out of control. Another two died in the same manner, while still others struggled to survive tearing wounds inflicted on their hulls, trying to avoid leaving the battle. He watched five more superdreadnaughts die in quick succession as the missile bombardment slowly came to an end, before it was finally over.

No , he corrected himself, watching as the red icons of Admiral Wilhelm’s fleet settled down into their formation. It’s far from over .

“Get me an update on the fleet’s status,” he ordered. They’d lost nearly a squadron of superdreadnaughts and others were damaged, some of them badly. The General -class ships, he noted, had suffered the worst, although one of the Independence -class ships had been hammered so badly that it had to withdraw, leaking air. “Re-establish the command network and prepare for a missile duel.”

He smiled grimly as the display updated. “And pull us back further into the gravity shadow,” he added. “If they want us, they’re going to have to come after us.”

The fleet had launched drones as soon as it flickered back into existence, allowing Admiral Wilhelm to have a grandstand view of the destruction of the Shadow Fleet. The missiles hadn’t been as effective as the Nerds had promised, he realised at once, although he was honest enough to admit that that might have been something to do with the arsenal ships. He’d considered trying to sneak them into the system, but that would have been risky; Earth’s defences had been legend before the Shadow Fleet had attacked and taken the system and they were still formidable.