Christopher Nuttall - Barbarians at the Gates

He shivered. The admiral had even thrown away the life of his daughter.

“All units, accelerate to flank speed,” he ordered. He felt as through a stranger was speaking through his mouth, someone hard and cold, willing to do whatever it took to win. “Prepare to engage the enemy.”

“Aye, sir,” Raistlin said.

Magnificent shivered slightly as her drive pushed her forward, heading right towards the enemy formation. Admiral Justinian wasn’t even trying to run! He was coming towards them, as if he hoped he could bull his way into energy range.

“Admiral Mason is requesting permission to launch starfighters, sir,” Raistlin told him.

“Granted,” Marius said. It was overkill, but he didn’t care. The object was to win; he’d worry about the level of force used later. “Status of Midway ?”

Raistlin checked the readings. “Adrift, total power failure,” he said. He sucked in a breath. “But everyone’s alive, their communication officer has reported; she’s a very lucky ship.”

“She has a very lucky captain,” Marius countered. “Order a destroyer to be detached for SAR duties; I want everyone pulled off that ship, if possible.”

He watched grimly as the two fleets came into missile range. It might not be possible to pull anyone off Midway , not if the internal compensators had failed. Indeed, the only proof that they had some power left was that the ship was still intact. Losing the magnetic containment fields that held the antimatter would have blown the ship into dust. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind and concentrated on the oncoming fleet. Admiral Justinian didn’t seem to be launching his own starfighters on strike missions; instead, he seemed to be focusing on antifighter defense and keeping Marius’s starfighters off his back.

“It seems he refused to surrender, admiral,” Williams said. The Political Commissioner sounded as if he were terrified, but was trying to hide it. “I thought you promised that he would surrender.”

Marius bit down the response that came to mind. It wouldn’t have helped the situation to swear at the commissioner.

“I know,” he said finally. “He can’t win. Even if he closes to energy range without getting his ships shot from under him, he still can’t win. So why is he throwing his life away?”

He keyed his console as the enemy superdreadnaughts came into range. “Open fire,” he ordered.

“Aye, aye, sir,” the tactical officer said.

Magnificent shuddered as she flushed her external racks, followed by the slightly heavier sound of the first barrage from her internal tubes. Combined with the other ships in the Grand Fleet, hundreds of thousands of missiles were roaring toward their targets.

Admiral Justinian’s barrage—launched at the same moment—was pitiful in comparison. He’d selected a couple of Marius’s superdreadnaughts for special attention…which was odd. He was leaving the remainder of Marius’s superdreadnaughts unattended.

“Admiral, twelve new ships just lit off their drives,” the tactical officer reported.

Marius felt his blood run cold. Had he just led his men into a trap?

“They read out as medium freighters, pulling military-grade acceleration,” the tactical officer continued. “They’re heading right towards the edge of our formation.”

Marius blinked, puzzled. Freighters were not warships, no matter how many weapons and defense systems were crammed into their hulls. They couldn’t maneuver worth a damn and a single hit could be devastating. It seemed a pointless exercise, except Admiral Justinian wasn’t stupid. Using the freighters suggested that Justinian had more in mind than just distracting Marius from the battle.

“Order the Longsword to switch her fire to the lead freighter,” Marius said. From the sensor readings, it was evident that someone had also crammed a military-grade shield generator and fusion core into the freighters. No one would waste those resources if they didn’t think they could get something out of it. “I want…”

The display flashed white, just for a second.

“Sir, the lead freighter blew up,” Raistlin reported. He sounded astonished.

Marius didn’t blame him for a second.

“Sir…she was crammed with antimatter. If she’d hit a superdreadnaught, or if the starfighters had engaged her…”

“They would have been blown to dust,” Marius concluded. Kamikazes ! In hindsight, an obvious trick. “Order the destroyer screen to engage the freighters at long range; take them out before they take us out.”

There was another benefit from the antimatter-crammed freighters, he realized quickly, feeling numb. As soon as they exploded, they disrupted the datanet that bound his ships together. In the seconds it took to repair the datanet, enemy missiles were able to slip through the point defense. They slammed against his ships.

Two superdreadnaughts vanished in balls of fire, followed by a battlecruiser that had been targeted for some unknown reason. Admiral Justinian’s force was being torn apart, and yet he was still continuing the offensive. He was mad.

He had to be mad.

“Switch to rapid fire,” Marius ordered, as the enemy ships came closer. They were still fighting savagely, even though Justinian was down to four superdreadnaughts and only a handful of smaller craft. All of his ships had taken heavy damage. “Take them out!”

“The freighters have all been destroyed, admiral,” the tactical officer reported.

“A shame it wasn’t Parkinson in command,” Admiral Justinian commented.

Caitlin barely heard him. Her training had been thorough, but she’d never seen such a savage battle in her entire career, even during a direct Asimov Point assault. There was no rhyme or reason any longer, just sheer pointless slaughter. Caitlin looked over at the admiral’s daughter and realized that Henrietta was terrified. The poor girl had never been in a real battle.

“Parkinson would have let us get the freighters into ramming position before he opened fire,” Justinian concluded amiably, as if there was nothing wrong at all in his corner of the universe.

“Yes, sir,” Caitlin agreed automatically. She recalled herself to duty. “Sir, this is madness!”

“I know,” Admiral Justinian said. “What other choice do we have?”

The entire superdreadnaught shuddered as a missile slammed against her hull. The damage control teams had effectively given up on repairing the outer compartments, knowing that they would all be blown to atoms before too long. She was still firing, but Caitlin doubted that they would be able to maintain a solid rate of fire for much longer. “What other choice do we have?”

“Surrender to a bunch of murderers?” He waved a hand at the display.

Caitlin opened her mouth, and then closed it again without speaking. The admiral was right. They couldn’t surrender, not when it meant their certain deaths. The only thing they could do was keep firing, and pray for a miracle.

“Father,” Henrietta said, “they saved my life…”

“Be quiet,” Justinian snapped.

Caitlin watched numbly as one of their remaining superdreadnaughts vanished from the display, followed quickly by one of the smaller ships. The enemy switched their fire to other targets and, suddenly, the admiral’s ship was targeted heavily. New damage started to mount as enemy missiles slashed into the hull. The shields were failing…

“Admiral…” she began.

And then the hammer of God struck the ship. There was a brief moment of fire and pain, and then nothing.

“Admiral, the last of the enemy ships is trying to surrender,” Raistlin reported.