Christopher Nuttall - Barbarians at the Gates

Something was drastically wrong, and he needed to figure out why. Fast.

“Launch additional recon probes,” he ordered. Admiral Parkinson hadn’t ordered anything of the sort, but Marius didn’t need to tell anyone that. What he was doing was in the best interests of the Retribution Force, and he knew it. He’d tell Admiral Parkinson that later, if they all lived through whatever was coming. “I want a shell of them around us at all times—in fact, replenish them at random intervals and have recon fighters move up to plug any holes in our coverage.”

He sat back and scowled again as his tactical staff moved to obey. In a bad entertainment flick—one of the ones with steel-jawed heroes, awful dialogue and half-naked women—the enemy force would have slipped around the rear and gone onwards to wreak havoc deeper within the Federation. But the real universe didn’t work like that. Admiral Justinian’s force needed supplies and refits that only a fleet base could provide, which meant they couldn’t simply abandon their base in hopes of punching through and taking Earth any time they pleased.

They needed to stop the Retribution Force, so where were they?

“Admiral, Admiral Parkinson is signalling you,” the communications officer said.

“Put him through,” Marius said tiredly. It was probably a complaint about how many recon drones he’d fired into the inky darkness of space. “And keep monitoring the drones.”

No matter how he looked at it, the enemy’s behavior made no sense.

Where were they?

Everyone knew that StarCom units were expensive, therefore rare. Only a relative handful of Federation systems, even in the Core Worlds, had a couple of StarCom units; Jefferson, despite being a moderately wealthy planet, had never invested in them. There was no point. Perhaps, if it became possible to use the StarCom to signal across interstellar space, the economics would change, but until then everyone knew that there was no StarCom in Jefferson’s space.

But everyone was wrong.

There was no local StarCom in the Jefferson System, but the Grand Senate’s lackeys didn’t know—couldn’t know—that Admiral Justinian had stripped all nine StarCom units out of planetary systems in the Harmony Sector. Those units had been transferred to Jefferson in order to coordinate a trap. Now, the data FNS Dandelion collected was being transmitted to Admiral Justinian…and the ships waiting for the so-called Retribution Force were prepared to kick them all back to the Stone Age.

The crew of FNS Dandelion were as loyal to Admiral Justinian as anyone could wish, even though some of them believed that their current mission was bordering on suicidal. The small destroyer was lying in space, all of her systems stripped down to the bare minimum, monitoring the Asimov Point with passive sensors alone. The Federation Navy—the loyalist side, at least—wasn’t trying to hide. Enterprise had blazed her IFF to the whole system, and it was hard to hide a superdreadnaught’s emission signatures from ultra-sensitive passive sensors. Captain Muller was quietly pleased with his crew’s performance; the entire crew was even speaking in whispers, as if the loyalists could hear them through the soundless depths of space.

“I think that all of the heavies are through,” his sensor officer murmured. “The third component of their fleet seems to be hanging back.”

“Wise of them,” Captain Muller grunted. He turned to the communications officer, a newcomer to his ship. “You may begin transmitting at once.”

There was no response from Admiral Justinian, but Muller and his crew hadn’t expected one. They settled back to continue monitoring the Asimov Point, ensuring that the Federation Navy hadn’t somehow pulled a fast one and slipped additional units into their Retribution Force.

Those Senatorial lackeys didn’t know it yet, but they were walking right into a trap.

It was a common problem with deep-space warfare—at least away from the Asimov Points—that it was generally very difficult to predict the enemy’s movements accurately enough to lie in wait for him. The Battle of Athens had taught the Federation Navy that the age when enemy assaults had to be funnelled through Asimov Points were over. Admiral Justinian, however, had had an advantage; his enemy had settled on the most direct route through the Jefferson system. That might not even have been such a bad idea, were it not for the fact that the StarCom network gave Justinian a degree of tactical flexibility that his opponent lacked.

“They’re coming on in, fat and happy,” Caitlin said in disbelief. “Don’t they even know to be careful?”

Justinian shrugged. He’d read Parkinson’s file, but there was no way to know what was going through his opponent’s mind. He might believe that the system genuinely was empty—it wasn’t as if the locals were going to warn him, even without his orbital weapons platforms ensuring that the system remained compliant—or he might be preparing a deadly trap of his own. Or perhaps one of his more able subordinates, like Marius Drake, had talked him into something more subtle than his own preferred tactics. They certainly weren’t trying to hide, after all; active sensors were sweeping the darkness, unaware that their targets were almost invisible except at very short range.

“Prepare to engage,” Justinian ordered. “We will engage them at Point Cannae.”

“Aye, sir,” Caitlin said. She checked her console. “Time to engagement: seventeen minutes and counting.”

The live feed from all of the recon drones was being fed into Magnificent’s flag bridge. It seemed as if there was nothing out there, an eerie darkness that sent chills down Marius’s spine. It felt almost as if they were alone in space, without even the warm light of a G2 star nearby. Enterprise was picking up speed, nearly five light minutes ahead of Magnificent and the other superdreadnaughts, which also bothered Marius to no end. Any data his sensors picked up would be five minutes out of date, but there was nothing he could do about it. The long-promised StarCom system for real-time coordination was a dream.

“Admiral,” the sensor officer said slowly. “I think I have something.”

“Show me,” Marius snapped. A blur appeared on the main display. “What is…?”

Understanding clicked, too late. “Get me the flag,” he ordered. Whatever he did, it would be five minutes before Admiral Parkinson picked up his warning. “Now!”

Roman had been studying the tactical console when all hell broke loose.

“Incoming missiles,” the tactical officer barked. Alarms rang out throughout the ship as a swarm of red icons appeared out of nowhere. It looked as if at least thirty superdreadnaughts had been lying in wait. “Again, I say, incoming missiles…”

“Bring point defense online,” the captain snapped. His words echoed through the command network. “All hands brace for impact; I say again, all hands brace for impact.”

The display updated rapidly as Enterprise’s point defense engaged the incoming missiles. Roman, having nothing else to do, studied their pattern and frowned. Conventional tactics were to throw everything at the largest ships first, but only a handful of missiles were targeted on the Enterprise . The remaining missiles, over four hundred of them, were targeted on their escorts. It was almost as if the enemy intended to strip away Enterprise’s protective cover, while leaving the star carrier intact.

But that was insane…wasn’t it?

He stared down at his display, puzzled. Hundreds of missiles were dying, but the remainder were getting through to their targets. And some of the missiles looked…odd.