Christopher Nuttall - Barbarians at the Gates

He made a show of checking his wrist terminal. “As there’s no way to know what is going through Justinian’s mind right now, I suggest that you get some sleep, commissioner. In twelve hours, we go through it all again…unless we run into the enemy first.”

Midway and her consorts had been racing toward the Asimov Point that led into the Lombardi System. There were no fortresses guarding that end of the gravitational distortion, but there was a single light cruiser, watching the loyalist fleet as it advanced.

“Captain, the light cruiser is retreating,” the sensor officer said.

“Pity,” Roman said. “I wonder if…”

The icon blinked once—the yellow flash that signified a successful transit—and vanished.

“She went down the rabbit hole, sir,” the sensor officer reported. “There are no other enemy ships detected within the general area.”

Unless they’re cloaked, or lying doggo , Roman reminded himself. The last two systems had been nightmarish; the cloaked enemy ships hadn’t been able to do more than sting, but they’d stung hard. Midway had accounted for two enemy destroyers and what his tactical officer had believed was a converted freighter, yet it hadn’t been enough. If the fleet had been operating with a long fleet train, they might have been in real trouble. Losing the supply lines would be disastrous.

“Launch recon probes,” he ordered. “Let’s see what’s on the other side of the rabbit hole.”

Only one of the probes returned, but the news it brought back was very encouraging. There was only one fortress facing the loyalists, another outdated design that dated all the way back to the Inheritance Wars. It would suffice to stop pirates and rebels in peacetime, but it wasn’t designed to stand up to a frontal assault. The hastily-laid minefield on top of the Asimov Point was clearly unprepared for action, but that wouldn’t stop it from being deadly. Roman conferred with his fellow captains and the commodore in charge of the assault force, and then checked with Admiral Drake. As he’d anticipated, the order was simple: attack.

Midway transited into the system hard on the heels of the first set of assault pods. Most of the minefield had been destroyed by the assault pods, allowing his point defense crews a chance to pick off the remaining mines before they recovered from the assault and started to target the attacking ships. The commander of the fortress, he was relieved to discover, was a realist. Once he’d updated his superiors on the composition of the fleet that had forced the Asimov Point, he surrendered. A small team of Marines was sent to secure the fortress while the remainder of the Grand Fleet transited in, one by one.

“New orders from the flag, sir,” the communications officer said. “We are to proceed at once to the Roslyn Point and secure it.”

Roman felt a tingle run down his spine. Roslyn wasn’t just a fully-developed system with a vast array of space-based industries and a formidable planetary defense network; it was the final stop on the way to Jefferson. If they could get into the system before the enemy reacted, they could threaten Jefferson from two Asimov Points at once…

He shook his head, reminding himself that the attempt to coordinate two assaults over interstellar distances at the same time had doomed the Federation Navy’s attempt to seize Sapphire during the Blue Star War. Admiral Drake would not want to repeat that particular mistake.

“Helm, lay in a course,” he ordered. “Maximum safe speed.”

Midway hummed as she accelerated through space, heading right at the Asimov Point. The Lombardi System reminded Roman of his home system, even though his home system possessed no Asimov Points and had remained undiscovered until the Federation had developed the stardrive and used it to survey the worlds near Earth that had been settled via interstellar slowboats. The RockRats who’d settled the system had been astonished to discover that Earth had not only cracked the FTL problem, but had been exploring interstellar space for generations through the Asimov Points.

“Captain,” the sensor officer said, “I think we have a problem.”

“Show me,” Roman ordered.

“There’s a fleet coming through the Asimov Point,” the sensor officer reported. New red icons flashed on the display. “I think that Admiral Justinian has sent his fleet to intercept us.”

“I think you’re right,” Roman agreed. “Take us into cloak. Communications, signal the admiral and inform him that the enemy fleet has arrived, and that we will continue to forward data as long as we can.”

“Aye, sir,” the communications officer said.

Lombardi System, 4097

“Showtime,” Marius said.

He watched as the enemy fleet slowly shook itself down into formation. It was evident from their deployments that they’d intended to reach the other Asimov Point first, allowing them to take up positions on top of the Asimov Point and hammer him when he tried to emerge. But they’d been too late by roughly an hour. Now, they had to make the best of a bad lot and get into an aggressive formation.

The full might of the Grand Fleet was in-system now, but if they were lucky, the enemy would think that the Grand Fleet was weaker that it actually was. Of course, if they didn’t, the enemy might find a way to put together a fleet that could conceivably wreck the Grand Fleet, which would force Marius and his forces to withdraw.

“Keep the ECM running,” he ordered. “Launch additional probes into the enemy ships—no need to use stealth. We want them to see the probes.”

He smiled. Captain Garibaldi was trying to slip closer to the enemy ships, yet the enemy should be watching for anyone gutsy enough to try it. Launching the probes at such an extreme range might convince them that he didn’t have anyone in position close enough to try to count their ships before it was too late.

But they might be careful and know to watch for turbulence anyway. There was no way for him to know.

“Admiral,” Williams said, “shouldn’t we be launching starfighters?”

“No point,” Marius informed him cheerfully. He felt better now that the enemy fleet had finally shown itself. “It will be six hours, at least, before we come into missile range. The pilots will be getting some chow and needed rest before we launch them to do battle against the foe.”

“How powerful is the enemy fleet?” Williams swallowed visibly.

“It’s hard to say at this distance,” Marius admitted. “The first counts weren’t too precise. Of course, they’re screwed.”

Williams stared at him, speechless.

“In this system,” Marius explained, “they have to stop us—and they know they have to stop us. If they fail to do so, we can cross the interstellar void to Harmony and take out Justinian’s capital world and all the industries he’s been building up over the years.”

“Industries that our superiors wish to take intact,” Williams reminded him. “They feel that adding those industrial nodes to the Federation would help make up for shortfalls elsewhere…”

Shortfalls caused by profit-seeking and a lack of basic maintenance , Marius thought coldly.

The problem wasn’t with the workers, although the workers often barely had the education necessary to read a book or operate expensive and valuable equipment. The problem was with the industrialists who owned the industrial nodes instead. They pushed the limits as much as possible, trying to earn as many contracts as they could before the war came to an end. The civil war might have killed millions of people, but it had profited a handful of industrialists immensely.