Favour the Bold, page 18
part #16 of The Empire's Corps Series
They’ll have to drop a missile on it from high orbit, she thought. And if that doesn’t work, the landing force will have to take it out.
“Well,” Perkins said. “What do we do first?”
“We hit the garrison,” Phelps said. “Give them a fright.”
“And then fall back to ... where?” Rachel leaned forward. “There are a few other things we can do.”
“Take out the datanode,” Perkins offered. “And the nearest bridge. If we can cut this region off from the rest of the continent ...”
Rachel shrugged. “We should prepare to take down the bridge,” she said. “But General Anderson won’t thank us if we deny it to his forces. He might intend to use it to move troops towards the PDC.”
“True.” Phelps grinned, his teeth white in the darkness. “But whoever gets there first with the most will win.”
“Yes, sir,” Bonkowski said. “I believe we all know that. Sir.”
“Of course,” Phelps agreed, dryly. “It depends on how quickly they can react, doesn’t it?”
Rachel nodded. They’d traced out the road network as far north as they could. It was quite impressive, for such a young world. The defenders could rush tanks and troops to the landing zone at speed, if they wished ... if they managed to react in time. Taking out the bridge would slow them, although probably not for very long. Modern tanks and APCs were sealed vehicles, designed to be driven across river beds. And hovertanks could simply float above the water.
Although it’s easy to take them out, Rachel thought. Hovertanks had never really caught on, simply because they were dangerously vulnerable. A single plasma burst would turn them into a pile of flaming debris.
“Bonkowski, you’re to target the datanode,” Phelps ordered. “You blend in best with the locals.”
“That’s because he’s an ugly bastard,” Perkins said.
Bonkowski made a rude gesture. “And yet I get all the girls.”
Phelps cleared his throat, loudly. “Take out the node and its support staff, if you can get inside without trapping yourself, then get out. Don’t worry about the rest of the town. Just get your ass back here. If we don’t come back, link up with the landing force and mourn us afterwards.”
“Yes, sir,” Bonkowski said. He sounded serious. They all knew the time for joking was over. “I’ll see you back here.”
“The rest of us will target the garrison,” Phelps said. He nodded to the sketch maps they’d drawn up. “We get in, hit them as hard as we can and then withdraw before they have a chance to get reorganised.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Rachel said. She sipped her dark coffee, savouring the sour taste. “Specifics?”
“We’ll go back to our old friend,” Phelps said. “And ... borrow ... his lorry.”
“We’d better make sure he’s taken somewhere safe,” Rachel said. “If he gets the blame ...”
“If he gets the blame, and they’re in a position to do something about it, the entire operation has failed anyway,” Phelps said. “And that would be pretty bad.”
“Yes,” Bonkowski said, dryly.
“Still,” Rachel said. “We should do what we can for him.”
“Idealist,” Bonkowski said.
“Isn’t that why we joined?” Rachel met his eyes. “We’re not the bad guys, here.”
“I think you’ll find that depends on someone’s point of view,” Perkins said, flatly. “A civilian who loses their partner or parents or siblings or kids to the invasion isn’t going to see us as heroes.”
“No,” Rachel agreed. She couldn’t disagree with him. A lot of people were going to die in the next few days, people whose only real crime had been being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or people who thought they were repelling an invasion, rather than serving a fascist regime. “But we should at least try not to be the bad guys.”
“We’ll do our best for him,” Phelps said. He glanced at his watch. “Now, we have a day to make preparations so ... this is what we’re going to do.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Empire, therefore, was seen as the ultimate power, without being able to wield ultimate power. It loomed so large in the public mindset that it was difficult to believe that it was gone, that a distance of a few short light-years was now an impassable gulf. Indeed, so many people refused to believe it that they declined to take steps to protect themselves from the economic shockwaves radiating out from Earth.
- Professor Leo Caesius. Earthfall and its Aftermath.
Bridge experience, Lieutenant Wesley Jacobson thought, wasn’t quite what he’d been promised. Captain Jiang had made it quite clear that, while Wesley was in command of Nocturne while her captain and XO were asleep or planetside respectively, he was to do nothing beyond badgering the junior officers for status reports. If there was the slightest hint of an emergency, Jiang had said, Wesley was to call Jiang at once. There was little hope of gaining the experience that might put him on the shortlist for a command of his own.
Wesley shifted in the chair, bored. The thrill of sitting in the command chair had long-since palled when everyone knew he wasn’t allowed to do anything. The display showed nothing, nothing save for hundreds of freighters, asteroid miners and worker bees humming around the planet or heading out to deep space. Wesley had run a pair of tracking exercises on the freighters, but even that had proved more tedious than exciting. He cursed his CO under his breath as he waited for his shift to end. Jiang was obliged to offer his junior officers command experience, but he didn’t have to make it meaningful. Wesley would have no chance to prove himself as long as nothing happened, yet ... if it did happen, Jiang would retake command. He glared at a freighter as she headed out of orbit. He really should have gone into the merchant marine. He might just have seen something of the universe if he had.
“Captain,” Ensign Han said. “I’m picking up something on the active sensors.”
Captain. That was a joke. Wesley was in command, so he was entitled to be addressed as Captain ... but he was a Captain without authority. He glowered at Han’s back, wondering just how long it would be before she was promoted past him. She was younger, but she had relatives in high places. They’d smooth her path to command rank while Wesley remained stuck as a lieutenant. She would probably be giving him orders in a year or two.
“Something,” he repeated. Was it worth calling Jiang? The Captain had given orders that he was to be awakened if anything happened, but ... would he be pleased he’d been called or pissed? “What sort of something?”
Han sounded puzzled, not angry. “I’m not sure,” she said. “There’s something fuzzy ... it could be a sensor glitch, sir, or it could be a stealthed ship.”
Wesley stood and walked over to her console. A stealthed ship? That wasn’t too likely. The system was heavily defended. Most pirates and warlords would probably prefer to try their luck elsewhere, if they bothered to do more than glance at Hameau. And yet ... he peered at the sensor readings. There was something there. It could be a glitch, or an energy fluctuation caused by the constant activity in orbit, or ... or what? Whatever it was, it was far too close for comfort.
He knew he should call Jiang. But ... he didn’t know the contact, whatever it was, was dangerous. And ... he didn’t want to give up command, not yet. It was his first, perhaps his only, chance to shine. He couldn’t really believe the contact was dangerous, not this close to the planetary defences. It was probably nothing.
“Do a sensor focus,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Han said. Her fingers worked her console. “I ...”
The display cleared. Wesley blanched. A cruiser, a heavy cruiser, was coming right at his ship. No, nine heavy cruisers in tight formation. He barely heard Han gasp in shock. His head spun. The images couldn’t be real. They just couldn’t. But they were there ...
Training took over. “Red alert,” he snapped. The sirens began to howl. Jiang wouldn’t need to be summoned personally. The alarms would get him out of bed more effectively than an emergency call. “All hands to battle stations!”
But it was already too late.
***
“They made us, Captain,” Tomas said.
“Open fire,” Kerri said, shortly.
She gritted her teeth as Havoc fired the first salvo of the campaign. She’d managed to get closer to the enemy destroyer than she’d expected, although they weren’t quite in point-blank range. The enemy ship was desperately trying to bring its drives and weapons online, but it was already too late. Their ECM was weak, almost pitiful. Kerri watched, dispassionately, as four laser warheads slammed into the enemy ship. The hullmetal melted like a snowflake in hell. The crew, suited or not, didn’t stand a chance. If there were any survivors, and she was fairly sure there were none, they were no longer important.
“Target destroyed, Captain,” Tomas said.
Kerri nodded. The remainder of the squadron had opened fire at the same time, taking out their targets before they could return fire. A lone ship managed to evade the first salvo of missiles - Kerri silently saluted her commanding officer, who’d managed to react despite being taken by surprise - but the second salvo killed her before she could orient herself and open fire. There was no time to mourn the dead and dying. Her squadron altered course, launching a hail of missiles, railgun pellets and plasma bursts towards the orbital defences. The defenders were barely starting to react ...
“Captain, I’m picking up an additional layer of scansats,” Tomas reported. “They’re going live now.”
“Take them out,” Kerri ordered. The enemy wouldn’t have any trouble tracking her ships, not now they were firing on the planetary defences, but there was no point in letting them have a free shot at the shuttles. “And target any platform that opens fire.”
“Aye, Captain,” Tomas said.
“Susan, transmit the surrender demand,” Kerri added. “And repeat it on all frequencies.”
“Aye, Captain.”
***
Commodore Jeanette Lang hadn’t been expecting trouble, when she’d taken command of the planetary defences for the night. Nothing much ever happened in high orbit, even after Earthfall. She’d planned to sit in the CIC and do her paperwork, leaving the staff to do the majority of the work. There wasn’t much to do. The vast majority of activity in and around the high orbitals didn’t have to be cleared through the planetary defences.
She threw her datapad to one side and jumped to her feet as alarms howled and the display lit up with red icons. An entire fleet - hundreds of ships, thousands of ships - was approaching Hameau, launching so many missiles at the planetary defences that it seemed unlikely anything would survive long enough to fire back. Panic yammered at her mind as icons started to vanish, the entire mobile force wiped out in less than two minutes. Training and cold logic took over seconds later, pointing out the immense fleet simply could not exist. The Imperial Navy, at the height of its power, could not have deployed thousands of ships to Hameau. And while her defences were taking damage, they weren’t taking that much damage. Her sensors were being spoofed.
“Bring all the active sensors online,” she snapped. The situation was bad - the damage was mounting rapidly - but it wasn’t disastrous. Not yet. “Track enemy targets, fire on my command.”
She studied the display, muttering a calming manta under her breath. The enemy ships were firing ... all of the enemy ships were firing. The vast majority of them had to be sensor ghosts, but ... which ones? She tapped a command into the system, trying to track the real missiles back to the ships that had launched them, but it wasn’t easy. The enemy - whoever he was - had done an excellent job of messing with her sensors. She couldn’t fire on the enemy ships if she didn’t know which ones were real.
“Commodore, we’re losing missile pods in ...”
“If they’re targeting the missile pods, launch the damned missiles,” Jeanette snapped. A number of icons vanished, enemy ships popping out of existence. It would have been good news, if she hadn’t known they were fakes being wiped from the display. “Target the most likely contacts and fire!”
She glanced at the planetary display and swore, again. The PDC network was coming online, but it wasn’t going to be able to offer much help. They could keep the enemy from getting too close, once they opened fire, yet ... her orbital structures were vulnerable. A low rumble ran through the CIC as an enemy missile found its target. She supposed they should be grateful the base was surrounded by layers of rock. A lighter target would have been vaporised by the nuclear blast.
“Who are they?” An operator was freaking out, she noted dispassionately “What do they want?”
“Be quiet,” Jeanette snapped, one hand resting on her pistol. Half the staff had been in their bunks when the attack began. The attackers had timed it perfectly. “Concentrate on your job.”
Another shudder ran through the asteroid. The attackers were pushing harder ... they knew she was in command. She tapped a command into the network, preparing the system for a sudden switch in command. If she lost contact, her second would have to take over immediately. They didn’t have time for a succession crisis. Better to lay the groundwork now than hope her subordinates would handle it when she was gone.
“They’re broadcasting a surrender demand,” another operator said. “They’re demanding immediate surrender.”
“Forward it to the governor,” Jeanette ordered. Her sensor platforms were being targeted and destroyed, but so were the enemy sensor decoys. The enemy fleet was much smaller than she’d thought. Still a problem, given how much damage they’d inflicted in the first few seconds, but ... manageable. Perhaps. “Do we have an ID?”
“No, Commodore,” the operator said. “They’re not identifying themselves.”
Jeanette nodded. A warlord, perhaps. God knew there were hundreds of Imperial Navy squadrons that had been left in the cold by Earthfall. Head Office believed they wouldn’t pose a serious problem, but ... Head Office was definitely wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time, either. Hameau would be a very tempting target to any warlord who saw the infrastructure and realised how it could be turned to his advantage. And he would do a hell of a lot of damage even if he was beaten off.
She frowned as the enemy bombardment refused to abate. They were spending missiles like water, tearing great holes in her defences. Her sensor coverage was pitiful, barely a shadow of what it had been an hour ago. She had no trouble tracking the enemy ships on passive sensors, but still ... she had no idea what else might be sneaking through. An asteroid had already been struck by a missile and smashed, pieces of debris flying in all directions. Large chunks were falling towards the surface. The PDCs were doing what they could, but they couldn’t get everything ...
Murderers, she thought, coldly. Whoever you are, you’re murderers.
“They’re coming closer,” a third operator reported. “They’re sweeping space for targets.”
“And they’ll be coming here,” Jeanette grunted. “Prepare to reroute the remainder of command through the ground-based network.”
She looked at the live feed from the surface. The PDCs had isolated themselves from the orbital defences, as planned. It was good to know that something was working, amidst the chaos. The governor hadn’t said anything to her or to the invaders, whoever they were. He wouldn’t surrender. Head Office would have his head. No, they’d have his pension. He was too well connected to be executed for his failure.
And he’s not bothering me while I try to do my job, she thought. On the display, another salvo of missiles was roaring towards the asteroid platform. That’s one thing, at least.
She took a breath. Two of the incoming missiles fell to point defence fire, but the remainder kept coming. They were unstoppable ...
“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly. She wasn’t sure who she was talking to. The governor? Her staffers? Or herself. “I ...”
The asteroid rocked violently, then shattered. Jeanette saw space, an endless array of whirling stars and lights; she found herself struggling, hopelessly, for breath. She tried to scrabble for her breath mask, but her fingers refused to work. The world was quiet, so quiet ...
... And then it all faded.
***
Governor Simon Morgan had made it clear, when he’d taken up residence in Government House, that he was not to be disturbed unless it was a real emergency. In his experience, anything less than a life-or-death emergency could wait until he woke at seven in the morning. Indeed, the vast majority of emergencies could be handled by his staff. He’d made sure to give them a great deal of discretion. They didn’t need him to rubberstamp orders they had the authority to give on their own.
