Authors: Christopher Nuttall
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Galactic Empire, #Military, #Space Fleet, #Space Marine, #Space Opera
“Reminds me of home,” Lieutenant Lars Rasmussen said. “Only
my
home colony had a giant planet far too close to us.” “And a place where you could get what you needed, if you couldn’t make it for yourself,” Midshipwoman Grace Hawthorne pointed out. “Ringer had no contact with anyone until the Theocracy arrived, the poor bastards.”
Lars nodded. Quite a few of the first asteroid settlements had been founded by people seeking political or religious freedom, a tradition that had continued ever since the first scoutships had ventured into hyperspace in search of new places to live. Ringer, according to the scant details in the files, had been settled by a group that had wanted to completely isolate itself from the rest of humanity and, to make sure it was left alone, had carefully picked a system that was of little interest to anyone else. A handful of asteroids, a couple of comets, and little else; it was a closed system in more ways than one. No one had visited the system, as far as anyone knew, until the Theocracy had arrived.
And the locals must have been horrified
, he thought,
when they real ized just who had found them.
He pushed the thought aside, then examined the sensor readings. Ringer was a combination of old and new technology, some dating all the way back to the pre-space era, others clearly produced within the last decade. It wasn’t uncommon for asteroid settlements to go back to the basics, which were easier to repair, but Ringer had to have received help from outside to keep up with the times. He couldn’t keep himself from wondering if the locals had experienced
some
contact with the rest of the sector before the Theocracy arrived, even though the files suggested otherwise. Asteroid settlers tended to be technically proficient—they had to be, just to keep their settlements alive—and Ringer’s settlers probably had skills the sector needed. The
Theocracy
certainly wanted them.
“Two cruisers,” he muttered. The bright red icons were impossible to miss; it looked, very much, as if the enemy starships were making it clear they were there. “And a handful of defense platforms.”
“They may have weapons mounted on the asteroids themselves,” Grace reminded him. “I think they’d definitely have point defense, even if they didn’t have any long-range missile tubes.”
“True,” Lars agreed. Asteroid dwellers tended to be of two minds about mounting weapons on settled asteroids. On one hand, they needed point defense; on the other, it drew fire from enemy starships. A single nuclear-tipped missile could shatter an asteroid and kill everyone inside. “I make ten freighters in the system, either docked with the asteroid or waiting in a holding pattern. Do you concur?
”
“
Confirmed,” Grace said. “They may be forming up a convoy.”
Lars nodded, slowly. The Commonwealth’s shipping lines hated to see freighters docked when they could be moving between star systems and making money, but the Theocracy had always taken a different view of it. They preferred to keep their freighters under control, which, he had to admit, made a great deal of sense if they knew there were prowling raiders in the sector. The two cruisers might be the convoy escort, waiting patiently for all ten freighters to be loaded so they could be on their way. If the squadron could arrive before it was too late, they’d have a chance to capture or destroy a number of freighters
and
a pair of cruisers.
“Back us out, very slowly,” he ordered. There was no way to know just how advanced the asteroid’s sensors were, but it was quite possible that the locals were preternaturally attuned to the space surrounding them. They might pick up something, the merest flicker, that would reveal his ship’s presence. “Commodore Falcone will want to hear about this.”
“Aye, sir,” Grace said.
“Two light cruisers, Captain,” the XO said. “It seems like an easy target.
”
“
And ten freighters,” Kat added. “It seems a very
tempting
target.” She studied the star chart, silently calculating vectors in her mind.
The enemy
could
have gotten a warning to Ringer by now, if they regarded the handful of asteroid settlements as a priority target. Or they might have enough courier boats to make sending a warning easy without draining their resources. It was just possible that her opponent might have gambled and stationed a small squadron of its own at Ringer . . .
Two light cruisers
, she thought. It was unlikely they could do more than delay
Lightning
alone, unless the Theocracy had invented a whole new weapons system. And, oddly, seeing them there was reassuring. If someone had planned an ambush, they’d probably prefer to keep the light cruisers under cloak, just to prevent her taking fright.
We could take them both out and weaken the enemy
.
She nodded slowly. “We’ll advance towards the system and jump in here,” she said, tapping a location on the display. Close enough to the asteroids to allow her a clean shot at the freighters, far enough from the enemy cruisers to allow her to check they
weren’t
supported by an entire superdreadnought squadron before it was too late. “We’ll hit the cruisers, then the freighters, if they refuse to surrender.”
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said. “And our next target
?”
Kat sighed. She’d debated it endlessly during the voyage, first with the XO and then with the other starship commanders. No matter how she looked at it, any reasonable targets were likely to be heavily guarded . . . unless, of course, she attempted to divert the enemy’s attention through a feint. If the enemy had had a StarCom network, she knew, it would have been a great deal easier as the enemy concentrated resources in threatened systems while she struck elsewhere.
And if we could send signals back to the Commonwealth at FTL speeds,
she thought ruefully,
Admiral Christian and the War Cabinet would be peering over my shoulder all the time.
“Morningside is probably the best target,” she said. “But I want to make a feint at Aswan first, just to keep them confused.”
“Aye, Captain,” the XO said. “I’ll have the tactical staff start looking at options now.”
“Good,” Kat said. She took a breath, studying the final records from
Mermaid
. Ringer might pose complications, but it should be an easy target. Unless, of course, it was a trap. “We move in twenty minutes.”
Captain Ruthven ground his teeth together in irritation as the janissaries dragged the two offending crewmen into his office. It hadn’t been a good week; first, he and his ship had been assigned to cover a handful of asteroids populated by unbelievers and then, if that hadn’t been enough, he’d been given strict orders to withdraw if confronted by overwhelming force. There was no way he could make
that
look good on his service record, no matter his orders; he’d be lucky to have a hope of being assigned to the front before the war was won and all chances of glory faded into nothingness.
He scowled at the two crewmen, who cringed under his gaze. His brothers had both written letters from the front, telling him of the infidels running from their missiles and how they’d brought countless worlds under their thumb. To hear them talk, they’d won the battles personally; they’d certainly made it clear that they’d played a major role in the coming victory. It wouldn’t be long before the Theocracy was firmly in control of Tyre and the war came to an end. Ruthven would have no real chance of glory . . . at least until the next war.
“Well,” he said angrily. “Do you have anything resembling an explanation?
”
The two crewmen exchanged glances. “It was just a spot of fun, sir,” one protested. “She was asking for it.”
“Aye, she was,” the second said. “Wearing sluttish clothes and walking down . . .”
Ruthven nodded to the janissaries, who stabbed the two men with shockrods. They screamed in pain, but somehow managed to remain standing. Clearly they knew better than to show weakness when they were in deep trouble. He sighed in irritation—like their commanding officer, his crew deeply resented their posting to the rear—and then leaned forward, allowing his anger to show on his face. It was well within his authority to have them executed out of hand and they both knew it.
“Let me explain something to you,” he said calmly. “The inhabitants of this asteroid cluster bent the knee to us. They
submitted
to us. We allow them to maintain their beliefs, their way of life, as long as they serve us. And they
do
serve us. The items they produce are a vital component of this sector’s economy.”
He sighed, again. It was unlikely the two crewmen really understood what he was telling them. They’d probably had nothing more than a basic education; they would have learned to recite the holy words from memory, but not to actually think. He would have been surprised if they could even read more than a few words.
“They submitted to us,” Ruthven repeated. “And, because of that, they are granted protection as long as they obey. We
swore
we would grant them protection, and safety, in order to keep them working for us. And part of that, as I believe you were informed, is that their women are
not
to be touched. It would upset them.”
He glowered at the crewmen, who looked back at him as if he’d started speaking in tongues. They didn’t understand, of course; to them, women who were believers were kept under firm control, while any other women were fair game. The concept of certain societies being left alone, in exchange for submission, was probably beyond them. They certainly hadn’t taken any of the warnings to heart before they’d dragged a woman off the streets and raped her until she was bleeding. No doubt they expected nothing more than a pat on the back . . .
“We cannot be seen to break our word,” he warned. “When a society bends the knee to us, we must grant protection in exchange for submission. You chose to ignore the warnings and harm someone under our protection. For this, you will both be flogged to within an inch of your lives.”
He nodded at the janissaries, who dragged the two men out of his office. The sentence would be carried out, of course, and then the men, if they survived, would be reassigned to the punishment units, where they would be given suicidal missions to complete. If they survived for six months, their record would be wiped clean, but he hadn’t heard of anyone surviving more than a couple of months. Even outside wartime, there was no shortage of suicidal tasks that needed warm bodies.
Idiots
, he thought. But perhaps it wasn’t surprising, given their upbringing.
Idiots who shouldn’t be allowed to breed . . .
The ship’s alarms started to howl. Ruthven jumped to his feet, then practically ran through the hatch and onto the bridge. Red icons were shimmering into life on the display, enemy starships jumping out of hyperspace gateways and advancing towards the asteroid cluster. He didn’t need the lines of text below the starship icons to know that they were the same ships that had attacked Verdean. The size and composition of the flotilla was identical.
“Red alert,” he snapped as the enemy fleet oriented itself on his ship. “Prepare to engage the enemy!
”
He thought fast. His orders admitted of no ambiguity. If the enemy had superior firepower, enough to make his defeat certain, he was to withdraw at once. But there were ten freighters in the system . . . he’d be blamed for their loss, even though he’d only been following orders from his commanding officer. He’d be lucky to keep his head, let alone his command, once word spread. Any hope of being sent to the front before the inevitable victory would vanish faster than a snowflake in hell.
“The freighters are to cast off and jump into hyperspace,” he ordered. Some of them hadn’t finished loading, but there was no help for it now. “Freighters that don’t have hyperdrives are to follow ships that do. They’re to head straight to Aswan and inform the admiral that this system is under attack.”
“Aye, Captain,” the communications officer said.
Maybe I can salvage something from this after all
, Ruthven thought coldly. Saving the freighters might be enough to save his career. The Theocracy didn’t have anything like enough bulk freighters, not when they tended to have the worst and least-motivated crews in space.
Pro tecting the freighters is more important than protecting the unbelievers.
“Target the lead enemy warship and open fire as soon as they enter missile range,” he added, addressing the tactical officer. “Helm, I want you to hold the range open as long as possible.”
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said. “
Bringer of Word
is moving up to support us.”
Ruthven nodded. He knew better than to think he could do more than delay the enemy, not if he had to preserve his command, but at least he could
try
to give them a few lumps before his inevitable withdrawal. And if he actually hit one of their ships . . . maybe, just maybe, he would emerge looking good after all.
“Fire as soon as they enter missile range,” he repeated. “And then prepare to withdraw once the freighters are on their way.”