Authors: Christopher Nuttall
It had crossed his mind that the box contained something illegal, but he’d been reassured by the simple fact that very little was actually completely forbidden in the Fairfax Cluster. He didn't live in the Federation, after all, and Xenophon had no sin laws. The payment – half in advance – had been enough to quiet his fears. He’d taken his crew to Xenophon and docked at the station. Now, all he had to do was wait for the CO and hand over the box.
***
Deep in the bowels of his ship, a detector registered that they had docked at the station. It checked and double-checked, then turned off the magnetic field preventing the antimatter charge from meeting matter. Seconds later, the explosion vaporised the freighter and shattered the orbital battlestation.
***
“I’m picking up a signal from our scout,” Dana reported. “The station is gone!”
“Good,”
Jason said. A single orbital battlestation was a tricky customer. He had no idea how Mr. Ford had obtained the codes to allow him to slip an antimatter charge past the station's defensive shields, but the plan appeared to have worked perfectly. “Raise shields, then take us out into normal space.”
***
Commander Jean Hammond stared in disbelief at where the colossal orbital battlestation had been. It was as large as a superdreadnaught, with twice as much firepower; she’d
known
that it was almost completely invulnerable to anything smaller than a superdreadnaught squadron or a full wing of starfighters. The station had cost half the planet’s military budget for two years, yet it had been worthwhile. No one had committed an act of aggression in Xenophon orbit ever since the station had been declared operational.
Until now, she realised. Terrorists – normal terrorists – didn't have access to antimatter. It was one of the few products that both the Federation and the Bottleneck Republic explicitly banned in private hands. If someone had gone to all that effort to take out the station, they had something more in mind than random terrorism. Unless she missed her guess, the system was about to be attacked.
She glared down at her console as
Primrose
came to life. The destroyer had been completely stepped down, allowing the engineers a chance to work on her drives; no one had anticipated trouble at Xenophon. Everyone knew that there were raiders attacking alien refugee camps, but Xenophon was actually well defended. Or it had been, she acknowledged grimly. Now, the defence rested in the hands of a destroyer and a handful of automated weapons platforms.
“Commander,” the tactical officer said, “everyone in orbit is breaking loose and running.”
“Let them go,” Jean ordered. She would have liked to stop them – basic tactics suggested that one of them was spying for the raiders – but she knew better than to try. In the time it would take her to stop one of them, the others would make it into hyperspace. “Link us into the planetary defence network and ...”
“Contact,” the sensor officer snapped. There was a hint of panic in her voice. “I make
fifteen
portals; I say again, fifteen portals.”
“Take a deep breath,” Jean said. The destroyer’s senior sensor officer was down on the planet, along with her Captain and a third of the crew. “Then give me a list, calmly.”
The sensor officer swallowed, then looked up. “I make it five light cruisers, seven destroyers and three frigates,” she reported. “They’re charging weapons.”
“Bring up our point defence,” Jean ordered. She rapidly considered her options. The Colonial Militia was trained to place their bodies between the colonies and harm’s way, but
Primrose
was badly outnumbered and outgunned. “Then send an emergency distress call.”
“Aye, sir,” the communications officer said.
She sounded hopeful. Jean knew better. It would be at least two hours before anyone could reach Xenophon, more than enough time for the attackers to lay waste to the planet and vanish back into hyperspace. And even if they did, they would need to mass a formidable squadron to take on the raiders. The Colonial Militia was too badly spread out to concentrate its forces quickly.
“The planetary defence force is launching fighters,” the tactical officer reported. “We’re linked into the planetary datanet; automated weapons platforms are standing by, ready to fire. Planetary defence grid armed, ready to fire.”
Jean shook her head. Xenophon hadn't built the interlocking defences of Fairfax and the other major colonies, let alone the colossal defences of Earth. They might bleed the raiders, but it was unlikely that they could stop them. All the starfighter pilots could do was die bravely.
“Picking up a signal,” the communications officer said. “It’s being transmitted all over the system.”
“Put it through,” Jean said.
“... Is the Colonial Liberation Front,” a voice said. It sounded masculine – and overexcited. “No more will our worlds be blighted by alien filth. No more will our worlds be sacrificed to the interests of Federation politicians who did not share our blood and suffering. No more!”
There was a long pause. “All Colonial Militia starships and personnel are ordered to stand down and prepare to be boarded,” it added. “If you do not attempt to block our path to the refugee camps, you will not be harmed. Our war is only with the aliens and those in the Federation who support them. I say again, stand down and prepare to be boarded. You will not be harmed as long as you do not try to interfere.”
“The message is repeating,” the communications officer said.
Jean swore, wishing that the Captain was on the deck. She would have to make the decision herself. Dying in defence of the colonies was one thing, but dying in defence of aliens ... assuming, of course, that the raiders were telling the truth. She could easily see them telling the defenders to stand down, then blowing their helpless ships out of space. And they
had
killed over two thousand personnel on the battlestation.
“The freighters don't seem to believe them,” the tactical officer reported. “They’re opening up portals and escaping into hyperspace.”
“I don't believe them either,” Jean said. “Lock weapons on target. Prepare to engage.”
***
“They’re not standing down, sir,” Dana reported. “They’re actually holding their ground.”
Jason
shrugged. After the destruction of the battlestation, he'd known that the defenders – including a destroyer that had somehow been missed by the scout – would be in an evil mood. The starfighters couldn't escape, either; their only hope was to delay him long enough for assistance to arrive from elsewhere. But unless the scouts had missed an entire battlefleet nearby there would be no help for the planet before the operation was completed and the assault fleet withdrew.
“Open fire as soon as we enter missile range,” he ordered. “I want that destroyer smashed before she has a chance to do any actual damage.”
He half-expected the destroyer to retreat as soon as it became clear that the raiders would not be deterred, but the little ship held her ground. Indeed, she was actually supported by a wing of starfighters, which lanced forward right into the teeth of Jason’s point defence. The point defence opened fire as soon as the craft came into range, forcing the starfighters to throw themselves into unpredictable patterns. Actually
hitting
them was a matter of luck rather than judgement, but individual starfighters were not particularly dangerous. Keeping them separate would prevent them from posing a major threat.
“Two starfighters gone,” Dana said, as the craft vanished in sparks of light. They couldn't hope to survive even a glancing blow. “Enemy destroyer entering range ... now.”
“Fire,” Jason ordered.
Havoc
shuddered as she unleashed a spread of missiles. The destroyer slipped into an evasive pattern, then closed in, switching to rapid fire. Jason was impressed, despite himself; the enemy commander had picked the best tactic to inflict some damage on the raiders before the battle reached its inevitable conclusion. But the closer she came, the more likely it was that she would be hit ... phase cannons opened fire, burning into her shields and scorching her hull. And yet the destroyer kept coming ...
***
Jean swore as alarms echoed through the hull. She'd gambled and failed; the enemy crew might not have been militiamen, but they’d practiced enough to link their ships together into a single datanet.
Primrose
had been badly damaged; the hyperdrive generator had been knocked offline, ensuring that escape into hyperspace was impossible. If she hadn't taken her ship in too close ... angrily, she shook her head. Their death was inevitable.
“Take us right towards them,” she ordered. If nothing else, they could take an enemy ship with them. She had no idea where the raiders were getting their supplies, but surely losing a light cruiser would hurt. “And take off all the safety interlocks. Ramming speed!”
***
“Sir,” Dana snapped. “The enemy craft is on a collision course with
Hammer
!”
Jason cursed. “Target her with all weapons,” he snapped. He’d made a mistake and underestimated his enemy. It was rare for the Colonial Militia to use a destroyer in suicide tactics. Even during the worst of the war, suicidal tactics had been reserved for freighters – and only then in the most desperate circumstances. They had never had the ships to spare. “Take her out ...”
“Too late,” Dana said. On the display, the destroyer icon and the light cruiser icon merged, then winked out. Both craft had been completely destroyed by the impact. There was no point in searching for survivors. “They’re gone.”
“Clear the rest of the planet’s orbitals, then bring up the bombardment plans,” Jason ordered, coldly. “I want the orbitals swept clean of everything that might be a danger before we enter orbit.”
“Understood, sir,” Dana said. “Weapons locked on target and firing now.”
The squadron spread out as it approached the planet, firing constantly. Freighters that failed to escape in time were picked off, followed rapidly by the orbital installations. Most of the defences on the ground were largely ineffectual; they fired once or twice, only to reveal their location to the watching ships. KEW strikes rapidly obliterated them, ensuring that they couldn't pose a threat to the shuttles.
“Orbital space cleared,” Dana reported. She sounded satisfied, even though some of the material they'd destroyed would have been worth quite a bit on the black market. “The shuttles are loaded, ready to go.”
“Excellent,” Jason said. He couldn't help feeling a cold sensation in his chest. Bombarding a planet from orbit was one thing, but this was quite another. “Give the order. The landing force is to be deployed immediately.”
His lip twisted into a bitter smile. “And take out that alien camp from orbit,” he added. It wouldn't do to ignore their stated purpose in attacking the planet. After this, no one would want an alien camp anywhere near their star system. “I want it smashed flat.”
“Yes, sir,” Dana said. There was a dull thud as the assault shuttles disengaged from the starship, heading down towards the planet. “The nukes are on their way.”
Sandy had been told almost nothing about the plan, let alone the target, until the countdown had almost reached zero. The tactical staff had speculated endlessly, like spacers everywhere, but none of them had even guessed at the truth, right up to the moment the portals opened and they arrived at Xenophon. None of them would have believed it, she realised, as the destroyer and the starfighters fought their brief futile battles. Xenophon had been heavily defended, at least by colonial standards.
There was a battlestation,
she thought numbly, as the last of the starfighters rammed a raider destroyer, only to flare out of existence against the craft’s shields. But there was nothing more than a cluster of debris where the battlestation had once been.
How the hell did they take it out
?
She watched, helpless to intervene, as the raider fleet closed in on the planet. It fired constantly, blasting satellites and weapons platforms out of space – and targeting any freighter too slow to escape into hyperspace. Sandy knew that there would be no more sympathy for the raiders among the colonials, not now that innocent and desperately needed freighters had been destroyed, but the thought provided no consolation. There was no one left to help Xenophon before the raiders descended on her.