Badger (15 page)

Terrier
’s sensors immediately picked out a flurry of activity around the cold chunk of material. Jacob studied the ships as the computer updated the imagery, filling in new contacts and completing its study of the Oduran ships. At least five larger vessels were present, each about the size of a frigate. Alongside those ships was a variety of smaller craft, ranging from something under the mass of a corvette to tiny craft approaching shuttles or skiffs. None of them seemed to be alert to the presence of the Navy flotilla, but then again, their sensors wouldn’t be picking up any signs of the Celostian ships for quite a while yet.

A few moments later, the Sensor officer spoke up. “Sir, I think there’s something behind the comet as well, but the debris and vapor coming off of it make it hard to get a reading.”

Jacob nodded. “If you would put it on my projection, Ensign?” The Sensor officer complied, and the view of the Oduran ships narrowed in on the space just behind the comet’s direction of travel. Water vapor, micrometeorites and other such mess had been blown off the orbiting comet and clouded the sensors’ view. Jacob had a suspicion the Odurans had planned the facility with that effect in mind. Yet it was still clear they had put
something
behind the comet, and it was likely the infrastructure for the trading post Admiral Nivrosky had mentioned.

He pulled the view back and began to study each of the ships. Since they were all undersized ships, he had no problems imagining Nivrsoky would order his destroyers to clear them out. After all, it was what the destroyers were designed for, and there was no sense in risking damage to the larger craft ahead of a major battle. Jacob frowned as the first ship came up. It was a blocky, lumpen craft, one he had never been briefed on before. While that was not surprising, as the Oduran fleet tended to include a variety of ship types and designs, Jacob couldn’t locate any defenses or weaponry onboard. After a moment’s thought, Jacob shrugged. It wasn’t hard to imagine the Odurans would send a few merchant ships into the area for their trading work, though he wondered why they wouldn’t have selected something a bit more flashy and impressive.

The next craft was a duplicate of the first, but the third ship he did recognize. It was a
Hatchet
class frigate, a twin to one of the ships in Admiral Dianton’s pirate fleet. That ship, the
Executioner
, had looked like a curving axe head with a set of DE sails attached to the point where the blade would have been fixed to the haft. Railgun mounts had decorated the flats of the ‘blade’, and it had been heavily armed enough Jacob had taken care to knock it out early in the fight.

This ship, however, had no gun mounts at all. He leaned forward, eyes searching the image. There was no sign the weapons had been replaced by torpedoes, missile tubes, or even extra point defense turrets. If anything, the Odurans had made it brutally obvious the former warship was completely undefended. Bare, blatant patches of metal where the railguns would have sat were highlighted easily by the sensors, as if they had been ‘capped’ like a merchant freighter too busy hauling cargo to defend itself.

Jacob sat back in his seat. It didn’t make sense. Even if the Odurans had a treaty with Telos, there were other pirate bases out in the frontier that would have gladly taken advantage of a helpless frigate. Capping the weapons would have made it an obvious target for any of them. The hull did not seem to have been altered either, or at least not to widen it out and create a troop transport for Oduran marines. Could the Odurans have started creating suicide ships? He shook his head; that was a tactic of desperation that almost guaranteed defeat, and in any case the Odurans were anything but desperate at the moment.

He turned to the Sensor officer. “Ensign, confirm the rest of the Oduran ships are unarmed and continue scanning for any hostile activity. Report anything armed to me immediately.”

The order seemed to startle the ensign, and a sudden burst of murmuring ran through the other officers. Commander Flint actually snapped his head around to look at Jacob in surprise. When Jacob caught his eye, however, the commander returned his attention to his console.

The flotilla had riftjumped into the system fairly close to the Oduran base, and so far the admiral had not changed their path. Jacob ran the calculations out and grunted to himself. There would be a run of about ten minutes before the ships of the flotilla reached the comet, and until then there was very little they could do besides watch and wait.

A moment later, the Communications officer spoke up. “Captain Hull, we have a signal from the flagship. The code is command level.”

Jacob nodded. “Put it through, Lieutenant.” A button glowed on his console, and he pressed it. Immediately the High Admiral’s voice came through the speaker, cool and controlled as normal.

“All units, this is the High Admiral. Analysis of the target indicates it may not have a significant guarding force at this time. Our priority will be to intercept the base and board it rather than destroy it outright; there may be some evidence regarding the Oduran’s strategic plans aboard. Accept any surrender offered by the Oduran merchants, and make sure none of them riftjump out. Begin deployment now.”

The fleet accelerated together toward the base, where the Odurans were only now reacting to the flotilla’s appearance. Jacob watched as the ships seesawed between the instinct to scatter or the desire to stay clustered near their base. He could only imagine the panicked reactions of the enemy ships as the flotilla continued to bear down on them, the frantic transmissions between the various vessels as they tried to coordinate.

It was all useless, of course. Unless the trading station itself had some fairly significant armament, the Odurans had no defense worth looking at. Kenning’s corvettes could mop up the entire group alone if it came to it, and from the way the three ships under his command were edging forward, Jacob didn’t think that Kenning would be hesitant to do it. If anyone with any brains was in command on the Oduran side, a signal for surrender would be coming in long before the flotilla reached railgun range.

Five minutes later, the Communications officer sat up in surprise. He glanced at Jacob and hesitated until he received a gesture of permission. The Oduran signal, from the beginning, played out over the bridge’s speakers.

“This is Carl Mendoza of the Oduran Reflection Project. I have been placed by President Banks in command of this outreach outpost, and the surrounding vessels are under my responsibility and authority as well.” The speaker paused, and Jacob could picture Mendoza drawing in an unsteady breath. He was likely going to be held responsible for the destruction of the trading post no matter what happened, and the next words were going to be difficult for anyone to say, no matter their rank or official status.

Nevertheless, Mendoza’s voice was firm as he continued. “We will not resist your occupation of this station. The League has established this outpost in the hope of finding com—”

The words cut off with a jarring screech of static. Jacob jerked in his chair transmission died, and his eyes widened as the number of ships in the projection suddenly multiplied. Each one glowed red as the ships riftjumped in, and the odds went from favoring the Celostian flotilla to being heavily outnumbered in a heartbeat.

Cruisers, destroyers, frigates and corvettes all flashed into sudden existence, and Jacob found himself looking at a sizable Oduran flotilla. At the center of the flotilla was a giant vessel, larger than any cruiser. It was a broad, armored turtle hurtling through space, with banks of railgun turrets and missile launchers lining its flanks. The layers of cerrafiber that sheathed it were thick enough even a plasma lance would have trouble penetrating. Along its dorsal armor were sigils that identified it as a
Banner
class dreadnaught, and unless Jacob was completely in the wrong, it was General Al-mustafa’s flagship. The Oduran commander had come early, and had brought along an entire task force for the ride.

He braced himself when the Odurans instantly opened fire. Railgun shells, missiles, torpedoes, even plasma lances filled space, but to his astonishment not a single shot had been aimed in his direction. For that matter, none of the ships in the Celostian flotilla had been targeted; it was as if the Odurans remained completely ignorant of the enemies closing on them at full speed.

Instead, the ships around the trading post received the full brunt of the attack. Three of the larger vessels disappeared in sudden, violent explosions as railguns tore them to shreds. A fourth managed to stagger out of the barrage of gunfire only for a torpedo to slam into it amidships. The unarmed merchant crumpled as if it had been made of tin foil, and then a vicious wash of plasma obliterated it. Only the fifth and final merchantmen, the modified
Hatchet
class frigate, survived. It had been crippled by the attack. As it drifted closer to a
Brute
class cruiser, helpless and unable to maneuver or fire back, two brilliant beams of thermonuclear fire converged on it. Both plasma lances cut a swath of destruction through the already weakened hull, and they left an eviscerated, burning wreck in their wake.

Skiffs, shuttles, and smaller merchantmen died as the Odurans’ fire swatted at them, wiping them away as if they were a cloud of gnats. A few managed to evade the shots long enough to bring their sails fully online, but their evasive maneuvers only delayed the inevitable. Frigates and corvettes, already at full power, swept down over them like hawks and picked them apart with ease. Jacob felt his stomach twist with disgust and shock as he realized the Odurans were even shooting escape pods, tearing them apart with casual bursts of their point defense turrets.

Even the trading post failed to escape the holocaust. The missiles fired by the Oduran newcomers curved around, tracking on the facility half-hidden in the Wayward comet’s wake. Blast after blast backlit the vaporous cloud, filling it with fire and fragments of exploding missiles. Whatever technique the Odurans had used to fasten the station in orbit, it failed under the relentless barrage, and the facility now tumbled free. Jacob had only a few heartbeats to appreciate how it must have originally looked; a stubby, sleek platform with multiple docks and plenty of storage space and communications towers.

Now, however, it had been riddled with missile fire, and flaming atmosphere trailed behind its tumbling path like a mane. As Jacob watched, another half dozen missiles curved in towards the mauled station, and detonated so close its remaining superstructure might as well have been a cobweb. The fragments spewing from those explosions swept across the station, ripping open compartments, severing supports and chewing holes in the station’s core. For a moment, the station was backlit by those blasts, an uncertain, wavering silhouette in space.

Then the station’s fusion plants let loose, and the entire facility disintegrated in a series of volcanic eruptions of plasma and shrapnel.

The entire massacre lasted only a minute. From start to finish, the newcomers had broadcasted that same, harsh jamming signal, and now that their prey had been silenced those jammers were starting to fall quiet as well. Jacob found himself letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. They’d jammed their own communications lines, not the Celostian frequencies. What benefit would that have produced? For that matter, what could possibly have convinced the Odurans to slaughter their own tradesmen?

There was no time to ponder that question. The Odurans had jumped in only a minute out of railgun range, and their formation was now a disheveled mess. Though they now far outnumbered the Celostian task force bearing down on them, the mission still had a chance to succeed if they struck now, while the enemy was still disorganized and unable to concentrate their firepower. Even as those thoughts raced through his mind, a signal came through from the
Badger
. Jacob punched the button on his console, and Admiral Nivrosky’s voice came over the circuit, hard and unwavering.

“All task force units, engage the enemy immediately. Repeat, all units open fire as the enemy comes into range. You are to place priority on disabling or destroying the enemy dreadnaught. Admiral Nivrosky out.”

Then they were on the first of the Oduran ships. A small group of frigates and corvettes had swung out to chase down a small trading craft, tearing it mercilessly apart with close range railgun fire. Their eagerness had put them closest to the Celostian task force, and the signal jamming meant their awareness of the threat had been delayed. Now the whole batch of them was directly in the path of Squadron 43.

Jacob smiled grimly at the projection as the Odurans fell within range. He tapped a control. “Captain Hull to Squadron 43, open fire on incoming Oduran light craft, then proceed to the next set of targets. Hull out.”

It was too late to avoid the destroyers completely, but that didn’t mean the Odurans didn’t try. Corvettes swerved wildly. Others shut down their DE rigs in an attempt to alter their speed and vector. Still others increased their speed, perhaps attempting to run by the destroyers on their way to the Celostian units behind them. Frigates responded more slowly, their greater size making the adjustment harder. Then, when it became all too clear the engagement was inevitable, the Odurans opened fire in a hail of railgun shells and missiles.

Jacob felt
Terrier
shake as the destroyer’s gun decks responded. Patterns of shells bracketed the onrushing Oduran craft, and Jacob saw streaks of light begin to illuminate his projection as Countermeasures picked up incoming fire. He gripped the arms of his command chair, pressing himself back into his seat. Flashes of hits
Wolfhound
had taken in Reefhome danced before his eyes, and then the shells arrived.

Terrier
shook as railgun shells exploded all around her. Some managed to penetrate her defensive screen in short bursts that bounced off the cerrafiber armor. Others exploded just short of the ship, speared at the last moment by a burst of thermonuclear fire from a defense turret. None of them had nearly as much of an effect as the three shells that broke through the swirling waves of shell fragments, the streams of plasma, and the uncaring emptiness of space to slam directly into the destroyer’s hull.