Opening Moves (19 page)

“
Just remember that the Érenni are powerful in defense but useless in attack. They literally have no concept of mobile warfare, in space!” he shook his head. He had never been able to make sense of the all too pacifist race. It was a wonder the Érenni had ever made it out of their own gravity well, given that at some point some Érenni matriarch surely must have thought fire was too dangerous a thing to use. “Use these apparent strengths against them, turn their strength into weakness!”

“
I will, brother. And you watch out for the Tuathaan, they are supposed to be vicious animals.”

“
They are,” Corr'tane said darkly, an image of their father's ship burning under Tuathaan guns came unbidden into his mind. They were going to suffer for the pain they had brought his family in the past. “Sister, do you have the weapons I developed?”

“
Yes, they are in our magazine on the SUNBURST. Our orders are to use them at the earliest opportunity.”

“
When you deploy them get full readings, as much data as you can,” he enthused. “This is ten years of work finally reaching fruition, sister. We must know its effects and the efficiency of the delivery system.”

“
Corr'tane, you over think these things,” his sister laughed. It was a clear, beautiful sound that reminded him of simpler days. “Of course I'll take the measurements. I, more than anyone, know how hard you've worked on these devices. They will work, and it will be to the betterment of all our people, and the terror of our enemies!”

“
Victory, sister,” Corr'tane announced proudly. “And life to our people.”

“
Stay safe, you're the only family I have left!” she grinned. “It would get very boring without you.”

“
Same to you! Watch those Érenni lasers, they are very nasty at long range and go through our ships disturbingly well.”

“
I've seen the briefings,” she chided. “You really don't need to keep worrying about me.”

“
Older brother's privilege,” Corr'taine claimed with a shrug.

“
Older!? By about fifteen seconds!” she chuckled.

It made her look way too young and too good to wear the crimson tunic with the black arms of a commanding officer. More than anything else Corr'tane wanted her out of the danger zone. And more than anything else he knew that if he tried to
get
her out it would lead to a break between the two of them. “Respect your elders,” he said in a firm manner before breaking into a smile. “I'll be waiting to hear your victory report.”

“
And I expect to see yours on the news net. May fate smile on us.”

“
Fate has nothing which a few well-placed nukes won't reverse,” Corr'tane intoned. “Trust in your own judgment and don't be afraid to swamp a location with massive firepower if you feel the need.”

“
I can see why the fleet likes you!” Pyshana laughed. “With that attitude you'll win a lot of friends.”

“
Just concentrate on winning battles. Remember to avoid the cities, if you can. We don't need  slave populations, just living space. If the Érenni happen to have built their planetary defenses too close to their cities, though...” he shrugged. “Worse for them. Breaking their defenses is your paramount objective at this phase of the campaign,” he told her the same things he told his own officers. “If you're in doubt just destroy everything. Leave nothing behind you but blackened ash and it will drive terror before you like a storm. Kill their morale, make them fear you and you have already defeated them.”

“
I'd hate to be your enemy,” Pyshana observed. “I better go, we're almost out of the local gravity well.”

“
Take care of yourself,” Corr'tane nodded. “I'll be waiting.”

Senfina Colony, Érenni Republics

Once this particular part of the galaxy had been tranquil, a peaceful and blissful location to exist and grow old at. The planet itself was capable of supporting generous amounts of life and had a rich ecosystem along with numerous useful minerals in the nearby asteroids and more barren worlds orbiting the local star. To the Érenni it was a semi-paradise and a great many had settled here.

But in recent years something had changed. Now a ship entering Senfina was greeted by pickets around the borders of the inner system and had to follow set routes given to it by an Érenni traffic control station hovering above the ellipsis.

The planet itself, while still a blue and green orb, was ringed in steel and dormant fire. Vast swathes of mines and laser platforms orbited the colony along with a handful of space stations and orbital control facilities. Standing out above them all was a massive
Fathal
-class battle station. The word meant something along the lines of 'protective sign' or 'gesture warding off evil' in the Érenni language, Llyr had explained to them when they had first come across one of these giants. The station would dominate any battle fought for the planet and its inhabitants. From a distance it looked hugely impressive, its main guns large enough to be visible to the bare eye from a dozen kilometers away. However, up close it was a slightly different matter. Construction teams were crawling over the station, working frantically to finish it. Massive bundles of spare parts floated beside it waiting to be attached. It had its teeth, but it wasn't ready for a real battle.

Tarek Winters observed these strengths and weaknesses as his freighter detached from the civilian spaceport within sight of the great complex. The IRON MAIDEN had been plying its trade across Érenni space for a year now and he had become a familiar sight to the patrol ships between the colonies of Senfina, Ampleksa and the Érenni home world,
Akvô. He had also taken the opportunity to travel farther into the space controlled by the Pact of Ten Suns, delivering cargo shipments to Kom and Agama space. He and the crew had even been able to make a few runs back to Union space, but most of his trips were within Érenni and Tson territory.

He had first arrived, against his better wishes, soon after the fall of Toklamakun. At that time the Érenni race had been petrified of the chance of an attack from their Ashani neighbors. The initial panic had disappeared after a month or so, but to their credit the Érenni government, in an unusual bout of speed and unity, had stuck to its plans and begun a massive military program to prepare for an eventual war with the Dominion. The defenses at Senfina were one of the more obvious statements of that policy. Whoever Tarek spoke to, they always answered with the same response: it wasn't a case of if the Dominion came, but when.

“Clearing the minefield,” Alexej reported, the massive man manipulating the ship's controls with surprising precision and gentleness. There was a moment of hush as the small ship made it past the outer markers, then general relief as they entered empty space.

They had been assigned as part of a convoy to Akvô transporting civilians from the colony to the greater safety of the home world. About two dozen assorted freighters from various races gathered beyond the defenses and formed up underneath the watchful eyes of four Érenni frigates. Almost all of the MAIDEN's jobs had involved moving people from one location to another, usually from Ampleksa which the Érenni had decided to abandon in the face of attack. Knowing they couldn't construct an adequate defense in time and knowing their small fleet could not contest the planet, the Republics had agreed on an orderly evacuation of all civilians, leaving just a skeleton military garrison to operate the orbital defenses that were in place. It had taken almost a year but the entire population had been moved to more easily defensible locations in the Republics. And while neither the evacuees nor their new hosts were always happy their new homes at least they were considered safe.

“Keep pace with the convoy,” Tarek said with a wry grin. “We are, after all, paid by the hour.”

The four crew smiled silently. Running an independent freighter, even a comparably smaller one like the IRON MAIDEN, was a costly business. But they had become very rich thanks to the current climate of anxiety. Wealthy business women would pay a considerable amount for a place on a freighter heading for Tson space or farther afield. When they finally made their way home Tarek and his crew could all happily retire in comfort now.

Tarek had wanted to head home a month ago, but there were still rich contracts to be had and his crew had convinced him to stay around. Somehow Annie Saito kept on finding the premium jobs and making them all very wealthy. It was the best damn year the ship had ever seen and none of them were ready for it to end.

The convoy was moving gradually towards the edge of the safe transition zone when the MAIDEN's sensors began to pick up the heat bleed-off signatures commonly heralding incoming ships.

“More transporters, I'd guess,” Rául said from the navigation chair. “Seems like traffic control actually will have to do some work for the money they cut from our ribs in tariffs.”

“
That's one biiig thermal signature,” Alexej noted quietly. “I didn't think any other convoy was due to arrive in system today?”

Tarek was about to agree, when instinct suddenly kicked in. “Alexej, hard about, reverse the port engines and overpower starboard! Get us the hell back to the planet!”

“Sir?” the big Eurasian blinked.

“
Just do it!” Tarek yelled. “Annie, get the laser clusters online and warm up the ECM suite. Damn it, I knew this would happen!”

“
What?” Rául asked in the confusion, a nervous edge in his voice as the freighter turned sharply and began accelerating away. “What's going on?”

“
Invasion.”

The thermal emissions sparked as excess energies from the transition back into normspace evaporated into the vacuum. From the nothingness a squadron of four cruisers materialized, and with its scores of fighters emerged, proceeding at full burn into the system.

Must've transported them over inside their own warp bubbles, Tarek's mind noted a lot more coolly than he felt at the moment. Clever buggers.

They were certainly not Pact ships. The newcomers moved with purpose and aggression behind their emerging screen of parasite crafts. But for one short moment everything seemed to hang in the balance. It appeared as if
neither
side had been aware of an opponent right on the far side of 'their' transition zone. That was the general problem of foldspace and normspace: one couldn't look from the one into the other. Planets, moons, even large asteroids were easy enough to detect from within the fold by their mass signature. But not even the largest ships in the known galaxy had even a tenth of the mass necessary to register as even a fluke on the gravitics of a ship in foldspace. But the momentary respite didn't last. While the convoy split and panicked the intruders held course and detached their fighter screens to go and attack their confused prey.

The four escorting frigates would have been a poor match for one cruiser, let alone a full squadron with fighter escorts. Three of them rapidly broke away and accelerated to keep up with the convoy, their guns suddenly spluttering to life against the swarming fighters.

One frigate however did not. It held its course for the transition zone and increased power to its engines. The captain pressed his vessel forward into the maw of the enemy. It wasn't like the Érenni to perform such an attack. Perhaps the ship had a mercenary crew or perhaps, finally, the desperate situation had triggered something in the peaceful race's psyche. On the IRON MAIDEN Captain Winters didn't know what it had been, as his sensors showed the suicidal attack into a storm of plasma beams and missiles. The ship was torn apart and its wreckage floated along beneath the four attacking cruisers and away into the blackness, the tumbling metal representing the end of the uneasy peace in the galaxy and the opening of total war.

“
Those are Dominion light cruisers!” Rául shrieked. “What the hell is going on!?”

“
I told you they were going to hit the Érenni!” Tarek said emphatically. “Didn't I say '
The Dominion will attack
' before we came out here? Didn't I say '
Let's go home before it happens
', huh? But, oh no! We gotta do
one
more shipment!” he grimaced. “Well, I hope you're happy!”

“
Those fighters are hitting the convoy,” Annie warned. “They'll be after us soon.”

The IRON MAIDEN was smaller than the commercial freighters and much faster. It had completed its turn and was beginning to accelerate away from the main group of ships when the Ashani fighters reached them. They were met by solid defensive fire but the nimble craft mostly avoided the barrage. They were too fast for the civilians' tracking systems, had their own ECM and operated under the umbrella of their cruisers' vastly more powerful electronic warfare suites. Doing zoom and boom attacks they began picking off key components of the freighters such as engines, weapons and even deliberately targeting the crew compartments. The frigate escorts were meanwhile being disposed of by the Ashani cruiser with contemptible ease. The traditional Érenni design philosophy of strong defenses over offensive capabilities kept them alive far longer than most ships their size but it was clearly a one sided battle. It did, however, keep the Ashani warships occupied enough for Captain Calendar to try and make his escape.