Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3) Read online

  His XO and tactical officer were silent for several seconds.

  “Sir, I thought we weren’t—”

  “—supposed to use the plasma lance except in critical situations,” Harold agreed with Saab. “Commander, if we can’t stop these bastards, the Centauri picket definitely won’t be able to!

  “Cuesta, Malie, cut the angle, I want to drop out of hyperspace two light-seconds from the bastards. Lyon, keep pounding them with missiles. Saab, set up a proton-beam and plasma-lance alpha strike for the moment we come through the portal.”

  Neither the A!Tol Imperium nor the Duchy of Terra was supposed to have plasma lances, an obsolete weapon by Core Power standards that was still almost a century ahead of the Imperium’s technology. The Duchy, however, had acquired some unusual immigrants who had been very helpful in designing their new generation of warships.

  “We’re holding against the missiles now, mostly,” Saab told him after the next salvo came in. “That won’t last once we’re in normal space; hyper screws the missiles up almost as badly as it screws up our defenses.”

  “That, Commander, is why I want you to kill the bastards once we’re in Centauri,” Harold ordered calmly.

  #

  Chapter 2

  Liberty’s sensors had a momentary, badly distorted glimpse of the Alpha Centauri system as the strangers ripped open the hyper portal and dove through. It wasn’t enough to give them any data at all, not with them several million kilometers away in hyperspace, but it was enough to allow them to localize the strangers’ emergence point.

  That, in turn, allowed Cuesta and Malie to mark the distance for their own hyper portal. Four and a half seconds after their quarry entered normal space, Liberty followed them, tearing a hole back into reality that should have brought them out barely four hundred thousand kilometers from the unknowns.

  Cuesta, however, had guessed wrong. They’d emerged “ahead” of the strange ship’s origin point, along the course toward Hope, but the hostile had instead swung “around”, orbiting around the nearest of Centauri’s suns on a course that brought them nearer to the colony but indirectly.

  “Range?” Harold asked after watching the plot take shape.

  “Unknowns are at two million kilometers and the range is growing,” Lyon reported. “Targeting with missiles, but they are well out of range for beams or the lance.”

  “Understood,” he accepted. “Popovitch, hail the picket,” he continued. “Dump our data and advise them that the unknowns have fired on a Ducal vessel. We are formally requesting the assistance of the Imperial Navy.”

  Despite the Duchy of Terra’s heavy involvement with the system, even the Terran-built ships orbiting the colony were units of the Imperial Navy. The Duchy of Terra was the majority shareholder of the Centauri Colonization Corporation but, and the Imperium was quite clear on this, Centauri was not part of the Duchy of Terra.

  Hope was an Imperial world and the Imperial Navy would defend her—not that those rules had prevented three quarters of the Imperial personnel in orbit of Hope from being human, or from the Navy making sure that the picket was under the command of one of the exactly two human flag officers in the Imperial Navy.

  “Sir, warbook has a tentative ID on the hostiles,” Saab informed Harold. “They can’t identify the class, but they’re definitely destroyers and…”

  “I’m not liking the sound of this, Commander,” Liberty’s Captain said into the silence his XO had left.

  “Sir. Computers make it sixty percent likely we’re looking at Kanzi warships of an unknown design,” the XO concluded.

  “The Kanzi don’t have missiles or shields like those,” Harold said, watching as Lyon’s latest salvo slammed home amongst the destroyers. Now he could see their shields flickering under the pounding, but if they’d managed to keep even half of their fire focused on a single target, that meant those destroyers had tougher shields than his cruiser.

  “That’s why it’s tentative,” Saab replied, an alert blaring behind him as Liberty’s shields flickered again. “Basics metrics on the drive and design structures are definitely Kanzi, but weapons, shields, engine power…all of those are way off from what we expect from the smurfs.”

  The Kanzi looked a lot like humans built on a three-quarters scale with blue fur. Their slave-taking theocracy was also the second most powerful empire in this region of space, and they’d tried to conquer Sol for themselves.

  “The Kanzi don’t want another war right now,” Harold muttered, half to himself. “Intel says they’ve barely begun deploying active defenses and don’t have CM armor, let alone shields ten times stronger than ours and point eight five missiles!”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Saab told him. “I’m studying the scans and the imaging, and I don’t think the computer’s wrong, but… The tech is wrong, but the design…the design is Kanzi to the bone.”

  “Well, it’s not going to matter today,” Harold concluded. “Get me Division Lord Harrison. I don’t care who these bastards are at this point, they are not reaching Hope!”

  #

  Division Lord Alexander Harrison of the A!Tol Imperial Navy was an older man with steel-gray hair cropped short in the style that had been common among senior United Earth Space Force officers—designed to go under the tighter vac-suit helmets of forty years earlier.

  “We received your report, Captain Rolfson,” his recorded image told Liberty’s commander. “Our own scans have come up blank as well; we have no idea who these ships are.

  “Nonetheless, they have attacked a Ducal vessel without provocation. I am deploying my ships to intercept and summoning them to surrender in the name of the Empress.”

  Harrison didn’t seem to find his own words particularly strange, though Harold certainly found it incongruous. Harrison might have signed on with Earth’s conquerors after they’d proven their bona fides by losing half a fleet defending Sol, but he’d once been a Rear Admiral in the UESF.

  “I recommend that you fall back and stay at extreme range until we’ve intercepted the strangers,” Harrison continued. “While this system is Imperial responsibility, I’m not going to turn down your help dealing with an unknown threat.

  “We will coordinate as best we can. I make it twelve minutes from your receipt of this message until we reach our own missile range of the intruders. Do me the favor of staying alive, Captain Rolfson.”

  Harold chuckled.

  “I fully intend to, people,” he told his crew. “Cuesta, pull us back to nine million kilometers. Let’s see if their computers are good enough to compensate for thirty seconds of lightspeed lag.”

  The interface drive meant his ship didn’t noticeably suffer from relativistic dilation, but his sensors and his communications were still limited to speed of light. Liberty’s missiles could travel nine million kilometers, but she couldn’t reliably hit an evading target with modern drives at that range.

  Hopefully, neither could the strange Kanzi ships.

  “We got one!” Lyon suddenly announced as they fell back. “Shields are failing on Bogey One, multiple hits clean through—damn! She’s still intact.”

  Harold focused one of his repeater screens on Bogey One, studying the recording of the hits. The shields had gone down, flickering and coming back up after a few moments but allowing four of Lyon’s missiles to strike home.

  “We got a piece of her but she’s still flying,” he said softly. “CM armor, no question about it.”

  “But no active defenses,” Saab replied from the secondary control. “That doesn’t line up with intel about the Kanzi at all.”

  “Whatever these people are, we’re going to have to ask questions of anyone we take alive,” Harold said grimly. “For now, keep pounding Bogey One and make sure Harrison’s people know we hit her.”

  As he spoke, Liberty lurched again, her own shields flickering and allowing two more of the terrifyingly fast missiles through.

  “Plates holding,” Moon reported instantly. “Support struc
ture badly fracturing. Next hits will break plates off.”

  That was not good at all.

  “Cuesta, pull us back out of range until Harrison moves in,” Harold ordered. “I can’t believe I’m running from four goddamn destroyers, but I am not losing this ship when I have reinforcements close to hand.

  “Keep us dancing,” he continued. “I don’t trust their range to be our range, not when they’ve got a tenth-of-lightspeed advantage on their missile drives.”

  #

  Almost as soon as Liberty had fallen back out of range, the intruders turned inward, heading toward Harrison’s picket force—and for Hope itself.

  “Bogey One is leaking atmosphere,” Lyon reported as the Terran cruiser swung around in the enemy’s wake. “We hit her pretty hard, but she’s keeping up with the rest of their force.”

  Harold nodded silently. Liberty was currently running at flank speed, falling even farther out of range every second as the attacker’s speed advantage pulled them forward.

  “No sprint for at least five minutes,” Moon told him. “Then only ninety seconds. All you’ll get today.”

  “We’ve already run at sprint for longer than we’re supposed to,” he confirmed. “Thank you, Lieutenant Commander.”

  “What’s the plan, sir?” Saab asked. “Harrison is six minutes from range, but if we couldn’t take these bastards…”

  “Harrison has eight ships, not one, and three of them are modern,” Harold reminded Saab. “But you’re right, XO. I’m not leaving half a dozen destroyers and light cruisers to face off with a fleet that gave us a run for our money.

  “Cuesta: thirty seconds before Harrison hits range, I want full sprint mode right up their tailpipes,” he ordered. “If they think point six is the best we can do, let’s give them a shock. If all we can do is push them further into Harrison’s grasp, fine, but I want lance range if you can give it to me.”

  “We’ll only have six thousand KPS on them even at full sprint,” the navigator said. “Cutting the angle means we’ll pull into missile range a few seconds after Harrison, but unless they run back at us, there is no way I can give you lance range, sir.”

  “Fair,” Harold acknowledged. “Get us in range for the missiles and then keep an eye on their course for me. If they turn, I want us to cut the vector. They’re between us and Hope now; they shouldn’t be able to get out of this system without coming within our beam range.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Harrison has hailed them three times, sir,” Popovitch reported. “Imperial frequencies, Kanzi frequencies and general multinational emergency frequencies.” The dark-haired Ukrainian man shook his head.

  “Dead silence on all frequencies. They don’t want to talk to us.”

  “Then this discussion continues in the only language they appear willing to try,” Harold told him. “Until they either talk or we’ve blown them to hell.”

  Or, somehow, four apparently Kanzi destroyers took out over four times their tonnage in Imperial warships, with all the horror that implied for the current balance of power. It was the Captain’s job to portray confidence, though, which meant that was a thought he couldn’t share.

  #

  The four destroyers continued on a head-on course for Hope, giving the eight ships coming to meet them about the same attention as they were giving Liberty trailing in their wake. The lead Sunlight-class ship was Division Lord Harrison’s flagship, Gleaming Dawn—an A!Tol-built, Terran-upgraded, light cruiser with the same style of defensive suite as Liberty.

  The two Capital-class destroyers also equipped with the modern defenses flanked Dawn, while the five ships without followed in a second echelon behind Harrison’s flagship. The Descendant-class ships carried more modern beam weapons than the Capitals but lacked the updated defenses of the Terran-modified destroyers.

  “Harrison is in range in thirty seconds,” Cuesta reported. “Going to full sprint.”

  Despite Moon’s assurances that the cruiser could do it, Harold found himself holding his breath as Liberty lurched to her full power.

  “Stabilizing at sixty-two point six percent of lightspeed,” the navigator concluded. “Our missile range in forty-five seconds from…now.”

  “Launchers armed. I have the bastards dialed in as cleanly as possible and the Bucklers deployed,” Lyon confirmed. “Harrison is firing, focusing on Bogey One.”

  “He’s the anvil. Let’s play hammer. Time our salvos to arrive simultaneously with his,” Harold ordered. “Let’s see if Bogey One’s shields can take that.”

  The answer was rapidly proven to be no.

  Between the three cruisers and six destroyers, Bogey One was the target of over a hundred missiles, and her shields had clearly been damaged by the earlier hits. A single missile—one of Liberty’s—punched through from the first salvo and sent the destroyer tumbling, her drive momentarily disabled.

  It never came back up, as the second hundred-plus-missile salvo slammed home. Bogey One’s shields collapsed completely, and at least fifty missiles moving at three-quarters of the speed of light struck home.

  “One down,” Harold said calmly. “Well done, Lyon. Coordinate with Task Group Centauri and let’s send the rest to join them!”

  “Sprint is done,” Cuesta warned. “We’re losing ground; we’re only going to have missile range for two more salvos.”

  Harold nodded, watching the range suddenly start increasing even faster than it had been dropping—and the range between Harrison and the attackers was coming down even faster.

  “In just over a minute, they’re going to hit beam range of Harrison’s fleet and punch right through him,” Saab said quietly in his ear. “What the hell are they playing at?”

  “I’m not even certain they’re trying to fight us so much as get past us,” Harold concluded aloud. “Whatever’s going on, they’re trying to get to Hope, not kill us. Harrison can stay with them the whole way, and we can intercept them if or when they break for hyperspace, but I’m not sure we’re going to stop them.”

  The Imperial detachment had seen the same thing Harold and Saab had, their courses reversing as Harrison continued to keep his better-defended ships—ships that had so far wiped out every missile the strangers had sent at them—in front of the others and all of his ships on a vector that would keep them in range of the attackers.

  “We’re out until they run,” Lyon announced. “Our last missiles will hit home as they reach beam range of the Imperials. After that, we’re out of range unless they hold in orbit or make a break outward.”

  “Watch for breakaways,” Harold ordered. “Harrison’s people are closer, but they’re about to be in the middle of it—which is exactly when I’d expect them to try to hide landing-craft launches.”

  His bridge was silent.

  “That would be insane,” Saab replied. “They’d lose half at least!”

  “Only if Harrison realized it was happening. The computers will spot it, but in a beam duel, no one is going to pay attention,” Harold concluded. “So, let’s watch for Harrison’s people and make sure Hope knows if they’re going to have guests.”

  The first thing Harold realized, watching the three remaining destroyers plunge toward the defending fleet, was that they weren’t evading. Harrison’s ships were dodging back and forth in three dimensions around their base course, the maneuverability afforded by the interface drive allowing them to render long-range targeting for direct fire almost impossible.

  The attackers simply charged forward, allowing a clean line of fire that the Imperials finally gave into the temptation of. Liberty’s computers drew the swarm of proton beams in as clean white lines that connected the firing ship and its victim—and none of the attackers dodged.

  The major weakness of the shield used by most powers of the galaxy was sustained beam fire, and the Imperial beams tore through the attackers’ shields in a matter of moments, and for about half a second, Harold thought this extended nightmare was over.

  Then t
he beams disappeared. Somewhere between the outer shield and the hull of the strange alien ships, there were brilliant bursts of light and the proton beams simply stopped.

  “What the hell?” Lyon demanded aloud.

  “They have some kind of secondary shield that’s stopping the proton beams cold,” Saab concluded as his secondary control team tore into the data. “I’ve never heard of anything like it, but it’s either a hundred percent efficient or close enough that the beams aren’t even scratching the armor!”

  That was impossible…but it was exactly what Harold was seeing. Three ships sailed through the massed beams of eight without even noticing, approaching calmly until they were exactly one light-second away from Harrison’s ships—and then fired their own weapons.

  Gleaming Dawn simply…disappeared. One moment, the light cruiser was running ahead of her enemies to keep the range open, flinging missiles and coherent energy back at the attackers. The next, she was an expanding ball of fire.

  The second Sunlight-class cruiser followed, but she didn’t die alone. The Imperial ships’ beams might not have been doing much, but they’d kept up the missile bombardment and they were firing at close range. A second destroyer came apart, followed by two of the Descendants among the defenders.

  Then both fleets were breaking apart, vectoring away from each other at over half the speed of light apiece. The two remaining strange destroyers appeared undamaged but out of missiles, and the Imperial detachment had clearly lost their nerve with half of their number destroyed.

  “Cuesta, can we cut them off?” Harold said grimly.

  “Yes, sir,” the navigator confirmed. “I don’t care how they vector; we have the angle advantage now. I can get you lance range.”

  “Good, because apparently our proton beams are useless,” the Captain replied. “Lyon, did they do anything before they broke off?”

  “Exactly what you expected, sir,” she said grimly. “I’ve got what looks like eighteen heavy assault shuttles heading toward the planet.”