(INS Vindicator of Truth, Sedara System)
Lieutenant Kaeden Knox relaxed slightly in his command chair as he went through some of the paperwork that always accompanied command. His command. He was Captain of the first of the Vindicator-class corvettes to be produced following the lessons of Coldana, currently on its shakedown cruise through the border worlds.
The Vindicators were a step between the Assassins that had stirred up so many mixed feelings in the fleet and the traditional Tenhauser-class. While still a corvette, he was certain that his ship could easily take on ships far outmassing it, and come out ahead, even if they didn’t have the ‘sneak attack’ weapons of the Assassins.
The fleet’s rebuilding after the Civil War was continuing, allowing for a lot of officers like himself to get the chance to advance at rates that would have been impossible only a few years ago. With that rebuilding, of course, came new ships and new technologies. Some, like the Assassins, were brought in from outside. Others, like his Vindicator of Truth were the product of the Navy’s own research.
Eighth Fleet, which the Vindicator was a part of, had the responsibility of patrolling this sector of the border with the Ihm Imperium. Given that the Imperium was going through some turmoil at the moment, that meant this was the border where the Empire was most likely to be threatened. So, obviously, this is where the first of the new ships were going to be stationed.
The Vindicators were clearly going to replace the aging Tenhausers in the fleet. The Tenhausers were nearing fifty years old as a design class, which meant that it was high time for new designs to be brought in. Unfortunately, ships could only be built so quickly, and crews took longer to train.
Of course, the Assassins clearly had their uses. Anyone who had witnessed the Civil War would have to admit that. Everyone knew that Naval Intelligence had a couple Assassins for covert missions. And scuttlebutt was saying that Admiral Han was behind a push to make a separate Stealth Command from the main fleet, essentially having ‘home-grown’ versions of Black Star’s Assassin and Reaper ships to serve the same role as submarines in a blue-water navy on ancient Earth.
The idea made sense to him. Stealth ships were ideal for patrolling a border, but they did not tend to mesh well with the rest of the fleet. The simple fact was that ships designed to be ambush predators did not fit the same role as those designed to help defend a fleet against a variety of threats. This had been shown the few times that Black Star had been forced to defend, rather than go on the attack.
So, having the Vindicator-class to fill the role the Tenhausers did, and having a detachment of stealth ships that could be used solely for offense made sense. If it was the Navy from before the Civil War, he would have said that it made too much sense to ever become reality. But this was a new Navy, and there had been a lot of changes for the better. It could be that—
Alarms cut his musings short. Without even thinking about it, instincts drilled into him at the Naval Academy snapped into place. “Report!”
“Captain, incoming alert by message drone from one of the border pickets. INS Tiger, an Assassin. Ihm Navy has crossed the border in force. Tiger reports over three hundred ships, numbers still rising.”
“Target?”
“Sedara, sir.”
“What else is in system?”
“INS Binlaster and Yadara, both Liberty-class frigates. One squadron of Storm Kings on the orbital platform. The rest is civilian shipping. Closest reinforcements are Bandar Base in the Uldat System.”
Damn. Uldat was nearly seven days away at maximum warp, even redlining the engines. Transition drives could cut some of that time, of course, but ships transitioning in would need to stop at the heliopause! Even if they then turned and jumped in, the enemy would be well aware of them from the tachyon pulse.
“Captain Dotson aboard the Yadara for you, sir.”
“On screen.”
Captain Kamden Dotson appeared on the screen, looking as though he had just gotten out of bed. Before the war, some officers might have been offended at the Captain not being perfectly groomed, even in an emergency. Those officers had, more often than not, sided with the Usurper, and joined his cult. They’d been purged from the Navy, and good riddance to them.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Captain Knox, I take it you’ve seen the alert from the Tiger?”
“Yes, Captain. The Vindicator of Truth stands ready to do our duty for the Empire.”
“Very good, Captain. On my authority, I am initiating an emergency evacuation of all spaceworthy ships from Sedara, with as many civilians as they can carry. Falcon Squadron will deploy with the evacuation ships as parasite craft, to safeguard the civilians. I have already sent copies of these orders through the Hypercom to Admiral Landry at Bandar.”
The seasoned captain looked Knox dead in the eyes, as though trying to pierce his soul through the viewscreen. “Captain, this is not a fight we can win. Even if Eighth Fleet were with us, we’d be outnumbered at least two to one, probably more.”
He took a breath. “We can’t win this, but we can buy time for what civilians we can. Yadara and Binlaster will meet you at the heliopause, stop them as far out as we can. All ships to begin seeding the area with as many tarpits as is possible.”
Knox nodded. “Understood, sir. Proceeding to the heliopause now.”
(Main Bridge, INS Traitor’s Bane, Bandar Base, Uldat System)
“Report!”
All eyes turned to Admiral Bella Landry as she stormed onto the main bridge of her flagship, the Traitor’s Bane. Captain Hodges nodded to her, and said, “Admiral, emergency message from Sedara, Yadara reporting. Tiger detected a massive Ihm invasion force heading for Sedara while on deep space patrol. Number in the three hundreds and climbing as of last message.”
“Cancel all shore leaves. All crews to repair aboard immediately. Put the entire sector on invasion alert. Forward the invasion alert to High Command, the Admiralty has to be informed of this.”
“Crews are already returning, ma’am.” Hodges looked to his communications officer who nodded once, and turned back to their station. “Word going out to sector command and the Admiralty as we speak.”
“Excellent work, Hodges. How long until the fleet is ready to move out?”
“We were not expecting an Ihm invasion, so we were on low alert status. Crews should be back aboard inside the next twelve hours. If we start warming up the engines now, we could be underway at that point.”
“Do it. And see if you can expedite the crew returns if possible.” She took a breath. “How long until the Ihm get to Sedara?”
Hodges motioned to a chart of the region. “Tiger’s last known position puts them in this area, on the return leg of their patrol route. Unless the Ihm have had a substantial technological breakthrough, then their ships are on par in terms of speed with ours. So, they should be arriving in Sedara approximately ten hours from now.”
“Damn. We only have two Liberty-class frigates and a squadron of Storm Kings out there, right?”
“Actually, the Vindicator of Truth is in Sedara now, as part of its shakedown cruise.”
“I see.” Landry red through the communique from Yadara’s captain. Good, the Captain wasn’t an idiot. Tarpits at the heliopause would give the civilians more time to evacuate. There was no way that they’d be able to get everyone out, however. There just weren’t enough ships. Not enough time.
Time. That was the problem. It would be twelve hours until they could get underway. The enemy would be in Sedara in ten. With hyperdrives, it would take another seven days to get there, by which time the enemy would have ransacked Sedara and moved on.
“Have all ships start plotting a microwarp jump to the heliopause, and start running the calculations for a mass transition to Sedara. Destination local coordinates three five seven mark three. I want formation exit, all fighters, all bombers ready to scramble the moment we transition. Arm bombers for anti-ship attacks.”
(Fleet Command Cluster, IAS Perfection Made Manifest, approaching Sedara)
“The enemy ship has been destroyed, most resplendent Warmaster.”
Warmaster Rhiz Chokiyuss looked up from admiring the polished shine upon her claws, the perfect gleaming of the light against her scales. The Perfection was her flagship, gifted to her by the Imperatrix herself, the Prophet of Baxanke, the True Goddess of the Ihm. By the Imperatrix’s will, as the ascended harbinger of the divine, Rhiz had been chosen out of all the other Warmasters of the Armada to begin the great cleansing of the Heathen Stars.
“Did they manage to send an alert?”
“Yes, Warmaster. We discovered them by the warp flare of a probe they sent towards our target system. They tried to maneuver, but our perfected sensor arrays saw through their feeble attempts at stealth. They did not survive the first barrage.”
“Very well. Inform the fleet to continue on to the target system. All the imperfect heathens shall embrace perfection, or they will be met with oblivion. Inform the troop ships to begin the ground assault at once. The Imperatrix demands souls to feast on, and we shall provide them to her.”
“As you command, Warmaster.”
Chokiyuss breathed in the perfumed air slowly, luxuriating in the scents that wafted through the air. Everything aboard her ship was perfect, to the last detail. All those who served under her moved like a perfect machine, each piece doing their job perfectly.
The humans would be warned. They would call from help from their closest naval base, in the Uldat system. Seven days at the speed of their imperfect machines. Too long. They would not allow the Perfected Ihm so much time to ravage one of their worlds without a response. No, they would use their Transition drives to shorten the distance.
There would be some ships in the target system. A trader containing spies had returned from scouting the system just before the Armada set off. Two aging frigates were in the system, and a single squadron of fighters.
They would be no match for even a fraction of her forces, and she would not commit such a base, imperfect mistake like assuming the Imperials were too stupid to realize it. No, they would try and buy time, using their tarpits to slow her forces, give any civilians who were able time to escape.
Obviously, the perfect place to lay the trap, from their point of view, would be the heliopause. If they could bottle her forces up in the outer system, then their Eighth Fleet could come in behind them, and attack. It was an obvious plan, because it was the only choice they had.
It was the way of the Imperfect to simply walk into a trap they knew was there, even if they knew they could overcome it, without first seeking a better way. She was Perfected, and she would not give lie to her status like that. So, she began looking for the counter.
If she were in the Imperials’ foot coverings, with only two ships, only a few hours to prepare, and the need to protect civilian shipping, what would she do? The perfect solution would be to seed as much of the heliopause with tarpits as they could, to slow the Armada as much as possible. But without time, they would have to focus on the most likely avenues of attack.
Of course! The solution was simple in its perfection and perfect in its simplicity. And the Imperials would not realize their folly until it was too late.
“Send to the Armada. Course change, as follows…”