Chapter Fifty-Two

Launch

“Ladies, Gentlemen, and Drones of the Nanite Imperium,” Nellie spoke over an Imperium-wide broadcast comm line, “We are about to launch the largest operation in our short but eventful history. I urge you to not be afraid.” She took a moment to think before continuing, her eyes scanning her bridge crew. “Since the moment we first met, we have been hunted, chased, threatened, attacked, and now blockaded. Our enemies have been varied, persistent, and always came in greater numbers than our own. Not once have they succeeded.”

A cheer roared through the ship.

“Forget a trial by fire; we have been forged in a furnace of our enemies' arrogance and hate. We have been tempered in the Endless Dark and sharpened against the hulls of the Imperial Line. Each and every time they come, our enemies fail, and we grow!”

Her crew drew themselves up with well-deserved pride.

“Now, we do not cower and hope merely to survive! Now, we do not mount a furious defense. Today, this day, the Nanite Imperium rises! Today, we show the galaxy that no one will EVER take what is OURS!”

One of the pair of Royal Guards at the entrance to the C.I.C. reached out a hand and hammered on the hull. A second later, it did it again. The Harbinger began to ring as the Centrum units took up the beat.

The beat spread until every ship rang with the rhythmic thump of the Centrum.

It sped up, increasing in tempo until it became a constant, unending roll of thundering hull.

All at once, it stopped, and the Royal Guard saluted.

“MOVE OUT!” Nellie roared, and the Harbinger leaped into Transit Space like a sprinter out of the blocks.

Nellie nodded to each of her crew in turn and then sat in the Captain’s chair. Her armor felt more like a part of her than usual, and its embrace was more natural.

She checked her screens and saw the Bly and the Vey’s Charge holding positions on port and starboard. Each of them was flanked by automated Liberty-class cruisers programmed to assist and protect.

Seven ships. Nellie was taking seven ships against a force ten times larger. Hopefully, some of them would have moved to replace the ships lost by the Ninth Wing.

At this very moment, the Emissary and the Taking Liberties were in Transit Space as well, on the way to greet whatever remained of the Ninth with the SongBird Wing as their backup. Nellie really hoped that Hellena would prove loyal because if she so much as targeted a single weapon on the Imperium ships, those cruisers would be disassembled around their ears by the nanites inside them.

Nellie liked to trust people but not with the lives of her friends.

Nellie tried not to fret about Lucy. Each system would have an Imperium class so they could keep an eye on each other. If it seemed Lucy was taking too large a risk, Nellie would insist she retreat.

As for Paren’s hive ship and its Walker-crewed heavy cruiser backups, they sat like sulky children forced to stay home from an outing. That alone made Nellie feel bolder, knowing that Paren was safe.

Time passed as she checked and rechecked every system on the ship, making sure everything was as close to perfect as possible.

“Downjump in ten seconds!” Morton called, and Nellie blanked the screens around her.

It was time.

The advantage of attacking first was the element of surprise. In the case of space battles, that generally meant only a single shot, but that could be devastating in the right hands.

Coming out of Transit Space with your XL Beams charged didn’t hurt either.

The screen was populated with targets, and Nellie chose quickly but carefully as tails grew behind each ship as they hurried to reposition.

They had been out of formation… a crucial mistake.

“Fire one!” Nellie yelled, and a Line Capital blew. Its shields had been down while it resupplied a heavy cruiser. The explosion took the cruiser down as well.

“Fire two!” A large capital ship shuddered under the impact of the beam. She kept it burning for a second longer, and the shields failed.

A matching beam from the Bly assisted in finishing the job.

“Fire three!” A minelayer went up, its cargo detonating in a blinding display that left six cruisers drifting and a capital with shields failing.

“Fire four!” Another capital ship, this time holed but still intact. Before it had even finished venting, the Charge had finished it off while its XL Beam cut a line through a flight of heavy cruisers, finishing three in a single blast.

“Deploy the scattering field,” Nellie called, and a massive field enveloped the area, cutting off all contact between ships.

“Cabot, weapons free,” Nellie said grimly. “Launch the torpedoes at your discretion.”

“Aye, Admiral.”

“Erikson cut us a path to the big bastards at the back,” Nellie called, eyeing her scan. She could see them back there. Three of the largest Capital ships she had ever seen, and there was no doubt they were the command ships for the fleet.

The Harbinger rocked from a wave of missiles, but they began to move forward, with no sign of the enemy forming up as yet. Their attacks remained uncoordinated, preventing them from overwhelming the shields.

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“What are they waiting for?” Morton muttered anxiously.

Cartier began to laugh.

“What?” Morton asked.

“They’re waiting for the fucking asteroid!” Cartier laughed, a broad smile on his face.

Nellie realized he was right. They always attacked with asteroids… until now. The enemy was scared to move in unless they fell into a trap. They could capitalize on that.

“The moment they commit, Micro-jump to port.” Nellie grinned.

For five more minutes, the enemy hesitated, but eventually, they decided it was safe and formed up.

“Admiral!” Morton warned.

“I see it,” Nellie reassured him.

Fifteen of the capital ships had moved into a formation. A half circle, all at slightly different angles, all with bows aimed directly at the Harbinger.

“Cascade!” Morton paled.

Cascade was a term Nellie knew from her Explorer gained knowledge. As far as her downloaded knowledge was concerned, Cascade had only been used once in all of recorded history. It was a method of focusing a collection of XL Beam weapons on a single point, and it had been used to blow a rogue planet into dust.

“Jump the moment you see the flair,” Nellie called.

“Aye, Ad—” Erikson cut off as the telltale glow lit on all fifteen capitals.

The Harbinger slipped into and out of transit space, emerging five ship lengths to port.

A beam nearly as thick as the damn Harbinger blasted out of the focal point of the cascade and passed by the Harbinger close enough to heat the metal all down the starboard side.

“Le Roulement! Now!” Nellie snarled, and the engines died. The weapons fell silent as one of her ‘special additions’ to the design was activated.

All power in the Harbinger, except for shields, was shunted to a single system: the beam weapons. The final burst of the engines and thrusters sent the entire ship into a spin.

The beams fired at three-quarters of full power, each shot a half-second long.

With one command, Nellie turned the Harbinger into the largest mini-gun in the universe, and it fired XL Beam weapons.

The forward display turned into a strobe light as beams snapped on and off as they rolled.

The beams weren’t aimed, but they didn’t need to be, given the tight Cascade formation. In less than six seconds, half a dozen capitals were destroyed, with several others being in critical condition from either the beams or other ships exploding around them.

“Couper!” Nellie commanded, and the beams fell silent as the ship stabilized and power flowed back into balance. “Erikson, get us back on course!”

“A-Aye, Admiral,” Maya called, her voice shaky.

“Cabot, get those weapons firing!” Nellie called.

“Get on your stations!” Morton yelled. “Come on, people, look alive!”

Her crew recovered from their shock as the weapons began to fire once more.

Only fifteen minutes into the battle, the Imperial Line was down fourteen capital ships, and Nellie had lost count of the number of cruisers. That was great work, but the damn Imperial Line still had thirty-five ships left in this system alone.

The Bly and the Charge were working in tandem, moving as one to concentrate fire, while the Harbinger trundled forward, drawing fire and dealing damage to anything within range.

A quiet second allowed her to check on the other ships, finding they had all taken damage but no losses besides the occasional automated cruiser so far.

Each one had a small square next to it. If they considered the battle going well, they were green. If they were under extreme pressure, it would be yellow, and if it was time to retreat, red.

All were showing green at the moment.

“Morton, report,” Nellie called.

“We are taking occasional damage but managing it so far, Admiral,” Morton called from the main display table. “We have disabled or destroyed thirty-five ships, but there are twenty-five Iine ships still battle-ready.”

“Including the big three,” Nellie noted drily. “Focus attacks on the capitals; they are the big threats. If we take out their beam-capable craft, this battle is as good as ours!”

“Aye, Admiral!” Morton repeated her orders, and the exterior cameras showed the railgun turrets and laser arrays beginning to focus on the remaining capital ships. The Imperial Line still had ten of the dangerously powerful ships, with seven currently fighting.

Nellie sent flash signals to the Bly and Charge to focus their attacks on the cruisers. They were easier to take out, and the faster they evened the odds, the better. The bright flashes of light were coded, but the enemy would get the hint soon enough, so if they were understood by the Line, it didn’t matter.

The four beams on board were still being repaired from the rough use she had put them through, so they were taking out the capitals the old-fashioned way.

By brute force.

They took out another two capitals before the call she had been waiting for came at last.

“The three are moving!”

“Pull us back!” Nellie called. “Micro-jump into the densest cluster of destroyed ships!”

The Harbinger flashed away, appearing between two capitals that had been holed, with several cruisers drifting.

Nellie activated the grav tows and nanites, the thick strings forming rapidly as they swarmed over the derelict ships. The enemy capitals sped up, accelerating toward her madly.

“Maya, on my command, all engines ahead full. Cartier, shields full ahead.” Nellie grinned.

“Admiral!” Engineer He yelled in alarm, “We are not showing any repairs yet!”

“I know,” Nellie said calmly, watching the three enemy ships come. “Cabot, status on the beams?”

“Repaired, Admiral!”

“Maya. Now!” Nellie yelled, cutting the grav tows at the last second and pulling away even as thick ropes of nanites detached and trailed the Harbinger as it rocketed forward

Three strong Beams impacted the forward shields, and all power was shunted to them. It was close, but the Harbinger barreled into the enemy ship’s line just as their shields failed and the hull plating began to burn.

The enemy formation scattered, two micro-jumping away while the largest passed above them by inches.

“Roll us over!” Nellie called. “Get a bead on that ship!”

The Harbinger groaned as the hull was stressed, the thrusters fighting the natural urge for a moving thing to keep moving in the same direction. Slowly at first, the harbinger flipped end over end, bringing the enemy command ship into the firing arc of the beams.

“Got you!” Nellie yelled. “Harbinger! Guillotine!”

Once more, the command activated, but this time, it was not a roll. Instead, all four XL Beam weapons fired at once. The Imperial Line flagship was sliced in half, and the pieces began to drift apart as emergency pods fired off like popcorn.

“Well, that’s the Beams fried!” Cabot winced. “Admiral, that’s going to take a while to fix!”

“What about the repair nanites?” Engineer He fretted. “Why didn’t it work.”

“Those weren’t repair nanites,” Nellie said with a smile. “They were conversion nanites. The activation command was Harbinger.” She pointed to the screen, where the capitals and cruisers lit up and began to fire on the other Line ships.

For the next ten minutes, everything was chaos. The abused Harbinger’s shields finally began to fail, but the enemy only had four capitals left by that stage, and one of them was burning its engines at full power for the far jump point.

“Admiral!” Morton called urgently. “One of those three big capitals… We lost track of it during the fight! I-I have no idea where it went!”

“FIND OUT!” Nellie yelled.

They had to know where that ship went!”