The Oncoming Storm (37 page)

Shaking his head, he turned back to the display. His spacers and troops hadn’t been allowed to grow rusty, even though they’d spent the better part of three months orbiting a worthless star. He’d worked them like dogs, forcing them to undergo exercise after exercise, training simulation after training simulation. The crews had responded splendidly, particularly when he’d started offering rewards for best performances. They knew far more about their enemy than the Commonwealth knew about them.

There were still too many unanswered questions, though, no matter how many simulations they ran. Would Commonwealth superdreadnoughts be better than Theocratic superdreadnoughts? Would the Commonwealth’s greater industrial might prove decisive if the early campaigns were unsuccessful? Would the Commonwealth’s far wider breadth of research and development give them another advantage? Would the Commonwealth’s merchant marines rally behind the flag or flee like frightened children? There were just too many questions nothing but war would be able to answer.

He had no doubt the Theocracy—or at least the Believers who mattered—would be solidly behind the war. Expansion had brought great rewards, after all, along with millions of new converts. But how well would the system endure in a long war? In hindsight, he suspected, they should have built more freighters as well as warships, but anyone who suggested it would have been hauled off to face the Inquisition. The True Faith would never allow itself to be defenseless, not again. They would never allow someone else to determine their fate.

The cleric cleared his throat. “Admiral,” he said, “God will not grant us victory if we refuse to take advantage of the opportunities He offers us.”

“I know,” Junayd said. “But God also expects us not to become too reliant on Him.”

It was the age-old problem, he recalled, that had spurred the growth of the True Faith. The older faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—had all been too reliant on God’s help and support, rather than doing anything to actually earn that support. Their followers had fallen into disbelief and idolatry, resting on laurels that dated back hundreds of years, while their enemies had steadily undermined their positions and prepared them for the kill. In the end, the core of those faiths had died on Earth. But the True Faith had survived and prospered.

Of course we did, Junayd thought. We took nothing for granted.

An alarm sounded.

“Report,” he snapped.

“Admiral,” one of his staffers said, “the outer edge of the spiderweb was just brushed.”

Junayd swore. He’d thought the spiderweb was a boondoggle, a waste of time and resources that had only been put into production because the designer happened to have powerful family connections. But it seemed it had paid off after all . . . unless, of course, it had been brushed by a tiny asteroid—something so small it had escaped the scans the attack fleet had done of the system when they’d arrived.

“Sensor focus,” he ordered. They could use the contact for yet another drill, even if it was nothing more dangerous than another piece of space debris. “Lock on and track the contact, then bring up active sensors. I want space dissected.”

“It’s a probe,” the staffer said. On the display, the contact suddenly came into sharp focus. A probe, Commonwealth design. Moments later, its onboard systems decided there was no hope of escape and triggered the self-destruct. “Target destroyed.”

“Bring the fleet to battle stations,” Junayd ordered. Probes were hardly FTL-capable. If one had brushed the edge of his fleet, so far from enemy territory, there had to be a mothership out there somewhere, watching them.

His fleet had been located by the enemy.

“Launch gunboats in a search pattern,” he ordered, “then continue to sweep space with active sensors.”

He thought it through, rapidly. The enemy commander would keep his distance from the fleet, if only to stay out of weapons range, but he couldn’t be that far away. Maintaining control of the probe would become harder as the light-speed delay between mothership and probe grew longer and longer. It was just possible the gunboats could catch the enemy ship before she made her escape. And even if they didn’t . . .

“They know we’re here,” the cleric said.

“Yes,” Junayd agreed. The cleric was actually right! Given how little the bastard knew of military strategy, it was a small miracle in and of itself. “And there’s no other reason to be here, apart from staging an invasion of Commonwealth space.”

“Then we have to take the offensive now,” the cleric said. “Before they manage to warn the Commonwealth.”

Junayd nodded. On the display, a red icon representing the enemy ship had just popped into view. The gunboats were already altering course, sweeping towards their new target, but it didn’t take more than a glance to tell him they wouldn’t intercept their target unless the enemy commander decided to wait around for them. It wasn’t likely to happen.

“Inform the fleet that we will be departing in an hour,” he ordered. “And then power up the StarCom. We need to alert our operatives that the war is about to begin.”

He took a breath. Years of careful planning and preparation were about to face their first true test, as was the Theocracy itself. Every previous conquest had been largely unable to defend itself, not against a pair of destroyers taking the high orbitals. But the Commonwealth was heavily defended, a multistar political system with its own ideology that might well undermine the Theocracy’s control over its population, given time. Even if expansion hadn’t been one of the tenets of the revised True Faith, Junayd suspected, there would have been war. The galaxy simply wasn’t big enough for both of them.

It wasn’t going to be easy, he knew. There would be a delay in offensive operations, a delay that could prove costly. But there was no alternative. If they let the moment pass, the enemy might have an opportunity to prepare to meet the oncoming storm. And that could prove disastrous.

We have to win quickly, he told himself. Or we may not win at all.

He pushed the thought aside. Defeat was unthinkable.

“They caught the probe,” Roach said. “Their fleet is coming to battle stations now.”

Kat nodded. Dozens of starships were bringing up their active sensors, revealing their positions to her sensors. The enemy fleet was bigger than they’d thought, although it was still strikingly light in escort ships. Perhaps they’d crammed more point defense into their superdreadnoughts then she’d realized, she wondered, or perhaps they’d simply concentrated on superdreadnoughts to the exclusion of all else.

The display washed red, just for a second. “They caught us,” Roach added. The display turned red again. This time, the color refused to fade. “I think they have a solid lock on our position.”

“Crap,” the XO commented. “Do they have something new?”

Roach looked down at his console. “I think they ramped up standard sensors,” he said after a moment’s thought. “I don’t think they’ve got anything new, sir.”

But you could be wrong, Kat thought. They’re not stupid. They might have developed something we missed.

She pushed the thought aside as red icons separated themselves from the enemy fleet and raced towards Lightning’s position. Gunboats. She cursed under her breath, remembering tactical analysis reports that had suggested the Theocracy had no gunboats. Clearly, someone had dropped the ball somewhere. Kat wasn’t particularly surprised. Even if the Theocracy’s scientists hadn’t come up with the idea for themselves, they’d have no trouble stealing it from the Commonwealth or one of the other independent powers.

“Gunboats will enter engagement range in five minutes,” Roach warned.

Kat thought fast. They’d already learned more than she’d expected to learn—and more than she’d wanted to learn—about the enemy fleet. There could be no doubt of its objective, not now. The only logical reason to mass a fleet round a useless star, where it couldn’t hope to defend an inhabited planet, was to prepare to mount an invasion of enemy space. Even exercises could be carried out in a populated star system.

“Helm, take us out of here,” she ordered. An engagement with enemy gunboats might prove disastrous depending on what weapons they carried. Shipkiller missiles would rip Lightning apart if they were launched from very close range. “And then set course for the border, maximum speed.”

“Aye, Captain,” Weiberg said.

“I’m picking up drive emissions from the enemy superdreadnoughts,” Roach said. “They’re powering up their drives.”

Kat exchanged a glance with her XO. They hadn’t just found proof of the imminent offensive, they’d triggered it. She had tried to warn the XO’s friends and allies on 7th Fleet, but would they be ready to fight when the Theocracy arrived? Somehow, Kat couldn’t help feeling as though disaster was about to unfold. It was vaguely possible the offensive wasn’t about to begin . . . she shook her head, angrily. That was wishful thinking and she knew it.

They’ve lost the element of surprise, she thought. But if they act fast they can still give us a pounding before we’re ready to meet them.

“Vortex opening,” Weiberg said. Behind them, the enemy gunboats broke off as it became clear they wouldn’t be able to catch Lightning. “We are gone.”

“Take us to the border,” Kat ordered as the eerie lights of hyperspace enfolded her starship. “Don’t worry about stealth. Just get us to Cadiz as fast as you can.”

She thought rapidly. Thankfully, they did have some advantages. The enemy might give chase, but it was unlikely they could get a ship into hyperspace fast enough to actually track her ship before she put enough distance between them to be effectively invisible. But then, they’d have no real doubt of her destination. Cadiz was still the closest Commonwealth world with a StarCom. Once she reached Cadiz, she could scream a warning that would outrace any Theocratic attack fleets. But the first invasion fleet would be hard on her heels.

Assuming they’re not pushing their drives to the limit, she thought, how long would it take them to reach Cadiz?

She played with tactical simulations on the display but the solutions changed, depending on the variables she entered. If the Theocracy pushed its drives to the limit, there was a good chance they’d reach Cadiz within seventeen hours, just after Lightning’s own arrival. But if they decided not to risk burning out their drives within enemy territory, they’d take around twenty hours to reach Cadiz, giving the defenders several hours to prepare for the attack. It wouldn’t be enough.

“We might run into a guardship,” the XO warned. “Or a minefield.”

“We have to take the risk,” Kat answered. “We don’t have time to try to sneak back through the Seven Sisters.”

She gritted her teeth. One day, she told herself, someone would invent an FTL communicator small enough to be mounted on a heavy cruiser, one that would save future ships from having to flee with the forces of hell snapping at their heels. It was possible, in theory, to mount one on a superdreadnought, but as StarCom units were staggeringly expensive and power intensive, it was unlikely anyone would try. The Commonwealth had preferred to establish a single StarCom in orbit round each of its populated worlds. God alone knew what the Theocracy had done with their StarComs.

But the XO was right. They might well run into a minefield if they weren’t careful, although part of her suspected the Theocracy might have disabled its own mines in preparation for the invasion. Mines weren’t known for being good at telling the difference between friendly and unfriendly targets, particularly in hyperspace. IFF signals were dangerously unreliable in hyperspace, after all. It was one of the reasons the Commonwealth had never bothered to mine even rarely used hyper-routes.

That might cost us now, she thought, grimly. The Theocracy will have free reign to move through hyperspace to our worlds.

“Prepare messages for your allies,” she ordered, grimly. “Tell them that time is about to run out.”

She reached for her terminal and started to compose a message to the Admiralty. If it had the right priority tags, it would be bumped right to the top of the queue for processing and transmitting, as soon as they reached Cadiz. The admiral would be informed, of course, but he wouldn’t be able to stop the message. She attached the raw sensor recordings to a follow-on message, then pulled up the records and started to study them, hoping to draw something from the raw data. But she knew it would take a team of analysts to parse the data successfully. The only hopeful sign was a suggestion that enemy datanets were nowhere near as capable as the Commonwealth’s systems—and she knew better than to take that for granted. It was equally possible the enemy systems had merely been stepped down.

“Captain,” Roach said, “we may have an enemy contact.”

Kat looked at the display. A yellow icon had appeared . . . not quite blocking their path to Cadiz, but alarmingly close. There was no way to tell if it was a warship, a smuggler, or simply a glitch in the sensors. But surely even the most paranoid guardship wouldn’t be expecting a heavy cruiser hightailing it out of Theocratic space.

“Keep us on course,” she ordered. “If they come within engagement range, prepare to open fire without further warning.”