The Emperor's Own battleship flashed into the system. At its bridge stood Fleet Admiral Lord Napoleon Sartorelli, the Emperor's brother and fourth in line for the throne.
"All stations combat alert." He ordered. The bridge was awash in communications, the Superdreadnought required thousands of men and women to run properly, and he had nearly a hundred officers in front of him. "Bring us about, set maximum speed for the jump point."
"Aye, Aye, Captain." That was the helmsman, who was ranked a commander.
That is one damn problem with this ship Sartorelli thought. It is too top heavy, to much brass. He was technically the highest ranked man in the entire navy, but that was a facade created by the emperor. The Vice Admirals in Fleet Ops ran everything. He was just a figurehead that made the emperor look good. He had a chest full of medals, of which he had actually earned two of the highest awards for heroism in the face of danger. The rest were all cheap baubles to impress the Bureaucrats that still plagued the Imperium.
"Comm, open communications, all frequency bands possible."
"Sir, but we are the only ship in the system..."
"Just do it." The Tech complied.
Sartorelli tapped his headset and spoke into the communicator.
"You alien bastards, we are here, come and die."
He tapped it off. By god, he would show them why words like "Courageous, Determined, and Follows orders without question" appeared on his fleet profile.
"Order all missile tubes, slave to their individual fire controls and prep Fury-22 packs. Raise Shields, not that they do any good against the bastards."
He had watched the tapes of the aliens attacking the Star Search One, and the Bureaucrats warship a hundred times. The meson cannons they sported went through armor and shields like they weren't there.
"Captain, we have arrived at the jump point."
"Good. Cease all maneuvering. Spin the jump-drives up but do not - I repeat do not engage them."
That was all he had left to do, so he sat down and waited while listening to the chatter on the dreadnought. He fell asleep.
"Captain!"
Sartorelli opened his eyes. He immediately looked at the sitrep. Finally, those bastards took long enough. They had been waiting for three days for the aliens to show themselves. Finally they did.
"Enemy ships at 84 million kilometers and closing at 10 thousand meters per second. Contacts number....eighty five."
Sartorelli nodded.
"Unkown active sensor detected at several billion kilometers, near the star!"
Sartorelli hoped it was not another swarm.
He sat back down. It would be over and hour before they finally entered into close enough range for him to open fire.
Finally the time came and the aliens stepped over that invisible line.
"Missile tubes one through ten acquire individual targets and fire once!" Sartorelli tapped his fingers on the arm rest of his chair, this was when he would learn whether the new missiles would work or not. Damn the bureaucrats for not letting him test them out before this.
The missiles spat out of the ten tubes along the hull of the dreadnought. They came out perfectly thanks to the the intense four year training plan he had put in place before leaving. Even with it, only 3 in 10 of his crewmen where what he would consider acceptable, but most of those he did approve of where the missile launch crews.
"Order fire control to target 10 different ships."
"Fire control reports targets acquired. Missile tubes loading and can fire again in 720 seconds."
When the time came he ordered "Fire!" Twenty five seconds later the missile tubes obliged and another volley went out.
"Again!"
"720 seconds!"
"Tell them to get it down to 700! Or I'll come down there and I'll do it for them!"
Halfway between shots the sensor technician spoke. "Captain, I have confirmed Fury-22 MIRV release, the first volley has released its payload. Two hundred and twenty confirmed. They are on target."
Thank all the gods that ever existed.
Another salvo spit out.
Damnit. The enemy had already closed almost all the way and were almost to the 6m km line.
"Reload all tubes, but cease fire. Order engineering to prepare to jump."
They had only gotten three salvos off. There were still 55 enemy ships left. If Fleet Int was wrong about the aliens ability to jump...
"Estimated impact, eight minutes, first salvo."
They waited.
"Impact! Sensors are registering ninety-eight nuclear explosions!"
Sartorelli cursed. He knew that their accuracy was bad, but he thought they would get more hits than that.
"Sir I'm not detecting any destroyed ships."
Another curse. This was quickly becoming a disaster. If their escape didn't work...
"Sir, four of the targeted enemy ships stopped closing with us."
So they had felt that love tap eh?
"Order fire control to target the damaged ships, and fire!"
"Sir! Sensors indicate a enemy ship is travelling at....at...89999 m/s!"
"What!?"
"Its fleeing!"
"Keep firing, target the ships we've already fired at!"
Missile lept out, the second salvo slammed into the alients with equally unspectacular results. Then the third hit the same.
"Sir the aliens are ontop of the Fury pack before it has released it's payload!"
Dammit, he had fired anyway, hoping the missiles would still work.
"Strength 0 nuclear explosion!"
"Enemy ships at two million kilometers!"
They had failed.
"Order engineering. Combat jump, now!"
The Emperor's Own Missile Super Dreadnought flashed out of the system.
