by David Weber
And if there is--was she brought up a schematic of the Aklumar warp junction his--comhe'll be right here." She touched the image. "Placed to dash down the warp line as soon as we enter scanner range. So we have to make sure we don't enter scanner range until we've dealt with him." "Sir?" Sung sounded uncertain.
We'll form a three-ship data group with two of them and clear the way for the rest of the task force." "Unless," Tsing observed with the mild air of a man who'd made the same point before, "they've posted a light carrier, sir. A couple of long-range recon fighters on patrol, and we'll never get close enough." "We've been over that, Chang, and I stfil don't expect it, not with so much of Frontier Fleet coming 9ver. They'd never risk a fleet or assault carrier on picket duty, and all the lights were in Frontier Fleet. They can't have many of them left." "You're probably right, sir, but it's my job to point out problems. And here's another: they might use a scout cruiser of their own." "If they go by The Book, that's exactly what they'll do," Han agreed, "but they can't have many of them, either. If they do, the whole ops plan goes out the lock anyway. If they're cloaking, the probes won't spot them and they'll have just as good a chance to hide from us as we have to hide from them. Which gives them the advantage, of course, since their whole job is to run away while we try to locate and destroy them. But there's only one way to find out, isn't there?" "You might ask Admiral Ashigara to send in a squadron of fighters to check it, sir," Sung suggested hesitantly.
INSV-AAECTO con"I inight," Han agreed dryly, "ff fighters carried any ECM." "Sorry, sir. I should have thought of that." Sung sounded abashed.
"Don't worry about it." Han smiled. "But we're going to have to deal with this ourselves, so be certain plotting and gunnery are ready. We"]] have to be quick to stop them from launching a courier drone." "Yes, sir." "All right. Now--was she witched to a schematic of Cimmaron his-comth is where we're supposed to run into trouble. Commodore Tsing, Commander Tomanaga, and I have silent quite a while discussing how to handle this, Exec, and I want you to understand what we're up to. SOP would bring us in last to protect the command ship from the opening salvos, but the Rump knows The Book, too. conCommander Tomanaga sueeests we come in.
@u ,..
, first, since that s the last place thev'll expect the flagship but I've decided to come in third. Lieutenant Reznick here tells me our datalink won't stand much pounding, so I don't want us out too early, just as I don't want us in the standard flag slot. We'll rely on the shell game approach-- they'll know we have a command ship, but not which one it is... I hope. If we can force them to disperse their fire looking for us, we may survive until BG II comes through and offers so many targets they have to divide their fire.
Understand?" "Yes, sir." "Good. And instead of a tight, traditional globe, we'rt coming in in line abreast for the same reasons-- everything will be directed towards keeping them guessing@u" "Yes, sir." "And there's another point, one which relates to our datalink." Han turned to Reznick, who flushed slightly under her calm regard; it was amazing how readilv he colored up. "Because we may lose our command dat net so quickly, I want alternate standard datalinks set up be- tween our units as a priority, If we lose the command net, I don't want any delays in dropping into smaller groups, Lieutenant." "Yes, sir." "All right. Now, here's the final point for you, Exec-- you won't be on the command deck when we enter Cimmaron." "Sir?" Sung blinked. "But that's my duty station! I "It is normally," Han cut him off calmly, "but this isn't normal. We don't have a flag bridge, and I have to be able to see battle plot.
That means the flag will be on the command deck. If a single hit takes out me, Commodore Tsing, and you--was she shrugged. "I see." Sung still sounded unhappy, and Hah found it hard to blame him. "But where will I be, sir? Auxiliary fire control?" "No, Commander Tomanaga will be there. I want you with Mister Reznick in command datalink." She caught him with a level stare. "Understand this, Commander.
Hopefully Commander Tomanaga will still be around to advise you, but I can't even promise you that." "I see, sir." Sung licked his lips, then nodded firmly. "I see." "I'm glad you do, Chung-hui." She glanced at her watch. "All right--let's get back to the bridge." She killed the holograph and tucked her cap under her arm, facing them as they rose. "But remember, gentlemen, up to now, it's been a matter of seizing choke points where we happened to have mutinying units and cleaning up undefended sys-terns. That's over now. We're going to fight for everything we get from here on out, and I want the Republican Navy to be just as dedicated and just as professional as the Federation Navy. This is a civil war, and passions are running high on both sides, but there had better not be any Jason Wagg'decks under my command. These aren't Arachnids we're fighting--they're Terrans. I expect you to act accordingly." Then she turned, and they followed her silently from the briefing room.
"Good afternoon, Commodore IA." Admiral Ashigara regarded Hah from her eom screen, and Han watched her left hand play with her empty right cuff in the nervous gestu she'd developed since Bigelow. "We have the data from' the Aklumar recon probes.
It would seemm' the admiral permitted herself a thin smile his-comyour concerns were we]] founded. The probes report a single unit, probably a heavy cruiser, guarding the Aklumar-Cimmaron warp point. His "I see," Hah said. "But there's not one on the Lassa-Aklumar point?" "No," Ashigara said softly, and Hah knew her admiral had considered the same point she had.
It would have made a calculating sort of sense to post a second picket. The nearer watchdog would have virtually no chance of surviving any attack from 'Lassa, but her very destruction would insure a warning for the defenders of Cimmaron.
"I have decided to approve your plan, Commodore," Ashigara went on after a moment. "I will detach Ashanti and Sctthian to accompany Longbow, and your force will mae transit in two hours. The rest of the task force will follow eight hours later, in standard formation at half speed. We will remain beyond scanner range until you engage, but once you do, we are committed. Either you will destroy him before he dispatches a warning, or you will not. In either case, therefore, the task force will assume Formation Alpha and transit to Cimmaron immediately, without reconnaissance. There would be little time to evaluate the results of a probe recon even if we could send probes through without giving the warning we desire to prevent the picket from sending, so there is no point in delaying the inevitable." "I understand, sir," Han said, hoping she sounded equally "Very well, Commodore. Ashanti and Scythian will report to you shortly. Good hunting.
"Thank you, sir," Hah said, and the screen went blank.
"All stations report closed up, Captain." Lieutenant Chu was clearly more nervous over filling in for Sung than he was over the prospect of being blown to atoms, Han noted wryly.
'hank you, Lieutenant." She glanced at a side screen which held the faces of Sung and Reznick. "Are you ready, gentlemen?" "Yes, sir," Sung said. "Data net is operational and ECM is active." "Very well. Let's go, Mister Chu." Longbow quivered as her drive engaged, and Hah felt a familiar queasiness as the grav-damping drive field warred briefly with the artificial shipboard gravity. There had to be a better way to do such things, she told herself absently, but her attention was on Battle One.
The tactical display shimmered as delicate, shielded equipment hiccupped to the warp stress. Then the image steadied as the computers stabilized, and she was staring at a blank screen. Within the range of Longbow's scanners, space was empty.
She felt herself relax as the emptiness registered. She'd expected it, but the confirmation was still a vast relief. NoWill all she had to do was sneak up on the ship vatching the Cimmaron junction.
"All right," she said softly, leaning back.
"I want a sharp watch. We should come into scanner range in--was she glanced at the chronometer his-comsixty-four hours and ten minutes, but ff he's decided to move, we may meet him much sooner and where we don't expect it. So stay on your toes.
He bridge crew made no reply, and she nodded in satisfaction. So far, she told herself, toying with the seal o
f her vac suit, so good.
"Iaere she is, sir," Lieutenant Chu said, and Han nodded as courteously as ff she hadn't already seen the small, red dot. A moment passed; then small, precise data codes flashed under the blip and it turned orange, indicating a cruiser class vessel. The red band of an enemy identification continued to pulse around it, but Longbow's computers INSUB.ECTION knestv ler now, and a quick search of the database provided her name, as well.
"She's the Swiftsure, sir," a scanner rating announced. "Thank you, de Stair," Hah said calmly, and watched the blip creep slowly across the display as her small squadron slid stealthily closer. She glanced at Battle Two, checking her own formation. Even Longbow's scanners couldn't have located Ashanti and Sctthian with certainty, if they hadn't known exactly where to look. Now it remained to be seen whether or not Swiftsure's scanners would detect them as they closed to missile range. The odds against it were astronomical, but it was possible.
"Commodore, we're coming into extreme range." It was Lieutenant Kan, her gunnery officer.
"I have a good setup." "Stand by, Mister Kan." Han watched the tactical display unblinkingly, her expressionless face hiding her flashing ttoughts as she considered. The range was long, but all three of her ships carried external loads of capital missiles, so she could fire now, banking on the fact that the motionless Swiftsure was an ideal, non-evading target.
But the scout cruisers lacked Longbow's more sophisticated fire control, so their accuracy would be poorer, and missiles were sublight weapons.
Firing at longer ranges meant longer flight times and gave Swiftsure a better chance to detect their approach in time to get a drone off. On the other hand, the closer her ships came, the more likely Swiftsure was to detect them, which made deciding exactly when to fire a nice problem in balanced imperatives.
"Open fire, Mister Kan," she said quietly, and Longbow twitched as she flushed her external ordnance racks. The missiles lifted away, drives howling as they slammed across the vacuum between Han's squadron and her victim at sixty percent of light speed. She watched the speckled lights on her display as the missiles arrowed towards their target, and her brain concentrated on Swiftsure's blip, watching like a hawk, hoping the doomed cruiser would die unknowing. But another part of her hummed with a sort of elated grief.
The missiles bore down on Swiftsure, and Han heard a murmur of excitement around her.
Clearly their enemy had never suspected their proximity--comeven her point defense was late and firing wide. Only three missiles were stopped by her desperate, close-in defenses; the others went home eighteen seconds after launch in a cataclysmic detonation brighter than the star of Aklumar.
The dreadful fireball died, sucked away by the greedy emptiness, and Han stared at her display, her heart as cold as the void around her ship. There was nothing left. No courier drones--noto escape pods. Just, ,. nothing.
She stared at Battle One for perhaps five seconds, and somewhere deep within her was a horrified little girl. She was a warrior. This wasn't the first time she'd participated in the death of another ship and its crew. But it was the first time she'd struck down fellow Terrans from the shadows like an assassin.
She'd given them only warning enough to know death had come for them. Only enough to feel the terror.
She knew her success would save hundreds of her eom-rades when the Battle of Cimmaron began, but knowing did nothing to still her shame or the shocked sickness of triumph crawling down her nerves.
She turned her command chair to face Lieutenant Chu. ""Take position two light-seconds from the warp point on the task force approach vector, Mister Chu, then get the XO racks rearmed." Her face was serene. "We'll wait here for further orders." "Aye, aye, sir," Lieutenant Chu said.
He hesitated a moment, but his enthusiasm was too great to resist. "That was beautiful, sir.
Beautiful!" ""Thank you, Lieutenant," Hah said coolly, and her eyes met Tsing's. He regarded her steadily, his face unreadable as he reached for the pipe lying on his console. He stuffed it slowly, and Hah looked away.
"Battlegroup formed up for warp, sir." "'Thank you, Commodore Tsing." Hah drew a deep, unobtrusive breath, tasting the oxygen in her lungs like wine, and felt Longbow gathering her strength about her.
Her "beccutiful, deadly Longbow, ready to plunge through the maelstrom of warp, eager to engage her foes. And suddenly Han, too, was eager eager to confront her enemies openly. She allowed herself a last glance at the long, gleaming line of dots stretched out astern of her battlegroup, then touched a stud.
"Flagship." The voice in the implant behind her ear was brisk and professional, but she heard the tension blurring its edges.
Full military, power, Commander Tomanaga." "Aye, aye, sir!" Tomanaga's face split in a sparkling grin of mingled tension and anticipation. His fingers flew over his command panel, and program codes flashed from his terminal to the datalink equipment sprawled across the electronics section. Rezniek watched them flicker across his monitor, ready to reenter them if any of his delicate circuitry, suddenly died, and Commander Sung sat beside him, feeling unutterablv useless away from his station on the bridge. His Battlegroup Twelve awoke. The individuality of its ships vanished into the 'vast, composite entity of their data net. Drives snarled, snatched awake by signals flowing from Tomanaga's computer, harnessed and channeled to Han's will, and the battlegroup hurled itself at the warp point.
Hah held her breath as the line of ships flashed towards the small, invisible portal--the tinv flaw in space which would hurl them almost two hundred light-years in a fleeting instant spent somewhere else. Oniv one ship at a time would enter that magic gateway; death was the penalty for ships which transited a warp point too close together. Two ships could emerge from warp in the same instant, in the same volume of normal space--but only for the briefest interval. Then there would be a single, very violent explosion, and neither ship would ever be seen Now BG 12 led the Terran Republican Navy's first offensive, and the battle-cruisers struck at the warp point like a steel serpent.
TRNS Bardiche vanished into the whirlpool of gravitic stress like a fiery dart, followed by Bayonet, and then it was Longbow's turn. Han drew one last breath, her mind focused down into a tight, icy knot of concentration, and Longbow leapt instantly from the calm of Aklumar into the blazing nightmare of Cimmaron.
"Incoming Fire!" Kan snapped.
"Missiles tracking port and starboard." Damn, those gunners had been fast off the mark!
Their missiles must have been launched even before they'd seen Longbow--launched on the probability that someone would be coming through from Aklumar to meet them.
Thank God Swiftsure had been less alert!
If the forts had been granted any more warning @u.
. if they'd had their energy weapons on line.
More missiles flashed towards her ships. She ignored them. There was nothing she could do about them. They were Kan's responsibility, his and the point defense crews"; she had responsibilities of her own, and through the blur of battle chatter and the soft beeping of prioriWill warning signals she heard Tsing hammering his keyboard as he and Tomanaga and Reznick fought to restabilize the net and feed her the data she needed.
There! The display cleared suddenly, the dots of her battlegroup clear and sharp, and they were all there!
Dwarfed by the massive, crimson dots of the forts they might be, but they had all survived, and suddenly the data net had them. Missiles flashed away as their XO racks flushed.
But missiles were still screaming towards BG 12, and Han saw the dots of her ships flash crazily as Skywatch's warheads crashed among them.
Longbow's datalink took control of BG 12's point defense systems, dragooning them into a tigtlt-woven network in defense of the entire battlegroup, and Hah caught a brief impression of her two escort destroyers as their missile defenses flared like volca- noes against the incoming tide of destruction.
But not all of it could be stopped.
"Signal from Bardiche, Commodo
re! Code Omega!" Han's eyes darted to her lead ship, the one in the spot Tomanaga had wanted for Longbow. The ancient, inverted horseshoe-symbol of death for the ships of Terra--flashed across her blip, brilliant precursor of her doom. Then her dot vanished, and Li Hah no longer commanded four battle-cruisers.
"Close the range, Commodore Tsing.
Missiles to sprint mode. Stand by to engage with hetlasers." "Good hits on target two, sir!" Lieutenant Kan's voice rang in Han's ears. He had precious little time for reports, for it zsthis panel, feeding through the datalink, which controlledthe gunnery of the entire battlegroup, but he was right. Target two was an air-streaming ruin, its re-mastning weapons no longer synchronized with its fellows.
"Two's datalink is gone, Gunnery," she said, amazed at the calm sound of her own voice.
"Drop it. Concentrate on one and three." "Aye, sir. Fire shifting now!" "Falchion's out of the net, sir!" Tsing reported sharply. ""leAlso her to withdraw," Han said, not even looking up from Battle One. Without the protection of synchronized point defense, Falchion was helpless before the hurricane of missiles slashing in upon her. Her only hope was to break off. If she could. If the forts would let her go.
Time had stopped. Han's ship lunged around her, squirming desperately through the fortresses' fire.
Half her battle-cruisers gone already, and the engagement had only begun! She heard her voice, cold as ice, belonging to a stranger as it rapped out orders, fighting for her ships' survival with every skill she had been taught, every intuition she had been given by God. And it wasn't enough. She knew it wasn't enough. Longbow lurched as another missile slammed into her shields--and another. Where was Petrovna? Where was the rest of the task force?
Surely she and her people had been fighting alone for hours!
"Falchion--Code Omega," Communications reported flatly.
"Scanners report enemy fighters launching, sir! ETA of first strike ninety, seconds!" "Abort standard missile engagement," she heard herself say. "Stand by AFHAWK'S. Take the forts with beams, Chang." "Aye, aye, sir." Longbow lurched indescribably, and Han's teeth snapped together through her tongue. She tasted blood, and dust motes hovered in the air. "Direct hit, sir! Laser Two's gone!
