by David Weber
"The admiral is suffering from acute anoxia, shock, and concussion," Yuan said in a voice of dispassionate professionalism. "His spinal cord is severed just below the fifth vertebra, and he has severe radiation poisoning. It's a miracle he's alive--and he won't be for very long.
I doubt a fully-equipped dirtside hospital could deal with this. I Yoshinaka fumbled to grasp what he had heard.
Yuan had warned him he might have gotten a bit of concussion himself, but that could not fully explain his pain and confusion.
"You're telling me yoeau, can't save hm?ful" "Not necessarily.
Two of Yuan's technicians entered, wheeling in a strangely repellent object. Its attached instrumentation and tankage couldn't hide its basic shape; it was a coffin. Yuan pointed at it.
"There's one chance--not a good one, but beggars can't be choosers. If we act fast, we can get him into th cryogenic bath. "Freeze" him, to use the vulgar term. Now, you realize that this procedure normally involves an extensive workup, but we haven't time for any of that.
We won't be able to "unfreeze" hims" Yoshinaka stared at Yuan as he would have stared at a horrifyingly calm, reasonable lunatic.
"What... what's the use, then, ff... hiswas The doctor raised a hand. "We can't unfreeze him now.
But we can suspend his vital functions indefinitely. And maybe at some time in the future we'll be able to undo the effects of this quickie job and repair the other damage. I can't promise that, but..." His temper flared, and Yoshinaka realized that this man might feel as strongly about Ian Trevayne as he did. "Damn it, this is our only chance to save him!" The technicians had been making hurried preparations as he talked. Now one of his medics looked up suddenly. "Doctor, his vital signs are weakening fast." "Goddamn it!" Yuan's face twisted in angry grief. "We may be too late already!
Get him in there! Move, manl Move!" On a sunlit beach in Old Terra's Midworld Sea, a little girl with chestnut hair smiled and beckoned, and Lieutenant Commander Ian Trevayne ran to join her.
Scan Remko's eyes swept the officers facing hm-hi flag captain and staff--comand his New Detroit Accent, always harsh, was a saw. "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't give a flying fuck about damage reports." His hand slapped his plot like a gunshot. "It's our job to keep those rebel fighters off the admiral, and that means forcing close engagement with their carriers. Those are my orders from the admiral. So I don't want to hear about fighters or missiles or any other goddamned thing. All that matters is that they've stopped backing away and we can get at them.
"You've never liked me much, have you, Captain?" Cyrus Waldeck looked him straight in the eye and spoke just as quietly. "I hate your guts, sir. But for now, let's go kill those rebel bastards!" Remko extended his hand. Waldeck took it.
"Sir, the enemy screen has forced a close engagement with Admiral Petrovna. She'll need every fighter she's got just to hold them off--she can't send her first strike back into the main engagement." Rear Admiral Jason Windrider eyed his chief of staff coldly. He didn't know Magda, Jason thought--not if he thought she'd hold back fighters Han needed. He watched her flagship's light flicker as it took hits, and his teeth ground together. Never before had they been in the same battle aboard different ships, and only now did he truly realize how much it could cost two warriors to love.
He stared at his plot bitterly. He had nothing heavier than a destroyer under his own command--just a lot of immobile barges and tiny escort carriers without a single offensive weapon of their own. There was no way he could come to Magda's aid, even if his orders had allowed it.
"Sir! We've intercepted a signal from Admiral Petrovna." Jason's eom officer faltered under his bitter eyes. "She... she's seeation, ding her first strike back to support Admiral Li, sir.
Jason closed his eyes briefly, staring deep into his soul. Then he nodded once, sharply. When he spoke, his voice was calm.
"Signal to Admiral Petrovna: "Suggest you recall fighters. Am moving to support battle-line and rearm fighters engaged against enemy main body. Windrider, out."" He turned to his chief of staff. "Leave the barges and get these buckets moving, Ivan." "But, sir," his chief of staff said quietly, "the enemy's between us and Admiral Li." There was no fear in his voice, only logic. "If we come close enough to support her, we'll be in missile range of the Rim battle-line. The ships will never stand it, sir." "They only have to stand it long enough for Admiral
Daoid Weber and Steve White Petrovna to deal with that screen," Jason said bleakly.
"Now get us moving." "Aye, aye, sir." Drive fields woke in twenty-four escort carriers scattered among the asteroids, stripping away the anonymity which had shielded them. Two dozen earrierssmall and frail--abandoned concealment and darted towards the battling Titans while missile-hungry fighters swerved to meet them.
Jason Windrider watched his plot. Was he doing it because it was the logical move? Or in a desperate attempt to save the woman he loved?
If logic dictated, his actions were correct; ff he'd allowed love to rule him, they were contemptible. He dosed his eyes once more and forced himself to reconsider his decision.
"Incoming missiles, sir," his chief of staff said tensely. "Stand by point defense," Rear Admiral Windrider said.
The battle-lines ernnehed together, and the space between them became trellised with beamed energy: the tearing x-ray fury of hetlasers and the space-distorting Edicher-effeet weapons--the metal-wrenching force beams and the stiletto-thin, unstoppable primaries.
Under those intolerable hammers of energy, shields flashed and overloaded, dying in bursts of deadly radiation.
The Republic's new screens made a superdreadnought effectively equal to a monitor, at least in its ability to absorb punishment. But the battle-line Ian Trevayne had forged still held the advantage--comor would have, but for the rebel fighters and formations of hetlaser-armed destroyers that swept through the carnage. The fighters came slashing in, corkscrewing and weaving to penetrate the defenses.
Many died, but others survived, pouring their fire into the Rim ships, breaking off and streaming back to the fragile escort carriers to rearm, The destroyer squadrons were less maneuverable and bigger targets, but there were many of them, and they could take far more damage. They rammed their attacks down the Rim's throat, dosing tmtfi their shields jarred and flashed against their opponents'.
At such range, the hetlaser was a deadly weapon, and Sonja Desai was forced to divert more and more of her killer whales' firepower against those lethal minnows.
She watched the devastation mount about her furiously fighting ships. Omega reports began coming in from the lighter spreadreadnoughts and battleships--only a trickle, yet, but a flood would soon follow. No one had ever seen such extravagant slaughter. The worst engagements of the Fourth Interstellar War paled beside this holocaust -comand still it grew. It was inconceivable.
Almost half the rebels' energy, weapons were a new kind of primary, she noted almost absently.
Apparently they hadn't cracked the secret of the varialle-focus beam, but they seemed to have come up with something almost as good. Desai was a weapons specialist; she didn't need experts to tell her tle rebels had stumbled onto a different application of the foreefield lens principle--comone which al- lowed a "burst" longer than that of the standard primary. to " to to to " Long enough for the beam to "swing" slightly. Its slicing action did less damage than a force beam, simply slashing a five-centimeter-wide gash through whatever it hit. But that was more than enough to eripple any installation--and it passed effortlessly through any material object or energy shield in its path.
That was what made it so deadly despite its slow rate of fire; it could damage supermonitors without first pounding through their nearly indestructible shields and armor.
The primary has always held an especially nerve-wracking fear for spacers. One can be standing in an undamaged ship and suddenly find a five-centimeter hole through one's stomach. It happens rarely, of course--human bodies are small objects, placed aboard starships in limited numbers.
But even improbable things happen occasionally.
Two scanner ratings got in the beam's way, and it eut them in two in an explosion of gore. It swung towards Sonja Desafs command chair, but it did not quite reach it... it terminated at the midthigh level of Joaquin Sandoval's right leg. He crashed to the deck, the leg suddenly attached only by a thin strip of muscle and skin.
The primary is not a heat weapon; it does not cauterize. The stump spurted blood.
Sandoval began screaming.
Desafs reflexes thought for her as one hand slammed the release on her shock frame and she flung herseff free. No one else on the shocked bridge could move as she ripped a severed cable from a shattered panel. She whipped it around his leg, jerking the crude tourniquet tight even as she summoned the medics via battlephone.
"Sir, Adder, Coral Snake, Ortler, Thera, and Anderson are Code Omega," Tomanaga reported, his voice hoarse as the nightmare tally rose, his face afire with battle and awe at the unprecedented destruction.
Han sat in her command chair, stroking the helmet in her lap as she absorbed the litany of death.
Death inflicted by humans upon humans. Death dealt out in the name of duty and honor. Her shoulders were relaxed, her face calm, but a trickle of sweat ran down one cheekbone.
Arrarat shuddered as another missile exploded against her drive field, and Han looked at Tsing's ops offacer; he sat motionless before his panel. His d0mentalink was gone. It was very quiet on the flag bridge, despite the dreadful butchery raging within and beyond the hull. She looked up as a shadow fell on the side of her face, and Tsing Chang looked down at her.
"Sir, you must transfer. Arrarat can no longer serve as your flagship." "No," she said softly.
"Admiral," Tsing tried again, "Captain Parbleu is dead. Commander Tomas tells me we have two hetlasers and one primary left--the armament of a light cruiser, sir. Right now, they're not even shooting at us very much, but it's only a matter of time till they finish us off. You must transfer." "No," she said once more. "I've had three flagships, Chang. I've lost two of them." She looked away from the " plot where Bernardo da Silva had just died at the hands of her own ships. "I won't leave this one." "It's your duty, Admiral," he said softly.
'This task force is your responsibility--not a single ship." "Oh? And what of you, Admiral?" "I've only got two ships left," he said simply, "and they're both out of the net." ISURCTO
"But you still have yoir eom." Arrarat was doomed, but it seemed to her hypersensitive mind that only her pre. sene, had deferred that doom this long. She knew it was irrational, yet she couldn't leave. She shook her head doggedly. "And you've still got your drive, Admiral. Instruct Arrarat to withdraw.
I can still eommand from here." "Yes, sir. You're right, of course." Tsing paused, looking down at her, and his lips curved suddenly in a warm smile. "It's been an honor to serve with you, sir." She looked up, troubled by his gentle voice even through the mental haze of battle. It no longer sounded like the imperturbable Tsing she knew.
Han's head snapped hack, her eyes rolling up. She lolled in her shock frame, and Tsing caught up her helmet and jammed it over like..r head, sealing it while the bridge crew stared in frozen to isbelief. He turned to Tomanaga.
"You've got four minutes to clear this ship, Commo- dore,"" he said crisply. He punched the release of Han's shock frame, his face fierce, and snatched her up. He threw her limp body at Tomanaga, and the chief of staff caught her numbly. "Get her out of here. Now, goddamn it!" Tomanaga hesitated one instant, then nodded sharply and raced for the intraship car.
"She'll need her staff," Tsing snapped. "The rest of youout!" Li Han's staff never hesitated. Something in his voice compelled obedience, and they were halfway to the boatbay before they even realized they'd moved.
Tsing punched a button on the arm of Han's empty chair, and his voice echoed through every battlephone aboard his savagely wounded flagship.
'rhis is Admiral Tsing. Our weapons are destroyed. I intend to close the enemy and ram while I still have drive power. You have three minutes to abandon ship." He turned to his staff.
"Commander Howell, message to Admiral Windrider: 'Vice Admiral Li transferring to TRNS Saburo Yato via cutter. Urgently request fighter cover." Send it and get out." He bent and pressed buttons, slaving drive and helm to the flag bridge. He looked up a moment later--his staff remained at their stations.
"Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you misunderstood me," he said calmly.
"No, sir," Frances Howell said softly.
"We understood." Tsing started to speak again, then closed his mouth.
He nodded and dropped back into his command chair, glancing at the chronometer.
"Two minutes, Commander Howell," he said.
"Then I want maximum power." He touched a brilliant dot on his plot. "That looks like a nice target." "It does, indeed, sir." "She's what?" Jason Windrider demanded.
Only nine of his small carriers remained, but a destroyer flotilla and two light cruiser squadrons had broken through to protect the survivors while their hangar crews broke all speed records rearming fighters.
"The Flag is transferring, sir," his eom officer repeated. "Admiral Tsing requests fighter cover for the admiral's cutter." "What the hell is she playing at now?" Jason fumed, fear fraying his voice with anger.
He stared at the maelstrom of capital ships and sighed. "All right, Ivan. See ff you can sort anyone out of that mess!" "Yes, sir." Only a handful of Carl Stoner's fighters survived, and they'd been driven back by Magda's fighters once she was free to retain them for her own defense. Even Se'an Remko's ships had been unable to close on her flagship as her fighters slashed away at their drive pods, slowing them, battering them. She'd lost heavily--five of her own battle-cruisers were gone, and two assault carriers and three fleet carriers had been gutted or destroyed--but her remaining hangar bays supported enough fighters to make it suicide for Stoner's survivors to engage her.
"Zulu Leader to Zulu Squadron," their leader said, his voice ugly with hate and despair. "Must be someone pretty importantmlet's go get him!" "Zulu Three, roger." "Zulu Six, roger." His two remaining wingmen dropped back to cover him, and the Rim squadron leader stoope.d on the cutter like a hawk.
Lieutenant Anna Holbeek shook her head in disbelief. Find a cutter and escort it through this?! Someone had obviously had a shock or two too many, she thought. But hers was not to reason why.
"Basilisk Leader to Basilisk Squadron," she said resignedly. "Let's go finstl the admiral, boys and girls." Five agile littl strikefighters slashed through vacuum, closing on Han's cutter.
Death crashed about them, but so vast are the battlefields of space that even in that cauldron of beams and missiles, no weapon came close to the deadly little quintet.
"Basilisk Leader, Basilisk Two.
I've got her on instruments, Skip--but she's got trouble." "I see it. Green Section, close on the cutter. Red Sec-t-ion, follow me." The three Rim pilots were so intent on their prey they never even saw the Republican ships that killed them.
"Sir! One of the rebel superdreadnoughts is closing rapidly!" "What about itThat" Vice Admiral Frederick Shespar grunted, tightening his shock frame as TFNS Suffren's evasive ac- tion grew more violent.
"Sir, she's on a collision course--at maximum speed!" "What?" Shespar stabbed one glance at his flag plot and blanched in horror.
The ship coming at him could hardly be called a ship.
She was a battered, broken wreck, stream-lng atmosphere and shedding bits of plating and escape pods as she came, but there was clearly nothing wrong with her drive. It took him barely a second to realize her grim purpose--comb a second is a long, long time at such speeds.
"Gunnery! New battlegroup target! Burn that ship d--was He never finished the sentence. Tsing Chang's flagship hurled herself headlong at Suffren. Neither supermonitors nor superdreadnoughts are very fast, by Fleet standards--but these were on virtually reciprocal courses.
Two-thirds of a million tonnes of mass colli
ded at a closing speed of just under fifty thousand kilometers per second.
It was too intense to call an explosion.
Some events are so cataclysmic the mind cannot comprehend them. The weapons in play in the Zapata System had killed far more people than died with Arrarat and Suffren--but not so spectacularly, so. deliberately. The devastating boil of light and vaporized steel and flesh hung before the eyes of the survivors like the mouth of hell, and they shrank from it.
The Republic needed it. Scores of fighters were rearming aboard Windrider's and Magda's surviving carriers as Han stepped from her cutter aboard Saburo Yato and raced for the intraship car. Her brain was like ice over a furnace. The anguish of Tsing's death warred with a sort of horrified pride in the manner of his dying, but she couldn't let herself think of that. Not yet. There were things to do, a battle to win. She would allow herself grief and pride later. Later, when she had time to mourn as Chang deserved.
She stepped onto Yato's flag bridge, and Admiral Stephen Butesky leapt aside to offer her his command chair. She nodded briefly and dropped into x while a shaken Tomanaga quietly displaced Butesky's chief of staff.
"Status report!" she snapped. She didn't really want to know. She didn't want to consider her hideous losses, or even those of her enemies. But she had a job to do. Thank God for this lull! Perhaps she could-- "Admiral Li?" A strange eom rating looked up at her, eyes puzzled, and Hart choked back a sob of grief for the people aboard Arrarat.
"Yes?" Her voice showed no sign of her sorrow.
"I've just picked up a parley signal from Vice Admiral Sonja Desai." Han blinked, then smoothed an incipient scowl from her face and gestured acceptance, her mind racing.
Who the devil was Vice Admiral Desai? It was unheard off An officer didn't simply send a signal to her opponent while missiles and beams were still flying! Why-- She didn't recognize the dark, sharp-featured woman who appeared on the screen. Her vac suit was drenched with blood not her own, obviously, for she sat upright in a command chair, clearly in complete command of herself.
