Kendric and Morganen studied the tactical display. Based on scanner images taken by the Gaidheal, it showed the Vathlin system as viewed from the Gaidheal's perspective at the edge of the system, some eight light hours from the planet.
Captain Neal's voice came across on the bridge speakers as he explained the transmitted images. "Everything we picked up was eight hours old, of course. But as you can see, the TOG fleet is there, and they're there in force!"
Computer-generated symbols drifted across the display. Mass and acceleration estimates allowed computer-directed guesses as to ship types. Twelve capital ships were clearly visible, orbiting the planet. Three were battleships beyond doubt. Two more might be carriers, or they might be very large, Regnum Class battleships. Seven were imisers, ranging from a pair of Mars Class heavies to one that might be the same class as the Reannruadh.
There were at least thirty other symbols, indicating destroyers, 11 igates, and corvettes. Ponderous, low-acceleration craft that might be (ankers were parked in orbit over an outer gas giant, guarded by five destroyers and a small cloud of fighters.
"We can't jump into that," Morganen said quietly.
"There's more, sir," Neal continued. "They must have seen me on their T-dopplers, of course, but they didn't know where I'd popped out. I'd emerged about three light hours from their nearest concentration of ships—at the outer gas giant—and figured I'd have at least that long before they spotted me and sent someone to chase me away.
"But it appeared as though the whole fleet was working on establishing defensive positions. The major capitals were in orbit over Vathlin. Their patrol ships were in the process of forming a huge, defensive perimeter, but it was concentrating over here." An area of space on the map flashed red. "That was clear across the star system, on the far side of the sun. Obviously, they expected something to be coming in from that direction.
"We scanned using T-doppler, and we picked up this." An inset screen appeared, showing the blobby, moving color images of a T-doppler scan.
"An incoming fleet," Kendric said. "A big one."
"Yessir. For a moment, I thought it might be our Commonwealth reception committee, but it's coming in from the wrong direction."
"Not necessarily," Morganen said. "That could be the result of a multiple jump to throw off TOG trackers."
"Yeah, except that direction also happens to be on a straight line with the KessRith domains...another 5,000 light years that-away!"
"KessRith!" Kendric said. "How are they involved in this?"
"Beats me, Skipper," Neal said. "But I figured you'd want to know. That's why I extended my stay, to watch and see what was happening."
"Good job, Captain Neal," Kendric said. "Thank you!"
He turned to Morganen. "Well, Number One? Recommendations?"
Morganen stared at the screen. "Run for it, skipper. Run for Yanulf."
"I wonder."
"Sir...our people are beat! Them and our ships both have been through a grinder these past weeks!" He stabbed a finger at the tactical display. "We can't jump into that!"
Kendric rubbed his chin, staring at the display, then turned to face Morganen. "Len, look at it this way. If that is the Commonwealth fleet we're supposed to meet, they're jumping blind into the Vathlin system. What do they do when they find a TOG battlefleet waiting for them?"
"Huh. They assume they've been set up."
"Right. Either they jump all the way in and find themselves fighting for their lives, or they do what we did—find a staging area and send in scouts. The scouts get picked off by the TOG patrol craft, and the main fleet jumps onto the Commonwealth staging area with everything they have."
"Well, I can see we don't wantthe Commonwealth thinking we set them up. But what if they're not Commonwealth, but KessRith?"
"What's the difference? So far, KessRith and Commonwealth have each been fighting their own, separate little wars. Wouldn't it make more sense if the KessRith and the Commonwealth were fighting TOG together? Maybe we could help, set the stage for a KessRith-Common-wealth alliance!"
Morganen shook his head. "Uh...you've gotten way beyond me, Skipper. I wasn't planning on turning the tide of the war. I just want to get somewhere safe!"
"So do we all. But, I think we'd better go back there and help. Whoever the newcomers are, we can't let them drop into aTOG trap!"
"Skipper...the women and children! The families! We can't risk..."
"Look. We leave the transports here, with the Teachdair as escort. They'll have orders: Wait fifty hours. If we're not back at the end of that time, jump for Yanulf as originally planned.
"Lenard, we've got to help those people! If we don't, it could be a major disaster for the Commonwealth...a disaster we're responsible for!" Kendric straightened. "A TOG Imperial Navy Commander would agree with you, Len. But this is the time we stop behaving like TOG officers, and start behaving like Humans!"
"I don't know, sir."
"I do. Shall I give the orders.. .or will you?"
Morganen looked at Kendric for a long moment. "Fleet Captain Fraser...you are insane. Sir." He hesitated, then added, "You're also right. Crazy...but right. I will give the orders."
It's Caracalla! It's Caracalla! All units rendezvous at Caracalla, Vathlin System!
—Overlord Mag nan Domitius Gracchi, Battleship Caesar Reg-num, to other naval units in area. VLCA transmission intercepted by COMINT communications probe, deep space, vicinity Caracalla Cluster, 25 Dec, 6830
For Fleet Commander Davidian, what had happened was obvious. Somehow TOG SI and military intelligence had fooled COMINT once again. The fleet waiting at Vathlin was no renegade squadron seeking to defect, but a TOG battle fleet, already positioned and ready for him. Davidian had a critical decision to make. The Renegade Legion strike force had materialized at the system's edge and found patrol ships and small craft waiting there, posted in a defensive perimeter that extended halfway around the star. His scanners had already picked up the telltale mass blip of a TOG VLCA ship in Vathlin orbit, guarded by a Regnum Class battleship.
He could break contact with the patrol vessels guarding the system's perimeter and flee, taking losses but saving the bulk of his fleet. Or he could plunge ahead and engage the enemy here, now. The TOG force outnumbered, outmassed, and outgunned his own fleet by a considerable margin, but it was deployed across the star system in order to cover every approach. If he could strike swiftly enough, strike hard enough, he might savage the TOG fleet, hurt it enough that the Renegade Legion fleet could withdraw, claiming victory.
His KessRith contacts had told him of the loss of Yanulf. Though the news had been kept from the general Commonwealth population so far, it would not remain secret for long. The morale value of a victory now, deep in TOG space, might offset the news of the disaster at Yanulf, might even be worth the losses his strike force would suffer in the attack.
The sensible course was to withdraw while his ships still had mass enough to change course, accelerate, and make the T-space transit back to Commonwealth space. Davidian, however, was a proponent of the offensive school of warfare. The Commonwealth, and its Renegade Legion allies, were too hard-pressed and far too outnumbered to win in a strictly defensive war.
There was a popular saying, a kind of victory slogan, making the rounds of Legion units: No guts—no Galaxy. Simplistic to the point of idiocy, and yet it embodied the spirit of determination to succeed, to strike out offensively, to dare and to win—even to bring TOG to its knees. Another saying, much, much older, said it well: Who dares, wins.
He would take the gamble and attack.
Aboard the TOG Imperial flagship Caesar Regnus, Overlord Magnan Domitius Gracchi gave his final orders to Admiral Octavia-nus. The Gael Squadron was not here, as his intelligence sources had reported. It was possible they had not yet arrived or that they had arrived and already departed. No matter. The fleet at Yanulf was on the alert. If the Gael Squadron had already gone there, the matter was settled once and for all.
&nbs
p; Gracchi did not believe that the Provincials had arrived yet. The appearance of this new fleet—members of the Renegade Legion, judging by the red, graffiti "R" symbols adorning their flanks and radiator fins—suggested that the expected rendezvous had not yet taken place. Clearly, the Renegade Legion ships had not expected to find TOG waiting for them. Perhaps the Gaels were still on their way.
Perfect! The TOG fleet would cripple the Renegade Legion force and still be waiting when the Gaels arrived.
"We will hold them here, Admiral," he said. "Deploy your main fleet, but hold Caesar Regnus in reserve, to deal with the provincials when they arrive!"
Admiral Octavianus saluted. "Ave, Supradomine! Ad tuum im-peratum! Ad gloriam Caesari Juliani!"
The seconds ticked away as the mass shadows of the cluster suns thinned out.
"We're calculating this real close," Kendric said over his com to Kirkpatrick. "Any problems?"
"There's no way our breakout can be exact, Skipper. The parameters are too fuzzy. But we should land right in the middle of it, assuming that's what you want..."
"That's what I want. Right now, surprise is the only thing going for us."
"If anyone is there at all."
It was a difficult problem. By the time they broke out of T-space, all of the Gaidheal's observations would be two days out of date. The Gael Squadron might encounter a system-wide battle, a waiting TOG fleet...or nothing at all.
Anyone waiting for them would note their approach T-doppler, though there would be no way to predict exactly where the squadron would break out. The inability of T-doppler to make precise predictions about a fleet's breakout point was what Kendric was relying on.
"Ops? Everybody still with us?"
"Four wakes, holding tight to us, sir. All that practice is paying off, sir!"
"Let's hope so!"
On the screen ahead, the shadows of the last cluster stars vanished to right and left, top and bottom.
Breakout!
Battle and violent death filled the Vathlin system, though the fact was immediately apparent only on the Warrior's sensitive scanners. In the time it had taken the Gaidheal to make her round about way back to the cluster rendezvous, the Renegade Legion fleet had materialized in the Vathlin system, out near the perimeter, and had engaged the TOG forces waiting there for them. The battle had unfolded, with Legion ships angling toward the inner system in long, sweeping arcs and being intercepted by TOG reserves burning out to meet them at high G. The first exchanges had been high-speed passes, the weaponry handled entirely by computer. With each pass, reversal, and new pass, the elements of the opposing fleets became more and more spread out, until the system was filled with isolated ships and small groups blindly groping for one another and occasionally meeting in silently blossoming flashes of light and death.
The Gael Warrior emerged from T-space less than twenty million kilometers from Vathlin, deep within the far-flung sphere of combatants. Their breakout had been timed to carry them past the system's outer perimeter and into the inner heart of the Vathlin system.
There was danger here, quite apart from the possibility of TOG battleships held in reserve. Miscalculation or hesitation on the part of the maneuvering crew, and a ship could materialize within Vathlin's sun or on a course that would send it hurtling into Vathlin or another inner planet before there was time to change course or slow down.
Planets and even suns are tiny things compared to the entire volume of a star system, however. The chance of collision was remote. More dangerous were the TOG ships that must lurk there, waiting. But if the TOG ships were watching the system's perimeter, Kendric had reasoned, a drop from T-space close by Vathlin itself would have to catch them by surprise. Better, their own scannings would be more up-to-date, detailing events only minutes past, instead of hours. The situation could be evaluated and, if warranted, the squadron would reenter T-space without changing course. In that case, they would refuel elsewhere, then make their way separately to Yanulf, there to meet the Teachdair and the transports that would have preceded them there long since.
Perhaps the gamble had paid off after all.
"Mass and neutrino readings," Kelly MacCandless reported from ()ps. "We make it a TOG VLCA ship... and one hell of a big battleship, in Vathlin orbit."
"Only two?"
"We're reading some fighters, probably flying CSP for the battleship, but nothing else, Captain. Everyone else is scattered throughout the system."
"Any ideas yet who's winning?"
"Negative, Skipper. We're picking up radar and infrared of a lot of junk, dead ships. No telling who's who at this point."
"How about the rest of the squadron?"
"They came out as scheduled. Scattered a bit. The lolaire is out by herself ahead of our line, and the Reannruadh is trailing by 50,000 kilometers, but they're pulling in, as ordered."
"Right. Keep us posted."
On the main viewer, Vathlin hung against space, a gleaming blue crescent ahead and to starboard. A battleship and a VLCA ship, I ((gether and isolated from the rest of the fleet. The situation was similar to what he'd encountered at Trothas. It was distinctly possible—even probable—that those two ships represented TOG's headquarters in this fight. The battleship would be the flag of the TOG Commanding Admiral. The VLCA would be his command link to other fleets and squadrons assembling in other, nearby star systems. Perhaps those other fleets were meant to trap survivors fleeing a TOG victory here. Perhaps they were marshaling as reinforcements. In either case, destruction of that VLCA would have a bearing on the conflict entirely out of proportion to the loss of a single ship by the other side. They were going to have to get past the battleship to get her.
Kendric murmured a request into his console microphone, and computer schematics and data scrolled up on one of his console screens. The Warrior's warbook classified the TOG flagship as a Regnum Class battleship, slightly longer than the Warrior and far heavier, with weapons batteries that outgunned the Gael ship by at least 3 to 2.
He touched a button. "IFCO, this is the Captain. I'm patching through to the Group Leader."
"His line's open, Captain."
"Jaime... this is the Captain. I'm going to kick you out pretty soon."
"We're hot and ready, Skipper. Just give the word."
"Have you been following the tacticals?"
"Yep. Big son-of-a-gun, isn't she?"
"Win this one and we' re home free, Jaime. Otherwise..." He found himself at a loss for words. "I just wanted to explain. We have to throw everything at them, to make this gamble pay off."
The Gael Warrior was down to less than fifty fighters now. The TOG battleship would no doubt have a full group of seventy-two. Beyond them was the Regnum herself.
"I want you to try to reach the VLCA ship, Jaime. Avoid the Regnum and her fighter screen."
"Easier said than done, Skipper. We'll try."
"We'll try to help punch a hole through for you...and hold the battleship. Your Group will have the best chance of breaking through and hitting the communications ship."
"Will do, Captain." There was a hesitation. "Skipper? Our people will be safe?"
"Safe as we can arrange it. The Teachdair and the transports will jump for Yanulf if they don't hear from us. Best I could do."
"I'm glad. I hope they find a home in the Commonwealth." There was another silence. "Ken?"
"Yes, Jaime?"
"I hope you find a home, too. T.C...well, she's one hell of a woman. I wish you both well."
Kendric groped for the right thing to say. Jaime's pessimism was clear over the com channel, and Kendric felt sudden horror at the thought of the young fighter pilot launching to engage a numerically superior enemy in that frame of mind. With Douglass's next words, he once again heard the hard, cold professionalism of a military man. "Warrior's Group, Flights Alpha, Beta, Gamma, all report power up and clear for launch. All Interceptors standing by for systems' switchover."
Jardine's voice answered. "IFCO to all fighte
rs. Systems switchover in three...two...one...mark. Stand by for launch."
The Gael Warrior and her consorts closed upon Vathlin, accelerating at flank speed. The TOG flagship seemed to hesitate, then with plasma drive flares pulsing brilliantly, she accelerated smoothly from orbit and began to close with the approaching squadron, her lighters an advance phalanx screening their master's advance. At a carefully calculated moment, the Regnum battleship turned end for end, decelerating.
The TOG admiral's plan was, evidently, to avoid the situation that had presented itself to Kendric at the extra-galactic VLCA relay. By I he time the Gael Squadron reached the TOG battleship, it would be travelling along the same course at the same speed as its smaller opponents. A mad dash out of range would not be possible this time. A mad dash was not part of Kendric's plan this time, either.
Enlisted ratings had already distributed emergency pressure helmets to the bridge crew. Kendric held his in his lap, his fingers drumming on its silvery surface. Beyond ordering the Reannruadh to press closer to the Gael Warrior, and having the lolaire fall back to join the other two destroyers in a loose ring aft of the battleship, there were no changes to be made in the squadron's disposition.
Then...
"Target in range!"
"Very well, Mr. Fairfax. That ship is in our way. Remove it."
There was a ripple of laughter from the Well, though Kendric could detect a sharp-edged hysteria behind it. The Regnum was already clearly visible on the main viewer, a toylike, glittering wedge close by Vathlin's silver crescent, still distant, but wearing its power like a cloak.
The familiar shudder trembled in the deck, and the bridge lights dimmed. The Warrior'% main weapon fired, hurling high-velocity mass at the enemy.
"Helm! Cut acceleration by point five," he said. "Pipe it through to all ships." If they could stay aft of the battleship, they would have a small advantage. The Regnum would not be able to fire its main weapon at them.
White fire and lightning erupted across the TOG battleship's stern. "Hit!" Fairfax exclaimed over the bridge talk circuit, and a ragged cheer from the other officers followed.
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