A Call to Arms

by David Weber

  “So let’s try something crazy,” Heissman said. “As soon as the missiles reach energy torpedo range, flicker the sidewall and fire two bursts along the missiles’ vectors, then raise the sidewall again. Maybe we can take out at least one of them before it hits.”

  Travis felt his throat tighten. Energy torpedoes, bursts of contained plasma bled straight off the reactor, were devastating at short ranges. But they hadn’t exactly been designed as missile killers.

  Woodburn was clearly thinking the same thing. “It’s a long shot,” he warned. “Especially since we might not get the sidewall back up in time. We could miss completely and end up with both missiles coming right in on us.”

  “Granted,” Heissman agreed. “But the other option is to trust a half-power sidewall to keep them out on its own.” He smiled faintly. “And so far, our long shots have been paying out pretty well.”

  “True,” Woodburn said, returning the commodore’s smile. “Very good, Sir. Energy torpedoes standing by.”

  On the tactical, the image that was Gorgon suddenly flared and vanished. “Gorgon’s gone, Sir,” Rusk said grimly.

  Travis felt a sudden swirling of nausea in the pit of his stomach. An entire ship, all those men and women, suddenly gone in a split-second flare of nuclear fire.

  But he couldn’t let himself think about that. Not now. He was an officer of the Royal Manticoran Navy, and his full focus had to remain on his own ship and her people.

  “Lower enemy cruiser swiveling to target Gemini,” Rusk continued.

  “Computer standing ready to flicker sidewall and fire energy torpedoes,” Woodburn added.

  “Acknowledged,” Heissman said. “Hand off to computer.”

  “Hand off to computer, aye,” Woodburn confirmed. “Here we go…”

  Travis felt the slight vibration of distant heavy relays as Casey blasted a barrage of torpedoes into space. They were amazingly fast weapons, nearly as fast as the beams from shipboard X-ray lasers. There was a second vibration as the second salvo followed the first—

  “Sidewall back up,” Woodburn called. Travis held his breath…

  The hope and crossed fingers were in vain. An instant later, Casey gave a violent and all-too-well-remembered jerk and a fresh alarm screamed.

  The missiles had been stopped. But the second starboard sidewall generator had been overloaded and destroyed.

  “Damage?” Heissman called as the alarms once again blared across the bridge.

  “Generator gone,” Belokas reported. “Secondary damage to that area. Casualties reported; no details yet.”

  Travis felt a tightening in his chest. Starboard sidewall gone, only a third of their missiles left, and heading on a ballistic trajectory straight into the center of an enemy formation.

  Worse, at the distances they would be passing the other ships, they would be well within beam range. Knife-fight range…and with Casey’s throat, kilt, and starboard flank open, Tamerlane’s only decision would be which of his ships would get the honor of finishing her off.

  He frowned at the tactical, his fingers keying his board. Tamerlane had already shown he was smart and reasonably cautious. He would assume Casey had lasers fore and aft, and would therefore most likely choose to send his attack in from starboard, where there were no defenses except the energy torpedoes and a much bigger cross-section of ship to target.

  Casey was down to six real missiles, but they still had two practice missiles. And with the electromagnetic launch system instead of solid boosters they ought to be able to just goose one of those missiles from a launch tube without instantly sending it blasting away.

  And if they could…

  He cleared his throat. “Commodore Heissman? I have an idea.”

  * * *

  A small shudder rippled through Hercules’s hull as her ventral box launcher spat out its final missile. “There it goes, Sir,” Labatte murmured. “That should be the last of them.”

  Richard nodded. And with that, Hercules was no longer a warship. She was nothing more than a floating assembly of parts and people, powerless to do anything against the invaders sweeping toward Manticore.

  Powerless to do anything except possibly escape. If that was even still possible.

  “I suppose we can still help protect Casey, though,” Labatte continued. “Assuming we haven’t completely drained the autocannon, that is. I wonder what—holy crap!”

  “What?” Richard demanded, jerking around to look at the status boards. The impellers and sidewalls were still holding firm, or at least as firm as they ever were on this ship.

  “New contacts, Sir,” Labatte said tautly, jabbing a finger at the gravitic repeater display. “Two of them. Damn it all.”

  Richard bit back a curse. In the stress of the battle, with his mind focused on keeping Hercules’s balky impellers running, he’d completely forgotten the two off-again, on-again wedges that Gorgon had spotted several hours ago.

  Those ghost ships had now arrived. And the IDs that CIC had marked on them—

  “Hell in a basket,” Labatte muttered. “Destroyers. We’re in it now, all right, Sir. Up to our necks.”

  The image on the gravitic shifted. “We’re pitching,” Richard said, frowning. Pitching a lot, actually.

  And why pitching at all? The captain should be rolling the ship if he wanted to block missiles from the incoming destroyers.

  “Looks like we’re doing a split tail,” Labatte said. “Hell. Here they come.”

  Richard looked at the gravitic. Here they came, all right: a double barrage of missiles, one group from the two destroyers, the other from the main invasion force.

  Unfortunately, there was no way to tell how many of them were heading for Hercules and how many were targeting the other Janus ships. But there were more than enough to go around.

  “There we go, Sir,” Labatte said, nodding toward the display. “Looks like the captain’s rolling to interpose wedge on the missiles.”

  “Yes,” Richard murmured. Unfortunately, the salvos were coming close enough together that it would be impossible to block both sets. It looked like Captain Hagros had opted to block the destroyers’ attack with Hercules’s roof and hope that the sidewalls could handle whatever came in from the main invasion force.

  He looked at the main status board. “Alpha Four is going twitchy again,” he warned. “Might need a fine-tune.”

  “Could be,” Labatte said, unstrapping. “I’ll take a look, Sir. Keep an eye on Six, too, if you would—it’s got some weird synch going with Four, and the last thing we want is to lose both of them.”

  “Right,” Richard said. “Make it fast.”

  “You got it, Sir,” Labatte said, shoving himself toward the hatchway. “If we’re going to die, we should at least make them work for it.”

  * * *

  The flurry of activity and noise was over, and the Central War Room deep beneath the Palace had gone quiet.

  Too quiet.

  I should say something, King Edward thought as he sat on the command platform between Defense Minister Dapplelake and First Lord of the Admiralty Cazenestro, his hands gripping the ends of his armrests. Something inspiring, or soothing, or heroic.

  But the words eluded him.

  Besides, words were of no more use. Not from here. All the orders anyone could think of had been given; all the ideas anyone could come up with had been implemented; all the straws anyone could grasp at had been grasped.

  Lord Dapplelake and Admiral Cazenestro had done everything they could. The crisis was out of their hands now, and in the hands of the men and women in that small collection of ships out there.

  They can do it, Edward told himself firmly. They were brave and well trained, and they were the sons and daughters of the Star Kingdom. Whatever they could do to hold back this senseless assault, they would do it. And they would win.

  Or die in the attempt.

  “Your Majesty; My Lords?” the young petty officer at the monitor station called hesitantly. “It
looks—” his voice broke. “Gorgon is gone.”

  Edward gripped the chair arms a little harder as he looked at the gravitics display. Sure enough, Gorgon’s wedge had flickered out.

  “They may still be alive, Your Majesty,” Dapplelake murmured hesitantly. “Her impellers could have failed without taking out the rest of the ship.”

  “Perhaps,” Edward said.

  But it was a fool’s hope, and they all knew it. In his mind’s eye he could see the likely and inevitable sequence of events: Commodore Heissman sending Gorgon to the rear to act as com relay…the invaders first probing Janus’s capabilities with missile attacks, deciding they had enough data, and launching a full-on attack…Casey perhaps throwing countermissiles, perhaps choosing instead to continue with a barrage of ship-killers…she and the other ships firing their autocannon…one or more enemy missiles still managing to slip through the defensive field of shrapnel…

  And one of those missiles sending Gorgon and her crew into eternity.

  He took a deep breath. Gorgon was the first to die today. But she wouldn’t be the last.

  “Any news from Vanguard and Nike?”

  “Let me check,” Cazenestro said, swiveling one of his displays a little closer and punching for the proper status report. “Vanguard has her forward reactor on-line and is starting to bring up her impellers. Nike’s reactor is stable, and they’re starting her impellers.”

  “Looks like the last of the crews are on their way up,” Dapplelake added, looking at his own display.

  Edward nodded, feeling his heart ache. The crews, such as they were. The battlecruisers, such as they were. Paper tigers, the whole lot of them: minimal training, minimal weapons, and no chance against even a competently managed corvette, let alone a full invasion force. Both battlecruisers had been in dry dock for the past two months, undergoing refit and repair, and while both were minimally spaceworthy, neither was even remotely battleworthy.

  But they were all that Manticore had left. If the invasion tore through Janus and then Aegis—and there was every indication that it would—then Vanguard and Nike could at least make a show of moving into their path and challenging them.

  Another fool’s hope. But fool’s hopes were about all they had left.

  Fool’s hopes, and prayers for some kind of miracle.

  * * *

  “Because I’ve got the shot and you don’t,” Captain Blakely said with his usual irritating air of pedantic superiority. “You want Heissman and Casey shredded, fine. But you’re the one in charge of this little operation, and you can’t just go running off formation whenever you feel like it. Not with Green One about to come barreling down our throats. You need to be standing right out front where you can be the admiral.” He paused, a slight smirk flicking across his face. “And where you can be ready to take that first shot.”

  Gensonne glared at the com display, wanting with all his soul to slap the other down.

  But unfortunately, he was right. Casey was on a flat trajectory that would take her across the Volsung array, as fat and easy a target as anyone could ever hope for. But Tyr was in position to chase her down and deliver that death blow. Odin wasn’t.

  Equally important, Tyr still had her full armament in good working condition. Odin didn’t.

  “Fine,” he growled. “Just watch yourself. You’re going to be well within range of Heissman’s energy torpedoes, and you’d look even stupider than you do now as a glowing ball of hot gas.”

  “You want to come over here and hold my hand?” Blakely countered. “I know how to stick a pig. Besides, there’s no way he can beat my shot—a laser’s charge, acquire, and fire sequence will always beat an energy torpedo’s acquire, charge, and fire. I’ll have him by at least a quarter-second, maybe even half a one.”

  “Thank you, Professor,” Gensonne bit out. “I do know how weapons systems work.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Blakely said. “And that assumes he’s even got target locks left after what we did to his sidewall.” He gestured impatiently. “You concentrate on taking out Green One and making sure Llyn pays on time when we’re done. I’ll take care of Heissman and the Manticorans’ precious Casey.”

  “Fine,” Gensonne growled again. “Just make it fast. I want you back in the stack before Green One arrives.”

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” Blakely said soothingly. “If you get bored, have Imbar bring you a book.”

  Cursing under his breath, Gensonne keyed off the display. For another moment he scowled at the empty screen, then turned back to the tactical. Again, Blakely was right—the firing sequence for energy torpedo systems was by its very nature slower than that of a spinal laser. Heissman would probably try to move his ship within the wedge to throw off Tyr’s targeting, but provided Blakely fired within a half second of the instant the cruiser came into view, he should have no problem gutting the Manticoran ship before they could fire back.

  So Blakely wanted to rub Gensonne’s nose in the fact that he’d taken out the punk-sized ship that had slapped Odin across the head? Fine. Gensonne was bigger than that. He could see the full picture. That was why he was an admiral, and Blakely was just a captain.

  And if Blakely had ambitions that direction?

  Gensonne smiled tightly. For his sake, he’d better not.

  * * *

  Three quarters of a second.

  Travis had run the numbers. So had Woodburn, and Heissman, and probably everyone else on the bridge and in CIC. And those cold numbers led to the equally cold conclusion that Casey was doomed.

  The enemy battlecruiser had finished her rotation, her forward spinal laser lined up on the spot where Casey would be passing through the formation ninety seconds from now. She would be at point-blank distance, barely a thousand kilometers away, an insanely short range in these days of long-range missiles and high-powered X-ray lasers.

  The captain of that ship would certainly recognize the risks. But he’d undoubtedly run the numbers, too. The instant his bow cleared the edge of Casey’s wedge, his targeting sensors would pinpoint Casey’s location, send the data to the ship’s spinal laser, and fire. It would all be automated, with no human hand required, and if the battlecruiser was running modern electronics the whole operation would take between a quarter and a half-second.

  It would be the battlecruiser’s single shot, given the laser’s recharge time. But with a nearly two-second window of opportunity, that half second would be all she needed.

  Casey’s return fire had also been keyed in and automated, and would also fire at the best speed possible. But the reality of energy torpedo response times meant that her counterattack would take nearly half a second longer than the battlecruiser’s.

  A half second longer, in other words, than Casey had to live.

  Three quarters of a second.

  Travis knew what an X-ray laser could do to a ship. If the battlecruiser’s beam hit Casey it would slice straight through the hull and interior compartments, gutting the cruiser like a fish. If it happened to hit the fusion bottle, the end would come for everyone aboard in a single massive fireball. If it didn’t, the crew would die marginally more slowly: some as the air was sucked out of broken work zones into space, others as they floated helplessly into eternity wrapped in their vac suits.

  And all that stood between them and that fate was Travis’s crazy idea. Travis’s idea, and Heissman’s willingness to try it.

  Three quarters of a second.

  “Ten seconds,” Woodburn announced.

  Travis took one final look at his displays, automatically starting his own mental countdown. Ten kilometers to Casey’s aft, held loosely in place twenty kilometers out from her starboard side by a tractor beam, was one of the practice missiles, waiting for the automated order that would light up its wedge and send it leaping through space. With the enemy battlecruiser a thousand kilometers away, Travis’s mind automatically calculated, it would take the missile seven and a half seconds to reach it. Under the present circ
umstances, an unreachable eternity.

  Fortunately, that wasn’t where the missile needed to go.

  Travis looked back at the tactical, marveling at how he was even able to calculate timings with his adrenaline-pumped time sense racing like a missile on sprint mode. His mental countdown ran to zero—

  On the tactical, the battlecruiser appeared around the edge of Casey’s roof, free and open to fire. A quarter second, Travis had estimated before her spinal laser tore through the helpless cruiser.

  And off Casey’s starboard flank, the practice missile lit up its wedge and leaped forward.

  Not heading away from the cruiser or toward the battlecruiser, but tracing out a path alongside and parallel to Casey’s hull.

  Missiles had just two preset acceleration rates: a long-range mode of thirty-five-hundred gravities, and a sprint mode of ten thousand. Those settings couldn’t be changed, at least not by any equipment Casey had aboard, and even at the slower acceleration the missile wouldn’t be pacing Casey for long.

  But it didn’t have to. With a wedge size of ten kilometers, and with Casey herself just under three hundred seventy meters long, the missile’s wedge could block the enemy laser from the moment its leading edge passed Casey’s bow to the moment when its trailing edge traveled beyond the cruiser’s stern.

  For a crucial three-quarters of a second.

  Sometime in that heartbeat the battlecruiser undoubtedly took its single shot. Travis never knew for sure—the missile’s wedge completely blocked Casey’s view of what was happening on the other side. Then the missile was past, and momentum had carried the battlecruiser halfway through the open area between Casey’s stress bands.

  And with a final, massive barrage of energy torpedoes, Casey went for the kill.

  * * *

  Gensonne stared at his displays, his mouth hanging open, his brain fighting to disbelieve what he was seeing. It was impossible. The numbers had proved that. Tyr couldn’t possibly have missed its shot, and Casey couldn’t possibly have fired first.

  But the numbers had lied. Somehow, they’d lied.

  And as Gensonne watched in utter horror, Tyr disintegrated.