by David Weber
Janus had had their shot at the invaders. Time for Aegis to set up for theirs.
* * *
In modern warfare, it was usually only those on the bridge or CIC who knew what was going on beyond the hull. Most of the officers and crew, their full attention focused on their own duties, never even knew about the missile that killed them.
Crown Prince Richard Winton certainly never did.
* * *
The War Room had gone suddenly silent. King Edward barely noticed. The walls and displays and monitors had gone faint and blurry, their lines and edges wavering as if in a summer afternoon’s heat haze. Edward barely noticed that, either.
Because there was one monitor that still remained in sharp focus. One monitor that was still connected to reality, to the core of the King’s being. It was the monitor that showed the remnants of the Janus task force.
The monitor where Hercules had just winked out of existence.
Where his son had just died.
Slowly, dimly, he became aware that quiet voices had begun again around him. Hushed voices, whispering updates and status reports.
And then, with a sense like the wrenching of a dislocated shoulder, he remembered that other fathers across the Star Kingdom had also lost sons and daughters this day. That wives had lost husbands, husbands had lost wives, children had lost parents. Most of them didn’t yet know about those losses, but that didn’t make the horror any less terrible or permanent.
And Edward remembered that he wasn’t just a father. He was also the King.
The King of everyone.
The time for full mourning would come later. Right now, his job was to do whatever he could to keep as many of his subjects alive as possible.
He took a deep breath, the expansion of his lungs feeling like it was driving shards of glass into his heart. “So that leaves Casey as the only remaining Janus ship,” he said, forcing his voice to remain calm. Even in a crisis, the King’s voice should remain calm. “What do we have on Aegis’s combat readiness, My Lord Cazenestro?”
He heard the First Lord’s answer. He even tried to listen to the answer. But for the next few minutes, even the realities of war could only penetrate so deeply into his heart.
His son was dead.
* * *
“New contact!” Commander Shiflett’s voice came sharply over Damocles’s bridge speaker. “Two contacts bearing two-four-oh by two-seven. Range, approximately eight point six million kilometers.”
Lisa’s first, horrifying thought was that more of the invaders had somehow gotten in behind them without anyone noticing. But an instant later she realized that was impossible. In which case—
“Got an ID,” Shiflett continued. “HMS Aries and Taurus.”
Lisa’s reflexive dismay was replaced by an equally reflexive hope. Two more RMN ships, unexpectedly in position to aid in Damocles’s mission of harassing the two invading Group Three destroyers.
And then, once again, reality abruptly reached across the universe and slapped her across the back of the head. Of course the two corvettes weren’t Navy. Not anymore.
MacNiven, at the helm, got there first. “MPARS?” he said, the word halfway between a question and a curse. “I thought they were ordered to stand down.”
“They were,” Captain Marcello growled. “Apparently Aries and Taurus didn’t get the memo.”
“Or ignored it,” Lisa murmured.
“Or ignored it,” Marcello agreed. “Well, beggars can’t be choosers. Com, get a laser on them—our compliments, and see if Captains Hardasty and Kostava can bring anything to this party.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
She relayed the message, and Lisa started her usual mental countdown. At the MPARS ships’ distance, a round-trip message would take almost a minute.
In the meantime, she’d ordered an additional check of the weapons systems’ battle-readiness, and those reports were starting to come in.
She was halfway through the stack when the com speaker came to life. “Captain Hardasty; Aries,” a woman’s brisk voice came. “Sorry to be late to the festivities, Captain Marcello. Actually, you’re lucky we’re here at all. We were supposed to be halfway to Manticore-B by now, but we had some trouble with our reactor, and Taurus needed to retune one of her nodes—”
“Yes, yes, fine,” Marcello cut in.
Or rather tried to. At half a light-minute away, the woman could prattle on forever before she even heard Marcello’s interruption.
Luckily, she didn’t. The reactor trouble, the node trouble, crews who didn’t necessarily know which end of a missile was which— “But we’re finally locked and loaded and ready to go,” she concluded. “What do you need us to do?”
“We’ve got two enemy destroyers coming in,” Marcello said. “Group Three. Our orders are to keep them away from Manticore, and if possible to take them out. It looks like you’re in position to come at them from an angle.”
The slow minute ticked by. Lisa finished reading through the reports, confirming that all was in order.
Which wasn’t to say all was exactly well. Damocles’s missile count sat at seven, and her autocannon loads were about sixty percent of what they could carry in their magazines. That was probably a shade better than typical for RMN ordnance levels these days, but not exactly optimal for actual battle.
Of course, Aries and Taurus had another six missiles between them. But that would mean zipper if the two captains couldn’t bring their ships properly into play.
“And box them in?” Hardasty came back. “Good idea—let’s do it. Unfortunately, our TO, Ensign Badakar, is a little…inexperienced…so we’re a bit unprepared for this kind of thing.”
“Understood,” Marcello said. “What are you prepared to do?”
The time lag started. “Ensign Badakar, TO?” Marcello asked.
“One moment, Sir,” Lisa said, punching up the Navy personnel records. “Ensign Rol Badakar, class of 1541, first assignment Damocles…looks like he was kept aboard after the transfer to MPARS, basically an extended snotty cruise. Average scores down the line.”
“And inexperienced,” Marcello said sourly. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.”
Lisa nodded. The reactivation of the battlecruisers had made the supply of suitable TOs and ATOs even thinner on the ground than usual, and Cazenestro certainly wouldn’t have given the Navy’s best to MPARS.
An attitude and policy which now threatened to turn around and bite them all on the butts. Hardasty and Kostava’s blatant disregard for their orders had unexpectedly added two more ships to the Star Kingdom’s defense. But without proper tactical expertise, they would be next to useless.
“Whatever we can,” Hardasty’s response came back. Her voice, Lisa noted, was tense but firm. “Just tell us what you want us to do.”
Lisa felt a stirring of somewhat grudging admiration. Going into battle with full personnel and training was risky enough. Going in with one hand tied behind your back and your feet hobbled was three steps above courageous. One final surprise from the universe in a day that had already seen more than its share of them.
“No problem,” Marcello said. “My TO, Lieutenant Commander Donnelly, will handle liaison with you.” Lisa felt a rustling in the air behind her as he gestured. “Commander?”
“Yes, Sir,” Lisa said, glad that the positioning of her bridge station put her with her face away from Marcello. It was the logical decision, and the two MPARS ships certainly needed her.
But the liaison job would mean that she wouldn’t be able to focus her full attention on her own ship, which was her primary job as Damocles’s TO. Fleetingly, she wondered what Cazenestro and the Admiralty would say about that.
And realized suddenly that she didn’t care. Hardasty and Kostava had ignored orders. If Marcello and Lisa had to ignore protocol, that was what they had to do. Desperate times, and all that; and these times were about as desperate as they got.
“Working up coordinated intercept courses
for them now.”
“Excellent,” Marcello said. “Captain Hardasty, Lieutenant Donnelly is working up intercept courses for you and Taurus to coordinate with our plans. Be ready to receive and implement.”
Once again, the long delay began. “As soon as you send the course, TO, you and the XO will swap positions,” Marcello told Lisa. “You can coordinate their movements as well from CIC as here, and you’ll get any changes in Group Three’s activity a shade faster there.”
“Understood, Sir,” Lisa said.
“And cheer up, everyone,” Marcello said, raising his voice to include the rest of the bridge and CIC. “We started out one ship against two. Now, we’re three against two.”
Lisa made a face. Right. Three ships rushing to the defense of the Star Kingdom. Two of those ships MPARS.
God help them all.
* * *
“Well,” Captain Heissman commented coolly. “That changes things a bit.”
“It does indeed,” Woodburn agreed, just as coolly. “Possibly more than just a bit.”
Travis stared at the gravitics display, a chill running through him. Thirty seconds ago, the plan had been for Casey to wait until she was out of the invading force’s missile range, then roll wedge back over and chase after them, with the goal of catching up and attacking their rear. If they were lucky, Admiral Locatelli and Aegis would arrive into attack position from in front at about the same time, allowing them to catch the enemy in a pincer.
But that tactical high ground was gone now. With the dramatic and totally unexpected appearance of the eight new ships of Tamerlane’s second wave, it was Casey herself who was about to be caught in the pincer.
“Suggestions?” Heissman invited. “Celia; Alfred?”
“I don’t see a lot of options to choose from,” Woodburn said. “Even if we push the compensator to the limit, we can’t finish decelerating and then accelerate back toward Manticore fast enough to stay out of their missile range.”
“We could roll wedge and get out of here,” Belokas suggested hesitantly. “Plenty of time for that. But that would take us out of the battle. I don’t like the thought of that.”
“Not when we still have six missiles we can throw at them,” Heissman agreed. “So let’s split the difference. We’ll hold our attitude and head positive until we’re clear of their missile range. Then, we’ll pitch ninety degrees and head back across the top of their formation, continuing our deceleration. Assuming they don’t detach a ship to take us out, we should be able to curve around behind them and become the same up-the-kilt nuisance we were planning to be for Tamerlane’s first wave.”
“Sounds good, Sir,” Belokas said.
“Best we’re going to get, anyway,” Woodburn said. “There’s the whole question of whether we’ll be able to catch up with them in time to do any good, but it’s better than nothing. And they have to start decelerating sometime.”
“Unless they intend to slam full-speed into Manticore,” Heissman said grimly.
Which along with being suicidal was utterly forbidden by the Solarian League’s Eridani Edict. But Tamerlane seemed to be one of the shadier types of mercenary, and Travis wasn’t willing to trust that he would play by any of the established rules of warfare. He doubted Captain Heissman had any such trust, either.
The worst part of such a scenario was that if such an attack did indeed happen—if Tamerlane flew one of his ships into Manticore or fired a missile at the planet—System Command would see it coming but not have the slightest hope of doing anything about it. The speeds would be too great, the response time too short, the fixed defenses on Thorson too inadequate.
The response time too short…
“Which we will fervently hope they don’t,” Woodburn said. “I’ve got a course plotted, Sir. But I’m thinking that Mr. Long has that look in his eye again.”
“Does he, now,” Heissman said. “Mr. Long? You have a thought?”
The words had almost an air of bantering about them, Travis noted distantly. But beneath the joke, he could sense some genuine respect.
His last idea had worked. Maybe he could make it two for two.
“I was thinking, sir,” he said. “Our floor is currently toward the second wave, so they can’t see anything we do in here. I was thinking we could just hold position and let them get closer—”
“Closer?” Belokas asked.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Travis said. “But while their line of sight was blocked, we would ease the rest of our missiles out of the tubes and tractor them into place off our flank, pointed back toward the second wave. We let the wave get to close range, then accelerate positive, as you’ve already suggested, Sir. As soon as our wedge is clear, we activate the missiles and fire them.”
“Clever,” Heissman said thoughtfully. “If they’re not paying attention they may not notice the threat until the missiles light up their wedges. And even if they do, they won’t have nearly as much time to react as they would if we fired at usual missile range.”
“At the very least, they would spend some of their point defenses destroying them,” Travis said, a small warmth growing inside him. Two for two…
“Very clever, indeed,” Heissman said. “Unfortunately, not practical.” He gestured. “Helm, initiate the TO’s course.”
“TO’s course, aye,” the helmsman replied.
“And you might want to close your mouth, Mr. Long,” Heissman added, a small smile on his face. “That look ill becomes a proper bridge officer.”
Travis hadn’t realized his mouth was open. “I don’t understand, Sir,” he managed, the warm glow turned to ashes and the familiar twisting pain of embarrassment.
“Oh, it would work,” Heissman said. “At least, after a fashion. The problem is that once the missiles were away we’d have no way to control them. Telemetry is iffy enough through a sidewall; it doesn’t work at all through a wedge.”
“I know that, Sir,” Travis said. “I was thinking the missiles would use their own internal guidance systems.”
“And if those systems were more sophisticated, I’d be tempted to give it a try,” Woodburn said. “Unfortunately, they aren’t. You saw the kind of ECM Tamerlane’s ships have. They’d have the missiles off course before they even got within countermissile range.”
Travis grimaced. He’d hoped that knowing the basic parameters of the attackers’ ECM would allow the missile techs to do a quick reprograming of the internal guidance systems. Apparently, it wouldn’t. “Yes, Sir. I see.”
“I don’t think you do, Lieutenant,” Woodburn said, not unkindly. “At least, not completely.”
“Under other circumstances it might still be worth a try,” Heissman said. “But in this case, sitting here coasting for that long would mean that once we started our loop we wouldn’t have a hope of catching up with them once we were behind them. You heard what Alfred said: whether we can manage it is questionable as it is. But that’s our only chance of staying in the battle, and we’d be giving it up for a very small chance of success.”
“Yes, Sir,” Travis said again. This time, he meant it.
“Good,” Heissman said. “Bottom line: don’t stop coming up with ideas, and never stop pitching them. You’ve already saved Casey once today. You may have another chance before this day is over.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Green One has reached extreme missile range, Admiral,” Imbar announced.
And with their kilts still flapping open to the breeze. Gensonne smiled tightly, his simmering fury over Tyr’s destruction self-focusing into something razor sharp and bitterly cold.
The loss of his second battlecruiser had forced a change in his original plan. Fortunately, he had a backup already drawn up. Time to implement that new plan.
And to end both the battle and the Star Kingdom of Manticore.
“Admiral?” Imbar prompted.
“Hold your fire,” Gensonne said. “Locatelli was trying to match our speed as best he could, but he isn’t going
to sit kilt-first to us much longer. No point in firing when the missiles will be just in time to shred themselves against their wedges. We’ll wait until they’re almost facing us with their throats wide open.”
“Yes, Sir,” Imbar said. “I just hope…” He trailed off.
“You hope what, Captain?”
“Nothing, Sir.”
“I said you hope what, Captain?” Gensonne repeated.
Imbar’s shoulders hunched. “I was just wondering if the Manticorans might have a few more surprises in store,” he said reluctantly.
“Like what?” Gensonne growled. “Throwing a party for us, maybe?”
“I mean surprises like Casey,” Imbar growled back. “Or surprises like having two battlecruisers instead of the one that little worm Llyn told us they had.”
“Aspect change, Admiral,” Clymes announced. “Green One has ceased deceleration and is turning.”
“Pitch or yaw turn?” Gensonne asked.
“Yaw, Sir.”
“Sidewalls up?”
“Not yet.”
“There—you see?” Gensonne said, gesturing in the direction of the distant enemy. “Standard yaw with sidewalls down so that he can keep us in sight the whole time he’s turning. Locatelli is either nervous or unimaginative, and either way he’s not in Captain Heissman’s class. That’s the kind of backwater navy we expected, Captain, and that’s the kind we’re getting. Casey was a fluke.”
Imbar didn’t answer.
But then, he didn’t have to. Gensonne was well aware of his thoughts: that fluke had cost them a battlecruiser.
Speaking of Casey…
He looked at the aft tactical display. Casey was heading positive at a brisk pace, her floor still toward the Volsung main force, apparently intent on getting clear before De la Roza’s ships ran over her.
Or else Heissman was planning to do an up-and-over and come in behind them. In which case, he could still cause trouble.
Gensonne should probably warn them. He opened his mouth—
“Green One has finished their turn,” Clymes announced. “Sidewalls up; they’re ready for battle.”
