by David Weber
The admiral stood, glaring across his desk at the diplomat.
"All that is available from the public record, Mr. Houseman, and our own Embassy reports confirm it. They also confirm that those industrially backward Masadans have committed over a third of their gross system product to the military for the last twenty years! Grayson can't possibly do that. They've only managed to stay in shouting distance because their larger GSP means the smaller percentage they can divert to the military is about half as large in absolute terms. Under the circumstances, only an idiot would suggest they ought to give their enemies more economic muscle to beat them to death with!"
"That's your opinion," Houseman muttered. He was white-faced with mingled fury and shock, for he'd looked only at absolute tonnages in the casual glance he'd given the comparative naval strengths. The difference in capabilities hadn't even occurred to him.
"Yes, it is my opinion." Courvosier's voice was calmer, but there was no yield in it. "And because it is, it's also the opinion of Her Majesty's Government and its diplomatic mission to this system. If you disagree with it, you'll have every opportunity to tell the Prime Minister and Parliament so once we return home. In the meantime, however, you will refrain from gratuitously and stupidly insulting the intelligence of people who've lived their whole lives facing that threat, or I will have you removed from this delegation. Is that clear, Mr. Houseman?"
The economist glared at his superior for one more moment, then nodded curtly and slammed out of the office.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
The buzzing com terminal jerked Raoul Courvosier awake. He sat up in bed quickly, scrubbing sleep from his eyes, and hit the acceptance key, then straightened as he recognized Yanakov. The Grayson admiral was bare-chested under a bathrobe, and his sleep-puffy eyes were bright.
"Sorry to wake you, Raoul." His soft Grayson accent was clipped. "Tracking just picked up a hyper footprint thirty light-minutes from Yeltsin. A big one."
"Masada?" Courvosier asked sharply.
"We don't know yet, but they're coming in from oh-oh-three oh-niner-two. That's certainly right for a straight-line course from Endicott."
"What do you have on impeller signatures?"
"That's mighty far out for us." Yanakov sounded a bit embarrassed. "We're trying to refine our data, but-"
"Pass the locus to Commander Alvarez," Courvosier interrupted. "Madrigal's sensor suite is better than anything you've got. Maybe he can refine it for you."
"Thank you. I hoped you'd say that." Yanakov sounded so grateful Courvosier frowned in genuine surprise.
"You didn't let that asshole Houseman make you think I wouldn't?"
"Well, no, but we're not officially allied, so if you-"
"Just because we don't have a piece of paper doesn't mean you and I aren't aware of what both our heads of state want, and one of the advantages of being an admiral instead of a diplomat-" Courvosier made the word an obscenity "—is that we can cut through the bullshit when we have to. Now pass that info on to Madrigal." He paused, about to cut the circuit. "And may I assume I'm invited to Command Central?"
"We'd be honored to have you," Yanakov said, quickly and sincerely.
"Thank you. Oh, and when you contact Alvarez, see where he is on that project I assigned him Monday." Courvosier smiled crookedly. "We've been monitoring your C3 systems, and I think he can probably tie Madrigal's sensors directly into Command Central's net."
"That is good news!" Yanakov said enthusiastically. "I'll get right on it. I'll pick you up in my car in fifteen minutes."
* * *
Printers chattered madly as the admirals arrived at Command Central, and the two of them turned as one to the main display board. A dot of light crept across it with infinitesimal speed. That was a trick of scale—any display capable of showing a half light-hour radius had to compress things—but at least gravitic detectors were FTL so they could watch it in real time. For all the good it was likely to do them.
Madrigal had, indeed, gotten her CIC tied into the net. The board couldn't display individual impeller sources at such a long range, but the data codes beside the single blotch of light were far too detailed for Grayson instrumentation. That was Courvosier's first thought; his second was a stab of dismay, and he pursed his lips silently. There were ten ships out there, accelerating from the low velocity imposed by translation into normal space. Not even Madrigal could "see" them well enough to identify individual ships, but the impeller strengths allowed tentative IDs by class. And if Commander Alvarez's sensor crews were right, they were four light cruisers and six destroyers—more tonnage than the entire Grayson hyper-capable fleet.
A projected vector suddenly arced across the display, and Yanakov cursed beside him.
"What?" Courvosier asked quietly.
"They're headed straight for Orbit Four, one of our belt mining processing nodes. Damn!"
"What have you got to stop them?"
"Not enough," Yanakov said grimly. He glanced up. "Walt! How long till they hit Orbit Four?"
"Approximately sixty-eight minutes," Commodore Brentworth replied.
"Anything we can intercept with?"
"Judah could reach them just short of the processors." Brentworth's voice was flat. "Nothing else could—not even a LAC."
"That's what I thought." Yanakov's shoulders slumped, and Courvosier understood perfectly. Sending a single destroyer out to meet that much firepower would be worse than pointless. "Signal Judah to stand clear of them," the Grayson admiral sighed, "then get me a mike. Orbit Four's on its own." His lips twitched bitterly. "The least I can do is tell them myself."
* * *
The holo sphere sparkled with individual lights and shifting patterns of information as Matthew Simonds stood in Thunder of God's CIC. Captain Yu stood beside him, face relaxed and calm, and Simonds repressed a flare of disappointment. He should be on Abraham's bridge, not standing here watching one of his juniors lead Masada's most powerful attack ever on Yeltsin's Star!
But he couldn't be. And powerful as this attack was, it was but one aspect of the overall plan—a plan whose entirety not even Captain Yu knew.
* * *
Orbit Four's CO watched his com, and a drop of sweat trickled down his face. The transmission had taken almost half an hour to reach him, but he'd known what it was going to say for over twenty minutes.
"I'm sorry, Captain Hill, but you're on your own," High Admiral Yanakov's voice was level, his face like stone. "Aside from Judah, nothing we've got can intercept, and sending her in alone would be suicide."
Hill nodded in silent agreement. His own lack of bitterness surprised him, but there was no point condemning Judah to share his command's death. And at least he'd gotten the collector ships out; three were down for repairs, but the others were well away, packed with Orbit Four's dependents, and his gravitics had already picked up the squadron headed towards them from Grayson. Unless the Masadans broke off from Orbit Four to pursue the fugitives in the next five minutes or so, they could never intercept short of the relief force. At least his wives and children would survive.
"Do your best, Captain," Yanakov said quietly. "God bless."
"Put me on record," Hill told his white-faced com officer, and the lieutenant nodded choppily.
"Recording, Sir."
"Message received and understood, Admiral Yanakov," Hill said as calmly as he could. "We'll do what we can. For the record, I concur completely in your decision not to send Judah in." He hesitated a second, wondering if he should add some last, dramatic statement, then shrugged. "And God bless you, too, Bernie," he ended softly.
* * *
Captain Yu's expression had yielded to a slight frown. He leaned to one side, checking a readout, then straightened with a small shrug. His frown disappeared, yet there was a new intentness in his eyes. It was almost a look of disappointment, Simonds thought. Or of disapproval.
He started to ask what Yu's problem was, but the range was down to three and a
half million kilometers, and he couldn't tear his attention from the sphere.
* * *
"They're late." Admiral Courvosier's statement was barely a whisper, yet Yanakov heard him and nodded curtly. The Masadan commander had missed his best chance to kill Orbit Four from beyond its own range . . . not that it was going to make any difference to Captain Hill's men in the end.
* * *
The Masadan ships' velocities mounted steadily. Their courses were already curving up in the arc which would take them inside Orbit Four and back the way they'd come, and weapons crews crouched over their consoles as the range dropped. There was tension in their faces, but no real fear. They had the protection of their impeller wedges and sidewalls; the weapon stations guarding Orbit Four were naked to their fire, protected only by point defense.
"We've got a good target setup, Sir."
Admiral Jansen looked up aboard the light cruiser Abraham, flagship of the Masadan Navy, as his chief of staff spoke.
"Range?"
"Coming down on three million kilometers."
Jansen nodded. His missiles were slower than Thunder of God's. Their drives would burn out in less than a minute, and their maximum acceleration was barely thirty thousand gravities, but his fleet's closing speed was over 27,000 KPS. His missiles would take seventy-eight seconds to reach their targets from that initial velocity; Orbit Four's missiles would take a minute and a half to reach him. Only a twelve-second difference—but unlike asteroids, his ships could dodge.
"Commence firing," he said harshly.
* * *
Captain Hill's face tightened as his gravitics picked up missile separations. At this range, even given their closing speed, drive burnout would send his missiles ballistic and deprive them of their homing ability over 800,000 kilometers short of target. That was why he'd held his own fire, hoping against hope that they'd keep coming until he opened up. Not that he'd expected them to, but it had been worth praying for. There was little point throwing away birds that couldn't maneuver when they reached the enemy—missiles that had gone ballistic were easy for impeller drive ships to evade or pick off—but they'd already come closer than he'd had any reasonable right to expect, and even a ballistic bird was better than none when he and his men had at most three salvos before the Masadan missiles arrived.
"Open fire!" he barked, and then, in a softer voice, "Stand by point defense."
* * *
The range was too great even for Madrigal's systems to plot single missile drives, but the display flashed as the destroyer's sensors noted a sudden background cascade of impeller sources. Courvosier stood silently beside Yanakov, watching the Grayson admiral's gray, clenched face, and knew there was nothing at all he could say.
* * *
Sword Simonds shivered as he watched the missiles on Thunder of God's displays. They slashed out from attacker and defender alike, tiny drops of ruby blood that were somehow beautiful and obscenely tranquil. There should have been fury and thunder. Should have been the sights and sounds and smells of battle. But there was only the hum of ventilation systems and the calm, quiet murmur of sensor technicians.
The tiny dots moved with agonizing slowness across the holo sphere's vast scale, and time held its breath. Another salvo followed thirty-five seconds later, and another, answered by the Graysons' replies. Then the first salvo's dots vanished as their drives burned out, and Admiral Jansen altered course, twisting away from the defensive fire which had gone inert and clumsy. Simonds pictured Jansen's missiles driving on through God's own emptiness, invisible on passive sensors at such a range, and there was an inevitability, almost a dreaminess, about it now.
* * *
Orbit Four's defenses had never been intended to stand off eighty percent of the Masadan Navy all by themselves. The fixed fortifications were sitting ducks for missile solutions; anything fired at them was almost bound to hit, unless it was stopped by point defense, and there simply wasn't enough point defense to stop the scores of missiles coming at them.
Radar locked onto the incoming warheads, and counter missiles raced to meet them. The chances of interception were far lower than they would have been for more modern defensive systems, but Captain Hill's men did well. They stopped almost a third of them, and lasers and last-ditch autocannon went to continuous fire against the survivors.
* * *
Admiral Jansen stared at his visual display, ignoring the salvos of Grayson missiles flashing towards him. The first one didn't matter, anyway; it would be ballistic and harmless long before it reached him. The second would still have a few moments on its drives, but only enough for straight-in attacks with no last minute penetration maneuvers. Only the third posed a real threat, and his smile was a shark's as huge fireballs glared, eye-hurting and savage even at ten light-seconds and despite the display's filters.
* * *
Sword Simonds leaned closer to the holo sphere as the flashing time display counted down to impact for the first Grayson salvo. None of Jansen's impeller signatures vanished, and the task force altered course again to evade the second salvo. His eyes darted back to the secondary plot monitoring Orbit Four's launch times, and his mouth curved up in a smile of triumph.
* * *
Something like a soft, silent moan—sensed, not heard—swept through the background printer clatter of Central Command as the data codes blinked. More missile projections traced their way across the glass . . . and every one of them was headed away from the attackers.
Courvosier's shoulders slumped. They'd deserved better than that, he thought. They'd deserved-
"They got one of the bastards!" someone screamed, and his eyes jerked back to the board.
* * *
The missile was an orphan from Captain Hill's third and final salvo. In fact, it should have been from his second salvo, but its launch crew had suffered a momentary loss of power. By the time the frantic techs got their weapon back on line, their bird launched almost five seconds after the third salvo, and all of them were dead by the time it entered attack range. The orphan neither knew nor cared about that. It drove forward, still under power while its sensors listened to the beacon of its chosen target. The Masadan defensive systems almost missed the single missile entirely, then assigned it a far lower threat value as it tagged along behind the others.
Admiral Jansen's ships writhed and twisted far more frantically, for unlike the first salvo, this one still had drive power. But Tracking had its birds pegged to a fare-thee-well, and counter-missiles charged to meet the most dangerous ones.
Defensive fire smashed some of the orphan's fellows. Others immolated themselves uselessly against impeller wedges they couldn't possibly penetrate. A handful struck squarely at the far weaker sidewalls protecting the open sides of those wedges, and one of them actually penetrated. Its target lurched, damage alarms screaming, but the Masadan destroyer's damage was slight, and only the orphan was left. Only the orphan with the low threat value.
The two counter-missiles targeted on it flashed past, clear misses without the better seeking heads of more modern navies, and its target's sensors, half-blinded by the artificial grav wave of its own belly stress band, lost lock. There was no last-minute laser fire, and the missile bobbed up, programmed for a frontal attack, and threw every erg of drive power it still had into crushing deceleration. There wasn't time to kill much velocity, even at 30,000 gees—but it was enough.
The unprotected, wide open throat of the light cruiser Abraham's impeller wedge engulfed the warhead like a vast scoop. Primary and backup proximity fuses flashed as one, and a fifty-megaton explosion erupted one hundred meters from the Masadan flagship.
* * *
Sword Simonds' face went bone-white as the impeller signature vanished. Air hissed in his nostrils, and he peered at the holo sphere for one, frozen moment, unwilling to accept it, then turned to stare at Captain Yu.
The Havenite returned his gaze gravely, but there was no shock, no horror, in his eyes. There wasn't even any surp
rise.
"A pity," Yu said quietly. "They should have launched from farther out."
Simonds clenched his teeth against a mad impulse to scream at his "adviser." Twenty percent of the Masadan wall of battle had just been obliterated, and all he could say was they should have launched from farther out?! His eyes blazed, but Yu flipped his own eyes to the members of the sword's staff. Most of them were still staring at the sphere, shocked by the totally unanticipated loss, and the Havenite officer pitched his voice high enough for them to hear as he continued.
"Still, Sir, it's the final objective that matters. There are always losses, however good a battle plan may be, but Grayson has lost far more heavily than we have, and the trap is set, isn't it, Sir?"
Simonds stared at him, still quivering with fury, but he felt his staff behind him and sensed the potential damage to their confidence. He knew what Yu was doing, and the infidel was right—curse him!
"Yes," he made himself say calmly and levelly for his staff's benefit, and the word was acid on his tongue. "Yes, Captain Yu, the trap is set . . . exactly as planned."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Bernard Yanakov's uniform tunic hung over a chair, the topmost button of his shirt was open, and he frowned at his terminal, then looked up with a weary smile of welcome as the door opened to admit Raoul Courvosier and the background chatter of printers.
Civilian clothing or not, no one could mistake Courvosier for anything but a naval officer now, and Yanakov was devoutly thankful for his presence. Not only had he made his destroyer's sensors available to Grayson, but he'd also placed his own vast experience at Yanakov's disposal. Despite, Yanakov knew, protests from certain members of his delegation that he ought to load them all aboard Madrigal and get them safely out of the line of fire.
"You need sleep," the Manticoran said bluntly, and Yanakov nodded.
"I know," he sighed, "but-" He broke off and shrugged, and Courvosier nodded in understanding. Not approval, just understanding.
