by David Weber
* * *
"I don't believe it! The sorry son-of-a-" Andreas Venizelos caught himself. "I mean, he's breaking off, Ma'am."
"No, he isn't. Not yet, anyway." Honor steepled her fingers under her triangular chin. "This is an instinct reaction, Andy. We surprised him, and he doesn't want to get any closer than he has to while he thinks it over."
"She's accelerating directly away at four-point-seven-zero KPS squared, Ma'am," Cardones reported, and Honor nodded. She didn't expect it to last, but for now Saladin was headed in the right direction.
"Punch us up a pursuit course, Steve. I want his relative accel held to two-fifty gees or so."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am," DuMorne replied, and she leaned back and watched Saladin's light bead track down its new vector projection.
* * *
Simonds caught himself dry-washing his hands in his lap and made himself stop. Thunder had held his new heading and acceleration for over seventy minutes while the Harlot's handmaiden followed along in his wake, but Harrington was making no bid to overtake. She was letting Thunder make up velocity on her, despite the fact that her smaller ships had higher maximum acceleration rates, and that was more than merely ominous.
The range had opened to over twenty-four and a half light-minutes, yet Harrington knew exactly where they were. Thunder was able to see Fearless only through the drones Ash had deployed astern, but there was no sign of Manticoran drones. Unless Harrington's sensors were even better than Yu had believed, she shouldn't be able to see them at all, yet she'd adjusted to every course alteration he made! The implied technical superiority was as frightening as it was maddening, but the critical point was that he couldn't lose her and come in undetected on a new vector . . . and she'd already pushed him clear beyond the asteroid belt, far outside Grayson's orbit.
No wonder she was content to let him run! He'd wasted precious time trying to evade someone who could see every move he made, and by the time he killed his present velocity and came back into missile range—assuming she let him—over six hours would have passed since he'd first detected her.
He growled under his breath and kneaded his cheeks. What Manticoran ships had already done to the Faithful made him nervous about crossing swords with her, especially since Yu and Manning had been careful to preserve their own importance by seeing to it that their Masadan junior officers lacked their expertise. Ash and his people were willing enough, but they simply couldn't get the most out of their systems, and he could already feel their jagged tension as they, too, realized the enemy was somehow watching them at this preposterous range.
But that didn't change the fact that Thunder of God out-massed both his opponents more than twice over. If he had to fight his way through them, he could. Yet he also had to be able to carry through against Grayson. . . .
"Compute a new course," he said harshly. "I want to close to the very edge of the powered missile envelope and hold the range constant."
* * *
"Course change!" Cardones sang out. "She's coming back towards us at max acceleration, Ma'am."
Honor nodded. She'd known this would come—indeed, she'd expected it far sooner, and puzzlement stirred again, for cruisers and battlecruisers were built to close and destroy, not for this timid sort of long-range groping.
But he was coming in now with a vengeance.
"Take us to meet her, Astro," she said quietly, "but let's see if we can't tempt him into a missile duel. Hold our closing accel down to-" She thought for a moment. "Make it six KPS squared."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
Honor nodded, then pressed a stud on her arm rest.
"Captain's quarters, Steward MacGuiness."
"Mac, could you chase me up some sandwiches and a pot of cocoa?"
"Of course, Ma'am."
"Thank you." She closed the circuit and looked at Venizelos. The Manticoran Navy tradition was that crews went into battle well-fed and as rested as possible, and her people had been at general quarters for almost five hours. "Stand us down to Condition Two, Andy, and tell the cooks I want a hot meal for all hands." She gave him one of her lopsided grins. "The way this jackass is maneuvering, there should be plenty of time for it!"
Across the bridge from her, Ensign Carolyn Wolcott smiled down at her console at the confidence in the Captain's voice.
* * *
The command chair felt bigger, somehow, than it had looked when Yu sat in it, and Simonds' tired eyes burned as he watched his plot. Harrington had chosen to let Thunder close, but she was maintaining her position between him and Yeltsin. And when he'd reversed acceleration to slow his rate of approach, she'd matched him, almost as if she were hoping for a missile duel.
That worried Simonds, for Thunder was a battlecruiser. His missiles were bigger and heavier, with a significantly greater penaid and ECM payload. The Faithful had already seen bitter proof that Manticore's technology was better than Haven's, but did she believe her margin of superiority was enough to even the odds? And, far more frightening, could she be correct?
He made himself sit back, feeling the ache of fatigue in his bones, and held his course. They should reach extreme missile range in twelve minutes.
* * *
"All right, Andy—take us back up to GQ," Honor said, and the howl of the alarm resummoned her people to their battle stations as she slid her hands into her suit gloves and settled her helmet in the rack on the side of her chair. She supposed she ought to put it on—though Fearless's well-armored bridge was deep at the ship's heart, that didn't make it invulnerable to explosive depressurization—but she'd always thought captains who helmeted up too soon made their crews nervous.
At least she'd managed a three-hour catnap in the briefing room, and the quiet voices about her sounded fresh and alert, as well.
"What do you think he'll do, Ma'am?"
The quiet question came from her blind side, and she turned her head.
"That's hard to say, Mark. What he should have done the minute he saw us was come straight for us. There's no way he's going to sneak past us—the way we intercepted him should have proven that. All he's done so far is waste about six hours by trying to shake us."
"I know, Ma'am. But he's coming in now."
"He is, but not like he really means it. Look how he's decelerating. He's going to come just about to rest relative to us at six and three-quarters million klicks. That's extreme range for low-powered missile drives, which isn't exactly the mark of an aggressive captain." She shook her head. "He's still testing the waters, and I don't understand it."
"Could he be afraid of your technology?"
Honor snorted, and the right side of her mouth made a wry smile.
"I wish! No, if Theisman was good, the man they picked to skipper Saladin ought to be better than this." She saw the puzzlement in Brentworth's eyes and waved a hand. "Oh, our EW and penaids are better than theirs, and so is our point defense, but that's a battlecruiser. Her sidewalls are half again as tough as Fearless's, much less Troubadour's, and her energy weapons are bigger and more powerful. We could hurt him in close, but not as badly as he could hurt us, and even in a missile duel, the sheer toughness of his passive defenses should make him confident. It's-" She paused, seeking a comparison. "What it comes down to is that in a missile duel our sword's sharper, but his armor's a lot thicker, and once he gets in close, it's our sword against his battleaxe. He ought to be charging to get inside our missile envelope, not sitting out there where we've got the best chance of giving as good as we get."
Brentworth nodded, and she shrugged.
"I don't suppose I should complain, but I wish I knew what his problem is."
* * *
"Missile range!" Ash said, and Simonds straightened in his chair.
"Engage as ordered," he replied flatly.
* * *
"Missile launch! Birds closing at four-one-seven KPS squared. Impact in one-seven-zero seconds—mark!"
"Fire Plan Able." Honor said calmly. "Helm, initiate Foxtrot-Two."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Fire Plan Able," Cardones replied, and Chief Killian's acknowledgment was right behind him.
Troubadour rolled, inverting herself relative to Fearless to bring her undamaged port broadside to bear, and both ships began a snake-like weave along their base course as their own missiles slashed away and the decoys and jammers deployed on Fearless's flanks woke to electronic life.
* * *
"The enemy has returned fire." Lieutenant Ash's voice was taut. "Flight time one-seven-niner seconds. Tracking reports sixteen incoming, Sir."
Simonds nodded acknowledgment. Thunder had an advantage of two tubes, as well as his heavier missiles. He hoped it would be enough.
"Enemy jamming primary tracking systems," Ash announced, listening to his missiles' telemetry links. "Seekers shifting to secondary track."
* * *
Rafael Cardones fired his second broadside thirty seconds after the first, and Troubadour's launchers followed suit, slaved to his better fire control. A third broadside followed, then a fourth, and he nodded to Wolcott as Saladin launched her fourth salvo.
"Counter missiles now," he told his assistant.
* * *
Sword Simonds watched his plot and swallowed bile as half his first salvo lost lock and wandered away. The others charged onward, already up to more than fifty thousand KPS and still accelerating, but the Manticorans belched counter missiles to meet them at more than nine hundred KPS2.
* * *
Honor frowned as Ensign Wolcott picked off Saladin's first missiles. The battlecruiser was splitting her fire between Troubadour and Fearless, and that was the stupidest thing her captain had done yet. He ought to be concentrating his fire, not dispersing it! His opponents were lighter and far more fragile; by targeting both of them, he was robbing himself of his best chance to overwhelm them in detail.
* * *
Simonds cursed under his breath as the last missile of his first launch vanished far short of target. Lieutenant Ash was updating the second salvo's jammers, but the bitch had already killed six of them, as well . . . and Thunder had stopped only nine of her first broadside.
His hands tightened like claws on the command chair's arms as the surviving Manticoran missiles streaked in. Two more perished, then a third, but three got through, and Thunder of God shuddered as X-ray lasers clawed at his sidewall. Damage alarms wailed, and a red light flashed on the damage control schematic.
"One hit, port side aft," Workman announced. "Tractor Seven is gone. Compartments Eight-Niner-Two and Niner-Three open to space. No casualties."
* * *
"I think we got one— Yes! She's streaming air, Ma'am!"
"Good, Guns. Now do it again."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am!" Rafael Cardones' grin was fierce, and his sixth broadside belched from Fearless's launchers. Ensign Wolcott's face was almost blank at his side, and her fingers flew across her console as her sensors noted changes in the incoming missiles' ECM and she adjusted to compensate.
* * *
Thunder of God's second salvo fared almost as badly as the first, and Simonds wrenched around to glare at his tactical section, then bit back his scathing rebuke. Ash and his assistants were crouched over their panels, but their systems were feeding them too much data to absorb, and their reactions were almost spastic, flurries of action as the computers pulled it together and suggested alternatives interspersed by bouts of white-faced impotence as they tried to anticipate those suggestions.
He needed Yu and Manning, and he didn't have them. Ash and his people simply didn't have the exper-
Thunder of God heaved as two more lasers ripped through his sidewall and gouged into his hull.
* * *
"Lord God, but he's fighting dumb," Venizelos murmured, and Honor nodded. Saladin's responses were slow and heavy-handed, almost mechanical, and she felt a tingle of hope. If this kept up, they might actually be-
Ensign Wolcott missed an incoming missile. The heavy warhead detonated fifteen thousand kilometers off Fearless's starboard bow, and half a dozen savage rods of energy slammed at her sidewall. Two broke through, and the cruiser leapt in agony as plating shattered.
"Two hits forward! Laser Three and Five destroyed. Radar Five is gone, Ma'am. Heavy casualties in Laser Three!"
The right side of Honor Harrington's mouth tightened, and her good eye narrowed.
* * *
"A hit, Sir! At least one, and-"
A thundering concussion ripped across Lieutenant Ash's voice. The command deck lurched, the lighting flickered, and damage alarms howled.
"Missile Two-One and Graser One gone! Heavy damage in the boat bay and Berthing Compartment Seven-five!"
Simonds blanched. That was six hits-six!—and they'd scored only one in return! Powerful as Thunder was, he couldn't take that kind of exchange rate for long, and-
The battlecruiser bucked yet again, more crimson lights glared, and the Sword made up his mind.
"Starboard ninety degrees—maximum acceleration!"
* * *
"She's breaking off, Ma'am!" Cardones crowed, and Honor watched in disbelief as Saladin turned through a full ninety degrees. She was just far enough abaft Fearless's beam to deny them an "up the kilt" shot through the wide-open after end of her wedge, but Honor couldn't believe how close the battlecruiser's captain had come to giving her that deadly opening. And now he was going to maximum power! Preposterous as it was, Rafe was right—she was breaking off the action!
"Shall we pursue, Ma'am?" Cardones' tone left no doubt as to his own preference, and Honor couldn't blame him. His missile armament was untouched, and he'd outscored his opponent at least six-to-one. But Honor refused to let her own enthusiasm suck her out of her guard position.
"No, Guns. Let her go."
Cardones looked rebellious for a moment, then nodded. He sat back, calling up his magazine lists and shifting ammunition to equalize his loads, and Ensign Wolcott looked over her shoulder at her captain.
"I'm sorry I missed that one, Ma'am." She sounded miserable. "It took a jog on me at the last minute, and-"
"Carol, you did fine, just fine," Honor told her, and Cardones looked up to nod firmly. The ensign looked back and forth between them for a moment, then smiled briefly and turned back to her own panel, and Honor beckoned to Venizelos. The exec unlocked his shock frame and crossed to her chair.
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"You were right about the way he was fighting. That was pitiful."
"Yes, Ma'am." Venizelos scratched his chin. "It was almost like a simulation. Like we were up against just his computers."
"I think we were," Honor said softly, and the exec blinked at her. She unlocked her own shock frame, and he followed her over to the tactical station. She keyed a command into Cardones' panel, and they watched the master tactical display replay the brief battle. The entire engagement had lasted less than ten minutes, and Honor shook her head when it ended.
"I don't think that's a Havenite crew over there at all."
"What?!" Venizelos blushed at the volume of his response and looked quickly around the bridge, then back at her. "You don't really think the Peeps turned a ship like that over to lunatics like the Masadans, do you, Skipper?"
"It sounds crazy," Honor admitted, pulling gently at the tip of her nose as she brooded down on the display, "especially when they kept their own man in command of Breslau, but no Peep skipper would've fought his ship that way. He gave us every advantage there was, Andy. Add that to the ham-handed way he came in in the first place, and-"
She shrugged, and Venizelos nodded slowly.
"Haven has to know it's put its hand into a sausage slicer, Ma'am," he said after a moment. "Maybe they just pulled out and left Masada to its own devices?"
"I don't know." Honor turned to walk back to her own chair. "If they did, why didn't they take Saladin with them? Unless-" Her eye narrowed. "Unless they couldn't, for some reason," she murmured, then shook her head.
"Either way, it doesn't change our
mission," she said more crisply.
"No, but it may make our job a whole lot easier, Skipper."
"It may, but I wouldn't count on it. If that's a purely Masadan crew over there, God only knows what they'll do. For one thing, they're probably a lot more likely to nuke Grayson if they get the chance. And inexperienced or not, they've got a modern battlecruiser to do it with. That's a lot of ship, Andy, and they made so many mistakes this time they have to have learned at least something from them."
She leaned back in her chair, and her good eye met his gaze.
"If they come back at all, they'll come in smarter," she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Thunder of God arced her way through a huge outside loop in an effort to cut in behind her opponents, and damage control teams labored furiously. It took time to complete their surveys, but Matthew Simonds listened in weary wonder as their reports flowed into the bridge.
It didn't seem possible. Those hits would have destroyed any Masadan ship, yet for all the gaping wounds in Thunder's flanks, his broadside had lost only one missile tube and a single graser.
Simonds chewed his hate as his enemy executed her own loop inside his, matching him move for move, yet under his hate was a dawning comprehension of why Yu had been so confident he could destroy Fearless, for Thunder was tougher than the sword had dreamed. A sense of his own power, his own ponderous ability to destroy, suffused his tired brain . . . and with it came a sour appreciation for how clumsily he'd misused that power.
He checked the plot again. Two hours had passed since he'd broken off action, and the range was back up to sixteen and a half light-minutes. Workman assured him Missile Twenty-One would be back on line in another thirty minutes, but time was ticking away, and he was only too well aware of how he'd allowed Harrington to dictate the conditions of engagement. He had at least two days before anyone from Manticore arrived to help her, but she hovered stubbornly between him and Grayson, and he'd let her burn up precious hours in which he should already have been about God's Work.
