The main briefing room of RFNS Zephrain—more like an auditorium, really, on this flagship-configured supermonitor—was full, because this time Cyrus Waldeck wanted to have all of Second Fleet's flag officers down to task-group level, and their chiefs of staff and ops officers, present in the flesh. Flesh and fur, actually, for the PSUN contingent had grown with the steady arrival of heavier units here in Astria until it was a full-blown task force, and Least Fang Zhaairnow'ailaaioun and several other members of his species were on hand. Waldeck had double-dosed on allergy pills, set the air filters on maximum, and hoped for the best.
And at any rate, he thought, his eyes straying to an all-human cluster of deep-blue uniforms among the black-and-silver of the Rim and the Pan-Sentient Union, I'm not sure it's the Orions I'm most allergic to.
He chided himself for the thought. More of the Terran Republic's heavy units had also had time to lumber into Astria by now, and Li Magda, rear admiral though she was, commanded a genuine task force—officially, Task Force 23. Those heavy units didn't include any of the new devastators; those monsters required a long time to build, and afterward would take a while getting anywhere thanks to the tortuous warp-line routes they had to take, avoiding warp points that could not accommodate their mountainous bulk. Still, it was a formidable TRN task force indeed—nineteen supermonitors, thirty superdreadnoughts, nine assault carriers, and forty-two battlecruisers—and Waldeck knew he ought to be glad to have it. And he was glad to have it. Only . . .
That only, as he was well aware, worked both ways.
Waldeck didn't delude himself that he was the most sensitive of men. But even he had been able to perceive the stiffening in Li Magda at the mention of his surname when they'd met. It could hardly have been otherwise. In the drama of the Republic's birth—at least as understood by its own citizens—the Waldeck dynasty of Corporate World plutocrats were cast as villains of the deepest dye. Hector Waldeck, chief delegate from Christophon to the old Terran Federation's Legislative Assembly, had been up to his choleric jowls in the maneuverings that had led to the assassination of Fiona MacTaggart of Beaufort, igniting the rebellion. Afterward, another relative—as little as he liked to admit any relationship to that unutterable jackass Admiral Jason Waldeck—had occupied Novaya Rodina and proceeded with a series of executions whose clumsy pompous brutality had seemed to confirm the worst the Fringe Worlds thought of the Federation and the Corporate Worlds that dominated it. The rebels, Waldeck had often thought sourly, might at least have been grateful to him for providing them with a matchless cause célèbre—and for losing his task force to them intact. He had, if nothing else, been consistent in his stupidity.
As for Cyrus Waldeck, he had looked at Li Magda and seen not just an admiral of the Terran Republic—he still had to suppress his gag reflex at that name—but the daughter of the woman who had been instrumental in the rebellion's success at several crucial points, culminating in the climactic carnage of Zapata where she had fought Ian Trevayne himself to a standstill. That bloodbath had left the Federation without the will to continue the struggle.
Yes, he thought, there's a lot of history to be overcome here.
But it must be overcome. And as commanding officer here—a Waldeck commanding a Li—mine is the primary responsibility for overcoming it.
He stepped to the podium in front of the wide viewscreen and cleared his throat, hoping his need to do so wasn't a harbinger of an allergy attack. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began without preamble, "most if not all of you are already aware that our recon drones have been probing Bellerophon for some time. Many of you are not aware"—except through Rumor Central, he mentally qualified—"of just how that is possible. I will ask Commander Koleszar to explain briefly."
The ops officer stood up and took the podium. "In essence, we were able to devise a temporary way around the aliens' stealth scrambler. It is, in the simplest terms, a modification of the stealth field which 'bends' the scrambler's effect around the outside of it, just as it normally does various other wavelengths—most famously, that of visible light. I call this solution 'temporary' because there is no room for doubt that aliens will become aware of what we're up to and adjust their scrambler."
"But won't we be able to switch our frequencies in response?" someone asked.
"Certainly. And they'll do the same thing again, and so on. It's an old story in the history of electronic countermeasures and counter-countermeasures. But for the moment, they evidently haven't caught on. So we're not going in blind—no, worse than blind: relying on false assumptions—like we did last time. We believe we have a fairly complete picture of their close-in warp-point defenses. Of course, we don't know everything we'd like to know." Koleszar paused as though hesitant to bring something up. "For example, our drones have yet to observe one of their system-defense ships underway, and we therefore have no performance figures for them."
An uneasy muttering suffused the room.
"We all know the basic facts about them by now," the ops officer resumed, deciding that the subject had better be faced forthrightly. He activated the viewscreen to show a digitally enhanced but still blurry image of a blocky, unlovely conic section against a starry black-velvet backdrop, with nothing to give a sense of its size. "On the basis of their shape, we believe the aliens have broken down some of their smaller generation ships—quite possibly they had a modular design philosophy built into them for this very purpose—into hulls of roughly a billion tonnes." He didn't add, five hundred times the tonnage of a supermonitor. His listeners could figure that out for themselves. "Of course," he hurried on, accentuating the positive, "these are basically transports, not purpose-built warships, so their actual fighting power must not be nearly proportional to their size, in our terms. Furthermore, we believe that, like the original ships from which they were cut down, they use reaction drives."
"How sure are you of that?" demanded Vice Admiral Alistair McFarland, RFN. A scion of a political family of Aotearoa, he commanded Task Force 21, the segment of Second Fleet which contained the Rim's own contingents—twenty-three supermonitors, twenty demothballed monitors, forty-four superdreadnoughts, fifteen assault carriers, eight fleet carriers, and sixty-three battlecruisers.
"As sure as we can be without actual confirmation, Admiral. As I mentioned, our probes haven't observed them underway. But it's a reasonable inference from their sheer size. And we feel their immobility is strong negative evidence."
"That means that they will not have 'blind zones,' " Zhaairnow rumbled. He commanded Task Force 22, the PSUN elements. Like all PSUN forces, it was heavily fighter-oriented—sixteen supermonitors (mostly of the carrier/main combatant variety), thirty-seven superdreadnoughts, twenty assault carriers, thirteen fleet carriers, and fifty-six battlecruisers. As always he was thinking first and foremost of his beloved fighters, whose tactics had always aimed at getting into the area astern of a ship under reactionless drive, where spatial distortions prevented it from targeting its weapons.
"Admitted, Least Fang. But by the same token, they will on our standards be effectively immobile—little better than orbital weapon platforms. There's no escaping the fact that we'll have to take some extremely heavy missile fire from them in the early stages. But after we're past them, they'll be left behind." Privately, it bothered Koleszar a little. Why had the aliens—they had to come up with a better name for them than that!—even bothered to break up generation ships into things that could do little more than what the generation ships themselves could: sit back and launch immense salvos of long-range missiles? To be sure, the system-defense ships must be somewhat more maneuverable than the generation ships, even the smaller ones. But on the standards of reactionless drives—especially those in use today—the difference was scarcely noticeable.
"At any rate," he resumed, changing the subject, "we have their positions plotted out, and also the minefields and weapon buoys covering the warp point. We have also confirmed the aliens' possession of strikefighters." That didn't cause a stir. They had been fairly certain of it already. And nobody saw fit to remark on how many fighter launch bays one of those system-defense ships could accommodate. "We have also established the location of the aliens' main asteroidal shipyards. The last was particularly easy for the drones, due to neutrino emissions—and it forms the basis for our strategy."
"Thank you, Commander," said Cyrus Waldeck. "And now I will ask the chief of staff to outline that strategy."
Captain Julia Monetti stepped to the podium and, to the general relief, turned off the image of the system-defense ship. Replacing it on the viewscreen was something they all knew by heart: the Bellerophon System.
A two-dimensional display was quite sufficient for a planetary system, since warp points (for reasons as obscure as everything else about them) always occurred more or less in the same ecliptic plane that held the planetary orbits. The sun of Bellerophon showed as a golden dot at the center of the screen. The orientation was an arbitrary one, with the purple circle marking the warp point through which they must enter from Astria directly below the sun—at "six o'clock" on the clockface that humans always mentally superimposed on such displays—a little less than halfway to the screen's lower edge. Three other purple circles occupied positions at three o'clock, ten o'clock, and eleven o'clock, at various distances from the primary. Planetary orbits showed as blue concentric circles around the sun. One of these, representing the system's mineral-rich asteroid belt, was dashed; it circled the sun out beyond their warp point, at an average orbital radius of twenty-two light-minutes. Two light-minutes in from that—but still four light-minutes outside the Astria warp point—was yet another concentric circle, this one it brown. It was a relatively new addition to displays like this, for it represented the Desai Limit, within which the Desai Drive would not function.
"In light of the recon drone data," Monetti began, "we believe we have a realistic chance to break into the system. In particular, our detailed knowledge of the minefields and buoys will enable us to employ our new AMBAMMs to good effect." There was a general sound of agreement. The improved AMBAMMs, better shielded and built on larger hulls, had been arriving for some time in wholesale lots, for Waldeck had refused to even consider another offensive until he had accumulated enough of them for a truly lavish preliminary bombardment. "Once we've won free of the warp point, we can make use of our greatest technological advantage: the Desai Drive."
"But," someone protested, "our warp point of emergence is within the local sun's Desai Limit. And the planet of Bellerophon is even more so, at only seven light-minutes from the sun."
"The planet is not our primary objective." Monetti touched the podium's control pad, and a flashing light appeared along the broken circle of the asteroid belt, and about four o'clock. "This is the location of the enemy's primary shipyard—or, to be precise, it will be its location at the time for which our attack is scheduled. We are going to destroy it.
"The details are in the data chips you have all received. We are going to put together a special fast strike force built around Task Group 21.4." Behind McFarland, Rear Admiral Aline M'puta sat up straighter. She commanded eight of the RFN's assault carriers, escorted by thirteen battlecruisers and an array of the heavy and light cruisers that weren't even counted in a tally of capital ships in this day and age. "It will be reinforced by PSUN elements from Task Force 22, selected by Fang Zhaairnow, to include only carriers and escorting cruisers. As must be obvious from this force composition, speed is of the essence. This is to be a raiding force. After the heavier but less mobile elements have secured the warp point, Admiral M'puta's force will proceed outward from the primary until it is outside the Desai Limit. It will then proceed on Desai Drive to the shipyards—which are also outside the Desai Limit—and destroy them, thereby crippling the enemy's capacity to repair damages and make up losses. It will subsequently exit the Bellerophon System—unless the situation has developed in such a way as to indicate that we can establish a permanent beachhead in the system. Flexibility must be our watchword."
M'puta spoke up thoughtfully. Like all carrier admirals, she was an ex–fighter jock. Unlike most of that breed, she was not notorious for hair-raising cockiness—which was precisely why Waldeck had picked her for this mission. "We will, of course, not have the advantage of Desai Drive in the last stages of our return to the Astria warp point. And the enemy will know that's where we'll be headed."
"True, Admiral. It may prove impracticable for you to fall back to Astria. But we have an alternative plan for that eventuality." Monetti manipulated the controls again, and the purple circle on the three o'clock bearing flashed on and off for attention. "The warp point leading to Pegasus is outside the Desai Limit—twenty-four light-minutes from the primary, to be exact—and is just outside the region of the asteroid belt where you will already be. If you find that the enemy has interdicted your return to the Astria warp point, you will proceed there on Desai Drive and transit to Pegasus."
"And once there . . .?" queried M'puta in a steady voice.
"You will do as seems indicated in light of the situation you find in the Arm out beyond Bellerophon—of which, obviously, we have no knowledge. Your objective will be to reinforce the Rim units still holding out there." If any, Monetti did not add. "You will also be able to provide them with the doubtless welcome news that they are not forgotten."
Cyrus Waldeck watched M'puta's dark face closely for her reaction to orders that normally would have taken the form of a call for volunteers. He saw nothing but her trademark equanimity. He didn't even need to look at Zhaairnow. The Orion would, as a matter of course, try to appoint himself to lead the Task Force 22 elements that would take part in M'puta's razzia across the Bellerophon System and into the unknown, even though it would mean putting himself under the tactical command of a rear admiral. Equally as a matter of course, Waldeck would refuse his request; his duties lay here with Second Fleet. But after getting over his sulks, Zhaairnow would pick another of the Orion PSUN officers for the assignment, which resonated so well with the honor code of the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaiee. (Waldeck was far from being the first human to give thanks that the Khanate's homeworld lay in the constellation of Orion as viewed from Old Terra, providing a humanly manageable name for the race.)
Actually, Waldeck had planned it this way from the first. The legendary skill of the Orions at the fighter operations they loved could only increase the mission's chances of success. And if—as Waldeck privately considered very probable—the raiders had to flee to Pegasus, there was something to be said for having an Orion PSUN element among them. The populations of the Bellerophon Arm needed to know how many nations and races were struggling to break through to their rescue.
Of course, adding a Terran Republic Navy contingent to the raiders would have further emphasized that last point. But Waldeck hadn't done so. He could justify that decision: the TRN's strong suit was battle-line tactics utilizing their "generalist" supermonitors, not fighter operations. But he knew that wasn't the real reason.
In some fortunate cases, living outrageously far beyond the Biblical threescore-and-ten courtesy of antigerone treatments had the effect of intensifying the individual's redeeming features. Cyrus Waldeck's redeeming feature had always been ruthless honesty about himself to himself. And he was not about to start indulging in self-deception now. He acknowledged his very mixed feelings about Terran Republic units in Second Fleet. And having them commanded by the daughter of Li Han didn't help in the least. He could recognize the feeling for what it was, and do his best to combat it. But he couldn't deny it.
And, he reminded himself, he at least wasn't sending Li Magda's supermonitors through the warp point first, which would have placed them in maximum peril. They were to follow in subsequent waves, where their mixed armament would make them well able to deal with whatever tactical situation had developed in Bellerophon space by then.
"Thank you, Captain." He stepped to the podium as Julia Monetti relinquished it. "Please review your data chips and submit any questions or comments to Captain Monetti so they can go on the agenda for the final meeting. It is essential that we adhere to the schedule, as it is predicated on the orbital position of the asteroid shipyards relative to the system's warp points. Are there any questions before we adjourn?"
There were none. Everyone wanted time for study first. Waldeck watched Li Magda closely. She had no comment to make. But she looked very thoughtful.
The torrents of improved AMBAMMs that opened the Third Battle of Bellerophon were without precedent, and they were directed in accordance with accurate probe data. The dense minefields and serried ranks of weapon buoys largely vanished, as though burned away by successive waves of cleansing flame. Interspersed with the AMBAMMs were accurately targeted SBMHAWKs in such numbers that they were able to send a perceptible shake through the monstrous bulk of an SDS.
Only then did the first crewed starships begin to transit into the spaces so recently wracked by inconceivable energies. Waldeck's tactics were different this time. The initial assault waves were a combination of expendable monitors and a mix of supermonitor types, including a generous allotment of the PSUN carrier/main combatant classes. It was still too risky to commit the relatively fragile purpose-built carriers. But at long last the Orion fighter pilots got the action they craved, as clouds of fighters swarmed forth from the SDSes, each of which carried four hundred or more of them, piloted—not though the allies knew it—by beings who saw death as a temporary inconvenience.
But the pilots of the Rim and the PSU were flying the new space superiority fighters, capable of engaging their oncoming opponents at long range with fighter-launched AFHAWKs supplemented by salvos of capital AFHAWKs from the supermonitors. Those enemy fighters that got through were taken on at the equivalent of knife range with sleets of hypervelocity powered flechettes. Blood-chilling Orion howls of triumph began to echo over the comm channels.
But the defending capital ships—including new heavy superdreadnoughts, halfway between an ordinary superdreadnought and a monitor in size—began to close in and coordinate their fire with the staggering missile salvos from the SDSes. The region around the warp point became a holocaust of dying ships.
But even in the midst of this saturnalia of destruction, the automated sensors of Second Fleet's ships continued, with a single-mindedness impossible to their organic masters, to observe. And courier drones continued to flow back through the warp point with the data Cyrus Waldeck's intelligence analysts needed.
As the initial shock of the attack wore off and the enigmatic aliens began to rally in response throughout the reaches of the system, those courier drones brought two pieces of bad news.
(At last.) The fight that Torhok craved came to him. The initial assault out of Astria seethed out of the screen at him like a boil bursting, carrying the shattered pieces of the warp defenders with it. He turned to his comm officer and said quietly. "Call in system-defense ships and all support." He knotted his tentacles together and watched the alien ships come. (Anticipation.)
"Iakkut."
"Yes, Sir." His second uncoiled from his niche slightly, acknowledging with selnarm and voice but not letting his attention stray too far from his boards.
"I think these creatures are about to get a surprise."
(Anticipation. Will to fight. Bloodlust.)
Cyrus Waldeck surprised himself with the steadiness of his voice. "So they have the Desai Drive?"
"I'm sure they themselves don't call it that—" began Commander Lester Jardine, the intelligence officer. Nathan Koleszar gave him a silencing glare. Jardine was an expert within his specialty, but devoid of common sense in social interactions. Koleszar recalled the word nerd from the historical fiction of which he was fond.
"Yes, Sir," Koleszar took up the report. "There's no doubt of it, now that they've begun to summon reinforcements from elsewhere in the system—including the Pegasus warp point." He indicated the readouts that showed the velocity at which those reinforcements were streaking inward. "Of course," he ventured, hoping he wasn't sounding too much like Jardine, "this will leave the Pegasus warp point largely undefended, increasing its practicality as an alternative means of egress for Admiral M'puta's raiding force."
"Yes," said Waldeck, more to himself than to the ops officer. "Save for the fact that Admiral M'puta's raid is now out of the question. The assumption on which it was based turns out to be false "
Koleszar swallowed hard. "Yes, Sir. Uh . . . Admiral, there's more."
"More?"
"Their system-defense ships have started to move. And from the nature of their motion, it is clear that another of our assumptions must be abandoned. Those ships aren't using photon drives, Admiral."
"You mean—?"
"Yes, Sir. Their maximum velocity is only a little over half that of a supermonitor . . . but they went to it instantaneously. The enemy has managed to build reactionless drives into those monstrosities. Judging from the data we've gotten so far, they're even more cumbersome than they are slow. Turning must be a major project for them."
Waldeck had stopped listening. He blinked away his shock and spoke with his old crispness, verging on harshness. "Commander, abort all further warp transits. All elements now in Bellerophon space are to withdraw to Astria as soon as they can recover all their currently deployed fighters. And tell Admiral m'puta to stand down." His tone softened just a little. "Her day will come. But I'm not going to commit relatively light units like hers to a combat environment that's deadly even for supermonitors."
"Yes, Sir. Ah . . . Admiral, most of the surviving units of the initial assault waves have sustained heavy damage."
"Well, the most recent arrivals will have to cover their withdrawal. Who would that be?"
"Admiral Li, Sir, with the first few heavy TRN battlegroups."
"I see," said Waldeck after a pause so brief that some would have missed it altogether. "Well, she'll have to do it with those battlegroups. Prepare the courier drones at once. Tell Admiral Li she's in charge of extricating us from Bellerophon."
Eraphis's beloved little research fighter had been upgraded with heavier armerments since he and Sehtsursankh had made it back through the warp with the data and he'd actually resented being left with the SDS'es in the reserve.
(Glee.) Was his response when the commandship's call came. With the new engines in the fighters and heavies it would be possible to still get into the fight, even from so far away.
He locked his eyes on the screen in front of him, as he sent the ship hurtling toward the fight. Oh, you are a sweet little thing to fly.
"You're humming again," Seht grumbled as they closed on the griarfeksh fighters withdrawing to their carriers.
"I'm not," he snaped back absently, fists tightening on his control. The image on his screen whirled to the left, real-time, as he sank into the gel. That sucked. It didn't give him enough to brace against. The alien fighter dodged in front of him, dancing like a kreevix fly over a hazy stream. He felt it when Seht launched missiles. (Wild exhilaration.)
"You are ranarmata, you idiot," Seht said. (Affection.)
"Am not." But there were no more enemy fighters to engage. (Disappointment.)
Fighter action had almost entirely petered out. The defending SDSes had shot their bolt in that respect, and Second Fleet's retreating units had recovered their fighter groups for good, unable to afford the time for any further launches to cover their backs as they limped back to the warp point and the safety of Astria at a rate limited to the speed of their slowest units . . . some of them very slow indeed, with the damage they had taken to their drives. And Li Magda was resolved to leave no ship behind.
Now that resolve was about to be put to the test, as she watched the holographic display tank on TRNS Implacable's flag bridge and saw the line of scarlet enemy icons moving in on a course intended to intercept the retreating cripples.
At least the SDSes couldn't hope to catch up, although they could and did continue to pour in seemingly inexhaustible missile fire from long range. But those approaching icons were the enemy's new intermediate ships, as fast as superdreadnoughts but approaching monitor size. Individually, they were no match for supermonitors like the Impregnable-class ships Li Magda commanded. But the numbers she saw in the tank more than compensated for that, and they came under the missile umbrella from the SDSes that saturated the supermonitors' point defense and battered their shields and armor.
"Commander de Chaleins," she told her chief of staff, "order all ships to concentrate their missile fire on these incoming SDHs. And while they're doing it, we will change course, thusly." She pointed a wandlike device, and the string of green light in the holo tank that represented her battle line's course curved sharply inward toward the warp point.
De Chaleins stared. He was a hereditary aristocrat from Lancelot, and had a sternly suppressed tendency toward rashness. But this startled even him. "Admiral, this brings us in toward the warp point much sooner, reducing our margin for covering the retreating ships."
"Do it anyway, Commander." She relented enough to explain. "I want them to think we are predominantly missile-armed ships, trying to keep the range open as long as possible. They, of course, will be eager to close the range. When they come into energy-weapon range, we will engage them with everything except our energy torpedoes, until I give the word."
Understanding dawned in de Chaleins's eyes. "Yes, Sir!"
Li Magda dismissed him from her mind and stared at the tank. It would be risky. If she failed, those fresh SDHs would be in among the battered, exhausted ships she had been ordered to protect. But if it worked, it would enable her to spring a technological surprise on the enemy in a particularly nasty way.
The Impregnable class was the newest of the Terran Republic's "generalist" supermonitors. It had been fitted with heavy batteries of the new energy torpedoes in place of many of the older designs' beam weapons and some of their missile launchers, for it partook of some of the characteristics of both.
Essentially, the energy torpedo wrapped plasma, at near-fusion temperatures, in an envelope of force and sent it out as an unguided ballistic projectile at near light speed. Its maximum range was actually a little longer than that of a standard missile, although its chances of actually hitting anything moving at space-combat speeds was very problematical at that range. And it could, with difficulty, be interdicted by antimissile defenses—but only if it were fired from more than about nine light-seconds, giving those defenses time for a targeting solution against something crowding the heels of light. Within that range, it was unstoppable. And it had one other interesting capability. . . .
"Commander de Chaleins," Li Magda called out over the increasing drumroll of noise as the missile bombardment intensified, "an addendum to that last order. When I give the order to open fire with energy torpedoes, they will be launched at their maximum rate of fire."
"Aye aye, Sir," the chief of staff acknowledged after a brief pause. Li Magda heard the pause—and understood it. She knew the possible consequences of spitting out energy torpedoes at twice their normal rate.
"I know, Commander," she said. "But we can't worry about burning out our capacitors now. This engagement is going to be over in a very short time, one way or another. So send the order."
"Aye aye, Sir."
Li Magda continued to watch the curving strings of green and red icons converge. She also listened to more and more damage reports from her ships as they replied as best they could to the missile salvos that battered them. The aliens must be wondering why that reply was so weak, coming from ships whose behavior suggested that missiles were their primary armament.
Then the converging icons slid together into beam-weapon range. The shuddering of Implacable's hull, and the stream of damage reports, both intensified as the alien SDHs brought their energy weapons into play—mostly force beams, as expected. And now they must be certain they were dealing with specialized missile ships, given the light reply from the limited force-beam batteries of the Implacables. Space-twisting energies gouged at Li Magda's ships and sought to gut them.
Just a little longer, she thought as the din rose to crescendo.
RFNS Indomitable reeled, sending the damage control parties sprawling as they worked amid the smoke to contain the results of the last missile salvo. Captain Fergus Thorsen was thrown against the restraints of his crash couch. He was from Beaufort, and had the kind of build that high-gravity world had bequeathed to its children. But even his consciousness wavered. He might have passed out altogether but for the hideous din of twisting, tearing metal as the force beams went to work on a ship no longer protected by force shields.
As the inertial compensators reasserted themselves and the deck steadied, his executive officer staggered up to face him. Commander Rafael Gravina's right arm hung bloody and limp, and his face was ashen. But his eyes held a wild light.
"Captain," he shouted above the noise, "the weapons station reports that we'll soon lose the ability to target the energy torpedoes. We've got to use them while we still can!"
"That's a negative, XO," Thorsen yelled back. "We're under strict orders to employ them only on command."
"Captain, they're all we've got left! We can't just let this ship be torn apart when we still have something to return fire with!" The light in Gravina's eyes blazed up into something Thorsen had never expected to see there. "Captain, I must insist that—"
Ever since the boarding actions of the Theban War had caught the Terran Federation Navy unprepared, laser sidearms had been a standard item of space-combat attire. Now Thorsen's hand went to butt of his. "Commander, that will do! We will obey our orders and withhold energy torpedo fire. Is that understood?"
Their eyes locked, and Thorsen thought he saw the mutiny begin to die in Gravina's.
But then the ravening force beams found the bridge, and it didn't matter anymore.
"Code Omega from Indomitable, Admiral," De Chaleins shouted to make himself heard.
"Just a little longer," Li Magda called back, walling off her mind against the thought of a supermonitor's death. Instead, she thought of the damaged ships of the earlier PSUN and RFN waves that were beginning to commence warp transit back to Astria. And she watched the crawling multicolored icons in the tank.
"Admiral—!"
"Almost." She felt a strange psychic proximity to the aliens as they drew closer and closer. What kind of beings lurk inside those ships? "Are all units locked on?"
"Yes, Admiral."
"Good." As Li Magda watched, those red "hostile" icons passed an invisible line. "Then they may commence firing with energy torpedoes . . . now!"
Most energy weapons are invisible in the vacuum of space. But the packets of star-hot plasma that now shot out from the Terran Republic's supermonitors were blinding. And at their speed they looked more like beams of dazzling light—beams of a peculiarly stroboscopic sort, as new torpedoes were punched out at a rate that could not be maintained for long.
Even if the Arduans had known with what they were dealing, they could not have intercepted those immaterial wads of death in the nine seconds or less they took to flash across the intervening space. And when they struck—as they generally did, at these ranges—they struck with the destructive force of a capital missile antimatter warhead.
Shields went down, armor buckled and vaporized, and SDHs exploded outward in series of secondary explosions, fissuring and splitting apart in eruptions of hellfire. Even the ongoing missile storm from the now-distant SDSes abated as though in shock at what they were witnessing.
"They're pulling away, Admiral!" exclaimed de Chaleins. "They're breaking off the engagement."
"I see they are," said Li Magda in a voice that sounded as drained as she felt. She had read the reports describing these aliens' seeming indifference to death. But evidently they couldn't be indifferent to losses.
"Get us turned around, Commander," she ordered, straightening up. Plenty of time for exhaustion later. "We'll transit after the last of the damaged ships."
Cyrus Waldeck watched grimly as the last of the PSUN and RFN units limped through the warp point, followed by the TRN ships that had enabled them to do so.
He steeled himself against disappointment. Once again, the objective had proven unattainable; but once again they had gleaned invaluable information about the enigmatic enemy. And, while it was difficult to be precise about the losses suffered by an enemy who was left holding the field, all indications were that this time they had given at least as good as they'd gotten.
"The last ship is transiting, Sir," Nathan Koleszar reported. "It's Implacable, with Admiral Li."
"Ah. Yes. Please establish a comm link with Implacable. I wish to speak to Admiral Li personally."
Admiral Li. He distinctly remembered that he had been of two minds about having someone with that name in Second Fleet. But he was finding it harder and harder to recall how that had felt.