by David Weber
Almost half the rebels' energy, weapons were a new kind of primary, she noted almost absently.
Apparently they hadn't cracked the secret of the varialle-focus beam, but they seemed to have come up with something almost as good. Desai was a weapons specialist; she didn't need experts to tell her tle rebels had stumbled onto a different application of the foreefield lens principle--comone which al- lowed a "burst" longer than that of the standard primary. to " to to to " Long enough for the beam to "swing" slightly. Its slicing action did less damage than a force beam, simply slashing a five-centimeter-wide gash through whatever it hit. But that was more than enough to eripple any installation--and it passed effortlessly through any material object or energy shield in its path.
That was what made it so deadly despite its slow rate of fire; it could damage supermonitors without first pounding through their nearly indestructible shields and armor.
The primary has always held an especially nerve-wracking fear for spacers. One can be standing in an undamaged ship and suddenly find a five-centimeter hole through one's stomach. It happens rarely, of course--human bodies are small objects, placed aboard starships in limited numbers. But even improbable things happen occasionally.
Like the primary which suddenly sliced through Togo's flag bridge. Air began howling into space.
Two scanner ratings got in the beam's way, and it eut them in two in an explosion of gore. It swung towards Sonja Desafs command chair, but it did not quite reach it... it terminated at the midthigh level of Joaquin Sandoval's right leg. He crashed to the deck, the leg suddenly attached only by a thin strip of muscle and skin.
The primary is not a heat weapon; it does not cauterize. The stump spurted blood.
Sandoval began screaming.
Desafs reflexes thought for her as one hand slammed the release on her shock frame and she flung herseff free. No one else on the shocked bridge could move as she ripped a severed cable from a shattered panel. She whipped it around his leg, jerking the crude tourniquet tight even as she summoned the medics via battlephone.
"Sir, Adder, Coral Snake, Ortler, Thera, and Anderson are Code Omega," Tomanaga reported, his voice hoarse as the nightmare tally rose, his face afire with battle and awe at the unprecedented destruction.
Han sat in her command chair, stroking the helmet in her lap as she absorbed the litany of death.
Death inflicted by humans upon humans. Death dealt out in the name of duty and honor. Her shoulders were relaxed, her face calm, but a trickle of sweat ran down one cheekbone.
Arrarat shuddered as another missile exploded against her drive field, and Han looked at Tsing's ops offacer; he sat motionless before his panel. His d0mentalink was gone. It was very quiet on the flag bridge, despite the dreadful butchery raging within and beyond the hull. She looked up as a shadow fell on the side of her face, and Tsing Chang looked down at her.
"Sir, you must transfer. Arrarat can no longer serve as your flagship." "No," she said softly.
"Admiral," Tsing tried again, "Captain Parbleu is dead. Commander Tomas tells me we have two hetlasers and one primary left--the armament of a light cruiser, sir. Right now, they're not even shooting at us very much, but it's only a matter of time till they finish us off. You must transfer." "No," she said once more. "I've had three flagships, Chang. I've lost two of them." She looked away from the " plot where Bernardo da Silva had just died at the hands of her own ships. "I won't leave this one." "It's your duty, Admiral," he said softly.
'This task force is your responsibility--not a single ship." "Oh? And what of you, Admiral?" "I've only got two ships left," he said simply, "and they're both out of the net." ISURCTO
"But you still have yoir eom." Arrarat was doomed, but it seemed to her hypersensitive mind that only her pre. sene, had deferred that doom this long. She knew it was irrational, yet she couldn't leave. She shook her head doggedly. "And you've still got your drive, Admiral. Instruct Arrarat to withdraw.
I can still eommand from here." "Yes, sir. You're right, of course." Tsing paused, looking down at her, and his lips curved suddenly in a warm smile. "It's been an honor to serve with you, sir." She looked up, troubled by his gentle voice even through the mental haze of battle. It no longer sounded like the imperturbable Tsing she knew.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said softly--and his fist exploded against her jaw.
Han's head snapped hack, her eyes rolling up. She lolled in her shock frame, and Tsing caught up her helmet and jammed it over like..r head, sealing it while the bridge crew stared in frozen to isbelief. He turned to Tomanaga.
"You've got four minutes to clear this ship, Commo- dore,"" he said crisply. He punched the release of Han's shock frame, his face fierce, and snatched her up. He threw her limp body at Tomanaga, and the chief of staff caught her numbly. "Get her out of here. Now, goddamn it!" Tomanaga hesitated one instant, then nodded sharply and raced for the intraship car.
"She'll need her staff," Tsing snapped. "The rest of youout!" Li Han's staff never hesitated. Something in his voice compelled obedience, and they were halfway to the boatbay before they even realized they'd moved.
Tsing punched a button on the arm of Han's empty chair, and his voice echoed through every battlephone aboard his savagely wounded flagship.
'rhis is Admiral Tsing. Our weapons are destroyed. I intend to close the enemy and ram while I still have drive power. You have three minutes to abandon ship." He turned to his staff.
"Commander Howell, message to Admiral Windrider: 'Vice Admiral Li transferring to TRNS Saburo Yato via cutter. Urgently request fighter cover." Send it and get out." He bent and pressed buttons, slaving drive and helm to the flag bridge. He looked up a moment later--his staff remained at their stations.
"Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you misunderstood me," he said calmly.
"No, sir," Frances Howell said softly.
"We understood." Tsing started to speak again, then closed his mouth.
He nodded and dropped back into his command chair, glancing at the chronometer.
"Two minutes, Commander Howell," he said.
"Then I want maximum power." He touched a brilliant dot on his plot. "That looks like a nice target." "It does, indeed, sir." "She's what?" Jason Windrider demanded.
Only nine of his small carriers remained, but a destroyer flotilla and two light cruiser squadrons had broken through to protect the survivors while their hangar crews broke all speed records rearming fighters.
"The Flag is transferring, sir," his eom officer repeated. "Admiral Tsing requests fighter cover for the admiral's cutter." "What the hell is she playing at now?" Jason fumed, fear fraying his voice with anger.
He stared at the maelstrom of capital ships and sighed. "All right, Ivan. See ff you can sort anyone out of that mess!" "Yes, sir." Only a handful of Carl Stoner's fighters survived, and they'd been driven back by Magda's fighters once she was free to retain them for her own defense. Even Se'an Remko's ships had been unable to close on her flagship as her fighters slashed away at their drive pods, slowing them, battering them. She'd lost heavily--five of her own battle-cruisers were gone, and two assault carriers and three fleet carriers had been gutted or destroyed--but her remaining hangar bays supported enough fighters to make it suicide for Stoner's survivors to engage her.
Remko had realized that. In desperation, he had ordered them into the butchery of the batfie-lines, hoping they might make a difference, that they and the capital ships might offer one another some mutual protection. Now three of Stoner's waifs saw an unbelievable sight: a INSURBECTION cutter spat out of tle boatbay of a rebel superdreadnought and dashed towards an embattled monitor.
"Zulu Leader to Zulu Squadron," their leader said, his voice ugly with hate and despair. "Must be someone pretty importantmlet's go get him!" "Zulu Three, roger." "Zulu Six, roger." His two remaining wingmen dropped back to cover him, and the Rim squadron leader stoope.d on the cutter like a hawk.
Lieutenant Anna Holbeek shook her head in disbelief. Find a
cutter and escort it through this?! Someone had obviously had a shock or two too many, she thought. But hers was not to reason why.
"Basilisk Leader to Basilisk Squadron," she said resignedly. "Let's go finstl the admiral, boys and girls." Five agile littl strikefighters slashed through vacuum, closing on Han's cutter.
Death crashed about them, but so vast are the battlefields of space that even in that cauldron of beams and missiles, no weapon came close to the deadly little quintet.
"Basilisk Leader, Basilisk Two.
I've got her on instruments, Skip--but she's got trouble." "I see it. Green Section, close on the cutter. Red Sec-t-ion, follow me." The three Rim pilots were so intent on their prey they never even saw the Republican ships that killed them.
"Sir! One of the rebel superdreadnoughts is closing rapidly!" "What about itThat" Vice Admiral Frederick Shespar grunted, tightening his shock frame as TFNS Suffren's evasive ac- tion grew more violent.
"Sir, she's on a collision course--at maximum speed!" "What?" Shespar stabbed one glance at his flag plot and blanched in horror.
The ship coming at him could hardly be called a ship.
She was a battered, broken wreck, stream-lng atmosphere and shedding bits of plating and escape pods as she came, but there was clearly nothing wrong with her drive. It took him barely a second to realize her grim purpose--comb a second is a long, long time at such speeds.
"Gunnery! New battlegroup target! Burn that ship d--was He never finished the sentence. Tsing Chang's flagship hurled herself headlong at Suffren. Neither supermonitors nor superdreadnoughts are very fast, by Fleet standards--but these were on virtually reciprocal courses.
Two-thirds of a million tonnes of mass collided at a closing speed of just under fifty thousand kilometers per second.
It was too intense to call an explosion.
Some events are so cataclysmic the mind cannot comprehend them. The weapons in play in the Zapata System had killed far more people than died with Arrarat and Suffren--but not so spectacularly, so. deliberately. The devastating boil of light and vaporized steel and flesh hung before the eyes of the survivors like the mouth of hell, and they shrank from it.
As two fighting animals will separate momentarily to draw breath, the battle fleets pulled slightly apart. It wasn't really a lull, for weapons still fired, but a reduction of the unprecedented, unendurable intensity of close combat. As a conscious, ashen-faced Li Han turned from the cutter's view-port, something very like a respite closed in on the warring ships.
The Republic needed it. Scores of fighters were rearming aboard Windrider's and Magda's surviving carriers as Han stepped from her cutter aboard Saburo Yato and raced for the intraship car. Her brain was like ice over a furnace. The anguish of Tsing's death warred with a sort of horrified pride in the manner of his dying, but she couldn't let herself think of that. Not yet. There were things to do, a battle to win. She would allow herself grief and pride later. Later, when she had time to mourn as Chang deserved.
She stepped onto Yato's flag bridge, and Admiral Stephen Butesky leapt aside to offer her his command chair. She nodded briefly and dropped into x while a shaken Tomanaga quietly displaced Butesky's chief of staff.
"Status report!" she snapped. She didn't really want to know. She didn't want to consider her hideous losses, or even those of her enemies. But she had a job to do. Thank God for this lull! Perhaps she could-- "Admiral Li?" A strange eom rating looked up at her, eyes puzzled, and Hart choked back a sob of grief for the people aboard Arrarat.
"Yes?" Her voice showed no sign of her sorrow.
"I've just picked up a parley signal from Vice Admiral Sonja Desai." Han blinked, then smoothed an incipient scowl from her face and gestured acceptance, her mind racing.
Who the devil was Vice Admiral Desai? It was unheard off An officer didn't simply send a signal to her opponent while missiles and beams were still flying! Why-- She didn't recognize the dark, sharp-featured woman who appeared on the screen. Her vac suit was drenched with blood not her own, obviously, for she sat upright in a command chair, clearly in complete command of herself.
"Where is Admiral Trevayne?" Han demanded without preamble.
"Admiral Trevayneis in sickbay. I have assumed command."" Desafs habifual expressionlessness did not alter, and she resumed after the briefest of pauses. ""rhe position is this, Admiral Li: we can continue this battle and fight it out to a conclusion, and I believe I can win. Quite probably you disagree. But whichever of us is right, 'winning" in this context means being left with the last one or two ships, or at least with a surviving force too weak to follow up its "victory." As an alternative to this profitless slaughter, I propose a cease-fire in place, of indefinite duration, while we apprise our respective governments of the situation."" The immobile face took on a slightly rueful expression. "We may have to ask you to transport our messenger to the Innerworlds, but we have with us a high-ranking Federation official who will be able to represent our status to the Prime Minister." Han's face was like a sculpture as she thought furiously. Could she win if the battle resumed?
Yes. With her fighters rearmed and the range too short for the Rim's HBM'S to be decisive... yes, she could win. She felt certain of it--and she suspected this Desai knew it, too. Yet Desai was also right. Her own battle-line had been savaged, the relentless attacks of the Rim screen had hurt. Magda far worse than had been allowed for, and Jason's force was devastated. And she had little idea just how much fight those looming supermonitors still had in them-- three were gone, others badly damaged. One hadn't fired in minutes. Was it any more than a hulk? She knew she could take them, avenge Second Zephrain's blot on the Fleet's honor @u.
. and vet... and yet there was that edge of uncertainty and her ignorance of how matters stood with the Rump pincer. And there was the terrible knowledge that even victory, would leave her on her knees, without the strength to follow through against Zephrain.
But still...
Damn it, where was Trevayne? Was he really dead? They'd hardly admit it, would they? And, her dogged honestly demanded, why did she care?
Aloud she temporized. "Such an agreement might exceed my authority. At the least, you're asking me to assume a heavy responsibility." "No heavier than I'm assuming myself." "On the contrary.; you're occupying four planetary systems of the Terran Republic which I'm under orders to recover--was "And I am under orders to reopen contact between the Innerworlds and the Rim Feder... the loyalist systems of the Rim." Desafs stiffness relaxed just a trifle. "Now that we've each recited our position papers, let's turn to reality. You and I are in command on the scene. We both. know our orders can't be carried out--not without a gree of slaughter which passes the limits of sanity and decency. Shall we make our governments aware of that reality.? Or shall we continue to carry out our orders in spite of it?" Her eyes bored into Han's. "In the end, I suppose it comes down to a question of where our duty really lies. That's a question many of us have had to face over the last few years, isn't it?" Two pairs of dark eyes locked. I can win, Hun told herself. to can win the greatest space battle in history! Or @u do to think that because I want to win so badly? And if I do, why?
Out of duty... or hatred? Shame that a man who may not even be alive over there once beat me?
Or for the glory? And what "glory" is there in being the woman responsible for such slaughter?
And could I kill them all? Her thoughts turned ever inward. Could I wipe them out--because that's what it comes down to; this Desai will no more surrender if I
INSUBRECTION reject her offer than I would. Even after all that's passed, even ffI have the capability to treat them like Arthur Ruyard, could I do it? After lan Trevayne didn't do that to me?
And almost before she realized she was speaking, the quiet words came.
"Very well, Admiral Desai. I agree." Vice Admiral Li Han stood in a strange cabin, hands by her sides. Her eyes were dry, but her bee was strained and drawn. She sank into a chair, her lips trembling briefly in a tired smi
le. She'd lost hree sets of quarters now. She was once more down to a single battle-stained vac suit.., her painfully reassembled possessions drifting atoms.
Her face crumpled as realization hit. Arrarat was gone. All those people. Twenty-five hundred friends. Chang.
She buried her face in her hands, feeling her nails press into her temples as she fought the tears. She wouldn't weep. She wouldn't?Chang had chosen the way he died.
But he had died, she told herself sadly. Died under her command--with thousands of others aboard the ships she'd commanded. And she hadn't even won! She'd renounced victory, held her hand in the name of "humanity." But what of her debt to those who had died, trusting in her to win the battle?
She straightened her spine and stared into a mirror, her cheeks dry, and scarcely recognized the wan face that looked back at her from those brilliant black eyes. tears, she told herself. No tears for Chang, for the dead, for the lost victory. The past was past, and the future pressed upon her.