At All Costs

by David Weber

  Selma Thackeray had spent the last six minutes deploying missile pods. In that time, she'd positioned 1,080 of them. Now she launched all of them simultaneously.

  The next best thing to eleven thousand MDMs hurled themselves at Task Force 82. Given their lower acceleration rate, and the fact that TF 82 was continuing to accelerate away from them, their flight time would be twenty-five seconds longer than TF 82's, and their closing velocity would be almost nine thousand KPS lower when they arrived, but what they lacked in performance, they more than made up in sheer numbers.

  They couldn't possibly have enough control links to manage that many missiles simultaneously, Honor thought. But the way the individual components of the enormous salvo were spreading out and separating, it looked as if they'd come up with a data sharing approach similar to that of the Alliance. If she was right, their control circuits were bouncing back and forth between individual sub flights of missiles, which was going to cost them even more in accuracy. But given the size of the attack wave it made possible, they probably figured the new technique was well worth it.

  And they're probably right about that, too, she told herself.

  "All units, Missile Defense Sierra!" Jaruwalski snapped. "Carter, stay on the attack birds!"

  "Aye, aye, Ma'am!" one of her assistants replied, and Jaruwalski turned her full attention to the defensive engagement.

  * * *

  "We have a probable total of two hundred and eighty-eight incoming in each salvo, Sir," Thackeray reported.

  Giscard nodded in understanding. Given the greater capacity per pods the Manties appeared to be getting out of their new, downsized MDMs, Thackeray's estimate worked out to a double pattern from each of the Manty superdreadnoughts. Of course, given the fiendishly capable EW capabilities of Manty missile penetration aids, an accurate count of the incoming was a virtual impossibility. Still, the interval between salvos-twenty-four seconds-accorded well with Thackeray's estimate.

  "Get the Cimeterres into position," he said.

  "Aye, Sir," Thackeray replied, and he heard her coaching the escorting LACs into positions from which their counter-missiles and laser clusters could engage the incoming warheads without fouling Thackeray's telemetry to her own attack birds.

  * * *

  "They're moving their LACs in to intercept," Lieutenant Carter announced, his voice a bit hoarse.

  Despite his superb instrumentation, he himself had absolutely no control over the attack. He was simply monitoring it for Honor while the tac officers of the individual ships executed the instructions Jaruwalski had already transmitted, and he was very young.

  "It's to be expected," Honor told him quietly. She stood behind Jaruwalski, watching the ops officer's plot as the incredible Havenite missile storm roared towards her command. "Just take it as it comes, Jeff."

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  Carter drew a deep breath and settled himself in his chair, and Honor reached out to rest her right hand lightly on his shoulder for a moment. But even as she did, her eyes stayed on Jaruwalski's plot.

  ONI estimated that the latest Havenite SD(P)s carried approximately the same number of missile pods as a Medusa-class. Assuming that was accurate, then each of the six superdreadnoughts pursuing her task force carried five hundred pods. They'd expended at least a hundred and sixty each in the first exchange, and there had to be at least a thousand pods in this monster salvo. That came to a total of somewhere around two thousand. So, if the six of them carried three thousand pods between them, that meant they'd have expended two thirds of their total ammunition allotment by the time these missiles arrived.

  They can't sustain this level of fire, she told herself. On the other hand, if they get through with enough of it this time around, it may not matter.

  "They're targeting the battlecruisers this time, too, Your Grace," Brigham said softly, and Honor nodded curtly. They weren't ignoring the superdreadnoughts, but they'd clearly devoted at least some of their total fire to Henke's battlecruisers.

  * * *

  "Here it comes," someone said.

  The voice was low, and Giscard didn't recognize it. Nor did he try to. He doubted whoever it was realized he'd spoken aloud, anyway.

  Not that anyone had required the announcement.

  The first Manticoran salvo streaked into his task group's teeth, and it was obvious the Manties had concentrated everything on a single target.

  * * *

  Task Force 82's missiles roared down on the superdreadnought RHNS Conquete. There were, in fact, two hundred and forty attack missiles and forty-eight EW platforms in the lead salvo. Half of the EW birds were Dragons' Teeth, and as they entered Bogie Four's counter-missile envelope, they suddenly appeared on the Havenite tracking displays as two hundred and forty additional attack missiles. Counter-missiles which had been locked onto them suffered massive confusion as their targets abruptly shoaled into literally dozens of false images. Other counter-missiles, which had been earmarked for genuine threats, diverted to the new targets, spending themselves uselessly.

  Fourteen of the Dragons' Teeth survived to cross the first interception zone. Six of them survived to cross the second interception zone. Two of them made it half way across the inner counter-missile zone. But before the last of them was destroyed, they'd carried a hundred and fifty-six attack missiles and fourteen Dazzler EW platforms with them.

  Laser clusters tracked onto the surviving Manticoran missiles, but those missiles were closing at sixty-two percent of light-speed. Each cluster had an effective range of 150,000 kilometers, but Manticoran MDMs had a standoff attack range of 40,000 kilometers... and it took them barely half a second to cross the intervening 110,000 kilometers. There were literally thousands of laser clusters aboard the superdreadnoughts and their escorting Cimeterres, but they got at most one shot each.

  And just before they fired, the fourteen surviving Dazzlers erupted in bursts of jamming that blinded sensors searching desperately for targets.

  Despite everything the superior Manticoran EW could do, Shannon Forkner's defensive doctrine worked. Not as well as a Manticoran defense might have, perhaps, but sheer volume of firepower still made itself felt. Of the two hundred and forty attack missiles in the salvo, only eight survived to attack range.

  Two of them detonated late, wasting their power on the roof of Conquete's impenetrable impeller wedge. The other six detonated between fifteen and twenty thousand kilometers off the ship's port bow, and massive bomb-pumped lasers punched brutally through her sidewall.

  Alarms howled as Conquete shuddered in anguish. Five point defense clusters, two counter-missile tubes, and three graser mounts, blew apart. Beta Nodes One, Three, and Five; Radar One; Gravitic One; and three of her fire control telemetry arrays were blotted away. Fifty-one members of her crew were killed, another eighteen were badly wounded, and splinters of armor-some the size of a pinnace-blasted away from her hull. But for all the horrific power of those hits, the damage was actually minor. Superdreadnoughts were designed and built to survive the most savage punishment imaginable, and Conquete went right on rolling missile pods.

  * * *

  "It looks like we got at least a couple of hits through, Your Grace," Lieutenant Carter reported. "It's hard to be certain at this range, even with the remote arrays, but CIC feels fairly confident."

  "Good," Honor said. "Good."

  "And here comes the response," Brigham said grimly. "What was that old wet-navy saying you told me about, Your Grace? 'For what we are about to receive-'?"

  "'May we be truly thankful,'" Honor finished without looking away from the plot.

  "That's it," Brigham agreed, and then the MDMs were upon them.

  It was the Republic's turn, and the tsunami of missiles crashed into Task Force 82's outer counter-missile zone. Havenite EW might not be as good as the RMN's, but it did its best, and that best was much better than it once had been.

  Almost eleven thousand MDMs had been launched. Six hundred and seventeen had simply be
come lost and wandered away as Bogie Four's fire control strained to meet the demands placed on it. The remaining 10,183 continued to charge forward as the Mark 31s came to meet them. Twenty-six hundred of them died in the outer interception zone. Another three thousand two hundred died in the intermediate zone, and the Mark 31s killed another two thousand nine hundred in the inner zone. But then it was their turn to slash across the laser clusters' engagement envelope in less than a second, and there were still 1,472 of them left. Two hundred were EW platforms, and the targeting solutions of the other twelve hundred were far poorer than Task Force 82's had been, but there were a great many of them.

  The last-ditch lasers aboard the warships and their escorting LACs killed over nine hundred. Of the three hundred and seventy-two surviving attack missiles, a hundred and three wasted themselves uselessly against their targets' impeller wedges. Of the other two hundred and sixty-nine, a hundred and seventy-two attacked the two superdreadnoughts, and Imperator and Intolerant heaved as lasers ripped into them. Their sidewalls intercepted and blunted most of the lasers, but it was the turn of Manticoran armor to shatter under the pounding.

  Imperator emerged with relatively minor damage, including the loss of three grasers and half a dozen laser clusters, but Intolerant staggered as dozens of hits hammered her thick, multi-ply armor. Huge splinters of it blew away, energy mounts and laser clusters were wiped out, and communication and fire control emitters, radar and gravitic arrays shattered. She bucked in agony under the pounding... and then a final, freak hit ripped straight into the gaping missile hatch in the center of her after hammerhead.

  Rear Admiral Morowtiz's flagship rocked as the powerful energy blast smashed forward along the unarmored, open central core of a pod-layer. Hundreds of missile pods were wrecked, turned into twisted and shattered alloy and wreckage. The missile handling rails were torn apart, and over thirty of her crew were killed.

  Yet terrible as the damage was, BuShips had considered the possibility of just such a hit. Unlike the original Medusa/Harrington-class SD(P)s, the Invictus-class had been built from the beginning with a double-sided core hull wrapped around its hollow center, and the walls of her central missile well were armored almost as heavily as her flanks. The cofferdamming and compartmentalization weren't as deep, but they were far deeper than in the earlier classes, and the additional defenses proved their worth as a ring of vaporized and splintered alloy blasted back out of the shattered missile hatch, for the ship survived. Not only survived, but maintained her maximum acceleration while her antimissile defenses continued to engage the last of the incoming MDMs.

  * * *

  "Your Grace, Intolerant's lost her entire offensive missile armament and both Keyholes," Jaruwalski said in a tight voice. "Casualties are heavy, and her flag bridge took a heavy hit. Sounds like something blew back through CIC. Admiral Morowitz and most of his staff are down." She shook her head. "It doesn't sound good for the Admiral, Ma'am."

  "Understood," Honor said quietly.

  "Star Ranger also took a beating," Jaruwalski continued. "She's still combat capable, but she's already confirmed sixty-two dead, and her starboard sidewall is at less than half strength forward.

  "Aside from that, the only other damage is to Ajax." Honor's expression didn't even flicker, but a cold fist seemed to touch her heart, and she looked quickly for the sidebar on Henke's flagship. "It's relatively minor," Jaruwalski went on. "She's got half a dozen wounded, only a couple of them seriously, and she's lost one graser and two point defense clusters out of her port broadside."

  "Understood," Honor said again. She looked at Lieutenant Brantley.

  "Harper, inform Captain Cardones that Admiral Morowitz is down and that I'm assuming tactical control of the division for now."

  "Aye, aye, Your Grace."

  "Andrea," Honor turned back to Jaruwalski, "drop the LACs back. With Intolerant's damage, we'll need the Ferrets and the Katanas' Vipers.

  * * *

  Task Force 82's second wave of MDMs roared in on Bogey Four. Counter-missiles streamed to meet them, Dragons Teeth spawned, targets proliferated, Dazzlers flared, counter-missile and MDM impeller wedges vanished in mutual self-destruction. And then the surviving attackers hurled themselves once again upon Conquete.

  "Multiple hits aft!" Conquete's captain listened to his senior engineering officer's report from Damage Control Central. "Heavy damage between frames one-zero-niner-seven and two-zero-one-eight. Graser Forty's gone-just gone; there's a hole you could park a fucking pinnace in where it used to be, and it looks like hundred percent casualties on the mount. Forty-Two's out of the fire control net, as well, and Sidewall Ten and Eleven are toast. We've got a core hull breach at frame two-zero-zero-six, I've lost at least three more laser clusters, and they just took two beta nodes out of the after ring."

  "Do what you can, Stew," the captain replied, looking at the scarlet-splashed damage control schematic on one of his secondary plots.

  "We're on it," the engineer replied, and the captain nodded to himself. Conquete was hurt, no question about it, and he knew the pain of the people he'd just lost was waiting for him. But she was still combat capable, and that was what really mattered.

  * * *

  "Conquete reports moderate damage," Marius Gozzi told Giscard. "Captain Fredericks says she's still combat capable, but he's rolling ship to pull his starboard sidewall away from the Manties."

  "Good," Giscard replied, never looking away from the main tactical plot. He didn't like the fact that the Manties had managed to hit Conquete that hard with only two salvos, but Fredericks was a solid, reliable CO. And by simply rolling ship rather than delaying to ask permission, he was showing the sort of intelligent initiative Giscard, Tourville, and Thomas Theisman had worked so hard to create.

  The thoughts ran through the back of Giscard's mind, but virtually all of his attention was focused on the plot as he waited for the light-speed report on what his first huge salvo had accomplished.

  "Sir, we're showing hits on multiple enemy units!" Selma Thackeray said suddenly, her voice jubilant, and Giscard's eyes narrowed as the same results appeared on the plot's sidebars.

  "Hits on both SDs and at least two of the cruisers," Thackeray continued, listening to CIC's verbal report over her earbug. "And...."

  She paused, listening intently, then turned her head to look directly at Giscard.

  "Sir, the platforms confirm major damage to one of the SD(P)s!"

  "Good work!" Giscard replied, but his pleasure at the report was not unalloyed. The third Manty MDM launch was coming in, and he watched the missiles slashing in on Conquete.

  * * *

  "At least five more hits, Your Grace," Jaruwalski reported. "Her wedge strength is dropping, and her point defense is weakening."

  "Which would be nice, if we still had the missiles to pound her with," Mercedes Brigham said quietly to Honor. Honor glanced at her, and the chief of staff bobbed her head in Jaruwalski's direction. "Do you want to use the Agamemnons to make up for Intolerant's pods?" she asked.

  "No." Honor shook her head, watching Giscard's second stupendous missile wave overtake her ships from astern. "This has to be the last launch this size they can manage. They've shot themselves dry to manage this kind of density, and I won't do the same thing with Mike's battlecruisers just to try to kill a ship that can't shoot at us anymore, anyway. Not when we may need them worse shortly."

  "Yes, Ma'am."

  The attacking MDMs came sweeping in, like a comber rearing higher as it neared the beach, and Mark 31s, Vipers, and standard LAC counter-missiles from the Ferrets, slashed into it. The loss of Intolerant's Keyhole platforms weakened the defensive umbrella significantly, but the time the Havenites' needed to "stack" patterns had increased the interval between salvos enough for Honor's LACs to drop back and take up optimum intercept positions astern of her starships.

  Several dozen MDMs lost lock on their programmed targets as the LACs' impeller signatures cluttered the range. They quest
ed for replacements, obedient to their onboard programming, and twenty-six of them found LACs. Nineteen of them got through, and seven Shrikes, nine Ferrets and three Katanas-along with the hundred and ninety men and women aboard them-died.

  Thirty-seven other MDMs got through everything Task Force 82 could throw at them. Six of the leakers were EW platforms; the other thirty-one streaked in on Imperator and Intolerant.

  * * *

  "Four hits starboard aft," Commander Thompson reported to Rafe Cardones from Damage Control. "Two more midships, about frame niner-six-five. Graser Twenty-Three's out of the net, but the mount's undamaged; it's prepared to fire in local control. No major penetrations and no personnel casualties, but we've lost a couple of laser clusters from the after starboard quadrant, and we're down one beta node from the after ring. I think I can get the node back in about twenty minutes, but I could be wrong."

  "Do what you can, Glenn," Cardones said, but his attention was on a secondary display. His own ship's wounds were minor, superficial, at worst. The same couldn't be said for Intolerant.