At All Costs

by David Weber

  Thousands of Mark 31 counter-missiles went out with the Vipers, and Truman felt Chimera quiver as her own counter-missile tubes went to rapid fire, but nothing was going to stop all of that torrent of MDMs. Decoys and Dazzlers strove to bewilder or blind the incoming missiles, but still they came on.

  "They're concentrating on the Nineteenth," Commander Janine Stanfield, Truman's operations officer, reported.

  "They'll have a lot of strays at this range," Goodrick said, and Truman nodded agreement with her chief of staff. Not that having a few hundred MDMs wander off was going to do Vice Admiral Irene Montague and her command a lot of good. Not with two thousand missiles targeted on each of her six superdreadnoughts.

  Even with its attention divided between the salvos rumbling down on it from opposite directions, Third Fleet's missile defense was far more effective than Home Fleet's had been. Partly that was simply the difference in the numbers of missiles in each incoming salvo. Another part was the difference in closing velocities, which improved engagement times. And, especially against Second Fleet, it was because so many of the ships launching those missiles had themselves been damaged, in many cases severely, before they launched. They'd lost control links, sensors, computational ability, and critical personnel out of their tactical departments, with inevitable consequences for the accuracy of their fire.

  But twelve thousand missiles, were still twelve thousand missiles.

  Twenty percent were electronic warfare platforms. Another twelve percent simply lost lock, as Goodrick had predicted. The massed counter-missiles of Third Fleet and Alice Truman's Katanas killed almost four thousand, and the last-ditch fire of the 91st Battle Squadron and its escorts killed another fifteen hundred. It was a remarkable performance, but it still meant twenty-seven hundred got through.

  The heavy laser heads detonated in rapid succession, bubbles of brimstone birthing x-ray lasers that ripped and tore at their targets. The superdreadnoughts' wedges intercepted many of those lasers. Their sidewalls bent and attenuated others. But nothing built by man could have stopped all of them.

  The massively armored superdreadnoughts shuddered and bucked as transfer energy blasted into them. Armor and hull plating splintered, atmosphere gushed from gaping holes, and weapons, communications arrays, and sensors were torn apart. HMS Victorious staggered as her forward impeller ring went into emergency shutdown. Her wedge faltered, and then she staggered again, like a seasick galleon, as a half-dozen more laser heads detonated almost directly ahead of her. Her bow wall stopped most of the lasers, but at least twelve stabbed straight through it, hammering the massively armored face of her forward hammerhead. Her forward point defense clusters went down, her chase energy weapons were pounded into broken rubble, and one of her forward impeller rooms blew up as the massive capacitors shorted across.

  For a moment, it looked like that was the extent of her damage. But deep inside her, invisible from the outside, the energy spike of that demolished impeller room drove deeper and deeper. Circuit breakers failed to stop it, control runs exploded, power conduits blew up in deadly sequence, and then, suddenly, the ship herself simply exploded.

  There were no small craft, no life pods. No survivors. One moment she was there; the next she was an expanding sphere of fire.

  Her squadron mates were more fortunate. None of them escaped unscathed, however, and HMS Warrior lost over half her port sidewall. HMS Ellen D'Orville lost half the beta nodes in her after impeller ring, and HMS Bellona's port broadside point defense clusters and gravitic arrays were beaten into scrap. HMS Regulus escaped with only minor damage, but HMS Marduk lost a quarter of her broadside energy weapons. All of them survived, and their ability to deploy pods remained intact, but the follow-up salvo from Second Fleet was close on the heels of the first, and the first salvo from Fifth Fleet came crunching in almost simultaneously.

  Third Fleet's defenses were simply spread too thin. Twelve thousand missiles came pounding down on it from Lester Tourville. Another 11,500 came crashing in from Genevieve Chin, and there simply weren't enough counter-missiles and Katanas to stop them all.

  Second Fleet's second salvo concentrated on the same targets as the first, and those targets' were already damaged, their defenses thinned. Warrior blew up, and Marduk took a catastrophic series of hits which virtually destroyed her starboard sidewall. Bellona staggered, impeller wedge dying, life pods beginning to fan out from her hulk. Ellen D'Orville took at least twenty more hits, but continued to run, and Regulus moved up on Marduk's naked starboard flank, trying to shield her consort from the third salvo already streaking towards them.

  The gallant effort to protect her sister cost Regulus her life twenty-three seconds later as over eight hundred laser heads took the only target they could see.

  * * *

  "We just lost Bayard, Sir," Molly DeLaney said, and Lester Tourville nodded, hoping his expression disguised his pain.

  Second Fleet had sprung the trap exactly as planned, except for the fact that it had been supposed to close on Eighth Fleet, as well, and he tried to feel grateful. But it was hard. There came a time when phrases like "favorable rates of exchange," however accurate, were cold comfort in the face of so much death, so much destruction. And however hopeless Third Fleet's position, there was nothing at all wrong with the Manties' determination and sheer guts.

  They recognized Second Fleet as the greater prize-and the greater threat-despite its previous damages. It was still the larger of Tourville's two task forces, and the one in the best position to strike Sphinx, and they were pouring fire into his bleeding ranks. He'd already lost three more superdreadnoughts, counting Bayard, and it was only a matter of time until he lost more.

  * * *

  Theodosia Kuzak stared into the master plot as the Havenites task forces sledgehammered her fleet again and again. Battle Squadron Ninety-One was effectively destroyed in the first sixty seconds, and Second Fleet's follow-up salvos switched to BS 11. Her own missiles were striking back, and the system reconnaissance platforms showed fireballs glaring amid Second Fleet's formation, but she knew the exchange rate was completely in the Republic's favor, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  "Incoming! Many incoming!" Commander Latrell barked suddenly, and HMS King Roger III heaved like a maddened animal as a storm of laser heads blasted into her.

  * * *

  "Jesus Christ! What the fuck is that?" Commander Spiropoulo demanded harshly as RHNS Victorieux blew up.

  "It's got to be that new targeting system they used at Lovat," Captain Sabourin replied harshly. "Somebody over there has it, after all. But it can't be coming from more than a few of their ships, thank God!"

  "Any is too goddamned many, NicodŠme," Genevieve Chin grated. "And I don't like whoever the hell it is's targeting!" she added, and Sabourin nodded.

  Most of Fifth Fleet's wallers were more than holding their own against the Manties' fire. That was largely because at least three-quarters of that fire was still raining down on Lester Tourville's superdreadnoughts. Probably, Chin thought, because Tourville was still headed in-system. It looked as if Kuzak had decided stopping him was more important than shooting at ships which could vanish into hyper any time they chose.

  But if most of Third Fleet's missiles were headed in-system, three or four of Kuzak's ships were firing on Chin's wall with deadly accuracy. Their missiles seemed threaded through the cauldron of counter-missiles, EW, and blazing laser clusters like awls. It was as if they could literally see where they were going, think for themselves, and they were coming in behind a deadly shield of closely coordinated electronic warfare platforms. Her missile defenses were hopelessly outclassed against them, and whoever was coordinating their targeting had chosen one of her battle squadrons and begun working her way through it.

  Each individual salvo wasn't particularly large. Indeed, by the standards of pod-based combat, they were ludicrously tiny. But all of them seemed to be getting through. None of them wandered off. None wasted themselves by deto
nating high, or low, where t their target's impeller wedge might stop them. And as they sent their avalanches of lasers through that target's wavering sidewall in deadly succession, they killed.

  "Goddamn it!" she heard Sabourin say with soft, passionate venom as RHNS Lancelot slewed suddenly out of formation, impeller wedge dying.

  "Is there any way to identify where this is coming from, Andrianna?" she demanded.

  "No way, Ma'am," Spiropoulo said through gritted teeth. "They could be coming from anywhere in the middle of that mess." She jabbed an angry index finger at the crimson icons of Manticoran capital ships. "There's no way to localize who's actually firing the damned things!"

  "Just thank God there aren't more of them, Ma'am," Sabourin said tightly. "It looks like Admiral Theisman was right. If we'd waited until they had that thing in general deployment, we'd have been toast."

  * * *

  Dame Alice Truman watched her plot sickly as missile after missile slammed its lasers into Third Fleet's superdreadnoughts. Her carriers were taking hits, too, but nothing compared to the agony of Kuzak's wall. It looked to Truman as if most of the hits on her carriers were overs or unders-MDMs which had lost the wallers on which they'd been targeted and found one of her carriers instead.

  The bastards figure they can always get around to killing carriers later, she thought coldly, and felt an incredible stab of guilt as she realized how grateful she was. Yet she couldn't help it, for the people aboard her ships were her people, the people for whom she was responsible, and she wanted them to live.

  "They're targeting Admiral McKeon, Ma'am!" Commander Stanfield said suddenly, and Truman's eyes snapped to the icon of HMS Intransigent.

  * * *

  "We nailed the son-of-a-bitch, Sir!" Commander Slowacki said, and despite his own fear, his voice was jubilant.

  "Well done, Alekan!" Alistair McKeon replied, teeth bared in a wolfish grin of his own. His battle squadron had landed four salvos of Apollo-guided MDMs, and they'd killed a Havenite superdreadnought with each of them. In fact, they'd done better than that; the kill Slowacki had just announced was their fifth.

  "Now go find another one," he said, and Slowacki nodded.

  "Yes, Sir!"

  The ops officer bent back over his displays, eyes bright, and McKeon felt a stab of envy. Slowacki was actually doing something, accomplishing something. In fact, the four Apollo-capable ships of McKeon's squadron were killing Havenite wallers in rapid succession, and Slowacki was too caught up in his task to realize that while he'd been killing five superdreadnoughts, the Havenites had already killed nine of Admiral Kuzak's. And it wouldn't be long before-

  "Incoming!" someone shouted, and Intransigent lurched indescribably as the first deadly hits slammed home.

  * * *

  Alice Truman watched in horror as the Havenite flail came down on Alistair McKeon's squadron.

  Was it deliberate? she wondered. Were they able somehow to figure out where Apollo was coming from? Or was it just the luck of the draw?

  Not that it mattered.

  * * *

  Intransigent heaved madly as the lasers blasted into her. Astern of her, HMS Elizabeth I staggered as at least eighty direct hits slammed into her. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then, like her older sister Victorious, she vanished in a brief, terrible new star. Second Yeltsin and Revenge shuddered in agony of their own as the focused hurricane of destruction swept over McKeon's squadron. HMS Incomparable, Imperator's division mate in place of the dead Intolerant, lurched out of formation, impellers dead, wreckage trailing, life pods launching. Then the last few hundred missiles of the concentrated salvo came punching in, and Second Yeltsin blew up while Revenge's wedge went down. She started to fall behind, but before she could at least twelve lasers slammed directly into the unarmored top of her hull, which was supposed to be protected by her wedge. With no armor to stop them, the powerful lasers ripped deep into the superdreadnought's core, probing until they found her heart.

  Thirty-one seconds after Second Yeltsin, HMS Revenge joined her in fiery death.

  Intransigent survived. The only survivor of her entire squadron, Alistair McKeon's flagship staggered onward, little more than a wreck, but still alive.

  * * *

  Yet another hit slammed into HMS King Roger III. It stabbed deep, ripping through the wounds two of its predecessors had already torn. It breached the flagship's core hull, tearing its way into central engineering, and the superdreadnought's inertial compensator suddenly failed.

  The emergency circuits shut down her impellers almost instantly, but "almost instantly" wasn't good enough for a ship under six hundred and twelve gravities of acceleration.

  The ship sustained only moderate structural damage; none of her crew survived.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  "Ma'am, you're in command now," Captain Goodrick said.

  "What?" Alice Truman looked at him in disbelief.

  "The flagship's gone," Goodrick said harshly. "That puts you in command."

  "What about Vice Admiral Emiliani?" Truman demanded.

  "Valkyrie took a hit on flag bridge. Emiliani is dead. You're next most senior."

  Truman stood for perhaps two heartbeats, then she shook herself.

  "Very well," she said. "Franklin," she looked at Lieutenant Bradshaw. "General signal, all units. Inform them that command has passed to Chimera."

  "Yes, Ma'am." Bradshaw seemed almost calm, anesthetized, perhaps, by the intensity of the carnage. "Any orders?" he asked.

  "No." Truman shook her head. "Not at this time."

  "Yes, Ma'am."

  Bradshaw bent over his communications console, and Truman looked at the time/date display. Nine minutes. Only nine minutes since the Peeps had opened fire, and almost half of Third Fleet had already been destroyed.

  She thought about Bradshaw's question. Orders. There were no orders for a situation like this one. Admiral Kuzak had already given the only ones anyone could. Now it was a matter of duty, not orders. A matter of Third Fleet's duty to fight to the death in defense of its home, and it would.

  It's not my fleet, she thought, watching Third Fleet's bleeding ships, punching out missiles even as they died, and her eye unerringly finding the icon of Intransigent, tagged with the jagged crimson code of critical damage. Not my fleet... but by God if I've got to die, I couldn't have found a better one to die with.

  * * *

  "That's two more of them, Ma'am," Commander Spiropoulo said, and Chin nodded.

  Third Fleet was finished, she thought, her grim satisfaction tinged with more than a little horror as she contemplated the losses both navies had suffered this blood-soaked day. Thirty of the Manty SDs had been destroyed or hulked. Over half the survivors had critical damage, and whoever had been equipped with that new weapons system was among the dead or disabled.

  Fifth Fleet would lose the range on Kuzak's battered remnants in another twenty-five seconds. The last salvo she could bring down on the fleeing Manties would land in another fifteen, but she found it hard to regret it. There'd already been enough blood, enough destruction, to satisfy anyone, she thought grimly.

  She looked at the tally on one of her secondary displays. Second Fleet was down to only seventy-five ships-only fifty-six effectives, really-out of the two hundred and forty wallers and ninety escorts Lester Tourville had taken into the resonance zone. She herself had lost "only" eleven superdreadnoughts, and most of the crew had gotten out of three of them. But the back of the Star Kingdom's home system's defenses had been broken. She still had plenty of missile pods left aboard her remaining eighty-five wallers, and Second Fleet, despite its own brutal losses, had enough combat power to finish off Third Fleet's remnants. And then-

  "Hyper footprint!" Spiropoulo said suddenly. "Multiple hyper footprints at seven-two-point-niner-three million kilometers!"

  * * *

  Honor Alexander-Harrington's eyes were brown ice as Theophile Kgari, in a virtuoso display of astrogation, dropped the masse
d superdreadnoughts of Eighth Fleet exactly where she'd told him to in a single jump right out of the center of the resonance zone.

  She didn't look at the pathetic remnants of Third Fleet's icons. Didn't even glance at the other icons, representing Lester Tourville's task force. She had attention only for Genevieve Chin's superdreadnoughts, and her voice was a frozen soprano sword.

  "Engage the enemy, Andrea," Lady Dame Honor Alexander-Harrington said.

  * * *

  Genevieve Chin's heart began beating once again, and her instant instinct to break off eased a bit as the range registered. At almost seventy-three million kilometers, the new arrivals were well outside even MDMs' powered range. Besides, there were only thirty-eight of them-less than half her own strength, even if all of them were wallers and not carriers.