by David Weber
He shrugged. He was going to discover the truth soon enough, and—
"Ma'am, I've got—"
"I see it, Mai-ling." Brigham touched the ensign at the assistant tactical officer's station lightly on the shoulder and looked at Alvarez.
"We've got them on gravitics, Skipper, bearing three-five-two by zero-zero-eight. Range nineteen-point-one light-minutes, speed three-zero-eight-eight-nine KPS, accelerating at four-point-nine-zero KPS squared." She leaned closer to the display, studying data codes, then nodded. "All there, Sir. And they're on course for Orbit Seven."
"Closure time?" Alvarez asked.
"They'll cross our track port to starboard and begin opening the range in two-three-point-two-two-niner minutes, Sir," Lieutenant Yountz replied. "At present acceleration, we'll reach the crossover point in niner-seven-point-six minutes."
"Thank you, Janice." Alvarez glanced at the ensign beside his tac officer. Mai-ling Jackson was a petite young lady who reminded Courvosier a great deal of Dr. Allison Harrington, and he'd already noted the way her seniors trusted her judgment, especially where Grayson systems capabilities were concerned. "How long until their sensors can pick us up, Mai-ling?"
"Assuming we both maintain our current accelerations, make it ... two-zero-point-niner minutes, Sir."
"Thank you." Alvarez turned to Courvosier. "Admiral?"
"Admiral Yanakov will have the data from CIC," Courvosier said, "but double-check to be certain."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Alvarez replied, and Lieutenant Cummings became very busy at his com panel.
"Flag confirms copy of our data, Skipper," he said after a moment. "Grayson is feeding us a fleet course change."
"Understood. Do you have it, Astro?"
"Aye, aye, Sir—coming up on the computers now." Lieutenant Macomb studied his panel. "Course change to one-five-one two-four-seven true with impeller shutdown in one-niner minutes, Sir."
"Make it so," Alvarez replied, and Yountz punched buttons.
"That brings us across their projected track in one-one-two minutes," she reported. "Assuming their acceleration remains unchanged, the range will be four-point-one-one-six light-minutes at crossover, but if they maintain heading and acceleration, they'll reach the point of no return for their recovery vector in just over nine minutes from our shutdown, Sir."
Alvarez nodded, and Courvosier echoed his gesture with a mental nod of silent satisfaction. Yanakov might be cutting his drives a little sooner than he had to, but it was probably better to be conservative.
He made quick calculations on his own number pad, and his smile grew predatory as the solution blinked. If the task force coasted for just thirteen minutes, then went back to max accel on an intercept vector, the Masadans would have to accept action or cut and run for the hyper limit the instant they saw its impeller signatures. If they ran, Yanakov would never catch them, but if he was right about their having supply ships out here, that would be tantamount to abandoning them to his mercy. And that would spell the defeat of their current operations at least until Honor got back.
And, his smile grew even more predatory, it was unlikely the Masadan commander would break off. He might have lost a light cruiser, but he still had nine ships to Yanakov's seven, and Yanakov had left the Glory in Grayson orbit. She was his oldest, least capable cruiser, and she'd been completing a routine maintenance cycle when everything broke loose. She needed another twenty hours to get back on line, but her absence had left a hole in Yanakov's order of battle for Madrigal to fill. With any luck, the Masadans would accept battle with their outnumbered enemies without realizing Grayson's third "cruiser" was, in fact, a Manticoran destroyer, and wouldn't that just be too bad?
* * *
High Admiral Yanakov sat on his own bridge and yearned silently for the nest of repeaters which surrounded the captain's chair on a Manticoran warship. He had a clear view of all really critical readouts, but he didn't have anything like a Manticoran CO's ability to manipulate data.
Still, the situation was clear enough just now—thanks to Madrigal's keen eyes. He felt an odd, godlike sense of detachment, for he could see every move the Masadans made, but they couldn't even guess he was watching them. Their ships slid onward, driving ever deeper into the trap as his own vector angled towards theirs, and he smiled.
* * *
"Where are their LACs?" Sword of the Faithful Simonds fretted yet again as he stared into Thunder of God's holo sphere, and Captain Yu suppressed a desire to bite his head off.
Damn it, the man was supposed to be a naval officer! He ought to know no plan—especially one this complex—survived contact with the enemy. No one could cover all the variables, which was why Jericho had been planned with plenty of redundancy. Only a fool relied on a plan in which everything had to go right, and killing LACs was completely unnecessary.
For that matter, the entire trap was unnecessary. Left to his own devices, Yu would have preferred a direct, frontal assault, trusting Thunder's missile batteries to annihilate any defenders before they ever reached their own combat range of her. But for all their vocal faith in their own perfection as God's Chosen, what passed for Masada's General Staff held the Grayson military in almost superstitious dread. They seemed unaware of the true extent of the advantage Thunder gave them, but then, most of them had been very junior officers during Masada's last attempt to conquer Yeltsin's Star. That had been the sort of disaster even the most competent military people tended to remember with dread ... and most of the senior officers who'd launched it and escaped death at Grayson hands had found it from the Church their failure had "betrayed." The consequences to fleet morale and training had been entirely predictable, and Yu had to concede that the present Grayson Navy was at least half again as efficient as his own allies.
The Masadans refused to admit that ... but they'd also insisted the Grayson Navy must be wiped out, or at least crippled, before Thunder's existence was revealed to the enemy. The possible intervention of a Manticoran warship had made them even more insistent, yet despite all Thunder of God could do for them, it was the Graysons and their primitive weapons that really worried them. Which was stupid, but telling them so wouldn't be the most diplomatic thing he could possibly do, now would it?
"They've clearly left them home, Sir," he said instead, as patiently as he could. "Given what they know, that was the best decision they could have made. LACs would have reduced their fleet acceleration by twenty-five percent, and the LACs themselves are much more fragile than proper starships."
"Yes, and they don't need them, do they?" Anxiety put a venomous edge in Simonds' question, and he pointed to a single light code. "So much for your assumption the Manticoran warship would sit this operation out, Captain!"
"Its intervention was always a possibility, Sir. As I said at the time." Yu smiled, carefully not saying that, contrary to what he'd told the Council of Elders, he'd assumed from the beginning that the Manticorans probably would pitch in. If he'd told them that, the Masadan Navy would have sat in its corner and shit its vac suits rather than commit to Jericho. "And, Sir," he added, "please note that sh—he is, indeed, only a destroyer. A nasty handful for your people, yes, but no match for Thunder and Principality."
"But they're not coming in on the vector we wanted," Simonds stewed.
One or two people turned to glance at the Sword, then whipped back around as they caught their captain's cold stare, yet Simonds hadn't even noticed. He was too busy glaring at Yu, as if challenging the captain to dispute his statement, but Yu said nothing. There really wasn't any point.
There'd never been any way to guarantee the exact course the enemy might follow once their own forces were spotted. In point of fact, Yu was quite pleased with how close his predictions had come. Thunder of God had enough tracking range to put the regular Masadan ships on the proper incursion vector even with light-speed communications, and the Grayson commander had selected very nearly the exact course change Yu had projected. Anyone but an idiot—or someone as badly rattl
ed as Sword Simonds—would have allowed for how vast the field of maneuver was. Yu would have settled for getting one of his ships into attack range; as it was, both of them would have the reach, if only barely.
"They'll cross your range more than six hundred thousand kilometers out at almost point-five cee!" Simonds went on. "And look at that vector! There's no way we'll be able to fire down their wedges, and that makes Thunder's energy weapons useless"
"Sir," Yu said even more patiently, "no one can count on having an enemy voluntarily cross his own T. And if we have to take on their sidewalls, that's the reason our missiles have laser heads."
"But—"
"They may not be on the exact vector we wanted, Sir, but our flight time will be under forty seconds at their closest approach. Principality's will be somewhat longer, true, but they won't even know we're here until we launch, and there's no way they can localize us to shoot back."
Yu himself would have been happier if his targets had come straight at him, though he had no intention of telling Simonds that. Had they done so, he could have punched his missiles straight down the wide-open throats of their wedges. Even better, he could have used his shipboard lasers and grasers against those same unprotected targets.
As it was, Thunder of God's energy weapons would never penetrate their targets' sidewalls at their closest range, and he'd have to launch at better than three million klicks if his missiles were going to catch them as they passed, while Principality was even more poorly placed. He'd had to spread the ships to cover the volume through which the Graysons might pass, which meant the destroyer's closest approach would be over a hundred million kilometers, and that she would have to launch at something like eight million. But even Principality's actual flight time would be under a minute, and the two ships' salvos would arrive within twenty seconds of one another.
Of course, Thunder would have time for only one effective broadside, though Principality could probably get two off. Even in rapid fire, their best reload time was a tad over fifteen seconds, and the Graysons' crossing velocity was almost twice his missiles' highest speed from rest. That made it physically impossible for him to get off more than one shot per launcher before the Grayson fleet zipped across his engagement range at a velocity his birds could never overtake. But this was an almost classic ambush scenario, and Commander Theisman already had his ship spinning on her central axis. Thunder was too slow on the helm and too close, but Theisman could bring both broadsides to bear in his window of engagement. He'd fire the first one with its missiles' drives programmed for delayed activation, then fire the second as his other broadside rolled onto the target, which would bring them in together and let him get off almost as many birds as Thunder.
And, in a way, Yu was just as happy his energy weapons would be out of it. His jamming and other precautions should make it almost impossible for even the Manticorans to localize him if he used only missiles, but energy fire could be back-plotted far too precisely, and hiding his ships had required him to shut down his own drives, which deprived him of any sidewalls. Besides, Principality was one of the new city-class destroyers. She was short on energy weapons ... but she packed a missile broadside most light cruisers might envy.
"I don't like how long the range is," Simonds muttered after a moment, more quietly but still stubborn. "They'll have too much time to spot our missiles after launch and take evasive action. They can roll and interpose their belly bands if they react quickly enough."
"It's a longer range than I'd really prefer myself, Sir," Yu said winningly, "but they're going to have to detect our birds, realize what they are, and react. That will take time, and even if they do manage to interpose their wedges, our birds will still have the power to maneuver to get at their sidewalls. And unlike your own weapons, these have a stand-off range. The Grayson defensive systems will have very little chance of stopping them far enough out, and if we take out only the Manticoran and both cruisers, there's no way the others can escape Admiral Franks."
"If." Simonds fidgeted a moment, then turned away from the sphere, and Yu sighed in silent relief. For a moment, he'd been afraid the Masadan would actually scrub the entire operation because of one stupid destroyer.
"May I suggest we adjourn to the bridge, Sir?" he suggested. "It's getting close to starting time."
* * *
GNS Austin Grayson's drive had been shut down for over twelve minutes while her enemies continued on course, and Admiral Yanakov checked his projections once more. The Masadan fleet was well past the point of no return; they couldn't possibly retire on whatever was so damned important to them without his intercepting them, which left ignominious flight or a resolute turn to engage as their only options.
He ran a hand down the arm of his command chair, wondering if the Masadan commander would cut and run or counterattack. He hoped for the latter, but at this point he would settle for the former.
He turned his head and nodded to Commander Harris.
* * *
"Signal from Flag, Sir," Lieutenant Cummings said suddenly. "Resume maximum acceleration at zero-eight-five by zero-zero-three in twenty seconds."
"Acknowledge," Alvarez said, and then, twenty seconds later, "Execute!"
Courvosier felt his nerves tighten as the shock frame dropped into place and locked about him. He hadn't seen combat in thirty T-years, and the adrenaline rush was almost a shock after so long.
The Masadan ships could see them now, but it was too late for them to do anything about it. The Grayson Navy—and HMS Madrigal —snarled around, bending their vector into one that arced across to cut their enemies off from escape.
* * *
"Right on schedule, Sir," Captain Yu said quietly as the ships of Admiral Franks' squadron altered course abruptly. They turned directly away from the Graysons in what was clearly an all-out bid to run, and the Grayson commander did exactly what any admiral worth his braid would do: he went in pursuit at his own maximum acceleration—on the exact vector Yu had projected.
He watched his display and felt an edge of sympathy. Based on what he knew, that man had done everything exactly right. But because he didn't know about Thunder of God, he was leading his entire navy into a death trap.
* * *
Admiral Courvosier checked the numbers once more and frowned, for the current Masadan maneuvers baffled him. They were obviously trying to avoid action, but on their current course the Grayson task force would overtake well before they reached the .8 C speed limit imposed by their particle shielding. That meant they couldn't run away from Yanakov in normal space, yet they were already up to something like .46 C, much too high for a survivable Alpha translation, and if they kept this nonsense up much longer, they'd put themselves in a position where he would overrun them in short order if they tried to decelerate to a safe translation speed. Which meant, of course, that for all their frantic attempts to avoid action, they were painting themselves into a corner where they had no choice but to fight.
"Captain, I'm getting something a little witchy on my active systems," Ensign Jackson said.
"What do you mean `witchy'?"
"I can't really say, Sir." The ensign made careful adjustments. "It's like snow or something along the asteroid belt ahead of us."
"Put it on my display," Alvarez decided.
Jackson did better than that and dropped the same data onto Courvosier's plot, and the admiral frowned. He wasn't familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the Yeltsin System, but the two clumps of cluttered radar returns certainly looked odd. They were fairly far apart and neither was all that big, yet the returns were so dense Madrigal couldn't see into them, and his frown deepened. Micrometeor clusters? It seemed unlikely. He saw no sign of energy signatures or anything else unnatural out there, and they were too far off the task force's vector to pose a threat with Masadan weaponry, but their illogic prodded at his brain, and he keyed his private link to Yanakov.
"Bernie?"
"Yes, Raoul?"
"Our active systems are pick
ing up something str—"
"Missile trace!" Lieutenant Yountz snapped suddenly, and Courvosier's eyes jerked towards her. Missiles? They were millions of kilometers outside the Masadan's effective missile envelope! Not even a panicked commander would waste ammo at this range!
"Multiple missile traces at zero-four-two zero-one-niner." Yountz's voice dropped into a tactical officer's flat, half-chant. "Acceleration eight-three-three KPS squared. Project intercept in three-one seconds—mark!"
Courvosier blanched. Eight hundred and thirty KPS2 was 85,000 gees!
For just a moment, a sense of the impossible froze his mind, but then the missile origins registered. They were coming from those damned "clusters"!
"We've been suckered, Bernie!" he snapped into his com. "Roll your ships! Those are modern missiles!"
"Second missile launch detected," Yountz chanted. Brilliant lights flared in Alvarez's and Courvosier's plots. "Second launch interception in four-seven seconds—mark!"
Alvarez whipped his ship up on her side relative to the incoming fire, and Yanakov's order to the rest of his command came while Courvosier was still speaking. But his lead destroyers were two light-seconds from his flagship, and it took time. Time to pass the word. Time for stunned captains to wrench their attention from the Masadan warships clearly visible before them. Time to pass their own orders and for their helmsmen to obey.
Time too many Graysons no longer had.
The destroyers Ararat and Judah vanished in savage flashes. They were the flankers, closest to the incoming fire. It reached them thirteen seconds sooner than it did Madrigal, and they never had a chance. They'd barely begun to roll their wedges up to interdict when the incoming missiles detonated, and they carried laser heads—clusters of bomb-pumped X-ray lasers that didn't need the direct hits Grayson missiles required. They had a stand-off range of over twenty thousand kilometers, and every primitive point defense system aboard the destroyers had been trained in the wrong direction.