In the Stormy Red Sky-ARC

by David Drake

  "Six . . ." said Vesey on the command channel, her voice showing the strain of heavy acceleration. "Unless we begin braking within forty seconds, we risk being in the pattern of either the Heimdall or the Elisabeth, over."

  Daniel placed her calculations in the lower right-hand quadrant of his display and opened them. She'd coded the missile tracks red for the battleship and green for the heavy cruiser. It was the seventh salvo for each and the first to even approximate accuracy. The Heimdall's spread was aimed to cross the Milton's current course a little ahead of the Elisabeth's.

  But Vesey was being overly cautious—well, very cautious, which in a battle was the same thing. You couldn't predict courses precisely until the missiles had burned out and split, since the process of separation induced variables. It was just possible that the projectiles would spread as widely as Vesey feared, but even if they did there was little chance of them hitting anything but vacuum.

  "Green element," said Daniel. "On command, turn two points toward enemy and boost thrust by point-two gees. In thirty seconds, over."

  "Sir!" said Vesey on a two-way link. The strain in her voice wasn't entirely due to their present acceleration of 2.1 g. "We'll lose rig if we do that and tumbling yards could damage the hull, over!"

  "Needs must when the devils drive, Vesey," Daniel said. "Break, Squadron, execute!"

  Not even Daniel could feel the incremental acceleration, though a change in the buzz of the High Drive was barely perceptible. The added stress was real, however: just as Vesey had warned, the Port E antenna, jammed with only the topmast telescoped, carried away. The shriek of twisted steel shearing was followed by the nervous jangle of broken cables lashing the ship as they flailed past.

  There was only one further WHANG! though, when one or the other end of the antenna spun back against the hull. Daniel hoped it hadn't penetrated the plating, but he knew very well that they'd be lucky if they got out of this affair with nothing worse than a bad dent.

  The Alliance commanders weren't just wasting the contents of their magazines when they made maximum-effort launches at extreme range. The first missiles of an engagement had been pampered: loaded at leisure and checked whenever the missile crew had a moment's leisure.

  After that—and inevitably even then, to some degree—things began to go wrong. The locks of launching tubes jammed or—worse—sprang open. Reloads jumped the rollerways and sometimes slammed the breech of a tube, putting it out of action until the machinists could turn it smooth. Electrical contacts might fail, feed lines might kink or clog, and a missile which had been on the lowest tier for years might have been hammered enough out of round that it wouldn't seat.

  For that matter, a hydraulic ram could malfunction instead of sliding its missile the proper distance into the tube. Ordinarily "malfunction" meant that several inches of missile stuck out into the compartment and the tube couldn't be closed, but Daniel remembered once on the Defiance when the ram overtravelled and thrust itself a hand's breadth deep through the missile casing. That had been a bitch of a job to clear, and nobody was shooting at the old training cruiser at the time it happened.

  A half-salvo from the Heimdall was forty-eight missiles if everything operated to specification; the spread she launched at the Milton was thirty-one. Miserable as the battleship's performance was, it was still a better percentage than the seventeen out of twenty-eight missiles that the Elisabeth managed.

  Mind, one missile was enough to put paid to a ship, even a battleship. Neither vessel appeared very accurate, but a spacer never discounted luck. Particularly not bad luck.

  The remaining ships of Green element were conforming to the Milton's course, though the seriously underpowered Arcona had been forced to light her plasma thrusters in addition to her High Drive, and the Treasurer Johann was so far out of position that only by plotting her course could you tell that Captain Rowland really had obeyed Daniel's orders. If the engagement continued any length of time, the Arcona might have to borrow reaction mass from another ship before she could risk landing. The trick, of course, would be to survive long enough for that to be necessary, let alone possible.

  By turning toward the enemy and accelerating, Daniel reduced the length of time Admiral Petersen's squadron had to react to incoming missiles. It reduced the RCN's reaction time also, but thus far at least the Alliance ships were shooting very poorly. They hadn't recovered from the disruption of realizing Daniel's initial salvo was coming straight down their collective throat, and most of the navigating officers appeared to be maneuvering without informing the missileers.

  As Daniel had directed, Blue element, the RCN destroyers, was shadowing the Alliance squadron but not closing the considerable distance separating them. Every two minutes or so, the Blue vessels individually loosed a pair or two pairs of missiles toward the Alliance battleships.

  The range was well beyond the possibility of accurate shooting, but Daniel expected a number of projectiles to come close enough to their targets to be noticed. That would prevent the Alliance captains from concentrating wholly on the threat from Green element.

  And who knew? Maybe some Alliance vessel would have bad luck.

  The enemy destroyers were keeping close to their heavy ships, acting as a screen but not actively trying to engage Blue element. If asked, the Alliance captains would probably claim that the RCN destroyers were too far out to be dangerous, and that the greater risk was that RCN assets which had been concealed to that point would mousetrap them if they attacked Blue.

  Daniel wouldn't have done that even if he had hidden assets. He knew to keep his eye on the main target, and that was the pair of battleships.

  Speaking of which, the Oldenburg had stopped launching. Had something gone wrong with her missile control apparatus? Battleships had several-times redundant systems, but combat stresses were beyond what the most careful captain could test for. Sometimes that caused a catastrophic failure.

  There was nothing wrong with the Oldenburg's defensive armament, though. Her six turrets mounted twin twenty-centimeter plasma cannon. At present her gunner was mostly working the turrets in pairs. Four high-intensity bolts hitting in quick succession were enough to convert a projectile into a gas cloud which caromed off at a slant from its dangerous original course.

  Once, however, five turrets fired together at a projectile from the Milton, catching it before burnout. Even at extreme range, that was enough energy to rupture the tanks of reaction mass and leave the melted remains to tumble harmlessly in the void. Somebody on the Oldenburg's bridge had recognized a threat even before it developed and had removed it with a skill beyond anything Daniel had seen before.

  His sudden smile was harsher than usual. It was an article of faith with Daniel Leary that the RCN was the finest naval organization in the human universe. The RCN did not, however, have a monopoly on skilled personnel.

  The four Alliance light cruisers were at the end of their formation. Three—one continued to launch at the Blue element—were concentrating on the Eckernferde, the rearmost vessel of Green element.

  Lighting her plasma thrusters, the Eckernferde made a desperate attempt to avoid a well aimed spread of eighteen missiles from the Ratisbon. The acceleration would flatten any personnel who weren't already in couches as well as shaking loose all manner of things. When the multiple frequencies hit harmonics, they could shatter metal.

  A missile from the Emden struck the Eckernferde squarely amidships. Bits flew away: antennas and yards broken by the impact, and hull plates blasted off when the solid remainder of the projectile exited the hull. The Eckernferde's plasma cannon hadn't engaged that missile because it hadn't been a danger until the target accelerated into its path.

  When Daniel ordered his Green element to resume missile attacks, the Treasurer Johann had launched a salvo of twenty-five, followed by a second of—remarkably—twenty-six missiles from her twenty-eight tubes. The entire spread was aimed at the Heimdall because the leading Alliance battleship masked her consort from the J
ohann's angle.

  None of the Alliance ships were engaging the Johann, so her crew wasn't distracted. Also, her Chief Missileer was very good. Daniel didn't know that officer's name, but he would after the battle—if there was an after for him.

  The Heimdall's bridge crew had been concentrating on the half-salvos from the Director Friedrich and to a lesser degree on missiles from the Milton and the two cruisers accompanying her. The dead-accurate spreads from the Johann went unnoticed until they were too close to maneuver away from. They fell on the battleship like the Wrath of the Gods.

  The Heimdall's twenty-centimeter plasma cannon were in their element. Ordinarily the faster rate of fire of lighter guns made up at least to a degree for the enormous wallop from a heavy bolt. Now there wasn't time for multiple shots, but each twenty-centimeter round destroyed the integrity of an incoming projectile. No solid missile got through the battleship's defensive fire.

  But four clouds of recently-vaporized metal swept over the Heimdall. They scoured off rigging, sensors, and everything less sturdy than the hull itself. The steel fog didn't penetrate the gun turrets, but they and the cannon themselves were welded in place.

  The Oldenburg resumed launching. This time the full salvo, sixty-three missiles, was aimed at the Milton.

  Daniel brought up the High Drive control panel. There probably wasn't going to be a happy ending; but still, you did what you could.

  If the Oldenburg's spread had been better aimed, he would have found it easier to choose a response. The central clump of about half the salvo was just that, a random distribution which grouped around the center.

  Whether the Milton braked or tried to increase what was already high acceleration, there was a likelihood that one or more projectiles would hit her. The remaining missiles were scattered around that lethal core.

  Daniel gimballed the motors to slew the Milton sideways at maximum output. The new course would be a shallow tangent to the previous one, the sum of the new thrust acting on the original momentum. It didn't mean safety, but if the cruiser held together she had a chance of survival.

  If. A cadet who proposed that solution in a shiphandling class would be flunked for the exercise, with the notation that the High Drive mounts wouldn't take the unsupported strain.

  On the other hand, the Academy instructors would be doing the same bloody thing if they had this many incoming missiles to deal with. They would if they thought quickly enough, at any rate.

  One of the motors in the cruiser's stern section broke the welds on one side, then banged against the outrigger because the other side still held and the attachment plate folded under the strain. The other motors stay put for now.

  The Oldenburg's captain, unlike her gunner, was uninspired and leisurely in his responses. The Director Friedrich and the Milton directed full salvos at the remaining Alliance battleship now that the Heimdall was out of action.

  The Oldenburg braked with both High Drive and thrusters, the first evidence Daniel had seen that her captain understood the gravity of his situation. The strain would make even a battleship squirm like a snake, but it did drop her out of the spread from the Friedrich.

  That put the Oldenburg squarely in the path of Borries' fifteen missiles. The Chief Missileer had allowed for maximum braking, while his mate had aimed the remaining fourteen missiles of the Milton's salvo ahead, reasonably assuming that the Friedrich would fill the center of the box.

  As the Director Friedrich's salvo neared the target, a missile struck her amidships. It was high, slamming into A Level, though the fireball would scoop away all internal subdivisions in that section down to the armored deck between E and F Levels.

  The battleship began to roll away from the impact. A second missile struck well forward, engulfing her bow including the bridge. She was out of the fight and probably beyond economic repair.

  The Oldenburg's cannon were swatting away incoming projectiles with contemptuous ease. How the bloody hell are they keeping up that rate of fire? It's too fast even for six-inch—

  As Daniel formed the thought, a change cued his console. It threw up a visual of the Oldenburg. A turret lifted from the battleship's spine, shedding bits as it tumbled outward. Two of the fragments were the barrels of plasma cannon, the portions that were outside the armor when a round vented through the breech. The blast plucked the turret from the barbette on which it rotated.

  If you fired a plasma cannon faster than its tube could be purged of vapor sublimed from the bore, the charge reflected back instead of stabbing toward the intended target. Bad things happened, then.

  Worse things happened to the Oldenburg some nine seconds later: a projectile hit her starboard outrigger at a quartering angle and raked sternward. By the time it slanted out through the port outrigger it was a cloud of superheated steel, more a shockwave than an object. The battleship's hull wasn't seriously damaged, but the thin plating of the outriggers vanished like chaff in a flame.

  The High Drive motors went with the outriggers, and in all likelihood most of the plasma thrusters—set into the lower curve of the hull—were burned away also. The Oldenburg had become a drifting hulk. A considerable portion of its armament remained, but it was unusable.

  Three projectiles were driving toward the Milton. Their grouping was accidental: they weren't segments of the same missile.

  Sun fired his dorsal turret, bouncing the ship seriously despite the other violent inputs. One of the incoming trio diverged from its previous course, driven by the thrust of the half its mass which sublimed when struck by the heavy ion charges.

  The ventral turret didn't engage the remaining projectiles. Because of the angle of approach, the Milton's lower pair of guns didn't bear.

  Daniel touched his port thruster controls, giving them a blip to rotate the Milton slightly on her long axis. That would bring the ventral turret into action. The dorsal guns alone couldn't cycle quickly enough to take out both projectiles.

  The PPI showed the Arcona holding station, though she must have taken damage: her two most recent salvos were of only six missiles each. The Eckernferde drifted without power; the missile had cut her almost in two.

  Meanwhile the Treasurer Johann continued to fight her own private war, ignored by the enemy. She had just launched a second salvo at the Alliance light cruisers, a choice of target so wrongheaded that for a moment Daniel found it perverse. Then he took in the whole tactical situation.

  The enemy battleships were out of action. The Oldenburg was in freefall and spinning around her long axis, driven by the missile which had ripped away her outriggers. Even veteran spacers in her crew would be finding it difficult to keep their breakfasts down. The Heimdall was even more hopelessly crippled: her shutters and hatches were welded shut. Launching at either of them would merely kill fellow spacers to no military purpose.

  The heavy cruisers Sedan and Elisabeth were the next most important Alliance assets, but from the Johann's angle they were largely screened by the Heimdall. The light cruisers, however, had reformed in a line ahead after their initial panicked scattering. They provided the Johann with a zero-deflection shot. The Emden, leading the formation, blocked the view of the following ships unless they were communicating better than they'd seemed to be in the past.

  When the Emden realized the danger, she broke onto starboard tangent from her original course. As she turned, she slewed so that two of her three twin fifteen-centimeter turrets could bear on the incoming missiles without causing blast damage by overfiring her own hull.

  The next in line, her sister ship Ratisbon, reacted only moments later. Her captain was obviously on his game.

  The older Thetis slewed and turned also, but to port. She carried six ten-centimeter twin turrets. Five bore on the incoming, but the stern dorsal and ventral turrets didn't fire.

  Last in line, the Agadir launched another spread of twelve missiles in the direction of the RCN destroyers. Her captain seemed oblivious of everything that was going on around him.

  The Milton
started to rotate, but three more High Drive motors on the port side broke their mountings. Unbalanced thrust made the ship yaw violently.

  Her dorsal guns slammed. Sun was trying to bunt one projectile into the path of the other. Remarkably, he came close to succeeding.

  The last things Daniel remembered from his display were—

  A projectile spiking the Ratisbon just aft of center and slanting out near the stern. The impact carried with it the contents of half the target's internal volume.

  A second projectile striking the prow of the Agadir on a reciprocal. The cruiser became an expanding cloud of debris which followed the course she had been on when she was destroyed.

  An Alliance missile hit the Milton's stern. Everything went white for Daniel, then black.

  The crash was so loud that Adele perceived it as a flash of light. Her data unit was tethered to her equipment belt. It flopped around, of course, but the display corrected for movement.

  Adele's wands twitched also, but she automatically clutched for one or the other of her mechanical aids in a crisis. Reflex didn't send her left hand for her pistol when a missile hit; instead she kept her data unit controls in a grip which would have required surgical shears to break.

  The unit was bulkier than most of its capacity, because it had internal cushioning and an outer case that would stop a pistol shot. It wouldn't have been harmed if it had gone flying across the compartment, but it would have injured anybody who got in its way.

  A jumpseat leaped from the aft bulkhead and cracked Daniel in the head, splitting his commo helmet. The seat caromed off the ceiling, then fell to the deck. One of its broken attachment bolts skittered around the compartment, sounding peevish but not able to do real harm.

  Hogg stepped toward his master. He rode the careening deck as he would a small boat in a storm off the coast of Bantry.