Walter Williams - Conventions of War

Martinez felt a course change tug at his inner ear, and along with it a rising sense of optimism. The opposing forces hadn’t yet truly engaged, but already Chenforce was in a much better position for this stage of the battle than Tork had been in Magaria.

“Missile flares, my lord!” Warrant Officer Second Class Gunderson, at the sensor station, spoke in a deliberate sonorous calm. “There seem to be…well, hundreds.”

The nine giant ships had finally fired, and the number of missiles blossoming into existence on the tactical display was truly phenomenal. Hundreds, many hundreds. Thousands, perhaps.

Martinez’s nerves began to cry a warning.

This wasn’t going to be easy as he’d thought.

“Fire Pinnace Two,” he said.

He had a feeling he was going to need more than one extra set of eyes.

Light Squadron 17 flew amid a riot of missile tracks as the weapons officers of each ship tried furiously to match the incoming missile barrage with countermissiles.

The first barrage from the converted transports had totaled around eighteen hundred missiles, which exceeded the average squadron salvo by a factor of something like fifteen. There were so many missiles that they were coming in from all angles, some flying direct, some swooping far out to drive in from the loyalists’ flanks.

That first massive barrage had been followed by a second. Then a third.

Counterfire was complicated by the fact that Chenforce was now flying through the cooling remains of plasma bursts, which was beginning to fuzz sensor readings.

Squadron 17 had fired a pair of pinnaces well away from the squadron to provide a clearer view of events, but the two fragile little boats were beyond the range at which the squadron could protect them. If a group of the enemy missiles decided to target them, there was little Sula could do to prevent it.

“Message to Flag,” Sula said. “Query: press the enemy? End message.”

There was no point in staying in this shooting gallery any longer than necessary. The sooner Chenforce could buzzsaw its way through the Magaria survivors and destroy those huge missile platforms, the better.

“Message from Flag,” Ikuhara said a few moments later. “Engage more closely. End message.”

Sula gave the necessary orders, then copied to all other ships so the sensor net could be maintained. Ships swung on their axes. Gravities began to drag at Sula’s heart.

“All ships,” she ordered, “fire full batteries in succession at fifteen-second intervals. Target nearest enemy.”

The sensor operators were working furiously with their counterparts in Auxiliary Command, and with the weapons station, to spot flights of incoming enemy missiles and take them under fire. Ahead was a vast irregular plasma wall, radio-opaque, toward which Chenforce was advancing and from which the Naxids were flying.

In the virtual display, she raced toward the plasma wall, gauging its shape and the areas where it was likely to fade and cool or brighten with new bursts of fire. She shifted the center of the squadron’s movement toward areas where there were likely to be gaps, where she could see farther.

She sent her own offensive missiles plunging through the wall at denser points, to blind enemy sensors to their presence.

She wished she had a tactical officer to absorb some of the work. Commanding the squadron andConfidence both was a job worthy of two people.

Enemy missile bursts came closer. Point-defense lasers flickered out, seeking the missiles that wove and dodged to avoid their beams.

The converted transports unloaded another vast barrage. Sula began to taste desperation on the air.

She saw the enemy movement at the same time as Maitland’s baritone rang out.

“Starburst, my lady! The enemy’s starburst!”

The enemy force that had opposed Squadron 17 was flying apart, each ship trying to put as much distance between itself and the others as possible. Sula narrowed her eyes-uselessly, since her view was projected not on her retinas, but on her optical centers-and carefully studied their movement.

They were not moving within the free-seeming calculations of Ghost Tactics. The enemy were just dashing away from one another.

Relief sang in her bones. The enemy had seen Squadron 17 cut through Naxid formations at Second Magaria, but they either hadn’t realized that its movements weren’t random or hadn’t had a chance to do a proper analysis. They’d concluded that battles were best fought from starburst formations.

Each enemy ship was now moving and fighting on its own. Squadron 17 was still a coherent entity that flew and fought as one.

She was going to pick off the enemy one by one.

Sula chose one of the enemy ships, reached into the virtual space with one gloved hand and stabbed it with a finger. It shifted from blue to white.

“Message to Squadron,” she said. “Copy to all ships. Center formation on target vessel, beginning at”-she checked the chronometer-“twenty-four forty-nine.”

Half a minute laterConfidence swung to a new heading, its engines still blazing. Sula’s acceleration couch swung on a short arc, then returned slowly to its deadpoint.

The hunt was on.

Martinez watched the radiation counter as the point-defense lasers of Squadron 31 flashed a dozen attacking missiles into a brilliant random pattern of overlapping spheres, like a spatter trail flung by a careless brush.

Thus far, he thought, the squadron had been lucky. Despite the vast quantity of missiles thrown at them, the enemy had been kept at bay. The Martinez Method was keeping the ships of the squadron within supporting distance of each other, and the overlapping fields of defensive fire were walling off the enemy attack.

So far, anyway.

The missile batteries were firing as fast as they could be reloaded. The sensor and weapons techs who shared Auxiliary Command with him, crew who normally sat out combat unless their cohorts in Command were taken out of action, were fully occupied tracking enemy attacks and plotting responses. Forty percent ofCourage ‘s missiles had already been fired, mostly as countermissiles. If this expenditure continued, there could be dire consequences. Martinez found it ludicrous that he might find himself in a superior tactical position, about to administer the coup de grace to the last Naxid formation, and find himself with empty magazines.

Another flight of missiles soared in. Point-defense weapons flashed in answer. Another part of the starscape burned with plasma light. A few missiles, dodging and corkscrewing, survived, but were retargeted and destroyed within seconds.

Courage,already burning for the enemy under heavy acceleration, gave a swerve to dodge any theoretical Naxid beam weapons. The movement felt like a fist in Martinez’s side.

The converted transports huffed out another vast barrage, like overripe weeds hurling a cloud of pollen onto the breeze.

Surely, he thought, they couldn’t keep this up. Surely they’d run out of missiles before long.

Surely.

Anger flashed through him.

“Message to Squadron,” he told Falana. “Each ship to fire one battery at converted transports.Vigilant to order a pinnace to accompany.”

It was time the weaponers aboard those Naxid transports had something to do other than plot offensive action. And the pinnace would be in a position to direct further barrages.

Couragegave another swerve. Martinez’s teeth clacked together.

“First blood to us, my lord.” Gunderson’s mellow baritone was filled with satisfaction.

Martinez looked at the display and saw a sphere of plasma where an enemy ship had once been. Sula’s Squadron 17 had made their first kill.

The enemy’s defenses were beginning to break down. All three warship squadrons had starburst, and their fields of defensive fire weren’t nearly as efficient as those of Chenforce.