Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

Forsythe ground his teeth together helplessly. The man was right: instead of veering off, the Pax fighters were still swarming around the crippled catapult ship. "Going for vengeance," he muttered.

"I don't think so," Pirbazari said doubtfully. "Vengeance in the middle of battle is a very unprofessional thing to do. And if there's one thing those people are, it's professional. My guess is they're still trying to keep that group of destroyers pinned down."

"So that their comrades will be free to take out Number Three," Forsythe growled.

EmDef had apparently come to the same conclusion. Abruptly, the destroyers guarding the fourth, unthreatened, catapult ship pulled away, heading for the beleaguered Number Three.

"Finally getting some backup over there," someone near the front said. "About time."

Forsythe felt his eyes narrow. The backup would certainly be welcome... but at the same time, drawing those destroyers into the fray at Number Three meant leaving Number Four completely helpless. "Zar, what in blazes are they doing?"

"They're gambling," Pirbazari said grimly. "With Number One down, they can't afford to lose any of the others—if they do, they can't catapult any Pax ships that come into the net. They don't see the Harmonic as being any real threat to Number Two, and Number Four is far enough away from the battles for them to have plenty of warning if any of the fighters suddenly turn and head that direction. So they concentrate their defense on Number Three."

"Sounds damn risky."

"It is damn risky," Pirbazari agreed. "The theory is sound enough; the destroyers can get back to Number Four pretty quickly, and the catapult ship itself isn't exactly defenseless."

He gestured toward the screen. "But there's that assumption that the Harmonic isn't a threat to Number Two. I'm not sure I buy that."

Forsythe looked over at that section of the display. The destroyers from Number Two had reached and surrounded the big passenger ship. Concentrating on that part of the running voice track, he could hear the EmDef squadron commander ordering the Harmonic to open its airlocks and accept boarders.

"They've been calling on the liner to surrender for the past couple of minutes," Pirbazari said. "So far, the captain has been stalling them."

Forsythe shot a glance back at Number Three. The destroyers that had deserted Number Four to come to its aid were nearly within close-point attack range, and in fact the front ships of the formation were already beginning to spark laser flashes toward the invaders.

But the Pax fighters seemed unaware of them. Still dodging in and out of the defending ships, they continued to hammer at the catapult ship.

He looked back at the liner, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. The Pax fighters ignoring the incoming destroyers; the liner, still under enemy control, making no move; the Number Four catapult ship completely open to attack and the Number Two nearly as helpless.

Yet nothing was happening. Why wasn't anything happening?

And then, suddenly, he understood. "Call EmDef," he ordered, gripping Pirbazari's arm. "Tell them to shut down that net."

Pirbazari blinked. "High Senator, they can't do that. It's the only one still operating, remember?"

"I know that," Forsythe said. Any second now. It had to be any second now. "Call and give the order."

"If we shut it down, the whole system will be open," Pirbazari objected. "The rest of the Pax force will be able to come in anywhere."

"They don't want to come in anywhere," Forsythe snapped. "Don't you see? They want their reinforcements to come in right here. Here, where they can keep their advance force from being slaughtered."

"But then—?"

"What are they waiting for?" Forsythe jabbed a finger at the screen. "They're waiting for their clock to run down. They know that the second they knock out the catapult, EmDef will shut down the net.

They'll have maybe a half-minute window; and that's what they're going for."

Pirbazari's eyes were darting across the screen, his lips half curled back from his teeth. Except for the running EmDef voice track, Forsythe noted distantly, the whole room had gone silent.

With a jerk, Pirbazari snatched out his phone. "Yes," he said, beginning to punch in a number.

"You're right. Damn it."

But it was too late. Even as he punched in the last number and lifted the phone to his ear, the Harmonic finally made its move.

There was a flash from the liner's midsection, a burst of flame and curling smoke that resolved itself into the fiery tail of a missile. It was followed by another flash as the liner rotated beneath the departing weapon, the second missile bursting out almost directly into the exhaust trail of the first.

Then came another, and another, and another, each new missile emerging just as the liner rotated into position and then dropping into line behind the others like baby ducks following their mother.

Pirbazari swore gently. "The airlocks," he said. "Of course. No weapons bays or pods on a liner; so they just loaded their missiles into the airlocks."

The surrounding destroyers tried to react, their own counterweapons blazing away at the line of enemy missiles. But the EmDef ships were too close to the liner, their antimissile defenses too slow to respond. And the destroyers were too far out of line to move into the missiles' path and take the hits themselves.

Abruptly, Forsythe realized why. The destroyers had, cautiously enough, arranged themselves in defensive formation between the Harmonic and the Number Two catapult ship, the closest and therefore most obvious target for an attack originating from the liner.

But that wasn't where the missiles were aimed. They were, instead, burning space for the more distant Number Four.

The ship whose destroyers were all currently at Number Three.

The EmDef commander saw it the same time Forsythe did. Orders were snapped, and within seconds the destroyers from Number Four were disengaging from their defense of Number Three and circling back around.

Or rather, they were trying to disengage. But with the trap sprung, the Pax fighters now abandoned their attack on the already crippled catapult ship and concentrated their fire on the destroyers. Even as the EmDef ships pulled free and headed toward Number Four the fighters moved with them, nipping at their heels like tigers attacking a group of fleeing elephants.

A sudden flicker of light caught Forsythe's eye. Number Four's defense lasers had found the range, and the lead Pax missile had been flashed into dust. Forsythe held his breath...

But no. The Pax commander had anticipated this one, too. The lead missile was destroyed, all right; but the cloud of debris it had become was still moving along its original vector.

And as Number Four's lasers continued to fire, Forsythe realized that the debris was actually shielding the missiles behind it from the attacks.

Again, the EmDef commander was right on top of things. Another series of orders, and two formations of antimissiles streaked out from Number Four's launchers. The first group swept through the dust cloud and converged on the next Pax missile in line—

This time the flash was bright enough to activate the telescope screen's sun filters, creating a brief dead spot in the view.

But not a circular one, as Forsythe would have expected from a normal explosion. Instead, this dead spot was triangular, stretching forward with the rear apex where the Pax warhead had been. Seconds later, when the dead spot cleared away, the second Pax missile was gone.

So were both waves of EmDef antimissiles.

"I'll be cursed," Pirbazari murmured, sounding more awed than angry. "A shaped charge. They had a shaped charge in that warhead."

Forsythe stared at the screen as Number Four's lasers opened up again and a third wave of antimissiles spat out. "I haven't noticed them use anything like that anywhere else today."