David Weber - The Service of the Sword

More to the point, it took time for the wall to come up, and time was in very short supply.

Samson Lamar stared in horror at the broken, lifeless wreckage which an instant before had been a heavy cruiser. The sheer, blinding speed with which Fortune Hunter had been transformed into so much splintered rubble stunned him. And it also terrified him, because he knew who the next target of the Manty's wrath had to be.

He opened his mouth to order his helmsman to turn Predator up on her side relative to the Manty, sheltering behind the impenetrable roof of her wedge. But before he could get the order out, Dongcai Maurersberger's missiles exploded dead astern of the enemy ship.

HMS Gauntlet bucked in agony as the incoming laser heads detonated. Her after point defense had knocked out twelve of them, despite the surprise of their launch from stealth. Five more were sucked off by the cruiser's decoys. But the remaining six ran straight in on their target and detonated eighteen thousand kilometers astern of her.

If not for her stern wall, she would have died then and there. Even with it, the damage was terrible. The wall was still spinning up to full power when the lasers came slashing in. It could bend and attenuate them, but it couldn't stop them, and damage alarms shrieked.

"We've lost the after ring!" Tyson barked from Damage Control Central. "Grasers Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, and Thirty-Four are gone! We've lost at least half the after laser clusters, and I'm getting no response from Environmental Four or Boat Bay Two!"

Oversteegen's jaw tightened. Raising the stern wall had cut Gauntlet 's acceleration to zero when it closed the after aspect of her wedge, but without the after impeller ring, it would be halved even after the wall came down. And with his after missile defenses so badly damaged, he dared not lower it at all until he'd wrenched his stern away from the previously unsuspected attacker.

"Can we get the wedge back?" he asked Tyson sharply.

"I can't say for certain, Sir," the engineer replied. He was hammering at his keyboard even as he spoke, eyes locked to the scrolling diagnostic reports.

"I don't like t' rush my officers," Oversteegen said, "but it would be most helpful if you could expedite that estimate."

"I'm on it, Sir," Tyson promised, and Oversteegen looked up from his com screen.

"Helm, reaction thrusters. Bring us ten degrees to starboard and pitch us up fifteen degrees."

"Ten degrees starboard, pitch up fifteen degrees, aye, Sir!"

"Tactical, we need t' find this gentleman astern of us," Oversteegen continued, swiveling his eyes to Blumenthal's section.

"We're on it, Sir," Blumenthal replied. "We've got a good fix on the missiles' launch locus, and these bastards' EW isn't good enough to hide from us when we know where to look for them!"

"Good. Astro," Oversteegen turned towards Lieutenant Commander Atkins, "recompute our course t' the wall t' reflect my last helm orders. Then generate a random course change as soon as we cross the wall. With our after ring down, these people are goin' t' be able t' stay with us after all."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"Guns," Oversteegen turned back to Blumenthal, "forget about Number Two for now. She's goin' t' slide past us whatever she does; it's Number Three and this Number Four we have t' worry about right now."

"Aye, aye, Sir. I'm recomputing now."

"And as for you, Commander Cheney," Oversteegen said, returning his attention to the communications officer with a thin smile, "I believe we were about t' record a transmission for Ms. Hearns."

"... so things are gettin' just a little tight up here, Ms. Hearns." Abigail stared at Captain Oversteegen's impossibly composed face on the pinnace's tiny com screen in something that wasn't disbelief simply because her shock was too deep for her to feel anything yet. She could hear combat chatter and the beeping of priority alarms behind him, but that irritating, aristocratic accent was as calm as ever.

"We've destroyed one hostile, but at least two are in position t' follow us into hyper," he continued. "If they're foolish enough t' come through separated, we should be able t' take them easily. If they stay concentrated, it's goin' t' be a little dicier, of course. Either way, we'll be back t' pick you and your people up as soon as possible.

"In the meantime, however, be advised that at least one enemy heavy cruiser is goin' t' be unable t' follow us. Since they chose t' engage us when they didn't have to, I'm assumin' that they feel they have somethin' here in Tiberian which they have t' conceal at all costs. If that's true, I anticipate that the cruiser which can't follow us will come lookin' for you . I can't advise you from here, Ms. Hearns. You're on your own until we can get back here. Evade any way you can, but avoid contact with the Refugians at all costs. It's our job t' protect people like them; not t' set them up t' draw fire.

"Good luck, Ms. Hearns. Oversteegen, clear."

The screen blanked, and Abigail inhaled deeply. As the oxygen filled her lungs, it seemed as if it were the first breath she'd taken in at least an hour.

She stood up in Chief Palmer's compartment, and her brain began to work after a fashion again.

The captain's transmission was over fifteen minutes old, because the pinnace had no ability to receive FTL transmissions. Which meant it was entirely possible that Captain Oversteegen and Gauntlet 's entire company were already dead.

No. She put that thought firmly aside. If it was true, then nothing she and her people could do to evade the enemy would succeed in the end. But if it wasn't true, and she allowed the possibility to paralyze her, then whatever slim chance of survival they had would disappear.

She squared her shoulders and stepped onto the flight deck.

"You heard, PO Hoskins?" she asked the pilot.

"Yes, Ma'am." The petty officer looked back over her shoulder at Abigail, her face taut. "Can't say I like the sound of it very much, though."

"I don't much care for it, myself," Abigail assured her. "But it looks like we're stuck with it."

"As you say, Ma'am." Hoskins paused a moment, then continued. "What are we going to do, Ma'am?"

"Well, one thing we're not going to do is try to evade a heavy cruiser in space, PO," Abigail said, and surprised herself with a smile which held a hint of true humor. "Any proper warship could run us down without too much trouble, and it's not as if we could hide from her sensors. Not to mention the fact that she's probably got at least a dozen or so small craft of her own she could deploy to come after us."

"That's true enough, Ma'am," Hoskins acknowledged, though her tone was dubious. "But if we can't evade them in space, how well can we hope to evade them dirtside?"

"Refuge's got some pretty rough terrain, PO," Abigail replied. "And we've got all of Sergeant Gutierrez's well-trained Marines aboard to help us hide in it. Of course, it would be best of all if we could convince them to not even look for us, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yes, Ma'am," Hoskins said fervently.

"Well, in that case, let's just see what we can do about that."

"Are you sure about this, Ma'am?" Sergeant Gutierrez asked quietly, and Abigail smiled sourly. At least the towering noncom was asking the question as privately as the pinnace's cramped confines allowed. That, unfortunately, didn't change the fact that he appeared to be less than overwhelmed with her plan.

Such as it was, and what there was of it.

"If you're asking if I'm sure it will work, Sergeant," she said coolly, "the answer is 'no.' But if you're asking if I'm confident this is what will give us our best chance, than the answer is 'yes.' Why?"

"It's just— Well, Ma'am, no offense, but what you're talking about doing would be hard enough if we were all trained Marines."