David Weber - At All Costs

He looked at the updated plot for a few more seconds, then nodded decisively to himself.

"Selma, execute Ambush Three."

"Oh, crap," Commander Harriman muttered.

"Talk to me, Yolanda!" Raphael Cardones said quickly.

"CIC reports multiple hyper footprints, Skipper," Imperator's tactical officer reported harshly. "Three separate clusters-one dead astern of us at three-zero-point-four million clicks, one at polar north, and one at polar south. They've got us boxed, Sir."

Cardones felt his jaw muscles clench as his own tactical plot updated with the new icons.

Well, the Old Lady's been warning us the Peeps were eventually going to get wise, he told himself. I could wish they hadn't gotten quite this wise, though!

"It's confirmed, Your Grace," Andrea Jaruwalski said. "Three separate forces, a total of eighteen wallers and six CLACs, plus screening elements. We're designating the Arthur detachment Bogey One, the task group to system north is Bogey Two, the one to system south is Bogey Three, and the one astern of us is Bogey Four."

"And their units are evenly distributed between Two, Three, and Four?"

"That's what it looks like, Your Grace."

"So, three-to-one in wallers, at best," Mercedes Brigham said quietly, her expression taut. "Nine-to-one if they manage to concentrate. Plus the older ships in-system, of course!"

"If we let them concentrate on us, we'll deserve whatever happens to us." Honor's soprano was completely calm, almost detached.

The good news was that the three ambushing task groups had clearly been waiting in place in hyper, motionless relative to Solon. They'd come across the alpha wall with an effectively zero velocity, and though they were accelerating hard at five hundred and twenty-nine gravities, which meant their compensator safety margins must be down to zero, it was going to take them time to build a vector, whereas her own command was already up to over fourteen thousand kilometers per second. Moreover, her maximum acceleration rate was higher than theirs, so the force astern of them couldn't possibly overtake them unless they suffered drive damage. The bad news was that they were only thirty million kilometers back... and on low-powered settings, current-generation Havenite MDMs had a powered range of almost sixty-one million kilometers from rest.

"Missile defense, go to Plan Romeo," she said crisply. "Shift to formation Charlie. Theo."

"Yes, Your Grace?" Lieutenant Commander Kgari said instantly.

"We'll break south," Honor told her staff astrogator. "Take us to military power and plot me a course that bends us the maximum distance away from Bogey One but maintains at least current separation from Bogey Four."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Kgari bent over his console, and Honor returned her attention to the tactical plot, watching the icons of her formation shift rapidly.

It won't be long now, she thought.

"Sir, we've got about the best targeting solutions we're going to get," Commander Thackeray reported. Giscard looked at her, and she met his gaze frankly. "Our accuracy isn't going to be very good at such extended range," she said.

"Understood, Selma. On the other hand, we've got a lot of missiles. Let's start getting them into space. Fire Plan Baker."

"Aye, Sir!"

"Missile separation!" Andrea Jaruwalski announced. "I have multiple missile separations. Range at launch three-zero-point-four-five million kilometers. Time to attack range seven minutes!"

"Understood. Do not return fire."

"Do not return fire, aye, aye, Ma'am," Jaruwalski replied.

"Your Grace, I have that course," Kgari said.

"Give it to Andrea."

"Come to two-niner-three, zero-zero-five at six-point-zero-one KPS squared," Kgari said.

"Two-niner-three, zero-zero-five, six-point-zero-one KPS squared," Jaruwalski repeated, and the task force altered course while the first salvo howled up its wake.

Each of Javier Giscard six SD(P)s could roll six pods simultaneously, one pattern every twelve seconds, and each pod contained ten missiles, each a bit larger than the Royal Manticoran Navy's own first-generation MDMs. The range was extremely long for accuracy, especially using Havenite fire control systems, so Giscard opted for maximum density salvos, both to saturate the enemy's defenses and to give him more possibilities of hits.

Each of his ships deployed three patterns-a total of one hundred and eight pods-programmed for staggered launch. And then, precisely on schedule, all of them launched and sent a total of almost eleven hundred multi-drive missiles screaming up Task Force 82's wake.

The range at launch was 30,450,000 kilometers. Given the relative motion of the two forces, actual flight distance was 36,757,440 kilometers. At that distance, and an acceleration of 416.75 KPS2, the MDMs attained a velocity relative to the primary of 175,034 KPS, which equated to an overtake velocity against Task Force 82 of 152,925 KPS, or fifty-three percent of light-speed.

Thirty-six seconds later, a second, identical salvo roared out of its pods.

And thirty-six seconds after that, a third.

In the space of six and a half minutes, eleven salvos-just under twelve thousand missiles-went hurtling after Task Force 82.

In a traditional engagement, the pursuing Republican superdreadnoughts would have been able to fire only a handful of missiles from their bow-mounted chase tubes. In an era of pod-layers, that limitation had long since disappeared, but what remained true was that missiles closing from directly ahead or directly astern faced the weakest defensive fire. There simply wasn't room to mount as many point defense laser clusters and counter-missile tubes on a warship's ends as on her broadside. The clusters mounted were the most powerful ones in her entire armament, but there could be only a few of them. Telemetry links to counter-missiles were also limited, and the fact that wedge itself offered no protection against fire from those angles only made the situation worse.

And, of course, just to make things even better from Task Force 82's perspective, Havenite MDMs carried bigger and more powerful warheads as compensation for their poorer accuracy and penetration aids.

"Why aren't they returning fire?" Gozzi asked quietly.

"I don't know," Giscard replied. "Maybe they don't want their own attack birds' wedges interfering with their fire control. Besides, unless they want to alter heading to open their broadsides, they can't have the control links to manage a salvo dense enough to get through our point defense."

Gozzi nodded, and Giscard turned his attention back to the plot. His hypothesis was at least superficially logical, but deep inside, he didn't believe it himself.

Bogey Four's first salvo's MDMs raced onward, crossing the vast gulf between the ships which had launched them and their targets. Seventy lost lock and arced off uselessly four minutes into their flight, due to a telemetry glitch. One thousand and ten continued on course.

"Enemy fire appears to be tracking in on Imperator and Intolerant," Jaruwalski reported tensely.

"Not surprising, I suppose," Mercedes Brigham muttered.

"But maybe not the smartest targeting," Honor replied calmly. Brigham looked at her, and Honor shrugged. "I admit, it would pay the highest dividend if they managed to knock out an alpha node on one of the superdreadnoughts, but their defenses are a lot tougher than anyone else's, and given the geometry, they'll have a long time to throw missiles at us. If I were in command over there, I'd start with the battlecruisers, or maybe even the heavy cruisers."