David Weber - At All Costs

It was the Republic's turn, and the tsunami of missiles crashed into Task Force 82's outer counter-missile zone. Havenite EW might not be as good as the RMN's, but it did its best, and that best was much better than it once had been.

Almost eleven thousand MDMs had been launched. Six hundred and seventeen had simply become lost and wandered away as Bogie Four's fire control strained to meet the demands placed on it. The remaining 10,183 continued to charge forward as the Mark 31s came to meet them. Twenty-six hundred of them died in the outer interception zone. Another three thousand two hundred died in the intermediate zone, and the Mark 31s killed another two thousand nine hundred in the inner zone. But then it was their turn to slash across the laser clusters' engagement envelope in less than a second, and there were still 1,472 of them left. Two hundred were EW platforms, and the targeting solutions of the other twelve hundred were far poorer than Task Force 82's had been, but there were a great many of them.

The last-ditch lasers aboard the warships and their escorting LACs killed over nine hundred. Of the three hundred and seventy-two surviving attack missiles, a hundred and three wasted themselves uselessly against their targets' impeller wedges. Of the other two hundred and sixty-nine, a hundred and seventy-two attacked the two superdreadnoughts, and Imperator and Intolerant heaved as lasers ripped into them. Their sidewalls intercepted and blunted most of the lasers, but it was the turn of Manticoran armor to shatter under the pounding.

Imperator emerged with relatively minor damage, including the loss of three grasers and half a dozen laser clusters, but Intolerant staggered as dozens of hits hammered her thick, multi-ply armor. Huge splinters of it blew away, energy mounts and laser clusters were wiped out, and communication and fire control emitters, radar and gravitic arrays shattered. She bucked in agony under the pounding... and then a final, freak hit ripped straight into the gaping missile hatch in the center of her after hammerhead.

Rear Admiral Morowtiz's flagship rocked as the powerful energy blast smashed forward along the unarmored, open central core of a pod-layer. Hundreds of missile pods were wrecked, turned into twisted and shattered alloy and wreckage. The missile handling rails were torn apart, and over thirty of her crew were killed.

Yet terrible as the damage was, BuShips had considered the possibility of just such a hit. Unlike the original Medusa/Harrington-class SD(P)s, the Invictus-class had been built from the beginning with a double-sided core hull wrapped around its hollow center, and the walls of her central missile well were armored almost as heavily as her flanks. The cofferdamming and compartmentalization weren't as deep, but they were far deeper than in the earlier classes, and the additional defenses proved their worth as a ring of vaporized and splintered alloy blasted back out of the shattered missile hatch, for the ship survived. Not only survived, but maintained her maximum acceleration while her antimissile defenses continued to engage the last of the incoming MDMs.

"Your Grace, Intolerant's lost her entire offensive missile armament and both Keyholes," Jaruwalski said in a tight voice. "Casualties are heavy, and her flag bridge took a heavy hit. Sounds like something blew back through CIC. Admiral Morowitz and most of his staff are down." She shook her head. "It doesn't sound good for the Admiral, Ma'am."

"Understood," Honor said quietly.

"Star Ranger also took a beating," Jaruwalski continued. "She's still combat capable, but she's already confirmed sixty-two dead, and her starboard sidewall is at less than half strength forward.

"Aside from that, the only other damage is to Ajax." Honor's expression didn't even flicker, but a cold fist seemed to touch her heart, and she looked quickly for the sidebar on Henke's flagship. "It's relatively minor," Jaruwalski went on. "She's got half a dozen wounded, only a couple of them seriously, and she's lost one graser and two point defense clusters out of her port broadside."

"Understood," Honor said again. She looked at Lieutenant Brantley.

"Harper, inform Captain Cardones that Admiral Morowitz is down and that I'm assuming tactical control of the division for now."

"Aye, aye, Your Grace."

"Andrea," Honor turned back to Jaruwalski, "drop the LACs back. With Intolerant's damage, we'll need the Ferrets and the Katanas' Vipers.

Task Force 82's second wave of MDMs roared in on Bogey Four. Counter-missiles streamed to meet them, Dragons Teeth spawned, targets proliferated, Dazzlers flared, counter-missile and MDM impeller wedges vanished in mutual self-destruction. And then the surviving attackers hurled themselves once again upon Conquete.

"Multiple hits aft!" Conquete's captain listened to his senior engineering officer's report from Damage Control Central. "Heavy damage between frames one-zero-niner-seven and two-zero-one-eight. Graser Forty's gone-just gone; there's a hole you could park a fucking pinnace in where it used to be, and it looks like hundred percent casualties on the mount. Forty-Two's out of the fire control net, as well, and Sidewall Ten and Eleven are toast. We've got a core hull breach at frame two-zero-zero-six, I've lost at least three more laser clusters, and they just took two beta nodes out of the after ring."

"Do what you can, Stew," the captain replied, looking at the scarlet-splashed damage control schematic on one of his secondary plots.

"We're on it," the engineer replied, and the captain nodded to himself. Conquete was hurt, no question about it, and he knew the pain of the people he'd just lost was waiting for him. But she was still combat capable, and that was what really mattered.

"Conquete reports moderate damage," Marius Gozzi told Giscard. "Captain Fredericks says she's still combat capable, but he's rolling ship to pull his starboard sidewall away from the Manties."

"Good," Giscard replied, never looking away from the main tactical plot. He didn't like the fact that the Manties had managed to hit Conquete that hard with only two salvos, but Fredericks was a solid, reliable CO. And by simply rolling ship rather than delaying to ask permission, he was showing the sort of intelligent initiative Giscard, Tourville, and Thomas Theisman had worked so hard to create.

The thoughts ran through the back of Giscard's mind, but virtually all of his attention was focused on the plot as he waited for the light-speed report on what his first huge salvo had accomplished.

"Sir, we're showing hits on multiple enemy units!" Selma Thackeray said suddenly, her voice jubilant, and Giscard's eyes narrowed as the same results appeared on the plot's sidebars.

"Hits on both SDs and at least two of the cruisers," Thackeray continued, listening to CIC's verbal report over her earbug. "And...."

She paused, listening intently, then turned her head to look directly at Giscard.

"Sir, the platforms confirm major damage to one of the SD(P)s!"

"Good work!" Giscard replied, but his pleasure at the report was not unalloyed. The third Manty MDM launch was coming in, and he watched the missiles slashing in on Conquete.

"At least five more hits, Your Grace," Jaruwalski reported. "Her wedge strength is dropping, and her point defense is weakening."

"Which would be nice, if we still had the missiles to pound her with," Mercedes Brigham said quietly to Honor. Honor glanced at her, and the chief of staff bobbed her head in Jaruwalski's direction. "Do you want to use the Agamemnons to make up for Intolerant's pods?" she asked.

"No." Honor shook her head, watching Giscard's second stupendous missile wave overtake her ships from astern. "This has to be the last launch this size they can manage. They've shot themselves dry to manage this kind of density, and I won't do the same thing with Mike's battlecruisers just to try to kill a ship that can't shoot at us anymore, anyway. Not when we may need them worse shortly."