David Weber - At All Costs

Hertz's expression tightened.

"What do you mean?" he asked in the tone of a man who suspected he'd already guessed.

"The only way we're going to be able to do anything to save the extraction ships is to use the pods," Broughton said bitterly. "So since we're going to give away our presence, anyway, we might as well get the best return we can."

He looked across his command deck at his tactical officer.

"Activate the pods," he said. "Target the LACs with-" he glanced at the plot's data bars "-the gamma platforms that have the range. Then bring up the delta platforms and designate the CLACs for any of them that have the reach."

"Anything from the drone screen?" Oliver Diamato asked.

"Uh, no, Sir," Commander Robert Zucker, his ops officer said quickly, and looked a silent question at his admiral.

"There ought to be," Diamato said. "Look at it. The LACs are going to run right over those extraction ships. And it's going to take some sort of miracle for that merchantman to slip away. They've got to know we're here-for that matter, the fact that the extraction ships are scattering the way they are proves they know. So, where's the response? There ought to at least be a flock of Manty LACs coming out to meet us by now!"

"You think they're up to something sneaky, Sir?"

"I think there's a pretty good chance of it, yes," Diamato replied. "Manties can screw up just like anyone else, but counting on them to do that isn't exactly the smartest thing you can do."

He frowned at the master plot for a few more seconds, then wheeled around to face his communications officer.

"Get me a link to Admiral Duval."

"Yes, Sir."

Diamato crossed towards his command chair. He was just about to sit down in it when a strident alarm sounded.

"Missile launch!" a taut voice from CIC announced sharply. "Multiple hostile missile launches along the belt! Many missiles inbound at four-five-one KPS squared! Time to first impact four-zero-niner seconds!"

"Well, there they go," Hartnett observed bitterly as the firefly icons of multi-drive missiles suddenly speckled the master plot. They streaked across it, moving visibly even on the plot's scale, and the smaller, far more slowly moving light codes of LACs began to blossom as well, as the Shrike and Ferret squadrons lit off their impellers.

"Yes." Padgorny's single-syllable reply sounded as if she'd bitten it out of a sheet of hammered bronze. She found it difficult to believe just how angry she actually was, and she forced herself to lean back in her command chair and swallow all the other words she badly wanted to say.

"Broughton is targeting their CLACs with the delta platforms, Ma'am," Thackeray reported, and Padgorny nodded in acknowledgment. She hadn't specifically dictated targets, but she'd known Broughton would have to use at least some of the pods. His own LACs were much too far astern of the Peeps to overhaul them, after all. And he was right to go after the CLACs, as well. If they had to do this, then they might as well do it as effectively as possible. If he could pick off the CLACs, or even just hammer them badly enough to force them to withdraw into hyper, all the LACs the Peeps had committed to their probe would be doomed, whatever else happened. And killing a couple of the Peeps' superdreadnought-sized LAC carriers would be worthwhile in its own right.

"He's using the gamma platforms on the LACs," Hartnett observed. The chief of staff snorted. "I know it's the only way he can engage them short of the freighters, but his target solutions on them are going to be lousy at this range!"

"Better than he'd have on our LACs," Padgorny pointed out. "Their EW still leaves quite a bit to be desired."

Rear Admiral Diamato listened to the eruption of sharp, staccato combat chatter as the Manty missiles roared towards the task group.

The voices on the command circuits were harsh, strained, but not panicky. Communications discipline never really faltered, and the orders came crisply and quickly. He felt himself settling back into his command chair, nodding in satisfaction despite the suddenly altered tactical situation as he listened to his people responding to it. There was no need for him to give any orders; they were already doing exactly what they needed to do.

Captain Hall would be proud of them, he thought.

"Oh, shit," Captain Morton Schneider said almost conversationally as the sudden ugly rash of crimson missile icons erupted behind him. His LAC formation had been just about to reverse acceleration when the hundreds of impeller signatures sprang into malevolent life.

"Range is approximately five-one million klicks," Lieutenant Rothschild, his tactical officer reported in a hard-edged voice. "At constant acceleration on our part, actual flight distance will be five-seven-point-five million klicks. Flight time approximately eight-point-four minutes."

"Acknowledged," Schneider replied.

"We have LACs lighting off as well," Rothschild continued. "Estimate approximately fourteen hundred MDMs targeted on us. Looks like somewhere between four and five hundred of their LACs accelerating to come in behind them."

"They're not a threat... yet," Schneider said, concentrating on the far more immediate danger. "Formation Mike-Delta-One. And prepare to implement Zizka."

"Aye, Sir!"

The LAC formation altered abruptly, each tiny vessel accelerating on its own, carefully preplanned vector change. Zizka was new-a variant of the "Triple Ripple" the Fleet had employed so successfully against the Manties' LACs. It was wasteful, in some ways, but with that many Manty MDMs coming towards them, they needed the best defense they could get.

Not that circumstances were perfect for Zizka. With the hostile missiles already launched and incoming, there was less response time than the doctrine's formulators had hoped there would be, but Schneider's battle hardened squadron commanders had learned their trade well. He watched his plot-necessarily far less detailed than that available in a larger, more capable warship-as his strike formation transformed itself into a defensive one, designed to provide the maximum number of clear sightlines for his units' sensors and flight paths for their counter-missiles.

"They're targeting the task group, too, Sir," the tac officer said. "Looks like they're concentrating on Skylark and Peregrine."

"Makes sense," Schneider grunted. "Kill the carriers, trap the LACs."

"And they're firing a lot of missiles, Sir," Rothschild said quietly.

"Launching counter-missiles!" Commander Zucker reported, and Diamato nodded.

The range was still long, but Republican warships carried a lot of counter-missiles these days. They had to, given their weapons' individually poorer capabilities. Now all eight of his battlecruisers, both the carriers, and his two light cruisers, were pumping out every CM they could. Targeting solutions were marginal, at best, at such a distance, but just over eight hundred MDMs were headed for the two CLACs, and any kills were better than none.

The counter-missiles streaked outward, and the EW platforms accompanying the attack missiles brought up their onboard systems. Jagged cascades of jamming erupted all across the wavefront of Manty missiles, blinding the counter-missiles' rudimentary seekers and seriously degrading even the performance of the starships' far more capable fire control. Then the platforms the Manties had designated "Dragon's Teeth" lit off, and the threat sources abruptly multiplied impossibly.

They must have deployed hundreds-thousands-of pods around the periphery, Diamato thought coldly. That had to cost them a pretty credit. But I don't think they've got as many of them as they'd like to have.