Walter Williams - The Praxis

The lead elements of the Home Fleet slowly appeared through the dissipating radiation fog. The cruiser flagship had been joined by its entire squadron in flinging out missile barrages, now toward the heavy Naxid squadron ahead. Sula didn’t think much of their chance of success, especially as the missiles were taking the long way around Barbas, following in the enemy’s wake instead of cutting the corner, which might actually have made sense.

And then another flight of missiles leaped from the rails and fired.

At Sula.Again.

Grim, determined anger sang through Sula’s nerves as she again programmed her own missiles to intercept. This time her message was broadcast to every ship in the two light squadrons, sixteen ships altogether.

“Listen, you fucking moron.”The words were forced from her diaphragm as gee forces built. “This is Lady Sula of theDauntless, and you’ve just fired on mefor the second time! ” She glared into the camera and screamed, “Do I look like afucking Naxid, you piece of rodent shit?Stop panicking, get a grip on yourself, and call off your missiles!” With one hand she thrust a vile gesture at the camera pickup. “I hope I live long enough for you to court-martial me over this, you useless bastard!”

She felt better for having vented the anger, but the missiles were still coming. She programmed a massive acceleration and turned off the sensors. As her head thudded against the padding in the back of her helmet and she felt the miniwaves drumming against her back, she clenched her teeth and fought the smothering blackness that started to creep over her mind…

Consciousness returned more slowly this time, a slow rise from an oblivion akin to death. It took Sula a while to focus on the displays even though they were projected onto her visual centers. The radiation count was high, and so was the hull temperature, but neither were as hot as after the first barrage.

Still, she was thankful for the slabs of radiation shielding that surrounded the cockpit.

When she turned on the sensors, she saw the cloud of plasma behind her, again obscuring her view of the fight. No missiles were coming at her, and she had eighteen of her own left. When the clouds finally dissipated, the light squadrons seemed to have lost interest in her: now all the ships were firing on the Naxids ahead. The area on the far side of Barbas was a continual boil as Naxid missiles met those of the loyalists.

Sula programmed her own swing around Barbas, but her wild accelerations away from the oncoming missiles had forced her out of the most efficient route. She swung wide and had to burn hard to get herself onto the line for Magaria’s sun, the next step on the loop around the system.

It had been over two hours since she transited the wormhole. She allowed herself a drink of water and ate half a ration bar. It was flavored with some chemist’s idea of strawberry, and the taste didn’t encourage her to finish the second half. She had to open the faceplate of her helmet to eat, and the cabin’s interior smelled hot, as if someone had forgotten to turn off a stove burner.

The two light squadrons, taking the inner track around Barbas, had pulled ahead of her. Behind them came Jarlath’s six huge battleships, and behind them a heavy and light cruiser division, both of which were dueling with pursuers, to judge by the missile bursts in their rear.

The light squadrons were firing less regularly now, which argued that they might have realized their munitions were not unlimited, but the space between them and Fanaghee’s squadron was still opaque with detonations, one blaze of plasma after another.

Disaster happened so quickly that Sula barely had time to register what was happening before the loyalist squadrons were engulfed in flame, a succession of colossal bursts in and among them.

Nothing came out the other side of the expanding plasma spheres. Sixteen ships had just been blown to bits.

Sula’s stunned amazement was followed by a burst of rage. She wanted to shriek, to pound a fist against the armored walls of the cockpit. But instead she forced her mind to work at what had just occurred.

It seemed that missiles had flown through the plasma screen undetected. Then she decided that wasn’t what happened. The missiles hadn’t accelerated. They were launched, burned for a short time while their signature was obscured by plasma bursts, and then just lay in wait, drifting toward the oncoming ships. If the light squadrons had seen them at all, they’d seen what appeared to be debris. The missiles let the light squadrons overrun them and then detonated.

That was how Martinez had hit Magaria’s ring, Sula remembered, let unpowered missiles drift in while no one was looking. Fanaghee had learned a trick from her enemy.

The odds were horribly against the Home Fleet now, nineteen ships against something like fifty, and Jarlath had to know it. The Battleship Squadron broke into two divisions of three ships and began massive accelerations to overtake Fanaghee, whoseMajesty supported eight heavy cruisers. Sula watched in awe as she calculated the growing velocity: everyone aboard the battleships had to be unconscious, with the computers doing the steering.

What Jarlath was attempting seemed worthy of her support. The battleship division had to take out the enemy heavy squadron or no one was escaping Magaria alive. Sula programmed her own acceleration and burned an interception course for the Naxid squadron, her missiles spreading out in a wave in front of her. Again, the antimatter engines blazed, flattening her against the couch. Again, she fought against unconsciousness until it spun her into blackness.

She was awakened by a bleating in her ears and a pain in her chest. As she gasped frantically for air, she realized that the pain was caused by trying to breathe against the weight of gravity.

Gradually, awareness of her surroundings came back to her. She looked for the red lights on the displays, and saw they registered to her own life signs.

Sula sat up with a curse, forgetting that the displays were in her head and she couldn’t get a better look at them by leaning forward. She waited for her head to clear, then read that acceleration had been shut down when her suit detected a blood pressure spike, well into the dangerous levels even for someone in good health. Her body was failing under the pressure of too many gravities.

She looked at her current readings and found them well within the normal level. Weightlessness had brought the dangerous condition to an end, though she should certainly not press her luck with a high-gravity acceleration anytime soon. Then she checked the situation outside her craft and found her missiles still blazing ahead, toward the enemy.

But her missiles seemed redundant now. Jarlath and the battleship squadron had already engaged the enemy, and they were hurling out immense waves of missiles. EachPraxis — class ship had over sixty launchers, and they were all firing, all pumping one tremendous salvo after another from their huge magazines.

Fanaghee’s ships were shooting back. It was impossible to keep any kind of score of the missile tracks—there had to be hundreds of them, and on a hundred different trajectories, some direct, some looping around to attack from an odd angle.

Sula told her missiles to cease acceleration. She’d reserve them for a final blow against the enemy, if such a thing were needed.

The flanks of Jarlath’s ships pulsed with the blaze of antiproton beams, and the ships began to maneuver apart from one another. He had learned from the loss of his two squadrons, and anything that looked like debris in his path was getting blown up.

Two of Jarlath’s ships died first, and Sula gave a cry of rage and despair as she saw the fireballs erupt around them. But Fanaghee’s flagship died next, buried in a wave of missile strikes, and three of the cruisers near her were destroyed in the same fiery salvo.