Кристофер Банч - The Return of the Emperor

There was a stunned silence on the bridge. Then alarms once more, and a third, larger, near-fleet-size attack began.

"Flag!"

"Sir."

"I want you in ECM. Make damned sure we aren't being fooled again."

The officer ran. Gregor determined to wait for a few seconds before he ordered more changes. Meanwhile, his twin set of orders and their countermands continued wiggling the mushroom's cap as ship captains and squadron commanders tried to reformulate the dome of attack.

The third attack was most real.

Sten shut the chatter of battle commands out of his mind and focused on the bridge's main battle screen.

He was attacking in a crescent formation. He would dearly have loved to have several hundred more units—the halfmoon was very thin. Necessarily so—Sten, hoping the Imperials would be stupid enough to think he was planning an envelopment, wanted the tips of the crescent spread beyond the Imperial defense dome's area.

The Imperial mushroom was looking a little ragged. Part of its cap was shifting toward the attackers. But a segment appeared not to have gotten the word and was restabilizing into normal convoy formation.

At the rear of the stem, the cruisers were deploying fairly efficiently, the base swinging up to cover the transports.

"Com! Are we linked?" Sten asked.

"All ships receiving."

"Sten to all ships. Standby on Longlance launch—as ordered."

"Waiting… waiting… all ships ready, sir."

"Countermeasures," he said to another officer. "What're they doing?"

"Their detectors have us… two… six launches made. Five ineffective… one acquired."

"Kilgour. Talk to me."

"Range closin't… seven seconds… three… mark!"

"All ships. Launch!"

Missiles spat from the Bhor fleet—but not at the same time. Sten had ordered a ripple fire from the rearmost ships forward. As the missiles cleared the forwardmost Bhor ships, weapons officers armed and aimed the ship-killers. There were not that many missiles launched—at least for a major battle—but all were meant to arrive on target at the same moment.

"Alex. I want that wedge between the heavies exploited. First section… individual control… acquire and launch when ready.

"Countermeasures! What're they doing?"

"B' Kholoric… not much!"

"Report, dammit!"

The Bhor tried his best to assume the role of an efficient, toneless Imperial officer. "Minor launches… most directed at incoming missiles. Correction. I have a mass launch. Central control is on overload."

On-screen, there were sparkles between the two closing fleets: operator-guided antiship missiles, Kali II's, most likely. They would be taken out—or they would hit. That was not part of what Sten should be thinking about.

He turned off the "but what if we're one of the unlucky ones" part of his mind and looked beyond the sparkles. He grinned suddenly and made a comment frowned on in Basic Admiral School.

"Kilgour! You owe me a stregg! The bastard's by-the-book!"

Gregor was, indeed. There were many possible responses to an envelopment. The best response would have been for Gregor to break the dome into a spearhead or even line formation and attack the center of Sten's fleet, break through the crescent—which was no more than two ships deep—circle, and destroy Sten's fleet in detail.

But that would have meant leaving his transports unguarded except by the cruiser force. No doubt this Imperial admiral had read of Cannae. But there was a big difference: Sten was not Hannibal, nor did he have any heavy infantry to slam the horns of the crescent shut and trap the attacker.

Instead, the admiral was putting his fleet on-line. It was counterenvelopment evidently, such as the Turks should have used at Lepanto. Not bad. It would, in time, destroy the Bhor fleet. In time.

The gap that formed when the Imperial formation was still in its dome remained as ships clouded toward the new formation, ready for Sten to exploit.

"All ships," Sten ordered. He was broadcasting in clear, having no time for codes or the polyglot spoken on the Bhor bridges. He hoped that the Imperial admiral's response time would continue as laggardly as it had so far.

"Standing by, sir."

"I want a blink on that hole in the Imperial formation," he ordered another com officer. "To all ship screens. Now."

"Transmitted, sir."

"Good. All ships… maneuver point as indicated… X-Ray Yaphet… signal when ready."

"All units ready, sir."

"Maneuver… now!"

The Bhor captains, any of whom could maneuver a single-tube transport sideways up a cobblestone alley, snapped their orders. Sten's crescent folded over on itself and became a wedge. It was just like an acrobatic squadron—but on-screen he could see the big difference. His fleet was taking hits. Lights indicating individual ships changed colors— Hit… Lost Nav … Hit… Drive Damage —or just vanished.

He ignored them. He also ignored the low murmur of a low-ranking weapons officer at the ship's own board. "We are acquired… homing… impact nine seconds… I have counterlaunched…"

But he was damned relieved when he heard, "Hit! Incoming destroyed."

The Imperial formation was a real shambles, spitting missiles in all directions. Sten would not have liked to be in the center of that kaleidoscope as it changed shapes and then fragmented further.

"Fleet status," he snapped.

"Fifty-one units still report full—"

"That's enough." Later—maybe—there would be time to worry about casualties and pickup.

"Otho. Do you have their command frequency?"

"On-screen. Ready to pirate."

There was a large screen, set away from the main control area. On it was an Imperial admiral, giving orders. Otho had the audio blanked. Sten thought he recognized the admiral… no. Impossible.

"Team Sarla… go!" he ordered.

"Acknowledged."

"Team Janchydd…go!"

"Janchydd… attacking."

"All fleet units. Individual control. Acquire targets and exploit. Command, out."

The real battle began. The Bhor swirled into the melee like so many piratical Drakes against an armada. This was the best possible use of their talents. Most of the traders had vast experience at going one-on-three against raiders. Going against—and winning—by always doing the unexpected, lashing out in all directions and with missiles and electronics, every bit as berserk as their ancestors.

Between Gregor's standing orders and battle experience from the Tahn wars, most of the Imperial ships were expecting to fight a conventional battle against conventionally arrayed enemies.

This main battle had all of the symmetry, logic, and clarity of a feeding frenzy. Sten turned his attention away. The Bhor could not win—sooner or later numbers would out—but they were not supposed to.

His two combat teams were: Sarla, two cruisers that had been hurriedly converted to assault transports; Janchydd, eleven light escorts—corvettes and patrol craft. Just as many ships as Sten had calculated to be controlling the slaved transports. He knew how the Empire ran its convoys, so all of the escorts had been given the electronics and sensors of deep-space tugs.

Sten had named his teams after old, barely worshiped Bhor gods for morale reasons. If there could be Victory, these two teams would gain it.

Now he waited—if waiting could be defined as hanging on to an upright on a chaotic ship's bridge while the ship itself was in the middle of a Kilkenny cats' brawl.

Team Sarla : The two assault ships closed on an already-damaged battleship, well inside the BB's minimum safety launch range. A Bhor missile blew most of the ship's stern away, and the assault ships' ports yawned. Lines were jetted across by scouts, and the three ships were linked.