David Weber - Insurrection

Rear Admiral Jason Windrider eyed his chief of staff coldly. He didn't know Magda, Jason thought-not if he thought she'd hold back fighters Han needed. He watched her flagship's light flicker as it took hits, and his teeth ground together. Never before had they been in the same battle aboard different ships, and only now did he truly realize how much it could cost two warriors to love.

He stared at his plot bitterly. He had nothing heavier than a destroyer under his own command-just a lot of immobile barges and tiny escort carriers without a single offensive weapon of their own. There was no way he could come to Magda's aid, even if his orders had allowed it.

"Sir! We've intercepted a signal from Admiral Petrovna." Jason's com officer faltered under his bitter eyes. "She . . . she's sending her first strike back to support Admiral Li, sir. . . ."

Jason closed his eyes briefly, staring deep into his soul. Then he nodded once, sharply. When he spoke, his voice was calm.

"Signal to Admiral Petrovna: 'Suggest you recall fighters. Am moving to support battle-line and rearm fighters engaged against enemy main body. Windrider, out.' " He turned to his chief of staff. "Leave the barges and get these buckets moving, Ivan."

"But, sir," his chief of staff said quietly, "the enemy's between us and Admiral Li." There was no fear in his voice, only logic. "If we come close enough to support her, we'll be in missile range of the Rim battle-line. The ships will never stand it, sir."

"They only have to stand it long enough for Admiral Petrovna to deal with that screen," Jason said bleakly. "Now get us moving."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Drive fields woke in twenty-four escort carriers scattered among the asteroids, stripping away the anonymity which had shielded them. Two dozen carriers-small and frail-abandoned concealment and darted towards the battling Titans while missile-hungry fighters swerved to meet them.

Jason Windrider watched his plot. Was he doing it because it was the logical move? Or in a desperate attempt to save the woman he loved? If logic dictated, his actions were correct; if he'd allowed love to rule him, they were contemptible. He closed his eyes once more and forced himself to reconsider his decision.

No, it was right, he decided finally. If Magda retained her fighters, she could beat off Trevayne's screen. She'd take losses, but she could do it. And only if her big carriers survived could Han win the battle. So he was right . . . even though so many people would die.

"Incoming missiles, sir," his chief of staff said tensely.

"Stand by point defense," Rear Admiral Windrider said.

The battle-lines crunched together, and the space between them became trellised with beamed energy: the tearing x-ray fury of hetlasers and the space-distorting Erlicher-effect weapons-the metal-wrenching force beams and the stiletto-thin, unstoppable primaries. Under those intolerable hammers of energy, shields flashed and overloaded, dying in bursts of deadly radiation.

The Republic's new screens made a superdreadnought effectively equal to a monitor, at least in its ability to absorb punishment. But the battle-line Ian Trevayne had forged still held the advantage-or would have, but for the rebel fighters and formations of hetlaser-armed destroyers that swept through the carnage. The fighters came slashing in, corkscrewing and weaving to penetrate the defenses. Many died, but others survived, pouring their fire into the Rim ships, breaking off and streaming back to the fragile escort carriers to rearm. The destroyer squadrons were less maneuverable and bigger targets, but there were many of them, and they could take far more damage. They rammed their attacks down the Rim's throat, closing until their shields jarred and flashed against their opponents'. At such range, the hetlaser was a deadly weapon, and Sonja Desai was forced to divert more and more of her killer whales' firepower against those lethal minnows.

She watched the devastation mount about her furiously fighting ships. Omega reports began coming in from the lighter superdreadnoughts and battleships-only a trickle, yet, but a flood would soon follow. No one had seen such extravagant slaughter since the worst engagements of the Fourth Interstellar War-and still it grew. It was inconceivable.

Almost half the rebels' energy weapons were a new kind of primary, she noted almost absently. Apparently they hadn't cracked the secret of the variable-focus beam, but they seemed to have come up with something almost as good. Desai was a weapons specialist; she didn't need experts to tell her the rebels had stumbled onto a different application of the forcefield lens principle-one which allowed a "burst" longer than that of the standard primary. Long enough for the beam to "swing" slightly. Its slicing action did less damage than a force beam, simply slashing a five-centimeter-wide gash through whatever it hit. But that was more than enough to cripple any installation-and it passed effortlessly through any material object or energy shield in its path. That was what made it so deadly despite its slow rate of fire; it could damage supermonitors without first pounding through their nearly indestructible shields and armor.

The primary has always held an especially nerve-wracking fear for spacers. One can be standing in an undamaged ship and suddenly find a five-centimeter hole through one's stomach. It happens rarely, of course-human bodies are small objects, placed aboard starships in limited numbers. But even improbable things happen occasionally.

Like the primary which suddenly sliced through Togo 's flag bridge. Air began howling into space. Two scanner ratings got in the beam's way, and it cut them in two in an explosion of gore. It swung towards Sonja Desai's command chair, but it did not quite reach it . . . it terminated at the midthigh level of Joaquin Sandoval's right leg. He crashed to the deck, the leg suddenly attached only by a thin strip of muscle and skin.

The primary is not a heat weapon; it does not cauterize. The stump spurted blood.

Sandoval began screaming.

Desai's reflexes thought for her as one hand slammed the release on her shock frame and she flung herself free. No one else on the shocked bridge could move as she ripped a severed cable from a shattered panel. She whipped it around his leg, jerking the crude tourniquet tight even as she summoned the medics via battlephone.

"Sir, Adder, Coral Snake, Ortler, Thera , and Anderson are Code Omega," Tomanaga reported, his voice hoarse as the nightmare tally rose, his face afire with battle and awe at the sheer scale of destruction.

Han sat in her command chair, stroking the helmet in her lap as she absorbed the litany of death. Death inflicted by humans upon humans. Death dealt out in the name of duty and honor. Her shoulders were relaxed, her face calm, but a trickle of sweat ran down one cheekbone.

Arrarat shuddered as another missile exploded against her drive field, and Han looked at Tsing's ops officer; he sat motionless before his panel. His datalink was gone. It was very quiet on the flag bridge, despite the dreadful butchery raging within and beyond the hull. She looked up as a shadow fell on the side of her face, and Tsing Chang looked down at her.

"Sir, you must transfer. Arrarat can no longer serve as your flagship."

"No," she said softly.

"Admiral," Tsing tried again, "Captain Parbleu is dead. Commander Tomas tells me we have two hetlasers and one primary left-the armament of a light cruiser, sir. Right now, they're not even shooting at us very much, but it's only a matter of time till they finish us off. You must transfer."

"No," she said once more. "I've had three flagships, Chang. I've lost two of them." She looked away from the plot where Bernardo da Silva had just died at the hands of her own ships. "I won't leave this one."