David Weber - Insurrection

"It's your duty, Admiral," he said softly. "This task force is your responsibility-not a single ship."

"Oh? And what of you, Admiral? "

"I've only got two ships left," he said simply, "and they're both out of the net."

"But you still have your com." Arrarat was doomed, but it seemed to her hypersensitive mind that only her presence had deferred that doom this long. She knew it was irrational, yet she couldn't leave. She shook her head doggedly. "And you've still got your drive, Admiral. Instruct Arrarat to withdraw. I can still command from here."

"Yes, sir. You're right, of course." Tsing paused, looking down at her, and his lips curved suddenly in a warm smile. "It's been an honor to serve with you, sir."

She looked up, troubled by his gentle voice even through the mental haze of battle. It no longer sounded like the imperturbable Tsing she knew.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said softly-and his fist exploded against her jaw.

Han's head snapped back, her eyes rolling up. She lolled in her shock frame, and Tsing caught up her helmet and jammed it over her head, sealing it while the bridge crew stared in frozen disbelief. He turned to Tomanaga.

"You've got four minutes to clear this ship, Commodore," he said crisply. He punched the release of Han's shock frame, his face fierce, and snatched her up. He threw her limp body at Tomanaga, and the chief of staff caught her numbly. "Get her out of here. Now, goddamn it!"

Tomanaga hesitated one instant, then nodded sharply and raced for the intraship car.

"She'll need her staff," Tsing snapped. "The rest of you-out!"

Li Han's staff never hesitated. Something in his voice compelled obedience, and they were halfway to the boatbay before they even realized they'd moved.

Tsing punched a button on the arm of Han's empty chair, and his voice echoed through every battlephone aboard his savagely wounded flagship.

"This is Admiral Tsing. Our weapons are destroyed. I intend to close the enemy and ram while I still have drive power. You have three minutes to abandon ship."

He turned to his staff.

"Commander Howell, message to Admiral Windrider: 'Vice Admiral Li transferring to TRNS Saburo Yato via cutter. Urgently request fighter cover.' Send it and get out."

He bent and pressed buttons, slaving drive and helm to the flag bridge. He looked up a moment later-his staff remained at their stations.

"Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you misunderstood me," he said calmly.

"No, sir," Frances Howell said softly. "We understood."

Tsing started to speak again, then closed his mouth. He nodded and dropped back into his command chair, glancing at the chronometer.

"Two minutes, Commander Howell," he said. "Then I want maximum power." He touched a brilliant dot on his plot. "That looks like a nice target."

"It does, indeed, sir."

"She's what ?" Jason Windrider demanded. Only nine of his small carriers remained, but a destroyer flotilla and two light cruiser squadrons had broken through to protect the survivors while their hangar crews broke all speed records rearming fighters.

"The Flag is transferring, sir," his com officer repeated. "Admiral Tsing requests fighter cover for the admiral's cutter."

"What the hell is she playing at now?" Jason fumed, fear fraying his voice with anger. He stared at the maelstrom of capital ships and sighed. "All right, Ivan. See if you can sort anyone out of that mess!"

"Yes, sir."

Only a handful of Carl Stoner's fighters survived, and they'd been driven back by Magda's fighters once she was free to retain them for her own defense. Even Sean Remko's ships had been unable to close on her flagship as her fighters slashed away at their drive pods, slowing them, battering them. She'd lost heavily-five of her own battlecruisers were gone, and two assault carriers and three fleet carriers had been gutted or destroyed-but her remaining hangar bays supported enough fighters to make it suicide for Stoner's survivors to engage her.

Remko had realized that. In desperation, he had ordered them into the butchery of the battle-lines, hoping they might make a difference, that they and the capital ships might offer one another some mutual protection. Now three of Stoner's waifs saw an unbelievable sight: a cutter spat out of the boatbay of a rebel superdreadnought and dashed towards an embattled monitor.

"Zulu Leader to Zulu Squadron," their leader said, his voice ugly with hate and despair. "Must be someone pretty important-let's go get him!"

"Zulu Three, roger."

"Zulu Six, roger."

His two remaining wingmen dropped back to cover him, and the Rim squadron leader stooped on the cutter like a hawk.

Lieutenant Anna Holbeck shook her head in disbelief. Find a cutter and escort it through this ?! Someone had obviously had a shock or two too many, she thought. But hers was not to reason why.

"Basilisk Leader to Basilisk Squadron," she said resignedly. "Let's go find the admiral, boys and girls."

Five agile little strikefighters slashed through vacuum, closing on Han's cutter. Death crashed about them, but so vast are the battlefields of space that even in that cauldron of beams and missiles, no weapon came close to the deadly little quintet.

"Basilisk Leader, Basilisk Two. I've got her on instruments, Skip-but she's got trouble."

"I see it. Green Section, close on the cutter. Red Section, follow me."

The three Rim pilots were so intent on their prey they never even saw the Republican ships that killed them.

"Sir! One of the rebel superdreadnoughts is closing rapidly!"

"What about it?" Vice Admiral Frederick Shespar grunted, tightening his shock frame as TFNS Suffren 's evasive action grew more violent.

"Sir, she's on a collision course-at maximum speed!"

"What?" Shespar stabbed one glance at his flag plot and blanched in horror. The ship coming at him could hardly be called a ship. She was a battered, broken wreck, streaming atmosphere and shedding bits of plating and escape pods as she came, but there was clearly nothing wrong with her drive. It took him barely a second to realize her grim purpose-but a second is a long, long time at such speeds.

"Gunnery! New battlegroup target! Burn that ship d-" He never finished the sentence. Tsing Chang's flagship hurled herself headlong at Suffren. Neither supermonitors nor superdreadnoughts are very fast, by Fleet standards-but these were on virtually reciprocal courses. Two-thirds of a million tonnes of mass collided at a closing speed of just under fifty thousand kilometers per second.

It was too intense to call an explosion.

Some events are so cataclysmic the mind cannot comprehend them. The weapons in play in the Zapata System had killed far more people than died with Arrarat and Suffren -but not so spectacularly, so . . . deliberately. The devastating boil of light and vaporized alloy and flesh hung before the eyes of the survivors like the mouth of hell, and they shrank from it.

As two fighting animals will separate momentarily to draw breath, the battle fleets pulled slightly apart. It wasn't really a lull, for weapons still fired, but a reduction of the unprecedented, unendurable intensity of close combat. As a conscious, ashen-faced Li Han turned from the cutter's viewport, something very like a respite closed in on the warring ships.

The Republic needed it. Scores of fighters were rearming aboard Windrider's and Magda's surviving carriers as Han stepped from her cutter aboard Saburo Yato and raced for the intraship car. Her brain was like ice over a furnace. The anguish of Tsing's death warred with a sort of horrified pride in the manner of his dying, but she couldn't let herself think of that. Not yet. There were things to do, a battle to win. She would allow herself grief and pride later. Later, when she had time to mourn as Chang deserved.