David Weber - The Honor of the Qween

He clenched his jaw as the latest damage reports scrolled up his screen. Thunder 's armor and the radiation shielding inside his wedge had let him live, but his port broadside had been reduced to five lasers and six tubes, and half of them were in local control. His maximum acceleration had been reduced twenty-one percent, his gravitics and half his other sensors—including all of them to port—were gone, and Workman's report on his sidewall generators was grim. Thunder wasn't—quite—naked to port, but spreading his remaining generators would weaken his sidewall to less than a third of design strength, and his radiation shields were completely gone. Simonds dared not even contemplate exposing that side of his ship to Harrington's fire ... but his starboard armament and fire control were untouched.

He touched the stitches again, and his mind was cold and clear despite his exhaustion. The bitch was still there, still stubbornly defying God's Will, and she'd hurt him. But he'd hurt her, too, and he'd checked the Havenite data profile on the Star Knight class against her missile expenditures. Even if she hadn't lost a single magazine, she had to be almost dry.

He glanced once more at his plot, his hate like ice at his core as he noted the way she continued to loaf along between him and Grayson. He didn't know how she was monitoring his every move, and he no longer cared. He was God's warrior. His duty was clear, and it was a vast relief to throw aside all distractions and embrace it at last.

"How much longer to restore the port sidewall?"

"I'll have it up in forty minutes, Sir." Workman sounded weary but confident, and the Sword nodded.

"Astrogation, I want a straight-line course for Grayson."

"He's changing course, Skipper."

Honor looked up quickly at Cardones' report, and her blood ran cold. Saladin 's captain had made up his mind. He was no longer maneuvering against Fearless ; instead, he'd shaped his course directly for Grayson, and his challenge was obvious.

She sat very still for a moment, mind racing as she tried to find an answer, but there was none, and she cleared her throat.

"Put me through to Commander Higgins, Mark," she said quietly.

"Yes, Ma'am," Brentworth replied. There was a brief pause, then a strained voice spoke over her intercom.

"Higgins," it said.

"James, this is the Captain. How much longer on those control runs?"

"Another ten minutes, Ma'am. Maybe a bit less."

"I need them now, " Honor told him flatly. " Saladin is coming back."

There was a moment of silence, and the chief engineer's voice was equally flat when he replied. "Understood, Ma'am. I'll do what I can."

Honor turned her chair to face Stephen DuMorne.

"Assume we get our remaining after impellers back in ten minutes. Where can we intercept Saladin ?"

She felt her bridge crew flinch at the word "intercept," but DuMorne only bent over his console, then looked back up at her.

"On that basis, we can make a zero-range intercept one-five-two million klicks short of the planet in just over one-five-seven minutes, Ma'am. Velocity at intercept will be two-six-zero-six-eight KPS." He cleared his throat. "We'll enter missile range eleven minutes before intercept."

"Understood." Honor pinched the bridge of her nose, and her heart ached for what she was about to do to her people. They deserved far better, but she couldn't give it to them.

"Bring us around to your new course, Steve," she said. "Chief Killian, I want the belly of our wedge held towards Saladin. "

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Fearless began her turn, and Honor turned to Cardones.

"We should be able to run a fair plot on Saladin with our belly radar, Rafe, but tracking missiles through the grav band will be difficult."

Cardones nodded, and his face was very still. Honor saw the understanding in his eyes, but she had to say it.

"I intend to hold the belly of our wedge towards her all the way in. We don't have the ammunition to stop her with missiles, so we're going to close to pointblank range unless she shears off. Set up your fire plan on the assumption that I will roll to bring our port energy broadside to bear at twenty thousand kilometers."

Cardones simply nodded once more, but someone hissed. That wasn't energy weapon range; it was suicide range.

"She won't know exactly when we intend to roll," Honor went on in that same, calm voice. "That should give us the first shot, and at that range, it won't matter how tough her sidewalls are." She held Cardones' gaze with her single eye and spoke very softly. "I'm depending on you, Rafe. Get that first broadside on target, then keep firing, whatever happens."

Matthew Simonds' grin was ugly as his ship accelerated towards Grayson. There were no fancy maneuvers for the bitch now. Harrington was still inside him, still able to intercept, but this time it would be on his terms, not hers, and he watched her projected vector stretch out to cross his own. They met 152 million kilometers short of the planet, but Fearless would never survive to reach that point.

"Andy."

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"Go aft to Auxiliary Fire Control. Take Harris with you, and make sure he's completely updated on Rafe's fire plan."

Venizelos' mouth tightened, but he nodded.

"Understood, Skipper." He hesitated a moment, then held out his hand. Honor squeezed it firmly, and he nodded once more and stepped into the lift.

The warships slanted towards one another, and there was a finality in their movements. The challenge had been issued and accepted; they would meet at an invisible point in space, and one of them would die there. There could be no other outcome, and every soul aboard them knew it.

"One hundred minutes to intercept, Sir," the astrogator reported, and Simonds glanced at his tactical officer.

"If she keeps coming in behind her wedge, we won't have very good shots until she rolls down to engage, Sir," Ash said quietly.

"Just do your best, Lieutenant."

Simonds turned back to his own plot and the crimson dot of the enemy ship with an inner sense of total certainty. Harrington wasn't going to roll for a missile duel. She was going to carry straight through and engage him beam to beam, and he felt a grudging, hate-filled respect for her. Her ship would never survive at that range, but if she reached it alive, the damage to Thunder would be terrible. He knew it, and he accepted it, for terrible or not, Thunder would live to attack Grayson. He knew that, too.

God would not permit any other result.

Neither of the maimed, half-blind ships any longer had the capability to look beyond the other even if they'd wanted to. And because they didn't, neither of them noted the wide-spaced hyper footprints as sixteen battlecruisers and their escorts suddenly emerged from hyper 23.76 light-minutes from Yeltsin's Star.

"That's it, My Lord," Captain Edwards said. "Tracking's got good reads on both impeller signatures. That's the battlecruiser at three-one-four; the one at three-two-four has to be Fearless. There's no sign of Troubadour. "

"Understood." Hamish Alexander tried to keep his own emotions out of his voice as he acknowledged his flag captain's report. If Reliant couldn't see Troubadour, that meant Troubadour was dead, yet all the way here, he'd known they were almost certain to arrive too late, despite the risks he'd run with his hyper generator settings. Now he knew they hadn't, and a sense of elation warred with the blow of the destroyer's loss.