Эрик Флинт - The Service of the Sword

There was an undeniable trace of stiffness and formality in his relationship with the captain, but that was true for quite a few members of Gauntlet 's ship's company. After the first week or so, no one aboard was prepared to question Captain Oversteegen's competence or ability, but that didn't mean his crew was prepared to clasp him warmly to its collective heart. The fact was that whatever other talents he might possess, he did not and probably never would have the sort of charisma someone like Lady Harrington seemed to radiate so effortlessly.

Probably, Abigail had concluded, that was at least partly because he had no particular interest in acquiring that sort of charisma. After all, the natural order of the universe had inevitably raised him to his present station. His undoubted competence was simply proof that the universe had been wise to do so. And since it was both natural and inevitable that he command, then it was equally natural and inevitable that others obey. Which meant there was no particular point in enticing them into doing what was their natural duty in the first place.

In short, Michael Oversteegen's personality was not one which naturally attracted the devotion of those under his command. Competence they would grant him, and obedience they would yield. But not devotion.

Arpad Grigovakis, on the other hand, seemed prepared to worship the deck he walked on. Abigail couldn't be positive why that was, but she had her suspicions. Grigovakis, after all, would never be described as a sweetheart of a guy himself. Although he was nowhere near so wellborn as the captain, he definitely belonged to the upper strata of Manticoran society, and he not so secretly aspired to precisely the same image of aristocratic power and privilege. In fact, Abigail thought, Grigovakis probably found Oversteegen a much more comfortable role model than someone like Lady Harrington, no matter how much he might recognize and respect the Steadholder's tactical brilliance.

In Captain Oversteegen's defense, Abigail had to admit that she'd never seen him lend the least encouragement to Grigovakis' apparent desire to emulate his own style. Of course, he hadn't dis couraged the midshipman, either, but that would have been expecting a bit much out of any captain.

"Bogey Two's taking the bait and going for the decoy, Sir!" That was Shobhana's voice, and she sounded calmer than Abigail suspected she was. Oversteegen had decided to make Commander Blumenthal a casualty fifteen minutes into the present exercise, and it was Shobhana's day to serve as Blumenthal's assistant, while Abigail played understudy to Abbott on Commander Watson's backup tactical crew. Which meant, Abigail thought just a bit jealously, that at the moment her classmate was in control of a 425,000-ton heavy cruiser's total armament, even if it was only for an exercise . . . and Abigail wasn't.

"Very good, Tactical," Oversteegen replied coolly. "But keep an eye on Number One."

"Aye, aye, Sir!" Shobhana replied crisply, and Abigail felt herself nodding in silent agreement with the captain's warning. The exercise was one of several simulations downloaded by BuTrain to Gauntlet 's tactical computers before her departure from Manticore. In theory at least, no one aboard the heavy cruiser had any advance knowledge of their content or the opposition forces' order of battle. Every so often, someone found a way around the security measures and hacked into the sims in an effort to make herself look better, but Abigail was confident that Oversteegen wasn't one of them. The mere suggestion that he might have required such an unfair advantage would be anathema to a personality like his.

Or mine, she admitted, if not for exactly the same reasons.

Sure enough, Bogey One was ignoring the decoy. CIC had identified Bogey Two as a heavy cruiser and Bogey One as a battlecruiser. That meant Bogey One should have better sensors, and in addition, she had a better angle on Gauntlet . She'd been better placed to spot the decoy's separation, but apparently the simulation's artificial intelligence had assumed that Bogey One wasn't positive of her own conclusions. She was allowing her consort to continue to engage the decoy just in case while she herself went after what she'd identified as the real enemy.

"All right, Tactical," Oversteegen said calmly. "Bogey One is comin' in after us. It's not goin' t' take Two long t' kill the decoy, even with its EW. So we need t' prune One down t' size a bit while we've got her all t' ourselves. Understood?"

That was much more of an explanation than Oversteegen usually bothered with. He was actually making a concession to the inexperience of his acting tactical officer, Abigail thought in some surprise.

"Understood, Sir," Shobhana replied.

"Very well, then. Give me a recommendation."

Shobhana didn't reply instantly, and Abigail felt herself lean forward in her own chair, urging her friend on.

"Recommend we change heading to starboard in six minutes, Sir," Shobhana said, almost as if she'd heard Abigail's encouragement.

"Reasons?" Oversteegen asked sharply.

"Sir, Bogey One will have closed into extreme energy range in approximately five-point-seven-five minutes, but she's still coming straight for us. I think she's convinced we're just going to go on running rather than turn and fight against such odds. I think she'll hold her course, trying to bring her own chasers into action, but according to CIC she's a Warlord-C , without bow wall technology. So if we time it properly, we might be able to put an entire energy broadside right down her throat even at extreme range."

There was a moment of taut silence. Then Oversteegen spoke again.

"Concur," he said simply. "Make it so, Tactical." He paused again, then added, "And call the shot."

"Aye, aye, Sir!" Shobhana replied exultantly, and Abigail's eyebrows arched in astonishment. That was the sort of order Lady Harrington might have given under similar circumstances, but she would never have expected to hear it out of Oversteegen.

She watched the crimson bead of Bogey One charging hard after Gauntlet , just as Shobhana had predicted. If Abigail had been in command of that battlecruiser, no doubt she would have been doing exactly the same thing. An Edward Saganami -class ship like Gauntlet was a powerful, modern unit, but scarcely a match for a Warlord -class battlecruiser in close action. The logical course for any ship as heavily overmatched as Gauntlet was in this instance was to run as fast and as hard as she could in the hopes that she might score a lucky missile hit on one of her pursuers' impeller nodes and somehow escape action.

The only problem was that Gauntlet had been surprised in a situation which gave the bogeys too much overtake advantage for even the newest generation of Manticoran inertial compensator to overcome. Which meant that escape was virtually impossible, whatever the heavy cruiser did. And Shobhana was right; if they couldn't outrun Bogey One, then their best choice was the bold choice.

Bogey One swept closer and closer, battering away at Gauntlet with her chase armament. Fortunately, the Peeps—no, she corrected herself, the Havenites— didn't have the equivalent of Ghost Rider. That meant they couldn't fire the same sort of effective off-bore missile broadsides a Manticoran or a Grayson ship might have. Bogey One was restricted effectively to the fire of her bow tubes and energy mounts, which meant her missile fire was far too light to penetrate Gauntlet 's active and passive defenses, whereas Gauntlet was able to reply with a steady rain of fire from her broadside tubes. It wasn't as effective as it would have been if she'd had a proper broadside firing arc that let her use her main fire control. Even with Ghost Rider technology, she lacked the telemetry channels without a broadside arc to provide full-time control to more than eighteen birds at a time. She could share her available links on a rotating basis, but that could be risky in a high-EW environment, and it always led to at least some degradation in control. For that matter, not even a missile with Manticoran EW had much chance of survival at this range against the sort of defensive firepower an alert battlecruiser's forward point defense could pour out. But even though only a handful of them were getting through, they were enough to pepper the Warlord with what had to be an infuriating rain of superficial hits.