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# Chapter Fifty-Six

"We're coming up on translation in five minutes, Sir," Lieutenant Commander Akimoto said.

"Thank you, Joyce." Admiral Wilson Kirkegard thanked his staff astrogator as gravely as if he hadn't been watching the translation clock for the last hour.

"You're welcome, Sir," Akimoto replied, and the grin she gave him told him that she knew perfectly well that her formal announcement had been superfluous, to say the very least.

Kirkegard smiled back, then turned to Captain Janina Auderska, his chief of staff.

"Any last-minute details waiting to bite us on the ass, Janina?" he asked quietly.

"Can't think of any, Sir," she said, wrinkling her nose in thought. "Of course, if I could think of them ahead of time, they wouldn't be waiting to bite us on the ass, I suppose."

"As profound an analysis as I've ever heard," Kirkegard approved, and she chuckled.

"Sorry. Bad habit of mine to indulge myself in the obvious when I'm nervous."

"Well, you're not alone in that," Kirkegard assured her, and turned his attention back to the maneuvering plot as his overstrength task group headed towards the alpha wall. He spared the visual display a brief glance, struck even now by the familiar, flickering beauty of his flagship's Warshawski sails. He could pick out the sails of at least another half-dozen of his starships, but he had other things on his mind and the maneuvering plot gave him a far more accurate idea of their positions.

He had less carrier support than some of the other attack forces set up by Operation Thunderbolt, but he shouldn't need it, either. Maastricht, according to NavInt, was picketed by a single reinforced division of pre-pod superdreadnoughts, supported by one CLAC and a battlecruiser squadron. Given the draw-down in Manticoran naval units, that was a fairly hefty picket for a single system which was far less important to the Manticoran Alliance than it was to the Republic of Haven. And by the standards of the earlier war years, it should have been able to give an excellent account of itself even against a task group as large as Kirkegard's.

But those standards no longer obtained . . . as Kirkegard was about to teach the Manties.

* * *

"Admiral Kirkegard should be hitting Maastricht just about now, Sir," Commander Francis Tibolt, chief of staff for Task Force Eleven observed, and Admiral Chong Chin-ri nodded.

"I'm sure Wilson has the situation well in hand," the tall, dark haired admiral agreed. "Do we?"

"Unless the Manties have run substantial reinforcements into Thetis on us at the last minute without NavInt catching them at it," Tibolt replied.

"I suppose there's nothing anyone can do about that possibility," Chong agreed. "Not that a proper chief of staff wouldn't be busy reassuring me that they couldn't possibly have done that."

"Believe me, Sir. If I'd observed any signs of pre-battle jitters, I'd be reassuring the hell out of you."

"They're there," Chong told him. "I'm just better at concealing them than most."

"That's one way to put it, I guess," Tibolt said with a smile, and Chong chuckled, then glanced at the date/time display.

"Well, we'll probably be finding out whether or not they're justified in about forty minutes," he said.

* * *

"That's funny."

"What?" Lieutenant Jack Vojonovic looked up from the solitaire game on his hand comp.

"Did I miss something important on the shipping schedule?" Ensign Eldridge Beale replied, turning his head to look at his training officer.

"What are you talking about?" Vojonovic set the hand comp aside and swiveled his chair to face his own display. "We don't have anything big on the ship sched until tomorrow, Eldridge. Why? Did you—"

Vojonovic's question chopped off, and his eyes widened as he stared at the preposterous icons on his display. One or two merchantmen or transports arriving unannounced would have been almost routine. No one ever managed to get everything onto the shipping schedules, however hard they tried. But this was no singleton turning up without warning. It wasn't even a convoy, and Vojonovic felt his stomach disappearing somewhere south of the soles of his shoes as he saw what had just come over the Grendelsbane alpha wall.

He couldn't get a count yet. The point sources were too jumbled together. But he didn't need a count to know there were a hell of a lot more of whoever they were than there was of Admiral Higgins' task force.

That thought was still racing through his brain as his thumb came down on the big red button.

* * *

"We're gonna get reamed," Lieutenant Stevens said flatly, watching the oncoming Peep task force on his tactical display as it swept steadily deeper into Maastricht.

"We're outnumbered, sure," Lieutenant Commander Jeffers replied in a distinctly reproving tone. The tac officer turned his head to look at HMS Starcrest's CO.

"Sorry, Skipper," he apologized. "It's just—"

He gestured at the display, and Jeffers nodded grudgingly, because he knew his tac officer had a point.

"It doesn't look good," he conceded quietly, leaning towards Stevens to keep their conversation as private as possible on the destroyer's relatively small bridge. "But at least we've got LACs and they don't."

"I know," Stevens said, still apologetically. "But Incubus' group is at least two squadrons understrength."

"That bad?" Jeffers knew he hadn't quite managed to keep the surprise out of his voice and went on quickly. "I mean, I knew they were short a few LACs, but two whole squadrons?"

"At least, Skipper," Stevens told him. "A buddy of mine is Incubus' assistant logistics officer. He says Captain Fulbright has been pestering the Admiralty for a couple of months, trying to get his group back up to strength. But—"

He shrugged, and Jeffers nodded unhappily. Maastricht had been at the back edge of nowhere as far as replacements and reinforcements were concerned for as long as Starcrest had been here. The rumor mill said the situation was tight everywhere, but Jeffers' ship wasn't "everywhere." She was right here, and he didn't much care what "everywhere" else had to put up with.

"Well," he said with perhaps a bit more confidence than he actually felt, "Admiral Maitland's good. And if Incubus is understrength, that's still better than no LACs at all."

"You're right," Stevens agreed, but his eyes drifted back to the display and the oncoming icons of eight superdreadnoughts. Assuming what the sensor platforms were seeing was what was really there, Rear Admiral Sir Ronald Maitland's short superdreadnought division was outnumbered by almost three-to-one. "I just wish we had an SD(P) or two to even things up."

"So do I," Jeffers admitted. "But at least we've got the range advantage for the pods we have."

"Which is a darned good thing," Stevens acknowledged. His eyes were still on the display, where the diamond dust icons of Incubus' LACs were fifteen minutes from contact with the Peeps. The LACs' FTL reports accounted for the detailed accuracy of Starcrest's tactical plot, and Stevens didn't envy their crews a bit. It was bad enough for Starcrest, attached to the superdreadnoughts' screen, but at least Starcrest was the better part of thirteen million kilometers from any enemy missile launchers. The LACs weren't.

He looked at the light codes of Maitland's superdreadnoughts and his single CLAC and visualized the long, ungainly trail of missile pods towing astern of them. As Jeffers had suggested, Sir Ronald had a reputation as a canny tactician—one which in the humble opinion of Lieutenant Henry Stevens was well deserved. Unlike all too many system picket commanders, Maitland believed in hard, frequent drills and battle maneuvers, and he had kept his "task group" at a far higher state of readiness than some of the other pickets could boast. His announced battle plan had made it obvious that he recognized the weight of metal the Peeps had sent his way, too, but he planned to fight smart to offset the discrepancy in tonnages.

According to ONI's analysts, his missiles had an enormous range advantage over anything the Peeps could have produced. Stevens tended to take those reports with a grain of salt, and it was evident to him that Sir Ronald did, too. ONI had assured them that the maximum powered range the Peeps might have managed to get their missiles up to was on the order of seven or eight million kilometers. Sir Ronald had added a twenty-five percent "fudge factor" to the spooks' estimate just to be on the safe side, which brought their theoretical max range up to somewhere around twelve million klicks. That was well within the effective range of the RMN's multi-drive capital missiles which, in theory, had a maximum range at burnout more than five times that great. Of course, that could hardly be considered "effective" range, since not even Manticoran fire control was going to be able to hit a powered, evading target at that distance.

But Rear Admiral Maitland wasn't going to try to accomplish anything that preposterous. He intended to allow the range to drop to thirteen million kilometers, then start pumping missiles out of the pods on tow behind all of his capital ships and cruisers. Given his range advantage, he'd elected to tow maximum loads, which reduced his acceleration to a crawl but would allow him to throw at least a half-dozen heavy salvos from outside any range at which the enemy could reply. Accuracy wouldn't be anything to write home about, but at least some of them would get through. And if he timed things properly, they would come in in conjunction with his LACs. The combined attack would put a considerable strain on the Peeps' defensive systems, which should increase the effectiveness of LACs and missiles alike.

And if it all hits the crapper anyway, Stevens thought, we'll be far enough away that at least we can break off and run for it. Which the LAC jockeys can't—not from three-quarters of the way down the kodiak max's throat! So we can at least bleed them and run if we—

"Missile launch! Multiple missile launches!"

Stevens' head snapped around at the sound of PO Landow's voice. The veteran noncom was a key member of Stevens' own tac team, yet for a moment the lieutenant was convinced Landow must have lost her mind.

But only for a moment. Only until he looked back at his own plot and realized that Sir Ronald's battle plan had just come apart.

* * *

"God, I almost feel sorry for them," Janina Auderska said so quietly no one but her admiral could possibly hear.

"Don't," Kirkegard said, his eyes glued to the display showing the storm front of his missiles as they scorched towards the Manticoran system picket. The chief of staff glanced at him, surprised by the almost savage edge of harshness in the admiral's usually pleasant voice, and Kirkegard glanced sideways at her.

"This is exactly what they did to us in their damned 'Operation Buttercup,' " he reminded her coldly. "Exactly. I read an interview with their Admiral White Haven. NavInt clipped it from one of their newsfaxes. He said he felt almost guilty—that it was too much 'like pushing baby chicks into a pond.' " Kirkegard gave a harsh crow caw of a chuckle. "He was right, too. Well, now it's our turn. Let's see how they like it."

* * *

Sir Ronald Maitland watched the hurricane of missiles thundering towards him.

"How good are our targeting setups?" he asked his staff ops officer flatly.

"Uh, they're—" The ops officer shook himself physically. "I mean, they're about as good as we could hope for at this range, Sir," he said more crisply.

"Well, in that case I suppose we'd better use them before we lose them," Maitland replied. "Reprioritize the firing sequence. Flush them all—now."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

* * *

"Here they come," Auderska murmured.

"Had to get them off before our birds got close enough for proximity kills," Kirkegard agreed, watching the sidebars of his plot as CIC assigned threat values to the incoming warheads. "More of them than I expected, too," he acknowledged.

"Yes, Sir. We're going to get hurt," Auderska said.

"Price of doing business," Kirkegard replied with a shrug. "And at this range, not even Manty targeting systems are going to be able to score a very high percentage of hits. Neither are ours, of course, but—" his smile was thin and hungry "—we can fire heavy follow-on salvos . . . and they can't."

* * *

"Tracking reports that their missile ECM is much better than it's supposed to be, Sir," Maitland's chief of staff said very quietly into his ear. Sir Ronald looked at him, and he grimaced unhappily. "They're estimating that our point defense is going to be at least twenty-five percent less effective than we'd projected. At least."

Maitland grunted and turned his gaze back to the master plot while his brain raced. It was obvious from the weight of fire coming at him that the Peep superdreadnoughts on that plot were a pod design. But the situation wasn't completely hopeless, he told himself. Everything the LACs' sensors had reported so far indicated that the Peeps' EW capabilities, while substantially better than anticipated—as CIC's new estimate of their missile ECM confirmed—were still far below Manticoran standards. That would give Maitland an enormous advantage in a long-range missile duel like this. Or it would have, if he'd been able to shoot back at all.

He gritted his teeth as bitter memory replayed his repeated requests for at least one SD(P). But the Admiralty had not seen fit to assign such scarce, valuable units to a secondary system like Maastricht. At least the launchers aboard two of the three older ships he did have had been refitted to handle multi-drive missiles. Which meant that once his pods were exhausted, he wouldn't be completely unable to return fire. It only meant that he could respond with less than twenty percent of the Peeps' weight of fire until he somehow managed to close to within six million klicks of them.

Which none of his starships could possibly survive long enough to do.

"Are those new acceleration figures for their superdreadnoughts confirmed?" he asked his ops officer.

"Yes, Sir," the commander confirmed unhappily. "They're still lower than ours, but the difference is almost thirty percent less than ONI's estimates."

"That figures," Sir Ronald half-snarled before he could stop himself. Then he closed his mouth, drew a deep breath, and looked back at the chief of staff.

"Transmit an immediate message to Commodore Rontved," he said. "Instruct her to activate Case Omega immediately."

"Yes, Sir." The complete absence of surprise in the chief of staff's voice showed that he'd already reached the same conclusion Maitland had. Rontved commanded the small, three-unit squadron of maintenance and support ships the Admiralty had deployed to support Maitland's picket. They were effectively unarmed, aside from a strictly limited point defense capability, and under Case Omega their job was simply to be sure that as much as possible of the infrastructure which had been built up to support the system picket was destroyed before they themselves ran for it.

"Warn her not to waste any time about it," Maitland emphasized. "We know they have multi-drive missiles now. If ONI can be that completely wrong about one thing, they can be wrong about another. So I wouldn't be surprised if a CLAC or two turned up in their order of battle."

"Yes, Sir." The chief of staff paused for just a moment, then nodded his head sideways at the master plot. "Speaking of LACs, Sir, what about ours?"

"They'll continue the attack. After all, they can't run if we lose Incubus," Maitland said harshly. Then he grunted again. "Just in case Rontved doesn't make it out, though, detach one of the tin cans. We need to be certain someone gets home with a warning."

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Jeffers stood at Henry Stevens' shoulder, staring down the tactical display while Starcrest continued to accelerate towards the hyper limit at maximum military power. The fact that their inertial compensator might fail at any moment and turn all of them into so much strawberry jam was completely beside the point as they stared at the chaos and devastation behind them.

Two of Rear Admiral Maitland's superdreadnoughts were already gone, and the flagship was dying. Incubus was still in action, but her acceleration had fallen by over fifty percent as the damage to her beta nodes mounted. The only reason she hadn't been destroyed outright, Jeffers thought grimly, was that her ship-to-ship combat capability was so limited. The Peeps had concentrated on anyone who might hurt them first; they could always finish Incubus off any time they chose.

It hadn't been entirely one-sided—only almost.

Maitland's single pod-spawned wave of missiles had hammered one Peep superdreadnought into an air-bleeding wreck and damaged two more of them. His internal launchers had concentrated on one of the two wounded SD(P)s and inflicted substantially more damage on her, and one Peep battlecruiser had been destroyed outright, while another seemed to be in little better condition.

But that was it. The LACs had done their best, and their efforts had helped to account for the one destroyed battlecruiser and inflicted damage on most of her consorts. But the Peeps aboard those starships were no longer confused and panicked by the mere sight of an impossible "super LAC." They'd had time to think and analyze, and they recognized the weaknesses of such small, relatively fragile attackers. The LAC crews had bored in with all the guts and gallantry in the universe, and they'd actually managed to inflict at least a little damage in the process. But these superdreadnoughts' sidewalls were intact, the vulnerable throats of their wedges were protected by bow walls almost as good as the RMN's own, their point defense and energy gunners were waiting, and the massive armor protecting their flanks was fully capable of withstanding the pounding of even a Shrike-B's graser long enough for their defensive fire to kill the LAC.

Incubus' group had gotten in one good firing pass on the ships of the wall. After that, the survivors had been swatted almost negligently when they tried for a second one.

Jeffers tried not to let his own sense of shocked disbelief show. It was obvious that the Peeps still hadn't quite equalized the gap between Manticoran hardware and their own. Their ECM was still nowhere near as good. Their missile pods seemed to carry fewer birds per pod, which suggested that they'd had to accept a more massive design. That meant lighter broadsides from the same tonnage of capital ships and a bigger squeeze on magazine space. And that might prove significant in the long run, for although their seeker systems seemed to have been improved almost as much as their missiles' range had, they still weren't quite up to Manticoran standards, either. Given the RMN's remaining edge in electronic warfare, long-range missile accuracy was going to favor Manticore by a probably substantial edge, but it wasn't going to be spectacular even for the RMN. So the number of missiles an SD(P) could carry was about to become extremely important. Which probably meant it was a damned good thing BuShips had pushed ahead with the new Invictus design.

Now if only that fucking idiot Janacek had let the Navy build some of them!

Jeffers felt his jaw muscle ache from how fiercely he was gritting his teeth and made himself turn away from the plot. He was a bit surprised that Starcrest had been able to make good her escape when Maitland ordered her to run for it. Probably it was simply a case of the Peeps having bigger fish to fry, he thought bitterly. But it could also have something to do with the amount of damage Maitland's superdreadnoughts and LACs had managed to inflict, as well.

Alan Jeffers was too honest with himself to pretend that he wasn't intensely grateful that Maitland's orders meant he and his crew would live. But neither could he absolve himself from a crushing sense of guilt. It was a burden, he suspected, which would cling to him for a long, long time.

* * *

"I wonder how Admiral Kirkegard did at Maastricht, Sir," Commander Tibolt murmured. He and Admiral Chong stood side-by-side on RHNS New Republic's flag bridge as TF 11 settled into orbit around the Thetis System's sole habitable planet.

"No telling," Chong replied. He watched the blue-and-white beauty of the planet on the visual display for several moments, then squared his shoulders and turned away. Another display attracted his eyes. The one that listed his task force's losses.

Only a single ship's name glowed in the blood-red color that indicated a total loss, and his lips curved in a smile of grim satisfaction. No one liked to lose any ship, or the people who crewed that ship. But after the savage losses the old People's Navy had taken at the hands of the Manties again and again, a single heavy cruiser and seventy LACs actually destroyed was a paltry price to pay for an entire star system. Not to mention the fact that the Manties had lost over two hundred of their own LACs, four heavy cruisers, and a pair of superdreadnoughts, as well.

"Actually," he told Tibolt after a moment, "I'm more curious about what's happening at Grendelsbane and Trevor's Star."

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