He drew a deep breath, unaware of how his smile had softened, then shook himself.
"All right, then!" he said briskly. "You and Jacques can fine tune the readiness numbers for me before the conference, Anna, but leave it until tomorrow. For right now, I think we can all use some sack time."
* * *
The last gunboats arrived under their own power. There were barely two thousand of them, yet the Fleet dared delay no longer. The system beyond the warp point boasted massive industrial capacity. It could undoubtedly build attack craft very quickly and in large numbers. Further delay was thus likely to work in the enemy's favor, despite the new ship types.
* * *
"—so as I see it, we've actually got two objectives here, Lord Kolaas," Admiral MacGregor said to Least Fang Harniaar. "First, of course, we have to hold Centauri and protect The Gateway. But just as important, it seems to me, is the need to knock the Bugs back on their heels in a way that every citizen of the Grand Alliance can understand."
She paused, watching the Orion commander of Task Force 42 on her split com screen in Xingú's flag briefing room. The least fang had surrendered twelve superdreadnoughts to Prescott in return for the same number of Terran and Ophiuchi carriers and assault carriers, for it had gone without saying that he would command Fourth Fleet's strikefighters. Now he combed his whiskers with his claws, slowly and thoughtfully, then nodded in a human gesture of agreement.
"You are, of course, correct Ahhhdmiraal MaaacGregggorr," he yowled in the Tongue of Tongues. "Your people have been understandably anxious"—MacGregor's tips twitched wryly at the Tabby's choice of words—"since the failure of Operation Pesthouse, but my own have been equally stunned by Second Fleet's losses and their implications for the future conduct of the war."
He paused, and Raymond Prescott and Vice Admiral Ira Chamhandar nodded in grim understanding from their own quadrants of MacGregor's screen. From the outset, the Grand Alliance had tasked the TFN as its primary offensive striking force. The Terran fleet, bigger and more powerful than any of its allies and supported by the most potent industrial machine in the galaxy, had been the only logical choice for the role. But whatever happened when the Bugs attacked Centauri, the TFN would be launching no new offensives any time soon. Simply replacing its lost hulls—and training the personnel to man them—would require at least a full year, and replacement alone wouldn't be enough. The Bugs' now possessed both command datalink and those new, mammoth monitors, and for all MacGregor's brave words, no one really knew if a monitor-led assault could be stopped. Even if it could, any sustained offensive would require the Grand Alliance to build vessels of matching weight and power, and that was going to add a minimum of eighteen more months to the wait.
"Given those implications," Harniaar went on levelly, "you are quite correct, Ahhhdmiraal. I do not know if it is possible to damage the enemy's morale, but it is imperative to restore our own with a resounding success here. And, of course, it would be most desirable to inflict sufficient losses upon the enemy to induce him to abandon further immediate offensives."
"Precisely," MacGregor said, "and that's why—"
The shrill, atonal scream of Xingú's General Quarters alarm cut off whatever she'd been about to say.
* * *
Two thousand gunboats and a hundred and fifty light cruisers erupted into Centauri space. Fourth Fleet's RD2s had kept a cautious eye on the Bugs in Anderson One, but it appeared the Bugs had realized that. They might not know precisely how it was being accomplished, but they'd allowed for the possibility, and their starships sprang almost instantly from normal standby procedures to all out attack. There was virtually no warning before the gunboats roared off their external racks and the assault fleet's light cruisers lunged for the warp point. Only the fact that the Bugs had been forced to hold their forces beyond SBMHAWK range of the warp point bought Fourth Fleet any time at all, but the first gunboat still burst into Centauri less than fifty seconds after the recon drones which warned of its coming.
Yet Ira Chamhandar's command fort had already sounded the alarm, and the combat space patrol on the warp point was alerted. MacGregor's starships, twenty-five light seconds from the warp point, received the warning fifteen seconds later than Chamhandar, and they were still charging to battle stations when the first Bugs appeared, but the warning was sufficient for the ready duty carriers and Orion battle-line units to launch. Three hundred and twenty fighters streaked towards the warp point, flashing in to join the two hundred forty-strong CSP, and then the mines began to detonate.
* * *
Twenty-one light cruisers interpenetrated on transit. That was a somewhat higher percentage than usual, yet it would have been acceptable . . . normally.
But these were not normal conditions, for the Fleet had never encountered such mine densities before, and the new datalink systems' ability to coordinate point defense conferred no advantage. This was a closed warp point. The enemy could place mines directly atop it, and he had. There was no clear zone, no space in which transit-addled electronics could recover. The deadly mines streaked in to blow ship after ship out of space; the fortresses which had been at immediate readiness added their fury to the holocaust; attack craft streaked in, salvoing missiles at the gunboats; and a bright, terrible sphere of flame blazed about the warp point.
* * *
"My God, Sir!" Commander Aburish sounded as if he couldn't believe his own readouts. "It looks like—It is, by God!" He wheeled to MacGregor with a savage smile. "According to Plotting, Admiral, we've just scored a one hundred percent kill on their cruisers!"
"Outstanding!" MacGregor bared her own teeth, then shook herself. "Gunboats?"
"Harder to say, Sir. Several hundred, at least, but they're much harder mine targets. The CSP caught them with their point defense degraded and nailed a lot of them, and our own strike is on its way in, but—" He shrugged, and MacGregor nodded, then flicked her eyes to Raymond Prescott's portion of her com screen.
"The battle-line will advance to support the forts, Admiral Prescott," she said formally.
* * *
The area about the warp point became a wild, swirling melee as fishtailing fighters and gunboats spun and snapped at one another. The standing combat space patrol had exhausted its missiles, but the human and Ophiuchi pilots closed grimly with their internal lasers. The gunboats had suffered terrible losses in the initial strikes, and despite their speed and relatively tiny size a small percentage had been picked off by mines, as well. But half of them had carried AFHAWKs, and all of them had their own internal weapons. Fighters began to die in the vicious, fiery spits of deep-space death, and then the first Bug superdreadnought rumbled through the warp point.
An incandescent halo racked the huge ship's shields as the minefield attacked, but the assault fleet's light cruisers had not died entirely in vain, for they'd drawn in many of the mines directly atop the closed warp point, thinning the field's density. What remained was sufficient to wound the Bug leviathan cruelly, but not to kill it outright, and even as it wallowed in its agony, a second and third superdreadnought followed it into Centauri space. More mines streaked to attack them, as well, but with steadily diminishing power, and Ira Chamhandar's eyes were hard.
"Release the pods to local fire control," he told his ops officer coldly. Fresh orders flashed out from his command fort, and the energy-armed Type Three and Four OWPs closest to the warp point acknowledged their instructions. Their fire control activated the shoals of SBMHAWKs slaved to it, firing them in individual, carefully controlled salvos, vomiting sprint-mode capital missiles against the air-bleeding wrecks which had survived the mines' fury, and space itself shuddered as antimatter warheads tore at their targets.
The gunboats realized what was happening, and half of the survivors swerved for the fortresses. But the OWPs' energy weapons flamed in response, and the stupendous "escort" fortresses—two-hundred-thousand-tonne bases designed and armed solely to kill missiles and fighters . . . or gunboats—sma
shed them by the score even as Allied fighters raced up their wakes. Space was littered with the hideous debris of what once had been gunboats, yet some broke through to hurl themselves bodily upon the forts with full FRAM loads. Shields flashed, armor vaporized, and men and women died as the blast ripped deep into the fortresses' compartments.
* * *
"They're getting through to the forts, Sir," Anthea Mandagalla said tautly.
"How bad is it?" Prescott demanded, never taking his eyes from his own plot. His heavy missile ships were almost in range to begin punching SBMs and capital missiles into the holocaust on the warp point, and a sort of deep, visceral horror gnawed at his guts as he watched still more superdreadnoughts transit unflinchingly into the maelstrom. Nothing should just keep coming that way, yet they did, and for all its fury, the warp point crucible was less terrible than it had been. The mines were being worn away—not swept, but absorbed—and the fortresses had expended most of their missile pods . . . or died.
"It could be worse, but it's not good," Jacques Bichet answered for the chief of staff. "CIC estimates hard kills on forty superdreadnoughts, but they've taken out six forts completely, and a dozen more are badly damaged."
"Admiral Chamhandar's released the Alpha Group energy platforms, Sir!" Commander Hale called out, and then Bichet nodded decisively.
"SBM range, Sir!" he announced sharply.
"Fire as you bear," Raymond Prescott said harshly.
* * *
The warp point was a sphere of fiery death, far worse than the Fleet's projections. But the Fleet had allowed for the possibility that its estimates might err. It had sent sixty superdreadnoughts through the invisible hole in space, and courier drones told the tale of destruction which had awaited them. But another fifty superdreadnoughts waited in reserve, backed by the new, larger ships, and those who had led the way had weakened the mines and begun the destruction of the enemy's fortresses.
The attack would continue.
* * *
"That's fifty superdreadnoughts confirmed destroyed, Sir," Fahd Aburish said, and Ellen MacGregor nodded silent acknowledgment. Fifty, she thought almost calmly. That's six more than our entire superdreadnought strength, and the bastards are still coming through!
Xingú staggered as a Bug SBM exploded against her shields. The fleet flagship was a part of Prescott's TF 41, and the Bugs had almost two dozen intact superdreadnoughts—most the missile-heavy Archers or the new Arbalest-class command ships—in Centauri. Those ships were all damaged to greater or lesser extent, but they were also missile armed, and the survivors had command datalink. Their salvos were as heavy as the ones thundering down upon them, and they were concentrating their fire on Fourth Fleet's battle-line.
Stupid of them, MacGregor thought. They've got to clear the forts out of their way before they can even think about moving in system, and tonne-for-tonne, an OWP is a hell of a lot more heavily armed than a superdreadnought or a battleship!
"Admiral Chamhandar's released the Alpha Group platforms, Sir," Aburish said, and MacGregor smiled an ugly smile.
* * *
The invading Bug starships had absorbed the fury of most of the mines within a half light-second of the warp point, winning at least a limited space in which their consorts could deploy and fight. But the mines had been only a part of Ellen MacGregor and Ira Chamhandar's fixed defenses. Now Chamhandar's command fortress transmitted yet another activation code, and two hundred-plus laser buoys flamed as one. A solid phalanx of X-ray lasers sleeted through the Bugs, ignoring shields to rip deep into armor and alloy, and a baying cheer echoed from Xingú's CIC as every single enemy ship on the warp point blew apart.
But the cheer faded almost instantly, for still the enemy came on, and he was no longer sending in Archers. He was sending through primary-armed Augers, force beam-armed Avalanches, and deadly, short-ranged Acids with their massive plasma gun batteries. TF 41's missiles tore at the new targets, Least Fang Harniaar's TF 42 sent massed fighter strikes screaming down their throats, and Chamhandar's surviving energy-armed fortresses rained fire on them. Yet not even that concentrated torrent of destruction could keep those Bug capital ships from firing back as they died, and Ellen MacGregor's face went white as twenty-one more fortresses—and over a hundred thousand men and women—were wiped out of existence.
"Permission to release the Beta Group platforms?" Chamhandar asked hoarsely, his own expression tight with anguish as he watched his people die, but MacGregor shook her head.
"Denied," she grated, and anger flashed in Chamhandar's eyes. He started to say something more, then clamped his jaw, nodded curtly and turned back to his own staff, and MacGregor understood his rage. But she had no choice, for the Bugs had not yet committed a single monitor. It was possible they wouldn't, that they were saving them, or that they had fewer of them than MacGregor had feared, but she dared not count on that. Any navy which would sacrifice entire fleets and surrender an entire world inhabited by its own species just to bait a trap was entirely capable of sacrificing scores of superdreadnoughts just to wear down the defenses before it launched its decisive blow. And if that was what the Bugs were doing here, she would need every Beta Group platform she had.
* * *
The superdreadnoughts' losses continued to mount, and those losses spelled the probable defeat of the master plan, for without them, it was unlikely the Fleet would be able to carry through against the defenses which must have been erected around the target system's inhabited worlds. But failure to achieve all of the plan's objectives did not preclude attaining some of them, and the Fleet appeared to retain the capacity to at least cripple the forces defending the warp point. The fragmentary reports from its lead elements indicated that the enemy's fortress shell had taken severe losses, and the mines and energy buoys which covered those fortresses had been sufficiently depleted to offer a zone in which only the enemy's attack craft and starships could effectively engage.
It was time to send in the true attack.
* * *
"Oh, shit!" Prescott's head snapped around as Bichet spat the vicious obscenity, and his ops officer looked up to meet his eyes.
"Here come the monitors, Sir," he said grimly.
* * *
"The enemy have committed their monitors, Least Fang," Harniaar'kolaas' flag captain said in a flat voice, and the least fang flicked his ears in acknowledgment.
"Understood, Least Claw," he said, and looked at his operations officer. "What is our fighter status?"
"We retain roughly four hundred of our own and two hundred Human fighters still aboard ship but tasked for antishipping strikes," the ops officer replied. "Another two hundred are returning to rearm, and a strike of approximately three hundred is about to enter attack range. And we have—" he paused to check a display "—one hundred and two Ophiuchi fighters armed for gunboat suppression holding just outside the outer minefield shell."
"Hold the present strike and launch the reserve," Harniaar ordered. "We will send them in together, with the Ophiuchi for cover."
"That will delay our attack, Sir," the flag captain pointed out quietly, and Harniaar flicked his ears once more.
"Truth. Yet these are not superdreadnoughts. We will require massed strikes to penetrate their defenses, and I prefer a meaningful blow, even if I must delay its delivery."
"And in the meantime, Sir?"
"And in the meantime, Least Claw, it will be up to Ahhhdmiraal Chaaamhaaandaaar," Harniaar replied softly.
* * *
"Activate the Beta Group but do not fire!" Ira Chamhandar snapped. He didn't have to ask MacGregor again, for this was the threat against which Fourth Fleet's CO had reserved those energy platforms. The fact that she'd been right to hold them this long didn't make him feel any better about the people he'd lost to the superdreadnoughts, yet his teeth skinned back from his lips as he watched the Bug giants flowing into existence on the warp point. They floated in a hole among the mines—a hole their superdreadnoughts had carved with the
ir own deaths—and their massive batteries began to smash fortresses and Allied capital ships methodically, but still Chamhandar held back. He could only do this once, and he made himself wait . . . and wait . . . and wait until no less than two dozen of those mammoth vessels had emerged. Then, and only then, he gave the order, and four hundred more independently deployed energy platforms fired. Not laser buoys, this time, but primary and particle beams that smashed implacably through even monitors' shields and armor. Of the twenty-four monitors on the warp point when they fired, only five survived, and Fourth Fleet closed for the kill.
* * *
The lead wave's monitors had been devastated. It was clear now that the system could not be taken, but it was equally clear that the enemy was closing on the warp point. He was approaching with every starship he still possessed, and he would undoubtedly commit his full remaining attack craft strength, as well. The opportunity thus remained to inflict heavy loss upon him, and the Fleet changed its deployment. The second-wave monitors refitted with the new datalink systems were pulled from the assault queue, but the fifteen more expendable monitors still equipped with the old-style datalink moved to the front, accompanied by seventy-six battle-cruisers, eighteen light cruisers, and all of the new ramming ships.
* * *
"Holy shi—!"
The fighter pilot's exclamation was chopped off by the explosion of his fighter, and Raymond Prescott flinched as his plot changed abruptly. And insanely. Even after Pesthouse, he couldn't believe—not on any deep, emotional level—that anyone would do something like that!