Die, you bastards! The venomous thought crackled in the back of her brain as still another cruiser died. Goddamn you to Hell, die!
* * *
The range of the enemy's weapons made efforts to withdraw the more vulnerable cruisers deep within the main formation useless. It was impossible to spread the formation far enough to force him into its defensive envelope, but that had been accepted when the plan was devised.
Besides, it wasn't as if those ships were important.
* * *
"We've nailed most of the regular CLs and CAs, Sir," Jackson Teller reported. "My evaluation people make it about fifty ships. That leaves the Cataphracts. From here on, we'll have to go in after them."
"We'll see if we can't help you out a bit first, Jackson." Murakuma looked at Waldeck and Ludendorff. "Gentlemen, our fighter jocks would appreciate a little assistance."
* * *
Five huge, ungainly Type Five OWPs, never intended for mobile warfare, dropped further back in Fifth Fleet's formation, accompanied by their superdreadnought flagship. Mekong would probably draw the most fire, but her presence was necessary; only one of the forts carried a datalink master installation, and it was vital that their tugs be brought under their point defense umbrella. But unlike First Justin, four of these forts mounted capital missile launchers—a lot of launchers: twice as many as a Matterhorn-class SD and six times as many as a Mount Hood. The command base mounted a primarily energy armament, but the sixth was a pure antimissile/antifighter platform, and that base was tucked into the "battlegroup" closest to the enemy.
The fortress crews knew their jobs, and Plotting had worked overtime to give them precise data. They knew the Bugs had thirty-six of their Archer missile superdreadnoughts, and they opened a heavy, deliberate SBM bombardment from beyond capital missile range. Jennifer Husac's ten Dunkerques joined them, pouring in their own SBMs, and Archers began to die. Not quickly or easily, for they were tough, but steadily.
Murakuma watched them die and bit her lower lip. They were going, but she still didn't have enough SBMs to fill her magazines with the longer-ranged missiles. What her ships had now were all they had for the entire battle; once they were gone, it would all be up to the capital missiles, and the Bugs could match their range.
Husac's BCs exhausted their SBMs and turned to race for the ammunition colliers. The fortresses, with their larger magazine space, didn't. They still had plenty of CMs left, and it was time to start using them.
Ludendorff let the range fall still further and shifted his targeting. The first answering fire spat back from the surviving Archers, and Murakuma watched it come. She hated to take her fire off those ships, but she had to hammer those CLEs back for her fighters, and capital missiles were the hardest birds to stop. At least some of them would get through even a Cataphract's point defense, especially with salvoes that dense, and—
Four Cataphracts died in the opening salvo, but then the first Bug capital missiles arrived, and Vanessa Murakuma went white as one of them got through against a fort. The single hit smashed a twelfth of the OWP's shields flat, and she heard Ling Tian suck in air.
"That was a second-generation warhead, Sir!" The ops officer tried to hide her own shock, but Murakuma knew Ling was as dismayed as she was. God, those bastards were quick off the mark if they'd already figured out how to put AAMs into production!
"Forget the cruisers, John!" she snapped. "Kill as many Archers as you can—the fighters are just going to have to deal with the Cataphracts themselves."
"Aye, Sir." Ludendorff's voice was grim, for he, too, understood what those warheads meant. Powerful as his forts were, they couldn't stand up to many AAMs—and their tugs could stand even less. Murakuma's plan to kill the escorts so her fighters could go after the Bug missile platforms had just gone out the airlock; she had to nail those Archers as quickly as possible.
"Permission to support?" Waldeck asked tautly, and she didn't hesitate. His SDs could stand less damage than the forts, but they carried another eighty launchers.
"Granted," she snapped, and Waldeck's battle-line sped towards the enemy. She was putting it in far sooner than she'd planned, but she had no choice.
* * *
The missile ships shuddered under the enemy's pounding, but at last he had to come within their reach, and they poured back fire. Their individual salvoes were lighter, but there were a great many of them, and the new warheads performed exactly as predicted.
* * *
Anson Olivera stood in his squadron's ready room, watching dry-mouthed as the ops plan came apart. None of Admiral Ludendorff's forts had been destroyed yet, and the Bugs seemed not to realize that killing the tugs would immobilize them, but the sheer weight of fire was awesome. Point defense intercepted hundreds of missiles, but some got through, and three of the forts had already lost their shields. They'd killed five more Archers, but now each hit ripped into their armor. They weren't knocking down shields now; they were killing people and weapons.
A tone beeped, and he turned to the com screen. "Saddle up, Commander," TFNS Dalmatian's captain said grimly. "You're going in."
* * *
A fort exploded as something reached its magazines, and Murakuma bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Ludendorff's Mekong was shields-down, as well, and she wanted desperately to order him back, but she couldn't. She needed that ship where it was, holding its net up, and—
TFNS Mekong blew apart. There were no life pods. There was barely even time for her automatic transmitter to begin her Omega transmission. One instant she was there; the next she was an expanding cloud of plasma, and her datanet went with her.
"Get them out!" Murakuma barked, but it was too late. Stripped of their interlinked antimissile defenses, not even Type Five OWPs could stand that battering. Missiles ripped down on targets now totally reliant on their own, individual defenses, and she watched sickly as two tugs and a fort exploded. Life pods littered the display, proving at least some of their people had gotten out in time, but Mekong's entire battlegroup died within two minutes of its command ship, and Vanessa Murakuma closed her eyes in agony.
"Shall I order the other battlegroup to withdraw?" Ling Tian asked quietly, and instinct screamed to say yes, but Murakuma shook her head.
"No," she said flatly. "They went for Mekong because they could pick her out. Unless they get the command fort by sheer coincidence, they can't knock her net down."
She didn't look up from her plot, but she felt her flag bridge crew's eyes on her, and her soul cringed from what she might have seen in them had she looked.
* * *
Fifth Fleet's fighters launched. The big fleet carriers held back a small reserve, but every other fighter went. SG 47 led the wave, and Olivera watched his tactical feed from Dalmatian as seven hundred and fifty fighters screamed towards the enemy. Only fourteen Archers remained in action, though three more had fallen astern, yet the Bugs had wiped out over half the OWPs, and the battle-line had taken a battering of its own. As Olivera watched, TFNS Borah pulled out of line, limping away with half her launchers out of action, and two more superdreadnoughts bled atmosphere. The remaining Archers were hurting, too—they had to be—but Bugs didn't break off. They went right on firing until they died, and they were hurting Fifth Fleet badly.
But not for much longer, Olivera told himself grimly. He and his people were going to take savage losses, but they had the strength to kill the bastards, and—
He blinked as a sudden cascade of tiny lights speckled his display. What in God's name—?
* * *
"Sir! The Bugs have just launched small craft!"
"Small craft?" Murakuma stared at Ling Tian in surprise, then looked at LeBlanc.
"Yes, Sir. We've got over two hundred cutters coming at us." Ling sounded as confused as Murakuma felt, but LeBlanc's face tightened in instant, instinctive understanding.
"Kamikazes," he said flatly. Murakuma looked at him blankly for a moment, then paled. If those cutters were loaded wi
th antimatter—
"Divert your strike, Jackson!" she snapped, wheeling to Teller's com screen.
"But, Sir, the Archers—"
"Get the cutters! We think they're kamikazes!"
"Kami—Dear God!" Teller whirled to his own com officer, and Murakuma slammed a fist down on her command chair's arm. The Bugs could not have launched at a worse time. She needed those fighters to take the pressure off Demosthenes, and it was terribly tempting to send them on in. After all, her ships were designed to kill fighters; their defenses ought to have a field day against cutters! But she didn't know how much antimatter could be crammed aboard. They didn't have much cargo capacity, but they wouldn't need a lot, either.
* * *
Olivera's jaw clenched as Dalmatian changed his mission. Kamikazes? No one had used them since ISW-3! But they should have guessed the Bugs would, and he started snapping orders.
* * *
The small craft fanned out, spreading far and wide. If they could get through to their targets, well and good, but it would be almost as satisfactory if they simply diverted the enemy's more capable attack craft. And that was precisely what they were doing.
* * *
The battle-lines' fire grew more vicious as the wounded survivors smashed one another in an orgy of mutual destruction, and Murakuma knew the exchange was in the Bugs' favor. If they destroyed Waldeck's missile-armed SDs, even at the cost of every one of their Archers, they won the round, for aside from Husac's battle-cruisers, they were the only heavy missile ships she had.
The massive fighter strike had dissipated in wild confusion as its squadrons raced after the suspected kamikazes, and she swallowed a curse as she checked the large scale plot of the entire system. The Bugs were driving straight for Sarasota. They hadn't reached it yet, but they would.
"Korab, Kerintji and Toubkal are Code Omega, Sir. Borah and Apo have disengaged successfully, but they're out of it. Only one missile fort is still in action."
"Understood. The Bugs?"
"Seven Archers left, Sir. They're all damaged; we don't know how badly."
"Admiral Husac?"
"Rearmed and returning. ETA seventeen minutes."
Murakuma nodded and looked back up at Waldeck's com screen.
"Pull the SDs back. We'll have to let Husac handle them."
"Agreed." Waldeck's voice was as bitter as her own thoughts.
"Can what's left of John's command get free?"
"I think so. They don't have much firepower left anyway."
"Then pull them out. We might as well save somebody," she said harshly.
"Sir, it's not your fault," Waldeck said quietly. "No one could have—"
"Just pull them out, Admiral," Vanessa Murakuma said flatly, and turned away.
* * *
The battle raged on. The Fleet's missile ships were gone, but the enemy had suffered heavily. All his missile superdreadnoughts and five of his battle-cruisers had been driven out of action or destroyed. Neither side now possessed an extended-range missile capability, but the Fleet retained a solid core of forty-eight superdreadnoughts, screened by twelve battle-cruisers . . . and if the enemy wanted to engage them, he would have to come into their range.
* * *
Murakuma paced savagely about her briefing room. The Bugs had been reduced to a bare third of their initial strength over the last seventy-nine hours, but that third was still coming. Her fighters had hunted down all but four of the cutters, and those four had been easily picked off by her starships' defenses, but the huge fireballs as they died confirmed Marcus' suspicion. Only heavy loads of antimatter could account for them, yet knowing she'd been right to divert her fighters made her feel no less a murderer. She'd left her missile-armed battle-line to fight unsupported, and it had been battered into uselessness, and the fact that it had done the same to the Bugs' missile ships was scant comfort, given how damned many other SDs they had left.
She took another turn around the compartment, like an exhausted, goaded animal. She'd battered the Bugs viciously, slashing in with coordinated fighter strikes and pounces by her short-ranged missile ships, but they were still coming, and—
The admittance chime sounded, and she whirled towards the hatch. For one moment, her lips drew back in a snarl, but then she closed her eyes and drew a deep, shuddering breath.
"Enter," she said flatly, and Marcus LeBlanc stepped into the briefing room.
The intelligence officer looked worn and worried, but unlike her, he'd actually managed a few hours' sleep, and she wanted to curse him for the concern in his eyes. Concern for her.
"Well?" she said sharply.
"I—" LeBlanc shrugged. "Tear my head off if you want, but someone has to say it. You need rest."
Murakuma opened her mouth to flay him, but then she made herself stop and turned her back, fists clenching as she stared at the holo display above the conference table.
The planet Sarasota hung there, and her exhausted, bloodshot eyes clung to the huge Fleet Base in orbit around it. That base was as heavily armed as twenty superdreadnoughts. Against any rational foe, she would have backed it to handle every battered capital ship still headed for it, but if even a single Bug superdreadnought managed to penetrate its defenses and ram, it would die.
"I don't need rest," she grated. "The stims are holding."
"Like hell," LeBlanc said. "Damn it, Vanessa, you're killing yourself!"
"Why not?" Hysteria edged her jagged laugh. "That's what I'm best at, killing people."
"It's not your fault! Damn it to hell, you're not God!"
"This discussion is closed." She wheeled back to him, and he recoiled from her raw fury.
"No it isn't." He tried to keep his voice calm and rational. "Someone has to say it, and none of the rest of your staff will—"
"I said it's closed! Or do you need a little brig time to remind you what a direct order is?!"
He opened his mouth again, then closed it. She truly meant it, he realized shakenly.
"All right," he said finally, his tone leached of all emotion. "But whether you're willing to rest or not, you have to make a decision. You've done a hell of a job, but they're still coming, and for all we know, there's a hundred more SDs right behind them."
"There aren't," she said flatly. "If there were, they'd already have called them forward."
"Why?" he shot back. "Because we would?" He barked a laugh. "The one thing I can tell you for absolute certain is that these things sure as hell don't think like we do! Maybe they're expending this entire force just to grind us up so they can send in a reserve for the kill!"
"No." She shook her head so violently she had to catch herself on a chair as her exhausted body staggered. "No, this is it. All they have. And they're not taking this system away from me."
"It's over, Vanessa," he said softly. "No one could have done more, but it's over."
"No it isn't." She shoved herself back upright and glared at him.
"But—"
"It isn't over!" He stepped back involuntarily as she shouted at him, and then she stormed past him onto the flag deck. He followed quickly, mind racing for some argument, any argument, that might get through to whatever rationality remained under her exhausted desperation.
"Get me Admiral Teller," she told her com officer, and turned to the screen as Teller's face appeared. "How many fighters do we have left?" she asked without preamble.
"About two hundred, plus the Fleet Base's group. Call it three hundred."
"Call the base's fighters forward. We'll stage them through your bays."
"That will leave the planet without any fighter cover," Teller began, "and—"
"I know that. Just do it—now."
Teller's eyes widened. She saw them dart over her shoulder, as if seeking someone else, and deliberately stepped between him and LeBlanc. The movement wasn't lost on the other admiral, and after a moment, he nodded.
"Yes, Sir," he said quietly. "May I ask what I'll do with them once they arrive."
/>
"You may." Murakuma punched a stud, bringing Demosthenes Waldeck's worn face up on another screen, and faced them both. "Demosthenes, we're calling in the base's fighters. Once they've arrived and our own groups have had time to reorganize, activate Leonidas."
Waldeck's face stiffened, and, for just an instant, she felt the protest hovering behind his eyes. Leonidas was the last-ditch option, a headlong attack into the enemy. It had been devised as a contingency plan, one to be activated only after the Bugs had been decisively weakened, and she recognized his desperate concern for his battered battle-line. His remaining ships were heavily out-massed by the surviving Bug superdreadnoughts, and Leonidas would commit them to a fight to the death within the enemy's weapons envelope.
"Sir, are you certain about this?" he asked quietly.
"I am. I know they outmass us, but they're hurting, too. And they don't have any fighters. You'll coordinate with Jackson and we'll go in together, fighters in tight. We'll hold them there till we're into energy range, then throw them in the bastards' faces."
It was a council of desperation, and she knew her subordinates knew it, but Waldeck said nothing for a moment. And then, to her exhausted astonishment, he nodded slowly.
"It might just work," he said, and Leroy Mackenna looked up from his console in disbelief as the Corporate Worlder nodded again.
"It better," Teller said grimly. "We won't have anything left to try again if it doesn't."
"Sir, have you considered waiting just a little longer?" Ling Tian asked hesitantly. "We're still wearing them down, and—"
"And they're wearing us down," Murakuma cut her off. "The odds aren't going to get any better, and we can't let things that use starships for projectiles get close enough to ram the base."
"We won't be in any shape to stop a follow-up attack, Sir," Waldeck cautioned, but his tone was that of a man considering all options, not a protest.
"We'll worry about that then," Murakuma said flatly. "Now let's get moving."
* * *
" . . . and that's the plan," Anson Olivera told Fifth Fleet's three surviving strikegroup COs. Given the plan he'd just briefed them on, he didn't expect to survive much longer . . . and neither did they. It was against the fighter jock's code to ever sound less than breezily confident, however tough the mission profile, but all four of them were having trouble pulling it off this time.