The Khaiden armada-or nearly so, given the usual size of their raiding squadrons-had dropped gradient directly on top of the Imperial ships loitering around the Can. The Naniwa ’s sensor suite was already flooded with the fury of beam weapons igniting, and the threatwell was filled with swarm after swarm of missiles and bomb-pods spewing into the void.
Kosho spared an instant to thank Hachiman they were in motion and a fair distance from the rest of the squadron.
“Message drone away,” Oc Chac barked reflexively. “Transit to hyper in one hundred thirty-six seconds.”
Susan’s habitual calm turned icy and everything around her narrowed down to the storm unfolding in the threatwell. She could feel Oc Chac’s attention on her, hot and wavering, an unsteady flame. The other officers were still scrambling to bring deflectors up, or confirm gun crews and missile teams were standing by. Pucatli at comm was speaking rapidly into his throatmike, confirming readiness of the interior compartments and sections.
Kosho caught the Mayan’s eyes. “ Sho-sa, this is a brawl for dreadnaughts. I’ll handle maneuver, combat targeting, and tactics; you keep us able to move, fight, and react. Do you understand? We’re going to get hit hard, and you’re going to have to put us right with all speed.”
Oc Chac stared back at her for a second, almost paralyzed with panic, and then nodded sharply. “ Hai, Chu- sa, hai! ”
“Pilot, full ahead,” Kosho grated, seeing Naniwa ’s velocity climb. They had not, luckily, been at full stop when the attack began. The initial confusion around the Can had started to stabilize and she could see every Imperial ship was trying to get underway. They’ve jumped in “orumchek” formation, she realized, watching the spiderweb attack pattern of the Khaid ships unfold. And they’ve caught almost all of us at zero-v, pants down, finger up the nose.
“Weapons, all launch racks deploy, give me every sprint missile we can throw, configure for independent terminal tracking.” The stylus slashed through her copy of the threatwell, describing a second “shell” of target areas around the periphery of the combat area. “Pilot, full combat power, angle for thirty-two degrees off axis. Take us hard up along the Barrier line. Transit deflectors at maximum power.”
The Naniwa surged ahead, engines flaring sun-bright, warning lights flashing in every compartment as the crew raced to battle stations. Susan ran through a brief internal checklist, confirming all drives were showing green, no bay doors were open to space, and internal battle compartments were sealing. Already the ship shook with the vibration of the ammunition Backbone shuttling fresh shipkillers to the primary rails, while the missile racks rolled out from the hull.
“ Chu-sa, targeting solutions are locked.” Konev seemed absurdly happy. “Hardpoints are clear to launch.”
“Weapons, fire.” Kosho felt a sharp bolt of elation as dozens of missile tracks sprang into view on the threatwell, spiraling out from the Naniwa, which was now accelerating hard. Holloway was sparing nothing to hit the mark she’d set for him.
“ Kyo, salvo one away,” Konev reported, voice tight with adrenaline and fear. “Cycling launchers.”
In the center of the spiderweb, caught at a dead stop, battle-shields off-line, the surface of the Tlemitl rippled with white-hot explosions. Khaid particle-beam weapons savaged the enormous hull, chewing away at a shipskin four times the thickness of the armor encasing the Naniwa. Clouds of shipkillers rained in, flooding the point-defense network with a constant stabbing barrage of detonations. Behind them, bomb-pods stuttered, unspooling long chains of thermonuclear-pumped laser emitters. Despite being caught unawares, the Tlemitl ’s on- duty gun crews were already in action-city-block-long emitter nacelles swiveled, flaring with the sidescatter radiation from beam weapons igniting. Missile launch rails were cycling as fast as their hardware allowed, disgorging heavy shipkillers in bursts.
In Flag Command on the super-dreadnaught, Prince Xochitl-who had been caught by the attack in transit to a meeting with the senior Mirror scientists and their political officers-staggered as a pair of shipkillers detonated against the Tlemitl ’s hull. The internal g-field was fluctuating and even his coppery skin was noticeably pale as he dropped into a shockchair at the Admiral’s console. His Jaguars had been carrying the components for a full EVA suit with them, and now the Prince was locked down and encased in full armor.
The Tlemitl ’s captain, Ikaru Yoemon, was in Main Command, fifty decks and half the length of the ship away, which left the Prince with whichever duty officers were within reach of FlagCom when the first alarms sounded. Despite being shorthanded, Xochitl tapped into the battlecast directly and immediately upon establishing comm lock, the Flag threatwell sprang to life, showing the whole chaotic scene in vibrant detail.
The Fiske and Eldredge were already shattered hulks, spewing wreckage and burning with radiation fires on all decks. Two of the heavy cruisers, the Axe and the Mace, were expanding spheres of ionized metal and plasma- containment lost on their reactors, weapons cooking off in a ripple of secondary explosions. By tremendous luck, the Fleet tender Hanuman had been at the periphery of the attack area and was now only minutes from making gradient to hyperspace.
The battle cruiser Naniwa, which had just rotated out on a patrol sweep, was also out of the immediate melee.
Though his first instinct was to comm Thai-sa Yoemon for ship’s status, Xochitl knew the captain was fully occupied with damage control and fighting for his ship. Instead he confirmed the status of the other ships in the squadron and added himself to the ’cast command channel. Immediately the chatter of six or seven commanders flowed through his earbug, including the harsh bark of Chu-sho Xocoyotl on the Tokiwa.
“Battle shields coming on-line now,” Yoemon reported on a channel specific to the Tlemitl.
The overhead lights in Flag Command flickered and the constant shattering vibration of bomb-pod impacts and particle beam detonations ceased. In the threatwell, the Firearrow ’s glyph changed and Xochitl knew that outside-in the maelstrom of radiation, spinning debris, and streaking missiles-a wavering, rainbow-hued globe had sprung up around his ship. Within the second, one of the v-panes on his threatwell display was strobing, showing impact rates on the various shield cells managed by the massive Tototl-Aerospatiale generators embedded beneath the shipskin.
One corner of the threatwell spiked as an irregular sphere of plasma suddenly occluded the Can.
So much for the Mirror’s sensor platform, Xochitl thought, shunting the flood of data flowing over him to his exocortex. Battlecast is up and synchronized… Xocoyotl had better get-ah, good, here they come.
The secondary beam weapons on the Tlemitl were now firing in staccato, sweeping the area ahead of the massive ship free of bomb-pods and penetrators. The Khaid were fond of strewing clouds of one-off mines when they engaged the enemy, then working to drive their prey into the shoals which resulted.
Four Khaiden battleships-Xochitl had never encountered the class before and his exocortex could find no references to them in the Fleet briefings and intelligence estimates-were now closing on the dreadnaught, seeking to bring particle weapons to bear behind three speeding waves of shipkillers.
An answering salvo of penetrators was already belching from the Tlemitl. Xochitl fought down a fierce desire to override Yoemon and take direct command of the dreadnaught, but the Thai-sa was doing an able job. Initial damage was already being attacked by Engineering damage control parties. Shields were up, the ship was building velocity, and the Tokiwa and Asama were closing vector with all speed.
We need to get point-defense interlock engaged. The Prince scowled, watching the intercept projections update in his ’well. The Khaid were forming up, their main body of battleships-falling somewhere in size and throw-weight between the Tlemitl and her battle cruisers-screened from immediate attack by this lead group of four.
The two Imperial battle-cruisers swung in moments later, having reached interlock range on point defense. Both were spewing ECM pods and the new remote point-defense platforms as fast as their launchers could recycle.
“Combat interlock confirmed,” Thai-sa Yoemon and Chu-so Xocoyotl’s voices overlapped in each ear. The Prince had already seen his secondary status displays shade green. The Tlemitl ’s spoofer pods now began to flood
