The Honor of the Qween

Matthews wanted to join them, but he didn't. It wasn't professionalism that stopped him. It wasn't even dignity or an awareness of the example he ought to be setting. It was the thought that somewhere beyond those incoming missiles was at least one other ship which could match what Harrington's were doing.

* * *

'There go the last of them, Skipper,' Hillyard said bitterly, and Theisman grunted. Just like Franks to throw good money after bad, he thought savagely. Good as Harrington's point defense had proven itself, her systems had to be working at full stretch. If Franks had been willing to hold his follow-up salvos till the range closed and she had less response time ... But, no! He was trying to swamp her with sheer volume, when anyone but an idiot would have realized timing was more critical than numbers.

He checked his plot. Harrington was still thirty-five minutes out. There was time for a little judicious adjustment of his position ... assuming Franks didn't think he was trying to run and burn him down.

It wouldn't make much difference in the end, but the professional in him rebelled against going down without achieving anything. His fingers flew as he punched a trial vector across his display, and he nodded to himself.

'Astrogation, download from my panel!'

'Aye, Sir. Downloading now.'

'Prepare to execute on my command,' Theisman said, then turned to Lieutenant Trotter. 'Com, inform the Flag that I will be adjusting my position to maximize the effectiveness of my fire in—' he glanced at his chrono '— fourteen-point-six minutes from now.'

'Aye, Sir,' Trotter said, and this time Theisman smiled at him, for there was no more question in his com officer's voice than there had been in his astrogator's.

* * *

Blackbird's second salvo fared even worse than its first, and Honor relaxed slightly when there was no fourth launch. Either they'd shot their wad or they were being sneaky, and the rapidity of those first three salvos made her doubt it was the latter. She looked up at Venizelos.

'I don't think we'll have to nuke the base after all, Andy,' she said as the last wave of missiles came in. 'That's good. I'm still hoping we—'

A crimson light glared, and Honor's head whipped around as an alarm squealed.

'Point Defense Three's rejecting the master solution!' Cardones' hands flew across his console. 'Negative response override.'

Honor's fists clenched as three missiles charged through a hole that shouldn't have been there.

'Baker Two!' Cardones snapped, still fighting the malfunction lights.

'Aye, aye, Sir!' Ensign Wolcott's contralto voice was tight, but her hands moved as rapidly as his. 'Baker Two engaged!'

One of the missiles disappeared as Apollo responded to Wolcott's commands and blew it away, but two more kept coming. Fearless's computers had counted them as already destroyed before Point Defense Three put itself out of the circuit; now they were scrambling frantically to reprioritize their firing sequences, and Honor braced herself uselessly. It was going to be tight. If they didn't stop them at least twenty-five thousand kilometers out—

Another missile died at twenty-seven thousand kilometers. The port decoy sucked the other off course, but it detonated six hundredths of a second later, fine off the port beam, and HMS Fearless bucked in agony.

Her port sidewall caught a dozen lasers, bending most of them clear of her hull, but two struck deep through the radiation shielding inside her wedge. The composite ceramic and alloys of her heavily armored battle steel hull resisted stubbornly, absorbing and deflecting energy that would have blown a Grayson-built ship's titanium hull apart, but nothing could stop them entirely, and damage alarms screamed.

'Direct hits on Laser Two and Missile Four!' Honor slammed a fist into her chair arm. 'Magazine Three open to space. Point Defense Two's out of the loop, Skipper! Damage Control is on it, but we've got heavy casualties in Laser Two.'

'Understood.' Honor's voice was harsh, yet even as she grated the response, she knew they'd been lucky. Very lucky. Which wouldn't make the families of the people who'd just died feel any better than it made her feel.

'Point Defense Three is back on line, Captain,' Ensign Wolcott reported in a small voice, and Honor nodded curtly.

'Put me through to Admiral Matthews, Com,' she said, and the Grayson appeared on her command chair com.

'How bad is it, Captain?' he asked tautly.

'It could have been a lot worse, Sir. We're working on it.'

Matthews started to say something else, then stopped at the expression on the mobile side of her face. He nodded instead.

'We'll clear Blackbird in—' Honor glanced at her plot '—twenty-seven minutes. May I suggest we shift to our attack formation?'

'You may, Captain.' Matthews' voice was grim, but his eyes glittered.

* * *

Theisman grunted in relief as Principality began to move and none of her 'friends' killed her. His ship was the wrong one for an action this close, for her heavy missile armament left little room for energy weapons, and at this range that was going to be fatal. But Harrington had made a mistake at last; she was holding her entire force together as she swept around Blackbird after the enemy she knew had to be hiding behind it—just as he'd expected.

She couldn't know exactly what she was up against, so she wasn't taking any chances on getting her units caught in isolation by something big and modern. It was the smart move, since anyone who hoped to take her would have to hold his forces together or run the same risk of defeat in detail. But there was no way in hell Franks was going to beat her. That meant Principality wasn't going to survive anyway, and the options were different for a kamikaze.

The Havenite destroyer accelerated, streaking around Blackbird in the same direction as her enemies.

* * *

'Engage at will!' Honor snapped as enemy impeller sources suddenly speckled the plot. There was no time for careful, preplanned maneuvers. It was a shoot-out at minimum range, and she who shot first would live.

The numbers were very nearly even, and the Grayson LACs were bigger and more powerful than their opponents while nothing in Masada's order of battle even approached Honor's ships. But Blackbird Base's sensors were feeding them targeting data before their enemies even saw them, and they got off their first shots before even Fearless could localize them.

The cruiser shuddered as a shipboard laser blasted through her starboard sidewall at pointblank range and a direct hit wiped away Laser Nine. A Grayson LAC blew up just astern of her, and Apollo took two hits in rapid succession, but fire was ripping back at the Masadans, as well. Two of their LACs found themselves squarely in Covington's path, and Matthews' flagship tore them apart in return for a single hit of her own. The destroyer Dominion locked her batteries on Saul and reduced the Grayson ship to a wreck, but Troubadour was on Saul's flank, and her fire shredded the Masadan ship like tissue paper. Dominion vanished in a ball of flame, and a pair of Grayson LACs went after her sister ship Power in a savage, twisting knife-range dogfight.

Ernst Franks cursed hideously as enemy ships tore through his formation. Solomon's lasers killed a Grayson LAC, then another, but the action was too close and furious for her computers to keep track of. She fired again, at a target that was already dead, just as Power blew apart, and then some sixth sense jerked his eyes to the visual display as HMS Fearless flashed across his flagship's bow.

The cruiser's massed beams ripped straight down the open throat of Solomon's impeller wedge, and the last cruiser in the Masadan Navy vanished in an eye-tearing flash as her fusion bottles let