The Honor of the Qween

Faithful made him nervous about crossing swords with her, especially since Yu and Manning had been careful to preserve their own importance by seeing to it that their Masadan junior officers lacked their expertise. Ash and his people were willing enough, but they simply couldn't get the most out of their systems, and he could already feel their jagged tension as they, too, realized the enemy was somehow watching them at this preposterous range.

But that didn't change the fact that Thunder of God out-massed both his opponents more than twice over. If he had to fight his way through them, he could. Yet he also had to be able to carry through against Grayson... .

'Compute a new course,' he said harshly. 'I want to close to the very edge of the powered missile envelope and hold the range constant.'

* * *

'Course change!' Cardones sang out. 'She's coming back towards us at max acceleration, Ma'am.'

Honor nodded. She'd known this would come—indeed, she'd expected it far sooner, and puzzlement stirred again, for cruisers and battlecruisers were built to close and destroy, not for this timid sort of long-range groping.

But he was coming in now with a vengeance.

'Take us to meet her, Astro,' she said quietly, 'but let's see if we can't tempt him into a missile duel. Hold our closing accel down to—' She thought for a moment. 'Make it six KPS squared.'

'Aye, aye, Ma'am.'

Honor nodded, then pressed a stud on her arm rest.

'Captain's quarters, Steward MacGuiness.'

'Mac, could you chase me up some sandwiches and a pot of cocoa?'

'Of course, Ma'am.'

'Thank you.' She closed the circuit and looked at Venizelos. The Manticoran Navy tradition was that crews went into battle well-fed and as rested as possible, and her people had been at general quarters for almost five hours. 'Stand us down to Condition Two, Andy, and tell the cooks I want a hot meal for all hands.' She gave him one of her lopsided grins. 'The way this jackass is maneuvering, there should be plenty of time for it!'

Across the bridge from her, Ensign Carolyn Wolcott smiled down at her console at the confidence in the Captain's voice.

* * *

The command chair felt bigger, somehow, than it had looked when Yu sat in it, and Simonds' tired eyes burned as he watched his plot. Harrington had chosen to let Thunder close, but she was maintaining her position between him and Yeltsin. And when he'd reversed acceleration to slow his rate of approach, she'd matched him, almost as if she were hoping for a missile duel.

That worried Simonds, for Thunder was a battlecruiser. His missiles were bigger and heavier, with a significantly greater penaid and ECM payload. The Faithful had already seen bitter proof that Manticore's technology was better than Haven's, but did she believe her margin of superiority was enough to even the odds? And, far more frightening, could she be correct?

He made himself sit back, feeling the ache of fatigue in his bones, and held his course. They should reach extreme missile range in twelve minutes.

* * *

'All right, Andy—take us back up to GQ,' Honor said, and the howl of the alarm resummoned her people to their battle stations as she slid her hands into her suit gloves and settled her helmet in the rack on the side of her chair. She supposed she ought to put it on—though Fearless's well-armored bridge was deep at the ship's heart, that didn't make it invulnerable to explosive depressurization—but she'd always thought captains who helmeted up too soon made their crews nervous.

At least she'd managed a three-hour catnap in the briefing room, and the quiet voices about her sounded fresh and alert, as well.

'What do you think he'll do, Ma'am?'

The quiet question came from her blind side, and she turned her head.

'That's hard to say, Mark. What he should have done the minute he saw us was come straight for us. There's no way he's going to sneak past us—the way we intercepted him should have proven that. All he's done so far is waste about six hours by trying to shake us.'

'I know, Ma'am. But he's coming in now.'

'He is, but not like he really means it. Look how he's decelerating. He's going to come just about to rest relative to us at six and three-quarters million klicks. That's extreme range for low-powered missile drives, which isn't exactly the mark of an aggressive captain.' She shook her head. 'He's still testing the waters, and I don't understand it.'

'Could he be afraid of your technology?'

Honor snorted, and the right side of her mouth made a wry smile.

'I wish! No, if Theisman was good, the man they picked to skipper Saladin ought to be better than this.' She saw the puzzlement in Brentworth's eyes and waved a hand. 'Oh, our EW and penaids are better than theirs, and so is our point defense, but that's a battlecruiser. Her sidewalls are half again as tough as Fearless's, much less Troubadour's, and her energy weapons are bigger and more powerful. We could hurt him in close, but not as badly as he could hurt us, and even in a missile duel, the sheer toughness of his passive defenses should make him confident. It's—' She paused, seeking a comparison. 'What it comes down to is that in a missile duel our sword's sharper, but his armor's a lot thicker, and once he gets in close, it's our sword against his battleaxe. He ought to be charging to get inside our missile envelope, not sitting out there where we've got the best chance of giving as good as we get.'

Brentworth nodded, and she shrugged.

'I don't suppose I should complain, but I wish I knew what his problem is.'

* * *

'Missile range!' Ash said, and Simonds straightened in his chair.

'Engage as ordered,' he replied flatly.

* * *

'Missile launch! Birds closing at four-one-seven KPS squared. Impact in one-seven-zero seconds— mark!'

'Fire Plan Able.' Honor said calmly. 'Helm, initiate Foxtrot-Two.'

'Aye, aye, Ma'am. Fire Plan Able,' Cardones replied, and Chief Killian's acknowledgment was right behind him.

Troubadour rolled, inverting herself relative to Fearless to bring her undamaged port broadside to bear, and both ships began a snake-like weave along their base course as their own missiles slashed away and the decoys and jammers deployed on Fearless's flanks woke to electronic life.

* * *

'The enemy has returned fire.' Lieutenant Ash's voice was taut. 'Flight time one-seven-niner seconds. Tracking reports sixteen incoming, Sir.'

Simonds nodded acknowledgment. Thunder had an advantage of two tubes, as well as his heavier missiles. He hoped it would be enough.

'Enemy jamming primary tracking systems,' Ash announced, listening to his missiles' telemetry links. 'Seekers shifting to secondary track.'

* * *

Rafael Cardones fired his second broadside thirty seconds after the first, and Troubadour's launchers followed suit, slaved to his better fire control. A third broadside followed, then a fourth, and he nodded to Wolcott as Saladin launched her fourth salvo.

'Counter missiles now,' he told his assistant.