The Honor of the Qween

staggered out of the fireballs, clouds of atmosphere and vaporized alloy streamed back from where her port sidewall had died, but she was still there, and even as Honor watched, the maimed battlecruiser was rolling desperately to interpose the roof of her impeller wedge against the follow-up missiles charging down upon her. Her wedge restabilized, and her drive went to maximum power as her vector swung sharply away from Fearless.

She accelerated madly, breaking off, fleeing her mangled opponent, and HMS Fearless was too badly damaged to pursue.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Two brutally wounded starships swept onward around Yeltsin's Star while their crews fought their damage. Medical staffs fought their own wars against the horror of maimed and broken bodies, and every mind aboard them knew their next clash must be the last.

Honor Harrington listened to the reports and forced the living side of her face to hide her desperation. Fearless's communications section had been blotted away, rendering her deaf and dumb, but there was more than enough internal bad news.

A quarter of her crew was dead or wounded, and Commander Brentworth had found a job at last. The Grayson officer manned the damage control net from the bridge, releasing Lieutenant Allgood, Lieutenant Commander Higgins' senior assistant, for other work, and Higgins needed him badly.

Fearless's entire after impeller ring was down, and her starboard broadside was reduced to a single graser and eight missile tubes. Almost worse, the combination of damaged magazines and seven minutes of maximum-rate fire had reduced her to less than a hundred missiles, and her sensors had been savagely mauled. Half her main radar, both secondary fire control arrays, and two-thirds of her passive sensors were gone. She could still see her enemy, but her best acceleration was barely a third of Saladin's until Higgins' vac-suited engineers restored her after impeller ring (if they could), and even then, she'd lost so many nodes she'd be down to barely two-point-eight KPS?. If the battlecruiser's captain guessed the truth, he could easily pull out and lose her. He'd already reopened the range to almost ninety- four million kilometers; if he opened it another two light-minutes, Honor wouldn't even be able to find him, much less fight him, without Troubadour to relay from the recon drones.

Agony struck again at that thought, and she thrust it away. There was no time for it, yet try as she might, she couldn't forget that there'd been three hundred men and women aboard Alistair McKeon's ship; few of them could have survived.

But Rafe had hurt Saladin badly, too, she told herself. Maybe even badly enough. If her damage was severe enough, even fanatics might withdraw; if they didn't, it was very unlikely Fearless could stop her.

* * *

Sword Simonds held himself rigidly still as the medical orderly put the last stitch into the gash in his forehead, then waved aside the offer of a painkiller. The orderly retreated quickly, for he had more than enough to do elsewhere; there were over twelve hundred dead men in Thunder of God's hull, two- thirds of them soldiers who'd brought no vac suits aboard.

Simonds touched his own ugly, sutured wound, and knew he was lucky he'd only been knocked senseless, but he didn't feel that way. His head hurt like hell, and if he couldn't fault his exec's decision to break off, that didn't mean he liked the situation he'd found when he regained consciousness.

He clenched his jaw as the latest damage reports scrolled up his screen. Thunder's armor and the radiation shielding inside his wedge had let him live, but his port broadside had been reduced to five lasers and six tubes, and half of them were in local control. His maximum acceleration had been reduced twenty-one percent, his gravitics and half his other sensors—including all of them to port—were gone, and Workman's report on his sidewall generators was grim. Thunder wasn't—quite—naked to port, but spreading his remaining generators would weaken his sidewall to less than a third of design strength, and his radiation shields were completely gone. Simonds dared not even contemplate exposing that side of his ship to Harrington's fire ... but his starboard armament and fire control were untouched.

He touched the stitches again, and his mind was cold and clear despite his exhaustion. The bitch was still there, still stubbornly defying God's Will, and she'd hurt him. But he'd hurt her, too, and he'd checked the Havenite data profile on the Star Knight class against her missile expenditures. Even if she hadn't lost a single magazine, she had to be almost dry.

He glanced once more at his plot, his hate like ice at his core as he noted the way she continued to loaf along between him and Grayson. He didn't know how she was monitoring his every move, and he no longer cared. He was God's warrior. His duty was clear, and it was a vast relief to throw aside all distractions and embrace it at last.

'How much longer to restore the port sidewall?'

'I'll have it up in forty minutes, Sir.' Workman sounded weary but confident, and the Sword nodded.

'Astrogation, I want a straight-line course for Grayson.'

* * *

'He's changing course, Skipper.'

Honor looked up quickly at Cardones' report, and her blood ran cold. Saladin's captain had made up his mind. He was no longer maneuvering against Fearless; instead, he'd shaped his course directly for Grayson, and his challenge was obvious.

She sat very still for a moment, mind racing as she tried to find an answer, but there was none, and she cleared her throat.

'Put me through to Commander Higgins, Mark,' she said quietly.

'Yes, Ma'am,' Brentworth replied. There was a brief pause, then a strained voice spoke over her intercom.

'Higgins,' it said.

'James, this is the Captain. How much longer on those control runs?'

'Another ten minutes, Ma'am. Maybe a bit less.'

'I need them now,' Honor told him flatly. 'Saladin is coming back.'

There was a moment of silence, and the chief engineer's voice was equally flat when he replied. 'Understood, Ma'am. I'll do what I can.'

Honor turned her chair to face Stephen DuMorne.

'Assume we get our remaining after impellers back in ten minutes. Where can we intercept Saladin?'

She felt her bridge crew flinch at the word 'intercept,' but DuMorne only bent over his console, then looked back up at her.

'On that basis, we can make a zero-range intercept one-five-two million klicks short of the planet in just over one-five-seven minutes, Ma'am. Velocity at intercept will be two-six-zero-six-eight KPS.' He cleared his throat. 'We'll enter missile range eleven minutes before intercept.'

'Understood.' Honor pinched the bridge of her nose, and her heart ached for what she was about to do to her people. They deserved far better, but she couldn't give it to them.

'Bring us around to your new course, Steve,' she said. 'Chief Killian, I want the belly of our wedge held towards Saladin.'

'Aye, aye, Ma'am.'

Fearless began her turn, and Honor turned to Cardones.