took the signal to arrive from each ship down to the merest fragment of a second, which meant that Chenforce’s ships were continually bouncing ranging lasers off each other, and the data from these worked into the sensor feed calculations.
Chenforce didn’t starburst yet, but Chandra Prasad assigned each squadron a starburst pattern based on Sula’s formula. Each used a separate formula so the Naxids would have a harder time figuring out that the maneuvers weren’t completely random; but each squadron knew the others’ patterns, so the ships could continue to share sensor data.
“Engine flares!” Maitland’s baritone voice rang in the close confines of Command. “Engine flares at Wormhole Three!”
Sula looked at the display and saw a whole constellation of stars flying into the system, plasma tails blazing. Probably the vast majority were decoys, but there were at least three real ships, giants like the converted transports.
Whatever they were, they were too late. Even though they were accelerating at crew-killing velocities, they’d still flash past Naxas a day after the battle.
If Chenforce won, they’d have the newcomers for dessert. If the Naxids won, the newcomers would be redundant.
Michi Chen, with her furious pursuit, had succeeded after all in wrecking the Naxids’ schedule.
Chenforce raced on, Michi’s heavy squadron now in the center flanked by the two light squadrons. The Naxids responded by deploying squadrons of their own. The nine giant auxiliaries were clumped on the far side of the warships, with the smaller ships as their screen.
The warships fired, a volley of over three hundred missiles. Sula checked the chronometer: 2314.
“Message from Flag, my lady,” said Ikuhara. “Return fire at will.”
“Right,” Sula said. “Let’s make sure this is thelast battle, shall we?”
THIRTY-FIVE
Countermissiles lashed out. Antimatter fury raged in the space between the ships. More missiles were on the way.
Martinez looked at the display, the two light squadrons attached to Michi’s heavies like a pair of wings, the Naxids in a formation that countered that of the loyalists. Everyone was in the same plane, just as they’d been at Magaria.
He messaged to Chandra. “Do we really want to limit ourselves to just two dimensions?”
There was no answer till the next salvos of missiles found each other, blossoming to create a screen, and then a series of orders came from Chandra. The two light squadrons were ordered to rotate about a common axis, with Michi’s squadron joining them equidistant from the others. The squadrons were also ordered to starburst.
Martinez’s acceleration cage creaked as it swung to the new heading. He could only imagine the alarm in the minds of the Naxids as they saw Chenforce swinging into its new configuration, the three squadrons rolling around one another as the individual ships darted and flashed in alignments that had never been prescribed by any tactical manual, the ships like chaff flying before a crazed typhoon aiming at their destruction. He wondered how the Naxids could possibly react.
Let’s hope it’s with panic,he thought.
“Message from the flag,” Falana reported from the signals station. “All ships to volley in succession at fifteen-second intervals.”
That would put a lot of missiles into the pattern over a period of time, create a lot of plasma splashes, and help mask Michi’s movements. The maneuvers might look all the more ominous if the Naxids only glimpsed them between roiling plasma spheres.
“Fire Pinnace One,” Martinez said. The little craft raced away, heading away from the mass of explosions between the opposing fleets. A set of sensors to peek around the corner of the antimatter curtain and see what was happening on the other side.
The Naxids took their time to respond to Michi’s maneuver, and did so simply by matching it, one Naxid squadron planting itself in the path of each Chenforce element. The enemy were still in close formations, ideal close-packed targets for swarms of loyalist missiles.
Martinez felt a course change tug at his inner ear, and along with it a rising sense of optimism. The opposing forces hadn’t yet truly engaged, but already Chenforce was in a much better position for this stage of the battle than Tork had been in Magaria.
“Missile flares, my lord!” Warrant Officer Second Class Gunderson, at the sensor station, spoke in a deliberate sonorous calm. “There seem to be…well, hundreds.”
The nine giant ships had finally fired, and the number of missiles blossoming into existence on the tactical display was truly phenomenal. Hundreds, many hundreds. Thousands, perhaps.
Martinez’s nerves began to cry a warning.
This wasn’t going to be easy as he’d thought.
“Fire Pinnace Two,” he said.
He had a feeling he was going to need more than one extra set of eyes.
Light Squadron 17 flew amid a riot of missile tracks as the weapons officers of each ship tried furiously to match the incoming missile barrage with countermissiles.
The first barrage from the converted transports had totaled around eighteen hundred missiles, which exceeded the average squadron salvo by a factor of something like fifteen. There were so many missiles that they were coming in from all angles, some flying direct, some swooping far out to drive in from the loyalists’ flanks.
That first massive barrage had been followed by a second. Then a third.
Counterfire was complicated by the fact that Chenforce was now flying through the cooling remains of plasma bursts, which was beginning to fuzz sensor readings.
Squadron 17 had fired a pair of pinnaces well away from the squadron to provide a clearer view of events, but the two fragile little boats were beyond the range at which the squadron could protect them. If a group of the enemy missiles decided to target them, there was little Sula could do to prevent it.
“Message to Flag,” Sula said. “Query: press the enemy? End message.”
There was no point in staying in this shooting gallery any longer than necessary. The sooner Chenforce could buzzsaw its way through the Magaria survivors and destroy those huge missile platforms, the better.
“Message from Flag,” Ikuhara said a few moments later. “Engage more closely. End message.”
Sula gave the necessary orders, then copied to all other ships so the sensor net could be maintained. Ships swung on their axes. Gravities began to drag at Sula’s heart.
“All ships,” she ordered, “fire full batteries in succession at fifteen-second intervals. Target nearest enemy.”
The sensor operators were working furiously with their counterparts in Auxiliary Command, and with the weapons station, to spot flights of incoming enemy missiles and take them under fire. Ahead was a vast irregular plasma wall, radio-opaque, toward which Chenforce was advancing and from which the Naxids were flying.
In the virtual display, she raced toward the plasma wall, gauging its shape and the areas where it was likely to fade and cool or brighten with new bursts of fire. She shifted the center of the squadron’s movement toward areas where there were likely to be gaps, where she could see farther.
She sent her own offensive missiles plunging through the wall at denser points, to blind enemy sensors to their presence.
She wished she had a tactical officer to absorb some of the work. Commanding the squadron andConfidence both was a job worthy of two people.
Enemy missile bursts came closer. Point-defense lasers flickered out, seeking the missiles that wove and dodged to avoid their beams.
The converted transports unloaded another vast barrage. Sula began to taste desperation on the air.
She saw the enemy movement at the same time as Maitland’s baritone rang out.
“Starburst, my lady! The enemy’s starburst!”
The enemy force that had opposed Squadron 17 was flying apart, each ship trying to put as much distance
