between itself and the others as possible. Sula narrowed her eyes—uselessly, since her view was projected not on her retinas, but on her optical centers—and carefully studied their movement.
They were not moving within the free-seeming calculations of Ghost Tactics. The enemy were just dashing away from one another.
Relief sang in her bones. The enemy had seen Squadron 17 cut through Naxid formations at Second Magaria, but they either hadn’t realized that its movements weren’t random or hadn’t had a chance to do a proper analysis. They’d concluded that battles were best fought from starburst formations.
Each enemy ship was now moving and fighting on its own. Squadron 17 was still a coherent entity that flew and fought as one.
She was going to pick off the enemy one by one.
Sula chose one of the enemy ships, reached into the virtual space with one gloved hand and stabbed it with a finger. It shifted from blue to white.
“Message to Squadron,” she said. “Copy to all ships. Center formation on target vessel, beginning at”—she checked the chronometer—“twenty-four forty-nine.”
Half a minute laterConfidence swung to a new heading, its engines still blazing. Sula’s acceleration couch swung on a short arc, then returned slowly to its deadpoint.
The hunt was on.
Martinez watched the radiation counter as the point-defense lasers of Squadron 31 flashed a dozen attacking missiles into a brilliant random pattern of overlapping spheres, like a spatter trail flung by a careless brush.
Thus far, he thought, the squadron had been lucky. Despite the vast quantity of missiles thrown at them, the enemy had been kept at bay. The Martinez Method was keeping the ships of the squadron within supporting distance of each other, and the overlapping fields of defensive fire were walling off the enemy attack.
So far, anyway.
The missile batteries were firing as fast as they could be reloaded. The sensor and weapons techs who shared Auxiliary Command with him, crew who normally sat out combat unless their cohorts in Command were taken out of action, were fully occupied tracking enemy attacks and plotting responses. Forty percent ofCourage ‘s missiles had already been fired, mostly as countermissiles. If this expenditure continued, there could be dire consequences. Martinez found it ludicrous that he might find himself in a superior tactical position, about to administer the coup de grace to the last Naxid formation, and find himself with empty magazines.
Another flight of missiles soared in. Point-defense weapons flashed in answer. Another part of the starscape burned with plasma light. A few missiles, dodging and corkscrewing, survived, but were retargeted and destroyed within seconds.
Courage,already burning for the enemy under heavy acceleration, gave a swerve to dodge any theoretical Naxid beam weapons. The movement felt like a fist in Martinez’s side.
The converted transports huffed out another vast barrage, like overripe weeds hurling a cloud of pollen onto the breeze.
Surely, he thought, they couldn’t keep this up. Surely they’d run out of missiles before long.
Surely.
Anger flashed through him.
“Message to Squadron,” he told Falana. “Each ship to fire one battery at converted transports.Vigilant to order a pinnace to accompany.”
It was time the weaponers aboard those Naxid transports had something to do other than plot offensive action. And the pinnace would be in a position to direct further barrages.
Couragegave another swerve. Martinez’s teeth clacked together.
“First blood to us, my lord.” Gunderson’s mellow baritone was filled with satisfaction.
Martinez looked at the display and saw a sphere of plasma where an enemy ship had once been. Sula’s Squadron 17 had made their first kill.
The enemy’s defenses were beginning to break down. All three warship squadrons had starburst, and their fields of defensive fire weren’t nearly as efficient as those of Chenforce.
Martinez plotted a missile strike and ordered it launched. The missiles would dodge through a series of plasma bursts to strike the enemy from an unexpected direction. He didn’t want Sula’s squadron to get all the glory.
He looked at the tracks of his missiles looping around the enemy warships to target the converted transports. A colossal number of enemy missiles were coming in the other direction. He clenched his teeth.
Courageceased its acceleration, and Martinez’s ligaments shrieked with relief as he floated in his webbing. His acceleration cage made a shimmering noise as the frigate reoriented, and then the engines flamed on again and he was punched into his couch.
Another of the random-seeming maneuvers dictated by Sula’s chaos mathematics. The constant dodging and shifting probably looked deeply sinister to the Naxids, the application of some principle they hadn’t been able to decipher.
The enemy were dodging as best they could, but without the relentless purposefulness dictated by Sula’s formula. The only Naxids who hadn’t starburst yet were the converted transports, which were still moving forward in their inexorable way.
Martinez began to wonder if theycould dodge. The transports were so huge that they couldn’t dart about like a frigate, they carried far too much inertia.
Which meant—theoretically—the transports were vulnerable to beam weapons.
The most formidable beam weapons in Chenforce were the antiproton cannons in Michi’s heavy squadron. He couldn’t command them, and they were already heavily committed in knocking down enemy missiles.
“Message to Flag,” he told Falana. “Transports are not maneuverable. Suggest hitting them with antiproton weapons. End message.”
The second kill went to Michi’s heavy squadron, an enemy ship erupting in a furious burst of angry antimatter. Martinez clenched his teeth and plotted another complex missile attack.
Parts of his display fuzzed out as the squadron flew through an expanding cloud of cooling plasma. He couldn’t tell where all the enemy missiles were. His heart boomed inside the confined space of his helmet, and his gloved hands dug into the padded armrests of the couch.
He launched his own missiles into the murk. He launched another barrage against the transports. He launched countermissiles against an enemy barrage that he could barely detect in all the fuzz. He launched countermissiles against a barrage he couldn’t see but somehow knew was there.
The enveloping plasma cooled and thinned, and his tactical display glowed with the glorious sight of his own missile striking home.
He watched as three enemy ships were engulfed in silent flame. His heart shrieked with triumphant joy and he raised a clenched fist against the gravities that were pinning him to the couch.
“Three for us!”he shouted.“Three for us!”
Hardly immortal words, but at least they had the virtue of sincerity.
He’d just incinerated a neat thirty percent of the enemy squadron facing him, and that would make killing the rest a lot easier.
And he’d scored higher than Sula and Michi, who had only picked off one apiece.
Martinez plotted another series of strikes and sent them on their way.
Things were improving.
Two.Squadron 17’s missiles had found a second Naxid warship, now a bright, hot expanding sphere of plasma as its supplies of antimatter fuel and munitions went up.
Lovely, Sula thought. Another star.
She sought through the radio murk for another target. Orders flashed to missile batteries. Missiles leapt off the rails.
It wasn’t enough to shoot missiles at an enemy, she thought. You had to shoot at the enemy’s neighbors as well, so missile defenses couldn’t combine to aid your real target. You had to keep every defense laser busy— morethan busy. Overwhelmed.
