War Of Honor

A part of her still insisted that they had to be out there somewhere, but she told herself that was just the last gasp effort of her own paranoia. If they'd really had heavy ships, those vessels would be where her drones could see them. They'd have to be if they were going to offer any support at all to the two hundred and eleven LACs sweeping to meet her.

And if the Manties really hadn't shot themselves in both feet and one kneecap where their readiness states and training are concerned, she thought with grim satisfaction, those LACs would be doing something a hell of a lot smarter than what they're doing now.

She supposed whoever was in command over there was being brave enough, but Lord God was she stupid! What NavInt's estimates insisted was the entire LAC strength based on the system, allowing for four or five down for routine maintenance, was coming straight at the invaders with absolutely no attempt to maneuver for advantage. It looked like the Manty CO intended to charge straight down de Groot's throat, possibly in an effort to avoid the Republican broadsides and sidewalls. Of course, that would also expose her LACs to the fire of de Groot's entire squadron's chase armament as she closed, but maybe she figured she could survive that long enough to get into range. If so, she was an idiot . . . or even more unaware of the improvements in the Republic's naval hardware—including the new classes' bow walls—than de Groot would have believed was possible.

Of course, she probably thought she was facing only ships of the wall, too.

"Another message from the COLAC, Skipper," Chief Petty Officer Lawrence a

"Captain al-Salil instructs all Shrike commanders to remember to close to minimum range before firing," Lawrence said as expressionlessly as possible.

"Acknowledge," Flanagan replied, and this time she didn't bother with concealing her emotions. It wasn't as if it was going to matter very much longer, and she knew her entire squadron must be as disgusted as she was. Both LAC groups had been accelerating steadily to meet the oncoming Peeps for over two hours. They were less than forty minutes from intercept, and the idiot was still sending fatuous, stupid "reminders" instead of anything approaching useful attack orders.

She supposed, in fairness (although she had very little interest in being fair to al-Salil under the circumstances), that he had specified an attack plan . . . of sorts. Unfortunately, like the missile loads his LACs were carrying, Attack Plan Delta-Three, was purely generic, little more than a vague set of objectives and procedures. It had been obvious to Flanagan for months that neither al-Salil nor Schumacher had believed, even as the diplomatic situation worsened, that the Peeps would dare to attack Tequila. So neither of them had spent much time or effort thinking about serious defensive plans. All of their thinking had been directed towards maintaining "system security" against any purely local disorder or some sort of scouting foray or harassment the Peeps might have attempted with light forces. Delta-Three would probably have worked fairly well against a destroyer sweep, or a few flotillas of light cruisers. Even a battlecruiser squadron or two. Against what they actually faced, it was about as useful as a screen door on an airlock.

At least it looked as if the Peep commander must have missed almost as many classes in tactics as Flanagan's superiors had, because her formation might have been purposely designed to actually let Delta-Three hurt her. Flanagan wasn't certain what the Peep was thinking of, but the attack commander wasn't making any effort to deploy her escorting units in the sort of anti-LAC defensive shell the RMN had devised in its own wargames. She was keeping all of her cruisers tucked in unreasonably tight. They'd be able to mass their energy fire effectively against the Shrikes as the LAC groups closed in for point blank energy attacks, but they were interfering with one another's long-range sensor envelopes, and they were going to offer extremely vulnerable targets to the massed missile fire the Ferrets would be pumping out any minute now.

She watched the Peep icons change color on her own tactical repeater as al-Salil's tactical officer designated missile targets. The escorting cruisers turned crimson, one by one, as the COLAC assigned a massive overkill to them. In some respects, it was an admission of despair, a concession that the cruisers were the only ships they had the firepower to kill, although Flanagan doubted that al-Salil would have admitted it. Delta-Three called for a converging attack, taking out the flank guards first, to clear a path for the graser-armed Shrikes to execute a minimum-range attack on the core of any enemy force. Which would have been all well and good if their targets had been battlecruisers, or even battleships. Against superdreadnoughts with their sidewalls up and their weapons on-line, the Shrikes would be impossibly lucky to inflict damage that was more than merely cosmetic.

Still, she told herself grimly, the Peeps would at least know they'd been nudged. And she owed it to her own people not to let her own crushing sense of despair affect her own effectiveness. If they were going to die anyway, then it was her job to keep her own head clear and make their deaths mean at least something by expending them as effectively as possible. And, who knew, maybe—The plot changed suddenly, and Sarah Flanagan's heart seemed to stop.

Apparently the Peep commander wasn't quite the idiot she'd thought.

Agnes de Groot smiled like a hungry wolf as the master plot changed.

The incoming Manty strike was a confusing mass of red light dots. That was their infernally effective onboard ECM, coupled with the capability of their decoys and jammers. Still, as far as de Groot could tell, there were fewer EW birds covering them than had been projected, and CIC seemed to be getting a better count on the hostiles than she'd hoped for. It was always possible, of course, that they were being allowed to get "a better count" by Manty electronics officers with their ECM in deception mode, but she didn't think so. It looked to her as if she had genuinely caught the Manties completely unprepared and with very little idea of how to respond to the unanticipated threat.

Which, she thought ferociously, had just become an even greater threat than they'd imagined.

The large green beads of three of her "superdreadnoughts" were suddenly surrounded by clouds of smaller green fireflies, dashing away from them, as they launched full groups of Cimeterre —class LACs. NavInt's sources all confirmed that the Manties had stuck with their original, basically dreadnought-sized CLACs. Given the compensator advantages which the Manticoran Alliance had enjoyed for years, it gave them the best combination of LAC capacity and acceleration. But the Republican Navy had adopted a different philosophy. Its CLACs were visualized as primarily defensive platforms, mobile bases for the LACs intended to protect the wall of battle from long-range Manty LAC strikes. As such, there was no reason to make them any faster than the superdreadnoughts they would be protecting, and all of that lovely to

Which meant that whereas a Manty CLAC could pack approximately one hundred and twelve LACs into its bays, a Republican Aviary —class carried well over two hundred.

Now seven hundred-plus Cimeterres went charging outward to meet less than a third that many Manty LACs which were far too close at far too high a closing speed to even hope to evade them.