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Five minutes passed. Then six. Eight. Ten. Somehow, Carolyn Wolcott stopped every single missile Saladin threw at her, but the enemy was adapting to Fearless's defensive ECM far more quickly. His fire was more accurate and heavier, and this time he wasn't flinching away. Cardones hit the battlecruiser once, then again, and a third time, and still she bored in, pounding back, shrugging aside her injuries.
Matthew Simonds mouthed an oath as yet another hit slammed into his ship, but then his bloodshot eyes glowed as a shout of triumph went up from his tactical crew.
HMS Troubadour vomited debris and atmosphere as the X-ray laser chewed deep into her unarmored hull. Plating buckled and tore, an entire missile tube and its crew vanished in an eyeblink, and pressure loss alarms screamed. The destroyer raced onward, trailing wreckage and air, and her surviving missile tubes belched back at her massive foe.
Honor winced as the laser ripped into Troubadour.Saladin had learned even more than she'd feared from that first engagement. Her ECM was far more efficient, her heavier, more numerous point defense stations burned down incoming fire with dismaying efficiency, and each hit she scored hurt far worse than the missiles that got through them hurt her.
She should have given Rafe his head earlier. She should have pursued Saladin before the big ship's inexperienced crew had time to adjust to their weapons, but she hadn't quite been able to believe her own suspicions then. And, she told herself pitilessly, she'd let herself be dissuaded not just by the need to stay between Saladin and Grayson, but by her own desire to live.
She bit her lip as another Masadan missile was picked off less than a second short of Troubadour. She'd lost her best chance to kill Saladin while she was still clumsy; now too many of her own people were going to die because of her failure.
"Look! Look!" someone shouted from the back of Thunder's bridge.
Sword Simonds wrenched around in his chair to scowl at the culprit for breaking discipline, but his heart wasn't in it. He, too, had seen two more missiles break through everything the bitch could throw against them.
"Direct hits on Missile Nine and Laser Six, Captain!" Lieutenant Cummings reported harshly. "No survivors from either mount, and we've got heavy casualties in Tracking and CIC."
Alistair McKeon shook his head like a punch-drunk fighter. Dust motes hovered in midair, the stink of burning insulation and flesh had leaked into the bridge before the ventilator trunk to CIC slammed shut, and he heard someone retching.
"Beta Fifteen's down, Skipper!" Cummings told him, and he closed his eyes in pain. There was a pause, and then his engineer's voice went flat. "Captain, I'm losing the port sidewall aft of Frame Forty-Two."
"Roll her, Helm!" McKeon barked, and Troubadour spun madly, whipping her rent sidewall away from Saladin. "Engage with the starboard broadside!"
Thunder of God heaved as another missile got through, but a sense of indestructible power filled Matthew Simonds. His ship had lost two lasers, a radar array, two more tractors, and another missile tube—that was all, and his sensors could see the shattered plating and wreckage trailing from the bitch's destroyer. Another broadside belched out as he watched, the exultation of his bridge crew flamed about him like a fire, and he felt himself pounding the arm of his chair as he urged those missiles on.
Sweat dripped from Rafael Cardones' face onto his panel. Saladin's electronic warfare patterns flowed and changed with incredible speed compared to their original, arthritic slowness, and the battlecruiser's point defense seemed to be seeing straight past his own birds' ECM. He could feel Wolcott's anguish beside him as more missiles stabbed through her over-strained defenses to maim and mangle Troubadour, but he had no time to spare for that. He had to find a chink in Saladin's armor. He had to!
"Jesus C—!"
Lieutenant Cummings' voice died with sickening sudde
There were no more reports from Damage Control Central. There was no one left to make them.
"Go to rapid fire on all tubes!"
Honor's eye was locked on the com link to Troubadour, and the live side of her face was sick as she heard the tidal wave of damage reports washing over Alistair's bridge. Ammunition or no, she had to draw Saladin's fire from Troubadour before it was too—
The com link suddenly went dead, and her eye whipped to the visual display in horror as Troubadour's back broke like a stick and the destroyer's entire after third exploded like a sun.
Cheers filled Thunder's bridge, and Matthew Simonds pounded the arms of his chair and bellowed his own thick-voiced triumph.
He glared at his plot and the single godless ship which still stood between him and the Apostate, his face ugly with the need to kill and rend. But even through his bloodlust, he saw the sudden quickening of Fearless's fire. Thunder lurched, alarms screaming, as another laser head got through, and this time he snarled in fury, for the hit had cost him two of his own tubes.
"Kill that bitch, Ash!"
It was Fearless's turn now.
Damage alarms screamed like tortured women as the first Masadan broadside lashed her, and Honor tore her mind away from the horror and pain of Troubadour's death. She couldn't think about that, couldn't let herself be paralyzed by the friends who'd just died.
"Hotel-Eight, Helm!" she ordered, and her soprano voice was a stranger's, untouched by anguish or self-hate.
"We've lost the control runs to the after ring, Skipper!" Commander Higgins reported from Damage Central. "We're down to two-sixty gees!"
"Get those impellers back for me, James."
"I'll try, but we're shot clean through at Frame Three-Twelve, Skipper. It's going to take at least an hour just to run replacement cable."
Fearless twisted again as a fresh laser gouged deep.
"Direct hit on the com section!" Lieutenant Metzinger's voice was ugly with loss. "None of my people got out, Skipper. None of them!"
Thunder heaved as two more lasers ripped at him, and Simonds swore. Missiles were coming in so fast and heavy even computer-driven laser clusters couldn't catch them all, but he was pounding Harrington with equal fury, and his ship was far, far tougher. A readout flickered on the edge of his plot as Fearless's impeller wedge suddenly faltered, and his eyes flamed.
"Increase acceleration to max!" he barked. "Close the range. We'll finish the bitch with energy fire!"
Fearless staggered yet again as another laser head evaded Ensign Wolcott. The fresh blast of X-rays wiped away two more missile tubes, and Rafael Cardones tasted despair. He was hitting the bastards at least as often as they were hitting Fearless, but Saladin was so damned tough she didn't even seem to notice, and he was down to nine tubes.
And then he froze, staring at his readouts. That couldn't be true! Only an idiot would run his EW that way—but if the Captain was right about who was in command over there... .