At All Costs

"There aren't enough birds," Oliver Manfredi said suddenly. She looked up, turning towards the chief of staff, and Manfredi shook his golden head. "There's less than two thousand in the salvo, Ma'am. That's less than three hundred of their standard pods. So where are the others?"

Henke looked at him for perhaps three seconds, then spun her chair to face Lieutenant Kaminski.

"Get me an immediate priority link to Captain Oversteegen!"

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," the communications officer replied instantly.

"Weapons free!" Commander Dillinger snapped, and the Katanas of Dagger Flight began punching counter-missiles at the incoming fire.

Dillinger didn't really like to think about just how expensive each of his LACs' "counter-missiles" actually was. The systems built into the Viper for its anti-LAC role meant it cost twice as much as the standard extended-range Mark 31 CM on which it was based. But the Viper retained the Mark 31's basic drive system, and a counter-missile's impeller wedge was what it used to "sweep up" attack missiles. Which meant the Viper was still perfectly capable of being used defensively, and earmarking a percentage of them for missile defense, rather than using magazine space on dedicated Mark 31s which couldn't be used in the anti-shipping role, simplified their ammunition requirements and gave them a potentially useful cushion both offensively and defensively.

Now the Vipers bored out of their launch tubes, streaking to meet the incoming missiles, and Dillinger smiled nastily. He was willing to bet the Peeps had never seen LACs kill missiles at this range!

"You were right, Ma'am," deCastro said. "They do use those things for counter-missiles, too."

"Made sense," Bellefeuille said almost absently, watching her plot. "The signatures Admiral Beach recorded at Gaston made it pretty clear they were basically the same missile body and drive package, after all."

"And it's a reasonable decision from the viewpoint of ammo supply, too," Ericsson agreed, then showed his teeth. "Of course, sometimes even the most reasonable decisions can bite you right on the ass."

"Especially if someone else helps it do it," deCastro said with a tight, answering grin.

"Tactical," Michael Oversteegen said suddenly. "Have the near-planet pods we've located launched?"

"Sir?" Lieutenant Commander Gohr sounded startled. It took her a fraction of a second to shake her mind loose from the anti-missile engagement as the steady vibration of counter-missile launches shook Nike. The first wave of Vipers from Dagger Flight was begi

"No, Sir," she said, turning her head to look directly at him. "None of this fire's coming from Vespasien orbit!"

"That's what I thought," he said grimly. "Com, get me Dagger One."

"Sir," Lieutenant Pattison said, "you have an immediate priority signal from Admiral Henke."

"Put it through, Jayne-and get me Dagger One!"

"Aye, aye, Sir."

Michelle Henke's face appeared on Oversteegen's display, her expression tense.

"Michael, I'm looking at the missile density, and-"

"And it's too low," Oversteegen broke in. "We've just confirmed the near-planet platforms haven't launched a single bird." A window opened in the corner of his display, showing Crispus Dillinger's face. "And now, I've got t' go," Oversteegen told his admiral, and punched the button that brought Dillinger to the center of the display.

"Yes, Sir?" Dillinger said.

"There's somethin' peculiar about their attack pattern, Commander," Oversteegen said quickly. "They're only using a fraction of their total missile power-and everything they're actually firin' is coming from further away, with what have t' be poorer targetin' solutions."

"Sir?" Dillinger looked puzzled, and Oversteegen shook his head impatiently.

"They're tryin' t' distract us-and quite possibly t' lure us into expendin' counter-missiles before their real attack."

"But-"

"This isn't a debatin' society, Commander," Oversteegen said. "Abort your missile defense of this division-now!"

Crispus Dillinger looked at the face on his communications display with something very like incredulity. The man had to be insane! There were almost a thousand missiles tearing down on each of his ships, and he wanted Dillinger to stop defending them?!

But-

"All Daggers," he said harshly, "Dagger One. Abort Flyswatter. Repeat, abort Flyswatter. Missile Defense Alpha is now in effect."

"Well, it was nice while it lasted," Je

"Assuming they have the same basic magazine space as the Manty missile LACs we were able to inspect after Thunderbolt, and that these things are basically the same size as their standard counter-missiles, that has to be at least fifty percent of their total loadout, Ma'am. Possibly as high as sixty, if they've committed additional volume and mass to more point defense clusters, as well."

"And they did a real number on our missiles with them, too," deCastro pointed out. "Their kill percentages are damned close to twice what Cimeterres would have managed, even at much shorter ranges."

"True." Bellefeuille nodded. "On the other hand, there are less than fifty of them, and if Leonardo's right, they don't have a lot of missiles left."

She gazed at the plot a second or two longer, then nodded again, crisply.

"Initiate Phase Two, Leonardo."

HMS Nike twisted sinuously as the depleted missile storm tore down upon her and her division mate.

The Katanas had thi

But that left four hundred and seventy-eight, and as they streamed past the Katanas, the battlecruisers were on their own.

Oversteegen watched them come, absolutely motionless in his command chair, narrow eyes very still. Thirty point defense laser clusters studded each of Nike's flanks. They were individually more powerful than any past Manticoran battlecruiser had ever mounted, with fourteen emitters per cluster, each capable of cycling at one shot every sixteen seconds. That came to one shot every 1.2 seconds per cluster, but that was only twenty-five per broadside per second, and these were MDMs. They had traveled over twenty-five million kilometers to reach their targets, their closing speed was almost 173,000 KPS-fifty-eight percent of the speed of light-and they had a standoff attack range of 30,000 kilometers.

They crossed the i

The space about Nike and Hector was hideous with incandescent eruptions of fury, and bomb-pumped lasers ripped and gouged at their targets. But these battlecruisers had been designed and built to face exactly this sort of attack. Their sidewalls-especially Nike's-were far tougher and more powerful than any previous battlecruisers had mounted, and both of them were equipped with the RMN's bow and stern walls. The fact that they'd been able to keep their wedges turned towards the incoming fire even while they engaged it with their own counter-missiles presented additional targeting problems for the Havenite missiles' onboard systems. Instead of the broadside aspect ships were normally forced to show attack missiles' sensors, all these missiles saw was the wedge itself. But no sensor could penetrate a military-grade impeller wedge, which made it impossible for them to absolutely localize their targets. They could predict the volume in which their target must lay, but not precisely where within that volume to find it.