At All Costs

"Yes, Your Grace?" Vice Admiral Samuel Mikl¢s said as he appeared on Honor's com display.

"It's a trap, Samuel," Honor said flatly. The FTL com grav pulses meant there was no light-speed lag in their conversation, and Mikl¢s' eyes widened in surprise. "I can't prove it-yet," she continued, "but I'm sure of it. Get your carriers out. Go to Omega One."

It was obvious from Mikl¢s' expression that he wanted to ask her if she was certain that was what she really wanted to do, but he didn't. He only nodded.

"Yes, Your Grace. At once. And you?"

"And we, Samuel, are going to have our hands full, I'm afraid," she said grimly.

"Captain Durand!"

"Yes, Charles?" Durand turned quickly towards Bibeau.

"Sir, their carriers just translated out!"

"Damn."

Durand thought furiously for perhaps ten seconds. There could be a perfectly i

"Communications, pass Lieutenant Bibeau's current sensor data on to Tarantula. Tell them I recommend an immediate relay to Admiral Giscard."

The dispatch boat one light-minute outside Merlin's orbit received the Durand's FTL transmission, relayed to its light-speed communications arrays by the Tarantula net, seventy-two seconds after it was transmitted. The boat's computers updated, and it translated smoothly across the alpha wall. Javier Giscard's task force was waiting exactly where it had been for the past week and a half, and the dispatch boat quickly relayed the tactical update to his flagship.

"Sir, it looks like the Manties smelled a rat," Commander Thackeray reported. "Their CLACs just translated out."

"Damn it," Gozzi muttered, but Giscard only showed his teeth in a tight grin.

"Actually catching them that far outside the limit would have been problematical, at best, Marius," he said. "You know how hard it is a to plot a hyper jump this short. And they weren't exactly likely to be sitting there with their hyper generators off-line and their impeller nodes cold. Unless we'd translated down right on top of them, they'd have had time to get into hyper before we could range on them." He shrugged. "I'd figured we were going to lose them from the moment the Manties left them behind. However," his grin turned positively lupine, "if the carriers are gone, the LACs are stuck, aren't they?"

He looked at the updated plot for a few more seconds, then nodded decisively to himself.

"Selma, execute Ambush Three."

"Oh, crap," Commander Harriman muttered.

"Talk to me, Yolanda!" Raphael Cardones said quickly.

"CIC reports multiple hyper footprints, Skipper," Imperator's tactical officer reported harshly. "Three separate clusters-one dead astern of us at three-zero-point-four million clicks, one at polar north, and one at polar south. They've got us boxed, Sir."

Cardones felt his jaw muscles clench as his own tactical plot updated with the new icons.

Well, the Old Lady's been warning us the Peeps were eventually going to get wise, he told himself. I could wish they hadn't gotten quite this wise, though!

"It's confirmed, Your Grace," Andrea Jaruwalski said. "Three separate forces, a total of eighteen wallers and six CLACs, plus screening elements. We're designating the Arthur detachment Bogey One, the task group to system north is Bogey Two, the one to system south is Bogey Three, and the one astern of us is Bogey Four."

"And their units are evenly distributed between Two, Three, and Four?"

"That's what it looks like, Your Grace."

"So, three-to-one in wallers, at best," Mercedes Brigham said quietly, her expression taut. "Nine-to-one if they manage to concentrate. Plus the older ships in-system, of course!"

"If we let them concentrate on us, we'll deserve whatever happens to us." Honor's soprano was completely calm, almost detached.

The good news was that the three ambushing task groups had clearly been waiting in place in hyper, motionless relative to Solon. They'd come across the alpha wall with an effectively zero velocity, and though they were accelerating hard at five hundred and twenty-nine gravities, which meant their compensator safety margins must be down to zero, it was going to take them time to build a vector, whereas her own command was already up to over fourteen thousand kilometers per second. Moreover, her maximum acceleration rate was higher than theirs, so the force astern of them couldn't possibly overtake them unless they suffered drive damage. The bad news was that they were only thirty million kilometers back... and on low-powered settings, current-generation Havenite MDMs had a powered range of almost sixty-one million kilometers from rest.

"Missile defense, go to Plan Romeo," she said crisply. "Shift to formation Charlie. Theo."

"Yes, Your Grace?" Lieutenant Commander Kgari said instantly.

"We'll break south," Honor told her staff astrogator. "Take us to military power and plot me a course that bends us the maximum distance away from Bogey One but maintains at least current separation from Bogey Four."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Kgari bent over his console, and Honor returned her attention to the tactical plot, watching the icons of her formation shift rapidly.

It won't be long now, she thought.

"Sir, we've got about the best targeting solutions we're going to get," Commander Thackeray reported. Giscard looked at her, and she met his gaze frankly. "Our accuracy isn't going to be very good at such extended range," she said.

"Understood, Selma. On the other hand, we've got a lot of missiles. Let's start getting them into space. Fire Plan Baker."

"Aye, Sir!"

Chapter Thirty-Six

"Missile separation!" Andrea Jaruwalski a

"Understood. Do not return fire."

"Do not return fire, aye, aye, Ma'am," Jaruwalski replied.

"Your Grace, I have that course," Kgari said.

"Give it to Andrea."

"Come to two-niner-three, zero-zero-five at six-point-zero-one KPS squared," Kgari said.

"Two-niner-three, zero-zero-five, six-point-zero-one KPS squared," Jaruwalski repeated, and the task force altered course while the first salvo howled up its wake.

Each of Javier Giscard six SD(P)s could roll six pods simultaneously, one pattern every twelve seconds, and each pod contained ten missiles, each a bit larger than the Royal Manticoran Navy's own first-generation MDMs. The range was extremely long for accuracy, especially using Havenite fire control systems, so Giscard opted for maximum density salvos, both to saturate the enemy's defenses and to give him more possibilities of hits.

Each of his ships deployed three patterns-a total of one hundred and eight pods-programmed for staggered launch. And then, precisely on schedule, all of them launched and sent a total of almost eleven hundred multi-drive missiles screaming up Task Force 82's wake.

The range at launch was 30,450,000 kilometers. Given the relative motion of the two forces, actual flight distance was 36,757,440 kilometers. At that distance, and an acceleration of 416.75 KPS2, the MDMs attained a velocity relative to the primary of 175,034 KPS, which equated to an overtake velocity against Task Force 82 of 152,925 KPS, or fifty-three percent of light-speed.