Radars and ranging lasers lashed out into the radio murk. The images of a few ships nearby resolved out of the gamma ray haze, other survivors of Cruiser Squadron 9.
Three, Martinez counted, four. Five if you countedIllustrious.
A few minutes earlier they had been nine.
“All ships fire by salvo.” It was Chandra’s voice this time. Presumably she’d just regained consciousness.
Another salvo was fired at the enemy they couldn’t see. Martinez wished he could link his sensors with those of the two observation pinnaces.
The plasma fog was cooling and dispersing rapidly. A ship appeared, vaguely, ahead, proving there had been at least one survivor of Tork’s Daimong squadron. Ahead of the single Daimong ship, Martinez could see the flares of missile explosions. There were many more explosions behind.
And then, within the space of a few seconds, the plasma surrounding the ship dispersed to the point where the ship’s sensors were suddenly able to receive data from one end of the fleet to the other.
Martinez looked at first for the enemy squadron he had been engaging, and saw nothing but the flights of missiles he had just sent at them. He supposed the Naxids were still concealed by cooling plasma bursts.
At least no missiles seemed to be heading in his direction.
Astern, opposing squadrons were still smashing at each other. Ahead, one more Daimong cruiser had materialized, and this one was tentatively identified by the computer as theJudge Urhug, Tork’s flagship. At any rate, it was maintainingUrhug ‘s course.
Farther ahead a battle blazed against the brightness of Magaria’s sun. Martinez saw ships whirling around the action in a series of irregular curves, and his heart gave a shout as he realized that Sula’s squadron was still fighting, still deploying the new tactical system.
She had destroyed the squadron she’d first engaged, apparently, and then decelerated to attack the next enemy squadron from its unengaged flank, the classic doubling maneuver that the rearmost squadrons had failed to accomplish. After destroying the second group of enemy, Sula and the second loyalist squadron were now dropping back to engage a third enemy force.
He could see at least five of Sula’s ships, and their pattern of movement implied that there were more survivors that he couldn’t detect. A song of relief caroled through his heart at the realization that Sula was almost certainly alive.
“My lord,” said Choy. “Message from Pinnace Three.‘Attack successful. Enemy destroyed. Request orders.’”
Martinez looked in surprise at the space that had been occupied by the enemy squadron. Even though the plasma bursts had thinned, no enemy ships had appeared. It appeared thatIllustrious had just fired a series of missile barrages at enemies that had already been vaporized.
A burst of cold satisfaction raced through him. “Order Pinnace Three to return to the ship,” he said. “Weapons, direct all remaining missiles to attack the enemy next astern. Engines, reduce acceleration to one-half gravity.”
Relief akin to euphoria flowed through his sinews as the great pressure of eight gravities eased. The hull gave a series of cracks and shudders as if it were flexing vast limbs. Martinez pressed the touchpad that would connect him with Chandra.
“Request permission to decelerate and double the enemy next astern.”
Chandra’s answer was swift. “We’ve only got twenty-two minutes to our nearest approach to the sun,” she said. “We’ll have to wait till after our slingshot.”
Martinez looked in surprise at the display and saw that she was right. He’d been paying so much attention to the battle that the range to Magarmah had escaped him. Hours had gone by since the first Naxid squadron fired its initial flight of missiles, and meanwhile the sun had been growing closer.
“All ships to form on the flag,” Chandra said, this time over the general broadcast channel. “Illustrious,here’s your course.”
The cruiser altered its heading to bring it onto the course Tork had ordered for the fleet after the solar passage. Three other survivors of the battle took station nearIllustrious, each keeping a wary distance from the flagship and each other in order to avoid getting fried by the other ship’s blazing antimatter tails. The last survivor did not acknowledge any of Michi’s transmissions, but shaped its own course for the solar approach. It was unable to communicate though it was clearly under command, and it probably hadn’t received Michi’s order. The other ships stayed clear lest it do something unexpected.
Judge Urhuggave no orders and did not alter its course. Its engines were unlit, and as a result Squadron 9 was slowly closing on it. Martinez wondered if Tork’s cruiser was a ship of the dead.
Ahead ofUrhug there was a ferocious blaze of action and then silence. Sula’s squadron broke its formation and began heavy accelerations to line up for the passage across Magarmah.
If they had left any Naxids alive, the enemy was hidden by expanding plasma bursts.
Engines roared andIllustrious quaked as Squadron 9 burned around Magarmah. Martinez clenched his teeth in the face of high gravity and managed to hold onto consciousness.Illustrious maintained heavy thrust for another four minutes after the passage, to shape its course for Magaria, and Martinez looked ahead.
There were nothing but friendly ships between Squadron 9 and Magaria. Sula’s Squadron 17 was already dispersing again into its whirling formation and decelerating to engage the enemy. Martinez counted seven ships remaining in her squadron, and fourteen in the other friendly squadrons ahead.
Judge Urhughadn’t fired its engines during the solar bypass, and so hadn’t shaped the course that Tork himself had ordered for the fleet. The flagship was flying by itself toward the interstellar void.
“Prepare to decelerate,” came Chandra’s voice on the all-ship channel. “We will double the enemy squadron to our rear.”
Martinez hung weightless asIllustrious rotated to its new heading. He could only imagine what was happening on the other side of Magarmah as the two fleets approached the same point. Annihilating flights of missiles would be fired at point-blank range, as much a danger to the aggressor as the target. Possibly on account of the danger, they’d stop shooting missiles entirely, but that didn’t mean they were through fighting. As the opposing squadrons fell into line ahead and astern of one another, they would be close enough to begin deploying their antiproton beams as offensive weapons, and cause the same kind of carnage that Harzapid had seen on the first day of the mutiny. The opposing forces would roar around the sun shooting great chunks out of each other, and if they didn’t separate sufficiently after the transit, they’d just keep on shooting.
Martinez was at a loss as to how he’d be able to aid friendly ships if that were the case. He might not be able to fire missiles for fear of hitting his own side.
“Decelerate on my mark, at three gravities,” Chandra said. “Five, four, three, two, one, mark.”
Deceleration kicked Martinez in the spine. He saw that most of the other survivors began decelerating at the same moment—all but Sula’s, which had been decelerating all along—and he wondered if Michi was the senior surviving officer and had given them all an order.
Two ships didn’t decelerate. One was the cruiser that had been unable to communicate, which plodded along on its preset course, and the other a ship farther up the line, which might be in the same condition.
Martinez saw specks whirl around the sun, their torches flaring to bring them on track for Magaria. It was impossible to tell whether they were loyalist or Naxid, and Michi transmitted a demand that they identify themselves.