"Query Asteroid Four for exact drive strengths," she said suddenly.
"Sir," the commander of her cruiser flagship said as they awaited an answer, "those miners don't have the equipment for precision work-and an hour-long transmission lag doesn't help. Why not take Jintsu and Atlanta out and see for ourselves?"
"I appreciate your spirit, Captain," Magda said, peculiar though it felt to call a mere lieutenant "Captain" onboard a light cruiser, "but we can't take our only cruisers into scanner range all by themselves . . . and if we took the freighters with us, we couldn't run if we had to."
"Yes, sir." Lieutenant Howard blushed as he realized his commodore had just tactfully advised him to let her tend to her own knitting.
"Asteroid Four says they think they're all strength twelve or less, Commodore," her com officer finally said dubiously.
"Thank you. Any incoming messages from them?"
"No, sir. Nothing."
That was bad, Magda thought. No surrender demands? Did that mean they were unaware they were being scanned? Or that they had a pretty good notion of what she had and figured she meant to fight no matter what they said? And did she intend to fight? Exactly what had they sent against her?
Well, now, if they were strength twelve or less, then almost certainly there was nothing out there larger than a cruiser. If only Asteroid Four could relay the information directly onto Jintsu's cramped battle plot!
"We've got an amplification from Asteroid Four, Commodore. They make it three at strength eight to twelve and three strength six or below. They sound confident, too."
All right, Magda-think, girl! Strength six drives were destroyers. Strength twelves could be light carriers, but she doubted it. Too many fighter jocks were Fringers. Assume they were all cruisers . . . a heavy and two lights? They might make it a standard light battlegroup, if the CA were a Goeben. . . .
"Ask Asteroid Four if-"
"Commodore," her com officer's voice was very quiet, "they just went off the air in midsentence."
Magda closed her eyes. No messages, and they just casually polished off an unarmed listening post en passant. That sounded more like Orions than the TFN, but it resolved her dilemma. They'd drawn first blood; if she had any chance at all, she'd fight.
She thought furiously. Against command datalink, her own forces were at a severe disadvantage. The enemy ships would think, move, and fight as a single, finely meshed unit; her ships were not only more lightly armed, but they'd have to fight as individuals. On the other hand, she had over a dozen armed freighters, and her two light cruisers formed a datagroup with Skywatch, as long as they were in range-and Skywatch was a lot bigger than any CA, especially a Goeben with all that armament sacrificed in favor of data net equipment. Of course, if it was a Goeben, she'd also mount jammers to take out Magda's own datalink at close range.
All right, Just suppose she had them figured right-what did she do with them? They'd be in missile range of the planet in eleven hours, or she could go out to meet them. If she went out, she lost Skywatch; if she stayed, she lost maneuvering room. Decisions, decisions.
She drew a deep, unobtrusive breath and nodded to Lieutenant Howard.
"Captain Howard, the flotilla will assume Formation Baker. We'll wait for them here."
"Yes, sir," Howard's voice wasn't especially enthusiastic, and she felt a twinge of sympathy. Light cruiser captains were imbued with the notion of maneuver and fire-they hated positional battles.
"If I'm right," Magda said slowly, "there's a Goeben out there, Captain. I want maximum firepower laid on her as soon as we can range on her. If we can break their data group-and keep their ECM from breaking ours-we'll have a good chance. They'll outclass us ship for ship, but we've got the numbers. If we don't break them-" She shrugged.
"Yes, sir." He sounded more enthusiastic as he digested her plan. God, what she wouldn't give for a properly trained staff! But in another sense, she wouldn't trade these people for anything. They might be mutineers and traitors, but they'd put their lives on the line just to get here. There would never be any reason to question their devotion, and maybe enough of that could make up for their rough edges.
"Skywatch has them on scanners, Commodore!"
Magda jerked awake in her command chair as her chief scanner rating's voice burned into her dozing ears.
"Coming up from data base now, sir . . . Flagship's definitely a Goeben. She's Invincible, sir, and she's the only heavy! The other cruisers are strength nines-light cruisers! They're . . . Ajax and Sendai, sir!"
Thank God! They had a chance, but their losses were still going to be awful. She turned to Howard.
"Captain Howard, tune in your datalink. If those bastards don't say something soon, Operation Borodino is about to begin."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
The hours of waiting were suddenly minutes, flitting past like raindrops. Magda watched her plot, almost praying for a surrender demand. But there was nothing, and the range continued to drop.
"Enemy force launching missiles," her fire control officer said suddenly. So there it was. They didn't even want to negotiate.
"Stand by point defense," Magda said coolly. "Targets?"
"Tracks look like Skywatch, sir."
"Very well. Lay our own missiles on Invincible."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Open fire!"
Jintsu quivered as her external ordnance let fly, and Magda's plot was suddenly speckled with flecks of light as Atlanta and Skywatch flushed their external racks at the oncoming cruiser, as well. She felt her lips thin over her teeth. Even command point defense was going to have trouble with that lot, and she wondered if the loyalist commander knew Skywatch had taken delivery of antimatter warheads just before the mutinies? If he didn't, he'd be finding out shortly.
But incoming missiles were sleeting in at Skywatch, and there were a lot of them. Point defense crews aboard the cruisers and fortress tracked the incoming fire while battle comp sorted out the clean misses from the salvo, but there weren't many; orbital forts weren't very elusive targets. Then the small laser clusters trained onto the probable hits. Counter missiles zipped out, and for seconds space was wracked with brilliant flares of detonating warheads.
"Hits on Invincible!" Gunnery screamed. "One . . . three . . . five of them, sir! She's streaming air!"
But Skywatch's blip was pulsing, too, as missiles slipped through to impact on the big fort's powerful shields. Magda gripped her lower lip between her teeth, waiting as the brilliant dot flickered and flashed. Then the report came in.
"Eight hits on Skywatch, sir-all standard nukes. Took out most of her shields, but she's still in business!"
"Good!" Magda ignored the informality of the elated report. "Captain Howard, Jintsu and Atlanta will engage Invincible at close range. Captain Malenkov will come with us. The remainder will engage targets of opportunity among the enemy formation."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
The rebels lurched into motion. Only Malenkov's three big freighters could even hope to stay with a warship . . . the others were much too slow, and Magda had no choice but to turn the engagement into one huge melee and hope.
The two forces closed to energy weapon range, and the TFN loyalists were taken aback by the rebels' reckless courage. Those lumbering freighters were sitting ducks . . . but they were so goddamn big! They soaked up force beams and hetlasers as they bumbled into range for their own light armaments, and what they lacked in datalink they made up in determination and sheer volume of fire.