"Transmitted, sir."
"Good. All ships... maneuver point as indicated... X-Ray Yaphet... signal when ready."
"All units ready, sir."
"Maneuver... now!"
The Bhor captains, any of whom could maneuver a single-tube transport sideways up a cobblestone alley, snapped their orders. Sten's crescent folded over on itself and became a wedge. It was just like an acrobatic squadron—but on-screen he could see the big difference. His fleet was taking hits. Lights indicating individual ships changed colors—Hit... Lost Nav... Hit... Drive Damage—or just vanished.
He ignored them. He also ignored the low murmur of a low-ranking weapons officer at the ship's own board. "We are acquired... homing... impact nine seconds... I have counterlaunched..."
But he was damned relieved when he heard, "Hit! Incoming destroyed."
The Imperial formation was a real shambles, spitting missiles in all directions. Sten would not have liked to be in the center of that kaleidoscope as it changed shapes and then fragmented further.
"Fleet status," he snapped.
"Fifty-one units still report full—"
"That's enough." Later—maybe—there would be time to worry about casualties and pickup.
"Otho. Do you have their command frequency?"
"On-screen. Ready to pirate."
There was a large screen, set away from the main control area. On it was an Imperial admiral, giving orders. Otho had the audio blanked. Sten thought he recognized the admiral... no. Impossible.
"Team Sarla... go!" he ordered.
"Acknowledged."
"Team Janchydd...go!"
"Janchydd... attacking."
"All fleet units. Individual control. Acquire targets and exploit. Command, out."
The real battle began. The Bhor swirled into the melee like so many piratical Drakes against an armada. This was the best possible use of their talents. Most of the traders had vast experience at going one-on-three against raiders. Going against—and winning—by always doing the unexpected, lashing out in all directions and with missiles and electronics, every bit as berserk as their ancestors.
Between Gregor's standing orders and battle experience from the Tahn wars, most of the Imperial ships were expecting to fight a conventional battle against conventionally arrayed enemies.
This main battle had all of the symmetry, logic, and clarity of a feeding frenzy. Sten turned his attention away. The Bhor could not win—sooner or later numbers would out—but they were not supposed to.
His two combat teams were: Sarla, two cruisers that had been hurriedly converted to assault transports; Janchydd, eleven light escorts—corvettes and patrol craft. Just as many ships as Sten had calculated to be controlling the slaved transports. He knew how the Empire ran its convoys, so all of the escorts had been given the electronics and sensors of deep-space tugs.
Sten had named his teams after old, barely worshiped Bhor gods for morale reasons. If there could be Victory, these two teams would gain it.
Now he waited—if waiting could be defined as hanging on to an upright on a chaotic ship's bridge while the ship itself was in the middle of a Kilkenny cats' brawl.
Team Sarla: The two assault ships closed on an already-damaged battleship, well inside the BB's minimum safety launch range. A Bhor missile blew most of the ship's stern away, and the assault ships' ports yawned. Lines were jetted across by scouts, and the three ships were linked.
Armored Bhor went across the lines—and they boarded the Imperial warship.
"First wave across," came the broadcast.
"Otho!"
The Imperial admiral's on-screen image blanked and was replaced by a blinding succession of visuals that would have gagged the biggest splatter-hound director of livies.
The Imperial battleship was already a slaughterhouse from missile hits. More Imperials died when the assault transport's missile dumped the ship's atmosphere. They may have been suited, but many of them had not closed their faceplates or pulled on gauntlets. It was hard to fight a ship wearing armor.
Then the Bhor ravaged through the ship. They had explicit orders: no prisoners. Play to the cameras.
The Imperial officers and crew died to the last being. The deaths were filmed by Cind and the other camera operators, their images selected for maximum effect at a mix panel in Sten's control room and then rebroadcast on the Imperial command link.
It did little for a young sailor's morale when a ship-screen showed a CIC with beings just like himself standing with their hands raised in surrender being butchered like so many hogs. Some ships blanked that frequency—and lost any link to command for many seconds while a secure link was being established. Other ships left the screen on, allowing every slaughter to burn into the minds of their crew members.
Team Janchydd: The control ships for the transports were lightly armed and armored. They could offer little resistance against the weapons of the Bhor escorts. Six of the eleven stopped firing after taking hits. Two plugged on, still fighting with what armament they had. Three more blew into debris. One Bhor ship was lost.
Techs boarded the six control ships and took over the navboards for the AM2 transports. Their escorts closed, slaving to those ships. That was not enough. If more transports—and AM2—couldn't be "stolen," Sten's mission would be very close to a failure. But Team Janchydd's sailors had initiative.
The two still-firing command ships were battered into surrender. They also were boarded and seized. Somehow the Bhor electronics wizards also picked up control frequencies for two of the destroyed Imperial command ships.
Team Janchydd's commander gave the word. Slowly the convoy—the mushroom's stem—broke apart as the Bhor ships diverted the transports, just as a tug would take over a liner's controls while docking.
The heavy cruiser squadrons reacted late to the attack—but reacted. They formed for a counterattack.
Sten saw the counterattack on-screen, put another indicator on the formation, and sent it out.
"All fleet units," he ordered then. "Targets indicated. Priority target. Individual control. Go!"
He did not wait for an acknowledgement.
"Otho. Phase Two," he said.
Otho triggered a switch. A prerecorded disc started broadcasting on the pirated command frequency. It showed a grim, heavily armed Otho looming into the camera, flanked by Sten and another lethal-looking Bhor. It may have been Sten's show, but he knew he did not look nearly as horrid as Otho.
The Bhor chieftain's voice boomed: "All Imperial units! It is useless to continue the resistance. You are ordered to surrender. Fire yellow-blue-yellow flares to save your lives. Ships surrendering will remain unharmed."
Sten had not been stupid enough to think that cheap ploy would get him an entire Imperial fleet to white-flag. All he was after was further confusion.
He got it. A few ships obeyed. Some of them were fired on by other Imperial ships. On other ships, panicked sailors minimutinied, which gave their officers problems more immediate than what was happening outside.
Thirty-nine Bhor ships slammed into the cruiser formation, and another confusion began. The stolen transports broke away from the battle area. Their controllers put them on full drive.
Now, Sten thought. "All units. Break contact!"
This is the turning point. I've stolen their clottin' gold. The Imperials have two options. Please—what the hell were the names of those damn Bhor gods—hell, any god paying attention right now... let me be lucky. Let that clottin' admiral be consistent.
Gregor was. Finally having patched a second secure com link to his fleet, he should have ordered a general pursuit of the raiders, under individual or squadron control. He didn't. Perhaps he had heard of Hattin, where Saladin had decoyed a crusading army into the desert and then slaughtered them piecemeal. For all he knew there could be an ambush element lurking out there somewhere.