But Orions weren't Humans. Neither Koraaza nor any of his staff officers or subordinate commanders had even considered such tactical restrictions, and because they hadn't, they'd done something no Human had ever attempted-they'd actually devised and implemented a tactical doctrine in which their own fighters operated in the very heart of their starships' defensive fire. It wasn't easy, and it didn't come without cost, for the Humans were right. The fanatical emphasis Third Fleet had placed upon training its fighter defense officers for this moment paid enormous dividends, but not even that training could prevent "friendly fire" from claiming over two dozen of the defending fighters.
Yet while those two dozen fighters and another thirty destroyed by Bug missiles were dying, the massed fire of starships and fighters destroyed another three hundred-plus gunboats. Only nine of the kamikazes actually got through, and the massive size which had marked the monitors as targets to be swarmed out of existence stood them in good stead, for their equally massive shields and armor shrugged off the impacts without significant damage.
But although the exchange rate had been overwhelmingly favorable to the Alliance, the reports of still more gunboats streaming in while the ships Third Fleet had pursued from Bug-06 halted their flight and turned to come back at Third Fleet in company with the fresh gunboat threat promised that that could change.
Koraaza settled himself more firmly in his command chair, watching his plot through slitted eyes as the incredible density of hostile icons swept towards him. He had complete confidence in his vilka'farshatok's ability to defeat even this threat, but even the most confident and courageous warrior could feel wrenching pain at the price his farshatok would pay for their victory.
"Great Fang!"
Koraaza's head snapped around at the sudden shout. In all their years together he'd never heard Thaariahn raise his voice on duty, and sheer surprise held him for just an instant. But then he felt an even greater sense of surprise as he realized it wasn't fear he heard in his ops officer's voice. It was astonishment. Perhaps even . . . delight. And that was insane at a moment like this.
But Thaariahn seemed completely unaware that he'd just taken leave of his senses, and his very whiskers quivered as he waved a clawed hand at his own display.
"Great Fang!" he repeated. "Look at this-look!"
"Look at what, Claw of the Khan?" Koraaza demanded.
"The report from Astrography, Sir!"
"What about it?" Koraaza's attention was fixed upon the incoming threat. He truly didn't have time for the distractions of routine survey findings, although he supposed that Thaariahn's ability to focus on such matters at a time like this said a great deal for the claw's powers of concentration.
"Sir, we know this system," Thaariahn told him fiercely. "We have enough data now to positively identify it."
"We what?"
The operations officer's last statement had been enough to pull Koraaza away from the tactical plot even at a moment like this. Nor was the fleet commander alone in his reaction. At least a dozen officers turned to peer at Thaariahn in momentary astonishment before the reflexes of relentless training snapped their eyes back to where they were supposed to be.
Koraaza, on the other hand, could look anywhere he damned well pleased, and he stared at his ops officer in shock.
"We know this system," Thaariahn repeated. "Sir, its Home Hive Two!"
"Valkha!" Koraaza breathed softly, and then his wide eyes narrowed. "No wonder they pulled their mobile units out of Bahg-06! Ahhdmiraaaal Muraaaaaaakuma's offensive must have succeeded in breaking through as planned-and she must have inflicted major damage on whatever forces the Bahgs had stationed here to resist her. That is why they required reinforcements-any reinforcements!-even if it meant allowing us into Bahg-06!"
The outriders of the fresh gunboat storm burst upon the perimeter of Third Fleet's combat space patrol and silent vacuum burned afresh with plasma pyres as fighters and gunboats ripped and tore at one another. The urgent tempo of the combat reports rose once more about Koraaza, and he shook himself free of his sense of wonder.
He sat back in his command chair, watching the plot as his warriors and the Bugs slaughtered one another, and his mind raced.
Yes, Murakuma must have succeeded at least partly in her attack on the system. At the same time, she couldn't have succeeded in full, for the gunboats racing in to attack Third Fleet showed little sign of the disorientation inflicted by the Shiva Option. That wasn't to say there'd been no planetary bombardment, of course. It was entirely possible that Murakuma had managed to completely destroy one or more planetary populations and that the defenders had simply had sufficient time to recover from the shock before his own fleet arrived.
But it was also possible Murakuma's fleet had been badly defeated, or even destroyed. That was unlikely, because if the Bugs had managed to do that out of their locally available forces, there would have been no need for them to summon the force he'd followed here from Bug-06. Yet it was obvious that whatever else had happened, Murakuma was no longer operating here in Home Hive Two. If she had been, the Bugs would be continuing on their course to protect their inhabited planets from her, not turning on Third Fleet in full fury.
He wished, suddenly and passionately, that he'd paid more attention to the routine brief on Murakuma's intentions. There'd been no reason he should have, really. After all, no one in the entire Alliance had even suspected that he and Sixth Fleet had been planning to attack exactly the same objective! But even though his recollection of her plans and objectives was much less complete than he might have liked, he knew enough of her reputation and past accomplishments to feel confident that if she'd been forced out of the star system, she'd withdrawn on her own terms and in her own good time.
Which, he decided, was an example he would do well to emulate.
"We will fall back to Bahg-06," he told Thaariahn, and sensed a ripple of shock spreading out from him. He understood it, and he allowed his eyes to sweep the rest of the flag bridge before he returned his attention to the operations officer.
"We will defeat this next wave of gunboats," he said confidently. "I have no doubt whatsoever of that, nor do I doubt that our vilka'farshatok will manage to defeat and destroy the Bahg mobile units if we engage them fully. But we will take losses if we press the battle at this time. At this moment, we have the strength to hold Bahg-06 against anything the Bahgs can throw against us, and I do not choose to take losses among our farshatok by pressing on in ignorance of what Sixth Fleet may already have accomplished here. There is no need for us to encounter whatever forces remain in the star system by ourselves-not when we already know a second way into it. So we will fall back one system, and there we will dig in once more while we report what we have discovered to GFGHQ."
Understanding began to spread about him, replacing the sense of shock which had preceded it, and he bared his fangs in a hungry, predatory smile.
"We have honored our ghosts well this day, clan brothers and sisters," he told the flag bridge personnel. "We have brought them their first vilknarma, and we have already accomplished more than Lord Talphon anticipated we might when he agreed to allow us to attack. But now we know where our attack leads-that our axis of advance provides another route directly into one of the only two home hive systems which still remain to the Bahgs. I do not think the Strategy Board will overlook the importance of Third Fleet a second time! And perhaps even more importantly, we know now that this-this!-is the central system from which the ships who murdered Kliean came.