Battles were supposed to be about inflicting as much damage as possible on the enemy. Her orders and Marphissa’s plan had turned that on its head, instead turning the engagement into avoiding damage. Since the other flotilla hadn’t expected that, and had been controlled by snakes with little experience at mobile commands, it had worked exactly as intended. So when the commanders of the other ships began calling in, expressing frustration and dismay over the odd engagement, Iceni answered them instead of letting Marphissa handle it. “Our goal in that engagement was to get through to the battleship with minimum delay. That we achieved. Review the rest of the plan. Once we drop off the shuttles carrying the ground forces, we are going back to hurt that other flotilla because by then it is going to be trying to get past us. Does anyone have any problems with my decisions?”
Unsurprisingly, no one expressed such concerns to her. Everyone also stopped complaining to Marphissa, who nonetheless looked dissatisfied. “They should respect my decisions, too.”
“They will. Or I’ll get rid of them and find commanders who do.” That statement, Iceni was sure, would also find its way around the flotilla by informal means.
The gas giant loomed ever larger before them. Off to one side, the bulk of the mobile forces facility, slightly smaller than Midway’s, hung in a geostationary orbit which ensured it would always be within line of sight of the second planet except for a single brief window each year when the star blocked it as the second planet orbited Kane. Swinging in past the facility was the merchant ship they had been tracking, ponderously braking itself as it began to pass out of sight around the curve of the gas giant. Unlike the warships, the merchant ship could only change velocity slowly.
“We can divert a HuK or a light cruiser out of our formation to intercept and take out that merchant ship,” Marphissa said suddenly.
“Do it. Make it a light cruiser. I want the snakes on that freighter to know a little fear as they see it coming for them.”
“This is Kommodor Marphissa to light cruiser CL-773. Detach from formation, intercept as soon as possible and destroy the freighter tagged by my targeting system.”
“This is CL-773. Understand detach and destroy. Confirm we are not to accept surrender of the merchant?”
Marphissa looked to Iceni, who shook her head. “Confirm destroy, do not accept surrender, CL-773.”
“Yes, Kommodor.”
“We couldn’t trust that they would actually abide by a surrender offer,” Iceni commented, annoyed with herself that she was justifying her decision to her subordinates.
“They would not,” Marphissa agreed. “It would be a trick to buy them time to reach the battleship.”
The flotilla had begun bending around the curve of the gas giant, the maneuvering systems pivoting the warships again so that they could brake velocity down once more, this time for a sustained period, and arc onto a vector that would, for a while, match a partial orbit about the gas giant. As they did so, CL-773 angled away, its vector aiming in a tight curve for an intercept with the frantically decelerating freighter.
“There it is!” Marphissa cried as part of the battleship finally appeared, its bulk hanging in a low orbit. “Communications, we’re a lot closer and in line of sight. Try to punch a message through to Sub-Executive Kontos and let him know we’re almost there.”
Iceni inhaled deeply, feeling relief flood her. If the snakes hadn’t broken through to Kontos yet, then success might be very close indeed. “Colonel Rogero, are your forces ready?”
“Yes, Madam President.” Like the rest of the ground forces, Rogero wore full combat armor, the mass of it looming in the passageway where the special forces waited to run through the access tube and into the shuttle mated to the outside of the heavy cruiser. Iceni checked the other heavy cruisers, seeing their status reports indicating their shuttles preparing for separation.
The strain on the warships grew as they swung closer to the gas giant and the battleship while simultaneously trying to reduce their velocity so that it would be slow enough to safely release the shuttles for their assault on the battleship. Normally, this kind of maneuver, a close swing by a planet or star, was made to use their gravity to accelerate ships. Iceni’s flotilla was instead fighting that, and she could hear the hull of the heavy cruiser creak alarmingly as it protested the forces wrenching at it. The moan of the inertial nullifiers rose to a higher-pitched shriek as they maxed out. Iceni’s display flashed red, frenzied warnings blinking for attention.
Reengage maneuvering safeties immediately.
Exceeding maximum stress conditions.
Hull failure possible.
Inertial nullifiers overstressing.
System failures imminent.
“Kom… mo… dor,” Iceni struggled to say over the strain of the g-forces.
“Forces… are… passing… maximum… now,” Marphissa got out, and as she finished Iceni could feel the pressure on her body ease and hear the pitch of the nullifiers begin to descend.
The battleship was growing in size at alarming speed while the warships kept slowing as fast as their main propulsion units and hull structures could manage. “Go, Colonel,” Iceni said, but Rogero already had his soldiers in motion, the hulking figures in their armor stumbling down the access tube into the shuttle and latching into the seats there. Without the power assist from their armor, the soldiers couldn’t have moved under such conditions.
“Forty seconds to shuttle launch,” the operations specialist announced.
Iceni watched the last soldiers hurling themselves onto the shuttle as the seconds scrolled down. “We’re still going too fast,” she said to Marphissa.
“We’ll be within acceptable parameters when we launch the shuttles,” Marphissa replied, her eyes locked on her display.
Iceni could see the velocity markers edging down steadily, dropping to meet the safety margins for shuttle launch, and wondered if they would make that. The battleship appeared to be right on top of them, so huge compared to even the heavy cruisers that it seemed to be more a moon shaped like a massive pregnant shark rather than something made by the hands of humanity.
“Ten seconds to launch.”
“We’re not there, Kommodor!” Iceni said.
“We will be.” Marphissa didn’t take her eyes off of her display, one hand hovering over the command for the shuttle launch.
Off to one side, light cruiser CL-773 tore past the merchant ship, pumping out hell-lance fire and slamming two grapeshot bundles into the ship’s command deck, the impacts knocking the merchant ship off course. Rolling slightly, the merchant ship wobbled onto a descent toward the gas giant.
“Five seconds.”
The velocity markers and launch margins were coming together as Marphissa’s hand swept down a small distance. “Launch!”
Iceni watched the symbol of the shuttle detach from her heavy cruiser, the other two shuttles breaking free of their own cruisers within a couple of seconds and following the first in a dive toward the battleship which now seemed to fill space before them.
“We’re coming under fire,” the combat specialist exclaimed. “Hell lances from the battleship.”
“How many?” Marphissa demanded.
“One… three… four hell-lance projectors. They’re not firing in a volley. They must be under local control.”
“The snakes,” Marphissa said. “Sub-Exec Kontos’s people still command the fire-control center, so the snakes can only employ as many hell lances as they can manually aim and fire.”