"Ma'am," Miyagi said hoarsely, "Protector's-"
"I see it, Nick." She closed her eyes in grief. Three million tons of ship and nine thousand people-gone in an instant. And she'd thought Defender's drive was in worse shape than Protector's... .
"Launch from Bandit Three!" her tracking officer reported suddenly. "Multiple launch!"
"Target?" Santander demanded sharply.
"Tracking on Sentinel, Ma'am. Scan shows eight incoming."
Eight! That was a full load for a Trollheim's stern battery! Heavy fire, yet not heavy enough to be automatically decisive at this range-which sounded more like a Kanga's idea than a Troll's ... thank God.
"Deploy decoys," she ordered. "Stand by to interdict."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
Both remaining dreadnoughts vomited decoys. Each massed well under a hundred tons, with a drive of strictly limited life, but while they lasted their scan images exactly matched that of the ship which had launched them.
Gunnery's lock on the incoming missiles was tenuous under these conditions, despite the devious scientific tricks which shifted their scan signals up a couple of levels and made them FTL for their current band, yet the idea of evasive action was laughable. It was all up to the decoys and interdiction fields, and at least they had the advantage of human technology.
The Multi-Dimensional Missiles flashing to meet BatDiv Ninety-Two mounted no explosive warheads; they carried something far worse: small, powerful multi-dee generators of their own. They were huge-even Defender could squeeze in only twenty-four similar weapons-but they were carried despite the squeeze they put on magazine space for any other purpose because they were lethal to any multi-dee field. In the microsecond before contact, their onboard generators spun up to full power, and they hit their target's field as a directly opposed surge field, inducing harmonics guaranteed to drive any target into acoherency.
Fortunately, Kanga MDMs were stupid compared to human weapons, and these had to make a half-dozen "downstream" translations to reach Sentinel. If tracking problems afflicted BatDiv Ninety-Two's defenses, they would also force the Kangas' missiles to rely almost entirely on their homing systems, and they were bleeding energy all the way down-gradient. That lost energy would form a "bow-wave," inducing myopia in their onboard tracking systems guaranteed to degrade their accuracy dramatically. It would have required the full efforts of all three Trollheims to guarantee saturation of Sentinel's defenses at this range, and that was why Santander was certain no Troll tactician had ordered this launch.
"Interdiction fields active," Miyagi reported, and she nodded. The last-ditch interdiction fields, like all active defenses, worked best against the longer flight times of missiles chasing from astern. They were simple in concept: focused directional energy fields projected into the paths of incoming attackers. A Guardian-class dreadnought could put out ten of them, but each was relatively tiny. The trick was to drop them exactly into the attacking weapons' line of flight, and when flight time was short and gunnery's lock was weak, it was almost as much a matter of experience and intuition as computer prediction... .
Three decoys vanished, and four incoming missiles went with them. Two more MDMs ran headlong into interdiction fields and disappeared into infinity. The remaining pair whizzed past Sentinel at almost the same instant-clean misses, with absolutely no chance of tracking back around at this velocity and translation gradient-and Commodore Josephine Santander realized she had been holding her breath only when she let it out. A third of the enemy's after firepower had just been expended for absolutely no result!
"All right, Nick," she said flatly, "we should have the range in another few minutes. Dust off the tac net and kill me some Trolls."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am!"
BatDiv Ninety-Two continued to overhaul at close to ninety percent of light-speed, winding down its translation gradient steadily. Commodore Santander heaved a surreptitious sigh of relief as the multi-dee generators dropped back from emergency over-boost to saner power settings. Something decidedly unnatural had been done to those Kanga multi-dees to wring such performance out of them, but the higher power margin of the human generators was still sufficient-barely-to outperform them. And once they were in the same eta band level, fire control would become far more effective... .
"Dropping into dimensional synchronicity-now!" Miyagi reported.
"Gunnery, fire plan alpha!"
"We have a second launch, Ma'am. Two launches! Bandits Two and Four are launching full salvos at Sentinel!"
"Replenish the decoys! Stand by to interdict!"
Five of Defender's MDMs spewed out. Kanga decoys blossomed on her plot as Sentinel spat out a second quintet of missiles, but human MDMs were smarter-and faster-than anything the Kangas had. Even in a pursuit curve, they streaked past the enemy's decoys before the return fire could range on the human lures, and she felt a savage grin stretch her lips as one group of missiles ran in on each of the two rearmost Trollheims.
Troll reflexes were quick, but their predictors were less efficient than BatDiv Ninety-Two's. Interdiction fields destroyed seven missiles in bursts of light like brief suns-but the other three went home, and the capital ship odds were suddenly even.
Yet sixteen Kanga MDMs still raced into the teeth of the depleted squadron's defenses. Decoys called to them and died. Interdiction fields flared with eye-stabbing intensity as they crashed into the barriers and disappeared uselessly. And one slid past everything both dreadnoughts could throw at it.
Josephine Santander bit her lip hard as TNS Sentinel vanished into the howling depths of eternity.
The bridge was silent with the stunned stillness of shock.
"Abort engagement." Santander's soft command seemed shockingly loud in the silence, and Miyagi shook himself, then relayed the order quietly to the rest of her division. She closed her eyes briefly. Sentinel should have come through-but she hadn't. And without Sentinel or Protector to support her, Defender had no MDMs to waste at extended ranges. There were still nine warships in front of her, and she had only nineteen more of the big missiles.
The commodore leaned back in her command chair, fighting the shock and grief of eighteen thousand lost lives as she grappled with the imperatives of her situation. She had Defender, one heavy cruiser, and three destroyers against four capital ships and five light cruisers. As long as she remained astern, she was safe, for the Trollheim had expended her aft MDMs and the Ogre mounted no stern battery ... but if she stayed behind them, she gave them every defensive advantage there was.
"Captain Onslow," she said calmly, "we'll have to get ahead of them."
"Understood, Ma'am," the captain's voice was harsh but level. "Going back to over-boost now."
She closed her ears to the keen of the multi-dee as it rose once more, but she could not close her thoughts. If she lost the ship now, there was no hope, for Defender was her only remaining dreadnought. Her chance of stopping the enemy was horrifyingly slim, but without her flagship, BatDiv Ninety-Two's escorts had none at all.
"Scan reports they're trying to crank their translation fields up a bit, Ma'am," Miyagi said quietly. She opened one eye and gave him what she hoped was a confident look. "They're not getting very far; we're level-reaching on them now."
"Good." She inhaled. "What's their formation?"
"The heavies are moving into translation lock, and the cruisers are closing up to cover the rear of their formation, Ma'am."
"I see." She glanced at her com screen and saw the understanding in Captain Onslow's eyes. It was a smart move, if a cold-blooded one. But then, those cruisers were crewed by Trolls. They were expendable.