Neither of the maimed, half-blind ships any longer had the capability to look beyond the other even if they'd wanted to. And because they didn't, neither of them noted the wide-spaced hyper footprints as sixteen battlecruisers and their escorts suddenly emerged from hyper 23.76 light-minutes from Yeltsin's Star.
"That's it, My Lord," Captain Edwards said. "Tracking's got good reads on both impeller signatures. That's the battlecruiser at three-one-four; the one at three-two-four has to be Fearless. There's no sign of Troubadour."
"Understood." Hamish Alexander tried to keep his own emotions out of his voice as he acknowledged his flag captain's report. If Reliant couldn't see Troubadour, that meant Troubadour was dead, yet all the way here, he'd known they were almost certain to arrive too late, despite the risks he'd run with his hyper generator settings. Now he knew they hadn't, and a sense of elation warred with the blow of the destroyer's loss.
He'd spread his battlecruisers by divisions, spacing four separate formations about Grayson's side of the primary as they translated from hyper to give himself the best possible coverage, and brought them into n-space in a crash translation. He could hear someone still vomiting behind him, but he'd carried the highest possible velocity across the alpha wall with him, and it was as well he had.
Reliant's own division had come in with Grayson directly between them and Yeltsin, covering the most important arc of the half-circle, and the vectors projecting themselves across his plot told their own tale. Alexander's ships were not only ahead of the two warships on his plot but cutting their angle towards Grayson. That gave him an effective closing velocity of almost twenty thousand KPS, and the range to Saladin was barely twelve light-minutes, which meant Reliant would cross her course five-point-six light-minutes short of Grayson ... and enter extreme missile range three minutes before that.
They were in time. Despite all the odds, despite Troubadour's loss, they were in time for Grayson and HMS Fearless.
"I don't understand why Saladin isn't trying to run," Edwards muttered. "Surely she doesn't think she can fight all of us, My Lord!"
"Who knows what religious fanatics think, Captain?" Alexander smiled thinly at Reliant's commander, then looked back at his plot and hid a wince.
Fearless's course made Harrington's intentions brutally clear. It was no less than he would have expected of an officer with her recordwhich made him respect her courage no lessand he thanked God she wouldn't be called upon to make good her determination after all.
He raised his eyes to Alice Truman, and for the first time since she'd come aboard Reliant, some of the strain had faded from her face. She'd brought the relief force to Yeltsin two full days before it should have been possible ... and that meant Fearless would live.
But he knew from Truman's report that the cruiser's gravitics were gone, and without Troubadour, she had no one to relay from the recon drones for her. That meant Harrington couldn't know his ships had arrived unless he told her, and he turned to his com officer.
"Record for transmission to Fearless, Harry. `Captain Harrington, this is Admiral White Haven aboard HMS Reliant, closing from zero-three-one with BatCruDiv One-Eight, range twelve-point-five light-minutes. I estimate eight-two minutes before I can range on Saladin. Break off and leave her to us, Captain. You've done your job. White Haven clear.'"
"On the chip, Admiral!" the lieutenant said with a huge grin.
"Then send it, Harrysend it!" Alexander said, and leaned back with a matching grin.
The range continued to fall, and Honor knew there could be only one outcome. She'd made herself accept that from the moment Saladin started back in. She understood the fear she felt about her, for she, too, wanted to live, and she, too, was afraid. But this was why she'd put on the Queen's uniform, accepted the responsibility and privilege of serving her monarch and her people, and it didn't matter that Grayson was someone else's planet.
"Joyce."
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"I think I'd like a little music, Joyce." Metzinger blinked at her, and Honor smiled. "Punch up Hammerwell's Seventh on the intercom, please."
"Hammerwell's Seventh?" Metzinger shook herself. "Yes, Ma'am."
Honor had always loved Hammerwell. He, too, had come from Sphinx, and the cold, majestic beauty of her home world was at the heart of everything he'd ever written. Now she leaned back in her chair as the swirling strains of Manticore's greatest composer's masterwork spilled from the com, and people looked at one another, first in surprise and then in pleasure, as the voices of strings and woodwinds flowed over them.
HMS Fearless sped towards her foe, and the haunting loveliness of Hammerwell's Salute to Spring went with her.
"Fearless isn't breaking off, My Lord," Captain Hunter said, and Alexander frowned. His message must have reached Harrington over five minutes ago, but her course had never wavered.
He checked the time. At this range, it would take another five or six minutes for her reply to reach him, and he made himself sit back.
"She may be afraid Saladin will launch against the planet unless she keeps the pressure on," he said to Hunter, but his voice sounded self-convincing even to himself.
"Intercept in seven-five minutes," Simonds' astrogator reported, and the Sword nodded.
Hamish Alexander's frown deepened. Reliant had been in Yeltsin space for over thirty minutes, and still Harrington's course held steady. She was still boring in for her hopeless fight, and that didn't make any sense at all.
He had four battlecruisers, supported by twelve lighter ships, and there was no way Saladin could outrun them with their initial velocity advantage. With that much firepower bearing down on her enemy, there was no sane reason for Harrington to keep coming this way. The separation was still too great for Saladin to range on her, but unless she broke off in the next ten minutes, that was going to change.
"Dear God." The hushed whisper came from Alice Truman, and Alexander looked at her. The Commander had gone bone-white, and her lips were bloodless.
"What is it, Commander?"
"She doesn't know we're here." Truman turned to him, her face tight. "She never got your message, My Lord. Her communications are out."
Alexander's eyes went very still, and then he nodded. Of course. Harrington had already lost Troubadour, and her own acceleration was barely 2.5 KPS. That spelled battle damage, and if her com section had been destroyed as well as her gravitics
He turned to his chief of staff.
"Time to missile range, Byron?"
"Three-niner-point-six minutes, Sir."
"Time until their vectors merge?"
"Nineteen minutes," Hunter said flatly, and Alexander's jaw clenched in pain all the worse for his earlier elation. Twenty minutes. Less than an eyeblink by the standards of the universe, yet those twenty minutes made all the difference there was, for they hadn't been in time after all.
Grayson would be safe, but they were going to see HMS Fearless die before their eyes.