"How do your targetin' solutions on Number One and Number Two look, Guns?" he asked.
"They're not as good as I'd like, Sir," Blumenthal replied honestly. "Against a Peep, my confidence would be high. Against whoever these people are, though—" He shrugged. "They haven't brought their ECM fully on line yet, so I can't be certain how it will affect our targeting solutions when they do. But given what they seem to be able to do to our passive sensors, I have to say I'd be cautious about their reliability."
"But they don't have it up yet," Oversteegen murmured.
"Not fully, no, Sir."
"Captain," Commander Watson said quietly from the com screen at Oversteegen's right knee which linked him to the exec and her backup command crew in Auxiliary Control, "it's my duty to remind you that the current Rules of Engagement require demonstration of hostile intent before one of Her Majesty's starships is authorized to open fire."
"Thank you, Ms. Exec." Oversteegen smiled thinly at her. "I'm aware of the ROE, but you're quite correct t' remind me of them, and the log will indicate you did so. However, under the existin' circumstances, and given these people's refusal t' respond t' any of our challenges, coupled with the obvious effort t' position their third ship t' ambush us from behind, I'm willin' t' consider that they've already demonstrated hostile intent."
A chill wind seemed to blow briefly around Gauntlet's command deck and the already palpable tension ratcheted higher.
"For what it's worth, Sir," Watson replied, "I concur in your evaluation."
"It would be nice if we were both wrong," Oversteegen observed. "Unfortunately, I don't think we are. Commander Atkins."
"Yes, Sir," the astrogator responded.
"Time t' hyper limit at constant accelerations and headin's?"
"Approximately twelve minutes, Sir."
"And how much can we shorten that?"
"Just a moment, please, Sir." Atkins punched new acceleration values and courses into her running plot, then looked back up. "If we go to max military power, Sir, we can hit the limit in ten-point-five minutes, assuming we change heading seventeen degrees to port for a least-time heading."
"Guns."
"Yes, Sir," Blumenthal responded.
"Number Three's current time t' maximum powered missile range at constant accelerations?"
"Assuming constant accelerations, and assigning Peep missile ranges, approximately ten minutes before Number Three enters her estimated engagement range, Sir," Blumenthal replied promptly. "However, I should point out that if these are Solarian-built units, they may be carrying Solly ordnance, as well, and we have no definitive figures on Solarian League missile performance."
"Noted," Oversteegen replied. "And if we go t' Astro's least-time course t' the limit?"
"Approximately nine-point-three minutes. The course change will let her cut the chord on us just a bit. But, again, Sir, that assumes Peep compensator efficiency at max military power, and a Solly-built ship may be able to pull a higher accel than that."
"Understood." It seemed to Gauntlet's bridge crew that a small eternity passed, but it was actually less than five seconds before Captain Michael Oversteegen made his decision.
"Helm, when I give the word, put us on Astro's course for the limit."
"Aye, aye, Sir," the helmswoman said tautly.
"Guns, the instant we change headin', I want full broadsides and the chase tubes on Number One. I know you'll have t' share uplinks, but I want maximum weight of fire. Hit him hard, because I've got a feelin' any of these people who can are goin' t' follow us right across the wall."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Commander Blumenthal acknowledged in a crisp voice.
"Very well, Helm. Execute!"
"What the f—?!"
Jerome Tyler stared at his plot in disbelief as no less than sixty missiles suddenly came roaring towards Fortune Hunter. No heavy cruiser packed a missile broadside that heavy! Had the bastards had missile pods on tow the entire time?
"Tactical! Bring up our EW! Point defense free! And open fire on that son-of-a-bitch!"
"There goes their EW, Sir," Blumenthal reported, and Oversteegen nodded. He also frowned, because the target's electronic warfare capability was enormously better than anything he'd ever seen out of any non-Manticoran unit. It came up faster, and it was far more effective.
The missiles' target faded into a fuzzy ball of jamming, and fiendishly effective decoys came to life on their tethering tractors. Blumenthal's systems didn't quite lose lock completely, but that lock became much looser and more tentative, and at least a quarter of Gauntlet's missiles veered off to target the decoys as the combination of limited telemetry links and the decoys' efficiency came into play. The fact that Gauntlet was bows-on to her target even after course change let her engage with both broadsides and her bow chasers alike, but she had links for little more than a quarter of that many birds without sharing them, and it showed.
Yet however good their EW might be, it was evident that they couldn't match Ghost Rider's capabilities. Both Number One and Number Two returned Gauntlet's fire almost instantly, but they fired only eight missiles between them. Clearly, those birds came solely from their chase tubes, which suggested that their broadside tubes couldn't match Manticore's off-bore capability.
But that was the only really good news, and Oversteegen watched as his own counter missiles and point defense engaged the incoming fire.
Just as the opposing cruisers' electronic warfare capability was far better than any Peep's would have been, so was their missiles' ECM. Point defense's firing solutions were much poorer than usual, and two of the incoming birds evaded no fewer than three counter missiles each. Blumenthal's last-ditch laser clusters managed to nail both of them before they reached laser head attack range, but Manticoran missile defenses shouldn't have let anything get that close from such a small salvo.
"Two hits on Number One!" one of Blumenthal's ratings announced just as the lasers stopped the second of the near-misses. Which, Oversteegen told himself sourly, wasn't anything to write home about coming out of a sixty-missile launch.
Still, it was better than the other side had done.
Fortune Hunter bucked, and alarms shrilled, as two X-ray lasers slammed into her bow. They came in from almost dead ahead, with no sidewall to interdict, and armor shattered under their ferocious power. Point Defense Four blew apart, and the same hit drove deep, severely damaging Gravitic One and breaching Magazine Two. The second hit came in at a broader angle, with no carry back into the hull, but it also came in directly on top of Missile Four. Seventeen men and women died under those two hits, and six more were wounded, and Tyler felt a deep, panicky stab of near-superstitious dread.
But then the Manty's change of course registered, and his eyes narrowed. He still didn't have any idea how the other cruiser had managed to target him with what had to be both broadsides simultaneously, but it was obvious that the enemy ship was running for the hyper limit. In the Manty's position, Tyler would have been attempting to avoid action from the very beginning against such numerical odds, but that wasn't the way Manties normally handled pirates. Now, though . . .
"The bastards are running," he muttered, and looked up from his plot. "They're running!" he repeated.
"Maybe so, but they're also hammering us a lot harder than we're hammering them!" his executive officer shot back.