Captain Helen Zilwicki's face was stone as she listened to MacAllister's analysis of the threat thirteen and a half light-minutes behind her tiny squadron. Six of them to her five, and all of them bigger and far more heavily armed. Even the technical edge her ships might have exploited in normal space would hardly matter here, for it paid its biggest dividends in missile engagements, and missiles were useless within a grav wave. No impeller drive could function there; the wave's powerful gravitational forces would burn it out instantly. Which meant any missile vaporized the second its drive kicked in—and that none of her ships had the protection of their own impeller wedges... or sidewalls.
She didn't even consider the possibility of breaking free of the wave. It would have restored her sidewalls and let her use her missiles, but her charges were four light-hours into the wave. They'd need eight hours to get clear, and they didn't have eight hours.
She felt her bridge crew's tension, smelled their fear like her own, but no one said a word, and she closed her eyes in anguish. Two of her huge, clumsy ships were combination freighter-transports, bound for Grendelsbane Station with vitally needed machine tools, shipyard mechs and remotes... and over six thousand priceless civilian and Navy technicians and their families.
Including Captain (Junior Grade) Anton Zilwicki and their daughter.
She tried not to think about that. She couldn't afford to. Not if she was going to do anything to save them. But there was only one thing she could do, and she felt a terrible stab of guilt as she looked up at her officers at last.
"General message to all units, Com." Her voice sounded rusty and strained in her own ears. "Message begins: From CO escort to all ships. We have detected six warships, apparently Havenite heavy cruisers, closing from astern. Present range one-three-point-six light-minutes, closing velocity three-zero thousand KPS. On present course, they will overtake us in two hours and fourteen minutes." She drew a deep breath, staring down into her display. "In view of Admiralty warnings, I must assume their intention is to attack. All escorts will form on me and turn to engage the enemy. The convoy will scatter and proceed independently. Zilwicki clear."
"Recorded, Ma'am." The com officer's voice was flat.
"Transmit." The word came out fogged with tears, and the captain cleared her throat harshly. "Helm, prepare to bring us around."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
She kept her eyes on the display, trying not to think of the two most important people in her universe or how they would react to her last cold, official message, and someone touched her shoulder. She looked up, blinking to clear her vision. It was her exec.
"Tell them you love them, Helen," he said very softly, and she clenched her fists in agony.
"I can't," she whispered. "Not when none of the rest of you can tell your—"
Her voice broke, and his hand tightened painfully on her shoulder.
"Don't be stupid!" His voice was harsh, almost fierce. "There's not a soul on this ship who doesn't know your family's over there—or who thinks for one minute they're the only reason you're doing this! Now get on the com and tell them you love them, goddamn it!"
He shook her in her command chair, and she ripped her eyes from his, staring almost desperately at the other officers and ratings on her bridge, pleading for their forgiveness.
But there was no need to plead. She saw it in their eyes, read it in their faces, and she drew a deep breath.
"Helm," her voice was suddenly clear, "bring us about. Jeff," she looked at the com officer, "please get me a personal link to Carnarvon. I'll take it in my briefing room."
"Yes, Ma'am," the com officer said gently, and Helen Zilwicki pushed herself out of her chair and walked to the hatch with her head high.
Thomas Theisman's jaw clenched as the drive sources came back toward him in attack formation. He folded his hands tightly behind his back and made himself look at Commodore Reichman without expression. She'd been so sure the Manty commander would order the entire convoy, escorts and merchantmen alike, to scatter. After all, she'd pointed out, the grav wave would strip them of the long-range missile advantage, which might have given them the chance to achieve anything worthwhile. That was the whole reason for intercepting here rather than between waves, as Theisman had suggested. No commander would throw his ships away for nothing when scattering meant at least four of his ten ships would survive.
Thomas Theisman had known better, but Annette Reichman had never fought Manticorans before. And because Theisman had lost when he fought them, she'd ignored his warnings with barely veiled patronization.
"Orders, Ma'am?" he asked now, and Reichman swallowed.
"We'll take them head-on," she said after a moment. As if she had a choice, Theisman thought in disgust.
"Yes, Ma'am. Do you wish to change our formation?" He kept his tone as neutral as possible, but her nostrils flared.
"No!" she snapped.
Theisman raised his eyes over her shoulder. His cold glance sent her staff and his own bridge officers sidling out of earshot, and he leaned toward her and spoke quietly.
"Commodore, if you fight a conventional closing engagement with your chase armaments, they're going to turn to open their broadsides and give us everything they've got at optimum range."
"Nonsense! That would be suicide!" Reichman snapped. "We'll tear them apart if they come out from behind their sails!"
"Ma'am," he spoke softly, as if to a child, "we out-mass those ships seven to one, and they have to close to energy range. They know what that means as well as we do. So they'll do the only thing they can. They'll open their broadsides to bring every beam they can to bear, and they'll go for our forward alpha nodes. If they take out even one, our own foresail will go down, and this deep into a grav wave—"
He didn't have to complete the sentence. With no forward sail to balance her after sail, it was impossible for any starship to maneuver in a grav wave. They would be trapped on the same vector, at the same velocity. They couldn't even drop out of hyper, because they couldn't control their translation attitude until and unless they could make repairs, and even the tiniest patch of turbulence would tear them apart. Which meant the loss of a single sail would cost Reichman at least two ships, because any ship which lost a sail would have to be towed clear of the wave on a consort's tractors.
"But—" She stopped and swallowed again. "What do you recommend, Captain?" she asked after a moment.
"That we do the same thing. We'll get hurt, probably lose a few ships, but it'll actually reduce our sails' exposure and give us far heavier broadsides and a better chance to take them out before they gut our sails."
He met her gaze levelly, strangling the desire to scream at her that he'd told her this would happen, and her eyes fell.
"Very well, Captain Theisman," she said. "Make it so."
Anton Zilwicki sat on the padded decksole, eyes closed, arms tight around the four-year-old girl weeping into his tunic. She was too young to understand it all, but she understood enough, he thought emptily as he listened to the voices behind him: the voices of Carnarvon's taut-faced bridge officers, clustered around the huge transport's main display.
"My God," the exec whispered. "Look at that!" There goes another one," someone else said harshly. "Was that one of the cruisers?"
"No, I think it was another can, and—"
"Look—look! That was one of the Peep bastards! And there goes another one!"
"Oh, Jesus! That was a cruiser!" someone groaned, and Zilwicki closed his eyes tighter, fighting his own tears for his daughters sake. He knew Carnarvon was piling on every scrap of drive power she had, running madly away from her sisters, seeking the elusive safety of dispersal. If two of the Peeps were gone, then at least one merchantman would live... but which one?