“Understood,” Apros said. “What’s your plan?”
“We’re going to try to take out the hyperdrive or the main thrusters or both,” Lakinda said. “Ghaloksu, set up breacher attacks midships and aft, using your best guess as to where those two systems are centered. Once the breachers have hit, follow up with laser barrages.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ghaloksu said.
“Whether we manage that or not, we’ll keep going,” Lakinda continued, “sweeping over the warship’s dorsal surface and strafing with spheres, breachers, and lasers. Once past, Wikivv, you’ll run us a one-eighty yaw turn to face the alien’s starboard side, and we’ll continue the attack. Questions?”
There was a brief silence. “Then get to it,” Lakinda said. “Vimsk, grab every bit of data you can about that ship, both to assist Ghaloksu in targeting and also for future analysis.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the sensor officer said.
“Good.” Lakinda took a deep breath. “The Vigilant’s in trouble. Let’s even the odds a little.”
The Battle Dreadnought had first fired two missiles, then four missiles, then six. Now the latest salvo—eight missiles—was on its way.
“Could they be any more obvious?” Wutroow muttered.
“Perfectly straightforward way to find the limits of an enemy’s defenses,” Ar’alani pointed out.
“Straightforward, maybe, but pretty expensive,” Wutroow said as the Vigilant’s spectrum lasers took out the first two incoming missiles. “They’d have done better to just throw a single massive volley and see how many of them we couldn’t stop.”
“Alien minds, alien logic,” Ar’alani said. “Oeskym?”
“We’re handling it,” the Vigilant’s weapons officer said. “Breachers are reset if you want to try those again.”
“Admiral, the Grayshrike’s headed this way,” Biclian cut in before Ar’alani could answer.
Ar’alani looked at the tactical. The cruiser was indeed on the move, accelerating at full power toward the battle.
Only it was coming alone, without the lattice and hidden missile launcher Ar’alani had specifically told Lakinda to bring with her.
She hissed out a quiet curse. Her plan had been for the Grayshrike to tow the launcher in close and then propel it into the combat zone between the two ships. If the Vigilant’s electronics people were lucky, they might be able to trigger the launcher and send the missile at the Battle Dreadnought. If not, Ar’alani could try to detonate the missile in place in the hope of scoring some blast damage against the enemy. Now both those options were gone.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t order Lakinda to go back and get the launcher. The Grayshrike was already too far along, and accelerating too hard, for that to be practical.
“Launch two breachers,” she ordered Oeskym. “Try running a laser spread around them, see if that will keep the dibbers away.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ar’alani shifted her attention to the tactical, watching as Oeskym launched the breacher missiles. The enemy had come up with a new tactic since their encounter with Thrawn and Lakinda: small, nimble missiles that Wutroow had dubbed dibbers, probably originally designed for use against gunboats and other small fighters. Unfortunately, the tiny missiles were also effective against breachers, and had successfully blasted all but two of the ones the Vigilant had launched against the alien.
Destroying the breachers didn’t stop the wave of released acid, of course, and the dibber swarm always paid the price. But so far they were hitting the breachers far enough out that the acid globs expanded and dissipated into uselessness by the time they reached the alien warship itself.
Even worse, the dibbers had proven surprisingly effective against the plasma spheres, their impacts puncturing the spheres’ self-focusing sheaths and dissipating the compressed ion clusters packed inside. The fact that the attacking dibber itself was instantly disabled was of little consolation, since the question at that point was whether the Vigilant would run out of sphere fluid before the Battle Dreadnought ran out of dibbers.
Given the recklessness with which the aliens were spending the little missiles, Ar’alani wouldn’t bet either way.
“What is she doing?” Wutroow said under her breath. “Is she looking to ram them?”
Ar’alani frowned. The Grayshrike was still accelerating toward the enemy warship, with no indication Lakinda was planning to slow down. “She must be trying to get in a flank attack before they know she’s there.”
“Trying being the operative word,” Wutroow growled. “What makes her think they haven’t replaced their portside sensors?”
“Probably figures it’s her best shot,” Ar’alani said, thinking quickly. Unless the Battle Dreadnought was still completely blind on that side, the Grayshrike’s only hope was for the Vigilant to create some sort of distraction. And given the alien commander’s obvious goal in his missile attacks …
Ar’alani looked back at the main tactical. The two breachers Oeskym had sent had now been destroyed, though having the lasers burning through the space around them as they flew had interfered with the dibber response enough that the missiles had made it closer than any of the previous attempts. Something to keep in mind for the future.
But for right now—“Oeskym, cease all offensive fire,” she ordered. “Continue with defensive fire only. Prep a volley of six breachers, targeted on sensor and weapons clusters along the starboard flank, with three spheres ready to fire behind each. Launch breachers on my command, spheres five seconds later.”
“Admiral?” Wutroow asked cautiously.
“Just watch,” Ar’alani said as she keyed her comm. If she was reading the enemy commander correctly, this should work. “This is Admiral Ar’alani,” she called. “Interesting preliminaries. So. Now that I know how to destroy you, shall we return to our respective peoples and deliver our reports?”
There was no response. The final enemy missile of the current salvo disintegrated under Chiss laserfire.
And then, to Ar’alani’s quiet relief, the Battle Dreadnought’s own lasers went silent. “Your statement lacks accuracy,” the alien commander said scornfully. “It is I who knows how to destroy you.”
“Hardly,” Ar’alani said, watching the Grayshrike’s approach out of the corner of her eye. She’d hoped Lakinda would pick up on the gambit, or at least realize that with hostilities temporarily stopped there was a greater chance the alien would notice her approach toward his portside flank.
Lakinda had. The Grayshrike, which had been driving at full acceleration, abruptly shut down its thrusters, leaving it coasting at high speed along its vector. Even better, the cruiser’s lights and emissions went dark as Lakinda put her ship into stealth mode.
And with that, Ar’alani’s hoped-for stage was set.
“No, you’ve seen what I wanted you to see,” she told the alien. “I, on the other hand, know exactly what your weak spot is and how to exploit it. So run home if you want. We’ll easily win the next battle.”
The alien spat out something in his own language. “You have not yet finished with this one,” he snarled. “I will destroy you all—”
“Launch,” Ar’alani said quietly.