"Override Group's ammunitioning instructions," she told Benedict flatly. The exec looked at her, and she shrugged. "We've got time if you get right on it," she said. "Use the squadron interlinks to the station magazine queue. I want a Lima-Roger-Two package loaded to all ships ASAP. Anybody in the station crew asks any questions, refer them to me."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am!" Benedict said sharply, and she nodded and reached for her own skinsuit.
She peeled out of her uniform and started climbing into the skinsuit with the lack of body modesty which was part and parcel of LAC operations here in Tequila. While she did, she heard Benedict working at his console, and she bared her teeth in an almost-smile.
Lima-Roger-Two—or "Standard Missile Load, Long-Ranged Intercept, Mod Two"—was hardly a tailor-made armament package, but it would give Flanagan's LACs at least some chance of penetrating the envelope of a superdreadnought's defensive fire. It was designed to help LACs which had to go out and meet heavy combatants from outside the supporting missile range of their own wall of battle. As such, it was EW-heavy, with emphasis on counter missiles, jammers, and decoys.
It wasn't much, she thought harshly as she sealed the skinsuit. It was simply all she could offer her people under the circumstances.
"Missile reload complete in approximately nine minutes, Ma'am," Benedict reported formally. "Time to launch now eleven-point-three minutes." He looked up from his displays. "It'll be tight, Skip," he said much more informally, "but we'll make it."
"Good," Flanagan said, picturing the high-speed missile pallets and robotic arms blurring and flashing as they rearranged Switchblade's missile loads. "Any reaction from Captain al-Salil?" she asked after a moment.
"No, Ma'am," Benedict replied in a painfully neutral tone, and Flanagan snorted mentally.
Of course there wasn't anything from al-Salil. And there'd probably be precious little in the way of any sort of briefing on the battle plan he undoubtedly didn't have. This was not only going to be an ugly battle, it was also going to the most fucked up one since Elvis Santino got his entire task group wiped out at Seaford.
And there was absolutely nothing Sarah Flanagan could do to change that.
Vice Admiral Agnes de Groot studied the flag deck master plot in a mood of pronounced satisfaction.
De Groot had approached Operation Thunderbolt with less than total enthusiasm. Not because she didn't want to get some of the Navy's own back from the Manties. And not because she didn't agree with President Pritchart that the Star Kingdom of Manticore damned well deserved to have its ass kicked up between its ears over its diplomatic doubledealing and chicanery. Not even because she disagreed with the ops plan's underlying assumptions or strategy.
No, de Groot's reservations had stemmed from the fact that the Staff had expressly ruled out any pre-attack reconnaissance of Tequila.
Agnes de Groot had risen to flag rank in a fleet which had experienced a seemingly unending series of drubbings—interrupted only occasionally by something like Operation Icarus—at the hands of the Manticoran Alliance. In light of that experience, she'd found it . . . difficult to accept NavInt's estimates of the enormous decline in the efficiency of the Royal Manticoran Navy. She'd been certain that the spooks had to be overestimating the degree to which the Manties had lost their edge. Or thrown it away, if there was a difference. Which meant that she had also found it difficult to accept that they could have been stupid enough to reduce their picket in Tequila to the levels NavInt insisted they had.
She knew all about the reports the intelligence types had generated. But she also knew that the data on which those reports were based had come solely from the civilian-grade sensors of merchantmen passing through the system. It wouldn't have been hard for any navy, and especially not for one with the Manties' EW capabilities, to hide an entire fleet from a merchie's sensor suite, and de Groot had been privately certain that that must be what had happened.
It seemed she'd been wrong.
Her own recon drones were twelve million klicks—over forty light-seconds—ahead of her screen, with a secondary shell thrown out to cover her flanks and rear. While she was always prepared to recognize the Manticorans' supremacy in the field of electronic warfare, she found it difficult to believe that she wouldn't have gotten at least a sniff of any heavy units closing to missile range of her own command. Of course, there was missile range, and then there was missile range. Judging from their performance immediately before the cease-fire, Manty multi-drive missiles had a powered attack range of somewhere around sixty-five million klicks, which was at least eight million more than the RHN's new weapons could manage. But not even Manties were going to score many hits against alert targets at ranges of better than three and a half light-minutes. To be effective, they were going to have to come a lot closer than that, and her platforms should have started getting a sniff of them well before they got within five light-minutes of the outer shell, much less her actual starships.
A part of her still insisted that they had to be out there somewhere, but she told herself that was just the last gasp effort of her own paranoia. If they'd really had heavy ships, those vessels would be where her drones could see them. They'd have to be if they were going to offer any support at all to the two hundred and eleven LACs sweeping to meet her.
And if the Manties really hadn't shot themselves in both feet and one kneecap where their readiness states and training are concerned, she thought with grim satisfaction, those LACs would be doing something a hell of a lot smarter than what they're doing now.
She supposed whoever was in command over there was being brave enough, but Lord God was she stupid! What NavInt's estimates insisted was the entire LAC strength based on the system, allowing for four or five down for routine maintenance, was coming straight at the invaders with absolutely no attempt to maneuver for advantage. It looked like the Manty CO intended to charge straight down de Groot's throat, possibly in an effort to avoid the Republican broadsides and sidewalls. Of course, that would also expose her LACs to the fire of de Groot's entire squadron's chase armament as she closed, but maybe she figured she could survive that long enough to get into range. If so, she was an idiot . . . or even more unaware of the improvements in the Republic's naval hardware—including the new classes' bow walls—than de Groot would have believed was possible.
Of course, she probably thought she was facing only ships of the wall, too.
"Another message from the COLAC, Skipper," Chief Petty Officer Lawrence announced. Flanagan turned her command chair to face Switchblade's com officer and waved one hand in an unspoken "tell me" command. She tried very hard not to let the gesture radiate her disgust, but she knew she'd failed.
"Captain al-Salil instructs all Shrike commanders to remember to close to minimum range before firing," Lawrence said as expressionlessly as possible.
"Acknowledge," Flanagan replied, and this time she didn't bother with concealing her emotions. It wasn't as if it was going to matter very much longer, and she knew her entire squadron must be as disgusted as she was. Both LAC groups had been accelerating steadily to meet the oncoming Peeps for over two hours. They were less than forty minutes from intercept, and the idiot was still sending fatuous, stupid "reminders" instead of anything approaching useful attack orders.
She supposed, in fairness (although she had very little interest in being fair to al-Salil under the circumstances), that he had specified an attack plan . . . of sorts. Unfortunately, like the missile loads his LACs were carrying, Attack Plan Delta-Three, was purely generic, little more than a vague set of objectives and procedures. It had been obvious to Flanagan for months that neither al-Salil nor Schumacher had believed, even as the diplomatic situation worsened, that the Peeps would dare to attack Tequila. So neither of them had spent much time or effort thinking about serious defensive plans. All of their thinking had been directed towards maintaining "system security" against any purely local disorder or some sort of scouting foray or harassment the Peeps might have attempted with light forces. Delta-Three would probably have worked fairly well against a destroyer sweep, or a few flotillas of light cruisers. Even a battlecruiser squadron or two. Against what they actually faced, it was about as useful as a screen door on an airlock.