"So do I," Jeffers admitted. "But at least we've got the range advantage for the pods we have."
"Which is a darned good thing," Stevens acknowledged. His eyes were still on the display, where the diamond dust icons of Incubus' LACs were fifteen minutes from contact with the Peeps. The LACs' FTL reports accounted for the detailed accuracy of Starcrest's tactical plot, and Stevens didn't envy their crews a bit. It was bad enough for Starcrest, attached to the superdreadnoughts' screen, but at least Starcrest was the better part of thirteen million kilometers from any enemy missile launchers. The LACs weren't.
He looked at the light codes of Maitland's superdreadnoughts and his single CLAC and visualized the long, ungainly trail of missile pods towing astern of them. As Jeffers had suggested, Sir Ronald had a reputation as a canny tactician—one which in the humble opinion of Lieutenant Henry Stevens was well deserved. Unlike all too many system picket commanders, Maitland believed in hard, frequent drills and battle maneuvers, and he had kept his "task group" at a far higher state of readiness than some of the other pickets could boast. His announced battle plan had made it obvious that he recognized the weight of metal the Peeps had sent his way, too, but he planned to fight smart to offset the discrepancy in tonnages.
According to ONI's analysts, his missiles had an enormous range advantage over anything the Peeps could have produced. Stevens tended to take those reports with a grain of salt, and it was evident to him that Sir Ronald did, too. ONI had assured them that the maximum powered range the Peeps might have managed to get their missiles up to was on the order of seven or eight million kilometers. Sir Ronald had added a twenty-five percent "fudge factor" to the spooks' estimate just to be on the safe side, which brought their theoretical max range up to somewhere around twelve million klicks. That was well within the effective range of the RMN's multi-drive capital missiles which, in theory, had a maximum range at burnout more than five times that great. Of course, that could hardly be considered "effective" range, since not even Manticoran fire control was going to be able to hit a powered, evading target at that distance.
But Rear Admiral Maitland wasn't going to try to accomplish anything that preposterous. He intended to allow the range to drop to thirteen million kilometers, then start pumping missiles out of the pods on tow behind all of his capital ships and cruisers. Given his range advantage, he'd elected to tow maximum loads, which reduced his acceleration to a crawl but would allow him to throw at least a half-dozen heavy salvos from outside any range at which the enemy could reply. Accuracy wouldn't be anything to write home about, but at least some of them would get through. And if he timed things properly, they would come in in conjunction with his LACs. The combined attack would put a considerable strain on the Peeps' defensive systems, which should increase the effectiveness of LACs and missiles alike.
And if it all hits the crapper anyway, Stevens thought, we'll be far enough away that at least we can break off and run for it. Which the LAC jockeys can't—not from three-quarters of the way down the kodiak max's throat! So we can at least bleed them and run if we—
"Missile launch! Multiple missile launches!"
Stevens' head snapped around at the sound of PO Landow's voice. The veteran noncom was a key member of Stevens' own tac team, yet for a moment the lieutenant was convinced Landow must have lost her mind.
But only for a moment. Only until he looked back at his own plot and realized that Sir Ronald's battle plan had just come apart.
"God, I almost feel sorry for them," Janina Auderska said so quietly no one but her admiral could possibly hear.
"Don't," Kirkegard said, his eyes glued to the display showing the storm front of his missiles as they scorched towards the Manticoran system picket. The chief of staff glanced at him, surprised by the almost savage edge of harshness in the admiral's usually pleasant voice, and Kirkegard glanced sideways at her.
"This is exactly what they did to us in their damned 'Operation Buttercup,' " he reminded her coldly. "Exactly. I read an interview with their Admiral White Haven. NavInt clipped it from one of their newsfaxes. He said he felt almost guilty—that it was too much 'like pushing baby chicks into a pond.' " Kirkegard gave a harsh crow caw of a chuckle. "He was right, too. Well, now it's our turn. Let's see how they like it."
Sir Ronald Maitland watched the hurricane of missiles thundering towards him.
"How good are our targeting setups?" he asked his staff ops officer flatly.
"Uh, they're—" The ops officer shook himself physically. "I mean, they're about as good as we could hope for at this range, Sir," he said more crisply.
"Well, in that case I suppose we'd better use them before we lose them," Maitland replied. "Reprioritize the firing sequence. Flush them all—now."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Here they come," Auderska murmured.
"Had to get them off before our birds got close enough for proximity kills," Kirkegard agreed, watching the sidebars of his plot as CIC assigned threat values to the incoming warheads. "More of them than I expected, too," he acknowledged.
"Yes, Sir. We're going to get hurt," Auderska said.
"Price of doing business," Kirkegard replied with a shrug. "And at this range, not even Manty targeting systems are going to be able to score a very high percentage of hits. Neither are ours, of course, but—" his smile was thin and hungry "—we can fire heavy follow-on salvos . . . and they can't."
"Tracking reports that their missile ECM is much better than it's supposed to be, Sir," Maitland's chief of staff said very quietly into his ear. Sir Ronald looked at him, and he grimaced unhappily. "They're estimating that our point defense is going to be at least twenty-five percent less effective than we'd projected. At least."
Maitland grunted and turned his gaze back to the master plot while his brain raced. It was obvious from the weight of fire coming at him that the Peep superdreadnoughts on that plot were a pod design. But the situation wasn't completely hopeless, he told himself. Everything the LACs' sensors had reported so far indicated that the Peeps' EW capabilities, while substantially better than anticipated—as CIC's new estimate of their missile ECM confirmed—were still far below Manticoran standards. That would give Maitland an enormous advantage in a long-range missile duel like this. Or it would have, if he'd been able to shoot back at all.
He gritted his teeth as bitter memory replayed his repeated requests for at least one SD(P). But the Admiralty had not seen fit to assign such scarce, valuable units to a secondary system like Maastricht. At least the launchers aboard two of the three older ships he did have had been refitted to handle multi-drive missiles. Which meant that once his pods were exhausted, he wouldn't be completely unable to return fire. It only meant that he could respond with less than twenty percent of the Peeps' weight of fire until he somehow managed to close to within six million klicks of them.
Which none of his starships could possibly survive long enough to do.
"Are those new acceleration figures for their superdreadnoughts confirmed?" he asked his ops officer.
"Yes, Sir," the commander confirmed unhappily. "They're still lower than ours, but the difference is almost thirty percent less than ONI's estimates."
"That figures," Sir Ronald half-snarled before he could stop himself. Then he closed his mouth, drew a deep breath, and looked back at the chief of staff.