But if it wasn't the second half of Third Fleet, then what was it, and what was it doing here? Could it be a detachment from their Home Fleet that had simply happened to be in range for a crash Junction transit? That was certainly possible, although a part of him rejected the possibility. It would have been too much like history repeating itself. That was exactly how White Haven had reached Basilisk in time to keep Giscard from taking out the terminus there when he'd raided that system. But the possibility of a coincidence like that happening a second time was remote, to say the least.
No. If there really was a second force out there, then it had been deliberately placed there ahead of time. Only that didn't make a lot of sense, either . . . unless he assumed that they'd somehow guessed what was coming. Which should have been impossible. On the other hand, he couldn't even begin to count the number of "top secret" plans which had somehow been compromised in the long history of military operations.
But even if it were a force from their Home Fleet, how bad could that be? They didn't have enough SD(P)s in Home Fleet to significantly affect the odds here, and rushing in pre-pod SDs would be suicidal. But they'd know that, too. So where—?
"I wonder," he murmured, and turned back to Gozzi. "We need to nail this down, Marius. Send the LACs in closer."
"Sir, if they get any closer and this is what it looks like, they're going to be awfully vulnerable," the chief of staff reminded him quietly.
"I realize that," Giscard acknowledged. "And I don't like it a whole lot more than you do. But we have to know. This is the largest single task force of Operation Thunderbolt. If the Manties have somehow figured out what we're up to, this would be the one place they'd try hardest to set a trap for us. Don't forget what they did to Admiral Parnell at Yeltsin's Star at the beginning of the war. And whether they deliberately set it up as a trap or not, we can't afford to get ourselves enveloped by a superior force. If we take heavy losses here, we could be in serious trouble until Admiral Tourville gets back from Silesia. Or, at least, until Admiral Foraker and Bolthole can make up our losses. If we have to risk some LACs, or even deliberately sacrifice them, to ensure that doesn't happen, then I'm afraid we'll simply have to do it."
"Yes, Sir."
"They know we're here," Commander Tatnall said positively, and MacDonnell nodded.
He'd hoped that the Peeps wouldn't spot them until it was too late. Although it had become evident that there were actually at least a hundred capital ships in the Havenite task force, he remained confident that his task force and Third Fleet, with almost a hundred SD(P)s and fifty pre-pod SDs between them, could take them. The small, fast impeller signatures which proved that the Peeps did have CLACs, after all, had caused him to raise his estimate of the losses he and Kuzak would probably suffer, but that hadn't affected his fundamental confidence. Not with the hundreds of planet-based LACs the Janacek Admiralty had deployed to back up Third Fleet as relations with the Republic worsened steadily. He knew they could take them . . . and that White Haven shared his confidence.
But in order to defeat them, he and Kuzak had to be able to get at them in the first place, and if they cut and ran for it, the chances of catching up to them would be poor at best.
He glowered at the display, where the steadily, if cautiously, advancing impeller signatures of scouting LACs crept ever closer to his own stealthed units. The question wasn't whether or not they knew he was here—it was whether or not they knew what he had. If they did realize that he was coming in behind them with another forty SD(P)s, plus carriers, anyone but idiots would disengage in a moment, and those probing LACs were going to provide their commander with that information before very much longer. However good his own EW and however poor Peep sensor suites might be, he couldn't hide from them if the range fell much further. Of course, it was always possible that they already had him. There was no way for anyone to be certain how much Shannon Foraker might have managed to improve their sensors in the last three or four years. But if they hadn't managed to lock up his units yet they might not know just how powerful his force was.
"Contact Ararat," he told Clairdon. "Tell Captain Davis that I want him to . . . discourage those LACs."
The chief of staff looked at him for a moment, then nodded, and MacDonnell turned back to his plot. Ararat was one of the Covington —class CLACs. Somewhat larger than the RMN's carriers, the Covingtons carried twenty-five percent more LACs, and unlike the RMN, the GSN had developed the Katana —class LAC, specifically designed for the "dogfighting" role. The Graysons had begun from the assumption that eventually someone else was going to produce their own LACs and carriers for them. When that time came, the GSN intended to be ready . . . especially since the RMN's "space superiority LAC" project had been one of the casualties of the Janacek cuts.
He heard Clairdon passing on his instructions, and then he nodded in satisfaction as the green diamond chips of Ararat's LACs suddenly blinked into existence less than eight minutes after he'd given the initial order.
Javier Giscard's scouting LACs realized they were doomed the instant Ararat launched. There were only fifteen of the recon platforms, each of them only lightly armed, and there were over a hundred and twenty LACs coming at them. Worse, their own vectors were almost directly towards the enemy vessels.
There was no way they could possibly escape, and so they pressed on, accelerating directly towards the Graysons in an effort to at least get close enough to see the enemy clearly before they died.
Giscard knew exactly what they were doing, and a knife seemed to turn in his heart as he watched them do it. Nothing he could do at this point would affect what was about to happen to them. But he was the man who'd deliberately sent them out to die, and even though he knew he'd been right—that he would do the same thing again under the same circumstances, even knowing the outcome—that didn't make it hurt any less.
He watched his people accelerate, rushing to meet their deaths rather than fight for every instant of life they could cling to. He watched the red icons of their killers sweep towards them even as their sensors reached out and confirmed one capital impeller signature after another. He saw the missile storm that blotted them from the heavens. And then, finally, he turned away and made himself meet Captain Gozzi's eyes.
"What does CIC say now?" he asked quietly.
"We've confirmed thirty-seven positive superdreadnought impeller signatures, with another three probables and one possible," Gozzi said, equally quietly. "There are also at least eight other ships out there. They're a shade too small for SDs but too big for anything else on the Manty ship lists."
"Judging by what we just saw," Giscard said dryly, "I suspect that they must be CLACs."
"Yes, Sir. But our recon crews were quite definite. They're bigger than Manty carriers."
"Graysons, then," Giscard murmured.
"That would certainly be my guess, Sir," Gozzi agreed, and Giscard snorted softly.
The confirmation of the presence of the GSN in strength put an entirely different complexion on the tactical situation. The sheer numbers coming up behind him would have been bad enough under any circumstances. The fact that they were Graysons made it even worse. Not just because of the profound respect with which the Republican Navy had learned to regard the GSN, but because of what their presence implied.