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  The hope and crossed fingers were in vain. An instant later, Casey gave a violent and all-too-well-remembered jerk.

  The missiles had been stopped, but the second starboard sidewall generator had been overloaded and destroyed.

  “Damage?” Heissman called as the alarms once again blared across the bridge.

  “Generator gone,” Belokas reported. “Secondary damage to that area. Casualties reported; no details yet.”

  Travis felt a tightening in his chest. Starboard sidewall gone, fewer than half their missiles left, and heading on a ballistic trajectory straight into the center of an enemy formation.

  Worse, at the distances they would be passing the other ships, they would be well within beam range. Knife-fight range . . . and with Casey's throat, kilt, and starboard flank open, Tamerlane's only decision would be which of his ships would get the honor of finishing her off.

  He frowned at the tactical, his fingers keying his board. Tamerlane had already shown he was smart and reasonably cautious. He would assume Casey had lasers fore and aft, and would therefore most likely choose to send his attack in from starboard, where there were no defenses except the energy torpedoes and a much bigger cross-section of ship to target.

  Casey was down to eight real missiles, but they still had four practice missiles. And with the electromagnetic launch system instead of solid boosters they ought to be able to just goose one of those missiles from a launch tube without instantly sending it blasting away.

  And if they could . . .

  He cleared his throat. “Commodore Heissman? I have an idea.”

  * * *

  “Because I've got the shot and you don't,” Captain Blakely said with his usual irritating air of pedantic superiority. “You want Heissman shredded, fine. But you're the one in charge of this little operation, and you can't just go running off formation whenever you feel like it. Not with Bogey Two about to come barreling down our throats. You need to be standing right out front where you can be the admiral.” He paused, a slight smirk flicking across his face. “And where you can be ready to take that first shot.”

  Gensonne glared at the com display, wanting with all his soul to slap the other down.

  But unfortunately, he was right. Casey was on a flat trajectory that would take it across the Volsung array, as fat and easy a target as anyone could ever hope for. But Tyr was in position to chase it down and deliver that death blow, and Odin wasn't.

  Equally important, Tyr still had its chase armament in good working condition. Odin didn't.

  “Fine,” he growled. “Just watch yourself. You're going to be well within range of his energy torpedoes, and you'd look even stupider than you do now as a glowing ball of hot gas.”

  “You want to come over here and hold my hand?” Blakely countered. “I know how to stick a pig. Plus I'll be using bow target locks, he'll be using broadside ones, and that's a minimum quarter-second advantage, maybe even half a second. And that assumes he's even got target locks left after what we did to his sidewall.”

  He gestured impatiently. “You concentrate on taking out Bogey Two and making sure Llyn pays on time when we're done. I'll take care of Heissman and the Manticorans' precious Casey.”

  “Fine,” Gensonne growled again. “Just make it fast. We're going to be pushing our timing as it is to get the main force here before Bogey Two arrives. I want you back in the stack before that happens.”

  “I'll be back before you know it,” Blakely said soothingly. “If you get bored, have Imbar bring you a book.”

  Cursing under his breath, Gensonne keyed off the display. For another moment he scowled at the empty screen, then turned back to the tactical. Again, Blakely was right—the sensors and target locks for energy torpedo systems were by their very nature slower than those of a spinal laser. Heissman would probably try to move his ship within the wedge to throw off Tyr's targeting, but provided Blakely fired within a half second of the instant the cruiser came into view, he should have no problem gutting the ship before they could fire back.

  So Blakely wanted to rub Gensonne's nose in the fact that he'd taken out the punk-sized ship that had slapped Odin across the head? Fine. Gensonne was bigger than that. He could see the full picture. That was why he was an admiral, and Blakely was just a captain.

  And if Blakely had ambitions that direction?

  Gensonne smiled tightly. For his sake, he'd better not.

  * * *

  Three quarters of a second.

  Travis had run the numbers. So had Woodburn, and Heissman, and probably everyone else on the bridge. And those cold numbers led to the equally cold conclusion that Casey was doomed.

  The enemy battlecruiser had finished her rotation, her forward spinal laser lined up on the spot where Casey would be passing through the formation ninety seconds from now. She would be at point-blank distance, barely a thousand kilometers away, an insanely short range in these days of long-range missiles and high-powered X-ray lasers.

  The captain of that ship would certainly recognize the risks. But he'd undoubtedly run the numbers, too. The instant his bow cleared the edge of Casey's wedge, his targeting sensors would pinpoint Casey's location, send the data to the ship's spinal laser, and fire. It would all be automated, with no human hand required, and if the battlecruiser was running modern electronics the whole operation would take between a quarter and a half second.

  It would be the battlecruiser's single shot, given the laser's recharge time. But with a nearly two-second window of opportunity, that half second would be all they needed.

  Casey's return fire had also been keyed in and automated, and would also fire at the best speed possible. But the reality of energy torpedo sensors and response times meant that her counterattack would take nearly half a second longer than the battlecruiser's.

  A half second longer, in other words, than Casey had to live.

  Three quarters of a second.

  Travis knew what an X-ray laser could do to a ship. If the battlecruiser's beam hit Casey it would slice straight through the hull and interior compartments, gutting the cruiser like a fish. If it happened to hit the fusion bottle, the end would come for everyone aboard in a single massive fireball. If it didn't, the crew would die marginally more slowly: some as the air was sucked out of broken work zones into space, others as they floated helplessly into eternity wrapped in their vac suits.

  And all that stood between them and that fate was Travis's crazy idea. Travis's idea, and Heissman's willingness to try it.

  Three quarters of a second.

  “Ten seconds,” Woodburn announced.

  Travis took one final look at his displays, automatically starting his own mental countdown. Ten kilometers to Casey's aft, held loosely in place twenty kilometers out from her starboard side by a tractor beam, was one of the practice missiles, waiting for the automated order that would light up its wedge and send it leaping through space. With the enemy battlecruiser a thousand kilometers away, Travis's mind automatically calculated, it would take the missile seven and a half seconds to reach it. Under the present circumstances, an unreachable eternity.

  Fortunately, that wasn't where the missile needed to go.

  Travis's looked back at the tactical, marveling at how he was even able to calculate timings with his adrenaline-pumped time sense racing like a missile on sprint mode. His mental countdown ran to zero—

  On the tactical, the battlecruiser appeared around the edge of Casey's roof, free and open to fire. A quarter second, Travis had estimated before her spinal laser tore through the helpless cruiser.

  And off Casey's starboard flank, the practice missile lit up its wedge and leaped forward.

  Not heading away from the cruiser or toward the battlecruiser, but tracing out a path along Casey's hull.

  Missiles had just two acceleration rates: a long-range mode of thirty-five hundred gravities, and a sprint mode of ten thousand. Those settings couldn't be changed, at least not by any equipment Casey had aboard, and even at
the slower acceleration the missile wouldn't be pacing Casey for long.

  But it didn't have to. With a wedge size of ten kilometers, and with Casey herself just under three hundred seventy meters long, the missile's wedge could block the enemy laser from the moment its leading edge passed Casey's bow to the moment when its trailing edge traveled beyond the cruiser's stern.

  For a crucial three-quarters of a second.

  Sometime in that heartbeat the battlecruiser undoubtedly took its single shot. Travis never knew for sure—the missile's wedge completely blocked Casey's view of what was happening on the other side. Then the missile was past, and momentum had carried the battlecruiser halfway through the open area between Casey's stress bands.

  And with a final, massive barrage of energy torpedoes, Casey went for the kill.

  * * *

  Gensonne stared at his displays, his mouth hanging open, his brain fighting to disbelieve what he was seeing. It was impossible. The numbers had proved that. Tyr couldn't possibly have missed its shot, and the Manticorans couldn't possibly have fired first.

  But the numbers had lied. Somehow, they'd lied.

  And as Gensonne watched in utter horror, Tyr disintegrated.

  The bowcap went first, the hull metal peeling away like so much scrap paper as the first globe of superheated plasma tore through it. Even as that blast burned itself out the second slammed into the battlecruiser, tearing deeper into the hull. The forward impeller ring went with that one, and Tyr's wedge vanished in a tangle of dissipating gravitational forces. Gensonne watched the next torpedo hit, and the next, and the next, daring to hope that the twin reactors clustered in the battlecruiser's aft section might escape the carnage.

  They didn't. The final torpedo slashed through the shattered ship—

  And Tyr became an expanding ball of fire, torn metal, and broken bodies.

  For a long moment no one on Odin's bridge spoke. Gensonne shifted his eyes toward Casey, still coasting its way through the formation.

  Or rather, what was left of the formation.

  “Admiral?” Imbar spoke up, his voice hushed. “Casey's coming up on Phobos. Do you want them to take a shot?”

  Yes, Gensonne wanted to scream. Yes, take the shot. Kill them all.

  But he couldn't give that order. Whatever black magic Heissman had used on Tyr, there was no reason he couldn't use it against Phobos, too. Gensonne didn't dare risk a second ship when he didn't have the faintest idea how Casey had killed the first. “No,” he said, the word a strangled lump of useless fury in his throat. “Order Phobos to roll wedge, and let them go.”

  He stretched his neck against his tunic. Besides, the main fleet was still back there, right in the direction Casey was heading, ready to light up their wedges and move in to support what remained of the advance force. They would deal with Casey, and then they would all deal with Bogey Two.

  He looked back at the expanding dust cloud that had been Tyr. “See you in hell,” he murmured. “I'll be the one wearing white.”

  * * *

  Travis saw just enough before Casey's floor cut off their view to know that the battlecruiser was doomed. He felt himself tensing as they sped toward the com ship at the far rear of the Bogey Three formation, wondering if Casey still had one battle yet to face.

  But the loss of his battlecruiser had apparently left Tamerlane shaken. Casey sped past the aft ship, catching only a glimpse of her rolled wedge.

  It would be too much to say that there was a collective sigh of relief. But Travis could feel a definite lowering of tension.

  Belokas broke the silence first. “What now, Sir?” she asked.

  “I don't know,” Heissman said thoughtfully. “The manual has a surprising dearth of information on what to do when you're behind an enemy formation. Probably because it doesn't happen very often.”

  “I suppose we could always improvise,” Woodburn offered.

  “That we could,” Heissman said in that same thoughtful tone. “Let's give it a try, shall we? We'll get a little more distance to make sure we're out of aft laser range, then see what we can come up with.”

  Epilogue

  “I wanted you to know,” Heissman said, gazing up from his desk with an unreadable expression on his face, “that I put in for a Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for you.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Travis said, feeling an odd warming inside him.

  Though like every other emotion that he'd felt over the two weeks since the battle, the warmth was stained with darkness.

  He was relieved he'd survived, of course, and equally relieved that so many others in Green One and Two had done likewise.

  But too many hadn't. Far too many. The RMN had been gutted, ships and people lost in wholesale lots, and there had been times when it had looked like all was lost. It had only been through the grace of God, the fact that Tamerlane had clearly expected less resistance, and a level of courage and skill Travis would never have guessed the Navy even possessed that they'd pulled it off.

  He'd assumed, reasonably enough, that with Casey's escape from Tamerlane's force her part in the battle was essentially over. Once Locatelli arrived, there should have been nothing for the Manticorans to do except use their newly-superior numbers to mop up the remnants of Tamerlane's force.

  Only Tamerlane had been smarter than anyone had thought. It was only as Locatelli's ships approached the field of battle and prepared to engage that the other half of the invasion force, a group no one aboard Casey had even suspected was there, lit off their wedges and closed in.

  Leaving Casey caught squarely between two enemy fleets.

  That had nearly been the end right there. It had required luck and skill and some very fancy flying for Heissman to pull them out of harm's way.

  It was only then that the Battle of Manticore really began.

  And it was only afterward, when the last missile and laser had been fired and it was finally over, that the true and horrible cost of defending the realm became clear.

  Given all that, even talking about awards felt painfully premature, if not flat-out obscenely morbid. But Admiral Locatelli was already jockeying to grab the lion's share of the credit for the victory, both in Parliament and with the media. It was only right that the rest of the heroes—the true heroes, in Travis's opinion—got some of the recognition before Locatelli made off with all of it.

  “Don't get too excited,” Heissman said sourly. “The request was denied.”

  The warm feeling vanished. “Sir?” Travis asked in confusion.

  “Certain persons in authority,” Heissman said, pushing through the words as if he were trudging through a set of snow banks, “are of the opinion that your ideas were mostly luck, and that their success relied on both that luck and on the overall competency of Casey's officers and crew.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Travis said. “I mean . . . well, of course it was a ship-wide effort. Ideas aren't worth anything without teamwork and—”

  “And teamwork alone isn't enough when you're facing impossible odds,” Heissman cut him off brusquely. “Which I attempted to make clear. You'll still get the same Royal Unit Citation medal as everyone else aboard—they can't deny you that—but career-wise, I'm afraid you're going to be lost in the general shuffle.” He stared hard at Travis's face. “I get the feeling you have an enemy or two in high places, Lieutenant.”

  Travis winced. What was he supposed to say to that? “I haven't deliberately invited any animosity, Sir,” he said, choosing his words carefully.

  “Deliberately or not, you've apparently succeeded,” Heissman said. “I'm guessing the latest batch is coming from your time aboard Phoenix.”

  Travis felt his lip twitch. Yes; the late Ensign Fenton Locatelli, nephew of the now famous and highly acclaimed hero of Manticore. Even before the battle Admiral Locatelli probably had enough clout to deny Travis a minor award. Now, it was practically a foregone conclusion.

  But there was nothing Travis could do about it. And even if there was, he wouldn'
t have bothered to try. Compared to the sacrifice so many men and women had made to protect their worlds, his own modest contributions seemed pretty small. “I do appreciate your efforts, though, Sir,” he said. “If that's all—”

  “Not quite,” Heissman rumbled. “Let me start with the obvious. I know this sort of thing is a kick in the shin, but I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it. There are plenty of political animals in the Fleet. But kilo for kilo, there are a lot more of the rest of us.”

  The rest of us meaning those who wanted to do their jobs to the best of their ability? Or was Heissman also including the drifters who really didn't care where they were as long as they pulled a steady pay voucher? Because there were certainly enough of those, too. “Yes, Sir,” he said aloud.

  “And I'm not including the loafers you're always writing up,” Heissman continued. “That really bothers you, doesn't it? People who don't follow proper procedure?”

  “Procedures are there for a purpose, Sir.”

  “Even when you can't see that purpose?”

  “There's always a purpose, Sir,” Travis said, a little stiffly. “Even if it isn't obvious.”

  “I appreciate your optimism in such things,” Heissman said. “But I have to say it makes you something of an anomaly. Typically, someone as solid as you are on following procedure is mentally rigid in all other aspects of life. You, in contrast, not only can think outside the lines, but you sometimes go ahead and draw your own lines.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Travis said, wondering if that boiled down to a compliment or an indictment. “But I really didn't do anything all that extraordinary.”

  “People with a talent for something never think it's a big deal,” Heissman said dryly. “The point I was going to make was that both of those characteristics are going to make you unpopular in certain circles. But you will be noticed, and appreciated, by the people who matter. For whatever that's worth.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Travis said. “Please understand in turn that I didn't join the RMN for glory or recognition. I joined to help protect the Star Kingdom.” He hesitated. “And if necessary, to die for it.”