Ahead, Sula’s squadron was well and truly separated now, all the ships moving in an irregular, spasmodic fashion that seemed filled with random course and acceleration changes. Only an appreciation of the mathematics would show that the ships never strayed outside a mutually supporting distance, that their prearranged movement pattern allowed them to stay in secure laser communication with one another, that the formation could be shifted to concentrate offensive power on a group of enemy ships, or a single ship, or to form a protective screen around a damaged comrade.

If only Michi Chen’s squadron could adopt a similar organization.

He had every confidence that the loyalists would win the battle. The only question was the cost. Tork would grind the enemy down, using ships and crew as the grinder, but the numbers used by the new tactics were mathematical, and more flexible. Martinez wanted to tease the Naxids, surround them, baffle them, trap them like a slow-moving bear amid a pack of racing, snapping hounds. Using his tactics, the loyalists would still win, but there would be many more loyalists alive to enjoy the victory.

Tork’s stolid, workmanlike tactics offended him. Offended his intelligence, his professionalism, his sense of pride. The waste of lives offended him, and the waste of ships.

Tork might even wasteme, he thought.

He reached with his hands into virtual space, called up the comm board, then once again paged Michi. When Li answered, he asked for the squadcom.

“Stand by.”

It was a few moments before Michi appeared, miniature helmeted head and suited shoulders floating in the starless virtual space.

“Yes, Lord Captain?”

“May I suggest that we starburst, my lady?” Martinez said. “I realize the entire squadron doesn’t have the formula, but Lieutenant Prasad, plus Kazakov and the crew in Auxiliary Command, can feed them their necessary course changes, and—”

“My lord,” Michi said, her gaze stolid, “let me be plain. First, I am not about to disobey a direct order from the Supreme Commander. Second, you are not my tactical officer any more. Please confine yourself to managing the ship, and I will take care of the squadron.”

Martinez stabbed at the virtual button that ended the communication. Rage pulsed in his ears.

Michi’s words were all the more infuriating because they were true.Illustrious was his job. It really wasn’t his business to suggest tactics to the squadcom.

Othercommanders, he told himself,had followed his advice, to their benefit. Do-faq had followed his recommendations at Hone-bar, and come out of it with a bloodless victory. Michi herself, at Protipanu…well, he had been tactical officer then.

“Missile flares from the enemy squadron,” Pan reported. “Eighteen—thirty-six—forty-four missiles, my lord. Heading our way.”

Martinez returned his attention to the display. Right, he thought. Concentrate on runningIllustrious.

Concentrate on keeping himself and his ship alive.

And somehow manage this without tactics. He felt as if he were shackled to an iron cannonball while an angry mob pelted him with rocks.

“Keep tracking them,” he said. “Weapons, alert Battery One to possible counterfire.”

It would be Michi who would order any response. At this range, any missile launch was the squadcom’s business.

Orders came from the Flag Officer Station a few seconds later.Illustrious would fire five countermissiles as part of the squadron’s coordinated response.

Missiles leapt off the rails. Martinez watched as chemical rockets carried them to a safe distance so their antimatter engines could ignite, then saw the curves’ trajectories as the missiles raced toward the oncoming barrage.

The two salvos encountered each other at the approximate midpoint and caused a series of expanding radio blooms that temporarily blocked Martinez’s view of the squadron he was preparing to engage. He was able to view other enemy units, though, and they didn’t seem to be maneuvering, so he assumed his own enemy wasn’t either.

At the head of the fight, where Sula battled the enemy van, missiles were detonating in a continuous silent ripple, a ceaseless flash of brilliants against the darkness. Squadrons of decoys danced and maneuvered around the action, though without purpose—both sides had long since worked out which formations were decoys by now.

A text message from Chandra appeared on his display. “Target enemy with fifteen missiles. Immediate.”

Fifteen: that was a full battery.

“Weapons,” he said. “Battery Two to target the enemy. Fire when ready.”

“Fire fifteen from Battery Two,” Husayn replied smoothly. “Shall I fire a pinnace, my lord?”

The pinnaces were designed to race toward the enemy alongside missile barrages, to shepherd them to their targets. Martinez had worn the silver flashes of a pinnace pilot when he was a cadet, as had Sula. Pinnace pilots were dashing, and the duty was considered an entrée to the fashionable world of yachting. Peers competed with one another for the few places available.

Unfortunately, the war had been hard on pinnace pilots, with casualty rates of something like ninety percent. Sula had been the only pinnace pilot to survive the First Battle of Magaria. For some reason, Peers weren’t volunteering for the duty in their usual numbers: most of the new pinnace pilots were now enlisted.

“No pinnace, Weapons,” Martinez said.

“No pinnaces, my lord.” There was a moment of silence, and then, “Missiles away, my lord. Tubes clear. All missiles running normally.”

“Tell Battery Three to stand by for counterfire,” Martinez said. Michi had used the radio blooms as cover to fire a salvo: possibly the Naxids would as well.

An idea floated into Martinez’s mind, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. The thought of the radio-opaque wall of missile bursts between him and the Naxids had combined with Husayn’s query about pinnaces to produce a fresh, bright notion that glittered in his thoughts like a precious gem.

Martinez probed the idea for a moment and found that it only glittered all the more.

“Comm,” he said, “I need to speak to the pilots of Pinnaces One and Two.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Choy.

The two pilots reported in. One was a cadet and a Peer, the other a commoner and a recruit.

“I’m going to fire you in opposite directions, at right angles to the plane of the ecliptic,” he said. “I want to use you as observation platforms, to get as many angles on the action as possible. Use passive detectors only—there will be enough radar and lasers out there. Send me all information real-time, and we’ll overlay it with our picture of the battle here.”

The pilots were too well-trained to show any relief at the knowledge that Martinez was not about to send them alongside flights of missiles into the hell of antimatter bursts that awaited them.

“Yes, my lord,” they said.

The pinnaces were launched. They were packed with sensor equipment and transmitters, in order to detect openings in enemy defenses and order whole sheaves of missiles into course changes. They would do very well as spotters, able perhaps to see around the missile bursts and provide a new angle on the combat.

Martinez instructed Choy and Pan to coordinate the reception of the pinnaces’ transmissions and their integration into the sensor picture of the battle. During the time it took to set that up, Michi ordered one more offensive barrage and another salvo of defensive missiles against incoming enemy.

Missile bursts were raging up and down the first two-thirds of the Fleet. At the head was a continuous seething blaze, like endless rippling chains of fireworks going off. So pervasive was the radio interference that Martinez had no clear picture of what was happening there, but he sensed that Sula’s fight had reached some kind of climax.