"Thank you." Li turned his chair to face Aurelli at last.
"Mister Envoy, we are coming onto station," he said with cold formality. "I suggest you hail the Theban representatives."
`Thank you, Admiral, I think that would be an excellent idea," Aurelli said smugly, and Li nodded curtly to his com officer.
"The infidels are hailing us, Holiness."
Fleet Chaplain Manak glanced at his assistant and nodded.
"Are the computers ready?"
"They are, Holiness."
"Then we shall respond." Manak glanced at Admiral Lantu. "Are you ready, my son?"
"We are, Holiness.' Manak note3 the tension in Lantu's eyes and smiled. He'd watched the admiral grow to adulthood and knew how strong he was, but even the strongest could be excused a bit of strain at such a moment.
"Be at ease, my son," he said gently, "and prepare your courier drone. We shall give the infidels one last chance to prove they remain worthy of Holy Terra. If they are not, She will deliver them into your hand. Stand by.'
"Standing by, Holiness."
"Greetings, Mister Aurelli. My name is Mannock."
The voice was clear, despite the poor visual image, and Victor Aurelli wondered what mix of colonist dialects had survived to produce its accent. The Standard English was crisp, but there was a hard edge to the vowels and a peculiar lisp to the sibilants. Not an unpleasant sound, but defijtely a bit odd. And this Mannock was a handsome enough fellow - or might have been, if not for the flickering fuzz of those persistent technical problems.
"I'm pleased to meet you, sir," he replied, "and I look forward to meeting you in person."
"As I look forward to meeting you." The poor signal quality prevented Aurelli from noticing that the computer-generated image's lips weren't quite perfectly synchronized with the words.
"Then let us begin, Mister Mannock."
"Of course. We are already preparing to initiate docking with your flagship. In the meantime, however, I have a question I would like to ask."
Of course, Mister Mannock. Ask away."
"Do you" - the voice was suddenly more intent - "accept the truth of the Prophet's teaching, Mister Aurelli?"
Aurelli blinked, then frowned at the com screen.
"The teaching of which prophet, Mister Mannock?" he asked. and the universe exploded in his face.
"Incoming fire!" someone screamed, and Captain Na-dine Wu, CO of TFNS Deerhound, stared at her display. Missiles were coming at her carrier - not one, or two, or a dozen, but scores of them!
"Impact in eighteen seconds - mark!" her gunnery officer snapped. "Weapons free. Stand by point defense."
"Launch the ready fighters!" Captain Wu ordered, never looking awav from her plot. The stand-by squadron might get off before those missiles struck. No one else would.
"Oh, dear GodI"
The anguished whisper came from Victor Aurelli, but Admiral Li had no time to spare the envoy.
"Execute Plan Charley!" he barked, and his answering missiles whipped away. But he needed time to power up the shields and energy weapons Aurelli had forbidden him to activate on the way in, and Everest trembled in agony as the first warheads erupted against her naked drive field.
"Captain Bowman reports we're streaming air, sir," Gi-anelli reported. "Datalink gone - we're out of the net."
"Acknowledged. Get those beams up, Christine! We need them bad! -
"Energy fire on Cottonmouthl" Li turned to his ops officer in surprise. Energy fire? How? They hadn't picked up any Erlicher emissions, so it couldn't be force beams, and the battleship was too far out for effective laser fire.
"Specify!"
"Unknown, sir. It appears to be somfe sort of x-ray laser."
"X-ray laser?" Li stole a second to glance at his own read-outs and winced as the impossible throughput readings registered.
`Cottonmouth is Code Omega, sir," Gianelli reported flatly. "And the carrier group's taking a pounding. Deer-hound and Corgy are gone. So is Bogue, but she got about half her group off before they nailed her."
"Many hits on enemy flagship," Gunnery announced, and Li watched Saint-Just's dot flash and blink. His missiles were getting through despite her readied point defense, but her armor must be incredible. Her shields were still down and fireballs spalled her drive field like hellish strobes, but she wasn'teven streaming atmosphere yet!
"Admiral Li!" He looked up at his Plotting officer's summons. "We're picking up additional drive fields, sir - they're coming out of the Ferry!"
Dispassionate computers updated the display silently, and Li looked at the destruction of his task force. They must have had a courier drone on the trips, ready to go the instant Aurelli fumbled their question. Now the rest of their fleet - the fleet no Terran had ever seen - was coming through, and six more superdreadnoughts headed the parade.
He swore silently and ran his eyes back over his own battered force. The carriers had taken the worst pounding. Half were gone and most of the rest were cruelly mauled - the bastards must have gunned for them on purpose. His surviving units were getting their shields up at last, but most of the capital ships were already streaming air. At least half of them must have lost their datalink, which meant they'd be forced to fight as individuals against trios of enemy ships whose fire would be synchronized to the second. Worse, it was alr^arK/.""Peace Fleet's" supposed numerical advantage was, in fact, a disadvantage.
They'd timed it well. If he'd been only a little closer to the Ferry, he might have been able to bull through and sit on it, smashing their reserves as they made transit. As it was, he couldn't quite get there in time, and trying to would only put him closer to those damned lasers. They were almost as long-ranged as his force beams and, unlike force beams, they could stab straight through his shields. If he got even closer to them -
"PuJI us back, Christine." He was amazed he sounded so calm.
"Aye, aye, sir," his chief of staff said levelly, though
she knew as we/7 as he that backing off the warp point
was tantamount to admitting defeat.
If only more of his fighters had gotten into space! The ones which had launched were doing their best, but once their missiles were expended they would Kave cmly tYvevr single onboard laser mounts, because there would no longer be any hangar decks to rearm them. Only Elk-hound and Constellation had gotten their full groups off, and even now heavy missile salvos were bearing down on both frantically evading carriers.
"Sir!" The utter disbelief in Gianelli's voice wrenched his head around. She sat bolt-upright at her console, her face white. "Greyhound reports she's being boarded, sir!"
"Ramming Fleet in position, Admiral. First samurai salvos away.
"Thank you, Plot. Captain Kumash, where are my shields? I - Ahhhh!"
Saint-Just's shields snapped up, and Admiral Lantu grinned fiercely. These infidels clearly had no lasers to match his own. He didn't know what those long-ranged energy weapons of theirs were, but they couldn't reach through a shield as his could, and the massive armor his ships mounted as an anti-laser defense had served them well. The damage in the first exchange had gone in the People's favor by a wider margin than ne had dared hope.
"They're pulling back, sir."
"I see it, Plot. Maneuvering, the fleet will advance."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Li Chien-lu shut it all out for a® moment, forcing himself to think.
That first deadly salvo had gutted his carriers and blown too many of his capital ships out of their datanets, and the enemy's ability to board ships under way made an already desperate situation hopeless. Captain Bowman had Everest's Marines racing for the armories, but they would be pathetically out-numbered when those "capital missile" vehicles got around to her. In a stand-up fight with the strength bearing down on them, his task force would be annihilated in thirty minutes of close action. "Commander Gianelli."
"Yes, sir?"
"Order a't't't't escorts, v>stt't't't'te-oruiser5, and carriers to withdraw. The battle-line will advance and attack the enemy."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Admiral Li turned back to his plot as his battered formation unraveled. One or two battle-cruisers ignored the order, their drives already too damaged to run, and he doubted very many of those fleeing units would escape, but -
"What are you doing?'t't" A hand pounded his shoulder, and he turned almost calmly to meet Victor Aurelli's stunned eyes.
"I'm ordering my lighter units to run for it, Mister Aurelli."
"But. but."
"They may have the speed for it," Li explained as if to a child. "We don't. But if we can make these bastards concentrate on us while the others run, we can at least give them a chance."
"But we'll all be killed!"
"Yes, Mister Aurelli, we will." Li watched his words hit the envoy like fists. It was very quiet on the bridge, despite the battle thundering about Everest's hull, and the admiral's entire staff heard him as he continued coldly, "That's why I'm so glad you're aboard this ship."
He turned away from the terrified civilian to Commander Gianelli.
"Let's go get them, Christine."