In quick succession, a handful of widely spaced icons popped up enemy-red in the Naniwa ’s threatwell. The gravity spike of the Khaid ships dropping from transluminal reached the Imperial ship only instants after they emerged into realspace. Kosho was watching, elbow on the armrest of her shockchair, eyes hooded. Command was fully staffed, everyone having gotten at least a round of the showers and an hour off duty.
“Confirming five transits,” Konev announced, the icons beginning to annotate with glyphs indicating expected speed, throw-weight, and countermeasures. “All cruisers or smaller- Mishrak and Aslan -class-acceleration and emissions are within expected ranges.”
“Undamaged.” Oc Chac grimaced, tapping through a series of v-panes showing the wreckage being cleared from the battle-cruiser’s downship compartments. “Are they fresh, Chu-sa?”
“Doubtful, Sho-sa. Their captains are pushing hard-the Khaid have little need of patience. They will be wounded, like us, but keen to bring us to ground. Time to cover?”
Holloway eyed the plot. Fully half of the threatwell was a blizzard of icons representing the dead fleet. “Fifteen minutes to the nearest wrecks, Chu-sa. About twelve minutes until we’re inside the Khaid launch envelope.”
“Deflector status, Chac- tzin?” Susan looked back to the Mayan. “Are we still running hot?”
Oc Chac shook his head. “No, kyo. We can pull another three, four gravities.”
“Give us a boost, Holloway- tzin. But don’t open the throttle wide-we need to be able to turn once we’re in the debris field.”
The console under Susan’s fingers began to thrum with the vibration of the antimatter reactors chewing mass. “Nav-what are our options?”
Thai-i Olin looked up from his console, shaking his head. “Active scan is showing a lot of small fragments between the hulks-no good avenues for us to maneuver down-no holes yet, to hide in.”
“Find us something, Thai-i. Quickly now.” Kosho’s voice was pointed. “We have two minutes…”
“Launch signatures!” Konev’s voice was relaxed, almost a drawl, but the tenseness in his arms was as clear to Susan as an ash-cloud over Mount Talol. “Sixty missile tracks are on the board.”
“Initiating countermeasures.” Pucatli-at Comms-dumped the first of her spoofer pods.
“Counter-fire, kyo?” Konev looked to Kosho with a fierce gleam shining in his eyes. “If we concentrate, we might knock one or two out before they close to gun range.”
“Save your launchers, Thai-i. We need to conserve every shipkiller we have left.” Susan had already considered the fire rate from the on-rushing destroyers and their range of engagement. “Engage the missile cloud with kinetics and ECM starting at six minutes.”
“Isn’t this a brawl, Chu-sa?” Oc Chac looked at her questioningly, his face pale with fatigue. “Even one or two of the enemy down at this range will even the odds appreciably.”
Kosho lifted her chin, indicating the ’well. “Not yet, Sho-sa. This is 3-v Ullamaliztli with only one player left on our side. You played at Academy, I’m sure-”
A warning Klaxon honked, cutting her off. A fresh icon popped into view on the ’well.
“A Hayalet -class battleship, kyo.” Konev’s voice was tight as he reeled off the specifications of the new indicator. “Punched straight through from the Pinhole, right on our track.”
Susan swiveled, lifting an eyebrow at Olin and Holloway. “Time to enter the maze?”
“Five minutes, Chu-sa.” The pilot’s eyes were wide with fear. “I’ve picked up some options but-”
“They’ll have to do. Pilot, take us in.”
On the plot, the destroyers continued to close, their launchers cycling a new spread of missiles every one hundred and twenty seconds. The first wave was still three minutes out, but the Naniwa ’s point-defense was already hammering away at the incoming targets. Pucatli’s spoofer pod was squealing, flooding the spectrum with distorting noise and false signals. Khaid penetrators began to flare, and then wink off of the plot.
Behind them, the Hayalet held course at an angle away from the Naniwa and her running firefight. Susan watched the vector firm up, heading in-system at a good clip.
How could they fail to notice the singularity? The sensor suite on one of those battlewagons must be the equal of ours-some daring hunt-lord sees the realization of an entire race’s dreams of empire riding on that thread.
This reminded her of Prince Xochitl and the missing Hummingbird, and her heart lifted at the thought of the Khaid howling in behind those two “gentlemen,” well stoked with blood lust.
They’re all suited to one another, she thought bitterly. Then Susan felt a pang of conscience, just for an instant. An Imperial officer should be mindful of her duty.
A proximity alarm sounded-the battle-cruiser sped past an outlier of the vast shoal of wreckage-even as the first wave of Khaid shipkillers began to flare around her. The Naniwa groaned, shipskin hammered by the stabbing flare of fusion detonations. Now the plot was filled with the tracery of outgoing kinetics, the flash of bomb-pods erupting and Command was loud with the swift, urgent voices of her crew reacting. Konev’s counter-missile wave banged away, shaking the secondary hull with the violence of launch rails cycling.
Adrenaline flushed her limbs with a quivering, bright energy. The only thing missing was Hadeishi’s voice in her earbug, calm and controlled, his presence radiating a contained focus as he put the ship through her paces. I am alone. Susan felt a tight, stabbing pain in her diaphragm. On the plot, the density of the wrecks was soaring, and Holloway’s brow was dappled with sweat as he maneuvered. Here we go.
Kosho detached a series of v-panes showing the movement of the Khaid battleship towards the Sunflower to her Executive console.
A good six hours for them to reach the artifact, she saw. Long time to stay in this dance.
A shipkiller blew only three compartments away, shredding the Naniwa ’s shipskin and venting a huge gout of atmosphere and flotsam. In Command, the overheads flickered, half the consoles cut out and someone cursed violently as their v-display shorted, spilling smoke globules and hot sparks into the air.
Oc Chac was at the man’s side in an instant, a portable extinguisher spitting foam into the splintered console. “Damage control, this is Main Command, we’ve lost a ’net node and five consoles.”
Susan saw the wreckage occlude the pursuing destroyers as Holloway put them into a jinking curve, fleeing past another of the dead behemoths. “Weapons, tight pattern-rear launchers only-delayed fuse while we’re in scan-shadow.”
“ Hai, kyo! ” Konev cycled his launchers, stylus darting across his console. Preconfigured munitions packages punched outbound, venting from the eight rearward rails at nearly a hundred g’s.
At the same moment, Olin’s voice cut across the Russian’s. “New contact! New contact! Aslan -class cruiser to ventral-range sixty thousand kilometers-enemy is launching now, thirty missile tracks incoming! Impact in eighty seconds!”
“Now, Sho-sa,” Susan said, her voice preternaturally calm. “Now we’re in the brawl.”