But then, after a time lag that the distance differential reduced to almost nothing, the four hundred incoming gunboats swerved away in hundred-and-eighty-degree turns and began to recede into the blackness. And all at once the silence shattered into a million fragments as all the pent-up tension released itself. Such were the cheers and the weeping that they hardly waxed any further when, minutes later, the enemy starships also turned back.
"Prescott did it, Sir!" Stovall turned exultantly to Antonov... and what he saw stopped him. Boulder-impervious to the storm of emotion around him, the admiral was staring at the tank in which the red icons of the enemy, having completed their turning maneuver, were racing for the warp point ahead of Second Fleet's green ones. He consulted his wrist calculator with scowling concentration, then faced Stovall.
"It appears, Commodore," he said quietly, "that our speed advantage won't quite suffice to overtake and pass the blocking force before it gets back to the warp point—at least not by any significant margin. Note also—" he indicated another portion of the tank, astern of the green icons "—that the Bug forces pursuing us have launched what must be their entire remaining gunboat complement."
"They won't catch us, Sir," Stovall stated emphatically.
"No, they won't... unless we slow down as a result of damage sustained when we catch up with the blocking force just short of the warp point. This leads me to two conclusions, Commodore Stovall, neither of them pleasant."
"Sir?"
"First of all, we will need our fighters to help us fight our way past the blocking force. All our fighters; we don't have enough left to send any to Admiral Prescott's assistance when the blocking force's gunboats get back to the warp point."
Stovall swallowed. He hadn't thought that far ahead. But the admiral was right, of course. Prescott would have to stand alone against those four hundred gunboats for as long as it took.
"Ah... and the other conclusion, Sir?"
"That we cannot slow down as we pass the blocking force, for if we do the gunboat waves pursuing us will catch up. Not for any reason. Therefore, you will pass the following general order: any ship that falls out of formation from battle damage is to be left behind."
For an instant, it simply didn't register on Stovall. Then he felt his head shaking slowly in mute denial. "Uh, Admiral Antonov, Sir... excuse me, but I thought I understood you to say that we are to abandon our cripples."
"That is precisely what I said, Commodore, and I am not in the habit of repeating orders."
Stovall felt a flush spread from his ears and neck, and he didn't care, because before he could even think of stopping himself he blurted out the unsayable. "No! By God, Sir, you can't! Every tradition—"
"Commodore Stovall!" Antonov's voice had dropped whole octaves and it seemed to reverberate through the chief of staff's entire body, not just his eardrums. No one else had been able to make out precisely what they were saying; but everyone, in the immemorial manner of subordinates, found something else to be doing with silent concentration. Antonov's voice dropped to a near-whisper. "You will transmit the order, Commodore. Otherwise I will relieve you and order Commander de Bertholet to do so."
"But... but, Sir, the crews of those ships! I mean, if we were fighting any normal race—Orions, or even Thebans—it would be different! But—"
"Do you think I like it, Commodore? But understand this: not all of us are going to escape. If we insist on trying to rescue everyone, we will save no one. Accept that fact! And let me clarify my order—by 'any ship' I mean to include this one!"
Stovall started to open his mouth again. But then he felt the heat start to recede from his face. For Antonov was right. Oh, maybe not right in a human way... but that way offered no hope of survival for any of them.
All at once, for the first time, Stovall truly understood the origin of the nickname "Ivan the Terrible."
"Aye, aye, Sir," he said expressionlessly, and turned towards the com station.
Four hundred gunboats swept towards the warp point. Behind them, the gunboats of Attack Forces One and Three streaked after Second Fleet, fifteen hundred strong, but they would still be over twenty minutes behind Ivan Antonov when his ships made transit.
If they made transit, for Attack Force Four still lay between him and safety, and Raymond Prescott locked his shock frame and sealed his helmet as the gunboats came in. The freshly arrived Bug force had also detached its light cruisers—his sensors had the uncloaked vessels clearly, watching them race towards him behind the gunboats—and CIC reported sensor ghosts which might well be cloaked vessels coming with them. Battle-cruisers, he thought. Those have to be battle-cruisers. Well, we knew they've used military drives for some of their ships all along; it's about time they tried to produce a "fast wing" to match our Dunkerques.
"Launch the fighters," he said quietly.
The gunboats roared onward. Their less powerful sensors were beginning to pick up the ghostly traces of cloaked vessels... and then there was something besides ghosts on their displays. Three hundred and fifteen attack craft exploded into space, and they knew they were doomed. The enemy's known attack craft strength had been so reduced they had intended to rely on internal weapons to beat off interceptions, and none mounted AFHAWKs. But there was nowhere else for them to go, and their mission remained unchanged. They must locate and identify the enemy's starships, and they streamed in to the attack.
"Attack sequence X-Ray," Captain Kinkaid announced. Acknowledgments came back, and she altered course slightly, leading her massed strikegroups to meet that phalanx of gunboats. She wasn't driving in as fast as she could have; there was no need, with the enemy coming to her, and so no point in putting the extra wear on her drives. She smiled at the thought—the smile of a hunting wolf—and looked at her tac officer.
"Targeting laid in, Sir," Lieutenant Brancuso announced crisply. "We've got good solutions. Launch range in... thirty-one seconds."
Raymond Prescott's fighters salvoed over nine hundred FM3s. Fireballs pocked the Bugs' formation—only a few, at first, but growing in the space of a breath to a forest fire that reached out from the front of that massed wave of gunboats, swept back along its flanks, and ate into its heart. Two hundred and seven died, and the survivors' datanets were shattered. They were no longer squadrons; they were broken bits and pieces, individual craft still charging forward, and Terran and Ophiuchi pilots closed with lasers. They had to enter the Bugs' point defense envelope to engage them, but gunboats were much bigger targets, and, unlike the Bugs, the Allied datanets were intact. Entire squadrons stooped upon their prey, lasers blazing in coordinated attacks on single targets, and Captain Kinkaid, covered by her own carrier's strikegroup and hovering just beyond the melee to coordinate the attack, realized none of the bastards mounted AFHAWKs!
"Kill 'em!" she snarled, and led SG 211 to join the slaughter.
The cruisers and battle-cruisers racing ahead of the rest of Attack Force Four watched their gunboats die, but some of them had gotten far enough in, lasted long enough to pierce the enemy's ECM and get contact reports off. Attack Force Four's detached screen knew what it faced, and the odds were less uneven than it had feared. The enemy had superdreadnoughts and almost as many battle-cruisers, but the screen had thirty-six light-cruisers to support the battle-cruisers, and the attack craft would have too little time to rearm for an anti-shipping strike. The screen could not kill all those enemy vessels, but it could hurt them badly... and that was all it truly had to do, with the rest of Attack Force Four coming up from astern.