“My lord,” said Choy. “Message from Pinnace Three.‘Attack successful. Enemy destroyed. Request orders.’”
Martinez looked in surprise at the space that had been occupied by the enemy squadron. Even though the plasma bursts had thinned, no enemy ships had appeared. It appeared thatIllustrious had just fired a series of missile barrages at enemies that had already been vaporized.
A burst of cold satisfaction raced through him. “Order Pinnace Three to return to the ship,” he said. “Weapons, direct all remaining missiles to attack the enemy next astern. Engines, reduce acceleration to one-half gravity.”
Relief akin to euphoria flowed through his sinews as the great pressure of eight gravities eased. The hull gave a series of cracks and shudders as if it were flexing vast limbs. Martinez pressed the touchpad that would connect him with Chandra.
“Request permission to decelerate and double the enemy next astern.”
Chandra’s answer was swift. “We’ve only got twenty-two minutes to our nearest approach to the sun,” she said. “We’ll have to wait till after our slingshot.”
Martinez looked in surprise at the display and saw that she was right. He’d been paying so much attention to the battle that the range to Magarmah had escaped him. Hours had gone by since the first Naxid squadron fired its initial flight of missiles, and meanwhile the sun had been growing closer.
“All ships to form on the flag,” Chandra said, this time over the general broadcast channel. “Illustrious,here’s your course.”
The cruiser altered its heading to bring it onto the course Tork had ordered for the fleet after the solar passage. Three other survivors of the battle took station nearIllustrious, each keeping a wary distance from the flagship and each other in order to avoid getting fried by the other ship’s blazing antimatter tails. The last survivor did not acknowledge any of Michi’s transmissions, but shaped its own course for the solar approach. It was unable to communicate though it was clearly under command, and it probably hadn’t received Michi’s order. The other ships stayed clear lest it do something unexpected.
Judge Urhuggave no orders and did not alter its course. Its engines were unlit, and as a result Squadron 9 was slowly closing on it. Martinez wondered if Tork’s cruiser was a ship of the dead.
Ahead ofUrhug there was a ferocious blaze of action and then silence. Sula’s squadron broke its formation and began heavy accelerations to line up for the passage across Magarmah.
If they had left any Naxids alive, the enemy was hidden by expanding plasma bursts.
Engines roared andIllustrious quaked as Squadron 9 burned around Magarmah. Martinez clenched his teeth in the face of high gravity and managed to hold onto consciousness.Illustrious maintained heavy thrust for another four minutes after the passage, to shape its course for Magaria, and Martinez looked ahead.
There were nothing but friendly ships between Squadron 9 and Magaria. Sula’s Squadron 17 was already dispersing again into its whirling formation and decelerating to engage the enemy. Martinez counted seven ships remaining in her squadron, and fourteen in the other friendly squadrons ahead.
Judge Urhughadn’t fired its engines during the solar bypass, and so hadn’t shaped the course that Tork himself had ordered for the fleet. The flagship was flying by itself toward the interstellar void.
“Prepare to decelerate,” came Chandra’s voice on the all-ship channel. “We will double the enemy squadron to our rear.”
Martinez hung weightless asIllustrious rotated to its new heading. He could only imagine what was happening on the other side of Magarmah as the two fleets approached the same point. Annihilating flights of missiles would be fired at point-blank range, as much a danger to the aggressor as the target. Possibly on account of the danger, they’d stop shooting missiles entirely, but that didn’t mean they were through fighting. As the opposing squadrons fell into line ahead and astern of one another, they would be close enough to begin deploying their antiproton beams as offensive weapons, and cause the same kind of carnage that Harzapid had seen on the first day of the mutiny. The opposing forces would roar around the sun shooting great chunks out of each other, and if they didn’t separate sufficiently after the transit, they’d just keep on shooting.
Martinez was at a loss as to how he’d be able to aid friendly ships if that were the case. He might not be able to fire missiles for fear of hitting his own side.
“Decelerate on my mark, at three gravities,” Chandra said. “Five, four, three, two, one, mark.”
Deceleration kicked Martinez in the spine. He saw that most of the other survivors began decelerating at the same moment—all but Sula’s, which had been decelerating all along—and he wondered if Michi was the senior surviving officer and had given them all an order.
Two ships didn’t decelerate. One was the cruiser that had been unable to communicate, which plodded along on its preset course, and the other a ship farther up the line, which might be in the same condition.
Martinez saw specks whirl around the sun, their torches flaring to bring them on track for Magaria. It was impossible to tell whether they were loyalist or Naxid, and Michi transmitted a demand that they identify themselves.
The reply flashed back at the speed of light. The new arrivals were Cruiser Squadron 20, five ships that remained of the ten that had started the battle.
The sun spat out another line of ships, tiny bright seeds flying across the darkness. They were on a different heading from the loyalist squadrons and therefore presumed to be enemy.
“All ships fire by salvo,” Chandra said. “No—wait. Stand by.”
The new arrivals’ course was peculiar. They weren’t racing after the loyalists, and they weren’t shaping a course to get between the loyalists and Magaria. In fact they didn’t seem to be heading anywhere in particular, and were soaring more or less into empty space.
No, Martinez realized. Not quite empty…
He stabbed the virtual button to send a message to Chandra.
“They’re running!”he said. “They’re heading for Wormhole Five.”
Which, he recalled, would eventually take them to the Naxid home world of Naxas.
“We’ve got to go after them!” he told Chandra. “The enemy fleetis the rebellion now. Magaria is nothing without them.”
“Fire by salvo,” Chandra said. “Stand by for course correction.”
Missiles were already being launched by the enemy squadron and by the remains of Squadron 20. It was very close range, and soon the space between them was filled with detonations.
Another squadron flung itself around Magaria’s sun, on track for Wormhole 5. They were already shedding missiles aimed at Cruiser Squadron 20.
“Turn to course zero-six-zero by zero-zero-one relative,” Chandra said. “Accelerate to six gravities, beginning at sixteen forty-one and one.”
“Engines, cut engines,” Martinez told Mersenne. “Pilot, do you have the new heading?”
“Yes, my lord.”
The loyalists began their pursuit of the fleeing enemy, gravity piling on their bones. The next two formations to pass the sun were loyalist, already engaged with the Naxid squadron astern of them. Antimatter burned and boiled in the space between ships.
Not all of the ships passed the sun intact. Two flew off on the trail ofJudge Urhug, unable to make use of their engines. It was unclear whether they were friendly or Naxid. Others fell into the wake of the loyalist squadrons, but reported too much damage to continue the engagement with the enemy.
If the Naxids had similar problems, they were silent about it.
More ships were flung out of the sun’s gravity well. Enemy squadrons vanished behind clouds of raging plasma. The radiation detector spiked as missiles reached fuel stores. The Naxids increased acceleration, and Michi did as well.Illustrious groaned to the increase in gravities. Martinez panted for breath against the leaden giant that squatted on his chest. Michi’s ships fired one salvo after another. Ships reported that their magazines were beginning to run low.