The latest attack wave paused suddenly. He shut his eyes as the cloud of missiles slashed towards Verdun, the last of his fortresses, and behind his closed lids he saw the storm of defensive fire pouring forth to meet them. A soft sound-not really a moan, but dark with pain-rose from his bridge officers.
Panhanal opened his eyes and turned to the visual display as the terrible flashes died. Then he relaxed with a sigh. Verdun had been built into one of the smaller asteroids, and there was nothing left of her. Just nothing at all.
He leaned back, checking the status boards. Half a dozen of the once invincible forts remained, but all were broken and crippled, little more dangerous than as many superdreadnoughts. Indeed, Vicksburg and Rorke's Drift were less heavily armed than battle-cruisers. Forty years of labor had been wiped away in six hideous days, and Terra only knew how many thousands of his warriors had perished with them. Panhanal didn't know, and he never wanted to.
The infidels would come now that they'd killed the forts. But at least the minefields remained. He tried to cheer himself with that, for he knew what those mines would have done to any assault the People might have made. Yet the infidels had to know about the mines-the precision of their attacks proved they'd known exactly what they faced. And if they knew about them and still meant to attack, then they must think they knew a way to defeat them.
The thought ground at his battered morale, and he prayed his personnel felt less hopeless than he. Of course, the rest of the Sword didn't know Fleet Chaplain Sanak had excused himself briefly from Steadman's flag bridge last night. Not for long. Just long enough to go to his cabin, put the muzzle of his machine-pistol in his mouth, and squeeze the trigger. Panhanal made himself look away from the empty chair beside his own.
"Stand by all units," he rasped.
"Aye, sir. Standing by," his flag captain replied in a hoarse, weary voice.
The neat files of light dots moving slowly toward the warp point in Antonov's display belied the motley nature of the ships they represented.
Against all reasonable expectation, the tramp freighter had reappeared in the interstellar age. The reactionless drive represented a healthy initial investment, but its operating expenses were small, as it required no reaction mass. And the nature of the warp lines meant any vessel that could get into deep space could travel between the stars, so there was a vast number of hulls to be commandeered. The real problem-and the cause of much of the delay-had been the need to equip them with minimal deception-mode ECM so that they could fill the role Lantu had in mind for them. And if they did that, then they were worth every millicredit of the compensation that had been paid to their owners.
Tsuchevsky cleared his throat softly, and Antonov saw the time had arrived. The chief of staff-and, even more so, Kthaara-had been fidgeting for hours, but Antonov had been adamant. The Thebans must have time to feel their exhaustion and despair, just enough for their tense readiness in the wake of the final SBMHAWK salvo to ease a bit.
Now he nodded, and Tsuchevsky began transmitting orders.
Admiral Panhanal's crews had relaxed. Or, no, they hadn't "relaxed" so much as sagged in dull-minded weariness when no immediate attack followed Verdun's destruction. Panhanal knew they had, and even as he tried to goad and torment them into vigilance, his heart wept for them. Yet it was his job, and-
Two hundred superdreadnoughts erupted into the system of Thebes.
The admiral stared at his read-outs in stark, horrified disbelief as entire flotillas of capital ships warped into the teeth of his mines in a deadly, endless stream of insanely tight transits. Not possible! It wasn't possible! Not the Satan-Khan himself could have conjured such an armada!
"Launch all fighters!" he barked, and then the visual display exploded.
Despite himself Panhanal cringed away from its flaming fury. He peered at it through his inner eyelids, outer lids slitted against the incandescence, and a tiny part of his weary mind realized something was amiss. Wave after wave of ships appeared, dying in their dozens as the mines blew them apart, but they were dying too quickly. Too easily.
And then he understood. Those weren't superdreadnoughts-they were drones! They had to be. Fitted with ECM to suck the mines in if they were under manual control, perhaps, but not real superdreadnoughts, and his blood ran cold as he realized what he was seeing. The infidels weren't "sweeping" the mines; they were absorbing them!
He cursed aloud, pounding the padded arm of his chair. His mines were hurling themselves at worthless hulks, expending themselves, ripping the heart from his defenses, and there was nothing he could do about it!
The last freighter vanished into the nothingness of the warp point, and the lead group of the real assault's first wave-five superdreadnoughts converted for mine-sweeping-moved ponderously up. Antonov watched their lights advance, followed by those of the second group-three unconverted superdreadnoughts and three of Hannah Avram's escort carriers.
The lead group reached the warp point, and their lights wavered and went out.
The superdreadnought Finsteraarhorn blinked into reality, and the surviving Theban mines hurtled to meet her, but the tramp freighters' "assault" had done its job. Only a fraction of them remained, and Finsteraarhorn's heavy point defense handled the attacking satellites with ease. More ships appeared behind her, and their external ordnance lashed out at the air-bleeding wrecks of the surviving fortresses.
Return fire spat back, x-ray lasers and sprint missiles hammering at pointblank range. The last mines expended themselves uselessly, lasers lacerated armor and hulls, shields went down under the hammer blows of missiles that got through the mine-sweepers' point defense, yet they survived.
Rear Admiral Hannah Avram exhaled in relief as TFNS Mosquito made transit behind the superdreadnought Pike's Peak. Mosquito had survived-and that meant the anti-mine plan had worked.
Her eyes narrowed as her stabilizing plot flickered back to life. The lead group of mine-sweepers streamed atmosphere from their wounded flanks, yet they were all still there, and TFNS Rainier followed on Mosquito's heels. The light codes of Theban capital ships blazed, but they were hanging back, obviously afraid Antonov had reserved a "mousetrap" wave of SBMHAWKs as he had in Lorelei. A half-dozen forts were still in action-no, only five, she corrected herself as the avalanche of Pike's Peak's external missiles struck home-and the Shellheads were following their doctrine. They'd never seen her escort carriers, and they weren't wasting so much as a missile on lowly "destroyers" while superdreadnoughts floated on their targeting screens. Now to get the hell out of range before they changed their minds.
"All right, Danny. Course is one-one-seven by two-eight-three. Let's move it!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" MaGuire acknowledged, and she heard him snapping maneuvering orders as the next group of superdreadnoughts and escort carriers made transit behind them. It looked like the dreaded battle was going to be far less terrible than anyone had predicted, especially if-