Sten. For certain.
Now where the hell was the Victory! The bastard would be masterminding his ambush from its bridge. If Madoera could ED Sten's flagship, perhaps a suicide run by a couple of DD's might take out the puppetmaster. It wasn't on any screen. In some ways, that was worse. It meant the rebellion and the rebel forces had grown to the point that its leader no longer needed to accompany his beings to battle.
"All stations," an antimissile tech monotoned. "We have a multiple Kali-class launch from hostiles... attempting to divert..."
"Fox stations. Shift to local control. Acquire and launch at will."
Madoera gnawed at his lip, calculating.
"Put CruDiv One on a direct attack against the BBs," he ordered. "And punch a line through to the Neosho. Order it to avoid battle and break for open space and report. Captain, get your tacships out there."
"Yessir."
"Sir... the Neosho is not answering. And we have no sign of Neosho onscreen."
He hadn't even seen the destroyer get killed.
Madoera thought hard. "All right, then. Put CruDiv Support out, wide on a flank. Get the supply elements in with the main fleet. And tell the Parma—"
"Signal from Parma, sir. Four hits. CIC wiped out. All weapons stations under local command. Drive regulation lost. Ship being conned from engine room."
Another screen showed a third swarm coming in at the task force.
Someone shrilled, "Where'd they get—"
Snapped retort: "Silence at your station, Mister! Report as you've been trained!"
Madoera kept his calm. Closed his eyes, and let his mind battlechamber.
"Do you have contact with CruDiv Two?"
"Affirm. Staticky. A lot of interference from the pulsar."
"Order them to avoid battle. Withdraw past Parma, past Geomys Royal, and set an erratic orbit clear of action. Do not engage the rebels. Do not attempt to stay in contact with the task force."
"Message sent, sir. Will comply."
"All right. Captain. We're going to circle the wagons..."
Madoera ordered the remnants of his task force—a crippled battleship, his flagship, and the rest—to take a globe formation, with erratic orbiting to keep them from being targets. He issued no change in orders to the two heavy cruisers he'd sent on a flanking attack.
He'd lose them, but perhaps they might serve to confuse the rebels, at least long enough for Madoera to begin some sort of breakout.
"Sir," a talker said. "Contact from the Aleksyev. It reports—"
The Geomys Royal shuddered as a missile impacted. Metal and men screamed. Flashdark/light as primary lighting went down, and a secondary circuit cut in. Nausea swept through Madoera's guts as the McLean generators went off and he free-fell, then they came back on—but "down" was what had been to the side seconds ago.
"All stations, report damage..."
The Aoife, at full drive, closed on the "center" of the battlefield. Berhal Waldman stood behind his deck officer, not feeling his fingers trying to dig into the steel back of the chair.
His destroyer was at the front of the vee. The other four ships were also Honjo—officers and men who had mutinied to take their ships to join the rebels. They were actually regular volunteers. And all of them had sworn to avenge the Aisling.
"All units, all units," Waldman ordered. "Weapons systems slaved to my ship... on command... now."
The ships obeyed. Then, "All stations, ready to launch."
"Very good. Target... enemy battleship. Goblin... half drive. Launch!"
Medium-range antiship missiles exploded from their tubes toward the Parma.
‘Target... enemy battleship," Berhal Waldman said. He ignored his weapons officer—she hadn't been on the Aoife when its sister ship was obliterated. This was his party. "Kali launch. One tube per ship. Kali officers... maintain contact with your missiles... launch!"
The Imperial battleship seethed flame as its antimissile batteries and lasers went after the incoming missiles from the Honjo destroyers. In the dazzle, TA systems confused the monstrous shipkilling Kalis with the smaller Goblins, and did not correctly assign priorities.
One Goblin got through and knocked out two weapons stations—and forty men—on the Parma. And then both Kalis struck. The Parma blew in half, half again, and then into fragments.
The Honjo turned for the Geomys Royal.
On Madoera's main screen, Imperial units were blanking—or else transmitting DAMAGE/OUT OF BATTLE signals to the Geomys Royal.
That was enough. Fleet Admiral Madoera lifted a mike, and broadcast en clair.
"All Imperial units... all Imperial units. This is Admiral Madoera. All units break contact. Repeat, break contact. Set individual orbits, emergency power, for base. That is an order."
He dropped the microphone.
"Captain, contact your tac squadrons. I want them to hold the rebels to the last. This is an all-units rearguard action. We must—"
"Missile closing... closing... negative diversion... negative acquisition... impact!"
The Goblin struck about two hundred meters behind the( Geomys Royal's bridge. Just behind the missile was a Kali. The Kali operator saw opportunity, and sent her bird directly into the fireball, counted once, and manually detonated.
Novablink... and there was empty space where the Geomys Royal—and Fleet Admiral Madoera—had been.
The survivors of the Imperial task force—one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, three destroyers, and the fleet tender—fled at emergency drive. Their orbit would sweep them very close to the radio pulsar, then out, deep into the emptiness between the stars.
This was one sector from which the rebels had not attacked.
It was where Sten, and the Victory, waited.
"All tacships," Captain Preston broadcast, "we have six Imperial ships in-sector. All units, acquire data from central computer. Under squadron command: Attack. Repeat, attack."
Hannelore La Ciotat and her fellow assassins with silk scarves went in for the kill.
Sten watched from the bridge of the Victory until the last Imperial indicator had vanished. His face was a mask. Just as had happened with the Caligula, beings who wore the same uniform Sten had worn, beings he might have served with or under or drank with in gin joints, were dead.
Kilgour's face was equally blank.
"All—" Preston hesitated, then continued. "—enemy elements destroyed."
"Very well. Phase Two."
And Sten's forces would not be permitted to ride clear of the battlefield, eyes averted from the slaughter.
Forty transports, provided by the Zaginows and the Cal'gata, swept the system. Ten Bhor armed merchant ships went with them. They hunted down any fragment of any Imperial ship they could pick up onscreen. The fragments were either further destroyed by demolition teams crossing to the wreckage and setting charges, or, if they were larger, the armed auxiliaries blasted them with Goblins or lasers.
It wasn't necessary, at least, to kill any survivors they found. Not that there were many. Space war is no more merciful than naval battles far from land.