CEO Hua Boucher, believing herself to have an overwhelming advantage in firepower, would surely stick to that path, wanting nothing more than to be able to hit Midway with everything she had. Marphissa’s problem was how to adjust her own track slightly to still give Boucher shots at Midway, but not too many, and also give her own cruisers and Hunter-Killers the ability to concentrate their fire on a few of Boucher’s escorts.
Twist the diamond formation slightly, bend its vector a little to one side, and her escorts would pretty much bracket Hua’s two heavy cruisers while Midway and the Syndicate battleship went by each other. “Ah, yes,” Marphissa murmured, designating one Syndicate heavy cruiser, the one that had helped bombard Kane, as the target for Gryphon and Manticore, and the other enemy cruiser, the one that had been under Haris’s control, as a target for Hawk, Eagle, Sentry, Sentinel, Scout, and Defender.
“Kapitan Mercia,” Marphissa called. “I am sending you my final vector and formation changes just before contact so you can adjust the heading of your ship.”
Mercia studied the information on her display, then nodded. “I understand, Kommodor. You are certain you will make these changes?”
“Yes. CEO Boucher will not react even if she sees them in time because they still give her a clean shot at you.”
“Thank you, Kommodor,” Mercia said dryly. “I appreciate the opportunity to field-test my ship’s armor and shields.”
“We’ll be going a bit fast for the combat systems to compensate,” Marphissa said. “But if the Syndicate ships stick to their vectors while we are making minor adjustments in ours, it should allow us to still have good hit probabilities while reducing their accuracy.”
“I am going to be twisting Midway at the moment of contact, pretending that I overcompensated. The Syndicate weapons should mostly impact my side shields and armor, but they will think they got a shot at my rear quarter.”
“That’s going to take some very good maneuvering,” Marphissa said.
Mercia smiled. “I know.”
“Ten minutes to contact,” Czilla reported.
“We’ll talk again after the firing pass,” Marphissa said, ending the call. She focused completely on her display, wanting to get the feel for the right moment to make the small adjustments in her formation and vector. Bradamont had coached her through this sort of thing, giving her tips that had supposedly been given to Bradamont by Black Jack himself. Marphissa knew that she had still screwed up the firing pass last time against CEO Boucher.
But not this time.
“All units,” Marphissa said, spacing the words out and speaking clearly, “at time one four come port zero one degrees, up zero two degrees. Engage assigned targets with all available weapons.”
For hours, the Syndicate ships had been very far away, just dots against the dark backdrop of space. Even in the last minute before contact, they were tiny objects because of the distance separating the two forces. Traveling at a combined velocity of over point two light speed, they were getting closer to each other at a rate of more than sixty thousand kilometers per second.
The views could be easily magnified, of course. Marphissa had a small virtual window on her display showing a clear vision of the enemy formation, seven warships seen in perfect detail across those huge distances. She could have zoomed in the image further, getting the same picture as if she were mere meters from the enemy. Space offered few obstacles to sight and none of the degradation of vision that occurred in a planetary atmosphere.
It was a mixed blessing, Marphissa thought. Being able to easily see the enemy charging at you for hours could be unnerving for those unused to the experience. And the long periods of nothing happening while the enemy charged at you could lead to a very dangerous complacency that would be shattered when those final thousands of kilometers separating you were covered in less than a second.
“One minute to contact,” Czilla said.
“Make your shots count,” Diaz ordered his weapons specialist. “This is for Kane.”
In the last seconds before contact, Marphissa’s formation shifted vector slightly as ordered, twisting and rising a little to meet the Syndicate formation at a slightly different angle. She could see Midway twisting in place, just as Mercia had said she would, apparently making a clumsy attempt to meet the Syndicate battleship bow to bow and failing badly.
Manticore lurched slightly as her missiles fired at the oncoming warships. Around her, Gryphon, Hawk, and Eagle also launched missiles.
Sensors barely had time to report that the Syndicate warships were firing missiles as well before the two formations rocketed into contact.
The enemy was there, and past, automated weapons on both sides hurling out hell lances and the metal ball bearings called grapeshot in the tiny fraction of a second when the ships were in range of each other, the weapons impacting along with the missiles fired earlier.
Marphissa hadn’t felt Manticore lurch from any hits. She stared at her display, waiting for her warships’ sensors to evaluate the results of the engagement as the two sets of warships tore away from each other.
Both of the heavy cruisers were missing from the Syndicate formation, one spinning off at an angle with its entire forward section smashed, and the other simply gone, a ball of gas and debris revealing that it had taken enough hits to cause a power-core overload.
Only a few hits from the Syndicate Hunter-Killers had struck Marphissa’s escorts, everything else in the Syndicate arsenal having been aimed at Midway.
“They scratched my ship,” Mercia complained.
“You took hits? I’m not seeing damage reports in the status feed.”
“They must have missed a lot, and other hits came in at high enough angles to skip off my shields and armor. But, oh dear, I have lost half my main propulsion,” Mercia reported with feigned distress.
“You didn’t shut it off during the engagement?” Marphissa asked, looking at her display’s review of recent events.
“No. Within seconds of the engagement, in a staggered ripple of shutdowns. As we said earlier, I wanted it to look like control failures since the Syndicate will be able to see that the exteriors of the units were not damaged. Kommodor, with my ship’s reduced maneuverability, I recommend we alter vector up three five five degrees.”
“All units,” Marphissa called, “immediate execute, alter vector up three five five degrees. Match velocity to Midway and maintain your positions in formation.”
The Midway diamond formation bent upward, velocity falling off as the ships fought their momentum to curve their tracks around and reverse course. The cruisers and Hunter-Killers could have made the turn in much less space than the vast distance required for the battleship to turn with half of her main propulsion units not working, but they matched their movements to the battleship, holding the same positions relative to Midway.
“Here she comes,” Diaz said, pointing to his display.
Happy Hua’s formation was turning up as well, coming back toward them. Marphissa watched, trying to look calm despite the tension she felt, as the vectors on the two formations steadied out. “It looks good. She’s doing what Kapitan Mercia predicted.”