But only a tiny fraction of one percent of humankind could be taken. Thus the iron-bound secrecy. The plan was too terrible to become known.
As for the rest of humankind-their future depended on the Battle of Eridani. If it was lost, they were lost. There'd be no opportunity, nor any meaningful force, to make a stand elsewhere.
In reviewing simdrills and coordinating steel drills, Alvaro Soong had occasionally spoken by radio with all his wing commanders. And on his secure, private channel, had twice spoken privately with Carmen Apraxin-DaCosta. Neither had mentioned marriage. This was neither the time nor place to discuss it.
Less than four seconds after his armada emerged, the raucous blare of an alarm horn resounded through the Wyzhnyny flagship. Grand Admiral Tualurog tensed. It was what he'd been hoping for, and he reacted with a mixture of eagerness and anxiety. His command screen showed several sources of technically produced radiation. The main source, very powerful, was the system's second planet, and there were numerous other sources farther outsystem-within an asteroid zone, and in the vicinity of a jovian giant. Their strength and distribution was far larger than in any system encountered since they'd left the Empire. Clearly a core world system-but hardly the crown system. The radio output wasn't that intense.
Also insystem, in the near fringe, was a source array that could only be a space fleet larger than any the armada had encountered before. Though still much smaller than his own. So. Not the Commonwealth's main fleet then. It was simply there to bleed him. That was the human strategy; had been all along.
That moment was pivotal, and even Charley had not foreseen it. For a moment, Tualurog considered generating hyperspace again and speeding onward. Find the human crown system, where their main fleet would be waiting. Defeat it and behead the enemy. But he rejected the idea almost at once. Because the fleet here would undoubtedly pursue him, and with his power advantage, it was better to deal with it now, by itself, rather than later, while engaged with their main fleet.
He voiced an order to shipsmind, and the armada, not greatly dispersed during the approach jump, began forming battle formations.
Alvaro Soong examined the pattern of emergence loci. A few yards away, Charley Gordon sat relaxed at his battle master's station, absorbing the displays on his screen, and no doubt much that was not on the screen. Calmly he began to give orders to shipsmind, the code words measured. Later they'd flow from him quick as pulses from a blaster. And this time he would not wait for the Wyzhnyny to start the fight.
The first strike was by an entire echelon of maces, doing something no one had imagined before: instead of emerging stationary from warpspace, they emerged with momentum-surged forth. There were no organisms aboard to be crushed by inertia, and shipsmind, on Charley's order, had computed an entry velocity the sturdy maces could withstand. At the instant of emergence they began accelerating, generating shields, and achieving target locks for war beams and torpedos.
The Wyzhnyny had generated shields in advance, but still the concentration of fire wrought havoc, and within seconds the maces were deep inside the Wyzhnyny formations. Nor did they pause. A second echelon followed, at the same unexpected speed. And a third. Meanwhile a human battle wing emerged a little distance out, stationary, then accelerated toward the enemy, firing both torpedo salvos and war beams, concentrating on individual targets.
The maces had charged all the way through the Wyzhnyny battle fleet with modest losses, and dropped their shields on the run, the survivors winking into warpspace. And in warpspace, maneuvered promptly into a reverse vector, to emerge again on the fly, ripping through the same formations they'd already savaged.
By then the first-arrived human battle wing had closed with the Wyzhnyny, the two sides fighting in a close-range slugging match. And of course the other wings replicated that behavior elsewhere within the Wyzhnyny battle fleet. In those formations they attacked, less than one Wyzhnyny battleship in three was targeted, but of those targeted, most died. A few survived derelict, their matric taps blown, maintaining life support systems on backups if at all. The human battle groups ignored them, concentrating on ships still dangerous.
This drew the Wyzhnyny reserves, of course. It was their kind of fighting. Their mistake, foreseen by Charley Gordon, was to move cautiously. They'd been fooled too often. Thus the maces reached the dueling field ahead of many of them, sucker-punching and killing Wyzhnyny duelists, winking back into warpspace, then charging out again toward the oncoming Wyzhnyny intervention. And when the maces reemerged, Soong's battle groups used the opportunity to take refuge in warpspace themselves.
They did not stay there long. Warpspace was suitable for covert maneuvering, but poorly suited for actual fighting.
So far, Charley Gordon had not committed his spooks. He knew the circumstances he wanted them for, and it wasn't time yet.
The fighting continued, the Commos repeating the same tactics. Charley would change them when opportunities or difficulties required. In the vicinity of the Altai, the Wyzhnyny had killed nearly a dozen human battleships, and twice as many lesser warships. And that was only one segment of the scene. Comparable scenarios played throughout the battle zone. Wyzhnyny losses were gruesome. The Meadowlands bridge reeked with anxiety. Tualurog had chewed his cheeks bloody, and his eyes bulged wide and wild. This cannot be allowed! Those cursed robots! Sixty-two tribes depend on us! Torpedoes struck her shield, and the Meadowlands jarred. Her lights dimmed, then brightened again. The bridge screens, however, did not blink; shipsminds were powerfully buffered. Damage alarms jangled and systems checks ran. Her shield recovered, and her war beam generator rebooted.
Meanwhile another human battle wing reemerged in the vicinity. Tualurog decided, and barked a command to shipsmind, which passed it on. "All battle groups! All battle groups! This is your grand admiral! Your grand admiral! Do not allow the humans to run away! Choose a target, lock on and close! Attack, pursue and kill! Attack, pursue and kill! Do not be distracted! Do not disengage for any reason! Do not let them generate strange-space again!"
The order sounded on every Wyzhnyny bridge, in every compartment, down every corridor. And whispered in Charley Gordon's mind in the form of an intuition: it was time to call in the spooks. On Charley's order, couriers generated warpspace and radioed the waiting spook groups, which emerged at the edge of action, and received explicit orders via the Altai's shipsmind. Then they winked into warpspace again, to emerge at rendezvous coordinates with battle groups and mace triads.
Meanwhile the battle wings fought in slow motion, to permit maneuver. The maces, with their heavy shields, repeatedly disrupted Wyzhnyny contingents attempting to gang up on Commo battleships. Among the Commo battle groups, patterns of mutual support fluctuated with the need, their fire coordination adjusting constantly to threat and opportunity. And always the key was teamwork.
Most often the spooks mimicked battleships. And because they were less responsive than manned ships, they attracted much more than their share of Wyzhnyny fire.
Mostly the Commos had the advantage of two-layered shields, but not the veteran Altai. She took a heavy torpedo salvo, the energy overload collapsing her shield. Her escort cruisers saved her, two of them deliberately intercepting war beams, breaking their target locks. "Generate warpspace!" Soong snapped, and after a long moment the Altai disappeared, her battlecomp automatically steering an avoidance course "on the other side," against the high probability that more torpedos had been launched at her. They would follow, but the transition would break their target locks, letting them pass into warpspace limbo.