CHAPTER NINETEEN

The 23RD Imperial Fleet was attacked less than one ship's day from safety.

Once contact was made with Al-Sufi and the waiting reinforcements, Gregor relaxed. He ordered stand down from General Quarters. Modified Readiness—one third at combat stations—was the new status. The rest of the Imperial sailors were ordered to clean ship and themselves.

Gregor thought himself a humane commander and knew his troops would not want to port looking like tramps. Also, if there were livie cameras there, a formation of slobs would reflect poorly on Gregor himself.

The first attack came as Gregor was luxuriating in the fresher: " All Hands… Battle Stations… Raiders Attacking! "

Gregor found himself on the bridge wearing the full-dress white mess jacket he had laid out—and briefs. He quickly analyzed the screens.

"Sir, I've already ordered the formation shift toward the enemy's angle of attack as per your standing instructions."

Gregor swore at the Officer of the Deck and then punched up the ECM officer.

"Screen the attackers."

The man seemed puzzled, then touched keys slowly, as if he did not have his signal orders memorized as reflexes. Nothing happened. The attackers continued in, coming from the high forward port quadrant. He ran another program… the raiders vanished!

Only two ships remained on-screen.

Gregor was about to scream at his flag officer and break the ECM officer when another alarm shrilled. Another formation was coming low forward center—the real attack. Gregor took command and ordered the battle formation shifted down toward the foe.

The mushroom cap seemed to spin as the battleships changed formation and their cruiser and destroyer screens followed. There were two collisions—a cruiser physically

"brushed" a destroyer, and two destroyers slammed into one another. The cruiser had some survivors.

In the ECM center, the officer was still following orders and screening the attackers.

On his fourth try, just as he was convinced that these were for real, the second set of raiders disappeared. Once more, two ships—the spoofers—remained.

There was a stunned silence on the bridge. Then alarms once more, and a third, larger, near-fleet-size attack began.

"Flag!"

"Sir."

"I want you in ECM. Make damned sure we aren't being fooled again."

The officer ran. Gregor determined to wait for a few seconds before he ordered more changes. Meanwhile, his twin set of orders and their countermands continued wiggling the mushroom's cap as ship captains and squadron commanders tried to reformulate the dome of attack.

The third attack was most real.

Sten shut the chatter of battle commands out of his mind and focused on the bridge's main battle screen.

He was attacking in a crescent formation. He would dearly have loved to have several hundred more units—the halfmoon was very thin. Necessarily so—Sten, hoping the Imperials would be stupid enough to think he was planning an envelopment, wanted the tips of the crescent spread beyond the Imperial defense dome's area.

The Imperial mushroom was looking a little ragged. Part of its cap was shifting toward the attackers. But a segment appeared not to have gotten the word and was restabilizing into normal convoy formation.

At the rear of the stem, the cruisers were deploying fairly efficiently, the base swinging up to cover the transports.

"Com! Are we linked?" Sten asked.

"All ships receiving."

"Sten to all ships. Standby on Longlance launch—as ordered."

"Waiting… waiting… all ships ready, sir."

"Countermeasures," he said to another officer. "What're they doing?"

"Their detectors have us… two… six launches made. Five ineffective… one acquired."

"Kilgour. Talk to me."

"Range closin't… seven seconds… three… mark!"

"All ships. Launch!"

Missiles spat from the Bhor fleet—but not at the same time. Sten had ordered a ripple fire from the rearmost ships forward. As the missiles cleared the forwardmost Bhor ships, weapons officers armed and aimed the ship-killers. There were not that many missiles launched—at least for a major battle—but all were meant to arrive on target at the same moment.

"Alex. I want that wedge between the heavies exploited. First section… individual control… acquire and launch when ready.

"Countermeasures! What're they doing?"

"B' Kholoric… not much!"

"Report, dammit!"

The Bhor tried his best to assume the role of an efficient, toneless Imperial officer.

"Minor launches… most directed at incoming missiles. Correction. I have a mass launch. Central control is on overload."

On-screen, there were sparkles between the two closing fleets: operator-guided antiship missiles, Kali II's, most likely. They would be taken out—or they would hit.

That was not part of what Sten should be thinking about.

He turned off the "but what if we're one of the unlucky ones" part of his mind and looked beyond the sparkles. He grinned suddenly and made a comment frowned on in Basic Admiral School.

"Kilgour! You owe me a stregg! The bastard's by-the-book!"

Gregor was, indeed. There were many possible responses to an envelopment. The best response would have been for Gregor to break the dome into a spearhead or even line formation and attack the center of Sten's fleet, break through the crescent—which was no more than two ships deep—circle, and destroy Sten's fleet in detail.

But that would have meant leaving his transports unguarded except by the cruiser force. No doubt this Imperial admiral had read of Cannae. But there was a big difference: Sten was not Hannibal, nor did he have any heavy infantry to slam the horns of the crescent shut and trap the attacker.

Instead, the admiral was putting his fleet on-line. It was counterenvelopment evidently, such as the Turks should have used at Lepanto. Not bad. It would, in time, destroy the Bhor fleet. In time.

The gap that formed when the Imperial formation was still in its dome remained as ships clouded toward the new formation, ready for Sten to exploit.

"All ships," Sten ordered. He was broadcasting in clear, having no time for codes or the polyglot spoken on the Bhor bridges. He hoped that the Imperial admiral's response time would continue as laggardly as it had so far.

"Standing by, sir."

"I want a blink on that hole in the Imperial formation," he ordered another com officer. "To all ship screens. Now."

"Transmitted, sir."

"Good. All ships… maneuver point as indicated… X-Ray Yaphet… signal when ready."

"All units ready, sir."

"Maneuver… now!"

The Bhor captains, any of whom could maneuver a single-tube transport sideways up a cobblestone alley, snapped their orders. Sten's crescent folded over on itself and became a wedge. It was just like an acrobatic squadron—but on-screen he could see the big difference. His fleet was taking hits. Lights indicating individual ships changed colors— Hit… Lost Nav… Hit… Drive Damage —or just vanished.

He ignored them. He also ignored the low murmur of a low-ranking weapons officer at the ship's own board. "We are acquired… homing… impact nine seconds… I have counterlaunched…"

But he was damned relieved when he heard, "Hit! Incoming destroyed."

The Imperial formation was a real shambles, spitting missiles in all directions. Sten would not have liked to be in the center of that kaleidoscope as it changed shapes and then fragmented further.

"Fleet status," he snapped.

"Fifty-one units still report full—"

"That's enough." Later—maybe—there would be time to worry about casualties and pickup.

"Otho. Do you have their command frequency?"

"On-screen. Ready to pirate."

There was a large screen, set away from the main control area. On it was an Imperial admiral, giving orders. Otho had the audio blanked. Sten thought he recognized the admiral… no. Impossible.

"Team Sarla… go!" he ordered.

"Acknowledged."

"Team Janchydd…go!"

"Janchydd… attacking."

"All fleet units. Individual control. Acquire targets and exploit. Command, out."

The real battle began. The Bhor swirled into the melee like so many piratical Drakes against an armada. This was the best possible use of their talents. Most of the traders had vast experience at going one-on-three against raiders. Going against—and winning—by always doing the unexpected, lashing out in all directions and with missiles and electronics, every bit as berserk as their ancestors.

Between Gregor's standing orders and battle experience from the Tahn wars, most of the Imperial ships were expecting to fight a conventional battle against conventionally arrayed enemies.

This main battle had all of the symmetry, logic, and clarity of a feeding frenzy. Sten turned his attention away. The Bhor could not win—sooner or later numbers would out—but they were not supposed to.

His two combat teams were: Sarla, two cruisers that had been hurriedly converted to assault transports; Janchydd, eleven light escorts—corvettes and patrol craft. Just as many ships as Sten had calculated to be controlling the slaved transports. He knew how the Empire ran its convoys, so all of the escorts had been given the electronics and sensors of deep-space tugs.

Sten had named his teams after old, barely worshiped Bhor gods for morale reasons.

If there could be Victory, these two teams would gain it.

Now he waited—if waiting could be defined as hanging on to an upright on a chaotic ship's bridge while the ship itself was in the middle of a Kilkenny cats' brawl.

Team Sarla : The two assault ships closed on an already-damaged battleship, well inside the BB's minimum safety launch range. A Bhor missile blew most of the ship's stern away, and the assault ships' ports yawned. Lines were jetted across by scouts, and the three ships were linked.

Armored Bhor went across the lines—and they boarded the Imperial warship.

"First wave across," came the broadcast.

"Otho!"

The Imperial admiral's on-screen image blanked and was replaced by a blinding succession of visuals that would have gagged the biggest splatter-hound director of livies.

The Imperial battleship was already a slaughterhouse from missile hits. More Imperials died when the assault transport's missile dumped the ship's atmosphere. They may have been suited, but many of them had not closed their faceplates or pulled on gauntlets. It was hard to fight a ship wearing armor.

Then the Bhor ravaged through the ship. They had explicit orders: no prisoners.

Play to the cameras.

The Imperial officers and crew died to the last being. The deaths were filmed by Cind and the other camera operators, their images selected for maximum effect at a mix panel in Sten's control room and then rebroadcast on the Imperial command link.

It did little for a young sailor's morale when a ship-screen showed a CIC with beings just like himself standing with their hands raised in surrender being butchered like so many hogs. Some ships blanked that frequency—and lost any link to command for many seconds while a secure link was being established. Other ships left the screen on, allowing every slaughter to burn into the minds of their crew members.

Team Janchydd: The control ships for the transports were lightly armed and armored. They could offer little resistance against the weapons of the Bhor escorts. Six of the eleven stopped firing after taking hits. Two plugged on, still fighting with what armament they had. Three more blew into debris. One Bhor ship was lost.

Techs boarded the six control ships and took over the navboards for the AM2

transports. Their escorts closed, slaving to those ships. That was not enough. If more transports—and AM2—couldn't be "stolen," Sten's mission would be very close to a failure. But Team Janchydd's sailors had initiative.

The two still-firing command ships were battered into surrender. They also were boarded and seized. Somehow the Bhor electronics wizards also picked up control frequencies for two of the destroyed Imperial command ships.

Team Janchydd's commander gave the word. Slowly the convoy—the mushroom's stem—broke apart as the Bhor ships diverted the transports, just as a tug would take over a liner's controls while docking.

The heavy cruiser squadrons reacted late to the attack—but reacted. They formed for a counterattack.

Sten saw the counterattack on-screen, put another indicator on the formation, and sent it out.

"All fleet units," he ordered then. "Targets indicated. Priority target. Individual control. Go!"

He did not wait for an acknowledgement.

"Otho. Phase Two," he said.

Otho triggered a switch. A prerecorded disc started broadcasting on the pirated command frequency. It showed a grim, heavily armed Otho looming into the camera, flanked by Sten and another lethal-looking Bhor. It may have been Sten's show, but he knew he did not look nearly as horrid as Otho.

The Bhor chieftain's voice boomed: "All Imperial units! It is useless to continue the resistance. You are ordered to surrender. Fire yellow-blue-yellow flares to save your lives. Ships surrendering will remain unharmed."

Sten had not been stupid enough to think that cheap ploy would get him an entire Imperial fleet to white-flag. All he was after was further confusion.

He got it. A few ships obeyed. Some of them were fired on by other Imperial ships.

On other ships, panicked sailors minimutinied, which gave their officers problems more immediate than what was happening outside.

Thirty-nine Bhor ships slammed into the cruiser formation, and another confusion began. The stolen transports broke away from the battle area. Their controllers put them on full drive.

Now, Sten thought. "All units. Break contact!"

This is the turning point. I've stolen their clottin' gold. The Imperials have two options. Please—what the hell were the names of those damn Bhor gods—hell, any god paying attention right now… let me be lucky. Let that clottin' admiral be consistent.

Gregor was. Finally having patched a second secure com link to his fleet, he should have ordered a general pursuit of the raiders, under individual or squadron control. He didn't. Perhaps he had heard of Hattin, where Saladin had decoyed a crusading army into the desert and then slaughtered them piecemeal. For all he knew there could be an ambush element lurking out there somewhere.

He ordered all fleet elements to regroup—by elements, by squadrons, and then into main fleet formation. Regrouping, at the very least, requires a visible standard for soldiers to head toward. This battleground was a little short of signposts. Ships hunted for their leaders. Com links were a bleat of confusion. None of it was helped by Gregor's own stream of impossible-to-obey commands.

Sten's forces pulled away.

Team Sarla, with no one left to kill, had already pulled back onto their assault ships.

Cind stood to one side of the assembly deck, the normal silence/battle of post combat letdown unheard. She had learned something that day indeed from Sten. From then on, she resolved to dance close attendance on him. To learn, and to… She smiled to herself.

Sten's getaway appeared to be working. He chanced a bit of humanity and ordered ten ships to pick up survivors from the crippled Bhor ships. As they could… if they could. They were to try to get the ships under power, but abandon any ship not capable of full drive.

It would get ticklish now. At full drive, his units would soon start running out of power.

He gave more orders. Bhor ships closed on the stolen convoy. On each, their best fueling techs were waiting. Only two Bhor craft ran dry—and Sten had full-powered ships ready to slave to them and transfer energy.

"Y' jus' might hae pulled th' biggest heist a' all, Admiral."

Sten managed a grin, then forced himself to another station. "Casualties?"

There was not much joy in this victory. He had lost almost half of his force. Otho walked up beside him and looked at the same figures. "Better than I had expected.

Worse than I had hoped. But the gods decide."

Sten nodded. Perhaps. But why the hell did they have to be so murderous?

"Remember that pool, Sten."

Sten remembered. And now he had fuel to fight his war.