Land of the Dead (27 page)

We need to get point-defense interlock engaged.
The Prince scowled, watching the intercept projections update in his ’well. The Khaid were forming up, their main body of battleships—falling somewhere in size and throw-weight between the
Tlemitl
and her battle cruisers—screened from immediate attack by this lead group of four.

The two Imperial battle-cruisers swung in moments later, having reached interlock range on point defense. Both were spewing ECM pods and the new remote point-defense platforms as fast as their launchers could recycle.

“Combat interlock confirmed,”
Thai-sa
Yoemon and
Chu-so
Xocoyotl’s voices overlapped in each ear. The Prince had already seen his secondary status displays shade green. The
Tlemitl
’s spoofer pods now began to flood nearspace with a hurricane of false data. Subsystems on all three ships had been drinking in the Khaid ECM signatures for almost ten minutes now, and with interlock allowing each ship to differentiate their countermeasures, the attacking ships were suddenly moving in an electronic fog.

«
Now?
» suggested his exocortex. «
Battlecast synch time is within parameters to implement override.
»

Xochitl shook his head, though no one else could see, or hear, the exo. “No, not yet. The commanders of the other ships haven’t been briefed—” Even Yoemon, who had seen the new control overrides in action during trials, wasn’t ready to let the
Tlemitl
fight herself.
Well, under my direction,
thought the Prince.

«
Our direction,
» countered his exo. «
We are one.
»

“—they’ll panic.”

*   *   *

The interior airlock opening onto boat-bay nine wheezed, locking motor complaining as it attempted to seal the hatch. A fallen stanchion twisted with a squeal, crushed by the door, but refused to break free. Helsdon, face streaming with sweat, looped a magnetic block ring around the twisted battle-steel, snugged it tight, and stepped back. Behind him, a good dozen cooks, stewards, stray officers, and off-duty ratings leaned into the rope, hauling for all they were worth.

Someone shouted “Heave!” and the stanchion squealed, trying to slide free of the hatch. At the airlock controls, the Engineer Second wrenched aside the panel covering with a pry bar and shorted the mechanism. The hatch tried to cycle open and the stanchion popped loose. Almost immediately the environmental circuits triggered an alarm—the boat-bay had lost its exterior doors and was open to the void—and only the inner airlock hatch, luckily still intact, prevented the entire corridor from venting into space.

Helsdon had his hand-comp clipped in and now he thumbed a counteroverride, letting the little unit drop into a blindingly fast response cycle as the hatch requested permission to close, was told
no
, then requested it again.… The damage control party dragged the stanchion free with a grinding scrape.

The Engineer Second unclipped the comp—the hatch ground closed, spitting out metal shavings—and he pitched the plastic control cover away.

“Let’s go,” he broadcast, drawing everyone’s attention. “There’s a hull puncture two halls leeward and we’re venting atmosphere. We’ve got an emergency repair closet there and one on the way, so get ready to carry what we’ll need.”

Their faces were blank with incomprehension, or stiff with incipient fear, but Helsdon pushed them along—using the pry bar if necessary. If they stopped, he would stop, and then he knew he’d break down. The specter of another endless time trapped in a broken, disabled ship, waiting for the cold or hunger or radiation to take him was ever-present.

*   *   *

The
Naniwa
sped towards rendezvous with the flagship, steadily building velocity. In Kosh
ō
’s mind, the invisible, undetectable Barrier seemed only a hands-breadth from her flank. All sections had finally reported in, ready for battle. Damage control crews were standing by, the launchers had recycled, and transit deflectors were at full strength. In her executive ’well, she could see that the
Tlemitl
had brought the new battle-shields on line and Susan was pained by jealousy.
Curse the Prince, he has all the new toys … while we fight with flint and wicker!

Kosh
ō
stiffened, agonized to see the
Falchion
—hammered by dozens of bomb-pods—shiver and begin to break apart. A cloud of evac capsules spewed away from the mortally wounded cruiser, but Susan knew her commander would not be aboard one of them.

Muldoon. May Mor-Ríoghain convey you to the West with all good speed.

The battle-cruiser held fire, munitions racks rolled out with the full weight of her shipkillers and suppression pods ready to launch. Seconds ticked past, and then—

“
Chu-sa
, transit spike!” Holloway’s voice was flat and sharp. “Multiple spikes! Incoming transit across the board—estimating thirty contacts inbound.”

“Launchers ready for salvo two,
kyo
,” Konev barked, running through his readiness checklist one more time.

A wide arc of space shimmered, twisting aside as dozens more Khaiden ships—a swarm of destroyers, light cruisers, Fleet tenders, and assault boats—dropped out of hyperspace. Susan grinned mirthlessly. Months spent far beyond the rim of Imperial space, hunting the Khaid and Megair and being hunted in return, had gained her a hard-won familiarity with their tactics.

The
Naniwa
sprint missiles already launched into the void were now within seconds of a sudden new array of targets. The deadly little weapons sprang awake, autonomic targeting systems fixing on the fresh signatures of Khaiden ships, and blasted forward, exhausting the last of their fuel.

Two Khaiden destroyers staggered as the Imperial missiles streaked past their point-defense and antimatter charges detonated against shipskin. Startlingly violet blossoms of plasma erupted from their engine arrays. An assault boat tore in half. Missiles raced through the Khaiden formation, causing panic. Ships corkscrewed away wildly amid a wave of secondary explosions. A wedge of destroyers rotated towards the
Naniwa
, beam weapons stabbing at her through the incandescent murk.

“Weapons, fire salvo two.”

The battle-cruiser shuddered as every launch rail and missile rack triggered simultaneously.

*   *   *

The
Tlemitl
and her two consorts lunged toward the Barrier at maximum acceleration, clawing for room to maneuver. In FlagCom, Xochitl let the threatwell feed wash over him, his attention fixed on the maneuvering of the Khaid main elements. The arrival of their support ships had been expected, though he was surprised to see such numbers. Exo displayed comparisons of numbers of ships, types, and throw-weight between this battle and more recent encounters with the Khaid raiders.

A proper fleet,
the Prince observed, almost impressed.
On our model; with supply ships, a repair tender, lighter elements, some kind of troop transports.…

Swiftly approaching the danger zone marked out on the threatwell in strobing crimson,
Thai-sa
Yoemon’s voice cut sharply across the chatter on the command ’cast. “Prepare to change vector, rotating aspect … now.”

Xochitl’s eyes slid to the display showing g-integrity deck by deck on the massive ship.
Time to put everything to the test.

The constant rumble transmitted through the hull—despite a brand-new dampening system—from the maneuver drives ceased abruptly. The
Tlemitl
rotated aspect on tertiary thrusters. The status displays started to wink amber and yellow—one red spot flared up as a compartment lost its g-decking—and then the
Firearrow
was pointed on a new heading. The exchange of missile clouds and beam weapons had continued unabated throughout the evolution and the Prince was pleased to see his gun crews had kept targeting lock on the lead Khaid battleships. Battlecast was still in sync, though hostile ECM was now starting to interfere, forcing a faster encryption cycle rate.

“Main drives at full,” Yoemon snapped and the rumbling vibration kicked in again. Now three compartments flared red and Xochitl cursed, knowing any man in those areas was probably dead or seriously wounded, given the acceleration they were pulling. Still, the dreadnaught had successfully swerved away from the Barrier, the
Asama
keeping pace off her port. The
Tokiwa
, however, had failed to change vector with them. Xocoyotl’s battle-cruiser had rotated to reverse aspect, but now she was forced to a full-burn to avoid colliding with the invisible weapon.

The fire from all four Khaid battleships retargeted on the
Tokiwa
as she slipped out of the point-defense envelope maintained by the
Tlemitl
and
Asama
. Hundreds of shipkillers rained in, saturating the battle-cruiser’s lighter point defense network. Dozens of explosions rippled the length of her hull, stressing shipskin beyond its capacity. A bright pinpoint seared through the plasma clouds as a penetrator pierced containment on the antimatter reactor. Then everything—the
Tokiwa
, the debris clouds spilling from her flanks, the corona of bomb-pod lasers igniting—was washed away by a pure white flare.

«
IMN BC-261 lost with all hands,
» Xochitl’s exo commented, spooling off a log entry.

“Battlecast resynced.” Yoemon’s voice was harsh and flat. The
Tlemitl
was now turning, still building velocity, with the
Asama
running in tight, well inside the fire control envelope of the dreadnaught’s point-defense batteries. With the four Khaid heavies drawn off by killing the battle-cruiser, the two Imperial ships accelerated into the flank of the opposing fleet. Four Khaid cruisers swung towards them, but now the full throw-weight of the
Tlemitl
and
Asama
could focus on the approaching ships.

A storm of sprint missiles and particle beams stabbed out, while the spoofer pods flooded Khaid targeting control with thousands of phantom contacts. The first three cruisers shattered, shipskin ravaged by particle beams, missile racks torn away, and then each hull punched in by a pair of shipkillers—big
Tessen
-class multiphase penetrators.

«
Resource utilization is higher than recommended per target,
» exo commented, but the Prince shook his head. “The weapons officer is showing admirable restraint, given his desire to be sure of the mark. Yoemon has noticed we’ve no resupply now that the
Hanuman
has fled. Very wise.”

’Cast relay beeped cheerfully, showing a fresh Imperial fire-snake glyph boosting towards the protective shell of the
Tlemitl
’s point defense.

«
IMN CA-1042 Gladius has synched to battlecast,
» exo announced. «
All other cruisers have been lost.
»

*   *   *

Her field of view filled with an intricate schematic of potential Barrier threads, racing ship glyphs, and the still-present necklace of science probes arrayed beyond the radiation cloud which had been the
Can
, Gretchen tried to concentrate on the results from her models. The first pass she’d taken had been discarded and while searching for more computational resources Anderssen had found—to her wary delight—that node 3
³
3 also boasted well over nineteen thousand processing nodes. Many of them were inactive, or inaccessible to her, but enough remained to offload model calculations for three alternate schemas.

The constant fluctuations in the g-decking field made her work very difficult and Gretchen had resorted to taping down the comps and her other gear.

“Crow, we’d better get tied down, this is getting rough.”

The old Méxica did not bother to look over his shoulder. His displays had reconfigured again and the Swedish woman frowned, not recognizing any of the interfaces he was now navigating. Somehow it seemed freshly minted and new, though still recognizably Méxica in origin. “Hummingbird, are we going to get out of this?”

“I have,” he said in a musing voice, “a great faith in
Chu-sa
Kosh
ō
’s ability to survive.”

Then everything lurched violently and Gretchen lost her seat, flying into the nearest wall with a bone-jarring
crunch
. Hummingbird’s consoles tore free of the tape, one of them shattering against the wall beside her. Despite this, his attention remained fixed on flipping through the
Tlemitl
’s internal systems as fast as possible.

“Holy Blessed Mary, Bride of Jesus, that hurts!” Anderssen slid to the floor as the g-decking reasserted itself, landing painfully. “
Crow!
”