Rich Man's War (47 page)

The fleet represented the vast majority of Archangel’s naval strength. Admiral Yeoh banked on their enemies focusing on a swift decapitating strike at the capital on Raphael, and by all appearances, she was entirely c
orrect. Her strategy left only token forces at Archangel’s other populated worlds, but Kelly saw the necessity of it. A more even defense would have left each target without enough strength to win against their opponents. Archangel had the benefit of having a slightly larger navy than she publicly declared, even beyond the disguised civilian ships already engaged with the invaders… but that only amounted to a handful more corvettes than were normally listed on paper.

A
ny rational gambler would bet on NorthStar.

Los Angeles
and the rest of the fleet built up speed, coming out from behind Raphael and arcing into a drive straight for the invaders. Kelly analyzed the data from her scanners.
Argent
was plainly in trouble, fighting for her life against three more ships. The invaders moved through the hole they had blasted through the picket line. Beyond that mess, to the rear of the invading fleet, that disturbingly well-armed yacht veered back and away from an attack run.

The enemy could clearly see Archangel’s defenders now. They were less than two light seconds apart. It was more than close enough to track, but not to provide detail. That was another part of the plan.

Dozens of missiles shot out from temporary mounts attached to the civilian freighters, streaming across the space between attackers and defenders. They were much too far out for accurate fire, but that was not their purpose. Less than one hundred thousand kilometers out from the launchers, each missile detonated with chaff and ECM flares that blotted out both active and passive signals across dozens of kilometers. The enemy would know the Navy’s general direction; they wouldn’t be able to determine accurate distance or formation. It would only last a few seconds, but seconds always mattered.

The flag ship signaled once again: “Commence launch. You are weapons free. I say again, commence launch. You are weapons free. Transmit in code-word only from this point on.”

Kelly keyed her comm twice to confirm instructions. “Chief, take us out. Stan, activate ES systems as soon as we’re within one light second of the bad guys. No sense burning energy on it too soon.” Hearing and seeing her orders followed, Kelly double-checked their course.
Joan
set out on the broad, curving line laid out by the flag bridge under Chief Romita’s steady hand. Thirty-two other corvettes did the same.

Los Angeles
and the other large warships picked up their pace, headed straight for the enemy fleet. The freighters dropped back but kept firing, maintaining the broad umbrella of chaff between attackers and defenders. The corvette force, as planned, flew out and away from their bigger comrades, spreading out for the sake of safety and pouring on the speed. They had to get around to the rear of the invaders, and that meant covering a lot of space while the rest of the Navy held the line.

Everyo
ne knew that line wouldn’t hold for long.

* * *

“Bogey Two is making another run on Group Alpha!”

Eldridge
scowled at the report. Any instruction he sent to the expeditionary group wouldn’t get to them and be implemented in time. He had to let the pair of assault carriers and their escorts handle it themselves. He watched the info on the tactical boards, particularly the fight with the well-armed and armored cruise liner further out.

“
Janus
reports minor damage,” warned Commander Saraff. “
Devonport
… we’re getting emergency signals from her. I think she lost her bridge, sir.”

“Tell
Janus
to stay on it, that bastard’s wounded now,” Eldridge growled.

“
Thermopylae
is hit!” called out the ops specialist watching Group Alpha. “Two missile strikes to her aft quarter. Bogey Two is on her way outside the field of fire again. Minor hits…
Thermopylae
says she’s okay, but it’s gonna slow her down.”

Again?
Eldridge thought. The news made him groan. Now both of the carriers in Group Alpha were damaged. Her escorts were fine. The only sensible thing to do would be to let them hang back from the rest of the fleet and make repairs. The battleship groups needed to press on and crush through all of Raphael’s orbital and planetside defenses, but delaying landings from one expeditionary group—one of three, plus the troops in the other ships—wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

That
conclusion brought another realization: now Eldridge understood some measure of the enemy’s plan. Two ships, both ostensibly civilian, taking shots at the fleet in order to slow things down… and perhaps offer a measure of deniability if the ploy failed? They could always be written off as fanatics or foreign provocateurs if they did no real damage. Yet he still hadn’t actually heard anything from the Archangel Navy or the government, though at least one corvette lay within line of sight on the whole scene from Azarias.

Still. He couldn’t let the harassing tactics continue unanswered. “Commander, dispatch
Chatham
out toward
Janus
to help finish off that son of a bitch. Mr. Mwangi, release
Foxhound
from our group to run down that yacht. Tell
Andromeda
and Group Alpha to send their corvettes to do the same. She clearly wants someone to chase her, so let’s oblige.”

“Commodore?” asked
Saraff.

Eldridge
looked over toward his assistant and caught the development on the “bubble” projection. “I see it,” he said, walking back over to the table. Archangel’s fleet ventured out from behind Raphael, moving in a tight formation but still betraying their numbers. It wasn’t the whole navy—most of the corvettes had to be missing, and it looked as if there were slightly more mid-sized ships than any intel estimates suggested. Yet even if all those other corvettes appeared from, say, Raphael’s surface, he still had more than a two-to-one advantage in simple numbers, and a far greater advantage in the size and power of his individual ships. Archangel had one cruiser; Eldridge’s force had five. Nor could Archangel field anything that would match his battleships.

The
Navy’s appearance seemed to confirm his initial assessment from the first shots: Aguirre and Yeoh meant to fight. Eldridge had already processed the implications of that tragedy. Now he had to carry out his duty. “Signal Group Alpha to hold back and allow for damage control. Everyone else, alter course to move in on the enemy fleet. Let’s get this over with.”

He saw the swarm of new signals speeding out directly from the opposing fleet. “Missiles!” some specialist warned needlessly. They were much too far out to present any serious threat.
At this range, each would be tracked with complete accuracy and shot down well outside their danger zones.

Eldridge
frowned thoughtfully. He had a few seconds to think. The missiles couldn’t harm his fleet. What the hell was the point? The incoming missiles flew on, spreading out as Archangel’s fleet followed behind them, but the gap between the ordnance and their launchers quickly grew.

Then the missiles began to detonate more than a light second away from the NorthStar fleet, spreading their signal-scrambling contents out over broad spheres in an arcing curtain between
Eldridge’s position and the enemy’s. Eldridge opened his mouth, his first thought one of aggressive reaction, wanting to charge right through that mess rather than letting it slow his plans or his fleet. Then he remembered the examples of
Argent
and that yacht; the enemy had to rely on petty tricks. Yeoh couldn’t remotely match him ship to ship.

“That’s an awful lot of chaff missiles,” observed Commander Gordon. “How many do they have to spare?”

“Hold position,” Eldridge ordered. “It’ll clear up in a minute or so. Let them come to us.”

“Sir?” asked
Saraff.

“What are they going to do?” he asked. “Increase speed? Separate and try to flank us? Run away?”

As predicted, the cloud of chaff and scrambling agents soon cleared. Eldridge was right in two of his guesses: the fleet both increased speed and separated. Now he knew where the rest of the corvettes had gone. He could also see that a good number of those mid-sized ships were merely freighters. “Who do we have left from the destroyer squadrons?” he asked.

“
Daphnis, Calypso
and
Hyperion
from Squadron One. With
Chatham
dispatched from Squadron Two, the only CDC destroyer left is
Hanjin
.”

Eldridge
considered it. The corvette wing moved fast in an arc that seemed drawn to keep them out of weapons range as they covered the distance. Already several other ships from the main body, which
Hercules
could now identify as civilian freighters, were well behind the rest. “Tell
Hanjin
and
Calypso
to fall back and form up with Group Alpha to increase their defensive screen. That’ll provide some extra cover in case the corvette group focuses on the carriers. Keep the other two with us. Let’s get moving forward again. Watch those corvettes, but we’ll ocus on the main body. I want that cruiser off the board in five minutes.”

* * *

“Shit, they’ve put three corvettes on us now,” Everett grunted as the trajectory on his screens became clear. “Mohamed, you’re gonna have to stay in evasive for a while. Let me find a course. Garcia, how do we look?” he asked over the comm.

Guillotine
shook violently from a blast off to her port side before the answer came. “It’s ugly, but it won’t slow us down yet. That last run cost us some living space and the cargo hold has a big hole going through the middle. Plumbing’s shot. Hope nobody needs to use the head before this is over.”

“Nothing vital?” Everett asked to be sure.

“We’re at full power and the guns all still work, right? You got any problems at helm?”

Everett looked to Mohamed, but the much younger bo’sun concentrated mostly on flying the ship. He couldn’t fault the choice of priorities. “Think we’re okay,” Everett confirmed.

“Almost like this ship was secretly built for combat rather than joyrides. ES system is running a little hot. Might have to draw the power down a bit in case it overloads, but I don’t want to jump the gun on that.”

“You and me both, Garcia. Thanks.”

The ship rolled hard again, curving off to one side to dodge a pair of missiles, but
Guillotine
couldn’t dodge a blast from one of her purser’s turrets. Everett counted it as a blessing that it wasn’t from a corvette’s main cannon. “Gunners, listen up: don’t worry about focusing fire now. Your job is to keep these assholes dodging us. Don’t worry about hitting, just get them to drop back to a safer distance. Mohamed, our course is… shit,” the chief grunted. His helmsman put
Guillotine
through far too many rapid turns and curves to give him a course relative to port. Everett opted instead to key in destination coordinates and let Mohamed find his way there however he felt best. “Head for this point. Don’t bother hugging close to any sort of lines, just keep dodging all the way there.”

“We’re running?” Mohamed asked.

“Runnin’ for help,” replied Everett. “We’ve got some of those bastards slowing down for repairs and now we’ve drawn off three corvettes. That’s mission accomplished.
St. George
is done playing lookout, so let’s see if they’re ready to give us a hand.”

“Aye
aye, sir. Er, chief.”

Everett could hear the younger man’s heavy breath every time he spoke into the comm. He didn’t bother to correct his helmsman, but the mistake in titles said more than enough for his mood.

Mohamed put
Guillotine
through a sharp dive and turned hard to port, then all but reversed his new course with a corkscrew-like motion. All three of their pursuers overshot, giving the yacht a bit more space. The missiles stopped coming, but the blasts from the corvettes’ turrets resumed.

“Lt. Alvarez is dead, isn’t he?” Mohamed asked breathlessly. “You couldn’t help him?”

“He’s gone, Abdul,” Everett said. “He’s gone. You can’t worry about him now. Last thing he’d want is for you to let that slow you down. Focus.”

Mohamed went quiet. Everett looked at him warily.
The helmsman shook his head. “I’d love to wipe all the sweat off my forehead right now,” he confessed.

Everett nodded. He saw the main body of Archangel’s fleet drawing closer to weapons range with the invaders. “Me, too, Mohamed. Me, too.”

* * *

“Signal the battle group:
Half speed. Guild ships, maintain fire but fall back to the rear of the formation.” Yeoh’s tone betrayed none of her stress or turmoil. She’d mastered that long ago.

Mastery only came from acceptance. She’d always feel this way about combat. People would die—many people, on both sides, most of them all too young. Even the thrill of victory, which she couldn’t deny any more than the fear and trepidation of going into combat, failed to erase the sense of loss. The only good victories were the bloodless ones.