Travis stole a glance at Woodburn, waiting for the tac officer to point out the obvious risk: that if the incoming missiles’ sidewall penetrators functioned like they were supposed to, taking four or five on Casey’s sidewalls could be a quick path to disaster. Most of the time that kind of maneuver was a decent enough gamble, given the notorious unreliability of such weapons. But anytime you had that many threats things could get tricky.

  Especially if Tamerlane’s ships were carrying more advanced sidewall penetrators that weren’t so finicky.

  But Woodburn remained silent. As Travis had known he would. The commodore had already agreed that Casey’s mission was to gather information that would be crucial in helping Locatelli defeat this inexplicable invasion.

  The missiles crept closer. Travis watched the tac display as Belokas fine-tuned Casey’s position, a vague idea starting to form at the back of his mind. If he’d seen what he thought he’d seen during the first Janus salvo . . .

  He swiveled around to his plotter and ran the numbers and geometry. It would work, he decided. It would be tricky and require some fancy timing, but it might just work.

  There was a throbbing hum from the launchers’ capacitors as Casey sent a salvo of countermissiles blazing out into space . . . and it occurred to him that if Heissman’s trick didn’t work, there was a good chance he would never know it. At the speed the missiles were traveling, they would reach the edge of the countermissiles’ range barely two tenths of a second before reaching Casey itself. If the defenses failed to stop the attack, or the sidewall was breached—

  There was a muted double flash on the tac as two of the missiles slammed into the countermissiles and were destroyed. Travis’s eyes and brain had just registered that fact when the deck abruptly jerked beneath him and the tense silence of the bridge was ripped apart by the wailing of emergency alarms.

  He spun to the status board. None of the four missiles that had slammed into the starboard sidewall had penetrated, but two of them had detonated a microsecond before impact, and the resulting blast had overloaded and possibly destroyed the forward generator.

  “Sidewall generator two is down!” Belokas shouted her own confirmation across the wailing alarm. “Generator four undamaged, taking up the slack.”

  “Casualties,” com officer Kebiro added tensely. “Seven down, condition unknown. Corpsmen on the way; crews assessing damage.”

  Travis mouthed a useless curse. Each of the two generators on each side of the ship was designed to be able to maintain the entire sidewall. But as the old saying went, two could live as cheaply as one, but only for half as long. Casey’s starboard sidewall was still up, but it was running now at half power. Another double tap like that one, and it could go completely.

  And the cruisers and battlecruisers out there were showing no signs of running out of missiles to tap them with.

  The alarm cut off. “Alfred?” Heissman asked, as calm as ever.

  “Their missiles seem comparable to ours,” Woodburn said, his own voice more strained. “Slightly better ECM, I think, but our countermissiles handled them just fine.”

  “Which again suggests mercenaries rather than some system’s official fleet,” Heissman said. “Certainly not any fleet connected with the Solarian League. Solly ships wouldn’t be using second- or third-generation equipment.”

  “That’s the good news,” Woodburn said. His voice was subtly louder, Travis noted distantly, as if he was leaning over Travis’s shoulder. “The bad news is that their missiles are as good as ours and they probably have a hell of a lot more of them.”

  “I wonder what they’re waiting for,” Rusk murmured. “This is the perfect time to launch a second wave.”

  “Probably taking a moment to analyze their data,” Belokas said. “I imagine they’re as eager to assess our strengths and weaknesses as we are to find theirs, and trying not to spend any more missiles than they have to. They’ll certainly want to know everything they can about us before they tackle Aegis.”

  “And since we can’t stop them from doing that,” Heissman said calmly, “it looks like our best-hope scenario is still to slow them down long enough for Gorgon to escape with as much data as we can collect, while inflicting the maximum damage possible.”

  “Between us and the corvettes we still have twenty missiles, plus seven practice ones,” Belokas said. “If we throw everything we’ve got, we should at least be able to take down one of those cruisers.”

  “We can’t control nearly that many at once,” Woodburn reminded her.

  “As long as Tamerlane’s ships aren’t accelerating, that may not matter,” Belokas pointed out. “They’ll still have to defend, and even if all we can accomplish is to drain their point defenses it’ll be worth it.”

  “Or we may be able to do a bit better,” Woodburn said. “Mr. Long has an idea.”

  Travis twisted his head to look up at the other. “Sir?”

  Woodburn pointed at the simulation Travis had been running. “Tell them,” he ordered.

  Travis felt his throat tighten. Suddenly, he was back on Phoenix’s bridge, offering half-baked advice to Captain Castillo.

  But Heissman wasn’t Castillo. And if the trick worked . . .

  “I think the upper cruiser’s ventral autocannon is having trouble,” he said. “If it is, then—”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Belokas interrupted, frowning at him. “They never even fired them.”

  “Because he was starting to turn to starboard when he shifted to rolling wedge instead,” Travis said. “That looked to me like he was getting ready to favor that side when he changed his mind.” He felt his lip twitch. “I had some experience with balky autocannon back on Phoenix, and that definitely looked like a sensor miscalibration problem.”

  “Alfred?” Heissman asked.

  “He could be right,” Woodburn said. “I just checked, and that aborted yaw is definitely there.”

  “Assume you’re right,” Heissman said. “Then what?”

  “We start by assuming Tamerlane’s as smart as he thinks he is,” Travis said. “If so, he’ll have seen his cruiser’s brief yaw and guess that we also saw it and came to the correct conclusion. If we did, he’ll expect us to try to take advantage of the weakness by throwing a salvo of missiles at it.”

  “At which point he’ll again have to either use an iffy point-defense system or else roll wedge,” Woodburn said, reaching over Travis’s shoulder to key the simulation over to the Commodore’s station. “If he does the latter, we may be able to catch him by surprise.”

  For a couple of heartbeats Heissman gazed at the display. Then, his lip twitched in a small smile. “Yes, I see. It’s definitely a long shot. But long shots are where you go when you’ve got no other bets.”

  He gave a brisk nod. “Set up the shot.”

  * * *

  “Analysis complete, Admiral,” Imbar announced as he hovered over Tac Officer Clymes’s shoulder. “Similar countermissiles as ours, with about a thirteen-hundred-klick range, and similar autocannon loads.”

  Gensonne scowled. So the Manticorans’ countermissiles had a shade less range than the equipment aboard Copperhead and Adder.

  And Casey was supposedly the most advanced ship of the Manticoran fleet. If Llyn had been right about that, then the weaponry aboard the larger Bogey Two ships burning space toward him would be even more subpar.

  Yes, it could have been worse. But it could also have been a whole lot better. He’d tried like the fires of hell to talk Llyn into providing him with more cutting-edge equipment, but the damn little clerk had turned down every request. The Volsungs didn’t need anything better, he’d insisted soothingly, and furthermore the Solarian League would rain down on all of them if they ever got wind of it.

  Which Gensonne knew was a bald-faced lie. The Axelrod Corporation was way too powerful to worry about offending whatever bureaucrats were in charge of enforcing such regulations. Llyn simply didn’t want a bunch of free-lance mercenaries running around with really advanced equipment.

  But that would change. When Llyn saw how quickly and efficiently Gensonne delivered Manticore, Axelrod would surely want the Volsungs on board for whatever project was next on their list.

  And Llyn could bet his rear that the subject of advanced weaponry would come up again.

  “Salvo ready, Sir,” Imbar said.

  “Acknowledged,” Gensonne said. The question now was whether they’d wrung out every bit of data Heissman and Casey could provide. If so, it was time to end the charade and finish them off. If not, a little additional restraint might still be called for.

  “Missiles,” Clymes called into his musings. “Looks like two from each of the corvettes.”

  Gensonne swiveled toward the sensor display. Sure enough, both of the smaller ships were showing the unmistakable signs of booster flares. A waste of time; but then, what else did they have to do? “Six missiles at the cruiser,” he ordered. “Fire when ready.” On the display, the missiles cleared the corvettes’ wedges and lit up their own.

  Two missiles from each corvette . . . but from Casey, nothing.

  He frowned. Could the damage his attack had inflicted on the cruiser’s sidewall have bled over into its launchers or control systems? Llyn had said that Casey was Manticoran-designed. Had the builders unintentionally incorporated a fatal flaw into its architecture? “Damage report on Casey,” he ordered.

  “Their starboard sidewall is at half power,” Imbar reported, sounding puzzled. “We already went through this—”

  “More flares,” Clymes cut in. “One more from each corvette.”

  “Still nothing from Casey?”

  “No, Sir.”

  Which made no sense, unless the cruiser had genuinely lost the ability to launch its missiles. Definitely a tidbit worth knowing, especially if similar flaws had been incorporated into the Manticorans’ other ship designs.

  And really, it didn’t much matter which of the Manticorans were shooting and which ones weren’t. What mattered was that they were trying the same saturation attack they’d tried before, and it was pretty obvious where that attack was aimed. Heissman was apparently the observant type, and von Belling’s half-completed yaw turn earlier had tipped off the Manticorans as to where Copperhead’s weakness lay.

  Which, again, was hardly a problem. “Order Copperhead to pitch wedge,” he instructed Imbar. “Adder will prepare countermissiles; all other ships, stand by autocannon.”

  He listened as the acknowledgments came in, his eyes on the six wedges cutting through space toward his force at thirty-five hundred gees acceleration. A minute fifteen out, with probably forty seconds before they would either tighten their angle toward Copperhead or widen it to target both Copperhead and Adder. At that point, Heissman would show whether he’d truly observed Copperhead’s weakness or was a one-trick pony who was throwing missiles at his opponent simply because that was all he knew how to do.

  Which would be pathetic, but hardly unexpected. Manticore had been at peace a long time. Far longer than was healthy for them. War was what kept men strong and smart. Peace turned them into useless drones, where the species-cleansing consequences of survival of the fittest no longer operated.

  Could that be why Llyn had chosen Manticore as his target? Could it be that Axelrod was looking for undeveloped real estate and figured that no one would notice or care if a couple of fat, lazy backwater planets underwent a sudden regime change?

  It sounded like a colossal waste of money. Still, Axelrod had money to burn. If they wanted to spend some of their spare cash to set up their own little kingdom, more power to them.

  Copperhead had finished its pitch, its roof once again presenting its impenetrable barrier to the incoming missiles. The missiles were still holding formation, with no indication as to where they were heading. Whatever Heissman’s plan, though, he must surely have accepted the inevitability of his own destruction. Best guess was that his goal was to simply keep throwing missiles in hopes of draining the Volsungs of as many resources as he could . . .

  Gensonne looked at the sensor display, feeling his eyes narrow. The Manticorans had launched six missiles—Clymes had confirmed that. And six missile wedges were indeed showing on all of the bridge’s displays.

  But according to the sensors, all six missiles were running a little hot.

  Why were they running hot?

  On the tactical, a spray of countermissiles erupted from Adder’s throat, blossoming into a cone of protection that would shield both itself and the battlecruisers riding a thousand kilometers behind it. Gensonne watched as the cone stretched out toward the incoming missiles—

  And felt a sudden jolt of horrified adrenaline flood through him. One cone. Not the two cones this configuration was supposed to provide to shield the battlecruisers. Not with Copperhead turned roof-forward protecting itself from those Manticoran missiles.

  Still nothing new from the sensors. Still nothing new on the missiles’ track. But Gensonne was a warrior, with the instincts a warrior needed to survive. And his gut was screaming at him now with a certainty that all the ambiguous data in the universe couldn’t counter.

  Copperhead wasn’t Heissman’s target. Odin was.

  “Full autocannon!” he snapped, his eyes darting to the tactical, wanting to order an emergency turn and knowing full well that it was too late. Six missiles showing . . . only his gut was telling him that wasn’t the full number bearing down on them. Somehow, Casey had managed to launch its own contribution to the salvo, slipping them in behind and among the corvettes’ missiles with just the right timing and geometry to keep them hidden until they could light off their wedges.

  Odin’s four autocannon were hammering out their furious roar, filling the space in front of the ship with shards of metal. Gensonne watched in helpless fury as the incoming missiles swung wide of Copperhead’s wedge, passed safely through the very edge of Adder’s countermissile defensive zone, and dove straight through Odin’s open throat—

  And with a thundering roar the ship exploded into a chaos of screaming alarms.

  * * *

  “Got him!” Rusk shouted, his voice hovering midway between triumph and disbelief. “One of them made it through.”

  “Damage?” Heissman asked.

  “Assessing now,” Woodburn said. “Lots of debris, but with something the size of a battlecruiser that could be mostly superficial.”

  “Missile trace,” Belokas called. “Six on the way.”

  “Countermissiles and autocannon standing by,” Woodburn confirmed.

  “Assessment’s coming a little cleaner,” Rusk said. “Looks like they took damage to their bow, probably enough to knock out their telemetry system. If we’re lucky, it’ll have neutralized at least one of their launchers and maybe their forward laser.”

  “Excellent,” Heissman said. “Fire four more missiles—let’s see if we can get in before the upper cruiser realizes what happened and turns back to defense position.”

  “Aye, Sir,” Travis said, checking the tracks of Tamerlane’s incoming missiles and feeling a flicker of grim satisfaction. They were still almost certainly going to die, but at least they’d managed to bloody Tamerlane’s nose.

  The vibration of the autocannon rumbled through the bridge. “All missiles destroyed,” Woodburn announced. “Four hard kills, two soft. Our missiles are still on target.”

  Travis was gazing at the enemy formation, trying to anticipate what Tamerlane would do next, when two new wedges flared into view at the edge of the display.

  The mysterious ships that they’d spotted earlier had arrived.

  * * *

  “Telemetry transmitters out,” a strained voice came from the bridge speaker, barely audible above a cacophony of shouts and curses. “Number one laser’s offline, number two’s iffy, and One and Three autocannon are fried.”

  “Record indicates there were ten missiles in that salvo,” Imbar snarled over the noise. “How the hell were there ten damn missiles?”

  “Because Casey’s got a railgun launcher, that’s how,” Gensonne snarled back, a red haze of fury clouding his vision. “That’s how they launched an extra four missiles without our seeing them.”

  Imbar swore viciously. “That’s why they looked too hot.”

  “You think?” Gensonne bit out. And that damn bloody trick had now cost Odin nearly half its forward armament.

  “Four more missiles on the way,” Clymes warned. “Copperhead is turning back . . . Copperhead’s on it.”

  “About time,” Gensonne muttered under his breath. He ran his eyes over the growing damage report, then looked up at the tactical.

  Copperhead’s countermissiles had just taken care of Casey’s latest salvo when a pair of new wedges suddenly appeared at the edge of the tactical, leaping forward as they drove in from the battlefield’s flank toward Bogey One.

  The two outriding destroyers, Umbriel and Miranda, had finally arrived.

  “Admiral?” Imbar called.

  “I see them,” Gensonne told him, his lips curling back in a snarling smile. “Order them to fire missiles. Hell, order all ships to fire.”

  He straightened his shoulders. They had enough data. They had more than enough data.

  Time for Heissman and his ships to die.

  “Target the ship at the rear first,” Gensonne said. “Then destroy the rest.”

  * * *

  And in that single, awful microsecond, everything changed.

  “Missile trace!” Rusk called out grimly. “Four from Bogey Two—look to be targeting Gorgon. Bogey Three ships are also firing with . . . missile trace ten on the way.”

  “He’s learned everything he can and decided it’s time to end it,” Heissman commented. “Time for us to do the same.”

  He hit his com key. “Hercules, Gemini: split tail. Repeat, split tail. Good luck.”