“Squadron, this is Aeliaes aboard VI Ferrata. I have the flag. All vessels hold your fire.”
Auberon looked like a turkey that had been left in the oven for too long, scorched and torn as if it had also been mugged while cooking. And tumbling slightly on all three axes.
Jessica was probably safe, buried deep inside. Denis as well, but they were not talking to anyone until some serious repairs were brought to bear. Nobody was answering the comm, but that wasn’t really a surprise, considering what had just happened.
The Star Controller’s outer hull looked like it had physically melted in places.
But that was why they trained and practiced. Robbie got acknowledgements on his boards as all the Command Centurions and their Tactical Officers checked in.
The other image on his board, the happy one, was that stupid, Sentient battleship. She was tumbling far worse than Auberon.
They had fired Moirrey’s Bubble Gun in training and in sims, until they had grown rather bored with it. Just another weapon in the suite. Another tint of paint on the palette. Alber’ and Tomas were the ones who went in for colorful craziness.
Robbie was always happy with a sort of mechanical brutality when conducting the Art of War. This thing, this Reversed Field, Pinch, Plasma Implosion Generator had detonated at the exact, perfect distance necessary to form the plasma ball, two of them with Alber’s, and they had wrapped themselves around Steadfast at Dawn, and set everything on fire at once, including all those lovely gaps where their shield-equivalents had already gone down.
Surprise.
Both of the shark-cruisers had fled already. This had been a battle of titans, not lines of battle. All of their fire had also gone into Jessica. All of Aquitaine’s counter-battery had gone solely into that battleship, who had probably, and finally, learned why sailing through a wall of Bedrov-designed escorts was a terminally-stupid idea.
A Type-1 beam was perfect for killing missiles. It did a good job hammering on fighters that got too close, knocking down shields or shattering hulls after a shot or three. Against capital ships, it was mostly a painful annoyance.
Until you got hit with over a hundred beams in rapid succession. Then you started shedding hull and crew into space. Like that bastard over there was doing.
Robbie found Hardie smiling at him. As Tactical Officer, she was anticipating the order, hands poised, but would wait for it.
“No surrender offered?” Robbie asked the bridge, turning to his comm officer, Senior Centurion Dimitris Radić, a man who had served with him, and before that with Jessica, back on Brightoak, going all the way back to the beginning of his career.
“Negative on all channels,” the man said.
“All ships resume firing on the battleship,” he ordered. “Finish her off.”
“Roger that,” Hardie replied, firing the little guns first. Hardie had actually triggered the shot before he was finished speaking, but he had known she would do that. Senior Centurion Harden Glenraven was frequently mistaken for his sister, even more so when they were among strangers on the ground. Hardie truly knew him better than Bess did.
Around them, all the Type-3’s went in rapid sequence.
Over on VI Victrix, Komal MacInerney would be doing the same. One did not become a Tactical Officer in First Expeditionary Fleet by being squeamish about kicking a foe who was on the ground.
The big guns were next. VI Ferrata had an overabundance of power, but those monsters still took a bit to recharge.
They were worth every Lev.
On his screen, Robbie watched Hardie’s Type-4 beams punch daylight through the tumbling carcass, imparting an even-greater spin, just before the beams from VI Victrix hit. The result was something like a laser carving knife opening up a crispy turkey.
“Robbie, I have someone from the battleship on channel seventy-four, asking for a ceasefire.”
“All vessels, stand down until ordered,” Robbie replied. “Let’s see what they have to say. Route their signal out to all ships, but mute everyone except me.”
Radić nodded and signaled with his hand when it was done.
“Fribourg warship, this is Maneuver Advocate Ve Klossak Marah Zaun, aboard Steadfast at Dawn,” a woman’s voice came across the degraded line.
“I am Command Centurion Robertson Aeliaes,” he replied in a serious voice. “Holding the flag for Admiral Keller. What do you want to discuss, Maneuver Advocate?”
“Steadfast at Dawn has suffered a potentially-mortal wound, Command Centurion,” she said. “The Director of this vessel was killed and the other Advocates are dead or injured, leaving me in command. I offer you a trade, Command Centurion. We will withdraw from the system as quickly as we can, if you will let us go. In return, I will order Steadfast in Honor and Steadfast in Surprise to leave your fighter craft alone so they can be recovered.”
“Why should I accept your offer, Steadfast at Dawn?” Robbie growled.
He really felt like putting a boot on somebody’s neck. Looking at what they had done to Auberon on one of his side screens did not improve his humor.
“Because we are civilized beings,” the Maneuver Advocate replied calmly. “You have won the field. Further deaths are unnecessary, as Steadfast at Dawn will be a very long time healing.”
Healing? Stupid, Sentient warships.
Robbie was inclined to shatter the beast with beam fire until there was nothing larger than his fist left. Salting the Earth, as the ancient saying went.
But he stayed his hand.
Jessica had staked out the moral high ground at every turn. He didn’t want to have to answer to her, when they finally cut away enough metal to get to that Flag Bridge.
“Your word of honor, Maneuver Advocate Ve?” he asked.
Hardie shrugged at him, maybe a little glum that she would have to forgo target practice with the Bubble Gun, but she wouldn’t be here with Robbie if she was as crazy as Alber’. That man was always looking for what he called Goddesses of War.
“I have never made a promise to a barbarian before,” Ve said in a lighter tone, almost friendly. “I do so now: we will withdraw to Trusski’s orbit as soon as we are able to effect the necessary repairs here, and then gather up all my children and return to Samara. You will gather up your children and repair your flagship, and then return to wherever it is you call home. In the meantime, you will please kill or deactivate those missiles currently targeted on the planet, plus any others you may have fired.”
Robbie grinned at the face Hardie made.
“Those were a bluff, Steadfast at Dawn,” he said. “I accept your terms.”
Better than losing the entire wing trying to catch those stupid sharks, when he only had one carrier, and no space for all the extra fighters.
“Crew Advocate Ko suspected as much,” she replied. “I will inform him that he was correct, if he makes it out of surgery. Thank you, Command Centurion Aeliaes. We withdraw now.”
Robbie expected the ship to blink out of existence, but instead, one of the three engine pods aft came alive tentatively, at least enough to begin pushing the beast away from them.
“Squadron, this is VI Ferrata,” Robbie said into the general comm. “II Augusta, CP-406, CS-405, and CE-401 will rendezvous with the flight wing and get them as sorted out as possible, while we determine Auberon’s status.”
“VI Ferrata, this is Auberon,” Jessica’s voice suddenly came through. “We’re on-line enough to maneuver, as long as nobody tries to ride the gyros like you did. Then we might come apart.”
“You were listening?” he asked.
“Came in about halfway, it sounded like,” she said.
“You could have interrupted,” Robbie pointed out.
“I would have, had it been necessary,” she said. “But it was you talking.”
Robbie blushed under his dark skin. He couldn’t think of a higher compliment anyone could offer, than his own Red Admiral telling him he had done the right thing.
Hardie grinned at him, like she agreed.