At All Costs"We nailed the son-of-a-bitch, Sir!" Commander Slowacki said, and despite his own fear, his voice was jubilant.
"Well done, Alekan!" Alistair McKeon replied, teeth bared in a wolfish grin of his own. His battle squadron had landed four salvos of Apollo-guided MDMs, and they'd killed a Havenite superdreadnought with each of them. In fact, they'd done better than that; the kill Slowacki had just announced was their fifth.
"Now go find another one," he said, and Slowacki nodded.
"Yes, Sir!"
The ops officer bent back over his displays, eyes bright, and McKeon felt a stab of envy. Slowacki was actually doing something, accomplishing something. In fact, the four Apollo-capable ships of McKeon's squadron were killing Havenite wallers in rapid succession, and Slowacki was too caught up in his task to realize that while he'd been killing five superdreadnoughts, the Havenites had already killed nine of Admiral Kuzak's. And it wouldn't be long before—
"Incoming!" someone shouted, and Intransigent lurched indescribably as the first deadly hits slammed home.
* * *
Alice Truman watched in horror as the Havenite flail came down on Alistair McKeon's squadron.
Was it deliberate? she wondered. Were they able somehow to figure out where Apollo was coming from? Or was it just the luck of the draw?
Not that it mattered.
* * *
Intransigent heaved madly as the lasers blasted into her. Astern of her, HMS Elizabeth I staggered as at least eighty direct hits slammed into her. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then, like her older sister Triumph, she vanished in a brief, terrible new star. Second Yeltsin and Revenge shuddered in agony of their own as the focused hurricane of destruction swept over McKeon's squadron. HMS Incomparable, Imperator's division mate in place of the dead Intolerant, lurched out of formation, impellers dead, wreckage trailing, life pods launching. Then the last few hundred missiles of the concentrated salvo came punching in, and Second Yeltsin blew up while Revenge's wedge went down. She started to fall behind, but before she could at least twelve lasers slammed directly into the unarmored top of her hull, which was supposed to be protected by her wedge. With no armor to stop them, the powerful lasers ripped deep into the superdreadnought's core, probing until they found her heart.
Thirty-one seconds after Second Yeltsin, HMS Revenge joined her in fiery death.
Intransigent survived. The only survivor of her entire squadron, Alistair McKeon's flagship staggered onward, little more than a wreck, but still alive.
* * *
Yet another hit slammed into HMS King Roger III. It stabbed deep, ripping through the wounds two of its predecessors had already torn. It breached the flagship's core hull, tearing its way into central engineering, and the superdreadnought's inertial compensator suddenly failed.
The emergency circuits shut down her impellers almost instantly, but "almost instantly" wasn't good enough for a ship under six hundred and twelve gravities of acceleration.
The ship sustained only moderate structural damage; none of her crew survived.
How the heck did I miss that there were
four Apollo capable ships in McKeon's squadron? And with
four Apollo capable ships he could only manage to kill
one Peep ship at a time? What the hell? Talk about a massive missile gone limp in McKeon's hands. He was like kryptonite to Apollo! Honor sent McKeon though with
four Apollo ships and he still managed to get himself killed?
Temporarily bracketing the question of how the Peeps managed to locate McKeon's ship
s, what were any -- much less all -- of his squadron doing in range of any enemy forces? Textev bears proof of Honor
and immediate family (McKeon especially) brainstorming Apollo's capabilities and tactical uses. So why didn't McKeon hyper in loaded for bear and satisfying his own quota of arse kicking?
Now, about that little matter of the Peeps able to so quickly identify and destroy
four Apollo capable ships that were
all somehow in range. H-O-W!?
Perhaps it's just me hitting the pipe this time. <shrugs>