Gabe raised his right arm for the fiftieth time. The image on the screen raised its left arm. He sighed.
The process of calibrating a rig to its pilot was often a painful process, one that involved being hooked up to an external BCI that was meant to translate the brain activity into motion. At times, however, the computer could be frustratingly dense about which activity was associated correctly. Each accurate response had to be identified and logged so the computer’s history with the user could build a picture of how the pilot thought and reacted. Once it was finally finished, it would supply an almost instinctive level of control over the machine, but gaining that data was incredibly frustrating. As much as he was looking forward to flying the new rig design, the process still taxed his patience.
It didn’t help that he was still waiting for Admiral Delacourt’s axe to fall. She had avoided him for at least two days now, without any extraordinary communication at all. The apparent rumor that she had planned his “drill” to show the importance of staying in formation probably had more to do with that than his skill in evading her. After all, a loud confrontation would undermine the impression that she was in charge of the fleet, and if he knew her at all, she would not let go of that. In any case, he would be easy enough to find when the time came.
He lowered his arm, and the left arm of the displayed machine lowered as well. Gabe took a deep breath and raised his right arm again. This time the right leg rose, bending as if the machine was about to take a step.
“Captain Gabriel. A word please.” Gabe barely restrained a reflexive jerk in response to Delacourt’s voice. As it was, the machine on the projection immediately jerked to the side, as if it were dodging incoming fire. He let out a tense breath.
“Of course, Admiral Delacourt.” His attempt to filter the frustration out of his voice didn’t work. An unintentional action like that one could undo all the currently recorded data in the system. It would probably take hours just to recover what progress he had made. With a subtle move, he triggered the BCI computer to disengage. The helmet pulled away from him with a hiss, and Gabe turned to face Delacourt.
Delacourt’s only response to his obvious annoyance was a raised eyebrow. Her tone, of course, remained perfectly cool. “We need to talk about your little…demonstration, Captain.”
Gabe attempted to keep his expression innocent. “My what?”
Her eyes narrowed, and the first hint of anger crept into her voice. “Do not presume to humor me, Captain Miller. Your stunt the other day seriously endangered my ability to command respect among the fleet. You are already aware of the difficulties I have experienced with Colonel Mccalister. By treating this like a game, you’ve made the situation that much worse.”
“A game, Admiral?”Gabe folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the calibration console. “In case you’ve forgotten, it’s my home we’re defending here. It’s my friends who’ve been shot out of space, and my father who brought you here to help us. I’m as serious as can be about the entire thing.” She opened her mouth to speak, and he continued before she could get a word out. “You, on the other hand—you’ve just been stomping all over the rest of us. Not everyone here is Mccalister, and by ignoring us, you’re putting us in just as much danger as anything I did. You need to trust us.”
For a moment, Admiral Delacourt said nothing. A tic caused one eyebrow to twitch, the only visible manifestation of her emotions. When she finally spoke, it was with a kind of furious difficulty, the kind born of a stubborn determination to avoid screaming. “Is that your opinion, Captain Miller? So you’re going to keep subverting my authority until I listen to you?”
Gabe shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It does not matter what you meant, Captain. That is what you are doing, regardless of your intentions.” Her fists clenched and unclenched. “If this continues, I will relieve you of your command. Don’t think that your relationship with your father will keep me from it.”
He met her eyes, determined not to back down. “I don’t want a fight with you, Admiral Delacourt. The Outriders have already given me enough trouble. We just need you to trust us.”
There was a flicker of something in Delacourt’s expression, and Gabe realized he had unintentionally hit a nerve. “Trust, Captain Gabriel? After the stunt you just pulled? I find it hard to believe you don’t see any reason why I should mistrust you and your fellow Wayfarers.”
A cold feeling swept through him. He shook his head. “If you feel that way, Admiral, how are we supposed to trust your orders? And why would you even be out here with us in the first place?”
She gave him a razor-edged glare. “My reasons are my own. Besides, who could deal with this situation better? Colonel Mccalister? You?” As he fumbled for an answer, Delacourt shook her head. “The answer is that no one could. You would all just sit and wait for the next asteroids to come. By the time someone thought to institute a little discipline, half your forces would be dead or damaged. After that, the Outriders would waltz their asteroids right up to the atmosphere, while your little rabble of a fleet could do nothing more than watch.”
His anger rose. “We wouldn’t let it go that far. We can fight. With the new equipment, we could put a stop to their attacks.”
Delacourt snorted. “Really? This is an MFO we’re talking about. They have equipment too, and if you think that all they have are MSSRs, you’re a fool. There has to be a fleet, or a base somewhere, with enough experienced personnel to bury you amateurs.” Gabe remained silent, and she tilted her head to the side. “I’m the only one who has the chance to stop them, Captain. It’s time you stopped getting in the way of my plans.”
Some stubborn spark of resistance flared in Gabe’s heart. “And what happens when you run into something you can’t plan for? Something you don’t know how to fix? When you aren’t able to stop something they throw at us, what are we supposed to do then?”
“When we get to that point, we will deal with it.” Delacourt folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Otherwise, we are going to proceed as planned and by my instructions. Are there any other questions, Captain?”
Gabe shook his head. Delacourt turned on her heel and started back, her boots clicking on the metal floor of the corridor. She made it most of the way to the door before he unclenched his hands and turned back to the calibration computer. If she was fully intent on this collision course with disaster, he had a lot of work to do. It was going to take a lot of work to keep his pilots alive in the middle of the mess she was plunging them into.
Elder Miller frowned. “I appreciate your willingness to speak with me on this matter, Admiral Delacourt, but I have to confess that I do not know how to proceed. It is a very delicate matter for me, you understand?”
Susan nodded. She had not expected much of the conversation, but given that her duties lay with the Speaker, she needed to inform him of the trouble she was having with a particular commander. Even if the problematic officer in question happened to be his son. “I know, Elder Miller. I merely wished to let you know in case anything further came up. Thank you for your time.”
The image of Elder Miller raised his hand. “One moment, Admiral.” Susan studied him as he lowered his hand, wondering what the man wished to speak with her about. Though the Speaker remained in New Sonora and his hologram was far from precisely detailed, the tired expression on his face was clear. “I said that the matter was delicate, Admiral Delacourt. Not that it was impossible for me to help.”
She raised her eyebrows. It took a moment to find appropriately neutral words to respond. “I am glad to hear that, Elder Miller. May I ask what course of action you recommend?”
His frown rapidly reversed itself. “Perhaps merely a few words of advice, Admiral. I have been corralling my son since the time he was born, and stubborn as he may be, I know he has the same goals as the rest of us. He merely has a unique way of approaching his objectives, as does we all. The Lord rarely blesses us all with the exact same gifts, and He desires us to combine our efforts in His work.”
Elder Miller tilted his head to the side. “Might I suggest that at some point in the future, you include Gabriel—pardon, Captain Miller—in your planning? He may not have your leadership experience, but he would be better able help if he understood your concerns.”
She felt her face harden. “I am afraid the circumstances render that impossible, Elder Miller. If I allow him to take part in a discussion on our efforts, he may assume that he is able to ignore or counteract my orders. It would be disastrous. There can only be one commander in the fleet, and you have appointed me to the place of responsibility.”
The Speaker smiled. “So I have, Admiral, and you may rest assured that I do not regret it.” He shook his head. “You are free to pursue that responsibility in whatever way you see fit, but I would remind you that your duties as fleet commander do not end with the tactical and strategic deployment of the fleet. I urge you to think on that in the coming days, and I hope that my counsel proves helpful to you.”
Susan nodded. Elder Miller glanced to the side, at something outside the projection. “Now if you will excuse me, Admiral, I have some of my own troubles to resolve. Please excuse me, and may the Lord bless your efforts to protect us. Elder Miller out.”
The hologram blinked off, and Susan found herself frowning at the empty space where he had been. His instructions had been far more open-ended than the typical Directorate orders tended to be. She did not like it nearly as much as she once had assumed. What “duties as fleet commander” could he possibly mean? It did not make sense to her, try as she might to discern the Speakers meaning.
In any case, Susan knew where her chief responsibilities lay. She turned to the door. The next preparedness drill was going to start in ten minutes, and she did not want to miss the chance to evaluate the maneuvers. The Wayfarers had been improving, and though it was unlikely, she had begun to hope that her efforts would not be in vain after all.
“Father, the woman is insane. She should never have been put in command of the fleet, and that’s just all there is to it.”
His father gave him a stern look, obvious even in hologram form. “Gabriel, Susan Delacourt is the commander of the fleet. If you had any reservations about her service in that position, you should have brought them up when I asked you before.” He pursed his lips. “Though to be honest, I doubt that your input would have mattered in the final decision.”
Gabe felt as if he had been slapped. “How can you say that? I’ve done as much as anyone to protect our home, and you don’t trust me?” He gestured to the door, as if Delacourt were in the portal watching the argument. “She doesn’t trust us! She’s not giving us any leeway, even when she doesn’t actually know what she’s doing. If she doesn’t start listening to us instead of just ordering us around, she is going to get us all killed. Surely the Lord would not want that for us!”
His father folded his arms. “Gabriel, I need to ask you to sit down.”
Stubbornness kicked at the idea. “You’re not listening either, Dad.”
“I am. I know how you must feel, but there is something more you need to know about the situation.” The tone of his father’s voice was still calm, but Gabe could hear the weariness in it. Sudden sympathy took the edge from Gabe’s anger, and he grudgingly settled into the seat. Elder Miller regarded him for a moment, his face solemn, and when he spoke his words had a weight to them that had not been there before.
“Gabriel, how much do you know about our plans to leave Eris?” Gabe blinked at the unexpected question and sat back in his chair.
“As much as anyone, I guess. We’re leaving because the Known Worlds are hunting us, and the Wild Colonies hate us even more. There’s no place left, so we’re going.” He paused, searching his father’s eyes. “If you doubt that, Father, you need to know that it is a good decision. You’re making the right choice to bring the people of the Way out of this mess.”
There was a slight pause, and Clark shook his head. “I do not doubt that decision, Gabriel, but not because of the logic to the plan we have laid out.” He locked eyes with Gabe and his lips firmed. All trace of weariness in that face was gone. “The Lord told me that we needed to leave.”
Gabe hesitated. “You mean He answered your prayers about it? I already knew that.”
Clark smiled. “Not the way you think, Gabriel. The Lord answers our prayers, and He listens to each of us, but this time…” He paused, and his eyes grew distant. “I had been asking what we should do as a people. The situation seemed so dark for us, and I knew that if we stayed as we were, the people of the Way would be destroyed. I did not know where to turn because there were enemies on all sides. We were trapped, and I did not know if the Lord would simply have us stay to witness the end of the Known Worlds.”
The Speaker of the Way folded his hands in front of him. “As I prayed, the room grew light around me. I opened my eyes and found a messenger waiting for me. He instructed me in what we should do, and how we should proceed. He told me that the Lord did not wish us to die here, and that He would watch over us and protect us if we remained faithful to Him in our trials. The messenger told me we should prepare ourselves to leave New Sonora for the Unknown Regions, and he told me that when the time was right, the Lord wanted us to depart.”
His smile returned. “The Lord’s messenger had only a few other details beyond those instructions. Admiral Delacourt was named specifically. He told me that she was to be the leader of the fleet as we left Eris. The angel made sure I knew that without her we would be lost. When I heard that she had been living among us, I searched her out and convinced her to take command. That is why we are leaving New Sonora, Gabriel, and that is why she is in command. The Lord wishes it, and we must trust in Him to guide us.”
Gabe remained silent, his faith warring with his stubborn dislike of the admiral. He dropped his gaze. “Why are you telling me this, Father? And why haven’t you told the people yet that the Lord has commanded us to leave?”
“The time is not right. The Lord warned me to wait until all was ready before I spoke, and I trust in His guidance.” His father paused. “And I am telling you this because as much as we need her, she will need you. She cannot fulfill her responsibilities without your help.” Clark leaned forward, his eyes searching. “Will you help her, Gabriel?”
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For a long moment, Gabe struggled with the reply. With a frustrated grunt, he looked up. “Father, I will.” Clark straightened with a fond smile.
“Good, son. Very good. I expected nothing less from you.” He glanced at his wrist and frowned. “Gabriel, I need to go. The Advisors are meeting; apparently something has happened to Elder Evans and they need to speak with me. Can I rely on you to do what needs to be done?”
With a sigh, Gabe nodded. “Yes, Father. I will speak with you later.” Clark Miller beamed at him, and then switched the hologram off.
Gabe stared at the empty space for a moment longer. He stood slowly, reluctant to be about the next task. An apology would be a good start, but he was not excited about it. Though he had no doubt of the Lord’s will, and of his father’s role in preaching it, his faith still had to wrestle with his pride a while. When he felt ready, he turned and headed for the door. Perhaps Susan Delacourt would not rub it in his face nearly as much as he thought she would.
After another long planning session, followed by a long argument with Colonel Mccalister, Susan walked toward the sanctuary of her cabin. Exhausted, she reached the door to her room and was about to key in the access code when she heard someone clear their throat. It was an annoyingly familiar sound. She turned and found Captain Gabriel waiting for her. “Yes, Captain? Can I help you?”
The rig pilot opened his mouth, probably to deliver some semi-witty retort, when an alarm suddenly blared to life. Susan froze in place, and she watched as Gabriel spun around and started running for the rig bays. She sprinted after him and managed to overtake him just a few meters down the hall. “Battle alarm?”
Gabe nodded.
“Asteroid’s been detected. We have to deploy or it will hit New Sonora.” Exhilaration filled her. Finally, she would be able to prove herself to these people. Captain Gabriel went on in a grim tone that told her he did not exactly share her feelings. “They’ll have rigs here too, enough to cover the rocks on their descent. If they know we have ships now, they probably sent more than usual.”
“Good. It’s about damn time.”
Gabriel stumbled over some invisible obstacle and only barely recovered before he fell. “What could possibly be good about this situation? They’re trying to wipe us out!”
She smiled as she ran. “Yes, they are. But this time they’re going to be facing me.” Susan saw the turn that would lead her back to her station in the command center. “The rigs will be under your tactical control, Captain. We’re depending on you.”
Whatever growled response he made, she didn’t hear it. She made her way to the depths of the command deck, where she knew the interface for the fleet waited. It was going to be a good day after all.
Gabe was still shaking his head when he reached his rig. Just when he had been about to patch things up with Delacourt, he had to worry about something much, much worse, likely involving a few thousand tons of solid rock hurtling toward his home. The Lord had a curious way of working sometimes.
He pulled himself up the ladder that led to his rig. It would be the CSR’s final mission; the newer CTRs were still tucked away in Deliverance’s deep storage, but hopefully by the time the Outriders launched their next assault, they would be ready. The five other pilots had already sealed their rigs and were prepped for launch. Gabe cursed the fact that he had gone to speak with Admiral Delacourt. She had deserved his apology, but that poorly timed decision meant he might be the last rig to launch.
With a lunge, he entered the rig’s piloting chamber. His seat was waiting for him, and he tapped the verification code into the access panel in the chair’s arm. The hatch closed, sealing him inside the war machine. For a moment, the interior remained completely dark, as if the rig had failed to start up. Gabe simply leaned back in his seat and waited for the interface arms on either side of the headrest for the BCI to lock into position. After what seemed like an eternity, he felt the narrow bands of the interface press into place around his temples, and he closed his eyes.
There was a subtle shift, as if he had fallen down a hole somewhere in that darkness. A tingle ran through him, and when he opened his eyes again, the world had changed.
What he saw now was the blank metal of an interior bulkhead. The wall seemed excruciatingly close, as if his nose was at risk of smashing up against it. He resisted the instinctive urge to lean back further. Instead, he widened his eyes to decrease the magnification of the sensors slightly. He cleared his throat. “Stroke-Four to Deliverence. Ready for launch.”
“Confirmed, Stroke-Four. Launch order is still pending. Wait for confirmation signal from central command.” Gabe waited as ordered. In his mind, the seconds ticked by at an agonizing rate, and in his imagination he saw the asteroid plowing through the atmosphere of Eris. He was picturing streams of firing streaking through the sky of New Sonora when he heard a channel open. “Deliverance to Divine Stroke Flight. Prepare for immediate launch. Launch order is Four, Six, Three, One, Two, Five. Confirm and launch in five seconds after final confirmation.”
Gabe responded with a cursory click to reopen the channel. “Stroke-Four confirmed.” He heard the rest of the remaining rigs acknowledge the orders, and then he rose from his seat. It was an awkward motion, made much worse by the fact that in even moderate gravity, the rig made it feel like he was wearing two hundred pounds of armor. Another step or two forward centered him over the launch port, and he heard the controller begin the countdown. Across from him, Stroke-Six was approaching the other port. “Five. Four.” Gravity shifted as the cruiser formed a bubble around his rig. “Three. Two.” He felt the hatch shift beneath his feet. “One. Launch.”
The hatch snapped open, and the gravity bubble accelerated him downwards. Two hundred meters of bulkhead sped by him in a flash, and suddenly his rig was flying through space, the illusory wind whispering past him. He hurtled toward Eris below for a moment, and then he used the tetherdrive to slow his descent. With a few more adjustments to his vector and velocity, he reached his assigned position near Deliverance’s bow. “Stroke-Four in position. No contacts.”
“Confirmed, Stroke-Four. Maintain position and stand by for further orders.” Gabe nodded and searched the stars for his enemy. He knew he would not have long to wait.
Susan watched as the fleet formed up for the intercept. She had decided to assign the various cruisers to distinct formations based on their abilities. Two of those groups branched off from the main body of the fleet. Made up of a pair of Deliverance-class cruisers, two Caravan-class frigates, and six Samar-class escorts, each of the groups moved away and took up positions north and south of the main body, with the planet’s axis as a guide. The main group, with two cruisers, two frigates, and thirteen Samar-class escorts, remained stationed directly above the city. To cover the sides, she planned on deploying Captain Gabriel’s rigs to the west and east and supporting them with escorts as necessary. She studied the fleet, watching as each ship found its assigned position and hovered there in space, ready to intercept any incoming rocks before they had a chance to do damage.
They would have plenty of work soon. As Susan had suspected, the enemy had increased their efforts to destroy the Wayfarers. Rather than a single asteroid, the enemy had sent a swarm. The sensors had identified at least sixty different rocks in four distinct batches, and around each were ephemeral contacts tagged as probable MSSRs. Susan frowned. The presence of enemy rigs meant that the enemy would pose at least a minor threat to any ship in the fleet that was sloppy in their maneuvers. Which, given the previous drills of the day, would likely mean all of them. That meant she would have to keep the CSRs close. She touched a control.
“Delacourt to fleet, all ships run sensor tracks on the incoming asteroids. We want to know where these things are coming from, and we want as much data as possible. Our adversaries have decided to give us a lot to work with; let’s not waste it.” She leaned back as the ships of the fleet acknowledged the order, and considered the situation.
The sensor readings from the rest of the fleet poured in. Data quickly led to a predicted course for the asteroids as well as the path they had already traveled. The rocks had none of the shielding that made tracking ships so difficult in the vastness of space, and the computer found little challenge in predicting their courses. She studied the tracks quietly. Three of the packs seemed to be following fairly direct routes, easily enough intercepted by the ships of the fleet. The fourth was spread out along twelve different vectors, as if hoping to force the ships of the fleet to break formation to go after them. Susan hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.
“Command to all fleet units. On my order, you will open fire on the first group of asteroids and destroy them. Rigs, form up on the flanks to prepare to intercept incoming MSSRs and asteroids.”
Susan watched as the various elements of her fleet moved and adjusted their positions. Her orders had set up firing lines for the asteroids to pass through, allowing the Wayfarer craft to organize an effective gauntlet of plasma cannon fire as the asteroids approached. There was little chance that any of the rocks making their way through those gauntlets would make it to the surface in anything less than a shattered mess.
She watched as the enemy began to enter the maximum weapons range of her ships’ guns. Susan drew in a deep breath, knowing that her next order was the final step, the one she could never take back. It was her first engagement as not simply an advisor or a junior officer, but the commanding admiral of a fleet. Every life was her responsibility, and the moment she gave the order, people would begin to die. She let the breath trickle out slowly, and keyed her console as the first enemy units crossed the threshold.
“All units, open fire.”
Gabe did his best to keep from swearing as his rigs moved off to the sides of the Wayfarer formation. The Lord knew how much the effort cost him. Had she learned nothing from the training drill? He didn’t look forward to facing such a large number of MSSRs either—at least, not with his six flights of CSRs. If nothing else changed soon, the fleet was lined up for a massacre.
Space suddenly lit up with a terrible wave of firepower. Salvoes of plasma bursts and streams of particle guns shot out from the Wayfarer fleet, zipping toward the enemy at terrible speed. The sheer distance meant that the MSSRs had time to dodge, but the asteroids were not nearly as lucky. He saw explosions begin to tear away chunks of the incoming rocks, ripping holes in the stone and chewing away at the maneuvering thrusters the Outriders had added to their surfaces. At least one rock crumbled into fragmented pieces, broken apart by a fortunate concentration of fire. The remaining pieces were easily deflected away from their destructive courses, sending them tumbling away.
Those pieces were not alone, however. He narrowed his eyes, magnifying the images of the incoming fragments. Some of the bits seemed to be moving much faster than the others. The reason for their speed came to him just as a panicked signal came over the communications net. “They’re missiles! Some of those asteroids launched missiles!”
A wave of missiles shot back toward the fleet, latching on to the ships that had targeted the rocks. Unlike the projectiles launched by MSSRs, these missiles were meant for larger prey. Warheads armed with thermonuclear charges raced toward the ships and Gabe found himself moving in that direction, hoping to provide the cover he already knew would be too late.
To the credit of the ship’s crews, they began to track and fire on the missiles almost instantly. Warhead after warhead exploded as the cloud of projectiles closed in, but others kept coming. Before Gabe was even halfway close to being able to intercept one of them, they crashed into the fleet like a sandstorm of destruction.
Explosions rolled across the Wayfarer ships. Fortunately, the craft were far better protected than any rig could ever hope to be. In addition to layers of protective armor and hull plating, each one carried a type of gravitic shielding that repulsed a large portion of the destructive energy directed against them. The cruisers and frigates had shields that strained to keep up with the devastation, but they managed to come through relatively unharmed.
The escort craft, with their lighter shielding and smaller size, were far less fortunate. Most lost their shields as the gravitic repulsion failed. One escort, the Flood, took a direct hit that tore through its hull and reduced its tetherdrive to junk. It drifted along what remained of its evasive course, an unsalvageable wreck.
Gabe gritted his teeth and waited for the next catastrophe that was sure to come.
The explosions died off, and Susan shook away a sense of guilt that she could not afford at the moment. She frowned as she evaluated the damage to her ships.
Obviously the Outriders had been aware of the Wayfarer fleet and had prepared accordingly. The focus of the incoming fire had been on the central formation, and most of the remaining twelve escort craft in the center had suffered some amount of damage. She had been depending on them to shield her cruisers from the enemy rigs, but they obviously wouldn’t be able to do so now.
The two wings had fared better, and the escort craft with them were still intact. That meant she could send them after two of the groups of asteroids, with adjustments to compensate for the Outriders’ tricks and allow the ships to pick off incoming missiles short of their targets. The CSRs would obviously need a bit more help, however, and she made her next move without hesitation.
“Command to all Samar-class escorts in Formation Alpha. Break into individual units. You are to intercept the nearest asteroid and destroy it. Priority is on the rocks; leave the MSSRs alone if you can.” She paused, remembering Captain Gabriel’s outraged shouts. The rig pilot was not saying anything now, so perhaps it was time to motivate him. “Command to rigs, form up with the escorts from Formation Alpha. Intercept enemy MSSRs as the Samar’s hit their targets. Good hunting, and good luck.”
Gabe heard the orders come across the communications net and felt a chill. The presence of an escort craft might even the odds slightly, but the prospect of taking on an even or close to even number of MSSRs in CSRs did not bode well for the Wayfarer fleet. He steeled himself and cleared his throat. “Stroke-Four to all rigs. Break by units to engage the incoming enemy craft and provide cover for the patrol craft.” He made a visual check and saw that the entirety of the remaining rigs had deployed from the cruisers, the total coming to thirty-six craft including himself. “Make sure there are three of us heading to each target. We don’t want anyone left alone.”
Acknowledgements rolled back to him, and Gabe started for one of the furthest asteroids. If his flight failed to bring down the rock, he wanted to give the remainder of the fleet as much time to intercept it as possible. Stroke-Five and -Six formed up on him, trailing in his wake as the others joined rigs headed for alternate targets. He had begun to accelerate when a beep alerted him to another signal.
“Hold on, Stroke-Four. You wouldn’t want to leave your dance partner behind, now would you?” Gabe glanced back over his shoulder and found the source of the transmission, the Samar-class escort Anvil. The little patrol craft accelerated after him, coming up in his wake. Compared to the agility and speed of the rigs it was following, the escort craft was sorely lacking. The obvious disadvantage of non-BCI control systems was evident as well; the maneuvering speed of the Anvil almost seemed sluggish enough that Gabe could picture the craft sailing through mud by comparison to his own movements.
At the same time, if anything allowed him to survive, it would be the extra armor and weapons the ship carried. Unlike a rig, the Samar-class escorts were capable of trading fire with larger craft without relying on agility to avoid return shots. Its armor plating would stand up even under heavy bombardment from rig-class plasma cannons, and each one carried a pair of Grade 5 plasma cannon which were more than capable of replying. Topping off the little snub-nosed ship’s arsenal was a Rating 1 particle lance, a weapon designed to sandblast its way through opposing armor with ease. A rig caught by a shot like that might as well have never even existed.
Gabe slowed his rig obligingly, and his wingmen did the same. The ship began to close with them as they came up on the asteroid. He cleared his throat. “Anvil, any particular way you want to divide the work here?”
“Just get us to the rock, Stroke-Four. Then we’ll show you gentlemen what firepower’s really about.” The confidence in Anvil’s voice convinced Gabe that either the pilot had no idea how dangerous the MSSRs were, or worse, that the crew of the Anvil had never seen combat. Either way, that kind of attitude would easily expose the escort ship to destruction if they didn’t wise up quickly. He keyed his communications again.
“Confirmed, Anvil. Just try to keep up, and remember which rigs are ours. Stroke-Four out.”
Susan watched as the rigs and patrol craft deployed against their scattered targets. It would probably be too much to hope that Captain Gabriel would prove as frustrating to the Outriders as he did to her, but she allowed herself a brittle smile at the thought. She turned her attention to the battlewings as the rigs closed with their targets. Each wing had swept up and around, confronting the two more solidly bunched groups of asteroids and MSSRs closing in on New Sonora.
It was those indistinct sensor contacts, the ones representing enemy rigs, that worried her. While the two wings had been left with more than enough escort craft to chase off the smaller craft, the center had been left with only the six cruisers. These she had to place based on a balance between the protection provided by their mutual coverage in close formation, and the need to cover the angle of the approaching rocks in the last group. Compromise had left her feeling that these ships were dangerously more exposed to enemy fire, but it was hardly something she could avoid if she meant to stop all the asteroids. The fact that she was on one of those ships made it even harder not to order them to cluster together.
She watched as the enemy began to enter the maximum weapons range of her ships in the wings. Susan drew in a deep breath, knowing that if she had not calculated correctly, the order would result in even more chaos and casualties among her ships. Still, it had to be done, or else the Outriders would have their victory already. The words came.
“All units, resume fire.”