The three Cinnabar vessels—points undifferentiated in size at this range—vanished from the display a few seconds apart. Instead of lowering their antennas to maneuver in normal space, they’d reentered the Matrix.
The Princess Cecile’s missiles began to move on their trackways. A metallic screech quivered through the ship, bringing a violent curse from Sun. Adele had no idea of whether or not the sound had anything to do with the missiles.
Daniel brought up real-time imagery of the Alliance ships. Adele hesitated a moment, then echoed the vessels in a line across the top of her display.
When the Princess Cecile appeared, Admiral Chastelaine had been preparing to enter the Matrix on a short voyage from Getica to Strymon. Now the Yorck and two of the destroyers were taking down all their antennas to ready themselves for battle, and the remaining pair of destroyers were lowering all but the rings at their far bow and stern.
“R Class destroyers,” Daniel said in a tone of professional approval. “Quite good ships. Their ordinary magazine capacity’s sixty rounds.”
“They’re the Ihn and Steinbrinck,” Adele said, expanding a sidebar to check the names. “The other two are the Koellner and Giese; and yes, they reported magazines full at sixty missiles each.”
The Alliance ships were reforming in a hollow globe thirty thousand miles in diameter. Each vessel was under power at a constant one-gee acceleration. The course schematic made it look as though they were in orbit, but in fact they circled a point in empty space. Tanais’s orbital motion was carrying the moon slowly away from the squadron, though the ships were already beyond range of support by the base defenses when the Princess Cecile attacked.
“Chastelaine’s marking time, waiting to see what the RCN’s going to do,” Daniel said. “He’ll react then—you see that he’s ready to respond either to an attack or to dog us with two destroyers until the rest of the squadron can rejoin if Pettin tries to run. Though . . .”
He pursed his lips judiciously, peering at the flagship’s image.
“I don’t think the admiral would either leave his battleship without escort or engage with his force divided,” he said. “With Der Grosser Karl in its present condition, his squadron would have a very long chase to run down even a crock like the Winckelmann. But I really doubt that question’s going to arise, because Commodore Pettin will—”
Three ships coalesced out of the Matrix, again within seconds of one another. They were driving toward the Alliance squadron, perpendicular to the plane of the Strymon system. Daniel had programmed his display to include them without further input: the Winckelmann, Active, and Petty, broadside to their axis of movement so that their missile tubes amidships were clear. They began lowering their antennas at the moment they reappeared in normal space.
The ships were glossy with false precision. The Princess Cecile’s software was integrating real-time images with archival files to refine views of vessels which were more than 200,000 miles from the corvette.
Slivers separated from first the Winckelmann, then the two destroyers. They were launching missiles.
“Look what he’s done!” Daniel said. “Look, look where the Yorck is, Adele! That’s your doing, letting the commodore plan his attack like this!”
Adele stared at the display. She didn’t understand. She wasn’t used to thinking spatially, so the fact that the Alliance heavy cruiser was near the axis of the Cinnabar squadron’s motion didn’t mean anything to her. Some vessel was bound to be, after all.
Alliance ships were launching missiles also; some seconds behind the attackers but in greater numbers regardless. Der Grosser Karl alone spasmed a dozen, then a second dozen from her dorsal and ventral batteries respectively. Adele knew from the transmitted manifest that there were hundreds more rounds available behind a first salvo that by itself outdid the total output of Commodore Pettin’s force.
Beside Adele, Sun shrieked in delight; both Mon and Vesey were crowing happily over the command channel. “Daniel, I don’t see!” she said.
The ships were maneuvering, though their initial velocities—particularly those of the RCN vessels—were much higher than the increments added or subtracted by their High Drives. Missile tracks spread across the display like wisps of colored hair, the orange predictions changing to red as the seconds passed.