Though the battleship’s targeting had been both hastier and less skillful than the Winckelmann’s, her multiple tubes made up the difference. The Winckelmann’s acceleration allowed her to pass well wide of all but three of the twenty-four missiles of the initial launch; regardless, a segment caught her squarely amidships. The flash had an electrical quality to it, high in the ultraviolet.
The missile aimed at the Princess Cecile reached burnout and separated. Daniel plotted the four tracks, then careted one and ordered, “Now, Sun! Everything you’ve got!”
The corvette’s plasma cannon rang from both turrets. Surges of ionized nuclei spurted at light speed through the sole opening in the laser array and down the iridium bores.
Inevitably there was some leakage which the refractory gun-tube had to contain. Sun had the weapons on high rate, the four tubes cycling at a combined rate of six pulses per second. That couldn’t be sustained for long periods because it didn’t leave the guns long enough to cool between discharges.
It was the only chance the Princess Cecile had of surviving for a long period, however.
Despite the guns’ enormous energy output, they couldn’t hope to destroy tons of solid metal thousands of miles away. What they could do, if skillfully directed, was to nudge missiles aside by subliming material off one side as reaction mass.
Tube Alpha showed ready. Daniel launched another missile at Der Grosser Karl. With luck, Alpha would be reloaded again in time for another round, a last round if luck or the Gods decreed. The Sissie’s crew might never know if these missiles too had struck—but they had three certain hits on a battleship, not a bad record to take to a spacers’ heaven.
The Winckelmann swung into a slow tumble through the void. Her High Drive shut down momentarily, then restarted as Pettin or his replacement aligned the nozzles to counteract the thrust from the missile impact.
The crippled cruiser launched two missiles, then two more. By God she did!
“Daniel, the enemy’s going to enter the Matrix!” Adele said. Had he ever heard Adele shout before? “Chastelaine’s signaled ‘All units shape course for Sonderfell immediately.’ Daniel, they’re running!”
Tube Alpha was loaded. Betts must have set the transport rollers to overspeed.
Daniel launched again, feeling the missiles in B magazine also starting to move. With Tube Beta in operation, the Princess Cecile was in fighting trim—except for mobility.
Segments of the incoming missile arrived. Vapor glowing with the fury of Sun’s cannon bathed the corvette for an instant, a flash like lightning across Daniel’s real-time display. There was a click like a distant whiplash; a few gauges jumped.
The Princess Cecile was end-on to the missile, showing minimal cross-sectional area to the threat. Daniel had aligned her with the center of the pattern formed when the missile separated. Three of the segments missed of their own, and Sun’s plasma cannon thrust the last enough to the side that only thin-spread gas expanding from the flank of the projectile touched the ship.
Der Grosser Karl blurred off the display. Moments later the destroyers Ihn and Steinbrinck vanished also. They’d rerig in the Matrix before they started the long voyage to Sonderfell.
Daniel shook his head. Sonderfell! That route to the Sack was four months of sailing for well-found vessels. No wonder Chastelaine’s squadron had managed to avoid being spotted en route! But how friendly the Khans of Sonderfell would be to a force so obviously defeated . . . ?
Daniel smiled. He had a degree of sympathy for Chastelaine as a fellow captain and spacer; but he couldn’t say he was sorry about the result, no.
The admiral’s decision made perfect sense. Der Grosser Karl was a new battleship, many times more valuable than the entire RCN squadron. She’d been badly damaged already and could with further bad luck—Chastelaine would think it was luck—be destroyed. It was his duty as a prudent commander to avoid further losses by withdrawing.
A computer would have agreed to the depths of its electronic soul.
The order to flee caught the Koellner and Giese with their antennas stowed. Both destroyers cut their thrust to zero to make the riggers’ job easier, proceeding on a ballistic course. The Giese slipped into the Matrix within three minutes, a very creditable time, but her sister ship barely struggled out ahead of the missiles that the Winckelmann and Active launched at them for want of a better target.
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