“Sir, Iway reports—”
There was a flash of light on the northwestern horizon, followed almost immediately by a huge dull boom.
“God damn,” Farr said slowly and distinctly. I never liked the magazine protection on those City-class cruisers, he thought. They’d skimped on internal bulkheads to strengthen the main belt. . . .
“Sir.” This time the yeoman’s voice quavered a bit, just for an instant. “Desmines reports the Iway . . . she’s gone, sir. Just gone. The stern section was all that’s left and it sank like a rock.”
“There’s something wrong with our bloody cruisers today,” Farr said, and lit a cigarette, looking at the map again and calculating distances and times. The captain of the Great Republic was the center of a flurry of activity; searchlights went on all over the superstructure.
“Here they come,” he said, speaking loudly over the squeal of turrets training. Only the quick-firers and secondary armament; nobody was going to fire twelve-inch guns into the dark with dozens of Santander Navy ships around.
Long lean shapes were coming in, weaving between the cruiser squadrons, heading for the capital ships. Red-gold balls of light began to zip through the night, shells arching out to meet the enemy. The Chosen destroyers were throwing plumes back from their bows as high as their forward turrets, thirty knots and better.
“Here they come,” repeated the captain. The battleship heeled sharply as it came about, presenting its bow to the destroyers and the smallest possible target to their torpedo sprays. “For what we are about to receive—”
“—may the Lord make us truly thankful,” the bridge muttered with blasphemous piety.
* * *
Heinrich Hosten blinked. “He has said what?”
“Sir. Libert has announced that the Union is, ah, affirmatively neutral, as of one hundred hours today. Unionaise forces will not attempt to engage either Santander or Land forces except in direct self-defense. Sir, a number of our posts report that the Unionaise here in the Sierra are laagering and refusing contact. Shall I order activation of Plan Coat, sir?”
Heinrich stood stock-still for a full forty seconds. Sweat broke out on his expressionless face. “Not at the moment,” he said very quietly. Plan Coat was the standing emergency option for the takeover of the Union.
Well, it looks like you were wrong for once, Gerta, he thought. Leaving Libert alive had been a mistake . . . although justified at the time.
“No, I don’t think we’ll distract ourselves just yet. Libert has two hundred and fifty thousand men. The Santies first, I’m afraid, tempting as it is. Attention, please.”
His chief of staff bent forward. Heinrich looked down at the map. “Pending clarification from central HQ, the forces on the Confrontation Line are to stand in place.” Selling their lives as dearly as they could. “All other forces in the Union are to retreat northward, destroying communications links behind them as far as possible, and catch us if they can.”
“Catch us, sir?”
Heinrich tapped one thick finger on the center of the Sierra. “We’re the only concentrated force the Land has left on the mainland. It’s obvious what the Santies are doing: they’ve taken Corona, they’re shipping their First Corps there as fast as they can, and they’re going for our Home Fleet in the Passage.”
His hand moved to the western shores of the Republic, and then swept up towards the Chosen homeland.
“Bold. Daring. It all turns on us, and on the Navy. If we can break their fleet and destroy their First Corps, then even losing the Union and the Sierra will be meaningless. We can retake them at our leisure and crush Santander next year.”
And if we lose, or the Navy loses, the Chosen are doomed, he knew. By their faces, so did everyone else in the room.
“Sir, the communications grid is in very poor shape,” the logistics chief warned.
Heinrich nodded. “Which means trains moving north are likely to go just as fast as the handcarts traveling ahead of the locomotives,” he said. “That’s still faster than oxcarts,” he said. “Priorities: all light- and medium-armored fighting vehicles, then fuel, then artillery and artillery ammunition, and other supplies directly in tandem.”