Which put them nose-on to his ships, which were advancing in exactly the same formation. There was one crucial difference: his heavy gun ships had aircraft to spot for them, and they’d honed the technique in years of practice. The Land fleet had excellent optical sights and good gunnery, but they couldn’t use either until they came into sight. That was a long, long stretch of killing ground to run through, under the iron flail.
“The enemy carriers?”
“They’ve both broken off and are steaming northward at speed.”
That puzzled him for an instant. Ah. No more planes. Without aircraft, they were as useless as merchantmen in a fleet engagement.
“Prepare to execute fleet turn; turn will be to port.”
“Sir.”
The Santander battleships were strung out like a line of sixteen beads, boiling forward at eighteen knots. The Land heavy ships were coming towards them at a knot or two better; some of his battlewagons had damage and weren’t making their best speed.
“Turn.”
The Empire of Liberty heeled, coming about to show her side to the enemy still beyond sight over the horizon. The turrets squealed as the long barrels of the twelve-inch guns came around. On either side her sisters did the same. Now the sixteen Santander battleships were moving west instead of north . . . and presenting the combined fire of their broadsides to their Land equivalents. If the enemy fleet tried to charge, close the range, they would be unable to reply with more than half their guns . . . and they would be firing blind for a long, long time anyway. If they duplicated his maneuver, they never would get within range. And if they withdrew, they’d never have an opportunity for a fleet engagement on anything like as favorable terms again. He could sail into Corona and refit, blockading the mainland under cover of land-based aircraft.
“Commence firing,” he said.
One hundred and twenty heavy guns fired, and the Santander fleet disappeared for an instant in flame and smoke. Every man on the bridge opened his mouth and put his hands over his ears. The Empire of Liberty heeled over on her side, her structure screaming and flexing with the strain of the massive muzzle-horsepower of her four twelve-inch and four eight-inch broadside guns; for a brief instant he could see the shapes of the 800-pound shells at the top of their trajectory, and then they were falling towards the decks of the Land battlewagons. Towards the thinner deck armor, not the massive belts that protected their flanks.
“Splash,” the signals yeoman said. “Forward air reports overshot. Range, correction—”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“General,” the officer in the staff car said.
Jeffrey leaned down from the side of his armored car. Something went CRACK through the space he’d just vacated, far too loud for a bullet. He grabbed frantically for the railing at the side as the car lurched backwards.
That put them hull-down. “That was a tank gun, or I’m a snail-eater,” the driver muttered.
Several Santander armored vehicles were advancing to either side of the road Jeffrey had been using. Four tanks, Whippet mediums with a 2.5-inch gun in their turrets; three troop carriers, Whippets with the turrets removed; a pom-pom Whippet, freed from its original tasking of antiaircraft work by the virtual absence of Land aircraft and doing fire support, instead. The Republic’s armor clattered forward, halting with only the tank turrets showing over the hill and their guns at maximum depression. One fired, and a few seconds later there was a gout of smoke and fire in the middle distance, visible even over the ridge.
All across the rolling cropland to the west the Expeditionary Corps was advancing, infantry spread out in preparation for the engagement that seemed inevitable. A brace of ground-attack fighters flew by, their wheels less than fifty feet overhead, heading east for targets of opportunity.
“General,” the breathless staff officer in the car said.
Jeffrey leaned down again. He grinned as he read the dispatches.
“Sir?” Henri said, his hands on the grips of the vehicle’s machine gun. He didn’t believe in taking unnecessary chances, and there still might be a few Chosen aircraft around. A couple of obvious command vehicles bunched right behind the front made a very tempting target.