The Princess Cecile now had at least a prayer of succeeding. The cruiser’d launched another salvo after vaporizing the Commonwealth ship, but those missiles had missed by several miles. Daniel resumed acceleration with both powerplants as soon as he’d put the Sissie behind Radiance. Semmes’ missileer didn’t have the direct observation of the Princess Cecile that Daniel—thanks to Adele—did of the Bluecher.
“Six, there’s a heavy vessel reentering sidereal space out-orbit of Radiance, over,” said Vesey. She’d focused on her duties, watching the sensor board while the battle raged around her. Many officers with more experience wouldn’t have been able to do that.
But it didn’t matter now: the Princess Cecile would be clear or destroyed before the new opponent got sufficiently organized to take a hand. The description “heavy vessel” was based on the amount of distortion Vesey’s instruments recorded as the newcomer reinserted itself into normal space-time. There hadn’t been another cruiser in the Alliance squadron, so that probably meant one of the battleships had also been working up when the Goldenfels destroyed the vessels hangared at Lorenz Base.
“Ship, this is Six,” Daniel said as his fingers pounded a new set of instructions into his virtual keyboard. “We will be entering the Matrix—”
His display flashed with orange letters each the size of his extended hand:
BREAK BREAK BREAK
“RCS Aristoxenos, this is RCS Princess Cecile,” said Adele’s voice over the announcement channel. “We have a target for you, Admiral O’Quinn—an Alliance cruiser. All other vessels are friendly. I repeat, all vessels except the Alliance cruiser are friendly. Princess Cecile over.”
Daniel felt the rocking clunk of the Sissie’s last two missiles sliding into the tubes, ready to launch. “Mr. Betts, cease fire!” he ordered, instinctively placing a lockout on the attack console. “Prepare attack solutions for the Aristoxenos and transmit them to her soonest. I don’t trust their computers or their people either one, but the good Lord knows I’m glad to have their company, out!”
Betts had been doing a fine job, but he might not see the sudden necessity of holding the Sissie’s final rounds in reserve. Daniel would explain the situation when he had a moment, but the first priority was to prevent the Chief Missileer from spending what might otherwise become an opportunity to mousetrap the Alliance cruiser.
Adele was in conversation with the Aristoxenos. She’d cut Daniel into the channel but he was too busy controlling the Princess Cecile to worry about what they were saying.
The Bluecher had swung from its predicted course and shut down its thrusters when the missile grazed it. Daniel had to fight the Sissie back into Radiance’s cone of shadow. As a practical matter, that meant dipping closer to the planet; they were already deep enough that the upper stratosphere created minuscule but noticeable drag. The corvette wasn’t safe until the last Alliance projectile was headed harmlessly out of the system, and even then there was the problem of landing with what might be unnoticed damage.
The cruiser had stopped launching missiles with the fourth salvo. She was accelerating at 1.5 g, probably the best she could manage under the High Drive alone, along the course Semmes had set while he was preparing to winkle the Princess Cecile out of concealment. It would take her past Radiance on the down-orbit side—and, probably the major factor now—away from the Aristoxenos.
Semmes doesn’t know what’s happening, Daniel realized. He must be pretty sure the newcomer wasn’t a friend, but he couldn’t be certain she was an enemy either. Having managed to get into combat with his Commonwealth allies, he’d be especially cautious not to repeat the mistake with—
The Aristoxenos launched four missiles at the Bluecher. One of them described a tight arc. It was headed back toward the battleship when one or both High Drive motors failed and the missile disintegrated into a sphere of molten droplets.
The Bluecher responded with a salvo split between the Aristoxenos and the Princess Cecile. The cruiser was extending its antennas. A large piece drifted away, the spar damaged by the Sissie’s missile, cast off or broken off by the acceleration.
The battleship had thirty-six missile tubes: thirty-one launched at the Bluecher. The thirty-second tube exploded, a blue-white cancer against the vessel’s bow which took fifteen seconds to burn down. Daniel keyed in his final corrections, waited a heartbeat for a green icon to indicate the attack computer concurred, and launched the Sissie’s remaining two missiles.