“Bellona, I wager.”
Kavax comes closer. “Does your…source have any insight?”
I shake my head. “Not about this. And I’d doubt him even more if he did.”
Kavax nods, happy our strategy is our own and not my source’s.
A strange report comes from Oro. “My Sovereign, they’re reducing velocity.”
He’s right. I turn off the command deck’s void to see the Blues of my tactics hive chittering to each other. Soon they present an adjusted list of the enemy’s potential tactics and attack vectors ordered by probability.
“Virginia, are you seeing this?”Victra asks.
“I see.”
“What is Helios doing?”Victra murmurs.“Speed is their only advantage. Does he want to spend more time in the gauntlet of our guns?”
“It might not be Helios in command after all. Eccentricity is Apollonius’s forte,” I reply. “Maybe a split command?”
I glance at Holiday to shore up my anxiety about sabotage. “All vital installations have been swept, my Sovereign. Every reactor, every shield generator is under watch,” she reaffirms. “If the enemy wants passage, they must pay for it.”
All is in order, yet a nagging thought remains. Why in Minerva’s name would they dare attack without Atalantia in the first place? Why take these odds?
There is nothing to do but wait and find out.
Gods, I hate playing defense.
21
VIRGINIA
Petard
For an hour, theenemy’s armada circles around Mars’s equator like a shiver of sharks. They travel just beyond the no-man’s-land that exists between the OBC and the maximum effective range of its guns. Holding their positions on the poles, Victra’s and Niobe’s groups shadow the tightly packed enemy, waiting for them to make their move. Missiles flit between the lines, but with the anti-missile systems of both forces deployed, few find their mark.
In the second hour, Diomedes’s battlegroup begins to flirt with our outer perimeter. They test for weaknesses and get a bloody nose from our long guns. It’s a familiar game. They try to tease out as much information on the OBCs strength as they can, and we try to withhold while still getting a few licks in. Then thousands of Blues of each navy analyze the skirmishes and pass their findings up the chain. Pixel by pixel commanders from both sides form a clearer picture of the strength of their opponents.
Very conservative. Very Helios au Lux.
By the fourth hour, the anxiety of waiting for the enemy to attack in earnest has begun to wear on my commanders, but we cannot lose if we maintain discipline, so I am on the horn constantly with all of them. The only change in the enemy’s pattern of feint and withdrawal occurs by accident when Lysander takes his turn testing our perimeter. One of his destroyers loses its shield under the converging fire of three battle stations and barely limps out of range to safety. His battlegroup fallsbehind the others. “Those are escape pods,” Oro says. “They’re abandoning ship.”
There’s laughter around the Nucleus. But not from Kavax. “A veteran would know, fresh off the assembly line there’s always a few lemons,” he murmurs. “Least he’s decent enough to pick them up.” True enough, just beyond the effective range of our guns, theLightbringercomes to a halt to recover the escape pods.
“I could pounce on him and kill him,”Victra suggests.
“That’s bait,” I say. “Hold your position. Continue shadowing the main fleet. If a mistake is to be made, let it be them who makes it.”
“Yes, my Sovereign. But I’m growing roots up here.”
Kavax still stares at theLightbringer. Something feels off. “Oro, how long until Phobos and Lysander are directly aligned?” I ask.
He frowns. “Thirty-one minutes.”
I tell Char to be ready just in case Lysander does something foolhardy.
Oro is skeptical. “You think Lune would risk a frontal assault on Phobos? While we have triple fleet coverage?”
Victra practically licks her lips.“Let’s hope he’s that fool—”Her sudden change of tone chills me to the bone.“Sensors, what is that?”A pause. I see it on my crown’s holo projection. A large mass inbound at high velocity toward the pole.“Evasive action!”
