Concept sketch for ships of the Concodriat navy (Bolos series)

RazgrizBSG27

I want to design a ship, or ships of the Concordiat navy from the bolo books, all I need is a concept sketch or two, and I can take it form there (I can sketch and model well, however I am not terribly creative)

Now the Naval scenes in bolo's are good , but they don't describe the ships in very much detail, here are some passages which I think are best:

1: from Old Soldiers

a) "Gaynor's endless bustle should have been a reassuring sight. Even as she
watched, a trio of cruiser-sized heavy-lift shuttles rose towards the heavens, drives thundering with a
power she could feel even at this distance and even from inside the rear admiral's office. On the way into
Sage, her transport had passed two full squadrons of superdreadnoughts, with appropriate screening
elements, and she knew there were at least two carriers in orbit around Sage even as she sat here. The
capital ships represented a terrifying concentration of firepower, but it wasn't reassuring"

b) "The flag bridge of CNS Valiant was deadly silent, with a stillness which would have astonished any
naval officer of humanity's past. Even the Concordiat's officers would not have believed it as little as
twenty-five Standard Years earlier. But the same neural interface technology which had been applied to
the current generation of Bolo had also been applied to the Navy's major warships. It was one of the
primary reasons for that Navy's qualitative superiority over the Melconian Empire's ships of war. And it was also the reason Commodore Indrani Lakshmaniah and her entire staff lay in their
command couches, eyes closed, without speaking while they concentrated on the pseudotelepathy the
flagship's AI made possible through their headsets.
<What analysis?> the Lakshmaniah portion of the intricately interwoven mental tapestry demanded.
<Up to 98.653 percent probability Foudroyant's intercept was genuine,> her tactical officer's
thought reported instantly. <Probability this is an entire Puppy raiding squadron is up to 75.54 percent.>
"God damn it!" Lakshmaniah uttered the curse aloud, her eyes squeezing even more tightly shut as
her reasoning brain considered the grim information the tac officer had just delivered. She didn't doubt its
accuracyA—not when it came directly from Valiant's AI. But a corner of her soul cursed God Himself for
letting this happen.
If this was indeed a Melconian raiding squadron, then its units would outnumber her own escort force
by at least two-to-one, and very probably more. Under normal circumstances, a human commander
could expect to defeat up to four times her own weight of metal, but the new deep-raiding squadrons the
Puppies had begun using to strike at smaller colony worlds well behind the front almost invariably
boasted a Star Slayer-class battlecruiser as their flagship. If this one did, then its flagship alone would
out-mass all four of her own heavy cruisers. And that didn't even count the dozen-plus heavy and light
cruisers of the rest of a typical raiding squadron.
And I've got all these civilian ships to worry about, as well. The thought ran through a corner of
her brain she kept carefully private, locked away from the flagship's neural net. If I let them into missile
range, they'll massacre the colony ships. But if I go out to meet them where I think they are, and
I'm wrong, they can make their run inside energy range and then . . .
She couldn't quite suppress the shudder which ran through her stocky, compact frame. A single
energy-weapon pass by the battlecruiser alone would blow every ship in the convoy into expanding gas.
She had to keep that ship as far away from the convoy as she could, but she couldn't ignore the
possibility that the enemy commander might use the battlecruiser as bait, to draw her out of position when
she moved to intercept it and let one of its lighter consorts into position to do the same thing.
Of course, she thought grimly, whoever that is back there, she doesn't know about the Bolos.
God knows I don't want any Puppy warship to get into range for them to engage, but if they have
to. . . .
She considered her options for another hundred and seventy seconds, then stiffened as a brilliant red
icon flashed in the perfect clarity of the tactical display Valiant's AI projected into the depths of her mind.
<Positive identification,> her Tac officer announced (as if she needed confirmation). <One Star
Slayer-class battlecruiser, four Star Stalker-class heavy cruisers, five Ever Victorious-class light
cruisers, and five Battle Dawn-class destroyers. CIC reports a 13.62 percent probability of at least one
additional stealthed unit in distant company.>
Lakshmaniah frowned ferociously, eyes still closed. That was a far heavier force than her own quartet
of heavy cruisers and their seven attached Weapon-class destroyers, but the proportion was wrong. One
thing about the Puppies: they were methodical to a fault, and they believed in maintaining the standard
formations their tactical manuals laid down. Their lighter squadron and task group organizations were all
organized on a "triangular" basis. They organized their light and medium combatants into tactical divisions
called "war fists," each composed of one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, and one destroyer, and they
assigned squadrons even numbers of "fists." Once combat was joined, they normally broke down into
pairs of mutually supporting divisions, operating in a one-two combination, like the fists they were named
for. So there ought to have been either four or six divisions in this formation, not five. And even if there
were only five, there still ought to be at least one more heavy cruiser.
Could be they've already tangled with someone else and lost units, she thought. But CIC hasn't
picked up any indications of battle damage. Which doesn't mean those indications aren't there and
we just haven't spotted them yet, of course. Or, for that matter, it's possible even the Puppies
have lost enough ships now that they can't make every single squadron up to its "Book" strength.
She frowned again, fretfully, eyes still closed. She supposed it was possible that the extra Ever
Victorious-class and destroyer might be teamed with the Star Slayer, but Melconian battlecruisers were
true capital ships, however much smaller than a lordly superdreadnought they might be. And unlike their
lighter combatants, the Puppies' ships of the line normally teamed up only with units of the same class. In
a standard Melconian raiding squadron, the flagship's normal role was to lie back and provide long-range
support fire while its lighter consorts closed with the enemy, so assigning it to a mere heavy cruiser's slot
flew in the face of all Puppy combat doctrine. But if they hadn't done that, then where was the other
cruiser?
<Could that stealthed unit CIC is reporting be another Star Stalker?> her thought asked the tactical
officer.
<Could. Not likely, though. If there actually is another ship where CIC thinks, it's on the far side of
the Puppy formation. CIC estimates a 75.77 percent probability that it's a logistics vessel.>
Lakshmaniah replied with a wordless acknowledgment. The Combat Information Center portion of
Valiant's computer net was probably correct, assuming that the faint sensor ghost Halberd might have
picked up was actually there in the first place. Which didn't do her a damned bit of good.
She gnawed the inside of her lip fretfully while she suppressed the icy fear rippling through her as she
contemplated the odds her eleven ships faced. The fear wasn't for her own survivalA—against such a
weight of metal, living through this engagement would have been a low-probability event under any
circumstances. No, it was the probability that she would not only die but fail to stop the Puppies short of
the convoy that terrified her. Without the battlecruiser she would have accepted battle confident that she
would emerge with enough of her ships to continue to screen the convoy; with the battlecruiser, she
didn't need Valiant's AI to tell her that the chance of any of her ships surviving close combat was less
than thirty percent.
And even that supposed that she took all of them out to meet the enemy as a concentrated, mutually
supporting force.
There ought to be at least one more heavy cruiser, she fretted. At least one more; the
battlecruisers usually operate solo in a squadron like this. And if I let myself be pulled out, then I
open the door for it if it is out there. But if I don't go out to meet them, then the entire force gets
into missile range, and if that happens . . .
She drew a deep breath and made her decision.
<Communications,> the Lakshmaniah portion of the neural net said, <connect me to Captain
Trevor.>

---

(intermission of dialogue)

---

"I've made it quite clear to the Governor that you will be in command of the convoy's military
component until I return and relieve you, Captain," the Commodore continued after a moment. "He . . .
understands the necessity of a clear military chain of command."
"As you say, ma'am," Maneka agreed in a perfectly respectful voice which nonetheless managed to
express her doubt as to the clarity of Agnelli's understanding.
"At any rate," Lakshmaniah said, "stay alert! The one area where their tech's been consistently equal
to or ahead of ours is in their stealth systems. We've been picking up traces of some sort of sensor ghost,
so there's at least a fair chance that there's another heavy cruiserA—maybe even two of them and a couple
of lighter escortsA—running around out there. If there is, and if the Puppies manage to suck us far enough
away, you may find yourself with a very nasty situation on your hands, Captain."
"Understood, ma'am," Maneka replied as levelly as she could. "We'll watch the transports' backs for
you, Commodore," she said with the confidence the rules of the game required from her.
"Never doubted it, Captain Trevor," Lakshmaniah said. "Good luck."
"And to you, Commodore. And good hunting," Maneka responded, and watched as her display
dropped back into tactical mode and she saw the escort force peeling away from the convoy to race
directly towards the oncoming Melconian ships.

Commodore Lakshmaniah's outnumbered squadron sped towards the enemy ships clustered around
the huge Melconian flagship. The Star Slayer-class boasted massive energy batteries and three times as
many missile tubes as her own flagship. Those missiles were longer-ranged, too, and they screamed into
the teeth of her outnumbered force as her ships closed with the enemy. Countermissiles raced to meet
them, shorter-ranged energy weapons tracked them, waiting until they were close enough to engage,
jammers generated strobes of interference designed to blind and baffle their active tracking systems, and
decoys raced outward from her ships, mimicking their motherships' emissions signatures.
The battlecruiser's larger missiles had more range, but the Concordiat's technology edge went far
towards negating that reach advantage. Humanity's missiles had better seekers and more effective
penetration aids, and they were far more agile. And Lakshmaniah's defenses were also better.
The silence on Valiant's flag bridge remained as profound as ever as the commodore and her staff
fused their minds and personalities with the heavy cruiser's AI. That, too, was an advantage humanity
held, and the Concordiat Navy had learned to use it well.

A corner of Indrani Lakshmaniah's awareness noted that the two Sleipners had slipped into their
assigned positions. They were carefully positioned, though hopefully no one would notice that, to cover
both flanks of the convoy of personnel transports and support vessels. It wasn't muchA—certainly not as much security as she would have preferredA—but it was the best she could do, and her full attention
returned to the Melconian squadron.
Twelve of the Puppies' fifteen ships had broken down into the anticipated standard triangular combat
divisions, while the odd light cruiser and destroyer did seem to be attached to the battlecruiser. The other
four "fists" were maneuvering to meet her own attack, but not as aggressively as she might have
anticipated. Indeed, they were actually falling back slowly, as if in a bid to hold the range open, and that
puzzled her.
Usual Melconian tactics when action was joined emphasized closing as rapidly as possible with
Concordiat ships. They would take losses from the humans' superior missiles as they closed the gap, but
their own weapons would become progressively more effective as the range fell. It was a brutal equation
both navies had seen in action all too often since this war began. The Melconian Navy paid in dead ships
and slaughtered personnel just to get into its own effective range of its more capable opponents, but the
Empire had the ships and personnel to pay with. And once they did get into range, their superior numbers
swamped the Concordiat's technological advantages.
Under normal circumstances, Melconian ships avoided action unless they were committed to the
defense of a crucial objective . . . or the Concordiat was. When a Concordiat task force was free to
maneuver, it held the range open, decimating any Melconian attempt to close with it with its superior
weaponry. But when the Concordiat Navy was on the offensive, attacking a Melconian-held star system
or planet, its ships had to come to the defenders, entering their range if they intended to attack the
objective the Puppies were defending. And by the same token, when the Concordiat was pinned by an
objective it had to defend, it had no choice but to stand and fight as the Melconians closed in.
Like now, she thought grimly. The convoy was so slow, so unwieldy, that it might as well have been
a planet. And so she was anchored, forced to accept action. So why weren't the Puppies charging
forward?
It's probably the battlecruiser, she told herself. The sheer range of its missiles reverses the usual
reach advantage, and the convoy sure as hell isn't going to be able to run away fast enough to
hide, no matter what happens. So maybe the Dog Boys figure they've got the time to wear us
down at extended ranges before they close in for the kill.
She couldn't let that happen, and she turned her attention to that portion of the neural net which was
her tactical officer.
<Concentrate on the cruisers. Let's tear some holes in their screen.>
* * *
"Their firing patterns are shifting, sir," Na-Kahlan reported tersely. "They are no longer engaging us.
They are concentrating on the screen, instead."
"And continuing to close, yes?" Na-Izhaaran responded calmly.
"Yes, sir."
"As I anticipated," Na-Izhaaran said softly. "It is an ill choice, but the least ill one he possesses. He
gives Emperor Larnahr III the opportunity to engage him unmolested, but he anticipates that his
superior defenses will allow him to survive while his own fire strips away our screening platforms. In his
position, I would do the same."
The admiral brooded down at the tactical plot, rubbing the bridge of his snout, then sighed.
"How much longer before Captain Ka-Sharan and Death Stalker are in position?" he asked.
"Approximately twenty-five minutes," Na-Mahlahk replied. "It could be slightly longer than that. At
the moment, we cannot fix his fist's position accurately."
"I should hope not!" Na-Izhaaran snorted. "But I know Ka-Sharan. He will be at the assigned
position at the assigned time. In the meantime, it is our responsibility to deal with these."
He gestured at the plot, then looked at Na-Kahlan. "We cannot continue to retreat much longer without making this one suspicious," he said. "Besides, if
we allow the gap between us and the convoy to open much further, it will be safely beyond even
Emperor Larnahr III's effective range, and he will have no more motive to come after us. So in another
. . . twelve minutes, I think, we will reverse course and see if he truly wishes to dance with us."
* * *
<Up to something.> Lakshmaniah spun the thought off into the corporate net of her staff as the
destroyer Cutlass took a direct hit. Most of her attention was on the tactical relay, reading Cutlass'
damages. It could have been worse. The destroyer's main weapons remained intact, and she was already
altering course slightly and rolling ship to hold the damaged aspect of her battle screen away from the
enemy. Yet the Puppies' uncharacteristic maneuvers fed her growing suspicion, and she felt its echoes
rippling throughout the composite brain. Agreement came back to her from most of them; doubt from a
few.
<Drawing us away from the convoy?> the suggestion came from her tactical officer.
<Possible.> Lakshmaniah frowned, then grimaced. <Doesn't matter. Committed. Up to Trevor and
Chin.>
Agreement, though far from happy, came back to her, and she felt his attention turning with hers to
study the enemy formation. The Puppies' rate of retreat was slowing. It looked as if they were preparing
to stand, or possibly even to counterattack, and she considered her own damages. Cutlass, Dagger,
and Halberd had all taken hits, though so far their damage remained far from critical. More seriously,
Foudroyant had lost almost half her port energy battery and a third of her missile tubes. In return, one of
the Melconian combat divisions had been driven to retreat behind the battlecruiser, with heavy damage to
both its heavy and light cruisers. But the battlecruiser was beginning to get the range, and she felt Valiant
shudder as a pair of missiles slipped through her active defenses and ripped savagely at her battle screen.
Two of the three remaining Puppy divisions had also taken damage, although it was impossible for
CIC to give her hard estimates on how badly they were hurt. But the battlecruiser remained virtually
untouched, and her heavy missile armament and deep magazine capacity were beginning to come into
play. Lakshmaniah's ships had been forced to expend a much higher percentage of their ammunition than
usual to achieve the damage they'd inflicted. She couldn't keep this up much longer.
Worry hummed behind her eyes as she contemplated her increasingly unpalatable alternatives. This
long-range sparring ought to have favored her command. As it was, her dwindling magazines were paring
away her options.
It wasn't enough simply to drive off the Melconians. She had to be certain of their destruction,
because they could trail the painfully unstealthy transports from a range at which not even the Concordiat
Navy's sensors could penetrate their own stealth systems. She could not afford the possibility that a
surviving Puppy warship might trail them to their new colony's site and return to the Empire to bring back
a sufficiently heavy force to slaughter it to the last man, woman, and child. But if this long-range, attritional
duel continued as it was, her squadron would be ground away while at least two or three Melconian
ships survived.
Ultimately, the survival of her own warships was a purely secondary consideration. There was no
point in husbanding them if the Melconians were able to follow them to the colony's new home, because
she couldn't possibly stand off a force the size any spy would bring down upon them. Which, in a way,
made her limited options brutally simple . . .
<Course change!>
The announcement from Tactical snatched her up out of her thoughts. The Dog Boys were indeed
altering course. They were no longer backing away. She watched their entire force, including the
battlecruiser, lunge straight towards her squadron, and her jaw tightened.
<Hold course,> she ordered. <This time we take them at energy range.>
* * *
"Sir, the enemy is maintaining course!" Ka-Sharan reported.
Na-Izhaaran looked at him, then pushed himself up out of his command chair and stalked over to the
master plot.
It was true. The Human warships remained on their pursuit vector even though his command had
turned to face them, and his eyes narrowed and his ears pressed tight to his skull. It was preposterous!
Human ships never closed with those of the People until after their infernal missiles had decisively
weakened their opponents. But this Human squadron was charging straight for him, as though its units
were warships of the People themselves!
"Admiral, should we pull back once more?" Na-Mahlahk asked softly, and Na-Izhaaran shot him a
sharp glance. The chief of staff returned his gaze steadily, and Na-Izhaaran showed just an edge of
canine. Not at Na-Mahlahk for asking the question, but because the question was so valid. And one
whose answer he would have to produce quickly.
He looked back at the plot. In the final analysis, it didn't matter what happened to these Human
warships. The destruction of the convoy they were escorting was what truly mattered, and he had already
lured them far enough away from the transports to make that destruction certain. So there was no need
for him to continue this engagement at all, unless the enemy forced it upon him. His battle plan had
accepted that from the beginning. But that plan had also anticipated that the Humans would perform as
their standard tactical doctrine dictated and maneuver to hold the range open.
The Humans weren't. They were coming to him, into the very engagement range every Melconian
commander strove to reach. If he let them close, he would lose ships, but every Melconian officer knew
he must pay the price in broken starships and dead warriors for every Human ship he destroyed. And the
opportunity was here. The opportunity to destroy these ships once and for all.
"No, Sarka," he said softly, before he even realized he'd reached his decision. "We will not pull
back. Commander Na-Kahlan," he turned back to the tactical officer, "it's time we showed these
Humans how the People make war!"

Indrani Lakshmaniah felt CNS Crossbow's death like a wound in her own flesh, yet even as the
anguish for her dead ship stabbed deep in her soul, she felt herself baring her teeth in a fierce smile of
triumph.
The Dog Boys had come too close. Whether they'd intended to or not, they were about to let her
into energy range.
<Fire Plan Alamo,> she commanded, and the acknowledgment flowed back to her.
* * *
Maneka bit the inside of her lip as Lazarus' sensors laid the unfolding battle before her. She was no trained naval tactician, but Lazarus' immense storage banks were as fully at her disposal as they were at
his. The institutional knowledge and the data she required to understand flowed to her instantly,
effortlessly. She couldn't tell if it was her own mind reaching into his data storage, or if it was his mind,
recognizing her need and providing the information she required even before she had fully realized her
need for it herself. But at the moment what mattered was less the source of her knowledge, than the
knowledge itself.
The knowledge that Commodore Lakshmaniah had deliberately entered her enemies' most effective
weapons envelope, sacrificing all of humanity's traditional long-range, sparring advantages.

"Yes!"
Indrani Lakshmaniah's falcon shriek of triumph echoed in the silence of Valiant's flag bridge as her
ships' fire ripped into the battlecruiser again and again. The overconfident bastards had let her get too
close, because they'd known human warships always maneuvered to hold at missile ranges. Perhaps it
was because they themselves were so imbued with the need to follow the dictates of their battle-tested
doctrine to fully grasp the human ability to improvise and ignore The Book. Perhaps it was because of
something else entirely. But what mattered was that this Melconian commander had obviously grossly
underestimated what Lakshmaniah's admittedly lighter weapons could do at close range under the
command of human/AI fusions.
The battlecruiser's consorts swarmed in on her ships, firing frantically, desperate to draw her fury
from their flagship. CNS Mikasa blew up under their vicious pounding. CNS Dagger staggered aside,
shedding hull fragments and life pods, broken and dying. Her sister ship Saber poured a deadly
broadside into the heavy cruiser which had killed her, and the Melconian ship rolled on her side and
vanished in fireball fury. One of the Ever Victorious-class ships turned on Saber, and the destroyer and
the Melconian light cruiser embraced one another in a furious exchange which lasted bare seconds . . .
and ended in shared death.
More fire poured into Foudroyant, South Dakota, and Valiant. The commodore felt her ships bleeding, her people dying. The sun-bright boil of dying Melconian starships flared on every side, but her
command was trapped at the heart of the inferno. Escort Squadron 7013 was dying, but it was not dying
alone. Nothing the Melconians could do could save Emperor Larnahr III from Indrani Lakshmaniah's
fury. Not even Valiant's AI could tell her how many hits had gone home in that staggering, broken
wreck, but finally there was one too many.
* * *
The enemy flagship explodes . . . followed 11.623 seconds later by CNS Valiant.
I feel my Commander's grief, and I share it. But under my grief is the respect due such
warriors. Foudroyant staggers out of formation, drive crippled, and the two surviving Melconian
destroyers alter course to pour fire into her. Their energy weapons smash deep into her hull, but
her own Hellbores fire back, and all three ships disappear in a single explosion.
Only South Dakota and three of the destroyers remain, but they do not even attempt to break
off. They turn on the surviving Melconians, firing with every weapon.
The entire engagement, from the moment Commodore Lakshmaniah enters Hellbore range of
the enemy flagship to its end, lasts only 792.173 seconds.
At its conclusion, there are no survivors from either side."

C)"Indeed. They have clearly attempted to coordinate the maneuver, but their timing appears
inadequate to their needs. Unless they correct their flight profiles within the next thirty-eight seconds, the
Battalion will be able to engage each warship at least once before their cruise missiles execute their
terminal maneuvers. If they had been willing to wait until after the initial missile attack before closing, or
even to remain permanently beyond Hellbore range, they would eventually have been able to destroy the
entire Battalion with missiles alone."
"Instead of giving us the opportunity to take out their orbital fire support completely!" she finished for
him.
"Indeed," Benjy repeated, and she heard the approvalA—and prideA—in his deep voice. Pride in her
she realized. In the student she had become when the colonel gave her her first Bolo command . . . and,
in so doing, committed her into that Bolo's care for her true training. That was what put the pride into his
voice: the fact that his student had grasped the enormity of the Melconians' error so quickly.
The plunging thunder of the incoming high-trajectory missiles howled down out of the heavens like the
lightning bolts of crazed deities, but the charging behemoths of the Thirty-Ninth Battalion didn't even
slow. Ancient they might be, but they were Bolos. Batteries of ion-bolt infinite repeaters and laser
clusters raised their muzzles towards the skies and raved defiance, countermissile cells spat fire, and
heaven blazed.
The Battalion raced forward at over eighty kilometers per hour through the thick, virgin forest. Not
even their stupendous bulks could remain steady over such terrain at so high a speed, and the shock
frame of Maneka's command couch hammered at her as Benjy shuddered and rolled like some ancient
windjammer of Old Earth rounding Cape Horn. But even as his mighty tracks ground sixty-meter tree
trunks into crushed chlorophyll, his weapons tracked the incoming missiles with deadly precision. Missile
after missile, dozensA—scoresA—of them simultaneously, disappeared in eye-tearing fireballs that dimmed
the light of Chartres's primary into insignificance.
Despite her terror, despite the certainty that the Battalion could not win, Maneka Trevor stared at the
imagery on her visual display with a sense of awe. The Melconian missile attack was a hemisphere of
flame, a moving bowl above her where nothing existed but fire and destruction and the glaring corona of
the wrath of an entire battalion of Bolos.
"Enemy cruise missiles entering our defensive envelope in 21.4 seconds," Benjy announced calmly
even as the display filled with blinding light. "Enemy warships entering engagement range in 4.61
seconds," he added, and there was as much hunger as satisfaction in his tone.
"Stand by to engage," Maneka said, although both of them knew it was purely a formality.
"Standing by," Benjy acknowledged, and his main turret trained around in a smooth whine of power,
Hellbore elevating.
Maneka's eyes strayed from the visual display to the tactical plot, and her blood ran cold as she saw
the incredibly dense rash of missile icons streaking towards her. The Battalion's reconnaissance drones
were high enough to look down at the terrain-following missiles as they shrieked through the atmosphere,
barely fifty meters above the highest terrain obstacles, at five times the speed of sound. The atmospheric
shock waves thousands of missiles generated at that velocity were like a giant hammer, smashing
everything in their path into splinters, and when they reached the Battalion, it would be even worse. At
their speed, even Bolos would have only tiny fractions of a second to engage them, and the Battalion's
defenses were already effectively saturated by the ongoing high-trajectory bombardment.
Between the missile storm and the main body of the Battalion was the 351st Recon's four Mark
XXVIIs. Twenty percent lighter and more agile than the Mark XXVIII, the Invictus-type Bolos were
much more heavily equipped with stealth and ECM, and they had sacrificed the Mark XXVIII's
extensive VLS missile cells in favor of even more active antimissile defenses. It was their job to fight for
information, if necessary, andA—with their higher speedA—to probe ahead of the Battalion for traps and
ambushes the enemy might have managed to conceal from the reconnaissance drones. But now their position meant they would take the first brunt of the cruise missiles, unless their sophisticated electronic
warfare systems could convince the Puppy missiles' seekers they were somewhere else.
She jerked her eyes away from those horribly exposed icons, and teeth flashed in an ivory snarl as a
score of other icons in another quarter of the display, the ones representing the Melconian destroyers and
light cruisers, were snared in sudden crimson sighting circles.
"Enemy warships acquired," Benjy announced. And then, instantly, "Engaging."
A dozen 110-centimeter Hellbores fired as one, and atmosphere already tortured by the explosions
of dying missiles, shrieked in protest as massive thunderbolts of plasma howled upward.
All nine Melconian light cruisers and three of the destroyers died instantly, vomiting flame as those
incredible bolts of energy ripped contemptuously through their battle screens and splintered their hulls.
Superconductor capacitors ruptured and antimatter containment fields failed, adding their own massive
energy to the destruction, and the vacuum above Chartres rippled and burned. The horrified crews of the
remaining Melconian destroyers had four fleeting seconds to realize what had happened. That was the
cycle time of the Mark XXVIII's Hellbore . . . and precisely four seconds later a fresh, equally violent
blast of light and fury marked the deaths of the remaining enemy warships.
Maneka Trevor heard her own soprano banshee-howl of triumph, but even as the Battalion's turrets
swivelled back around, the tidal bore of cruise missiles burst upon it.
Countermissiles, infinite repeaters, laser clusters, auto cannonA—even antipersonnel clustersA—belched
defiance as the hypervelocity projectiles came streaking in. They died by the dozen, by the score. By the
hundred. But they came in thousands, and not even Bolos' active defenses could intercept them all.
Battle screen stopped some of them. Some of them missed. Some of them killed one another,
consuming each other in their fireball deaths. But far too many got through.
The exposed Mark XXVIIs suffered first. Maneka's shock frame hammered her savagely as Benjy's
massive hull twisted through an intricate evasion pattern, his defensive weapons streaming fire. But even
though scores of missi