David Weber - Honor 11 - At All Costs

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At All Costs

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

!Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

!Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Nine

An Afterword . . .

Glossary

Character List

AT ALL COSTS

David Weber

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

May 2005. Excerpts reprinted with the permission of Purple House Press: Cynthiana, Kentucky.

(Bringing back classic books for children, www.purplehousepress.com)

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-0911-0

ISBN-10: 1-4165-0911-9

Cover art by David Mattingly

Interior map by Randy Asplund

First printing, November 2005

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weber, David, 1952-

At all costs / David Weber.

p. cm. -- (Honor Harrington ; 11)

"A Baen Books Original."

ISBN 1-4165-0911-9 (hc)

1. Harrington, Honor (Fictitious character)--Fiction. 2. Women soldiers--Fiction. 3. Space

warfare--Fiction. I. Title II. Series: Weber, David, 1952- . Honor Harrington ; 11.

PS3573.E217A94 2005

813'.54--dc22

2005022402

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production & design by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH (www.windhaven.cm)

Printed in the United States of America

Baen Books by DAVID WEBER

Honor Harrington:

On Basilisk Station

The Honor of the Queen

The Short Victorious War

Field of Dishonor

Flag in Exile

Honor Among Enemies

In Enemy Hands

Echoes of Honor

Ashes of Victory

War of Honor

At All Costs

edited by David Weber:

More than Honor

Worlds of Honor

Changer of Worlds

The Service of the Sword

Honorverse:

Crown of Slaves(with Eric Flint)

The Shadow of Saganami

Mutineers' Moon

The Armageddon Inheritance

Heirs of Empire

Empire From the Ashes

Path of the Fury

The Apocalypse Troll

The Excalibur Alternative

Bolo!

Old Soldiers

Oath of Swords

The War God's Own

Wind Rider's Oath

with Steve White:

Insurrection

Crusade

In Death Ground

The Shiva Option

The Stars at War

The Stars at War II

with John Ringo:

March Upcountry

March to the Sea

March to the Stars

We Few

with Eric Flint

1633

Prologue

DEDICATION

For Richard Andrew Earnshaw,

1951-2005.

After forty years of shared laughter, love, and tears, it's hard

to let go. But it's time. So, fly, Richard. Wherever you are,

wherever God takes you, fly high. I love you.

And for Edward Ormondroyd,

purveyor of fine wonders for the young,

with deepest thanks.

The bigAviary-class CLACs and their escorting battlecruisers crossed the Alpha wall into normal-space

just outside the hyper limit. There were only three of the superdreadnought-sized vessels, but their LAC

bays spat out almost six hundred light attack craft, and if the Republic of Haven'sCimeterre -class LACs

were shorter-legged, more lightly armed, and nowhere near so capable as the Star Kingdom of

Manticore'sShrikesandFerrets , they were more than adequate for their current assignment.

They accelerated in-system, building vectors towards the industrial infrastructure of the Alizon System,

and discovered an unanticipated bit of good fortune. A pair of lumbering freighters, both squawking

Manticoran IDs and bumbling along on the same general flight plan, found themselves squarely in the path

of the incoming storm and already within extreme missile range. They accelerated desperately, but the

LACs had an overtake velocity of over a thousand KPS at the moment they were first detected, and the

freighters' maximum acceleration rate was little more than two hundred gravities. TheCimeterreswere

capable of very nearlyseven hundred, and they were armed . . . which the merchantmen weren't.

"Manticoran freighters, this is Captain Javits of the Republican Navy," a harsh, Haven-accented voice

said over the civilian guard frequency. "You are instructed to kill your impellers and abandon ship

immediately. Under the terms of applicable interstellar law, I formally inform you that we do not have the

capacity to board and search your vessels or to take them as prizes. Therefore, I will open fire upon

them and destroy them in twenty standard minutes from . . . now. Get your people off immediately.

Javits, clear."

One of the two freighters killed her impellers immediately. The other skipper was more stubborn. He

continued to accelerate, as if he thought he might somehow still save his ship, but he wasn't an idiot,

either. It took him all of five minutes to realize—or, at least, toaccept— that he had no chance, and his

impellers, too, went abruptly cold.

Shuttles spilled from the two merchant ships, scuttling away from them at their maximum acceleration as

if they expected the Havenite LACs to open fire upon them. But the Republic hewed scrupulously to the

requirements of interstellar law. Its warships meticulously waited out the time limit Javits had stipulated,

then, precisely on the tick, launched a single pair of missiles at each drifting freighter.

The old-fashioned nuclear warheads did the job just fine.

TheCimeterressped onward, ignoring the dissipating balls of plasma which had once been somewhere in

the vicinity of eight million tons of merchant shipping. Their destruction, after all, was a mere sideshow.

Ahead of the Havenite units, a half-dozen destroyers and a division of RMNStar Knight -class CAs

accelerated to meet them. The range was still too long for theCimeterresto actually see the defenders,

but the remote reconnaissance platforms spreading out ahead of the LACs were another matter, and

Captain Bertrand Javits grimaced as he took note of the drones' relayed report of the defenders'

acceleration rates.

"They're not killing themselves to come out and meet us, are they, Skip?" Lieutenant Constanza

Sheffield, his executive officer observed.

"No, they aren't," Javits said, and gestured at the cramped, utilitarian LAC's bare-bones plot. "Which

probably means Intelligence is right about what they've got covering the inner system," he told her.

"In that case, this is gonna hurt," she said.

"Yes, it is. If not quite as much as theyhope it will," Javits agreed. Then he punched a new combination

into his com panel. "All Wolverines, this is Wolverine One. From their acceleration rate, it looks like

they've got to be towing pods. And from the fact that there's so few of them, I have to assume

Intelligence is right about their defensive stance. So instead of walking obligingly into the inner system,

we're shifting to Sierra Three. We'll change course at Point Victor-Able on my command in another

forty-five minutes. Review your Sierra Three targeting queues and stand by for a defensive missile

engagement. Wolverine One, clear."

The range continued to fall, and the recon platforms began to report widespread active sensor emissions.

Some were probably search systems, but the primary search platforms for any star system were passive,

not active. So the odds were high that most of those active emitters were tied into fire control systems of

one sort or another.

Javits watched his own platforms' telemetry as it streamed across his plot's sidebars. The far more

capable computer support aboard the CLACs and battlecruisers which had launched the platforms could

undoubtedly do more with the data they were acquiring, and he knew how the tech teams back at

Bolthole would salivate when they got a look at it. All that was rather secondary to his own calculations,

however, since those calculations were mostly concerned with how to keep as many as possible of his

people alive through the next few hours.

"Looks like we've got four main nets of platforms on this side of the primary, Skipper," his XO said

finally. "Two of them spread to cover the ecliptic, and one high and one low. Gives them pretty fair

coverage of the entire sphere of the limit, but they're obviously concentrating on the ecliptic."

"The question, of course, Constanza," he replied dryly, "is how many pods each of those 'clusters' of

yours represent."

"Well, that and how many pods they want us tothink they have, Sir," Lieutenant Joseph Cook, Javits'

tactical officer pointed out.

"That, too," Javits conceded. "Under the circumstances, though, I'm prepared to be fairly pessimistic on

that particular point, Joe. And they've clearly gone ahead and deployed the sensor platforms tocontrol

the pods. Those're probably at least as expensive as the pods themselves would be, so I'd say there's a

good chance they wouldn't have deployed them if they hadn't also deployed the pods for them to

control."

"Yes, Sir."

Lieutenant Cook's expression and manner couldn't have been more respectful, but Javits knew what he

was thinking. Given the totality of the surprise Operation Thunderbolt had achieved, and the equally total

incompetence of the previous Manticoran government, it was entirely possible—even likely—that

Alizon's defenses had not been significantly upgraded in the immediate run up to the resumption of

hostilities. In which case the defenders might, indeed, be attempting to bluff Javits into believing they had

more to work with than they really did. On the other hand, there'd been time since Thunderbolt for the

Manties to ship a couple of freighter loads of their multi-drive missile pods out here. And however

incompetent Prime Minister High Ridge might have been, the new Alexander Government knew its ass

from a hole in the ground. If those additional missiles hadn't been shipped out and deployed, the recon

platforms would have been reporting a far heavier system picket than they were actually seeing.

"We're coming up on course change, Skipper," Sheffield told him several minutes later, and he nodded.

"Range to the nearest active sensor platforms?" he asked.

"Closest approach, twelve seconds after we alter course, will be about sixty-four million kilometers," she

replied.

"A million inside their maximum effective range from rest," Javits observed, and grimaced. "I wish there

was another way to find out if Intelligence knows what it's talking about."

"You and me both, Skip," Sheffield agreed, but she also shrugged. "At least we're the ones calling the

tune for the dance this time."

Javits nodded and watched the icon representing his massive flight of LACs sweeping closer and closer

to the blinking green crosshair which represented Point Victor-Able. By this time, theCimeterreshad

traveled almost thirty-three million kilometers and were up to a velocity of over twenty thousand

kilometers per second. The Manty picket ships were still accelerating to meet them, but it was obvious

that they had no intention of entering standard missile range of that many LACs. Well, Javits wouldn't

have either, if he'd been towing pods stuffed full of multi-drive missiles with a standoff range of over three

light-minutes. However good Manticoran combat systems might have been, six hundred-plus LACs

would have swarmed over that handful of ships like hungry pseudo-piranha if they could get into range of

their own weapons. If there'd been heavy defending units in-system, things might have been different, but

in that case, Javits would never have come close enough for them to get a shot at him in the first place.

"Victor-Able, Sir," his astrogator reported suddenly.

"Very well. Order the course change, Constanza."

"Aye, Sir," Sheffield said in far more formal tones, and he heard the order go out.

The green beads representing friendly units on his display shifted course abruptly, arcing back out and

away from the inner system on a course which would take them right through one of the more heavily

developed and mined portions of the Alizon System's asteroid belt. For several seconds, nothing else

changed on the display. And then, like a cascading eruption of scarlet curses, dozens—scores—of

previously deployed MDM pods began to fire all along the outer edge of the inner system.

The range was incredibly long, even for Manticoran fire control, and one thing Thunderbolt had taught

the Republican Navy was that as good as Manty technology was, it wasn't perfect. Hits at such extreme

range, even against all-up, hyper-capable starships would have been hard come by. Against such small,

elusive targets as LACs, they would be even harder to achieve.

But of course, Javits thought, hyper-capable units could take a lot more damage than we can. Anybody

they do hit, is going to get reamed.

The missiles streaked outward at well over forty thousand gravities. Even at that stupendous rate of

acceleration, it would take them the next best thing to nine minutes to reach his ships, and his missile

defense crews began to track the incoming threat. It was hard—Manty ECM had always been hellishly

good, and it had gotten even better since the last war—but Admiral Foraker's teams at Bolthole had

compensated for that as much as they could. TheCimeterres' point defense and EW weren't in the same

league as Manty LACs' systems, but they were much better than any previous Havenite LAC had ever

possessed, and the extreme range worked in their favor.

At least three-quarters of the total Manticoran launch simply lost lock and wandered off course. The

recon platforms reported the sudden spiteful flashes as the lost missiles detonated early, before they

could become a threat to navigation here in the system. But the rest of the pursuing missiles continued to

charge after his units.

"Approximately nine hundred still inbound," Lieutenant Cook announced in a voice which struck Javits

as entirely too calm. "Allocating outer zone counter-missiles."

He paused for perhaps a pair of heart beats, then said one more word.

"Engaging."

The commandCimeterrequivered as the first counter-missiles blasted away from her. They were

woefully outclassed by the missiles racing to kill her, but there were almost two-thirds as many LACs as

there were attack missiles, and each LAC was firing dozens of counter-missiles.

Not all of them simultaneously. Admiral Foraker's staff, and especially Captain Clapp, her resident LAC

tactical genius, had worked long and hard to develop improved missile defense doctrine for the

Cimeterres, especially because of their small size and the technological imbalance between their

capabilities and those of their opponents. They'd come up with a variant on the "layered defense" Admiral

Foraker had devised for the wall of battle, a doctrine which relied less on sophistication than on sheer

numbers and recognized that counter-missiles were far less expensive than LACs full of trained Navy

personnel.

Now Javits watched the first waves of counter-missiles sweeping towards the incoming Manticoran fire.

EW platforms seeded throughout the MDMs came on-line, using huge bursts of jamming in efforts to

blind the counter-missiles' seekers. Other platforms produced entire shoals of false images, saturating the

LACs' tracking systems with threats. But that had been accepted when the missile defense doctrine was

evolved, and in some ways, the very inferiority of Havenite technology worked for Javits at this moment.

His counter-missiles' onboard seekers were almost too simpleminded to be properly confused. They

could "see" only the very strongest of targeting sources at the best of times, and they had been launched

in such huge numbers that they could afford to waste much of their effort killing harmless decoys.

A second, almost equally heavy wave of counter-missiles followed the first one. Again, a Manticoran

fleet wouldn't have fired the salvos that closely together. They would have waited, lest the second wave's

impeller wedges interrupt their telemetry control links to the first wave's CMs. But Javits' crews knew

that at this range, the relatively less capable onboard fire control systems of their LACs had nowhere

near the reach and sensitivity of their Manticoran counterparts, anyway. Which didn't even consider the

effectiveness of the Manty missiles' penetration aids and EW. Since they could barely see the damned

things in the first place, they were giving up far less in terms of enhanced accuracy than a Manticoran

formation would have sacrificed, and the larger number of counter-missiles they were putting into space

more than compensated for any target discrimination they lost.

TheCimeterres' own EW did what it could, as well. The first-wave counter-missiles took out over three

hundred of the Manticoran missiles. The second wave killed another two hundred. Perhaps another

hundred fell prey to the LACs' electronic warfare systems, lost lock, and went wandering harmlessly

astray. Another fifty or sixty lost lock initially, but managed to reacquire their targets or to find new ones,

yet their need to quest for fresh victims delayed them, kicked them slightly behind the rest of the stream

to make them easier point defense targets.

The third and final wave of counter-missiles killed over a hundred more of the incoming missiles, but

over two hundred, in what were now effectively two slightly staggered salvos, burst through the inner

counter-missile zone and charged down upon Javits' LACs.

The agile little craft opened fire with every point defense laser cluster that would bear. Dozens of lasers

stabbed at each incoming laser head, and as the attack missiles rolled in on their final approaches, the

targetedCimeterresrotated sharply, presenting only the bellies and roofs of their impenetrable impeller

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摘要：

AtAllCostsTableofContentsPrologueChapterOneChapterTwoChapterThreeChapterFour!ChapterFiveChapterSixChapterSevenChapterEightChapterNineChapterTenChapterElevenChapterTwelveChapterThirteenChapterFourteenChapterFifteenChapterSixteen!ChapterSeventeenChapterEighteenChapterNineteenChapterTwentyChapterTwenty...

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David Weber - Honor 11 - At All Costs

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