David Weber - Honor 05 - Flag in Exile

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FLAG IN EXILE
David Weber
[23 oct 2001 - scanned for #bookz]
[27 oct 2001 - proofed for #bookz - by bookleech, v 1.0]
To Roger Zelazny - A gentleman, a scholar, a story-teller, and a friend I
didn't know long enough.
PROLOGUE
Admiral of the Green Hamish Alexander, Thirteenth Earl of White Haven, sat on
HMS Queen Caitrin's flag deck and gazed into his display. The Nightingale
System's G3 primary was a white specie of fire, and its single habitable
planet, too distant to be seen on visuals, showed as a tiny, blue-green light
deep in the plot.
So did the angry red rash of enemy warships between it and Queen Caitrin, and
White Haven studied that crimson wall of light with care. The People's Navy's
sensors had detected him hours ago, but the Peeps hadn't tried anything fancy;
they'd simply formed a wall between his task force and its objective and
steered to meet him well inside the systems hyper limit. That left him the
initiative, yet there was only so much he could do with it. They knew why he
was here, and they were inside him and able to stay there. Worse, they were
staying together, without the erratic maneuvering he'd seen so often. They
outnumbered him by four to three, and he'd abandoned any thought of tactical
sleight of hand in the face of their steadiness, but he was confident in his
ships' qualitative superiority. If he could neither split them up nor
outmaneuver them, he was willing enough to meet them head-on.
He checked the range once more, then looked into the com screen to Queen
Caitrin's command deck. "Very well, Captain Goldstein. You may open fire."
"Aye, aye, My Lord!" Captain Frederick Goldstein rapped, and the first,
massive salvo spat from Queen Caitrin's port broadside. The rest of Battle
Squadron Twenty-One fired with her, and all eight superdreadnoughts
simultaneously flushed the missile pods towing astern of them. BatRon Eight
and BatRon Seventeen's dreadnoughts followed suit, and thirty-two hundred
impeller drive missiles lanced out across five and a half million kilometers
of vacuum.
White Haven watched their outgoing tracks, and his frown deepened. The opening
phase was almost classic, straight out of the tac manuals, yet he felt a
nagging, unformed uneasiness. He had nothing overt to justify it, but there
were more targets over there than there should have been. Peep resistance had
been spotty for months, based on whatever frontier formations had held
together long enough to be redeployed against Manticore's drive on Trevor's
Star. But this formation's unit strength looked far more like a proper task
force, and the difference between its steady, unswerving course and the
confusion which had plagued Peep fleet commanders since the war's start was
too marked. It roused an instinctive wariness, and that instinct jabbed at him
like a sharp stick. It was why he'd fired at such long range rather than
closing before he unleashed his first and heaviest salvo, and he made himself
sit motionless, fighting an urge to fidget, as return fire stippled his plot.
That fire was lighter than the deluge his own ships had spawned, for the Peeps
had no equivalent of Manticore's missile pods, but there were four full battle
squadrons, thirty-two ships of the wall, all of them superdreadnoughts, over
there. The Peep wall of battle spat twelve hundred birds back at him, and
White Haven swallowed a stillborn curse as he realized they'd concentrated
solely on BatRon Twenty-One's eight units.
The deadly fireflies streaked towards one another. Queen Caitrin twitched as
she expelled her second broadside, and her third, and then the green dots of
defensive fire spewed out to meet the destruction roaring down on White
Haven's lead squadron. Peep missiles began to die, ripped apart by charging
counter missiles, but there were simply too many targets. The Peeps were
catching on; their tightly concentrated fire was an unmistakable bid to
saturate BatRon Twenty-One's point defense, and despite Manticore's superior
technology, at least some of that massive salvo would get through.
White Haven's opening broadsides reached attack range first and drove in
through the desperate lattice of last ditch defenses. Lasers swiveled and spat
coherent light, fighting to kill the incoming missiles at least twenty-five
thousand kilometers out, but probability theory plays no favorites. White
Haven had spread his fire over three squadrons, not one, yet his salvo density
was actually greater, and bomb-pumped lasers gouged at their targets as laser
heads began to detonate.
Impeller wedge sidewalls twisted and attenuated the beams, but scores of them
got through, and battle steel hulls spat glowing splinters. Atmosphere
streamed from the Peep leviathans' lacerated flanks, men and women died,
weapons were smashed away, and energy signatures fluctuated as drive nodes
blew apart. Yet even as White Haven's missiles pounded his enemies, the
remnants of the first massive Havenite salvo broke past his own counter
missiles. It was his laser clusters' turn to spit fire, but BatRon Eight's
lasers were too far astern to range effectively. It was all up to BatRon
Twenty-One and BatRon Seventeen, and they simply had too few clusters. Sheer
weight of numbers swamped them, and the green lights of friendly ships flashed
the spiteful sparkle of battle damage.
Fresh salvos scorched out, battle chatter and the beep of priority signals
washed about White Haven, and his eyes narrowed. His squadron commanders and
captains knew their business, and their first broadsides had hurt the Peeps
badly. CIC's estimates of enemy damage danced across the bottom of his
display, and three times as many Peep ships had taken hits. One or two looked
to have been half-wrecked, but they kept coming, and Queen Caitrin lurched as
something got through to her. She bucked again to a second hit, and his plot
flickered. It steadied almost instantly, and a corner of his mind noted the
damage control side-bar. Queen Caitrin's wounds were light, but the two walls
of battle angled together, missiles streaking back and forth with mounting
fury as the range fell, and he knew it was going to be ugly.
"There goes the first one, My Lord!" his chief of staff announced as a
crippled superdreadnought pulled out of the enemy wall and rolled up to
interpose the belly of its wedge against the Manticoran fire.
"I see it, Byron," White Haven replied, but his flat voice lacked Captain
Hunter's exultation, for his sense of this engagements new and dangerous
rhythm only grew as the wounded vessel withdrew. Mounting damage might have
driven that ship out of formation, but its consorts held their course, missile
tubes belching back at his wall, and his jaw clenched as he realized the Peeps
had finally gotten themselves back together. Their initial, concentrated
targeting had been a far cry from the dispersal of the earlier battles, and so
was their steadiness under fire. By now, that wall should have been shedding
ships by twos and threes. It was being hit far harder than his own, and the
fresh proof of Manticore's technical superiority should have taken the heart
out of the demoralized Peeps. But it hadn't, and that was frightening to any
admiral who knew how the People's Navy still outnumbered the RMN. These people
knew Manticore's superior missiles and electronics gave White Haven every
advantage in a missile engagement, and they were coming in anyway, taking
their losses in ships and lives to get to energy weapon range.
A green light in the plot suddenly flashed the red critical damage icon as
half a dozen Peep lasers blasted into HMS King Michael, and White Havens hands
clenched on his command chair's arms. The super-dreadnoughts wedge faltered,
then came back up, and for a moment he thought that was the extent of it,
until the entire ship simply blew apart. Eight-and-a-third-million tons of
warship and six thousand human beings vanished in a sun-bright boil of plasma,
and someone behind him gasped in horror.
"Starboard fifteen, Captain Goldstein." White Havens voice was cold as his
eyes while his flag captain acknowledged the order. His vector edged away from
the Peeps, not in flight, but simply to hold the range open and exploit
Manticore's missile advantage, and his lips tightened as the Havenite force
matched his maneuver. More than matched it; they were coming in even more
sharply, despite the marginally better angle that gave his fire. More of his
missiles were detonating in front of their ships now, sending lasers lashing
down their wedges' open throats, and the first Havenite ship suddenly
exploded. The range was down to a bare four million kilometers, and more of
White Haven's ships were taking hits, but so were the Peeps. Another enemy
ship blew apart, then a third. CIC's projections flickered and changed, the
odds against his command falling as still more Peep weapons were destroyed,
and he bared his teeth as he felt them shifting in his favor.
"Port ten, Captain Goldstein. If they want to close, let's oblige them."
"Aye, aye, My Lord. Coming ten degrees to port," Goldstein replied, and the
task force stopped trying to hold the range open. The missile exchange
redoubled, but the weight of fire favored Manticore more and more heavily as
Peep launchers fell silent. Another Havenite fell out of the wall, covering
herself with her impeller wedge as best she could, and something stirred in
the back of White Haven's mind. That was five Peep SDs destroyed or out of
action to only one of his. At this rate, he'd have a decisive edge, even at
energy range, when the two fleets finally came together. Whoever was in
command over there had to know that, so why in hell was he still coming in
this way? Nightingale was an important outwork for Trevor's Star, but hardly
worth the destruction of a force this size! There had to be a reason...
"New contact! Multiple contacts, multiple capital ship impeller sources at
zero-four-six zero-three-niner! Range one-eight million klicks and closing!
Designate this force Bogey Two!"
White Havens head snapped around to the main plot as the passionless computers
updated it. Two dozen fresh lights glowed crimson off Queen Caitrin's
starboard bow as a second force of Peep superdreadnoughts lit off their
drives, and his nostrils flared in sudden understanding.
No wonder that wall had closed so steadily! White Haven extended his enemies a
single moment of ungrudging respect as he recognized the trap into which that
unflinching Peep formation was herding his own. Another fifteen minutes, and
he would have been hopelessly boxed, committed to close action against Bogey
One even as Bogey Two came boring into his flank from above, and he'd walked
straight into it.
But they didn't have him boxed yet, he thought grimly. The new Peep
governments purges of its officer corps had cost them dearly in experience,
and it showed. Bogey Two's commander had jumped the gun, possibly out of panic
at the losses Bogey One was taking, and lit off his drives too soon. A more
experienced CO would have waited, whatever happened to Bogey One, until he had
the Manticoran wall at point-blank, trapped between both enemy walls and with
its long-range advantages negated in an energy weapon engagement.
White Haven studied the projected vectors, and his blue eyes hardened in
concentration. He couldn't fight a force that size and live. He had to break
back across the hyper limit before they trapped him, and he couldn't simply
reverse course to do it. The Peeps' vectors converged twelve million
kilometers ahead of him on his present track, and his velocity was too high to
kill before he reached that point. His only chance was to break to port, away
from Bogey Two, but that would take him right into Bogey One's teeth, and for
all its damage, Bogey One still had the energy weapons to kill too many of his
ships.
He made himself accept it. It was going to be even uglier than he'd thought,
but at least his people would give as good as they got as they broke past
Bogey One's wall. His fingers flew as he punched a new course into his
auxiliary astrogation display. Numbers flickered, and a core of fire flashed
in his eyes as vector projections changed. He was ahead of Bogey One. Not by
much, but by enough that he could cross its track without turning straight
into its broadsides and letting them rake his entire wall. The Peeps would
have to alter course, curving inside him, or let him cross their wall's bows.
They could stay with him, if they chose, draw out the pounding match to cost
him more ships, but it would cost them more ships, too.
"Come to two-seven-zero zero-zero-zero! Maximum military power! All units roll
ship against Bogey Two and continue engagement against Bogey One!"
Acknowledgments crackled, and his wall turned sharply towards Bogey One. Its
units rolled, presenting the roofs of their impeller wedges to Bogey Two,
still far beyond the powered missile envelope, while their own missiles ripped
into Bogey One across the dwindling light-seconds between them, and White
Haven glared at his plot as he ran for it.
And he was running. He knew it, just as he knew how much the approaching beam
engagement was going to cost, and so did everyone else, the Peeps as well as
his own people. For the first time, the People's Republic of Haven had stopped
a Manticoran offensive cold, and he watched numbers dance across the bottom of
his plot as both Peep forces changed course and CIC worked the new numbers to
tell him just how bad it was going to be.
It would be close, even if he made it out, but the problem with this sort of
trap was that the timing had to be exactly right. Space was big enough to hide
whole fleets as long as they radiated no betraying emissions, yet for an
ambush to succeed, the ambushers had to be on the right vector when they did
bring their drives up, and even when the intended victim cooperated as he had.
The numbers froze, and Hamish Alexander breathed a silent, heartfelt prayer of
thanks. They'd missed. Bogey Two had lit off its drives just too soon to catch
him. That meant it was all up to Bogey One, and...
Another green light flashed scarlet in his plot, and he tasted blood from a
bitten lip as HMS Thunderer broke in half. Life pod beacons flashed in the
display as her survivors bailed out, but he could do nothing for them. If he
slowed to pick them up, Bogey Two would overhaul his wall, and any light units
he detached for search and rescue purposes would be overtaken and destroyed.
Thunderer's broken halves vanished in a brilliant flash as her scuttling
charges blew. A sixth Peep superdreadnought joined Tier in death moments
later, and Hamish Alexander clenched his jaw and shoved himself firmly back in
his command chair. At least Bogey Two would have plenty of ships available for
SAR. No doubt they'd pick up his people as well as their own, and he tried to
soothe his guilt with that cold comfort. A prisoner of war camp, even a Peep
POW camp, was better than death, he told himself bitterly.
"Energy range in thirty-seven minutes, My Lord," Captain Hunter said quietly.
"CIC estimates Bogey One can stay with us clear to the hyper limit if it wants
to."
"Understood." White Haven made himself sound calm and unworried. He knew he
wasn't fooling Hunter, but the rules required them both to pretend.
He watched a seventh SD withdraw from Bogey One's wall and tried to be glad.
It was only twenty-two to twenty-five, now, and his missile crews would make
those odds still better before they reached beam range, yet Bogey One
maintained its unwavering course. The People's Navy was larger than the RMN,
able to accept heavier losses, and Bogey One's obvious intention to do just
that sent a fresh chill through White Haven.
The war had just changed, he thought distantly, watching the exchange of fire
grow still more furious. The Peeps were back on balance. They were initiating,
no longer reacting with clumsy panic to Manticoran attacks. He'd known it was
coming, that the People's Republic was simply too vast to be toppled in a
rush, but he'd rayed for it to take longer. Now he knew it hadn't, and he drew
a deep breath.
"We'll go with Delta-Three, Byron," he said quietly, formally committing
himself to hyper out and run for it as quickly as possible. "Put everything
we've got on their central squadron. That's probably where their flagship is;
maybe we can take it out before we get to energy range."
"Aye, aye, My Lord," Captain Hunter replied.
The Earl of White Haven listened to his chief of staff passing orders over the
task force command net and leaned back in his chair, watching the flash of
warheads pock the visual display. He'd done all he could.
Now it only remained to see how many of his people would survive.
CHAPTER ONE
Like all public buildings on Grayson, Protectors Palace lay under a
controlled-environment dome, but a corner of the grounds held another, smaller
dome, as well. It was a greenhouse, and High Admiral Wesley Matthews braced
himself as an armsman in the House of Mayhew's maroon and gold opened its door
for him. An almost visible wave of humid heat swirled out, and he sighed and
unhooked his tunic collar, but that was as far as he intended to go. This time
he was going to stay in proper uniform if it killed him.
"Hello, Wesley." Benjamin Mayhew IX, Protector of Grayson, greeted his senior
military officer without looking up from whatever he was doing.
"Good morning, Your Grace." Matthews' respectful reply sounded curiously
stifled, for the climate in here was even worse than he'd expected. The
Protector was in shirtsleeves, his forehead beaded with perspiration, and the
high admiral mopped at his own suddenly streaming face, looked at the enviro
display, and winced. Resolution was no defense against a temperature of forty
degrees centigrade and a ninety-six percent humidity, and he grimaced and
stripped off his uniform tunic to emulate his ruler.
The rustle of fabric wasn't loud, but it was very quiet in the greenhouse. The
soft sound carried well, and Benjamin looked up with a grin.
"Did you turn the thermostat up just for me, Your Grace?" Matthews inquired,
and Benjamin looked innocent.
"Of course not, Wesley. Why would I do such a thing?"
Matthews arched a polite eyebrow, and the Protector chuckled. Wesley Matthews
was extraordinarily young for his rank, even for a world like Grayson, where
the prolong anti-aging treatments were only just becoming available. He a
jumped from commodore to commander-in-chief of the Grayson Space Navy less
than four T-years ago, and like Bernard Yanakov, the man he'd succeeded, he
was baffled by his Protectors taste in hobbies. Floriculture and flower
arrangement were high art forms on Grayson, but they were traditionally female
ones. Matthews willingly admitted that his ruler produced breathtaking
arrangements, yet it still seemed an ... odd avocation for a head of state.
Bernard Yanakov, however, had been Benjamin Mayhew's older cousin, as well as
his senior admiral, which had given him certain advantages Matthews lacked.
He'd known the Protector literally since birth and twitted him about his hobby
for years; Matthews couldn't do that, which hadn't kept Benjamin from guessing
how he felt.
Matthews had been vastly relieved when the Protector chose to be amused rather
than offended, yet sometimes he wondered if things had worked out so well
after all. Benjamin took a positive glee in summoning him for meetings during
which he puttered about with vases and cut flowers or which just happened to
take place in spots like this greenhouse furnace. It had become a sort of
shared joke, and Tester knew they both needed any relaxation they could find
these days, but this time the heat and humidity were almost overwhelming.
"Actually," Benjamin said after a moment, "I hadn't intended to inflict
摘要：

FLAGINEXILEDavidWeber[23oct2001-scannedfor#bookz][27oct2001-proofedfor#bookz-bybookleech,v1.0]ToRogerZelazny-Agentleman,ascholar,astory-teller,andafriendIdidn'tknowlongenough.PROLOGUEAdmiraloftheGreenHamishAlexander,ThirteenthEarlofWhiteHaven,satonHMSQueenCaitrin'sflagdeckandgazedintohisdisplay.TheN...

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