“All ships, stand by to come to course oh-niner-oh by two-seven-oh!” she barked. It wasn’t much, but it would turn her sterns at least a little further away from the LACs and twist her vector violently away from the Manty SDs. Even with their new compensators, those SDs had a lower max accel than her battleships, and if she could just draw out of their range—

“Flush remaining pods at the LACs!” she snapped, her brain whirring like a computer as she considered options and alternatives. She didn’t know how many missiles she had left, but she had a decent chance of keeping the ships of the wall from getting into energy range. That meant it was the damned LACs which were the real threat. They, and they alone, had the acceleration and, more importantly, the position from which to overtake her fleeing units. Which meant that every one of them she killed would be—

The incoming missile from Rear Admiral Truitt’s superdreadnoughts detonated nineteen thousand kilometers in front of Schaumberg, and the battleship writhed like a tortured animal as two massive X-ray lasers, vastly more powerful than anything the LACs could have fired, slashed into her. One destroyed three missile tubes, breached a magazine, demolished a graser mount and two of the ship’s bow lasers, and killed eighty-seven people. The other smashed straight through armor and blast doors and bulkheads with demonic fury, and Citizen Rear Admiral Jane Kellet and her entire staff died as it blew her flag deck apart.

· · • · ·

Joanne Hall felt her ship lurch, heard the alarms, saw the flag bridge com screen go blank, and knew instantly what had happened. Disbelief and horror foamed up inside her, but she had no time for those things. She knew what Kellet had been thinking and planning, and as the crimson bands of battle damage flashed in her plot, ringing the icons of the task force’s ships, she had no idea who was the surviving senior officer. Nor was there time to find out.

“Message to all ships!” she told her com officer without even looking away from her plot. “ ‘LACs are primary targets. Repeat, LACs are primary targets. All ships will roll starboard and execute previously specified course change.’ ” She looked over her shoulder at last, meeting the white-faced Citizen Lieutenant’s eye. “End it Kellet, Citizen Rear Admiral,” she said flatly.

The Citizen Lieutenant’s eyes darted to Calvin Addison. The citizen commissioner looked at Hall for one brief instant, then back at the com officer and nodded sharply.

· · • · ·

“They’re turning away from us, Skipper,” Ensign Thomas reported. “Looks like they’re trying to evade Admiral Truitt.”

“I see it,” Harmon replied. She gazed at her plot with narrow eyes, her mind racing. The Peeps were clearly trying to run for it, and after the hammering they’d already taken, they wouldn’t be back any time soon. All she and her LACs really had to do was chase them; catching them was no longer necessary to save Hancock, because those ships weren’t going to stop running as long as a single Manticoran starship or LAC appeared on their sensors.