The second wave of explosions lashed at the Manties, hashing their sensors, crippling their onboard electronics ever so briefly. And then, exactly as Clapp had predicted, the third wave of missiles swept through the hopelessly disorganized Manticoran defensive envelope.

Thirty-three Manticoran LACs survived the triple ripple.

None of them survived the single massive salvo which followed it up.

De Groot’s total losses were less than forty.

Chapter Fifty-Six

“WE’RE coming up on translation in five minutes, Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Akimoto said.

“Thank you, Joyce.” Admiral Wilson Kirkegard thanked his staff astrogator as gravely as if he hadn’t been watching the translation clock for the last hour.

“You’re welcome, Sir,” Akimoto replied, and the grin she gave him told him that she knew perfectly well that her formal announcement had been superfluous, to say the very least.

Kirkegard smiled back, then turned to Captain Janina Auderska, his chief of staff.

“Any last-minute details waiting to bite us on the ass, Janina?” he asked quietly.

“Can’t think of any, Sir,” she said, wrinkling her nose in thought. “Of course, if I could think of them ahead of time, they wouldn’t be waiting to bite us on the ass, I suppose.”

“As profound an analysis as I’ve ever heard,” Kirkegard approved, and she chuckled.

“Sorry. Bad habit of mine to indulge myself in the obvious when I’m nervous.”

“Well, you’re not alone in that,” Kirkegard assured her, and turned his attention back to the maneuvering plot as his overstrength task group headed towards the alpha wall. He spared the visual display a brief glance, struck even now by the familiar, flickering beauty of his flagship’s Warshawski sails. He could pick out the sails of at least another half-dozen of his starships, but he had other things on his mind and the maneuvering plot gave him a far more accurate idea of their positions.

He had less carrier support than some of the other attack forces set up by Operation Thunderbolt, but he shouldn’t need it, either. Maastricht, according to NavInt, was picketed by a single reinforced division of pre-pod superdreadnoughts, supported by one CLAC and a battlecruiser squadron. Given the draw-down in Manticoran naval units, that was a fairly hefty picket for a single system which was far less important to the Manticoran Alliance than it was to the Republic of Haven. And by the standards of the earlier war years, it should have been able to give an excellent account of itself even against a task group as large as Kirkegard’s.

But those standards no longer obtained… as Kirkegard was about to teach the Manties.

· · • · ·

“Admiral Kirkegard should be hitting Maastricht just about now, Sir,” Commander Francis Tibolt, chief of staff for Task Force Eleven observed, and Admiral Chong Chin-ri nodded.

“I’m sure Wilson has the situation well in hand,” the tall, dark haired admiral agreed. “Do we?”

“Unless the Manties have run substantial reinforcements into Thetis on us at the last minute without NavInt catching them at it,” Tibolt replied.