“Contact Ararat,” he told Clairdon. “Tell Captain Davis that I want him to… discourage those LACs.”

The chief of staff looked at him for a moment, then nodded, and MacDonnell turned back to his plot. Ararat was one of the Covington-class CLACs. Somewhat larger than the RMN’s carriers, the Covingtons carried twenty-five percent more LACs, and unlike the RMN, the GSN had developed the Katana-class LAC, specifically designed for the “dogfighting” role. The Graysons had begun from the assumption that eventually someone else was going to produce their own LACs and carriers for them. When that time came, the GSN intended to be ready… especially since the RMN’s “space superiority LAC” project had been one of the casualties of the Janacek cuts.

He heard Clairdon passing on his instructions, and then he nodded in satisfaction as the green diamond chips of Ararat’s LACs suddenly blinked into existence less than eight minutes after he’d given the initial order.

· · • · ·

Javier Giscard’s scouting LACs realized they were doomed the instant Ararat launched. There were only fifteen of the recon platforms, each of them only lightly armed, and there were over a hundred and twenty LACs coming at them. Worse, their own vectors were almost directly towards the enemy vessels.

There was no way they could possibly escape, and so they pressed on, accelerating directly towards the Graysons in an effort to at least get close enough to see the enemy clearly before they died.

· · • · ·

Giscard knew exactly what they were doing, and a knife seemed to turn in his heart as he watched them do it. Nothing he could do at this point would affect what was about to happen to them. But he was the man who’d deliberately sent them out to die, and even though he knew he’d been right—that he would do the same thing again under the same circumstances, even knowing the outcome—that didn’t make it hurt any less.

He watched his people accelerate, rushing to meet their deaths rather than fight for every instant of life they could cling to. He watched the red icons of their killers sweep towards them even as their sensors reached out and confirmed one capital impeller signature after another. He saw the missile storm that blotted them from the heavens. And then, finally, he turned away and made himself meet Captain Gozzi’s eyes.

“What does CIC say now?” he asked quietly.

“We’ve confirmed thirty-seven positive superdreadnought impeller signatures, with another three probables and one possible,” Gozzi said, equally quietly. “There are also at least eight other ships out there. They’re a shade too small for SDs but too big for anything else on the Manty ship lists.”

“Judging by what we just saw,” Giscard said dryly, “I suspect that they must be CLACs.”

“Yes, Sir. But our recon crews were quite definite. They’re bigger than Manty carriers.”

“Graysons, then,” Giscard murmured.

“That would certainly be my guess, Sir,” Gozzi agreed, and Giscard snorted softly.