turned them into useless drones, where the species-cleansing consequences of survival of the fittest no longer operated.
Could that be why Llyn had chosen Manticore as his target? Could it be that Axelrod were looking for undeveloped real estate and figured that no one would notice or care if a couple of fat, lazy backwater planets underwent a sudden regime change?
It sounded like a colossal waste of money. Still, Axelrod had money to burn. If they wanted to spend some of their spare cash to set up their own little kingdom, more power to them.
Copperhead had finished its pitch, its roof once again presenting its impenetrable barrier to the incoming missiles. The missiles were still holding formation, with no indication as to where they were heading. Whatever Heissman's plan, though, he must surely have accepted the inevitability of his own destruction. Best guess was that his goal was to simply keep throwing missiles in hopes of draining the Volsungs of as many resources as he could . . .
Gensonne looked at the sensor display, feeling his eyes narrow. The Manticorans had launched six missiles—Clymes had confirmed that. And six missile wedges were indeed showing on all of the bridge's displays.
But according to the sensors, all six missiles were running a little hot.
Why were they running hot?
On the tactical, a spray of countermissiles erupted from Adder's throat, blossoming into a cone of protection that would shield both itself and the battlecruisers riding a thousand kilometers behind it. Gensonne watched as the cone stretched out toward the incoming missiles—
And felt a sudden jolt of horrified adrenaline flood through him. One cone. Not the two cones this configuration was supposed to provide to shield the battlecruisers. Not with Copperhead turned roof-forward protecting itself from those Manticoran missiles.
Still nothing new from the sensors. Still nothing new on the missiles' track. But Gensonne was a warrior, with the instincts a warrior needed to survive. And his gut was screaming at him now with a certainty that all the ambiguous data in the universe couldn't counter.
Copperhead wasn't Heissman's target. Odin was.
“Full autocannon!” he snapped, his eyes darting to the tactical, wanting to order an emergency turn and knowing full well that it was too late. Six missiles showing . . . only his gut was telling him that wasn't the full number bearing down on them. Somehow, Casey had managed to launch its own contribution to the salvo, slipping them in behind and among the corvettes' missiles with just the right timing and geometry to keep them hidden until they could light off their wedges.
Odin's four autocannon were hammering out their furious roar, filling the space in front of the ship with shards of metal. Gensonne watched in helpless fury as the incoming missiles swung wide of Copperhead's wedge, passed safely through the very edge of Adder's countermissile defensive zone, and dove straight through Odin's open throat—
And with a thundering roar the ship exploded into a chaos of screaming alarms.
* * *
“Got him!” Rusk shouted, his voice hovering midway between triumph and disbelief. “One of them made it through.”
“Damage?” Heissman asked.
“Assessing now,” Woodburn said. “Lots of debris, but with something the size of a battlecruiser that could be mostly superficial.”
“Missile trace,” Belokas called. “Six on the way.”
“Countermissiles and autocannon standing by,” Woodburn confirmed.
“Assessment's coming a little cleaner,” Rusk said. “Looks like they took damage to their bow, probably enough to knock out their telemetry system. If we're lucky, it'll have neutralized at least one of their launchers and maybe their forward laser.”
“Excellent,” Heissman said. “Fire four more missiles—let's see if we can get in before the upper cruiser realizes what happened and turns back to defense position.”
“Aye, Sir,” Travis said, checking the tracks of Tamerlane's incoming missiles and feeling a flicker of grim satisfaction. They were still almost certainly going to die, but at least they'd managed to bloody Tamerlane's nose.
The vibration of the autocannon rumbled through the bridge. “All missiles destroyed,” Woodburn announced. “Four hard kills, two soft. Our missiles are still on target.”
Travis was gazing at the enemy formation, trying to anticipate what Tamerlane would do next, when two new wedges flared into view at the edge of the display.
The mysterious ships that they'd spotted earlier had arrived.
* * *
“Telemetry transmitters out,” a strained voice came from the bridge speaker, barely audible above a cacophony of shouts and curses. “Number one laser's offline, number two's iffy, and One and Three autocannon are fried.”
“Record indicates there were ten missiles in that salvo,” Imbar snarled over the