54

There was no question about the jamming this time. Fifty-one multiphasic jammers flared alive in the same moment that the starfighters plunged back into reality, shredding any communication the carriers had with each other or anyone else.

Kira counted it as a blessing that there were no escorts. Even a handful of corvettes or gunships would have been a major complicating factor. As it was, the fact that she only saw five fighters in the carrier patrol was concerning enough.

They’d left six behind when they’d novaed away, which meant one had novaed to the rendezvous point for the rest of their fighters—and, as if in answer to her fears, another twenty Manticore-Sevens emerged from nova in that instant.

She couldn’t give any more orders. All she could do was charge forward to engage the fighters, relying on the rest of the interceptor pilots to follow her. A Hoplite swung in on her left flank and another on her right—the design of the fighters assuring her that they were from Deception but not telling her which of her pilots were with her.

The heavy fighters did as they’d been ordered, charging toward the two freighter conversions under cover of the rest of the fighter wing—but the junk carriers understood their vulnerability as well as Kira did. They’d pulled in close to the assault carrier, and Kira’s worst fears about the Griffon-built ship were realized as she opened fire.

The assault carrier probably had antiship weaponry, but the vast majority of the cubage not dedicated to her fighter wing was clearly dedicated to armor and rapid-tracking flak cannon like the Rim couldn’t even build.

She had eighty seconds left before the earliest the bombers could launch, and she could already tell they were in trouble.

Cobra interceptors flashed forward, almost disregarding her attempts to slow them as they targeted the heavy fighters. Kira tore into the side of their formation, plasma flashing both ways as she tried to protect her heavies from the enemy interceptors—and the enemy interceptors tried to protect their carriers from her heavies.

And then the next wave of novas arrived. Conviction slammed into the system like a belly-flopping whale, the Cherenkov radiation pulse of her arrival blinding already jamming-frazzled sensors.

But across from her were twenty more Manticore interceptors, and Kira began to wonder how badly they’d misestimated the capacity available to Cobra Squadron. She’d seen over a hundred and thirty fighters and bombers now.

Fighters were spilling out of Conviction’s deck as the carrier plunged forward to a range she had never been intended to fight at.

Kira couldn’t do anything. All she could do was hope that the orders Hoffman had given before launching his group were the same as the ones she would have—and she threw her rough collection of interceptors back at the Manticores.

More interceptors joined her, including one that slotted in under her wing that had to be Bradley. With Conviction’s fighters, they now had over a hundred nova fighters—and, critically, six bombers.

The assault carrier, unfortunately, did have antiship weapons, and those turrets opened up as Conviction closed. The old escort carrier’s pair of recently installed turrets returned fire, but she was outclassed—and the Cobra interceptors had recognized the bombers.

There was a swirl of death as Kira led the Hoplites against the Manticores. The pilots clinging to her switched in and out in the chaos, but she still had eight left when she hammered into the center of the Cobra formation. Three of the advanced starfighters died under her wing’s guns…but dozens more made it through, and a stone dropped through Kira’s stomach as a single squadron—maybe six Manticore-Sevens—caught up with the Screwballs.

The bombers burned like paper in a wildfire, and the deaths of all six Manticores a moment later as the Darkwing squadrons hammered into them didn’t relieve Kira’s fear. What was left of her heavy fighter strike was falling back, missing at least two-thirds of their numbers.

They’d battered one carrier badly and Kira guessed the conversion was no longer able to launch fighters, but there were still two carriers left—and only maybe forty seconds before they redeployed the bombers.

The bombers would nova out the moment they were clear of their carriers. Their fighters would get a tithe of them at best, leaving more than enough to shatter the cruiser fleet. Cobra Squadron might not win this battle, but they could wreck the force Redward needed to win this war.

And then Conviction fired her ace in the hole. Kira had forgotten about the array of torpedo launchers they’d rigged up for her previous operations, two dozen single-shot launchers that gave her the firepower of a heavy cruiser for a single salvo.

That was a salvo more than the undamaged escort carrier could take. The converted freighter broke apart under the pounding—but Kira’s attention was on the assault carrier now as the Darkwings charged toward it.

The PNC-115 fighter-bombers carried three torpedoes apiece, and they were the only hope she saw of finishing this battle in time. They were down to seconds—and the Manticores threw everything they had at the PNC-115s.

And Kira brought everything she had against the interceptors. The Cobra fighters swarmed her people in trios—and she smiled grimly as she saw that over half of her own people were returning the favor, even recently graduated trainees working in groups.

She was certain the two on her wing were Bradley and Colombera, not that she had any way to know. The two synchronized their fire with hers, hammering one of the Manticore-Sevens to pieces as she tried to clear a path for the fighter-bombers.

A new set of novas announced the arrival of the last fighters from the original main battle, and Kira was forced to dodge away from her attack run as new threat vectors opened up. With Conviction’s fighters in play, the numbers were about even now—but the Cobra fighters were just plain better.

Her numbers were evaporating and her people were being forced to break off. She cursed as she led her trio of fighters in a dance around the incoming fighters and realized they couldn’t do it.

Cobra Squadron had formed too effective a defensive formation and had too much of an edge in maneuverability and firepower. Even the fighter-bombers were being forced back, unable to press their attack against the enemy.

They were past her worst-case estimate of the bomber launch time. Cobra Squadron hadn’t launched them yet, but it could only be seconds. There was nothing Kira could do—given time, they might be able to wear the defenders down with hit and run attacks, but there was no time to nova away and reconsolidate.

Once the bombers launched, it was over. They’d have gutted Cobra Squadron—they already had gutted Cobra Squadron—but those nova bombers would gut Seventh Fleet in turn.

She held another Manticore in her sights for a few deadly moments as Backstab and Scimitar helped her tear it to shreds, but the victory was ash in her mouth.

And then something moved in the battlespace. A Manticore that was lining up on Backstab didn’t dodge fast enough and was blasted out of space by one of Conviction’s flak cannons, the plasma bursts tearing through the defensive formation as the carrier charged.

The old ship’s two antiship turrets didn’t have the firepower to take out the remaining Cobra carrier—but it was only when Conviction started shedding escape pods that Kira realized John Estanza’s intention.

Ivar Larsson didn’t realize it in time—and the hundred-and-sixty-eight-year-old escort carrier slammed into her enemy at literally world-shattering velocities.

Debris sprayed in every direction as the two nova ships came apart, highlighted a moment later when Conviction’s fusion reactors intentionally overloaded.

For a few seconds, the battlespace seemed frozen—and then the remaining Cobra Squadron fighters vanished as a single body.

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