Refusing Excalibur Read Online Free Page B

Savannah.”
    Victor nodded. Scimitars were missile boats the same way the Osprey was a gun boat. Covered in missile tubes from bow to stern, the Scimitars could do a lot of damage to Savannah if they got through Victor’s defenses. “If we get close, they don’t stand a chance.”
    “That assumes we survive the barrage of missiles they’ll throw at us, Captain,” Commander Dace said.
    “It’s five versus six. Almost an even fight.” Victor turned to Dace. “Since when have the Lysandrans ever beaten us in an even fight?”
    Dace’s smile was filled with menace. “You got me there, Captain.”
    Victor nodded and keyed the flotilla channel. He ordered his cruisers to enter a tight vertical-star formation. Each ship was within one hundred kilometers of the other, close enough for one ship’s point defenses to cover all the others, but far enough away that the whole flotilla wouldn’t all die to a single warhead.
    “Missile launch!” Dace said, loudly but without fear. It was no surprise the Lysandrans would launch missiles.
    “Shields to combat power,” Victor said and then locked his helmet over his head. A swarm of missiles accelerated toward his ships at over 1,000 gs. Hundreds of them. They would be moving at a full percentage point of the speed of light by the time they reached him.
    “They’re not holding anything back,” Commander Dace said.
    Victor nodded. They must have expended their entire antistarship missile armament in a single volley. Taking their best shot at overwhelming the defenses of his cruisers and pushing through to Savannah. Not that he would let them do that.
    The Osprey tracked each and every enemy missile, but, with the cruisers of his flotilla so close together, Victor knew it would be difficult to tell which missiles were targeting his ship until the last seconds before impact.
    Victor keyed the flotilla's channel. “All ships, slave your missile defense systems to mine.”
    Within seconds, the antimissile systems of the five Thresher-class cruisers became a single unit. Missiles would be prioritized to maximize the chances of the flotilla as a whole, rather than individual ships.
    Victor guessed his ship had fifty-fifty odds of surviving the Lysandran missiles, give or take. But the chances of most of his cruisers surviving were near unity.
    Countermissiles were launched when time to impact was down to only a few minutes. Hundreds of blue streaks flew away from the Savannan cruisers, rushing out at 2,000 gs of acceleration toward the Lysandran missiles.
    The countermissiles looked the same size as the Lysandran starship-killers on the tactical screen, but, in reality, they were tiny. Wasps going after eagles.
    A staccato of flashes fired off when the countermissiles reached their targets, and three-quarters of the Lysandran missiles disappeared.
    Victor ground his teeth. The performance of the countermissiles was more than satisfactory. But more than enough enemy missiles were still left to wipe out his cruisers. He ordered evasive maneuvers.
    The ships began a pattern of careful but violent maneuvers. Decoys were launched to tempt away some of the missiles, and then lasers were fired to blind the seeker heads of others.
    A number of missiles fell from formation, either decoyed or blinded. Half the remaining enemy missiles were neutralized before the point-defense guns fired.
    A rain of metal scourged the Lysandran missiles in the last seconds before impact. Missiles disappeared in flashes of relativistic collisions faster than Victor could keep count of.
    He began to believe than none of the enemy missiles would get through. Then something detonated near his ship, and he was thrown against the straps holding him to his seat. The lights on the bridge flickered, and radiological alarms blared.
    “Shit!” Victor tapped on his blank tactical screen.
    “That was a close one. The radiation has blinded our sensors!” Commander Dace said.
    “Did we get dosed?” Victor