Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil
- Автор: Зан Тимоти
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Random House
- ISBN: 9781473596580
- Жанр: Боевая фантастика
Электронная книга - «Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil». Краткое содержание книги:
Though if any of the captains had known the size of the Grysk ships, they might have voiced even stronger reservations.
But for the moment, at least, the Chiss and their Paccian allies had the initiative.
“Springhawk; Paccian Four,” Thrawn’s voice came over the bridge speaker.
“Acknowledged,” Samakro said briskly. “Afpriuh: Go. Paccian Four, go.”
And as the Springhawk opened up with a withering laser barrage on the Armageddon, the nearest of Jixtus’s three StoneCrushers, in the near distance off the Grysk’s portside bow one of the Paccian gunboats also leapt to the attack, its lasers spitting fire. A true whisker-cub-to-groundlion matchup, and Samakro had no doubt that the aliens aboard the Armageddon knew exactly how such a lopsided duel would end.
Only for once, they would be wrong. The Armageddon swiveled ponderously toward the Springhawk, its launchers erupting with missiles, while it also sent a salvo of small dibber missiles to deal with the Paccian gunboat. It was a quick and standard response, no doubt, one requiring little concern or control, an idle swat against an annoyance while it dealt with the more challenging Chiss heavy cruiser now engaging it. The dibblers arrowed toward the Paccosh, forming a tight cluster designed to strike and bore through the gunboat’s bow, accelerating as they flew.
An instant later the lead dibber slammed into the plasma sphere that Afpriuh had sent, unseen amid the glare of the Springhawk’s laserfire, into the dibbers’ path.
The Grysks had only used dibbers against Chiss warships in a single previous battle, utilizing the small missiles mainly to disrupt plasma spheres or take out incoming breacher missiles. In those cases, the dibbers had most often been fired singly or in pairs. Against a gunboat, though, the Armageddon’s commander had opted for a more focused, clustered approach.
Which meant that when the Springhawk’s plasma sphere hit and paralyzed the lead dibbers, the others still accelerating behind them had no choice but to slam squarely into them.
The last row of dibbers were still plowing into the pileup when the whole group violently exploded.
The Paccian gunboat was still far enough away that the explosion didn’t damage its hull. The Armageddon’s hull, too, was far too tough to be harmed.
Unfortunately for the Grysk, that same durability didn’t extend to the embedded targeting sensors.
And as the Springhawk’s lasers tracked and destroyed the Grysk missiles hurling toward it, and the Chiss electrostatic barriers fended off the enemy’s lasers, the Paccian gunboat flew straight through the expanding cloud of missile debris and shrapnel and delivered a devastating laser attack to the Armageddon’s blinded flank. The gunboat veered off just in time, dodging belated laserfire from the Grysk’s unaffected dorsal weapons, then curved sharply around for a second pass.
“Well done,” Thrawn said. “Secondaries: Engage the enemy and keep them occupied. Primaries: Begin your attack.
“It’s time to end this threat.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Fifteen Grysk warships.
Roscu again ran the analysis through her head as she gazed at the images starting to swarm around one another on the tactical. All of them larger than her own light cruiser; three of them considerably larger; one of them ridiculously larger.
And so naturally Thrawn was sending her against the SkySweep, one of the midsized StoneCrushers.
At least he wasn’t sending her against it alone. Two other light cruisers from Ba’kif’s reinforcement group were hitting the SkySweep from two other sides, trading laserfire and fending off its missiles while simultaneously trying to slip in plasma spheres and breachers. So far only a couple of each weapon had made it through the SkySweep’s point defenses, but those had successfully hit the vulnerable areas Thrawn and Ar’alani had identified and marked.
If the Chiss were going to prevail, Roscu knew, that targeting data was going to be the key. So far, despite the Grysk warship’s lopsided size advantage, the skirmish was playing out better than would normally be expected. Certainly it was going better than the records Roscu had seen of the last time Chiss warships had gone up against one of these things.
And of course, Thrawn’s numerical advantage meant none of his forces had to deal one-on-one with any of the enemy. Even though most of the Chiss warships were smaller than any of their opponents, attacking at two or three to one allowed them to keep the Grysks off balance and unfocused.
In the distance off the Orisson’s starboard flank, Roscu could see Paccian gunboats and a pair of Chiss light cruisers buzzing around two of the smaller BattleChiefs, keeping up the laserfire and plasma sphere attacks while at the same time maneuvering to keep the two warships blocking each other’s fire and otherwise hampering their movements. Beyond them, the Parala and Bokrea had taken on another BattleChief, and while both patrol cruisers were taking serious fire they were still operational.
But that could change at any moment. Roscu had spotted the escape pod that left the Kilji warship and was immediately tractored across to the FateSpinner, presumably with Jixtus aboard. Once he was on the bridge of his flagship and directing his side of the battle, the Grysk superiority in ship size and firepower could quickly make itself felt. Roscu could only hope that Thrawn was on top of things on the Chiss side.
In the meantime, the Orisson had a Grysk warship to destroy.
“Continue laserfire,” she ordered, checking the tactical one last time, then focusing her attention on the viewport. “Prepare three breachers; launch on my command.”
“Brace yourselves,” Ziinda warned as the Grayshrike shot straight toward the bow of the BattleChief trading fire with the Parala and Bokrea. She checked that her electrostatic barriers were at full power, then threw a last-second look out the viewport to make sure nothing had wandered into their path. “Thrawn?”
“I’m on it,” Thrawn’s calm voice assured her from the bridge speaker. “Parala, Bokrea, stand ready to break off … three, two, one.”
In perfect unison the two patrol cruisers ceased fire and veered hard ventral and dorsal, shooting off in opposite directions.
And with the BattleChief’s commander presumably watching to see if the twin maneuver was a feint, if they were going to loop back around for a second pass, the Grayshrike drove straight through its forward point-defense laserfire and skimmed along its portside flank, raking it with laserfire and dropping plasma spheres and breacher missiles into its hull as fast as the launchers could fire them. A final barrage at the portside shoulder weapons mounts, and the Grayshrike was past, heading toward deep space.
The encounter had lasted barely five seconds. But it was enough. Even as Wikivv threw extra power to the thrusters, Ziinda could see on the sensor display that the full length of the BattleChief’s portside flank was stained with blackened spots where the breachers’ acid was digging into the nyix-alloy hull, its lasers and missile tubes torn apart by laserfire, its sensors frozen by the spheres’ ionic blasts.