Free Accord of Honor by Kevin O. McLaughlin Page A

completely, and tumbled end over end in an aimless drift. The other four were changing course again. I saw their vector lines shift, then lengthen again as they picked up speed on new headings – away from Mars, away from Sol, out toward the Belt again. Defender still had scores of missiles in space, as did the enemy, pouring on the speed to try to destroy each other.
    “Helm, max thrust, bring us along a line perpendicular to those missile plots. Put some distance and some range out. Weapons, stand by to deploy decoys.” The decoys were an idea of Meg’s, and had never really been tested to my satisfaction. But we were out of other options. With over a hundred missiles bearing down on us now, they were our best shot at surviving. “Deploy decoys!” I called, and four missile sized probes detached from the hull in four different directions. Each one was broadcasting a fake signature that matched the Defender as closely as possible. Each decoy was using everything we could think of that might confuse a targeting computer.
    Thirty more missiles rocketed in toward us, but this time Meg’s engineering really proved its worth. The decoys drew off all but two of the missiles, and those were quickly dispatched. Antimissile guns and rockets obliterated most of the rest, given extra time by the decoys. Two decoys were completely destroyed as well, but it was well worth it! We were accelerating on a line away from the missiles now, at almost as strong a boost as the missiles themselves could accomplish. It wasn’t likely anything else was going to hit us if we could just survive that next wave, only twenty four this time.
    Guns flashed, and rockets streamed out behind us as we raced away from the incoming missiles. One after another, I watched them explode harmlessly at a distance. It was going to be close.
    Two nukes exploded at almost the same moment, one on each side of the ship. One clipped a missile of our own as it was launching and detonated the warhead, sending shockwaves back into the tube. The tube shattered from the inside, firing debris as deadly as any bullet through bulkheads into neighboring compartments. The entire ship wheeled over on its side as the impact and atmosphere vent twisted us off course. Lights flickered and died all over the ship as power was interrupted, and emergency lights popped on.
    I waited another minute, but there were no more impacts. We had outraced the remaining missiles, but we were hurtling away from Mars now without power, and starting to tumble. Worse, I had no way to see the enemy reaction, no idea what they were doing next. Without power, I was blind. And without power, we’d all be very cold soon.

Chapter 6
Thomas
    W atching Dad’s battle near Mars was a terrible thing. Not as bad as being there, I suppose, but bad enough in its own way. I was in the command center when things went to hell there. Because we knew Defender’s course plan, we knew roughly were the ship was, even though it wasn’t showing up on scans. And we had the excellent data on local Mars space from the satellites in orbit there. Everything had a short lag, because of the distance. What we were seeing was a couple of minutes behind what was actually going on. But it was still all I could do to keep myself from getting on the radio to Dad when I saw the pirate ships pop onto radar.
    Word about the fight spread like wildfire across the station, and work just stopped. Anyone who was near to the command center came in to watch silently as the holotank replayed the battle with merciless precision. Everyone else plugged their consoles into the feed, and watched as best they could where they were.
    I had no doubts Dad would engage, even at six to one odds. It was just who he was. He wouldn’t let them blow the station if he could stop them. And I guess he had lived the last couple of decades waiting for this day. It was his moment, his dance.
    A cheer went up in the room when the Old Man’s trick with the