The missile salvo came screaming in from astern.

Counter— missiles took out eleven. The crippled starboard tethered decoy sucked two more off. The port decoy had been destroyed two salvos ago-or was it three? He couldn't remember, and there was no time to think about it as he snapped helm orders.

"Starboard ninety! Hard skew turn-get her nose up, Chief! Stand her on her toes!"

"Starboard ninety, rolling ship, aye!" Senior Chief Mangrum acknowledged, pulling the joystick hard back.

Defiant' s bow pitched up. She writhed to starboard, clawing upward, trying to wrench her vulnerable port side away from the enemy, and the incoming missiles tracked viciously after her. The wounded light cruiser's point defense lasers swivelled, tracking with unpanicked electronic speed, spitting coherent light. Another missile shattered, then two more-a third. But the others were still coming.

"Valiant's lost her forward ring, Sir! She's-"

His head snapped around towards the visual display just as Defiant's sister ship took another complete missile broadside from the nearest Peep battlecruiser. The heavy laser heads detonated virtually simultaneously less than five thousand kilometers off Valiant' s port bow. The deadly bomb-pumped lasers slashed out, stabbing through her fluctuating sidewall like white-hot needles through soft butter. Light armor shattered, impeller nodes flashed and exploded like prespace flashbulbs, atmosphere belched outward, and then the entire forward third of her hull shattered. It didn't explode, it simply... shattered. The brutally mutilated hull began to tumble madly, and then her fusion bottle failed and she did explode.