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to them, Halith had launched an operation against Miranda, using the Duke Albrecht Fleet’s Center Force supported by two divisions of the Kerberos fleet, which escorted a large invasion flotilla. Without breaking comms silence, Lo Gai came down the flank of the Halith fleet with all his characteristic energy, caught Count Ivanov just as she was preparing to launch a strike and handled the big carrier cruelly. In doing so, he turned his bored and antsy pilots loose, and they took their collective frustrations out on Prince Valens’ fighter group.
    Then Lo Gai, trusting that Admiral Murphy had things in hand, turned himself loose as well, inviting Retribution to join in the lark. She and Nike were the two fastest battlecruisers in the CEF, and they descended on the invasion force with all the fury of their namesakes. The Halith commander had made the fateful decision to bring maximum strike power to the battle in hopes of gaining a quick victory against Seventh Fleet’s overmatched TF 72, leaving only a single destroyer squadron to cover the flotilla.
    Handed this golden opportunity, Sir Phillip did what he loved best—demolishing one destroyer with his long guns—while Lo Gai disabled another with missile strikes, then lay alongside at pistol shot and reduced it to hot fragments with rapid salvos from his 12-inch surge guns. The remainder of the squadron, shocked and awed, broke ignominiously and ran for their lives. Well satisfied to let them go, Lo Gai and Sir Phillip ranged at large among the thin-skinned invasion transports, having (according to Krieger’s report) “the time of their lives.”
    Later, members of the crew would compete to describe the action. ‘Wolves among the sheep’ was heard from those whose martial prowess outstripped their literary talents, but one lieutenant opined that it was like “the lions shall lay down with the lambs—and eat them.” Those who eschewed such flights, however, said it best: it was simply slaughter.
    The Halith commander, belatedly noting the extinction of the force that was the raison d’etre for the whole operation, detached part of his main body in a vain attempt to rescue what was left. All he got for his pains was an education in the inadvisability of dividing his fleet while engaged and the foolhardiness of pursuing a battlecruiser that could outrun his torpedoes and was armed with 14-inch chase mounts.
    In the end, the Halith fleet was forced to withdraw, having lost a light carrier, a heavy cruiser, and four destroyers and all their transports, with a battleship and a fleet carrier badly battered, and another carrier’s fighter group decimated. On the CEF side of the ledger, Trafalgar came away somewhat clawed, while Camperdown and Blenheim were lost along with the heavy cruiser Jellicoe . Ramillies would be months getting back into fighting trim, the battlecruiser Defiant and the heavy cruiser Essex had been roughed up, though not seriously, and two destroyers, Bellona and Actaeon had taken moderate damage.
    If sober analysis had diminished the box score—it had been confidently reported that Count Ivanov was too severely damaged to make the exit jump, easing the loss of Camperdown until the error was found out—this was taken in stride, though not without a few pungent observations. ( Trafalgar’s bosun was heard to say, “They may have lugged her home, but that bitch will never swim again. My word on it.”) They knew they’d taken a beating—by a count of losses in the main battle, they’d arguably suffered another defeat—but such numbers were not the whole story, not by very long chalks.
    They were full of a deep, if sorrowing, pride in Blenheim . Beset by two battleships and a heavy cruiser, she’d fought gallantly until mortally wounded, and if she had taken only the cruiser with her, neither Condorcet nor Desailles —the latter, a limping cripple—would soon forget the beating she gave them. Prince Valens’ surviving fighter pilots would