Part 15 (2/2)

”Maneuvering, break away,” Max nearly shouted. ”Missile rooms, reload with Talons.”

LeBlanc gave the preplanned orders to his men, veering the destroyer ninety degrees away from its previous course while continuing to accelerate at Emergency so that the Krag gunners would have to try to follow the fastest possible change in bearing. As the range opened up and the c.u.mberland continued to accelerate, the pulse cannon bolts trailed hopelessly behind.

The four Raven missiles streaked toward their target. Communicating with one another in microsecond-long coded bursts, their sophisticated onboard computers coordinated their attack second by second, working together like a pack of wolves to confuse and destroy their prey.

After flying together in a rough box formation for a few seconds, the missiles separated from one another, each approaching the huge vessel from amids.h.i.+ps as though each were approaching from a different cardinal point of the compa.s.s. Within its designated target zone, each missile scanned its quarry, selecting a particularly vulnerable point-a hatch, a junction between two hull plates, a cl.u.s.ter of waste gas vents. Three missiles slowed slightly and one speeded up so that they would impact and detonate at exactly the same microsecond, placing the maximum stress on the structure, s.h.i.+elding, integrity fields, and blast suppression systems of the Krag vessel. Finally, at 99.28 percent of the speed of light, all four streaked past the Krag defenses and detonated as one.

Four 1.5-megaton fusion warheads exploded-four suns born around the Krag's hull, growing and merging into a gigantic four-lobed fireball consuming the battlecruiser in less than a second. The orb of destruction a.s.similated metal and plastic, bone and flesh alike, taking atoms forged by nucleosynthesis billions of years ago in the cores of now long-dead supernovae and hurling them back into the void.

Max watched the expanding globe of light as it filled his screen. He had never seen four of the big warheads used on a target all at once, and he was awed by the enormous destruction that could be unleashed at his order. And by how powerful the bombs were in comparison to the puny men who made them.

The fireball faded. There was still work to do. ”Tactical, what are our remaining friends doing?

”The ore carrier's course and speed are unchanged-he's still headed for the jump point, ETA six hours, thirty-seven minutes. A reasonable hypothesis is that the vessel is automated. And the corvettes are running for it-drives are redlined. Heading is two-two-five mark zero-one-five. That's a course for the nearest edge of the zone messed up by the Egg Scrambler”

”Can we get within pulse cannon range before they get there?”

Someone in Tactical's back room who was paying close enough attention, either watching the overall situation or listening to the conversation in CIC or both, decided that just such a calculation would be needed and had put it up on one of Tactical's screens. ”Affirmative, sir. With the main sublight at 'Full,' we can still catch them with about six minutes to spare. And even if they get there, sir, Corpuscles have a top speed on compression of only about twelve hundred c. We could overtake them pretty quickly.”

”That's good to know, Tactical, but I prefer not to engage a superluminal target if I can help it. Maneuvering, reduce to full and shape course to intercept the corvettes.”

”Ahead full, course to intercept corvettes, aye.” LeBlanc implemented the drive setting change, spent a few moments with his console, calculating the new course, and then gave the course change orders.

The c.u.mberland overtook the two smaller s.h.i.+ps, rapidly drawing within pulse cannon range of the fleeing vessels.

”Weapons, bring pulse cannon one and pulse cannon three to Prefire. Target cannon one on Hotel Two and cannon three on Hotel Three. Hold pulse cannon two on Standby.”

”Aye, sir, pulse one and three to Prefire, two remaining on Standby.” Weapons acknowledged. Eleven seconds pa.s.sed as the systems that diverted plasma from the s.h.i.+p's main reactor and routed it through s.h.i.+elded conduits into the cannons' firing chambers were energized, their cooling systems powered up and engaged, and the cannon aiming systems enabled. Two green lights on the Weapons console came on.

”Pulse one and pulse three at Prefire. Targeting now.” The huge magnetic coils that guided the pulse blasts came to life, drew aiming data from the targeting computer, and synched with the targeting scanner, which had already locked onto the targets. Two more green lights came on. Each cannon's target appeared on one of Tactical's screens, along with the target's ID, course, speed, and range.

”Pulse one locked on Hotel Two. Pulse three locked on Hotel Three.”

”Pulse one and pulse three to ready.”

Weapons stabbed two orange b.u.t.tons, one for each cannon to be fired, which caused plasma to flow from the reactor into the firing chambers, building up sufficient quant.i.ty to fire the weapons. This took four seconds, after which two more green lights at Tactical winked on. ”Pulse one and pulse three ready.”

”Set for maximum power, synchronized firing.”

”Max power, synch firing, aye.”

”Range to targets?”

”We are 9,355 kills to Hotel Two, 9,357 kills to Hotel Three.” Maximum effective range was 10,500 kilometers.

”Confirm targets.”

”Pulse one is targeted on Krag corvette designated Hotel Two off our bow, range 9,355 kills. Pulse two is targeted on Krag corvette designated Hotel Three off our bow, range 9,357 kills.”

”Captain, I think we are missing something important here,” Garcia interjected.

”Like what?” Max was not entirely successful in concealing his irritation at being interrupted just as he was about to kill these two targets.

”Why aren't they evading? Corvettes are very maneuverable. I mean, as soon as we got in range these guys should have started jinking all over the place, right?”

Good question. Why the h.e.l.l not? What could they possibly have to gain by not zigzagging? Max could think of only one thing: if the corvettes maintained a constant course, then the c.u.mberland was more likely to maintain a constant course as well. Therefore, the Krag must want his s.h.i.+p to stay in a constant position relative to theirs. Why would they want that? Oh. c.r.a.p.

”Forward deflectors to maximum-tune for metallic object about two meters in diameter with extremely low relative velocity. Point defense batteries, zone firing. Blanket thirty-degree cone forward. s.p.a.ceframe reinforcement to maximum. All hands brace for impact.”

CIC held its breath for two and a half seconds, at which point the console screens showing output from the forward optical scanners flared white and then went dark, their receptors burned out. A split second later, the s.h.i.+p trembled mildly as the shock wave from the explosion, almost vanis.h.i.+ngly tenuous in the vacuum of outer s.p.a.ce, struck the hull.

”All right, now that we've got that settled, let's fry the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Weapons, fire pulse one and two.”

Weapons pressed both fire controls and two glowing b.a.l.l.s of compressed plasma about two meters in diameter streaked through s.p.a.ce, each striking its target dead center and exploding as its containment field-generated by a tiny liquid heliumcooled emitter inserted in the plasma pulse as it left the gun tube-shattered with the explosive force of about half a kiloton.

It wasn't much compared to a missile, but the blast equivalent of five hundred tons of TNT, not to mention the thermal and structural stress of being struck at an appreciable fraction of lightspeed by a ball of compressed, ionized gas as hot as the interior of the sun, was enough to spell the end of two superannuated corvettes. Both s.h.i.+ps tore themselves apart in twin orgies of glaring explosions and shredding metal.

A few moments later, as normalcy returned to CIC and the destroyer shaped course to intercept the now defenseless ore carrier, the XO turned to his skipper.

”Sir, do you mind telling me what the h.e.l.l just happened.”

”Oh, that.” Max managed to sound almost nonchalant. ”New weapon. One of our spy s.h.i.+ps witnessed a test of it inside Krag s.p.a.ce a few months ago, but we didn't know that it was deployed yet: code name 'Remora' or something like that. Nasty little f.u.c.ker. It's a stealthed, remote-controlled fusion bomb designed to kill an overtaking s.h.i.+p. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds launch it cold, and it comes at you slowly and undetectably just as you think you are boring in at them on their six. The stealth is so good that the point defense grid doesn't pick it up, and the speed relative to the chasing s.h.i.+p is so low that the deflectors don't even budge it. They just let it crawl back until they've got it snuggled right up against the hull and then BLAM. You never see it coming.”

He turned toward Tactical. ”That looked like-what?-a one-fifty or one-sixty kiloton burst?”

”Our reading is one-five-two kilo tango, Skipper,” Bartoli answered.

”Okay, a hundred-and-fifty-two kt thermonuclear burst. Inside the deflectors. Right up against the hull. That's a 100 percent kill for anything from a medium cruiser on down. Who knows how many times they've used it without us being the wiser? No warning. No survivors. Just another s.h.i.+p 'missing, presumed lost.' If it hadn't been for your question, XO, they would have gotten us too.”

Max shook his head ruefully. Already he could think of five lost Union s.h.i.+ps that had left debris patterns perfectly explained by what he had observed about this weapon.

”Anyway, tuning the deflector for an object of the right size and relative velocity pushed it away from the s.h.i.+p where the point defense batteries were able to get a lock once the deflectors had it. The computer on board the weapon determined that it was going to be destroyed, so it detonated before we could hit it. We lived. They died.” This time. ”That's the name of the game.

”Chin, raise the cutter.” Chin clicked a few keys.

”Cutter, Mori here.”

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