by J. N. Chaney
Sure enough, even as he watched, a swarm of smaller objects detached from the drone, like escape pods jetting away from a stricken mother ship. The smaller drones raced onward toward the Forge, while the main drone altered its trajectory, veering to rise back up and out of the plane of the nearby star’s ecliptic. It was making a run for it.
“Can we catch that thing?” Dash asked.
“Unlikely, at least before it is able to translate,” Sentinel replied. “Even overcharging the Archetype’s drive will not allow for sufficient acceleration to ensure an intercept.”
“Custodian, will you be able to handle all of those little, incoming whatever-they-are?”
“The swarm of smaller vehicles are likely intended only to trigger our defenses. Because they have retained the velocity of their parent craft, it is further likely this is a test of the Forge’s close-range weapon systems.”
“Mapping out our defenses, yeah. Which means that bigger drone is going to stick around long enough to watch, receive a bunch of telemetry, and then scoot.”
“Agreed,” Sentinel said. “Unfortunately, it will still be possible for the drone to do that, and then escape.”
Dash frowned at the imagery. It was too bad they didn’t have scrambler mines deployed—
“Wait. Custodian, here’s a chance to test out our ship-killer systems in live combat. A trans-luminal missile with a scrambler warhead should be able to stop that drone, right?”
“In theory, based on simulations, yes.”
“Do it. Load a scrambler missile and fire.”
“Complying.”
Dash powered up the Archetype’s drive to emergency combat power and zoomed after the fleeing drone. “Leira, you hang back near the Forge in case something nasty comes up that we just haven’t seen yet.”
“Will do.”
Dash watched as the battle unfolded. The ship-killer missile launched just before the Forge’s point-defense batteries opened up. The swarm of smaller drones immediately began to weave through complex evasive patterns; Dash noted that they seemed to be anticipating the firing patterns of the Forge weapons, dodging the incoming fire. It still ended up being in vain; the last of them was swatted into debris long before even getting close to the Forge.
Still, Dash narrowed his eyes over it.
The ship-killer missile translated, just as the main drone did the same. An instant later, it reappeared and detonated on the drone’s predicted path. Sure enough, the Golden drone dropped back into real space and stayed there, the missile’s effect lingering through a large volume of space. It was just enough to give Dash time to catch up to it.
The Golden drone spun on its axis and fired a searing beam of energy that punched through the Archetype’s shield and scoured a gouge in its armor. It was superficial damage, but the weapon itself, which they’d never encountered before, was worrisome; a bigger, more powerful version, mounted on a ship, could be a serious threat.
Dash dodged the next shot, or tried to, but the drone anticipated his next move. Wincing at the hit, Dash dodged again and fired the dark-lance. The drone anticipated that, too, and darted hard aside, the flickering beam of the dark-lance ripping through space less than a klick away from it.
The drone was about to shoot again; Dash knew it. So he did nothing.
Sure enough, the drone’s beam missed just as the dark-lance had, flashing close past the Archetype.
“Huh.”
“An observation, Messenger?” Sentinel asked.
“There will be. Just give me a minute.”
Dash lined up the dark-lance on where he least expected the drone to go, and fired.
The Golden drone flew right into the beam. The dark-lance punched through it, blasting its components into quantum debris. The drone continued on its trajectory, coasting.
“Power emissions have dropped to zero,” Sentinel said. “The Golden drone is dead.”
“No it isn’t,” Dash said.
“Messenger, I can confirm—”
“Watch.”
Dash powered the Archetype directly toward the drone, as though to recover it as salvage. When he was only a few tens of klicks away, the drone suddenly came back to life, spun—
—and died, this time for real, as the dark-lance tore through it from bow to stern.
“Now it’s dead,” Dash said.
“How did you know it was a ruse?”
“Because it’s something I would have done.”
“You are suggesting that this Golden drone was behaving…differently?”
“I am. Whatever AI was controlling it has come a long way from where they started out, kind of stilted and predictable.”
“That is a matter of concern.”
“Yeah. It is. If Golden AIs have started to develop real fighting instincts, then it’s a matter of great concern, because this war just got a lot harder to win.”
21
If the war just got harder to win, Dash thought, then they had to fight it even harder. And that started with attacking the Verity shipyard Custodian had sussed out. They had to keep that fleet from ever deploying against them. Dash wanted to capture it, or as much of it as he could—but if they had to destroy it, so be it.
And that was why Dash now studied the telemetry from the stealth drone they’d sent into the system ahead of the fleet. Not counting the partially built ships in space-dock, of course, or the multitude of tenders and other small vessels involved in their construction, the Verity had seventeen combat vessels in the system. The drone telemetry didn’t hint at any more. So seventeen, versus the fourteen of the Cygnus fleet. Two of the Cygnus ships, though, were the Archetype and the Swift, which meant they weren’t as outnumbered as it seemed.
Still. Seventeen combat-capable ships. This was going to be a tough fight.
Dash’s thoughts grimly trudged on from there. A fight that would probably see a lot of people getting hurt. A lot of people dying.
A fight upon which the course of the war would turn.
“Dash,” Benzel said. “The mine layers are ready to deploy. The rest of the fleet is ready, too. All we need is the word from you.”
“Got it. Stand by.”
But there was no reason to stand by. Dash was just putting off the inevitable: giving the order that would start the battle, that would lead to all those casualties, and that would potentially change the entire course of the war, for better or worse.
“Dash?”
It was Leira, calling him on a private channel.
“Yeah?”
“I know where you are,” she said.
“Not exactly a secret. I’m in the Archetype—”
“Not what I mean. I know where your head is right now.”
“Staring down the barrel of a battle that could see us lose a lot of people, and maybe the war?”
“None of these people have to be here, Dash. You’ve given every one of them ample opportunity to leave. They haven’t. You need to respect that choice.”
“I do. It’s just that—” He stopped, words failing him.
“I know,” Leira said.
“I wish I wasn’t the Messenger, you know. Don’t know if I’ve ever said that.”
“You don’t have to. We all know it.”
“As do I,” Sentinel said. “I believe that’s what makes you so good at it.”
“You are far from perfect, Messenger,” Tybalt added. “But you are the least imperfect human being I have encountered, and are therefore best suited for the role.”
“First, that’s the closest thing you’re going to get to a compliment out of Tybalt,” Leira said. “And second, gee, thanks, Tybalt.”
“My second preference among available individuals for the role of Messenger would be you, Leira.”
“And that’s the closest thing to a compliment I’m going to get out of Tybalt,” Leira replied.
Despite the awful gravity of the situation, Dash found himself smiling at Sentinel and Tybalt—and Leira.
Especially Leira.
He switched to the fleet channel.
“I think this is the part where I’m supposed to say something inspirational,” Dash said. “But you all know me. I’m not an inspirational speech kind of guy. So—let’s go spank these Verity clowns, take their shit, and go home.”
Someone laughed over the comm. Dash thought it might be Benzel. But it was Wei-Ping who spoke up.
“That sounded pretty inspirational to me!”
The plan was simple. The main body of the fleet would drive directly in at the shipyard, its two squadrons attacking along two different vectors far enough apart to encourage the Verity to split their own forces. But if they didn’t, and instead chose to concentrate everything on one squadron, then the second would be close enough to take the Verity in the flank or rear. In the meantime, two squadrons of mine layers would arrive in-system above and below the plane of the ecliptic, one led by the Horse Nebula, the other by the Void Stalker, and begin sowing scrambler and flash mines in two fields that would converge just beyond the shipyard. The hope was to hem the Verity in and catch anything that tried to escape, while inhibiting any relief forces that might arrive during the battle.
Thinking back on the Golden drone he’d recently fought, Dash and the other Cygnus leaders had tried to leave as much flexibility in the plan as possible to account for their enemies doing unexpected and spontaneous things. Speed and surprise were, as always, key, and that might win them the day. But that’s where the mines came in—speed and surprise and minefields were even better, because they could leave a fleet dead in space, ripe for capture.
“We will be in dark-lance range in fifteen—” Sentinel began, then paused as the threat indicator lit up. “The Verity have just launched a large and coordinated salvo of missiles. Ninety seconds until impact at our current closing speed.”
“I see it. Holy shit that’s a lot of missiles.” There were at least a hundred in one massive wave. Dash could tell these were smart missiles, too, from the way they constantly shifted their formation, first maximizing their threat posture against the Herald and A Squadron, then the Retribution and B Squadron, and back again.
“Okay, let’s return the favor,” Dash said. “Fire the ship killers, and then brace for all that incoming ordnance.”
Acknowledgements came in from Benzel and Wei-Ping. A moment later, their two ship killers, one on station with each of the Herald and Retribution, opened fire. Dash saw trans-luminal missiles flash away then vanish into unSpace. He could imagine the rapid reloads going on inside the automated ship-killers, more missiles being unracked, moved, loaded, and fired, over and over, the weapons launching and zipping away at the furious rate of two every three seconds.
Explosions began to ripple through the ranks of the Verity fleet. Every second missile the ship killers launched had a flash warhead; they were programmed to attack different targets than the plasma-blast missiles, so that ideally half the Verity ships would be disabled and half damaged or destroyed. And because they popped out of unSpace so close to the enemy fleet, there was scant time for the Verity countermeasures and point-defense systems to respond. By the time the ship killers had expended the last of their ordnance, five of the seventeen Verity ships were dead in space, coasting along unpowered on whatever trajectory they happened to be following.
Fourteen to twelve, now. Much better odds, at least for however long it took the stricken Verity ships to recuperate and reboot their failed systems and get back in the fight.
“Thirty seconds to impact by incoming Verity missiles,” Sentinel said.
“Okay, countermeasures, go!”
This had been Benzel’s idea. The Forge had been hard-pressed to build enough of the miniaturized flash warheads to fully load out the ship killers, but the bulkier flash mines were much easier to produce. Now, each ship in the fleet literally lobbed flash mines out of airlocks and cargo bays; at the same time, both squadrons, as one, decelerated hard. A swarm of flash mines, still moving with the velocity imparted to them when they were thrown into space, now began outpacing the fleet, sailing ahead of it, further and faster with each passing second.
The onrushing wall of Verity missiles began a frantic series of maneuvers, trying to adjust for the mines suddenly looming ahead of them. Over the next ten or fifteen seconds, the battle was solely between automated ordnance, missiles versus mines.
Despite their best efforts, the mines began detonating and knocking missiles offline.
“Okay, Leira, we’re up!” Dash called. “Let’s go!”
The Archetype and Swift hadn’t decelerated with the rest of the fleet, instead veering aside, opening the distance between them and the two Cygnus squadrons, then cutting their drives and coasting. Now, both mechs powered up their drives and accelerated hard. Each attracted the attention of some of the surviving missiles, which saw the mechs as priority targets and raced after them, diminishing the threat to the rest of the fleet that much more.
The mines had taken down half the missiles. A quarter of what remained had locked onto the Archetype and Swift. Now the fleet’s point defense batteries opened up, spewing shots at the rest. Still, despite their best efforts, some of the missiles made it through, slamming into Cygnus ships and detonating.
One, a recently acquired Silent Fleet frigate they christened the Irresistible, staggered out of line in A Squadron, her drive section a shambles of wreckage and venting plasma. Another, the Forge-built light cruiser named the Blue Sun, reeled under impacts that blew apart her bridge, but she managed to stay in line as auxiliary controls in her engineering section took over. Dash immediately started wondering about the cost, but he shoved his mind back where it belonged: fighting and winning this battle.
“We have four missiles inbound,” Sentinel said. “Impact in twenty seconds.”
“Okay, stand by with the distortion grid.”
“Online and ready.”
A Verity cruiser had just entered dark-lance range; he snapped out a shot at it. The weapon had seen further upgrades, increasing its range and power and decreasing its recuperation time, so he was able to fire twice more, landing solid hits on the Verity ship in the time it took the missiles to close.
Seconds before impact, Dash triggered the new distortion grid, another retrofit to the Archetype.
A powerful gravity pulse, similar to the output of the distortion-cannon, erupted from the mech. Dash had reverse-polarized it, so instead of becoming an instantaneous gravitational hole in space, it became a towering peak—one that the approaching missiles suddenly had to climb.
Sentinel fired up the point-defense battery and blasted apart the missiles, now slowed to a relative crawl by the presence of a new and drastic gravity field. One slipped through and detonated close to the Archetype, flash-searing its armor, but doing little else.
Dash aimed the Archetype at the Verity fleet. It had slowed, trying to keep a decent stand-off distance from the Cygnus fleet, but Benzel and Wei-Ping were having none of that. They’d driven their squadrons hard, plunging into a general engagement with the enemy ships. That meant the plan had taken them as far as it could; at this point, the battle was no longer about plans, but about the multitude of small, deadly vignettes playing out as the two fleets tore away at one another.
For a moment, Dash just listened to his fleet’s general channel.
“—to your left flank, engage as you pass—”
“—shit, we’ve lost attitude control—!”
“—veer to starboard, you’re getting too close—!”
“—got him, look at that bastard spin—”
“NO—!”
The last was a scream that was suddenly cut off. At the same time Dash saw one of the A Squadron ships blown apart in massive explosion, probably a reactor containment breach. He winced. The heads-up told him it was the Star Wind, another of their newly built frigates. She had been mostly crewed by recent arrivals at the Forge who had naval or shipboard experience.
Shit.
“All units, stay on plan! Wei-Ping, it looks like they’re trying to concentrate on us, so execute maneuver Tango! And keep this channel clear!”
Maneuver Tango, a flanking sweep, would bring Wei-Ping’s B Squadron boring in from the left. Several ships detached themselves from the main Verity force to block their approach and began pumping out missiles at a terrifying rate. It forced the Retribution to focus her main and secondary batteries, along with her point-defense systems, on the incoming projectiles. That left the Verity free to follow up with rapid-fire pulse-cannons, which began pounding the Retribution and her consorts.
Dash raced in, Leira following. He targeted a missile cruiser firing at the Retribution and fired the dark-lance. The beams punched into the cruiser’s hull, but it kept up its ferocious rate of fire, apparently willing to die if it meant the rest of the Verity fleet could decimate the Herald and Benzel’s squadron—
A colossal explosion ripped through a second missile cruiser off to the starboard flank of the one Dash had been attacking. Debris whipped past the Archetype at breathtaking velocities.
“What the hell—” Dash started, but Sentinel cut him off.
“That was the result of an impact from one of the ship-killer weapons, fired by Wei-Ping.”
“Oh. Well, that worked, didn’t it?”
“Exceedingly well, yes.”
Dash turned his attention back to the other missile cruiser. He pummeled it with dark-lance shots and loosed a barrage of missiles its battered point-defense systems were unable to stop. Explosions rippled along the length of its hull, and its drive died, leaving it coasting along, more wreck than ship.
Dash glanced at Leira’s progress. She’d slammed shots home into a frigate, then closed in and punched at it with the Swift, the massive fists ripping away hull plates amid spewing gouts of atmosphere. He swooped up and away from the battle to gain a better vantage and see where he could best apply the Archetype’s power. On the way, he raced past the Rockhound, which had been pumping shots from her rail-gun at targets of opportunity; the Snow Leopard hung close by her, bolstering the smaller ships close-in defences with her own, even while blazing away with her pulse-cannons.