“What the mother is that?” asked Albertini as he handed the cup of tea to the captain, his eyes on the pulsing blue ball in the visual screen.
“Is that your first troid up close?” James took the mug of green tea.
“Yes, ser.” Albertini extended the second cup to Trystin, but the tech’s eyes were still on the screen.
Trystin took the cup, and a quick sip before setting it in the holder by his right hand.
“ … the friggin’ revs … how long those corpsies been chilled?” the tech whispered.
“Now, now, they’re just on a mission for the Prophet.” James set his tea down.
“Twenty years, give or take a few,” answered Trystin.
“You’d better get back and strapped in,” suggested James.
“Yes, ser.”
On the screen the green-shaded points of light—the Coalition ships—moved toward the blue-shaded points of light.
The Coalition corvettes were higher-powered, with heavier shields, and somewhat less maneuverable. The revs accelerated faster and formed into a wedge, close enough that they merged on the screen, possibly close enough that their shields overlapped.
The wedge arrowed toward the forward arc of the Coalition corvettes.
Nothing happened as the ships drew closer. Then a series of green-dashed lines flickered from the Coalition formation toward the lead revvie scout.
The torpedoes intersected the arrowhead, and two points of light flashed, but the remaining revvie scouts reconfigured into two smaller wedges and split apart, sending their own torps out.
A Coalition corvette went up.
Concentration of firepower—that was the game.
Another Coalition corvette vanished—just vanished—from the screen.
So did a revvie scout.
A blue-dashed torp course line flared from the right revvie arrow toward the trailing corvette on the left flank of the Coalition formation.
Trystin watched, and it appeared that the corvette never saw the torp. The ship just flashed into red, then disappeared from the screen. How could a pilot not sense a potential lock-on?
The Coalition corvettes let loose another barrage of coordinated torps, then peeled away from the oncoming revs in a circular sweep that seemed designed to bring all the corvettes back onto the left revvie wedge a few light-minutes in-system.
The right arrow of revvie scouts swept toward the cruisers. The left arrow of revvie scouts swept across where the vanished corvette had been.
Abruptly, a blue point of light appeared—behind the revvie wedge—released three torps in rapid succession, and then accelerated into a sweeping left turn.
Two more torps flew, and blue and green lights merged, before another pinlight of sun flashed across the screen.
Two revvie scouts went up in light to the torps of the destroyed but previously “vanished” corvette, and the Coalition corvettes converged on the weakened left wedge, with torp lines crisscrossing on the screen.
A single revvie scout remained, apparently left alone, as the remaining six corvettes accelerated on a stern chase after the four revvie scouts that closed on the cruisers.
“Full shields,” ordered James.
Feeling the captain’s control of the torps, Trystin waited as the Willis and the revs closed on each other.
Another series of torps flared from the Coalition corvettes, and more revvie scouts vanished, leaving two revvie scouts headed toward the cruisers.
“Fire one!”
Trystin felt the command through the system, rather than heard the words.
“Two! Three! Four!”
Four torps that quickly?
Trystin watched as the torps impacted one right after the other on the shields on the lead rev—and the scout flared into dust.
Absently, Trystin realized that the remaining rev scout from the other wedge had surprised another corvette with what seemed like a suicide dash. Both scout and corvette flashed into nearly pure energy.
The remaining scout pounded toward the Sebastopol, somehow avoiding the first torp from the cruiser, and the second, and launching its own torp.
The Sebastopol’s shields flared amber, and stayed amber, but the rev went up in energy with two more torps from the remaining three corvettes.
Trystin wiped his forehead, then computed closure rates. The Willis remained three light-mins out from the rev—an enormous absolute distance, and a very short time to closure.
“Iron Mace two, this is Sledge Control. Coordinate dump follows. Coordinate dump follows.”
“Sledge Control, Mace two, standing by for coordinate dump. Standing by this time.” James nodded to Trystin.
The coordinate dump was just that—a blast of data—with detailed coordinates outlining the two target points on the troid. In too many places, even the heavy troid-killer torps would slam into the nickel-iron without much impact—or not enough to disrupt the course or mission of the troid.
Trystin reviewed the dump, then plugged the coordinates into the targeting parameters. “Target points established, ser.”
“Stet, Lieutenant.”
Ghostlike images flared from the troid, more than a dozen, and then another wave of revvie scouts rose from the hidden locks of the troid, only five in all, but only the three corvettes remained in front of the cruisers.
Trystin nodded to himself, knowing that the ghostlike paraglider wings were on their way to Mara, and, with their radar-transparent silhouettes, by the time the battle around the troid was over, system control would be lucky to find half of the paragliders, if that.
“Holding back scouts to keep us from going after the gliders,” James said quietly, then asked, “Interrogative time to launch point.”
Trystin ran the comps again, letting the figures spin through him and across the circuit to the captain.
“They’ll be here before we’re there.” The captain paused, then added, “Weapons, stand by on torp changeover. Badboys incoming.”
“Standing by, Captain.” Liam’s voice sounded tinny on the net, the result of converting vocal vibrations to neuroelectrical pulse.
“Lieutenant, you have the con. Get us to the launch point in one piece, and take as many of them as you can along the way. Standard torps will fire at twice normal rate.”
Trystin noted that the captain neither closed his eyes nor relaxed.
“Yes, ser. I have the con. Torps will fire at twice normal rate.” Immediately, Trystin began bleeding back the power flow to the thrusters slightly, cutting acceleration levels by five percent. He checked the accumulators again, but the hiccuping, while reduced, still occurred. Why could the Willis fire torps at twice the standard rate? That could wait for later.
Trystin triggered the restraints warning. “All personnel take restraints. All personnel take restraints.”
“Shit …”
It might have been Albertini’s voice, but Trystin ignored it, and dropped the shields to half-power while lifting the Willis above the past battle plane. He boosted the power flow to the accumulators, until they registered at a hundred percent, then slowly eased up acceleration.
Two of the revvie scouts veered from their centerline toward the Willis. Trystin kept the cruiser lifting for another minute, then dropped the nose back to a direct vector toward the troid, although it would take a while to overcome the rising vector—which was fine. He didn’t have to worry about drag—not that much in space.
Trystin kept studying the revvie scouts, watching …
With the first flicker in their EDI envelope, he acted.
“Full restraints!”
“Shit …”
Even before Albertini had finished swearing, Trystin had poured all the stored accumulator power into the thrusters and dumped the nose even more, hoping his calculations were correct. Scouts didn’t have beefed-up thrusters and accumulators. He also dumped the artificial grav and poured that power into acceleration.
The acceleration pushed him into the couch, and he
let it, watching as the torps flared toward the Willis.
“Fire one!”
“Fire two!”
He paused, checking the incoming lines.
“Fire three!”
Out of time, he dropped off enough power to bounce up full shields, and the “gravity” in the cabin slumped to a shade over normal, but it was pure acceleration effect.
“Shields! Desensitize!” he announced after the fact, as the Willis powered toward the troid, and as Trystin calculated the wave fronts, then lifted desensitivity, ready to reimpose it.
There were no torps. There were also no revvie scouts near the Willis, although one scout seemed to be fleeing the Mishima, and the two others did not register on the screens.
“Approaching launch point in one minute ship time,” Trystin announced.
“Stet. Time for the big ones.” The captain pulsed back to Liam. “Put the regular torps on standby and drop in the reds.”
“Loading red one and two at this time, Captain. Three and four standing by.”
The red torps—the troid busters—required both the action of the weapons officer and the pilot in command, unlike ship-to-ship torps. The weapons officers also underwent rather intensive screening, Trystin understood. After the experiences following the Die-off, the Coalition had a fetish about nuclear and nucleonic antimatter weapons.
“Let me know when they’re ready, Weapons.”
“Stet, ser.”
On the screen, the Willis moved closer to the large pulsing blip that was the revvie troid.
“Point five,” Trystin announced.
“I have the con, Lieutenant.”
“You have it, ser.”
“Red one is ready.” Liam’s voice was tinny and calm.
“Ignite red one,” ordered James.
“Red one is go,” responded Liam.
“Red two!”
“Red two is go.”
Trystin swallowed and waited for the reload, which took longer with the reds.
James appeared calm, then pulsed the command. “Red three!”
“Red three is go!”
“Red four!”
“Red four is go.”
“Changeover to standard torps.”
“Changing over this time.”
“Shields!”
“Shield in place, Captain,” Trystin responded.
“Desensitize.”
“Desensitized.”
Trystin could feel the pressure as James turned the Willis until she accelerated away from the troid, to eliminate the possibility of a collision with large objects resulting from the fragmentation of the troid, since the ship was traveling faster than the troid. Still, the path taken by the troid would have to be monitored, since flying through the planned troid course line would be dangerous for the next few days. After that, it wouldn’t matter.
Trystin glanced around. With the screens dead, and all external contacts cut, the cockpit felt more like a coffin, except for the gentle hissing of the recycling system and the holo displays of the internal status of the Willis. He wiped his forehead, and his eyes flicked toward the blank red-tinged boxes where the rest of the visual screen displays should be, then triggered the implant simulation through the representational screen, which showed the dotted course line of the huge torpedoes as they closed on the revvie asteroid ship.
At the moment of projected impact, nothing happened, except the dotted line on the display vanished. Trystin waited for the Willis to shiver … for something … but nothing occurred.
“Calculate,” he direct-fed, asking the mainframe for wave-front clearance.
“Wave front has passed, assuming all input parameters are accurate.” The words scripted across his mental screen.
“Let’s wait a moment,” suggested the captain.
Trystin couldn’t argue with that. Wave fronts didn’t always follow the calculations, and who knew what else might have been in the troid?
Shortly, James nodded and ordered, “Remove desensitizing.”
“Receiving input.”
The representational screen showed almost the same view as before—the outer planets, orbit control station—but only a faint luminescent haze marked the spot where nine superaccelerated torps had met the five-kay-diameter asteroid and translated a great deal of mass into nearly pure energy.
Two blue-dashed trails appeared on the screen, heading toward the Willis, nearly head-to-head.
“Shit …” mumbled Trystin.
“You have the con, Lieutenant. You have eighteen torps left. Use what you need.” James’s voice was cool.
“I have the con.” Trystin calculated—two minutes to their torp range. The hell with it.
He dropped the Willis into a marginal-gee acceleration, at a slight angle to the oncoming scouts.
“Shit … now what?”
Ignoring the comment from one of the techs, who probably felt as though his or her stomach were about to depart, he waited until the first flicker of the EDI, then slammed full power into the thrusters, turning the ship into the oncoming torps.
“Fire one! Fire two!”
He waited only until the tubes were reloaded.
“Fire three! Fire four!”
Then the shields went full up, and he waited, watching, without desensitizing for a moment.
“Control, Weapons. Loader on tube two is jammed. Tube one will fire at twice normal rate.”
“Stet, Weapons.” More sweat poured down Trystin’s face, and he wiped the dampness away from his eyes.
After another moment, Trystin dropped the shields momentarily—firing through shields was usually fatal.
“Fire one!” He waited. “Fire two!”
He raised the shields … and waited, conscious that the hiccuping from the accumulators was becoming a stutter.
The accumulators began to grab for power, and Trystin dropped them off-line.
The acceleration dropped to point seven, all the fusactors could maintain.
Trystin. held his breath, releasing it as two and then four torps flared past the Willis.
The right rev flared into energy.
Dropping shields, Trystin fired another torp, hoping another wouldn’t be necessary. It wasn’t.
After a moment, he wiped his forehead.
“Rather effective, Lieutenant.”
Trystin wiped his forehead again. His shipsuit was soaked. “Thank you, ser.”
“Clear to lift restraints,” the captain announced.
Trystin flushed. That was something he always forgot.
Liam Akibono stood in the cockpit hatch. He had a bruise on his forehead.
“Sorry,” Trystin apologized, with a quick look at the weapons officer. His senses went back to the screens, but the system seemed clear. From what he could tell, only two corvettes, the Mishima, and the Willis were left from the original Coalition strike force.
“Don’t be. I’d rather be battered than dead.” Liam looked at the captain. “The number one new loader needs a lot of work. The second one might last another mission. Maybe.”
“There’s another set at the station. See if you can get them installed. The company’s getting its field test.” James grinned wryly. “We have a few other repairs to take care of. So we’re not going anywhere soon.”
The weapons officer glanced at the screens. “Those revs are crazy. Head-to-head?”
Crazy? Trystin thought not, but offered nothing, knowing James was watching.
“I don’t think so, Liam,” said James. “One could almost respect them for doing the honorable thing.”
Trystin shivered. Honor was cold comfort, sometimes, and the captain’s words bothered him. So did the red telltales. “Captain, accumulators are shot. So are the right rear sensors.” He wondered how and when that had happened.
“Take us home, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, ser.”
“If we have a samovar left, Keiko, could you send someone up with some tea?”
“It might take a m
oment, ser, while we put it back together.”
Running on fifty-percent power, with no accumulators, the Willis limped back toward Parvati outer orbit control.
James sipped green tea, hair unmussed, apparently unruffled.
Trystin also sipped tea, but his hair stood on end, and he smelled like he’d been working out on the high-gee treadmill for days. He tried not to shiver in the damp shipsuit, after he finally docked the Willis firmly in place at lock epsilon four.
He wiped his forehead again. He was still sweating more than an hour after the last torp had fired.
“Let’s get to the debriefing, Lieutenant. After that, I’ll be gone for a while,” announced James. “You did file that last report on the accumulators, didn’t you?”
“Yes, ser. I’ve filed one after every mission. Isuki doesn’t ever want to see my face again.”
“Good.” James offered a smile, not the boyish one.
Trystin raised his eyebrows.
“After the ops debriefing, I’ll be seeing Senior Marshal Kovalik. So I might be a while. You need to get back here and relieve Liam. He’ll have to work fast to get the loaders replaced and to get us resupplied.”
“Yes, ser.” Trystin had an idea what Major James Sasaki was about to do with the commander of the outer orbit control station, and he was just as glad he wasn’t going to be around. Commander Frenkel might not be around much longer, either.
The torp loaders were another question. Trystin wondered what else lay hidden on the Willis.
38
“ … As cultures advance in knowledge and power, the conflict between reason and faith becomes apparently greater. Not only have people attained through technology the powers of old gods to cast thunderbolts or to heal or to destroy, but they have exercised those powers, and they know that divinity is not required. They can determine that sufficient power determines destiny.
“The problem with technology is that it rewards the able while also empowering those who are less able. A man who cannot fathom a computer or an infonet can destroy those who can, and who have been rewarded for their skills.
“Yet, if each individual obtains and wields the power within his or her scope, few individuals will survive. By placing power in a greater being, a deity, in some force greater than the individual, or even into a belief that the community is greater than the individual, an individual is expressing a faith in the need for an entity greater than mere personal ambition or appetite. That faith … allows the individual to refrain from exercising power, yet it also places such an individual at the mercy of those without such faith.
The Parafaith War Page 26