by Kalina, Mark
Freya watched with Ice Knife's sensors as the lance-ships' drive plumes suddenly went dark. The two ships still were plainly visible as distant beacons of infra-red energy. They had attained their desired vectors and were streaking in towards the Conquering Sun on a ballistic course. The Conquering Sun kept her drive lit, denying the two lance-ships a look at her actual hull.
All three ships would be deploying their bow-shields now, unfolding the alloy mesh panels and filling them with ablative fluid polymer. The shields would absorb energy from enemy lasers, ablating the polymer and saving the ship behind them. The shield-polymer was also a fantastically good neutron absorber, just in case some enemy still mounted neutron particle beams, even though the old-fashioned weapons couldn't come close to matching the power-to-mass ratio of modern lasers.
The closest approach was going to be too far for the ships' lasers to focus killing energy densities, but at the actual moment of engagement the bow-shields would be pointed at the enemy, hoping to intercept and absorb the energy of interceptor-launched detonation laser warheads. It would take more than one hit from the x-ray lasers of an anti-ship warhead to get through a capital ship's bow-shields. Of course if the enemy's interceptors managed to launch warheads to attack from the sides of a ship, the bow-shields would be of no use, and there was no practical way of mounting liquid polymer shields along the sides of a ship.
The combatant ships would be extending their laser arrays and sensor masts, peeking the emitters and receivers over the edges of their bow-shields. Interceptors would be ready in their launch bays, pilots transferred into their command neural nets. The battle was about to start.
Ice Knife and Skyrunner would have no part in the upcoming battle, except to observe and, possibly, to pursue, if one of the lance-ships survived. Freya could have ordered her ships to ride into the fight, hovering just barely out of range, but the firepower that her two swift-ships could add would be negligible and at that close a range the swift-ships would have had to deal with high intensity blinding laser fire from the enemy. At this point, her mission was mostly to observe and maybe to stand by to act as a rescue platform for any Hegemonic Fleet interceptors that might not be able to manage a link up with the Conquering Sun once the battle was over, a task better performed outside of the glare and chaos of the actual engagement.
To Freya it seemed clear that raiders had guessed that the "freight super-liner" was actually a warship, but their reckless attack also made it clear that they did not know it was an assault-ship; maybe they did think that it was an armed transport-cruiser... In any case, they would not have much time to be surprised. In a few minutes, they would be too close to pull out of effective range in time, even if they wanted to. At that moment, the Conquering Sun would drop her pretense.
There! The Conquering Sun had shut down her drive. She would be rotating bow-on to the enemy now. Range between the ships was down to about six million kilometers; still far outside of normal effective range, but with the two sides hurtling towards each other so rapidly, interceptors launched far out of range would be in range at the moment the two sides passed each other.
The launch of Conquering Sun's interceptors was undetectable without massive magnification, but the sudden flare of her PLAs increased the intensity of her thermal signature. The enemy ships had to see her now, and would be realizing that they were facing an assault-ship. They would also realize that even with their maximum acceleration, they could not change their vector enough to bring the point of closest approach outside of the range of the interceptors Conquering Sun had just launched.
Freya watched the two enemy ships, waiting for a reaction, but they kept their course. Then suddenly, her visual sensors degraded as one of the lance-ships put a blinding laser on the Ice Knife. Sensor drones deployed at her command and the ship's own sensors tried to see past the glare. Range was too long for really effective blinding. Still, Freya was reluctantly impressed; the enemy had not bothered with a futile evasion or a desperate launch. They were holding back their interceptors till the range was close enough that their PLAs could power one interceptor each; that should give two lance-ships a combined salvo of twelve interceptors, the same number as the Conquering Sun had just launched while holding back half of her own PLAs to power the second stage of her long range attack.
On the other hand, stopping an interceptor with an interceptor was harder to manage than attacking a larger ship; the little parasite fighters were elusive targets, and firing times in interceptor-versus-interceptor combat were vanishingly brief. Still, it was the correct response from the lance-ships, maximizing their defensive firepower now that they saw what they were up against, and it might even let the lance-ships, or one of them, survive.
If that happened, Ice Knife and Skyrunner might need to make an attack run. Against an undamaged pair of lance-ships, two swift-ships were almost useless, but against a single damaged survivor, they might well be able to deliver the finishing blow.
Freya watched as the thermal signatures of the outbound interceptors spread out towards the intercept point with the lance-ships. All three of the big ships were drifting now, hiding behind bow-shields, exposing only weapons and sensors. All three ships were firing their tertiary laser arrays, lasing each other to degrade sensors. Range between the ships had fallen to two million kilometers.
The lance-ships launched their interceptors, each ship powering their maximum salvo of six. Together it made a decent defensive salvo, but it was not likely to be enough against the twelve inbound interceptors. Basic defensive doctrine required a two-to-one advantage to reliably stop an enemy interceptor with a defensive interceptor; with twelve to twelve, the lance-ships might be able to degrade the Conquering Sun's attack if they coordinated properly, but they were not likely to stop it. And the lance-ships would be dealing with the more powerful blinding lasers of the assault-ship. Now the high closure rate made more sense to Freya. By closing in at such a high velocity, the lance-ships had decreased the effectiveness of blinding lasers for all sides, giving their own salvo of defensive interceptors the best possible chance to save their ships if their "victim" turned out to be something other than what it had appeared to be. That showed a lot of foresight, Freya thought, and a thorough, sober tactical approach... or just a very suspicious mind on the part of the lance-ships' commander.
The two salvos of interceptors accelerated towards each other, the attacking salvo from Conquering Sun spreading out somewhat, forcing the defending interceptors to spread out as well. With luck, Freya thought, they would spread out too far, leaving holes in their defense formation through which some of Conquering Sun's interceptors could pass unimpeded.
Suddenly, there were more thermal flares from the lance-ships, and Freya frowned. It looked like the lance-ships had launched more interceptors, but they had not stopped lasing for the original salvo; two lance-ships would have no PLAs that were not already lasing...
None the less, sensors counted eighteen more interceptors streaking out from each of the two lance-ships; a total of thirty-six launches, forty-eight counting the first dozen. That was impossible. Even at close range, that was more than twice the firepower of an assault-ship. No lance-ship could carry that sort of laser power.
But these two ships did. Freya could see the blaze of laser energy and waste heat clearly. The two lance-ships flared like stars as each one boosted two dozen interceptors outbound.
The Conquering Sun was reacting, lighting her main drive to complicate the enemy's intercept, venting laser coolant and launching a dozen defensive interceptors with the almost over-heated PLAs that had just been used to boost the first two waves of interceptors on their first stage.
"Weapons, all lasers on those lance-ships; put maximum laser energy on those ships!" Freya ordered.
"We're too far out of range," said Muir, "we can't do anything to them from here."
"We can blind them from one more angle, add a little more heat to their systems to deal with, reduce their radiator effi
ciency!" As much as it could be inside the neural net, Freya's tone was desperate.
"Communications," Freya went on, "signal Skyrunner. I want maximum sustained acceleration on a vector towards those lance-ships. We need to give them something else to think about!"
"We're too far away," Muir said.
Freya did not answer. She knew that already.
Zandy was on the beam. Twelve enemy interceptors were spread out before her, screaming towards her at a combined velocity of almost six thousand kilometers per second, two percent the speed of light. It was the fastest intercept she had ever done, even in sims.
Worse yet, impossibly worse, was that thirty-six more enemy interceptors were on a separate vector for the Conquering Sun. Forty-eight enemy interceptors from two lance-ships; it was an impossible number. It would take a multiple assault-ships to launch that many... or it should have. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was the moment.
The enemy defensive wave was less than a minute away from intercept. The geometry of a battle at these closure rates meant that all the actual shooting, both at the defending interceptors and at the actual targets, would all be compressed into just a few minutes. Everything, this whole battle, would be over in less than three minutes.
The huge closing velocity had a strange side effect; the opposing capital ships had launched their interceptors millions of kilometers from their targets, aiming at where the enemy would be at the point of closest approach. Which meant that, for now, the capital ships were much further apart than they would have been in a normal intercept. The longer distance made their blinding lasers noticeably less effective than usual, and Zandy could see the defensive salvo of twelve enemy 'ceptors, two full waves, with remarkable clarity. Usually only her radio detectors, picking up the powerful but indistinct static from the enemies' drives, would be giving her any reliable data by now; her visual and thermal sensors would be flooded with laser energy and she would be trying to sneak remote sensor drones out into space to give her a clear glimpse of her surroundings. Instead she could see the enemy interceptors clearly with her thermal sensors and even visual sensors still gave her an intermittent, fuzzy image of their laser-driven exhaust plumes.
She was feeding all her sensor data via laser link to the other interceptors of First Wave; she was deputy wave leader now. She had to make sure she did not forget her new duties.
The clear view wouldn't last; soon, she knew, she'd be within effective blinding range of the enemy lance-ships' lasers. It would be very brief, though. She'd be through the usual high intensity range of the enemy's lasers in less than fifty seconds. But that was going to be the fifty seconds that counted. Her actual engagement time against the target lance-ships was going to be less than two seconds, compared to about ten seconds for a usual run.
The enemy would have a hard time stopping her interceptor, she knew, but with only two seconds of laser-blinded tracking time, she'd have just as hard a time hitting them.
Of course, if she didn't focus and pay attention to the twelve interceptors heading right at her, she wouldn't live to get to the lance-ships. Wave Leader Handric was signaling, sending out a coordinated laser blinding plan against the dozen inbounds. She took a long second to review it, then implemented it. Her own small lasers lashed out, flooding the sensors of the enemy interceptors with energy. They were returning the favor, but the range was long enough that the sensor degradation was limited to annoyance levels. The engagement window to hit the enemy fighters was going to be amazingly brief; less than one second if she used her anti-interceptor warheads. She could task an anti-ship warhead; the bigger warhead's detonation lasers had greater effective range and would extend her engagement envelope, but that would be a waste. She didn't need to kill these interceptors; just to avoid being killed by them.
At least, Zandy thought, the Conquering Sun had realized the nature of the situation. If Conquering Sun cut off laser power to First Wave and transferred the pilots back for a defensive launch in their backup interceptors, she could launch twenty-four interceptors for defense. But there were forty-eight enemy interceptors in space, somehow, and thirty-six of those were on a vector to hit the assault-ship. There was no way to stop that many. But if the dozen interceptors of First Wave and Third Wave got through and killed the lance-ships, all the enemy interceptors would lose power.
"OK, people," came the signal for Handric, "here we go. Hold on to some of your anti-'ceptor warheads in case of a follow-on defensive salvo, and don't take any risks going for a interceptor kill; all we need to do is get through them."
In her mind, Zandy nodded. There were forty seconds left till the intercept with the enemy's defensive interceptor salvo. They were spread out, matching the spread of First and Third Waves as much as possible.
They were reacting to the Conquering Sun's attack salvo, Zandy realized with a sudden start, and that reaction created possibilities. The enemy interceptors had numerical parity, and they were probably loaded exclusively for anti-interceptor combat, carrying a lot more anti-interceptor warheads and none of the larger anti-ship warheads.
That would give the defensive interceptors a firepower advantage. But if she deployed sensor drones a few seconds early, and then maneuvered to pull the enemy interceptors into the coverage zone of the drones... they'd have to be very sharp to notice the trick, and it would give her better sensors data than she could have otherwise had. If it worked, it could compensate for some of the enemy's firepower advantage; more accurate targeting was worth more than pure firepower, in an interceptor fight.
Less than thirty seconds to go. Her acceleration was averaging sixty five gees, but she'd go as close to ninety as she could to make the actual intercept. She triggered a spread of drones and slewed the interceptor away from them, setting up the maneuver.
Laser energy from the inbound interceptors filled her visual and thermal sensors with glare as her own lasers tried to return the favor. Ten seconds to intercept.
She angled the reflectors and fed fission fuel into the drive, reaching eighty-nine gees for a moment. She could feel the stress on her hull as she skidded back towards the vector she had left her drones on; they were a few hundred kilometers behind her now; they had not accelerated at all after she had deployed them, but as the enemy interceptor that had chosen her as a target reacted to her maneuver, it came within the sight line of the drifting sensor drones. It hadn't noticed the deployment in time and her sensor drones were clear of laser blinding.
She tasked her own lasers to blind the enemy's sensor drones as they deployed. At three seconds to intercept she triggered four of her anti-'ceptor warheads. The long darts detached from her interceptor and fired stand-off drives to take them to safe detonation range. This far from the enemy mother-ship, the warheads could survive for a few seconds.
Two seconds; she could see, through her sensor drones, dozens of enemy warheads spreading out. She could see the enemy sensor drones too. She shifted her lasers to cover them.
One second; there were too many enemy drones for her blinding lasers to cover. She needed more laser power. An instant decision and one of her warheads detonated, aimed at a concentration of enemy sensor drones. The flare of the nuke added to the blinding effect on some of the drones. Other drones melted in the instant fury of x-ray laser energy. Zandy dumped more fission fuel and slewed off her base vector in a wild spiral, desperate to evade the targeting solutions of the enemy's warheads.
Intercept. She crossed through the effective range of hers and the enemy warheads in a fifth of a second. Her three remaining warheads detonated, together with more than a dozen enemy warheads. For an instant the glare of nuclear explosions blotted out all sensor data.
She was still alive. The bow-shields were showing severe damage; x-ray laser energy had vaporized the ablative polymer and melted part of the shield mesh. But she was alive; she must have caught just the edge of the x-ray laser pulse's focus.
Her sensor drones were still giving her data, showing the enemy
interceptor drifting with no acceleration, surrounded by an expanding cloud of vapor and debris. That was a kill.
Other enemy 'ceptors flashed past her, out of mutual range in a fraction of a second.
She looked for the rest of her wave. There were four signals still showing for First Wave, plus her. Third Wave showed four total. Third Wave would have to take care of itself, but someone was gone in First Wave too. It took her a moment to realize it was Handric. She was Wave Leader now.
Freya watched as the leading edge of the Conquering Sun's interceptor salvo intersected with the defensive interceptors from the lance-ships. The point of intercept was suddenly lit with dozens of savage pinpricks of nuclear detonations. A moment later she watched the two salvos streak apart. There were still nine interceptors left from the Conquering Sun's wave, only seven left from the enemy salvo. The Hegemonic Fleet could usually count on an advantage in interceptor pilot quality, especially over the Coalition. The Coalies had what amounted to a religious hatred of daemons, and only daemons could fly an interceptor.
It occurred to Freya that she was assuming the enemy lance-ships were Coalition ships. Their basic drive signature and architecture looked Coalition, and whatever those ships were, they were no hard-scrabble pirates.
Ice Knife and Skyrunner were accelerating at just over seven gees, pushing hard to intercept the lance-ships. There wasn't too much practical purpose to the maneuver. It would take more than two hours for her ships to make the intercept, even if the lance-ships did not try to accelerate away. All she could hope was that her approach might give the enemy lance-ships one more thing to worry about.
The question kept coming to her; what were those ships? They massed like lance-ships, half a megaton each, and they accelerated like lance-ships. Their basic hull shape looked like lance-ships. But each enemy ship's firepower was equal to that of an assault-ship. It should have been an impossible combination, except that it was obviously real.