by J. N. Chaney
Dash nodded. Both the Slipwing and the Snow Leopard had proven useful in the past, but only in a very limited way. They were both good ships in their own right, but neither were up to the task of taking on the tech of the Golden. And, as much as it pained Dash to say—because he loved the Slipwing, they had gotten through some tough times together—in the end, she and Benzel’s Snow Leopard stood to be more of a liability in battle, things that needed to be protected.
Not so much anymore, though. Both had been upgraded by the Forge, their particle cannons replaced by far more capable pulse cannons, their engines modified and refined to make them both more powerful and efficient, their ablative armor strengthened by the addition of plates of an Unseen alloy that managed to weigh almost nothing. They’d also each had point-defense systems added, one on the Slipwing, and three on the Snow Leopard. Most importantly, they’d each had the necessary gear added to let them plug into the networked command and control systems of the Silent Fleet, meaning they shared access to the whole Fleet’s scanner data and could now operate as seamless parts of the whole. More upgrades, including shields, improved missiles, and better sensor suites were planned but hadn’t been installed yet.
Even so, it was ironic, Dash thought, that his poor old Slipwing, a ship pretty much anyone would glance at once and write off as a tired old courier, one of a multitude, was now one of the most powerful and capable ships in the galactic arm.
The thought made him smile. She’d earned it.
The last of the scrambler mines were loaded into the Snow Leopard. Wei-Ping listened to something on her comm, then looked at Dash.
“That’s it. Everything on the checklist has been ticked off. We’re ready to launch, boss.”
Dash nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s go to Siren and see if we can kick some Golden ass.”
Or Bright ass. Thinking of their prisoner, Kizdin, and the things his people had done, Dash would be okay with kicking their asses, too, and hard.
15
Dash kept his eyes glued to the threat indicator as they dropped out of unSpace. There was nothing, but the system could easily be hiding many threats. It was a complex, binary star system, a white dwarf in close orbit around a far bigger, main sequence O-class white star. The smaller companion yanked a stream of incandescent gas from its primary, much of which slowly accumulated on its surface.
Eventually—Sentinel estimated sometime in the next thousand years or so—the matter piled on the white dwarf’s surface would pass a critical point and undergo spontaneous fusion, releasing a vast pulse of energy in an instant. The resulting nova had fired repeatedly in the past, the searing shockwaves smashing the inner planets to rubble while scouring the outer ones into scorched and barren rocks. Through the debris of past nova blasts, a solitary gas giant sailed majestically—and it was from it that the first hint of trouble came.
“Dash, that Dark Metal return is somewhere inside that debris cloud near the white dwarf,” Leira said. “But there’s so much damned dust and gas and crap that sensors are—”
“Hold that thought, Leira,” Dash cut in. The threat indicator had flickered to life. Something metallic had just risen over the limb of the gas giant. It was too small to be much of a ship, but it immediately lashed out with a powerful laser, the coherent energy splashing off the two mechs. “You see that?”
“Yeah. What’s up with that, though? That laser’s like shining a flashlight at us, at this distance.”
“That’s the point, I think. Right, Sentinel?”
“It is likely that the laser energy currently being reflected from the Archetype and the Swift is only intended for target illumination and designation, yes.”
“We’re being lit up by some sort of detection system, or warning system, or something like that, then?” Leira said.
Dash narrowed his eyes. “That, or an aiming system.”
The threat indicator changed again, highlighting a sudden series of sensor returns from the near edge of the debris cloud.
No, not just a series—a multitude.
“Holy crap, that’s a lot of missiles!” Leira snapped.
“Fifty-four missiles inbound, in fact,” Tybalt said, his fussy, matter-of-fact tone not even hinting at the insanity of such a volume of fire. It did mean, though, that they’d poked something of significance in this system, because you didn’t fire such an extravagant barrage of ordnance without a pretty good reason.
“What do you want to do, Dash?” Leira asked.
Dash flicked his attention across the heads-up. Their second wave, led by the Silent Fleet ships under Wei-Ping, hadn’t yet arrived. Close behind it came the Snow Leopard, commanded by Benzel, the Slipwing, and their flotilla of drones.
“Sentinel, that laser is probably lighting us up to make us better targets for those missiles, right?” Dash said.
“That is correct. The missiles are likely self-guiding, but the advantage of target designation of this type is that it is largely immune to countermeasures. As long as the Archetype and Swift are reflecting light of a particular frequency, the missiles will home in on it.”
Dash nodded. “Okay, then. Leira, it’s been a while since we’ve played around with a gas giant, right?”
“Oh, come on, are you serious?”
Dash answered by flinging the Archetype toward the gas giant at maximum acceleration. The Swift immediately fell into formation.
“Great, so you are serious,” Leira muttered. “For me, this war feels like it’s been nothing but plummeting into super-hostile environments like stars and gas giants. You know, the sorts of places we’re supposed to stay out of?”
“This’ll be the last time, I promise,” Dash replied.
“You said that with your fingers crossed so it doesn’t count, didn’t you?”
“Toes too.”
The missiles began to arc, their trajectories bending to accommodate the sudden course change of the mechs. As they did, Dash saw them arranging themselves into a particular formation; he asked Sentinel what they were up to.
“This formation will cause the maximum number of missiles to eclipse one another relative to us, meaning closer missiles must be destroyed before ones further back can be engaged. It is likely the nearer missiles incorporate shields to make that destruction more difficult. At the same time, the formation maximizes the number of surviving missiles that can attack at once.”
“Clever,” Dash replied. “Wei-Ping, Benzel, Amy, I’m assuming you guys are getting all of this. No change to the plan so far.”
There were no acknowledgements, which was just how they’d intended it. Their second wave traveled more slowly, because their translation drives—all slaved to the Silent Fleet flagship, the Herald—had given up efficiency for stealth. In building the scrambler mines, Custodian had been able to discern how the Verity most likely located ships in unSpace, before yanking them out of it and turning them into vulnerable prey. By translating much closer to the virtual boundary between unSpace and real space, in the region the Unseen called the Dark Between, their second-wave ships should be effectively invisible to the Verity.
It was also much slower and far more demanding of sheer computational power. Without even knowing it, Dash had started down that road with the Fade system on the Slipwing, which allowed her to partly enter the Dark Between and hide there. Her nav computer was woefully inadequate for actually navigating the region, though, and it had never occurred to Dash to even try anyway. To the Unseen systems aboard the Herald, it was no big deal.
It also meant that the Verity should only be aware of the two mechs, which they had seen working together—and, more importantly, alone—many times now. But it also meant that the second wave had to stay comms-silent, too.
“We are fifteen minutes from achieving orbit around the gas giant, Dash,” Sentinel said. “But only if we begin decelerating in no less than ten—”
“We aren’t orbiting the gas giant,” Dash replied. “We’re going to crash right into it.”
&
nbsp; “Dash, are you really sure this is a good idea?” Leira asked.
The vast bulk of the gas giant now loomed ahead of them, swallowing more and more of the starfield by the second.
“Am I sure? Hell, when have we ever been sure of anything?”
“So the answer is no.”
“Dash, we are now two minutes from the edge of the upper atmosphere,” Sentinel said. “At this velocity, the aerodynamic forces and frictional heat of our atmospheric entry will approach the tolerance limits of both the Archetype and the Swift.”
“I know.” Dash began angling the mech’s trajectory ever so slightly, raising it by a small increment relative to the massive planet. At the same time, he watched the threat indicator. The swarm of missiles still pursued them, gaining rapidly despite the enormous velocity of the mechs. The nearest would intercept them at about the same time that they hit the upper atmosphere.
“Sentinel, how long until that laser satellite passes behind the gas giant?”
“Relative to us? Approximately thirty seconds if it remains in its current orbit.”
“Perfect. Okay, Leira, in one minute I’d like you to get Tybalt to slave the Swift to the Archetype for navigation.”
“Okay, what do you have planned?”
“You’ll see.”
“Dash,” Leira replied, her voice tight with annoyance. “This isn’t a good time to be all cryptic.”
“Not doing it just for the fun of it. Just trust me on this, okay?”
“Okay, fine.”
Dash watched the threat indicator carefully.
The laser energy illuminating the mechs abruptly died as the satellite generating it set beneath the horizon of the gas giant.
Dash waited another twenty seconds. “Sentinel, are you controlling both mechs?”
“I am.”
“Good. I want you to shut down all systems on them, except for thrusters and the nav track…now.”
The Archetype went dark.
Dash immediately nudged the thrusters, easing the two mechs slowly toward a higher trajectory over the gas giant.
“Dash, our course will no longer take us into the gas giant.”
“I know. Just hang on.”
The huge planet was now a vertical wall blotting out half the starfield. Dash kept nudging the two mechs into an ever-so-slightly higher trajectory until they hit the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere. The Archetype shuddered, slewed hard to one side, and a heavy rumble shook the mech. Their course was now too shallow for atmospheric insertion, though, so the two mechs bounced off the atmospheric gases and were flung back into space.
“Messenger, kill everything!” Dash said. “Every flicker of power, shut it down”
The heads-up faded to black. Plunged into sudden darkness, Dash just waited, hanging weightless in the cradle. After thirty seconds, he said, “Okay, full power, both mechs.”
The Archetype surged back to life. Dash spun the mech around, his gaze flicking across the heads-up and the threat indicator, seeking out the oncoming missiles.
Dozens of fiery trails streaked across the face of the gas giant, each one a missile that had plunged into its atmosphere. The math was simple; the missiles should now be overtaking the two mechs and, in their death throes, detonating all around them. The explosions would be even more powerful, thanks to the shockwaves ripping through the atmospheric gases. Instead, the Swift and the Archetype were thousands of kilometers away, having only nicked the atmosphere like stones skipping across water, and hurling back into space.
“Of the fifty-four missiles, forty-three are now in the atmosphere and are unlikely to survive long enough to escape back into space,” Sentinel said. “Eleven missiles were able to adapt to your course change and maneuver accordingly.”
“Eleven is a lot better than fifty-four,” Dash said, opening fire with the dark-lance and smashing missiles to wreckage. Leira did likewise with the Swift’s dark-lance. Two missiles made it close enough to detonate, but both inflicted only superficial damage.
“Okay, Dash, so we’re now rocketing off into deep space,” Leira said. “Can I assume you have something else planned, or are we calling it a day?”
“Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice.” Dash glanced at the chrono. “The second wave should be dropping out of unSpace in about fifteen minutes. By then, I want to be completely around this gas giant and closing in on whatever’s in that debris field. That should make Wei-Ping, Benzel, and Amy one pincer, coming around one side of the planet, with us comprising the other.”
“Okay, have to admit, that’s pretty clever.”
“You really don’t have to keep sounding so surprised.”
“Hey, can’t let it go to your head, right?” Leira asked.
Dash chuckled as he powered up the Archetype’s drive, steering the mech back toward the gas giant, this time to pass safely around it.
“Okay, Dash, we’re here. Um, wow,” Wei-Ping said.
Dash frowned. “What is it?”
“That thing coming out of that debris cloud. Holy shit!”
Dash’s stomach clenched up. “Sentinel, can you get the feed from the Silent Fleet?”
A window popped open on the heads-up, showing the view from the Herald. Something massive had indeed shouldered its way out of the debris field filling the space between the gas giant the binary stars. It was a flattened sphere the size of a small space station, hundreds of meters across. Six small, sleek ships accompanied it. It didn’t seem to be engaging the Silent Fleet, though. The trajectory of the…whatever the hell it was, and its half-dozen escorts, seemed intended to intercept the Archetype and the Swift instead. Sure enough, another barrage of missiles leapt from the massive Verity construct.
“It would appear to be a missile platform,” Sentinel said. “Available scan data shows it also mounts three petawatt lasers, six batteries of less powerful point-defense pulse cannons, and that it is capable of trans-luminal travel.”
“That has got to be the source of the big Dark Metal signal in this system,” Dash said. “At least, please tell me that it is and there isn’t something even bigger lurking around here.”
“No, Messenger, that would indeed correspond to the Dark Metal signature detected by the Forge’s interferometer,” Tybalt said.
“That’s good news at least,” Leira put in.
Wei-Ping—and Benzel, who’d now arrived in the Snow Leopard—didn’t waste time. They raced in to do battle, the Verity only detecting them when they were already within weapons range. Dark-lance beams reached out from the Herald and the other ships of the Silent Fleet, while the Snow Leopard began pouring out pulse-cannon shots. Two of the smaller Verity ships, fast-attack missile frigates, immediately vanished in spectacular bursts of dazzling light and spinning wreckage. The other four accelerated hard to engage the Herald and her cohorts, while the missile platform proceeded to pump out wave after wave of ordnance.
What followed was a ferocious melee that began as salvoes of missiles flung back and forth by the combatants, punctuated by dark-lance, pulse cannon, and laser shots. Dash and Leira bored in, taking advantage of tumbling chunks of rock to cover them, dodging from side to side and snapping out shots at the Verity ships and the missile platform they were protecting.
The Herald and her cohorts closed in from nearly the opposite direction, the other pincer moving to crush their enemy in its grip. The Silent Fleet ships wove about as they fought, maximizing their fire while presenting the most difficult possible targets. In minutes, the battlespace was filled with dozens of speeding missiles, searing flashes as warheads detonated, and the remains of missiles streaking and whirling among the tumbling rocks.
“How many missiles is that damned platform carrying?” Dash snapped, watching as yet another salvo erupted from its launch ports and raced away, hunting targets. He used the distortion cannon to good effect, but sparingly, as the powerful surges of gravity yanked the ancient planetary debris out of their orbits and tossed them into new and unpredicta
ble paths. The Archetype had already taken one solid hit from a hunk of rock, receiving more damage from that than from any of the enemy action so far.
“The maximum number of missiles that platform could possibly hold is approximately five thousand, given its internal volume,” Sentinel said. “However, it is likely considerably less than that, since some of the interior must be used for other purposes, such as power generation, missile handling—”
“Fine,” Dash cut in, firing the dark-lance and blasting apart a missile streaking in at the Swift. “It was kind of a rhetorical question anyway.”
A blinding flash enveloped the Archetype, making the heads-up quickly darken. Through the Meld, he felt a tremendous wash of heat across the mech’s hull. Dash threw himself to one side and the heat abruptly abated. Several of the smaller rocks nearby had been puffed to vapor; larger ones glowed fiery red and vented clouds of gas.
“Let me guess,” Dash said. “That was one of their big lasers.”
“Correct,” Sentinel replied. “The Archetype suffered moderate external damage.”
Dash gave a quick nod. The Archetype’s shield was transparent to light, so it offered no protection from lasers—and this one’s power ran in the petawatt range, about one percent of the total energy a typical G-class star shone onto a typical terrestrial planet orbiting it. That didn’t sound like much, until you really thought about it.
“We’re going to have to come up with a counter to that,” Dash muttered, then dodged the Archetype behind a rock the size of a small mountain to take a breather and give the Archetype a moment to self repair before launching himself back into the fray. As he did, he took in the tactical situation depicted on the heads-up.
Two more of the Verity frigates had been destroyed, and one of the remaining two drifted through space, trailing vapor and debris, its drive barely flickering. In turn, Wei-Ping had lost one of the Silent Fleet ships—not destroyed, but badly battered and limping out of the fight. The other ships, including the Herald, had taken hits, but were all still powered up, moving and shooting.
