It became a matter of attention attrition. Which ship could overwhelm or trick the defenses of the other first and thus carry the day? Here the Turds had emphatically taken the upper hand.
Missiles streaked in, disgorging separable warheads with their smaller divert drives. Threat tracks blossomed and closed. The Puller responded, spinning out of the way, subjecting her crew to stresses strong enough to black them out. Combat meds flooded their bodies, inuring them to the stress. Electronic warfare dwells blasted at the individual threat tracks, scrambling warhead sensors and leading them astray or causing them to trigger early, exploding harmlessly and adding to the complex terrain forming between the two destroyers.
Lasers speared outward from the Puller to slag the incoming warheads, but they could only burn so fast, and there were only so many mounts, far fewer than what approached. As some of the missile bodies and warheads vaporized, others jetted aside and continued to close into the next defensive perimeter.
Point-defense cannons lit off, casting out multiple grams of hardened metal into the predicted paths of the warheads that made it past the laser defense line. Shooting like brilliant firehoses of BB pellets, the PDCs shredded the threats with blunt trauma, using the targets’ insane velocities against them. A glancing, momentary blow was effective here, not like the comparatively longer burn time required by the laser defenses. They could thus move from target to target much more rapidly, but they were physical rounds nonetheless. Even at their railgun-like velocities, it took time for the PDC pellets to cross the void, shred the target, assess it as a kill, and move on. All the while that target closed, and still other targets moved in, not to mention the occasional need for each PDC’s finite magazine to be reloaded, unlike the infinite depth of the lasers’ power.
Pellets, slag, and hot metal debris multiplied exponentially in the shrinking space between the ships, each particle of which had to be tracked, dopplered, and verified as no longer a threat before it could be ignored. Clutter tracks filled the already jammed sensor queues, slowing response times, complicating the tactical problem, and potentially allowing something less innocuous to sneak in.
No matter how well the crew, systems, and Benno parsed the tactical problem, warheads would make it past their defenses, especially as the clutter grew. The goal of any anti-ship space weapon was to hit and do as much damage as possible in the least amount of time. The most effective way to do that was to penetrate a ship somewhere with a tactical nuclear device, exploding it within the target ship, where lethal radiation would be absorbed and converted into thermal expansion and outward crushing force. But penetration was difficult, stymied by active defenses and the warships’ double-layer, anti-kinetic, armored glacis across its bow. Blow a nuke outside a ship in space, even very close aboard, and only a small portion of its energy was incident upon the target to do damage. Plus, there was no overpressure blast in the vacuum of space, unlike within an atmosphere.
Thus, if a warhead could not get close enough to administer the penetrative coup de grace or a highly destructive skin-on-skin blast, they were all designed to orient themselves and explode well outside the hull. The massive energy of the pure fusion explosion would mostly be wasted, but a certain percentage of it could be converted into another mode of destruction: a bomb-pumped laser.
The first separable warhead from the Annapolis to survive the ruinous flood of defensive fire reached initial engagement range and exploded in full thermonuclear glory twenty kilometers from the Puller. In the microseconds before thermal dissolution of the entire device into plasma, x-rays from the fusion reaction inundated the cylindrical casing of the warhead, pumping thin rods of lasing medium to high excitation. This population inversion then collapsed, releasing new x-rays preferentially along the axis of the rod, stimulating other atoms to emit their energy as well, with multi-layer x-ray mirrors collimating the energy into a coherent x-ray laser beam.
The bomb-pumped laser from the warhead only carried about 5% of the original ten terajoule weapon’s yield, but that was still enough to cause massive damage to the destroyer, perhaps enough to allow the next warhead or the next after that to penetrate and kill the Puller. But 20 kilometers was still a significant distance, even against a target as large as the continually maneuvering destroyer. That first beam missed and expended its 500 gigajoules of x-ray energy harmlessly into space, mere meters from the Puller’s skin.
The next warhead to make it through connected with the ship, however.
The coherent x-rays incident upon the destroyer’s outer skin vaporized the metal straight down, through surface after surface, deck after deck, with an approximate half-meter diameter. Scattered x-rays and thermal transfer energy propagated outward from this cylinder of destruction until it blew out the opposite side and dissipated into infinity. The beam cut through hull, struts, equipment, water-filled heat sinks, and people, while the blast spreading outward from it wrecked anyone in the same compartment as if grenades had gone off all along its path.
The Puller shuddered, and alarms sprang up as first one, two, and then three beams holed her. A bright flash blinded everything on the starboard side. The Annapolis had fired eight missiles in its initial surprise salvo, each of which had separated into five warheads when its carriers had burned out. Of the 40 weapons arrayed against them, fifteen had been distracted or destroyed by EW, ten more by defensive lasers, and eight by PDCs. Of the seven remaining, two had missed in lasing mode, three had hit, one was a dud, and the last exploded close aboard in proximity mode. The hull glowed a dull red along that side and sensors and weapons were either destroyed or sent offline by the massive pulse of nuclear radiation.
Unable to speak during the violent defensive maneuvers, Benno’s fingers spoke for him, sending shorthand, computer-translated text messages to the other stations on the net.
CAPT: ROLL SHIP. PLACE UNDAMAGED SIDE TO THREAT SECTOR UNTIL RESET/REPAIR. NEW COURSE—CLOSE ENEMY FOR DIRECT FIRE EXCHANGE. MUST CONSERVE MISSILES IF POSSIBLE.
OOD: AYE. CLOSING.
CSMC: REPAIR BOTS EN ROUTE TO RESET AFFECTED SYSTEMS. UNABLE TO AUGMENT W/CREW UNTIL ACCELERATION REDUCED.
ENG: X-RAY LASER DAMAGE TO 9 COMPARTMENTS AND THREE RADIATOR PANELS. COOLING DEGRADED. RESIDUAL HEAT LOAD INCREASED 17%. MINIMIZING O2 LOSS AND THERMAL TRANSFER BY EVACUATING AIR FROM ADJOINING SPACES.
TAO: AYE. ROLL SHIP. DIRECT FIRE PREPARED. CONSERVE MISSILES AYE, BUT MUST EXPEND SOME, EVEN IF ONLY AS DISTRACTION.
CAPT: ROGER ON REPAIRS AND HEAT LOAD. MISSILE EXPENDITURE AUTHORIZED. ATTEMPT TO REMAIN BELOW 20% OF INVENTORY FOR SUBSEQUENT ENGAGEMENTS. BATTERIES RELEASED, ALL MOUNTS AND CELLS.
The Puller rolled over to present her port bow to the Annapolis and boosted to flank thrust, accelerating at a crushing, unsustainable three gravities toward the Terran ship. Changing tactics so completely caused the second salvo from the Terrans to go far afield, mostly outside the divert capability of the missile bodies. The smaller number that remained engageable were more easily handled by the EW, lasers, and PDCs, such that no more warheads were able to come close enough for another strike.
As they dove in, the Puller's crew poured on their own fire, shifting the offensive initiative to their side. Missile hatches sprang open on either side of the Puller, disgorging ten missiles—the maximum number her fire control could support at once. They could fire more, but anything above that would rely only upon sensor data integral to the missile and was thus more susceptible to electronic distraction. The Alliance missiles had four separable warheads on each, but the individual bombs and their pumped lasers were correspondingly larger than the Terran weapons.
Missiles spiraled toward the Annapolis, and she fought back much as the Puller had, playing off maneuver, EW, lasers, and PDCs, with largely the same level of effectiveness. But into this engagement, the Puller also tacked on continuous streams of rounds from both of her railguns at their full firing rate.
The Annapolis then had to make the call: maneuver to unmask the maximum num
ber of defensive mounts to wither down the incoming warheads, or maneuver to avoid the incoming railgun rounds, tracking along that single ruinous line of action. It was impossible to do both effectively at the same time. By changing tactics and diving in, answering the Terran CO’s maneuvers in kind, Benno and the Puller had retaken the initiative. For the Annapolis’ captain, the choice was no contest. One type of fire would be devastating to endure. The other type of fire was unendurable.
The Terran destroyer rolled perpendicular to most of the warhead vectors and laid on with all defensive mounts. Ignored for the most part, the half-meter-long, decimeter-wide railgun rounds sped in unopposed. Expanding out into a cluster of rods immediately before impact, hundreds of tungsten penetrators peppered the Annapolis’ port side. First striking the outer layer of the hull’s armored Whipple shield at orbital speeds, the rods fractured and converted most of their kinetic energy into fine sprays of hot shards. These jets expanded out in the narrow gap between layers until they struck the second, thicker armored hull, which absorbed them handily. Meanwhile, warhead after warhead died, victims of the well-trained mount captains controlling the Terrans’ defensive fire.
But damage and its effects were cumulative. Not every rod could be stopped by the double layer of armor, not once the outer layer was degraded enough, and not where there was no double layer present. Kinetic rods shattered radiator panels and opened cooling lines to space. Hot coolant sprayed out into vacuum like arterial blood, and the multiple heat engines driving the complex machinery aboard the Annapolis spiked in temperature and shut down. Laser focusing mirrors and drive coils on the defensive turrets, mounted outside the double hull, were ripped apart and went silent. White-hot venturi nozzles for the destroyer’s maneuvering engines were holed and mangled, sending the still-operable jets’ thrust into new vectors, imparting uncertain roll moments upon the ship.
And as maneuvering, control systems, and defenses fell offline, the ship was less able to ward off incoming warheads. In the Puller’s first missile salvo, only two warheads were able to lase and hole the Annapolis. As each missile discharged its independent warheads and entered terminal range, the Puller fired another, keeping their fire control queue maxed out, and added a constant mortal threat against the Terrans so they would ignore the ever closing, ever more efficient direct railgun fire. As the rounds had more effect and their hit percentage increased, the mount crews and the gunnery operators in the Puller’s CIC shifted from expanding sabot rounds to unitary penetrators and high explosive shells, both of which could now fully penetrate both hulls and deal significantly more damage to the Terran destroyer’s interior.
* * *
Commander Rzasa swore through teeth gritted against the shifting acceleration as yet another subsystem went red in the data tank. The Alliance commander’s change in tactics still seemed nonsensical to him. By diving in to close the range further, then focusing on cheap-yet-effective direct fire instead of longer range, indirect, mass missile attacks, it was like the man was willing to sacrifice his whole ship in an all or nothing duel but still wanted to conserve ammo. Unless the ALS was seriously lacking missile stores to resupply for their own defense, it was a stupid plan.
Except he could see the balance of attrition shifting in the enemy’s favor. If a plan is stupid, but it works, it’s not stupid…
Answering them in kind only kept the Annapolis in second place. In a two-ship battle, that meant losing even more of his crew and potentially his ship—it wasn’t worth it for a simple distraction gambit, one that had arguably failed, as the cold-hearted Alliance aristos refused to be distracted.
Commander Rzasa began to send out the order to break off and pull out. Perhaps they could still repair themselves enough to retrieve the Terran Marine company garrisoned down on the surface of Paradiso.
Just before he hit SEND, a unitary penetrator shot through the weakened double hull, straight down an athwartships passageway, through the thin, unarmored metal of the ventilation duct servicing the bridge, and through Steve Rzasa. Friction and penetration trauma had transferred some of the tungsten spear’s incredible kinetic energy into heat, sheathing it in a thin layer of brilliant white plasma. It passed through the ship and Commander Rzasa’s head and torso so unerringly, so violently, it was like a bolt of lightning from a vengeful god, fed up with whatever transgression he had committed.
LTJG Nulty, his OOD, could only stare agog at his suddenly decapitated commanding officer. With a shaking hand fighting against the erratic and crushing accelerations the ship endured, he tapped out: XO, OOD—CO KIA. YOU IN COMMAND. ORDERS?
The pause as the XO and the rest of the tactical crew absorbed the message and scrambled to carry on as their CO had last ordered seemed to stretch into infinity.
* * *
Without countervailing instructions regarding a change of course and objectives, the Terran destroyer pressed on. They did swing the ship, but not away from the battle. Instead, they spun around until they were bow on to the Puller, interposing their most massive armor between themselves and the enemy, and thrusting at their full military power to close and bring their two railguns into a more direct fire role. It mimicked the actions of the Puller, but came too late, after too much damage had already been meted out.
Missiles, warheads, shells, and PDC bullets raced across the shrinking void. Encoded streams of active electronic countermeasure radiance and beams of high-UV laser light stabbed out between the two closing combatants. Damage accrued in a punishing trade-off that eschewed tactics and cleverness for pure brute force. As they closed, with range falling and damage accumulating, PK—probability of a “kill” or a successful strike—increased, while PS—probability of survival in the barrage of ever more accurate fire—fell. It was a matter of numbers. Which weapon systems were more efficient? Which crews were more invested, more dedicated, more prepared? Which ship was built tougher? And which captain had set them up better to take these punishing body blows?
The Puller withered under the onslaught. Status displays of individual spaces and systems glared an angry, accusatory red, a cry from the people manning those sections that Benno’s shortcomings had failed them. His people died, and his ship was slowly rendered nonfunctional, but still, they persisted. They wore on, closing with the enemy and disgorging round after round, missile after missile, until…
A section of sensors along the Annapolis’ starboard hull in her forward battle section went blind, the victim of too much cumulative damage. An incoming warhead that had been about to lase saw the cut-off of incident radar and lidar energy, consulted its combat logics, and canceled the initial alignment and detonation. Instead, it pulsed its engines to focus on that section of the target and continued its thrust inward. No defensive lasers scorched it. No PDC rounds peppered its thin, unarmored shell. Instead, it proceeded unseen until its dull metallic nose punched through the outer hull of the Terran destroyer and survived to punch through the pressure hull as well. Within the warhead, the logics met all needed criteria and triggered.
Inertial fusors detonated, compressing a small ball of lithium deuteride and a neutron source within an imploding spherical wave of x-ray light, concentrated enough to cause a physical shock front. The sphere squeezed and collapsed to the density of the sun’s core, until heavy hydrogen nuclei of deuterium and newly formed tritium fused into helium, releasing an uncontainable force upon the destroyer. A wash of radiation exploded outward—gammas, neutrons, alphas, x-rays, UV, and infrared—and fell upon every surrounding material. The blast of energy ionized and burned, shattered and exploded, turning every substance into pure plasma to explode outward, re-radiating and crushing every gram of matter in its way, all at nearly the speed of light.
Aboard the Annapolis, everything ended. Their deaths and disassociation into plasma occurred faster than the speed of thought or sensation. There was no time for doubt, fear, hate, self-recrimination, or regret. Ted Nulty and every other crewperson simply vaporized.
Aboard
the Puller, the only thing faster than the speed at which the enemy destroyer vanished into an expanding ball of light, gas, and debris was their sudden sense of relief and victory. On the bridge, several watch standers cheered. Down in CIC, Chief Rajput, the TAO, sighed and relaxed slightly, still tensed against the acceleration of defensive maneuvers. Elsewhere throughout the ship, the word spread, not at the speed of light, but at the speed of gossip.
Everyone relaxed—too soon.
The orphaned missiles, warheads, and railgun rounds already fired by the Annapolis continued inbound, not overly concerned with the destruction of their mothership. Even without the highly accurate tracking data the ship had been feeding them, they were still able to execute their last instructions. With the inexperienced crew aboard the Puller, and without the dour, steadying hand of Captain Palmer, the automatic reaction of relief proved to be damning.
Without direct intervention and frenzied monitoring by the crew, the defensive systems aboard the ship continued on automatic, allowing the equally undirected enemy ordnance to get closer than it otherwise might. Multiple warheads jinked and wove through the infinite black, dodging the defensive fire incident upon them. They flew in closer and closer…and detonated.
Three bomb-pumped lasers cored the Puller almost simultaneously. Taken by surprise and shocked out of their revelry, the crew rocked as sections burned and exploded. On the bridge, the damage finally came to them as one corner of the space vaporized and blew out. Shrapnel lanced through the compartment and sparks flew. One particularly wicked, long piece speared through the helmsman, pinning him through the chest to his seat. Young Technician Drew Avera died in agony on a spear of shattered hull metal. No one on the bridge was prepared for the violence, suddenness, and capriciousness of such a death after the battle was over.
The Mutineer's Daughter Page 23
