by M. D. Cooper
On their current vector, the T’s fleet would pass through the ring and around the moon, before reaching Carthage. It probably looked like a trap to the enemy, but their fleet outnumbered Symatra’s four-to-one, and at this range, it would be obvious that most of the ships in Fleet Group 5 were incomplete hulls, barely able to maneuver into position.
What the T’s didn’t know was that the moon had its own rail emplacements—which had not yet fired. Those emplacements could not move and would likely only get off two or three shots before the T’s targeted them with heavy kinetic bombardments.
Ship scan threw an alert and Cary called out,
Saanvi cast her a worried look and the sighed.
Cary smiled at her sister.
Both girls leaned back into their seats and Cary saw Saanvi wince as the hard-Link connected at the base of her skull. It didn’t hurt, but knowing that a long spike was sliding into the slot between the lobes of their brains was always disconcerting.
The hard-Link provided no new access to systems, but it did provide wider bandwidth, and more reliability. The normal wireless Link was too risky to use when they drifted into one another’s minds.
Once the hard-Link ran through its diagnostics, their network access switched over to the physical connection, and Cary reached into her sister’s mind.
Her method of doing this, ‘deep-Linking’ being the name Cary came up for it, only seemed to work with Saanvi—not that she had tried it with many others. It was strange, considering that she and Saanvi were not blood sisters, though Angela had overseen their L2 neural enhancements and their interfaces were very similar.
She felt Saanvi accept her, and Cary flooded into her sister’s mind just as Saanvi entered into hers.
Crowded in here, she thought in her sister’s mind.
Roomy in here, Saanvi replied with a grin.
Dork.
She felt warmth flooding into her from Saanvi, and knew that her sister felt the same. It was like a never-ending embrace. Cary-Saanvi knew they couldn’t revel in it, though. They needed to deal with those RMs in the next seventeen seconds.
They opened their eyes again, both seeing through both pairs, while also both controlling their four hands—not that they needed to use physical controls. When deep-Linked, their mental reflexes far out-stripped their physical ones.
Move the destroyers above and below the formation, one of them thought—neither knew which.
Firing rails, they replied, and watched scan as a hail of uranium pellets flew toward the RMs, covering a swath of space where probability suggested the missiles would be.
They marveled that, with their Linked minds, they could almost comprehend the relativistic math occurring to predict the collision paths of the missiles and rail-fired pellets. They were on the cusp of understanding how space-time expanded as photons bounced off both the relativistic pellets and missiles, where they should pass one another at nearly twice the speed of light—which they didn’t.
Their ruminations lasted for less than a second before scan began to register hits on the RMs. Over seventy were destroyed, and scan showed fifty-six remaining. An instant later, the missiles slammed into Epsilon Squadron, their kinetic energy displacing the ships but not penetrating the stasis shields.
Cary-Saanvi saw that one of the destroyers had suffered a structural integrity failure from the force of the impact and would have to be left behind. They also noted that one of the cruisers lost its internal gravity dampeners, if it took another hit from multiple RMs, it would crumple like paper, even if its stasis fields held.
Weapons range in seventy seconds, they noted.
Several more RMs crossed the space between Epsilon Squadron and the Trisilieds ships in the intervening seconds, but targeted shots from the destroyers disabled them.
Then, for fifteen seconds, nothing happened.
It felt like an eternity to Cary-Saanvi, and, when the ships finally came within weapons range, they decided not to fire. Let the enemy expend their batteries at extreme range. Their stasis shields would shrug off their particle and laser beams.
One of the enemy dreadnaughts positioned itself directly in the path of Epsilon Squadron, and, when the range closed to fifty thousand kilometers, the squadron’s destroyers fired once more, sending nine million relativistic pellets streaking between the ships.
Scan registered the dreadnaught projecting magnetic fields as the enemy ships tried to shift the path of the pellets—but their attempts failed. That was the other enhancement the destroyers possessed—though the pellets’ mass was small, uranium was barely ferric, and it was much harder to shift than a normal iron-rich rail pellet would be.
Some did miss the dreadnaught, and instead they struck the carrier’s shields. Their impacts did little against the massive ship’s protection, but the dreadnaught did not fare so well. The pellets weakened, and then tore through its shields and shredded the massive ship’s midsection. On cue, a stream of Arc-6 fighters flew from within Epsilon Squadron and launched their short-range missiles into the rents in the dreadnaught’s hull.
Explosions flared through the gashes, and parts of the dreadnaught’s hull buckled. For an instant, it looked as though the ship would weather the strike, but then it exploded in a spectacular display.
Epsilon Squadron’s flying V arced beneath the exploding dreadnaught, and then past the Halcyon Class carrier, their stasis shields flaring as beamfire from the hundred ships around them rained down.
Communications blackout for twelve seconds, Cary-Saanvi thought to themself as the debris cloud obscured their line-of-sight tightbeams to the other ships in Epsilon Squadron.
The Illyria was four seconds behind the rest of the squadron, and they fired its engines, directing it down toward the carrier. The cruiser sped over the dreadnaught’s debris and punched through the carrier’s shields. During the ten milliseconds the Illyria spent adjacent to the ship, a hundred nuclear mines dropped out of the its rear tubes and attached to the enemy vessels’ hull.
Cary-Saanvi also fired four RMs while within the shields, sending them to the far ends of the carrier, in case the mines in the center were not enough to destroy the entire vessel. The milliseconds passed, and then they were away, rapidly altering vector, before re-activating their stealth systems.
Behind them, fighters had begun to streak out of the carrier—perhaps the Trisilieds realized the time for deception was over, or maybe they were abandoning the ship, fearing picobombs.
Then, the RMs hit and the mines detonated.
Nuclear fire filled the carrier’s shields, obscuring the vessel before the shields failed and the blast of light and energy flooded into space. Scan registered the explosion at over thirty-two exajoules, and Cary-Saanvi marveled at the power of what they had done, an instant before they considered that the ship was easily crewed by over a hundred thousand people.
Nine seconds later, a secondary explosion tore through the space where the carrier’s remains were still obscured by the growing radiation cloud. The ships in the immediate vicinity of carrier, including the Illyira and the nineteen remaining ships of Epsilon Squadron, were flung onto new vectors from the overwhelming blast.
Antimatter, they thought, a lot of antimatter.
Their mind became resolute, though many people had died, they would not allow the enemy to use antimatter weapons on their homeworld. Even if they had to sacrifice themselves to stop it.
The Illyr
ia reestablished tightbeam comms with the rest of Epsilon Squadron, and they boosted at max thrust toward their second target. Now that the T’s knew what they were up to, they would put a lot more effort into stopping them—and they would be looking for the Illyria on alternate approaches.
Let’s hit the third target first, they thought in unison. While the radiation cloud accelerating out around the carrier still gave them some cover, they did one small burn to alter vector, and then re-engaged stealth systems, slowly nudging their ship closer to the third carrier.
On the Illyria’s starboard side, the other ships of Epsilon Squadron continued on to the second carrier—a decoy which would arrive just as the Illyria reached the third.
Cary-Saanvi pre-programmed maneuvers into the ships and the fighters that would have the each destroyer unload another full magazine into the carrier, then half the surviving fighters would punch through the ship’s shields and release their entire supply of short-range missiles while within the enemy ship.
The damage should be enough to cripple the carrier—especially if the fighters penetrated the ship’s shields along its dorsal fighter docks.
In their mind, they watched the timer count down the final seconds. At the five second mark, they fired the Illyria’s engines, altering course and lining up with third carrier. To their port, Cary-Saanvi saw the destroyers’ nine million pellets tear into the second massive ship, followed closely by the fighters, which slammed right into their target, unleashing the last of their RMs.
Half a second later, the Illyria tore through the third carrier’s shields, dropping their final mines and firing the last four RMs they carried.
The antimatter explosion came sooner this time, almost as though the enemy ship was trying to take them out with its death throes.
The force of the explosion picked up the Illyria and flung it almost ten thousand kilometers, as though it were nothing more than a cork in the ocean. Their consoles flashed red on nearly every system as internal graviton emitters failed and the ship groaned.
If their eyes had been open, Cary-Saanvi would have seen a bulkhead on the bridge rend, and the atmosphere vent away into another section of the ship. They noted the event, but did not concern themselves with it, though the Saanvi portion of their merge noted with smug satisfaction that it was a good thing they were in suits.
They fought to regain control of their ship, and re-establish tight-beam communications with the rest of Epsilon Squadron. When they finally did, Cary-Saanvi found that two of the destroyers and four of the cruisers had been lost when the second carrier blew.
The squadron was down to fourteen ships, counting the Illyria, but their objective was complete.
Cary-Saanvi took a moment to look over the rest of the battlefield. The T’s had not yet reached the ring of ships which comprised the bulk of Fleet Group 5, but three other squadrons had penetrated deep into the enemy ranks, striking at the other carriers. Two had succeeded, though they had taken crippling losses to do so. The third strike force had been destroyed by overwhelming force before it was able to destroy its final two targets.
As Cary-Saanvi transmitted a request to Symatra for new orders, FTN flashed an update, showing two new fleets appearing, just over two hundred thousand kilometers above Carthage’s poles.
What? Who is that? Cary asked, her shock momentarily separating their thoughts.
It’s Mom’s fleet! Saanvi exclaimed.
The two girls took a moment and re-combined their thoughts before examining the ships.
How did they get there? they mused.
FTN updated with the IFF data and confirmed that the ships were indeed two halves of Fleet Group 1. However, the real-time scan still showed Fleet Group 1 trailing the Trisilieds fleet by over an hour—information which was several light minutes out of date—and no longer correct.
In their mind, Saanvi’s voice separated out again, amazed and concerned. They had to have jumped through the dark layer…insystem, this close to the star…there’s no way they should have survived.
Mom’s crazy! Cary felt her physical body shake its head and forced it to still. The motion made her feel as though she might throw up. Cary reflected on her history lessons, which never told her about this feeling—how fear for yourself, for the lives of everyone you knew could tear you up inside. If there was glory in this battle, she did not feel it.
The two segments of Fleet Group 1 rotated and began a hard burn to slow their momentum before boosting toward the oncoming Trisilieds fleet, which was now just twenty seconds from engaging Fleet Group 5.
The Illyria was hundreds of thousands of kilometers from Fleet Group 1, but it’s sensors still had to attenuate as the brilliant eruption of over five thousand ships running their engines at max burn flared into space. She hoped no one on the world of Tyre was looking up at the night sky. The light would far outshine Canaan Prime at high noon.
A minute later, more ships appeared, almost on top of fleet group one. Beamfire erupted from the ISF ships, tearing the new arrivals apart in moments.
Cary-Saanvi watched in amazement as FTN showed the newly arrived—and now destroyed—ships to have Hegemony IFF tags. There had only been a few hundred of them, far from the massive fleet which had been in pursuit of Fleet Group 1.
While they waited for orders from Symatra, and for their pulses to stop racing, Cary-Saanvi let their minds fully mesh once more and regrouped with the remains of Epsilon Squadron, which had now drifted past the bulk of the T’s fleet.
Two of the destroyers had suffered magnetic containment failure in some of their particle accelerators, and were running at half their firing rate. One of the cruisers was nearing containment failure on a reactor, and Cary-Saanvi powered it down, reducing that ship’s ability to fire beam weapons.
Symatra’s orders came—with no explanation for Fleet Group 1’s mysterious appearance, nor the few AST ships which had followed—and confirmed their suspicion. It was up to them to take out the remaining two carriers.
Cary-Saanvi rotated their ships and began to boost back toward the T’s fleet. They burned hard, and one of their cruisers suffered a failure in a fuel regulator and exploded as its AP drive introduced a critical level of hydrogen and anti-hydrogen.
Thirteen ships, a rather unlucky number for their final run.
They calculated the best burn they could achieve, and set a three minute countdown until they reached the first of the carriers.
FTN showed that the two carriers had released over twenty thousand fighters, and that another fifty thousand had escaped the other Halcyon Class ships before their destruction.
As they had taken out the first three carriers, Carthage’s rail platforms had continued to fire, and take fire, until only two of them remained. Cary-Saanvi felt fear and sorrow as FTN showed all hands lost.
They kept at it until the last, the girls thought with admiration.
As they considered the plight of the crew aboard the platforms, the stationary placements beneath Hannibal’s surface opened up. They fired a full salvo, sending thousands of kinetic rounds out into the T’s fleet—which still greatly outnumbered the defenders, even with the arrival of Fleet Group 1.
Ho-leee-shit, they thought as the moon moved backwards five meters, cracks and fissures appeared across its surface. They were thankful that Hannibal’s rail emplacements were unmanned, because the simultaneous firing would have killed anyone present.
Even as thousands of rounds lanced from deep within the moon toward the Trisilieds ships, the enemy fired back. Kinetic rounds collided in the darkness, flaring in brilliant explosions of light and energy—though many slipped past one another and found their respective targets.
A hundred Trisilieds ships exploded, and another thousand took some amount of damage. Three dreadnaughts moved in front of the remaining carriers to protect them, and for two it was their last action.
The carriers, for their part, survived the onslaught, and continued to disgorge fighters as the T’s fleet
began to trade beamfire with Symatra’s Fleet Group 5.
Cary-Saanvi watched in mixed awe and horror at the carnage as the light-lag from the previous positions of Fleet Group 1 and the Hegemony fleet caught up. They saw their mother’s fleet perform a hard braking burn, then disappear, followed by the Hegemony fleet, a minute later.
How is that possible? What happened to the Hegemony ships? They asked themselves.
The Cary part of them could tell that there was something Saanvi was holding back. I guess…the AST ships didn’t have a clear FTL path like mother did… Did mother bait the AST ships into chasing her through the dark layer knowing they wouldn’t survive?
There’s no other logical explanation—that was some gamble—she could have brought the Hegemony ships right on top of us if they didn’t hit… The Saanvi part of them stopped, clearly unwilling to share some knowledge of what had likely transpired.
Sahn, what is it? Cary asked. What aren’t you showing me?
Saanvi was silent for a moment, focused on fine-tuning their squadron’s trajectory as Cary prodded her. Fine. Cary, you can’t tell this to anyone, ever. Mom told me a couple of years ago when I asked a lot of questions about what happened to my father’s ship.
OK, my lips—and mind—are sealed.
The Saanvi part took a step back from the merge for a moment, and then rejoined fully. She shared the knowledge of the things which lived in the dark layer—things which were attracted to mass and graviton emissions in the dark layer.
Attracted to ships running grav fields to stay in the dark layer. Cary-Saanvi confirmed to themself.
It was why ships that entered the dark layer near stars didn’t come out again, notwithstanding collisions with dark matter.
So how did mom’s ships come through while the Hegemony ships got…eaten? they mused.
Neither knew, but they both were certain that their mother would not risk her fleet in a careless gamble. If she knew about the things which lived within the dark layer, then she must have known how to avoid them—and possibly how to send them after other ships.
