“I would guess,” she said carefully, “that we’re looking at ten to fourteen bioforms with hyper-portal emitters, as we expected. Those units opened portals for larger bioforms to join them in hyperspace as escorts.
“Most likely, the emitter-equipped bioforms are also the ones with anomaly scanners,” Morgan noted. “Which…presents an opportunity, I think, sir.”
“We can’t detect exotic matter outside the visibility bubble,” Ashmore objected. “I see the logic, sirs, but without any ability to differentiate between targets except by gross mass…I’m not sure strategic targeting is even possible.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Tan!Stalla agreed. “But we do have sensor drones, Commander Ashmore. We would not normally deploy them in hyperspace, as they are likely to be destroyed before they enter the visibility bubble.
“I do not think that the Infinite have sufficient understanding of hyperspatial warfare to realize the necessity. The elimination of the current generation of hyper-capable bioforms would render the rest of this force irrelevant.”
The flag bridge was very quiet.
“Casimir, Ashmore. Work together with Arnaud’s people to prepare a spread of sensor probes for hyperspace deployment. You won’t have very long,” Tan!Stalla warned grimly.
“Orders to the task force,” she continued. “All ships will enter hyperspace and prepare to engage the enemy.”
Jean Villeneuve shivered around Morgan as the superbattleship plunged into hyperspace. Fifteen of her sisters followed her, the massive Galileo-class ships spreading out into a four-by-four wall in the gray void.
A second set of sixteen ships followed them through, the Bellerophon-C class battleships expanding the wall into a fat cross as they moved onto the superbattleships’ flanks.
Forty-eight heavy cruisers—all hyperspace missile–equipped Thunderstorms—formed up in front of the capital ships. It was a powerful force, but Morgan was painfully aware of the odds they were up against.
“Anomaly localized and on the tactical plot,” Ashmore reported. “We are at one light-hour hyperspatial distance. Infinite force velocity has not changed; continuing on their vector at twenty percent of lightspeed.”
“Bring us onto an opposing course and up to point-five c,” Tan!Stalla ordered. “At ten million kilometers, the fleet will reverse course, match their velocity and hold the range.”
Morgan nodded to herself. Her best estimate was that the effective range of even the singularity cannon was maybe three million kilometers—ten light-seconds. The interface-drive missiles in their magazines had a velocity of point-eight-five c and a sixty-second flight time—over five times that range.
Of course, their hyperspace missiles had a range measured in light-minutes, but they weren’t available in this environment. The main battle line of the A!Tol fleet was heavily optimized for normal space engagement.
“All ships have the course locked in. We are advancing,” Ashmore reported.
“Probe spread is set to launch at maximum missile range,” Morgan reported a few moments later. “We are co-opting all of Jean Villeneuve’s launchers for the spread, one hundred and twenty probes.
“They’ll have a two-minute flight time, and we need to hope that the Infinite force doesn’t maneuver significantly in that flight time,” she noted. “The probes don’t have anomaly scanners.”
They did have sensor probes with anomaly scanners, but those craft didn’t have much else. Those drones were meant to be left in hyperspace as long-range observers, their data recorded and collected later.
Morgan could have used them to guide the rest of the probes, but even at fifty light-seconds, she figured she could control the spread well enough to put them inside a target six hundred thousand kilometers across.
“They shouldn’t be able to maneuver that much,” Morgan concluded aloud.
“Good.” Tan!Stalla fell silent. She was still standing by her seat, studying the tactical display showing the fleet around them. All of their ships were within the visibility bubble of Jean Villeneuve, allowing them clean communications and sight.
Relayed sensors from the rest of the ships meant that their true visibility bubble was larger than it otherwise would be. Against a missile-equipped enemy, they’d deploy their defensive drones to spread it even farther.
The Infinite didn’t have missiles or interface drives. In theory, the Imperials had more than enough of a range and maneuverability advantage to make this a winnable fight.
In practice, Morgan’s team had finished their analysis of the mass of the anomaly heading their way. They couldn’t definitively break it down by types or armament, not in hyperspace and not with their limited data on the Infinite…but there were over half a trillion tons of bioforms headed their way.
Versus the roughly seven hundred million tons of Tan!Stalla’s task force.
“Drones are definitely inside the Infinite’s effective range,” Morgan reported as her robotic minions approached the enemy. “They either don’t see them at all or aren’t registering them as a threat.”
“Both are possible,” Ashmore pointed out. “If they’re using unfamiliar scanners that they’ve somehow plugged into their nervous systems…calibration’s got to be a giant pain.”
Morgan winced at the thought of wiring sensors into her brain—calibrating the systems the Infinite were bolting onto their bioforms was probably a pain in more ways than one.
“Visibility bubble in ten seconds,” she reported. Truthfully, her probes were already on the other side of the Infinite and blazing into the nebula, but lightspeed delay was still a thing for anomaly scanners.
Her drones were programmed to turn around and come back once they were twenty light-seconds clear on the far side. She could track the probes, but she wouldn’t have any data until at least one of them made it back into her com range.
“Visibility bubble,” Morgan reported grimly. Alerts flashed across her screen as the long-range scanners made their assessment of her drones’ fate.
“Infinite engaged the probes zero-point-five-six seconds after they entered the visibility zone,” she told Tan!Stalla. “We lost twenty-nine before they left the visibility zone. Some of the Infinite are continuing to engage, which suggests they do have anomaly scanners.
“They just weren’t sure what to make of the signatures of our probes.”
She watched as more of her probes disappeared, grunting as the plasma fire appeared to cease around six light-seconds. “Forty-two probes destroyed, all told,” she said. “Seventy-eight continuing on course. Six will detour back to us at maximum speed and should arrive in approximately ninety seconds.
“The rest will make another pass of the swarm in just over a minute.”
“Understood,” Tan!Stalla said calmly.
At that point, the Imperial force would be making Tan!Stalla’s flip. They’d hold the range and pound the Infinite with missiles the bioships couldn’t reply to.
The problem Morgan was concerned about was that the Infinite had fought her old ship. They’d fought the traitors with Builder of Tomorrows and they’d, presumably, won that battle as well as the one against Defiance.
The Infinite had to be aware of how short their weapons’ range fell against those of their new enemies. Morgan had to anticipate what the aliens would pull out of their hat, and she was feeling frustratingly unclairvoyant.
“Sir,” she said slowly, looking at the data rippling across her screen. They still couldn’t localize the exotic matter in the Infinite swarm, but an entirely different thought had caught her mind.
“I recommend deployment of the Buckler platforms,” she told Tan!Stalla. “We know they’ve mounted Laian hyper-portal emitters and apparently Laian hyperspatial anomaly scanners on cyborg units.
“I can’t, now that I stop to think about it, come up with any reason they couldn’t do the same with missile launchers.”
The flag deck was silent, and Tan!Stalla snapped her beak in frustration.
“Darkest waters,” she cursed. “All ships, deploy Bucklers now.”
“New anomalies!” Ashmore barked. “Range is thirty-five light-seconds and we have missile anomalies. Estimate one thousand incoming.”
“Well, at least they underestimate us,” the Squadron Lord said drily. “Buckler deployment time, please?”
“Forty-five seconds to first wave,” Ashmore reported. He swallowed. “Seven seconds after missile arrival.”
“Laian missiles,” Tan!Stalla noted. “No faster than ours, but smarter and with better electronic warfare systems. Correct?”
“Can’t say at this range,” Morgan admitted. “But that’s most likely, yes.”
“Let’s see if the missiles’ brains make up for the Infinite’s lack of knowledge,” the flag officer replied. “All ships, adjust ninety degrees to starboard, increase velocity to point-six c.”
A ship with an interface drive could go from rest to point-six c in under ten seconds. Adjusting velocities once active took a bit longer, but not much. Morgan didn’t pretend to understand the physics—something about multidimensional surfaces being used to create three-dimensional velocity vectors—but she knew what it did.
The Infinite weren’t as informed. If Morgan had fired their salvo, she’d have spread out the angles, shotgunning missiles across space and relying on the weapons’ maneuverability to bring them together in the end.
The swarm had fired them in one large bunch, aimed at the center of where they’d seen the anomaly of Tan!Stalla’s fleet. Like the probes Morgan had sent at the Infinite, the missiles were blind outside the visibility bubble.
Missile hit chances in hyperspace sucked, but an enemy who knew the game would make sure at least some of the missiles made it close enough that their brains could find a target.
The Infinite didn’t know how. Not yet. Their sudden vector change left the missiles to hurtle harmlessly off into deep space.
“Staff Captain Casimir. Do you have targets for me?” Tan!Stalla snapped.
Morgan was checking as the Squadron Lord asked. The first drone had just returned, and she was running through the data from the robotic spacecraft at a hundred to one acceleration. All she saw was gray void…and then there was something more.
“Not sure yet. Feeding full data from the drones to all ships,” Morgan reported. “We need to ID the portal ships.”
The first thing she realized was that they’d made at least one miscalculation. The lead bioform was not a Category Four. Eight hundred and fifty kilometers long and four hundred wide, it was unquestionably a Category Five—which meant that it might have singularity cannons.
They were pretty sure the Category Fours didn’t have the black hole projectors. They were not as certain about the Category Fives. They might be about to find out.
“We have a Category Five,” she reported aloud. “It does not appear to carry hyper emitters; I am not reading material quantities of exotic matter.” She paused. “That might also answer the question of whether the Cat-Fives—or, at least, this Cat-Five—have singularity cannons.”
New contacts were resolving even as she spoke. The probes had passed through the visibility bubble at seventy percent of the speed of light. She only had a bit less than three seconds of scan data until the second wave of probes reported in.
“I need targets, Staff Captain,” Tan!Stalla pointed out. “Before they shoot at us again.”
Morgan’s team was running the data, and she double-checked the analysis herself at the Squadron Lord’s request. It wasn’t nearly what she’d like.
“We know what doesn’t have hyper emitters,” she admitted. “But we haven’t narrowed down our exact targets. We’ll have our second data set in a few moments; that should help.”
“All right.” There was a pause as Tan!Stalla made up her mind, then she gestured for Nitik to get her a channel.
“All ships, target priority is the Category Five bioform until further notice. Fire at will.”
Hundreds of new icons appeared on the screen as the task force launched their own missiles—but Morgan’s attention was riveted on the second salvo the Infinite had launched.
They didn’t have the full hang of it yet, but they were learning a lot faster than she liked. The first salvo had been inside a point-one-degree cone at most. These were spread across a three-degree cone.
The Infinite had likely already learned that radio coms didn’t work in hyperspace either. A lot of those missiles would be lost…but this time, some of them might actually make it into the visibility bubble of the task force.
“I have a vector change on the anomaly,” Ashmore snapped. “They are now accelerating toward us. One-point-five percent of lightspeed per second.”
At some point, the Imperium and their allies were going to get their hands on an Infinite to dissect, Morgan knew. If they could work out just what the ancient aliens were using for acceleration, that might change a lot of things.
It wasn’t as fast to accelerate as the interface drive—but she’d already seen that it didn’t have the same maximums as the interface drive.
“Any idea what our missiles are going to do to the Cat-Five, Casimir?” Tan!Stalla asked.
“They have no shields, but the bioforms we encountered at Kosha were heavily armored,” Morgan told her. “They weren’t up to compressed-matter levels, but it’s entirely possible these guys are.
“They did, after all, fight the Alava—and the Alava were much better at creating compressed-matter plates than anyone we know.”
“So, it’ll hurt, but the big sparkshark is going to keep coming,” Tan!Stalla said grimly.
Morgan wasn’t entirely certain just what a sparkshark was—probably something native to A!To, the A!Tol homeworld, with an English name assigned to evoke the right image. The Squadron Lord’s intent came through regardless.
“Most likely, sir.”
“Please find me those portal ships,” Tan!Stalla told her. “Because we have about forty seconds until they are moving faster than we are and start closing the range.”
Morgan nodded and dove back into the data with her team. There were signs of implanted mechanical hardware on a lot of the smaller bioforms, but the exotic matter was the key. It was a fundamental component of the hyper-portal emitters—and the synchronization between emitters required to create a portal almost guaranteed that they had to have enough of them on one ship to open a portal.
“The portal they opened had to be big enough for the Cat-Five,” she told Rogers. “That gives us a minimum amount of exotic matter. How much?”
Her former XO whistled quietly through her teeth. “Four-hundred-kilometer-diameter portal requires fifty emitters of the size the Laians use, so….umm…one hundred fifty negative kilograms.”
“And we’re seeing just over twelve hundred negative kilograms total?” Morgan asked. “So, six portal ships?”
“And they can’t be the Cat-Ones,” Rogers agreed. “They’re just not big enough. If they didn’t bolt them onto the big guys, then I’m guessing they’re on Category Twos—cruiser equivalents.”
“If we narrow it down to that, can you flag our most-likelies?” Morgan asked
“On it.”
“Missiles inbound,” echoed a report from Arnaud’s bridge. “Three salvos in space. Estimate fifty missiles of the first will enter the Buckler perimeter.”
“If we can’t handle fifty missiles, we all need to go back to school,” Tan!Stalla replied. “Keep up the evasive maneuvers. I do not want that Category Five within plasma range of this fleet!”
The range was dropping. Not quickly—not yet—but the Infinite had enough acceleration to keep up with the task force’s evasive maneuvers.
Even as Morgan joined her team in going through the data on the midsized Infinite bioforms, part of her mind was doing the math on the closing speeds.
The faster they found the portal ships, the better—because Morgan Casimir wasn’t sure they could stay out of the Infinite’s range for
long!
“There,” Morgan exclaimed as the last pieces of her analysis fell into place. “Rogers, double-check that. I’ve got a three-hundred-meter Category Two that’s reading negative mass numbers at the right level.
“Check my numbers.”
The negative mass of exotic matter was relatively straightforward to detect with any of the sensors available to the Imperium—but with so many contacts in a relatively short period of time, picking out that signature from everything else going on was a pain.
“Running the data,” Rogers replied. “Got it. Sixteen percent metal by mass, almost ten percent more than the rest of the Twos. One hundred sixty kilograms negative mass. That’s our portal ship and probably our anomaly-sensor platform.”
“Take the pattern, ID the others,” Morgan ordered. She ran one last set of analyses, an almost-automatic matching of the drone sensor data to the hyperspace anomalies, then turned to rest of the flag bridge.
“Squadron Lord, we have a target,” she reported. “Using the signature to ID the others, but we definitely have a line on one of the portal ships. Passing it to Operations.”
“Got it,” Ashmore reported. “Transferring to all ships.”
He paused.
“I hope this one is less tough than the big guy,” he said. “Because I think the Cat-Five is falling back, but we’ve put thousands of missiles into the bastard.”
“It’s one-tenth a percent of the Cat-Five’s size,” Morgan pointed out. “It should be a lot less tough.”
“The good news is they’ve stopped shooting missiles at us and they didn’t manage anything with them,” Tan!Stalla noted. “The bad news is that we have about five minutes before we’re in plasma-lance range…and probably the Infinite’s plasma range.
“So, make sure all of the tactical departments have those targets, Ashmore. We are not playing with these people in plasma range.”
Morgan held her tongue as she checked the math. Even if they took out every portal unit, there were still dozens of Infinite bioforms closing on the fleet. The Category Three units were a bigger threat than the Category Twos.
Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) Page 5
