“No,” Kursk said.
Hawthorne eyed the Commodore. “It’s thinking like that which first won you an independent command.”
Blackstone stood a little straighter. “Launch probes behind our present heading.”
Kursk tapped her screen on the command module. “Probes launched,” she said. “It will take time for them to accelerate into position.”
The minutes ticked slowly as Hawthorne spoke with the other battleship commanders and read their readiness report summaries.
“Sir,” Kursk said. “I have a request from the Vice-Admiral. He would like to return to his battleship.”
Hawthorne shook his head.
“Admiral Scipio is hailing you,” Kursk said.
“Put him onscreen,” Hawthorne said.
Scipio appeared. The Highborn sat rigidly in his command chair. The Highborn’s face seemed fuller, while a sunburst symbol adorned his hat. It was a Nova Sun class-one medal.
“We must tighten the fleet,” Scipio said. “I…
“Is there a particular reason for the request?” Hawthorne asked.
“Strength in numbers,” Scipio said.
“I would agree except for one troubling fact.”
“Yes?”
“What if the cyborgs have installed long-ranged beams on Triton? Doom Stars can far out-accelerate our battleships.”
“You mean that Highborn can withstand a higher number of Gs for a much longer time than a Homo sapien.”
“We’re keeping our fifty thousand kilometer distance from you until we know what Triton holds.”
The Highborn studied him, nodded curtly, and the screen flickered off.
“Do you think Sulla will try to make the request a demand?” Blackstone asked.
“I doubt it,” Hawthorne said.
The minutes kept crawling and the Alliance Fleet made its last adjustments.
“Five minutes until Triton appears,” Kursk said.
The muttering between the bridge officers slackened. They watched their screens with the avidness of prey in a forest searching the trees for predators.
Hawthorne’s armpits grew slick. He could feel it in his bones now. The waiting was harder than the time he’d launched the Orion-ships for Mars.
“Have the probes spotted anything yet?” he asked.
Kursk shook her head. “If the cyborgs have cloaked ships behind us in the void…they must be truly invisible.”
At three minutes before Triton’s appearing, Hawthorne stood up and swung his arms. He twisted his neck and moved his jaw until it popped. He winced at the sharp pain. Then the flutters hit his stomach. He sat on his acceleration couch, trying hard not to shout.
“One minute,” Kursk said.
“No more countdowns,” Hawthorne said.
Everyone was tense, watching their screens. The Commodore gripped the edges of the command module. He looked up across the chamber, his face pale.
Hawthorne nodded. “You’ve done a splendid job, Commodore. No man fulfilled his duty to Social Unity better than you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Blackstone said. “May I say that it’s been a pleasure serving under you.”
“We’re not dead,” Kursk said. “Nor are we about to die.” She glanced at Hawthorne. “Triton will appear in another ten seconds.”
Hawthorne sat up as he stared at the screen above his couch. Everyone grew silent. The vibration of the main engine was the loudest sound now, a steady hum.
“There,” Kursk whispered. “Triton.”
Hawthorne watched the edge of the moon appear on Neptune’s blue rim. He waited a moment. Then he wondered if this was going to be anticlimactic.
“I’m picking up hot exhausts!” an officer shouted. “The specs—sir, they’re drones, missiles, hundreds of them.”
Hawthorne saw it: a blizzard of blips on his screen. Hundreds? This looked like thousands. Then tiny white spots appeared on his screen. Each misshapen spot hid drones and missiles. Where there had been thousands, now there were several large clots.
“What just happened?” Hawthorne shouted.
“My monitor is showing white!” an officer shouted. “Splotches, over ten of them. What’s happening?”
“Are they jamming us?” Blackstone asked quietly.
Then Hawthorne recognized what had happened. For a moment, he felt dizzy. Was this going to be the cyborg tactic?
“My monitor is showing the splotches, too,” Kursk said. “Have they infected the ship with a computer virus?”
“No,” Hawthorne said.
“Do you know what’s happening?” Kursk asked.
“I do,” Hawthorne said. “They’re exploding nukes.”
Blackstone glanced up in shock. Another officer slapped his screen hard, as if he understand the significance of what Hawthorne said.
Hawthorne nodded to himself. A nuclear explosion sent out a blast of heat and radiation. On thermal and other scanners, that would show up as white splotches, at least for a short time.
“They’re lighting nuclear weapon,” Hawthorne said, “extremely powerful ones that send out heavy electromagnetic pulses, EMPs.”
“Do you know why?” asked Blackstone.
“Can’t you see?” asked Hawthorne. “The blasts shield the missiles behind them. The blasts temporarily blind our sensors.”
“At that extreme range why bother?” Blackstone asked. “I don’t understand.”
Hawthorne grunted. That didn’t surprise him. Probably he was the only one who could see it. If he was right… this was going to prove to be the deadly battle that everyone had been expecting.
Through a vast array of sensors, the Prime Web-Mind watched the masses of drones accelerate from behind Neptune, burning past Triton as they sped toward the hated enemy.
Every sixteen seconds, a nuclear-tipped drone exploded. The bombs were specially shaped so over half the weapon’s energy sped directly at the enemy fleet. The explosion temporarily blinded sensors in a small area.
The logic was simple. What an enemy failed to spot precisely, it couldn’t destroy with a laser. The distances in space combat demanded incredible precision for long-ranged beams. The Doom Stars and especially the SU ships were far away, hours away at the highest acceleration. That meant thousands of detonated drones would be needed to hide the mass missile attack. Fortunately, it had
The targeting would come later from Lurkers. Until then, the lemming-like horde of drones continued to accelerate around Neptune and past Triton as they headed for the enemy. Every sixteen seconds, another forward drone detonated to hide its fellow missiles behind it from enemy sensors.
The final battle for survival had finally begun.
