The last, however, had sharper teeth.
A funny thing about nuclear weapons and the vacuum of space was, absent the atmosphere necessary to carry the thermal shock wave, nukes weren’t nearly as destructive. Instead of mushroom clouds, their megatons created a powerful EMP effect, which all modern combat warships were well-shielded against, and an intense burst of gamma rays, which they were less so. The spike plate that redirected the gamma radiation created by a ship’s M/AM reactor kept the crew alive, but also carried one of the highest mass penalties onboard. Coating the entire ship in that degree of armor plating would make it so slow and cumbersome as to be useless in combat. The ancient calculation of mobility versus safety was as alive as ever.
But while enough gamma rays were of concern to the squishy components of a ship’s crew, they posed very little danger to its hardware. That is, unless it’s concentrated. Which was why when the hydrogen bomb at the core of the Carnegie’s missile detonated, its energies were, for an almost imperceptible moment, partially constrained and directed through a uranium outer casing that channeled nearly a third of the energy into a coherent stream, most easily understood as a gamma ray laser, even though that’s not what it was at all.
For one hundred and thirty-nine microseconds, this stream of gamma rays poured out of their dying mother and streaked across the short distance separating them from the Ansari before crashing into their target at ninety-nine-point-nine-repeating-percent light-speed. The effect was immediate and devastating.
Warning klaxons and flashing red error codes filled the CIC like a Finados Day parade marching through Rio. “Damage report!” Miguel shouted over the din.
“Still coming in,” Warner answered. “We have a main electrical bus fused, J-12 coupling. Rerouting. Probably an overloaded circuit. We can’t have been hit in the hulls or we’d be venting.”
“Beta ring is cored,” Broadchurch announced. “Totally dead. Safeties have already kicked in and purged the negative matter stores from the entire ring.” They switched their feed to an external camera. “Damn. A whole ring segment is slag. Direct hit.”
“No chance of repair?” Miguel asked, despite knowing the answer.
“Not without a yard berth.”
“Doubt we’re in line for one of those anytime soon. Jettison it.”
“Jettison beta ring, aye.” Broadchurch swiped through two screens and entered a command code to satisfy a system prompt that they really did want to cut an entire ring loose. At the push of a virtual button, explosive bolts at three points in the beta ring and in the three struts that connected it to the engineering hull detonated, sending the remains of the ruined ring tumbling away from the Ansari. Lose another, and they’d be unable to blow a bubble, effectively stranding them in system. But they had more immediate problems now, and slimming down the ship’s mass by almost ten thousand tons meant just that much more speed and maneuverability for whatever fight was still ahead.
Miguel refocused on the task at hand. “Scopes, how long until we get another monocle shot lined up on Carnegie?”
“Seven-three seconds, if they don’t do anything clever. Wait one … what the shit?”
Miguel held his hands outstretched. “In your own time, Scopes!”
“We’re getting whisker laser telemetry from our shuttle on Halcyon,” Mattu said, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “They’re streaming us realtime updates on the birds coming from Carnegie and Allen. Weps, check this shit out.” Mattu shunted the new data feed over to Warner’s station.
Warner pumped a fist in the air. “I’ve got their birds’ entire flight profiles. I can shoot them down like wounded ducks!”
She did it, Miguel realized. The crazy puta did it. Susan is sitting in their CIC, feeding us all the data a forward observer would be tasked with handling. They’d just evened up in the unit count, two to two. Nevermind that each of their ships were out-massed. They were faster, nimbler. He pounded a fist on the armrest of his captain’s chair, then stood. “Kamala is alive, people. She’s taken Halcyon with a shuttle-full of angry jarheads and she’s giving us everything we need to stay in the fight for a few more minutes. Don’t waste it. Warner, let some strays through. Don’t give away that we have access to their network or they’ll figure it out and turn that ratty old tin can into recycling with a salvo.”
“Should I move on Halcyon, sir?” Broadchurch asked. “Make it look like we’re charging her for an attack run, but actually bring her into our defensive envelope?”
“That’s some devious double-think bullshit, Charts. I love it. What does that do to our monocle shot, Scopes?”
“Adds seventeen seconds before alignment and burns up another twenty-three percent of the drone’s fuel stores.”
“And is there any chance we get a second shot out of that platform?”
“None, sir, unless our flagship is supremely incompetent.”
“As I thought. Charts, execute your bullshit.”
“I could throw a couple of missiles at Halcyon, sir,” Warner said. “Make it look like we’re attacking them, but then hand off the fire control links and let them redirect them. They don’t have very deep magazines on that tin can.”
“Beautiful. Do it. Make sure Halcyon understands the plan before launch.”
“Roger that.”
Miguel fell back into the command chair. Not his, he was keeping it warm for Susan, but it’s where his butt was planted for the moment. His ship was alive, against all projections and every simulated exercise the CCDF had ever run in seventy years. He was running like a squirrel from a diving falcon, but by God, in that moment, he’d never been more alive.
“Will you please either stop pacing the deck, or take it into the hallway?” Elsa demanded. “We have another two days in this bucket and I’ve only got another couple hours of self-control left.”
Tyson stopped midstride at the center of their … modest accommodations. “Sorry. Didn’t realize I was
