On the Rousseau’s emergency bridge, CR37 continued his attempts to foil the enemy.
The Highborn laser fired with uncanny accuracy, at times burning exposed point-defense cannons. Sometimes, it melted through the hull behind the cannons.
“Rotate the ship three degrees,” CR37 said.
The laser from the hard-braking Highborn ship chewed into asteroid rock as the dreadnaught rotated just enough to throw off their aim. The laser melted rock then, creating gas, liquid and slagging off boulder pieces. It other words, the laser proved ineffective against too much mass and density, that of simple interstellar rock.
“Enemy Zenos have achieved lock-on,” the unmodified woman whispered. Her hands trembled as tears ran down her soft cheeks. Some of the tears floated around her face.
CR37’s fingers blurred across his controls. He attempted electronic countermeasures, spewed chaff and prismatic crystals. He used everything to try to deflect the huge drones from his warship. Lastly, he turned his ship, aligning the final point-defense cannons with the Zenos’ approach path.
The two Zenos increased speed as their chemical fuel burned fast.
Then one of the Rousseau’s depleted uranium pellets struck the first drone’s hull. It almost caused the drone to veer off-target, but internal guidance redirected it at the nearing dreadnaught.
Then another pellet struck.
Internal computing calculated the odds of hitting the target. The odds had dropped below the required number. The Zeno’s primary function ceased and the secondary level attack commenced.
Rods sprouted into position, each aimed at vulnerable points on the dreadnaught. The Zeno warhead exploded with thermonuclear devastation. As the explosion obliterated the drone, x-rays and gamma rays used the aimed rods, traveling along them. Before the explosion destroyed the rods, they had concentrated the deadly radiation against the dreadnaught. That radiation stabbed like a spear instead of simply expanding and dissipating in a nuclear fireball.
Those x-rays and gamma rays hit the Rousseau with ugly power. The unmodified woman sitting beside CR37 died instantly. The cyborg’s brainpan lacked enough shielding to protect him, and he died several seconds later. The x-rays also melted several critical fuses. At that point, all but one point-defense cannon fell silent. That cannon now lacked proper targeting data.
The second Zeno zoomed at the Rousseau. It closed to five hundred kilometers, four hundred, three hundred, two, one hundred kilometers and then sped into the ship. The thermonuclear device ignited with obliterating power.
While particle shielding protected much, it failed to protect enough. Every living thing in and around the Rousseau died. And vast quantities of mass hurtled outward from the terrific explosion.
-21-
The Descartes accelerated down the mighty gravity-well of Jupiter.
Gravity-well was a term, useful in any system with a planetary body. The Sun, Earth and Jupiter each had a gravity-well. The Galilean moons of Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto also had gravity-wells. Jupiter had the biggest gravity-well after the Sun. The meaning was simple. Jupiter pulled things toward it because of its massive size, because of the gravitational attractive force it had on other masses such as people, ships, moons and passing comets. To escape Jupiter, to leave it, one needed a certain velocity—the escape velocity. If a ship failed to reach the escape velocity, it would orbit Jupiter, unable to leave.
In this instance, Jupiter was at the bottom of the well. To fire a rocket out of the well took more power than it would to shoot a rocket down toward Jupiter.
This was simple, gravitational mechanics, and it had consequences in space combat. The common misconception was that space lacked terrain other than planets and asteroids, comets and moons. But that was false. There was gravity, among other factors such as radiation, solar wind, the ecliptic of the planets and such. A ship high in the gravity-well had high ground just as an archer on a hill shooting down had an advantage over an archer shooting up the hill.
In the Jupiter System, this was even more the case than in the Mars System.
This was one of the reasons why Athena Station had been chosen as the Guardian Fleet Headquarters. It had the high ground in comparison to the four Galilean moons, which were closer to Jupiter and thus deeper in the well.
Marten sat in his module, enduring the acceleration and observing the others. He would trade places with Omi soon and get some sleep.
“Yes,” Yakov said. He watched the main screen and witnessed the Rousseau’s death.
“You really did it,” Rhea said, her eyes wide with shock. “You destroyed a Guardian Fleet warship.”
Marten switched to the same visual. It was a long teleoptic shot of the obliterated Rousseau, visible now because it no longer hid behind a gel-cloud.
“You must engage your logic,” Yakov told Rhea. “Athena Station broadcast the Secessionist code. No one there would do that if he or she were Guardian Fleet personnel. Either Secessionists gained control of Athena Station or cyborgs did. It is more logical to believe that cyborgs captured the station than Secessionists.”
“No,” said Rhea, “that is illogical. Why would cyborgs broadcast the code?”
“Obviously,” said Yakov, “to create disunity among us.”
Rhea gripped her choker. “None of that matters anymore. The tracking Zenos will destroy our ship. We must take to the lifeboats and escape with our lives.”
Marten chewed the inside of his check. The Descartes used the technique of sledding down the gravity-well to build up velocity. Unfortunately, the following ships also went down into the gravity-well after them.
Marten studied his screen. The enemy ships were red dots. The Descartes was a yellow dot. The green dots were the speeding Zenos.
Marten spoke to Yakov. “There may be a way to discover if the ships chasing us are cyborgs or Guardian Fleet vessels.”
“I’m listening,” Yakov said. He sounded weary and looked older.
“Radio Callisto Orbital Defense,” Marten said. “Tell them everything you know. Then ask them if they ordered those ships to attack us. If they didn’t, they’re cyborgs.”
Yakov pondered the idea, soon nodding. Then he ordered the com-officer to open a channel with Callisto Orbital Defense.
Aboard the hard-decelerating Thutmosis III, thick-necked Canus broke the Guardian Fleet’s ship-to-ship code. He was thus able to intercept Yakov’s message to Callisto.
“Well done,” the Praetor said, after listening to the message.
“The premen maintain a primitive system,” Canus replied hoarsely from his acceleration couch. “They use a simple 1-2-3 dynamic with an override code-sequence set at the second level.”
As he endured the terrible Gs, the Praetor pondered the Jovian message, playing it over a second time, ingesting the innuendos. “Replay the warship’s demise,” he said, meaning the Rousseau, although he didn’t know the dreadnaught’s name.
The Thutmosis III’s passive sensors had recorded the destruction. By studying a computer-list of Solar System warships, the Praetor knew it had been a Guardian Fleet dreadnaught, a durable warship, but inferior to those of Inner Planets.
“We’ve stumbled into a civil war,” Canus said, after watching the video a second time.
The Praetor grinned viciously. “That’s perfect. We shall join the weaker side, use our superior tactics, leading them to victory and thereby gaining their gratitude.”
“Premen are notoriously fickle with their gratitude,” Canus said.