Aberdale, Reza said. According to the LDCs chief sheriff, thats where the first reported trouble started.
Of course, Kelly answered. There was a strange kind of strength on the far side of utter despair, she found, or maybe it was just the tranquillizers.
Kell?
She closed her leaden eyelids. Yes.
Why did you shoot the baby?
You dont want to know.
The navy squadron closed on Lalonde at seven gees, crews prone on their acceleration couches with faces screwed up against the lead-weighted air which lay on top of them. When they were seventeen thousand kilometres out, the fusion flames died away and the starships rotated a hundred and eighty degrees in a virtuoso display of synchronization, ion thrusters crowning them in a triumphant blue haze. The Arikara and the Shukyo released twenty combat communication-relay satellites, streaking away at ten gees to englobe the planet. Then the warships began to decelerate.
As the merciless gee force returned to Arikara s bridge Meredith Saldana accessed the tactical display. The voidhawks had performed small swallow manoeuvres, taking them to within two and a half thousand kilometres of the planet and curving into orbit ahead of the Adamist warships to which such short-range precision jumps were impossible. But the mercenary fleet was leading the bitek starships a merry dance. Three blackhawks were racing away from Lalonde, striving for the magic two thousand kilometre altitude where they would be outside the influence of the planets gravitational field, allowing them to swallow away. Voidhawks were in pursuit. Four of the nine combat-capable independent traders were also under acceleration. Two of them, Datura and Cereus , were heading on a vector straight towards the squadron at two and a half gees. They wouldnt respond to any warning calls from the Arikara , nor Terrance Smith.
Haria, Gakkai , go to defensive engagement status, please, Meredith datavised. The situation display showed him the two frigates end their deceleration burn, flip over, and accelerate ahead of the rest of the squadron.
What is the state of the remaining mercenary ships? the Admiral enquired.
Smith claims the starships remaining in orbit are obeying his orders, and therefore havent been hijacked, said Lieutenant Franz Grese, the squadron Intelligence officer.
What do you think?
I think Commander Solanki was right, and wed better be very careful, Admiral.
Agreed. Commander Kroeber, well send a marine squad into the Gemal first. If we can verify that Smith himself hasnt been hijacked or sequestrated it may just make our job that bit easier.
Aye, aye, sir.
The tactical situation warned him the Datura and Cereus were launching combat wasps. Meredith observed in astonishment as each of them released a salvo of thirty-five; according to the accompanying identification codes the starships were small vehicles, forty to forty-five metres in diameter. They couldnt have held back any reserveswhat absurd tactics. The drone armaments began to accelerate from their launch craft at twenty gees.
No antimatter, Admiral, datavised Second Lieutenant Clark Lowie, the Arikara s weapons officer. Fusion drives only.
Thats something, Meredith thought. Whats their storage capacity?
Best estimate would be forty combat wasps maximum, Admiral.
So they havent left any for their own defence?
Looks that way, sir.
Haria and Gakkai launched a counter salvo; eighty combat wasps leaping ahead to intercept the incoming hostiles at twenty-seven gees. Purple, red, and green vector lines sprang up in Merediths mind, as if someone was performing laser acupuncture right across his skull. The combat wasps started to squirt megawatt electronic warfare pulses at each other. Active and kinetic submunitions began to scatter. Two disc-shaped swarms formed, five hundred kilometres across, alive with deceitful impulses and infrared signatures. Electron beams flashed out, perfectly straight lightning bolts glaring against the starfield. The first explosions flared. Kiloton nuclear devices were detonated on each side. Smaller explosions followed as combat wasps blew apart under the prodigious energy impact.
A second, smaller, salvo was launched by the frigates, compensating for the loss.
Admiral, the Myoho reports the blackhawk its chasing is about to swallow outsystem, Lieutenant Rhoecus called. Request permission to follow.
Granted. Follow and interdict; it is not to come into contact with inhabited Confederation territory.
Aye, aye, sir.
A vast circle of space burst into pyrotechnic oblivion as the two antagonistic combat wasp swarms collided, as though a giant wormhole had been torn open into the heart of a nearby star. The annular plasma storm eddied violently, radiating down through the visible spectrum in seconds until only nebulous violet mists were left.
Arikara s sensor clusters struggled to burn through the conflagration and present an accurate representation of events through the tactical situation display. Some submunitions from both sides had survived. Now they were accelerating towards their intended targets. All four combatant ships began high-gee evasive manoeuvres.
Myoho and its blackhawk disappeared from the display. Granth and Ilex both fired a volley of combat wasps at their respective prey.
Haria s masers began to fire as the remaining submunitions closed on it. Small vivid explosions peppered nearby space. Rail guns thumped out a stream of steel spheres which formed a last-ditch kinetic umbrella. Eight surviving submunitions drones detected it, three of them were gamma-pulse lasers. A second before they struck the umbrella they fired.
Large oval sections of the frigates hull turned cherry red under the radiation assault. Molecular-binding generators maxed out as they fought to keep the monobonded silicons structure intact. The energy-dispersal web below the silicon struggled to absorb and redistribute the intense influx. All the sensor clusters either melted or had their electronics burnt out by the gamma-ray deluge. Replacement clusters rose immediately; but the starship was blind for a period of three seconds.
In that time the remaining five submunitions hit the kinetic umbrella. They disintegrated instantly, but hypervelocity fragments kept coming. With the sensors unable to see them and direct the frigates close-range weapons they struck the hull and vaporized. The binding generators, already heavily stressed, couldnt handle the additional loading. There were half a dozen localized punctures. Fists of plasma punched inwards. Internal systems melted and fused as they were exposed. Fuel tanks ripped open sending hundred-metre fountains of vaporizing deuterium shooting out.
Bellah , assist, please, Commander Kroeber ordered. Rescue and recovery. The stricken frigates emergency beacon was howling across the distress bands. The life-support capsules should have easily withstood the strike. Even as he requested more information from the computer the sensor image showed him ion thrusters firing to slow the frigates wayward tumble.
With all of their combat-wasp stocks exhausted in the first salvo, Datura and Cereus were left with only short-range masers to defend themselves against the assault from the frigates drones. The electronic warfare barrage was unrelenting as the drones closed at twenty gees, defeating the starships sensors. The two mercenary starships exploded within seconds of each other.