As a result, the Casaba-Howitzer that Sparrow had just released from the Wallfish’s aft missile tube (port side) would be nearly invisible next to the drive’s blue-white incandescence. And since the howitzer was currently unpowered, its own rocket cold and inactive, it would continue past the slowing Wallfish without any need for a burn that would attract unwanted attention.
“T-minus fourteen seconds,” announced Sparrow. That was the length of time the Casaba-Howitzer needed to pass behind their shadow shield and reach a safe(ish) distance from the Wallfish before detonating and sending a beam of nuclear energy racing toward the Battered Hierophant.
The bomb would be going off far, far closer than any sane person would be comfortable with, and—excluding Gregorovich—Kira liked to think that they were all quite sane. The shadow shield ought to protect them from the worst of the radiation, same as it did with the rather nasty by-products of their fusion drive. Likewise, the storm shelter. The main risk would be shrapnel. If the explosion blew a piece of the howitzer’s casing into the Wallfish, it would cut through the hull like a bullet through tissue paper.
“T-minus ten seconds,” said Sparrow.
Hwa-jung pulled her lips back, made a disparaging hiss between her teeth. “Time to get a year’s worth of rads, I think.” By the wall, the two Entropists sat holding hands and rocking.
“T-minus five, four—”
“Shit! They’re turning!” exclaimed Tschetter.
“—three—”
“No time to change!” said Falconi.
“—two—”
“Aim for—”
“—one.”
Kira’s neck snapped to the side as a violent application of the RCS thrusters pushed the Wallfish off its current trajectory. Then the ship’s acceleration surged at what must have been at least 2 g’s, and she grimaced as she fought the sudden press of force.
Less than a second later, the Wallfish shuddered around them, and Kira heard several pings and pops across the hull.
On the display, a burning spike of light raced toward the Battered Hierophant. The Jelly ship had already rotated halfway around, so that its drive was hidden from view, and it was continuing to turn, reorienting itself away from the Wallfish.
“Goddammit,” muttered Falconi.
Kira watched with horrified fascination as the blaze of plasma flashed toward the Battered Hierophant. Lphet and the Knot of Minds had given them precise information on where the Hierophant’s Markov Drive was located. Hitting it and breaching the antimatter containment within the drive was their best chance of destroying the ship. Otherwise, they had no guarantee that the Casaba-Howitzer would kill Ctein.
As Itari had explained, even the smaller Jelly co-forms were hardened against heat and radiation, and as the UMC had discovered to their dismay, the creatures were incredibly hard to kill. A Jelly as large as Ctein—whatever its current form—would be far more resilient. It was, as Sparrow said, more like trying to kill a fungus than a human.
Black smoke billowed out of vents along the swollen middle of the alien ship—a threatened squid hiding itself in an ever-expanding cloud of ink—but it wouldn’t provide any protection against the howitzer’s shaped charge. Few things could.
The lance hit the belly of the Hierophant. A hemisphere of vaporized hull exploded outward along with a haze of air and water that had flashed to steam.
Sparrow groaned as the view cleared.
The nuclear charge had carved a trough as large as the Wallfish through the Battered Hierophant. Its main drive appeared disabled—propellant spurted from the nozzle, failed to ignite—but the bulk of the vessel remained intact.
Lasers and missiles shot forth from the Knot of Minds toward the three escort vessels near the Hierophant even as the trio turned to attack. The Wallfish released its own cloud of defenses, shrouding the ship in darkness. The display switched to infrared.
“Pop off another howitzer,” said Falconi.
“We’ve only got two more,” said Sparrow.
“I know. Fire it anyway.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Another thud echoed through the hull, and then the Casaba-Howitzer streaked away from the Wallfish as it headed to the minimum safe distance for detonation.
The missile never reached its destination. A jet of violet sparks spewed from its nose, and then its rocket sputtered out and the howitzer went tumbling harmlessly off course.
“Fuck!” said Sparrow. “Laser took it out.”
“I see that,” said Falconi, calm.
Kira wished she could still bite her nails. Instead, she found herself clenching the armrests of her crash chair.
“Is Ctein dead?” she asked Tschetter. “Do we know if Ctein is dead?”
The major shook her head in the holo. Lights were flashing on the deck behind her. “It doesn’t seem so. I—”
An explosion rocked the Jelly ship. “Are you okay, Major?” Nielsen asked, leaning in toward the display.
Tschetter reappeared, appearing shaken. Frizzy strands of hair had come loose from her bun. “We’re okay for now. But—”
“More Jellies incoming,” Sparrow announced. “A good twenty of them. We’ve got maybe ten minutes. Less.”
“Of course,” Falconi growled.
“You still need to kill Ctein,” said Tschetter. “We can’t do it over here. Half the Jellies with me seem to be sick.”
“I don’t—”
Morven said, “Admiral Klein for you, Captain Falconi.”
“Put him on hold. Don’t have time for him right now.”
“Yessir,” said the pseudo-intelligence, sounding absurdly cheery given the situation.
A blinking yellow light appeared in the holo, heading toward them from the Battered Hierophant. “What’s that?” Jorrus and Veera asked, pointing.
Falconi zoomed in. A dark, blob-like object about four meters long came into view. It looked as if several intersecting spheres had been welded together. “That’s no missile.”
A memory stirred in the back of Kira’s mind: the storage room where she’d seen Dr. Carr and the Jelly Qwon fighting, and on the far end of the room, a hole cut into the hull. A hole glowing with blue light emanating from the small vessel that had clamped barnacle-like onto the outside of the Extenuating Circumstances.
“It’s a boarding shuttle,” she said. “Or maybe an escape pod. Either way, it can cut right through the hull.”
“There are more of them,” Vishal said in a warning tone.
He was right. Another dozen of the blobs were heading their way.
“Major,” said Falconi. “You have to help us take them out, or—”
“We’ll try, but we’re slightly busy,” Tschetter said.
One of the Hierophant’s three escorts exploded, but the other two were still firing at the Knot of Minds, as was the Battered Hierophant itself. So far, the Knot hadn’t lost any of their ships, but several of them were trailing smoke and vapor from hull breaches.
Falconi said, “Sparrow—”