“Weapons locked,” Gary said. “Opening fire… energy spike!”
The Killer starship came alive, launching a ball of white light towards the human starships, which broke into a series of evasive patterns to avoid the incoming shot. It missed, but the Killers kept firing, launching ball after ball towards their targets. One of them struck a human starship directly and blew it into flaming debris; another came too close to a second human starship and was somehow attracted to its hull, acting almost like a missile as it blew the starship apart. Andrew tensed as a ball of white light came too close to the Lightning, but apparently not close enough to be attracted to the human ship.
“Keep dodging,” he ordered, tartly. Oddly, now that the penny had dropped, he felt more reassured. The worst was already happening. “Take us in. Attack pattern beta-nine.”
The Lightning and four of her consorts swooped down on the Killer starship, firing as they came. Andrew watched as the energy torpedoes struck home on the Killer weapon ports, but they didn’t seem to be enough to prevent the Killers from firing back, even though every time an energy torpedo struck the hull the Killer starship’s power curves seemed to jump. The human researchers suspected that the Killers actually used their seemingly unlimited power reserves to strengthen their hull against attack, but no one knew for sure. It was just another mystery that he hoped capturing one of their ships would solve.
“They hit the Defiant,” Gary noted, as one of their wingmen blew apart in a blaze of white light. The Killers were firing much more rapidly now as the Lighting flew away from their starship, allowing other units to launch their own attacks. Andrew called up the readings from the active sensors and studied the results grimly. Apart from massive fluctuations in their power grid, the Killer starship might almost have been untouched. “Sir, I request permission to engage with antimatter torpedoes.”
“Permission granted,” Andrew said, shortly. “Fire at will.”
Antimatter torpedoes were the most powerful weapon humanity had invented, yet they had their own limitations. They couldn’t be used as energy weapons, but had to be fired as material missiles that could be shot down by the enemy point defence — if the Killers had their own point defence. They had certainly never demonstrated any such capability in the past. Gary launched a spread of torpedoes right towards the Killer ship, joined by spreads from other starships as they joined the attack before evading the furious return fire, and Andrew watched as the torpedoes struck home. The entire Killer starship seemed to be wrapped in white light for a long second, and he wondered if they had, by some miracle, destroyed it, and then it burst out of the explosion, still firing. It seemed totally untouched.
That’s not possible, part of his mind gibbered. The Killer starship was taking a beating that should have destroyed it long ago, yet if there was any actual damage, there was no sign of it — apart from the fluctuating power grid. He sent a query into the MassMind, which was watching through the live feed from the attack wing, asking it to compute if the Killer power grid could be overloaded. If it were possible to overload the field holding the Iceberg together, perhaps the starships could be destroyed after all.
The response came back within three minutes, which was unbearably long for the MassMind, the greatest computing resource that humanity had ever created. It should have had the answer almost instantaneously. It had concluded that it should be possible, but the power levels required were astronomical and the Technical Faction would have to invent a whole new kind of weapon to handle the task. Andrew fired a request that the Technical Faction invent the weapon yesterday and turned his attention back to the battle. It wasn’t going well. The Killers had picked off twenty-three starships so far and were concentrating on the others. The more they picked off, the less damage humanity could inflict — such as it was — and in the end, they would have to flee the battle.
“But at least its not like it was at High Singapore,” he muttered. He’d not been present at the battle, but he had studied it carefully. The Killers had forced the Defence Force to stand and fight, while his attack wing could keep ducking and dodging, forcing the Killers to work to hit each of his ships. He could drag the battle out indefinitely, yet the Killers would eventually open a wormhole and escape, or force him to back off, having inflicted little damage. Another human starship’s icon flickered and vanished.
“Gary,” he said, suddenly. “Open a general channel to the attack wing. I want everyone concentrating on targeting the following coordinates; I want them to break off and form up on us.”
“Aye, sir,” Garry said, as Andrew sent the coordinates. The attack wing fell back, leaving the Killer starship to lick its wounds, and assembled around the Lightning. “Concentrated fire, sir?”
“Yes,” Andrew said. He heard the savage tone in his own voice and it shocked him. “Take us in.”
The Killers didn’t ignore them this time, he saw, as they opened fire savagely as the fleet descended on their target coordinates. Two more human starships vanished in flares of white light, but the remainder survived and opened fire, pounding the same coordinates time and time again. Wave after wave of energy torpedoes, antimatter torpedoes and even high-power plasma cannons slammed into the Killer hull, sending the power curves spinning like crazy. Andrew felt an absurd moment of hope. Were they actually going to blow right through the Killer hull? It was almost worth losing the chance to capture a Killer ship just to prove that it was possible to destroy one. The War Council and the Admiral would be annoyed — no, the Admiral would understand. Humanity needed the boost in morale dreadfully. The War Council might even be delighted themselves, although they would be worried about Killer retaliation. Andrew tended to dismiss that thought himself. What could the Killers do that was worse than what they’d already done?
A shockwave rushed through space and knocked the starships away from their target, sending them spinning helplessly through space. It took the helm several minutes to regain control, by which time they were already hundreds of thousands of kilometres from their target. Andrew watched red lights flare up on the ship status board and cursed. The Killers had revealed another surprise.
“Report,” he barked. It was almost like being caught up in a wave. He’d never been in a real boat, but he’d been in simulated perceptual environments in the MassMind. They were almost real. “What did they hit us with?”
“Some kind of gravity wave,” Gary said, concentrating on his console. “They just knocked us away from their position; seven starships were destroyed by the wave. We got lucky, sir. If we’d been closer, the gravity wave would have ripped us apart.”
Andrew brought up the feed from Observer and scowled. The Killer starship actually had been damaged, he saw now, but it had been able to counter their attack with a new weapon. It was the first time any human starship had been able to make them sit up and take notice, yet it wasn’t enough to destroy them, only enough to force them to reveal a whole new weapon system. It would have to be countered and that would take time. It was even possible that the entire mission would have to be called off…
He shook his head. They’d lost too many people to call off the mission, not now.
“Order the fleet to regroup around us,” he said, examining the live feed. He’d started with seventy-two destroyers, a full wing. He was down to forty craft, two so badly damaged as to be beyond savaging. There was little point in asking them to remain with the fleet and he ordered them to jump home. “Prepare to fire noisemakers.”