“Entering firing range now,” the tactical officer said. “I have weapons lock; I repeat, weapons lock.”
Zeitlin would have been more surprised if he hadn’t had a lock. The Killers didn’t seem to bother with any kind of ECM or stealth systems. Their starships emitted so much power that they were detectable at colossal ranges, even light years distant with gravimetric sensors. It suggested just how far the human race could rise if the Killers were defeated — after the Killers were defeated, his mind insisted — and just what they could become if there was no longer any need to hide. He’d seen plans for truly awesome Dyson Spheres or Orbital Rings that could be built — if only they didn’t attract the Killers. They could even colonise the thousands of empty worlds…
“Fire at will,” he ordered, calmly. “Helm; engage random evasive manoeuvres.”
The destroyer shuddered as it unleashed a full spread of warp missiles, closing the gap between the two ships at FTL speeds. The Killers would barely have had any time to react, yet it hardly mattered; the warp missiles slammed home and detonated against the impregnable hull. The Killers didn’t mount or use any form of point defence. Their armour was more than enough to deal with the Firelight’s entire armament. The battle was little more than a desperate gamble.
“The enemy is returning fire,” the tactical officer said, as white flashes of light began to flicker through space. The Killer weapons, whatever they were, only moved at near-light speeds, so they could be evaded, but a single direct hit would end his career. Zeitlin smiled inwardly; the battle would end his career anyway, no matter how it turned out. “They are also focusing on the civilian settlements as well.”
Murdering bastards, Zeitlin thought, angrily. He would shed no tears for pirates or rogue settlements, if they were caught and killed by the Defence Force, but the Killers were just slaughtering an entire civilian population. It seemed so senseless! He had hoped that the Killers would devote all their firepower to killing the destroyers, rather than the civilian craft, but it seemed otherwise. They had firepower to spare. Killing both at once seemed an easy task for them.
“Take us closer,” he ordered, angrily. They were already far too close for comfort, but he wanted to take his starship so close he could almost reach out and touch the alien hull. “Take us right between their fire!”
The Killers redoubled their efforts as the human starships slipped between their wall of battle, reminding him irresistibly of old-style naval combats, where two sides would slip between each other and fire in both directions. It hadn’t been a good idea on the water and it wasn’t a good idea in space; he hoped, desperately, that Killer weapons were effective against Killer hulls. If they hit each other in the crossfire…
“Negative,” the sensor officer reported. “I’ve observed seven red-on-red hits and there was no discernable damage.”
Zeitlin swore under his breath. A Defence Force CO who accidentally fired on another Defence Force ship would be certain to inflict damage, even with the best shields and armour humanity could produce. The Killers… could shoot at each other all day without inflicting any damage at all. It was an attribute the Defence Force would want to copy, but he just found it annoying. The universe wasn’t giving them a break.
The starship shuddered as a nearby explosion marked the death of one of her fellows. Zeitlin checked the feed from the remainder of the squadron and saw the five of the squadron had been picked off, four to enemy fire. The fifth had accidentally — or maybe it had been on purpose — rammed a Killer ship and vanished in a colossal explosion. If the Killer had been damaged, even slightly, there was no trace of it, apart from massive fluctuations in its power grid. It was still firing and proceeding right towards the main cluster… and millions more still waited to be evacuated.
He looked down at the feed from System Command and felt resolution crystallise in his heart. There were hundreds of starships flying away from the system, either jumping out with Anderson Drive or retreating with more mundane warp drive, but it wasn’t enough. Their best efforts hadn’t delayed the enemy at all. They needed something more…
“Engineering,” he said, keying his console, “can you remove the safety interlocks from the warp drive.”
“Aye, Captain,” the engineer said, “but the engines won’t take the strain for long.”
“It won’t have to carry the strain for more than a few seconds,” Zeitlin said, grimly. Another flash of light marked the loss of another starship; a second ran at the enemy hull, firing all the way, until a burst of white light blew it into flaming plasma. “We’re going to try something utterly insane.”
The engineer sounded horrified. “A Cochrane Twist?”
“Yes,” Zeitlin confirmed. “Remove the safety interlocks from the warp drive, now.”
There was a pause. “Done, sir,” the engineer said. “Captain…”
Zeitlin ignored him. “Helm, set course right for the heart of the Killer starship and engage warp drive on my command,” he ordered. “Tactical; hold fire.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman said. There wasn’t even a quaver in his voice. “We’re locked, sir.”
Zeitlin took a breath. “Engage!”
The warp drive, in layman’s terms, wrapped the starship in a bubble that allowed it to exceed the speed of light, by discontenting part of the starship from the universe. It was quite possible for the starship to literally pass through an asteroid without noticing the experience, although anything the size of a planet influenced the local gravity field too much to allow the presence of a warp bubble. The Cochrane Twist — in theory — should have forced the Firelight and the Killer starship to interpenetrate. It wasn’t considered a reliable tactic because at warp speed, the starship might return to normal space thousands of kilometres from its intended destination, or the Killer drive field might interfere with the warp bubble. There was no way to know until it was tried…
The universe flared white and vanished.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” someone breathed. Mandell didn’t know who. “It went up like a supernova.”
“Secure all stations,” Mandell barked. “Brace for impact.”
The mighty Killer starship had vanished in an ear-tearing burst of white light as the two starships interpenetrated, defying the natural law of the universe that decreed that two objects couldn’t share the same space at the same time. The remaining four Killer starships seemed stunned — they’d come to their impossible dead stop — and, for once, it looked as if they were hesitating… and then they opened fire again. The two remaining Defence Force starships were picked off before they had a chance to repeat their commander’s success.
He caught his command chair as the shockwave struck the asteroid, shaking it violently. He imagined that he could hear the sound of panic raging through the asteroid as neat queues of evacuees were sent sprawling by the shock, convinced that the Killers had already begun their bombardment. Bright red icons flared up on the display, warning of minor and major damage to the asteroid and its defences, but he ignored them. They were the least of his worries. There was no point in attempting to repair anything when the Killers would complete the asteroid’s destruction soon enough.
“Get a complete copy of our logs out to Sparta,” he ordered, as the asteroid returned to normal. The blast had blinded most of his sensor arrays, even the hardened ones designed to operate in any environment. The remainder were showing signs of wear and tear themselves. It was lucky that there were reserve remote platforms that could be launched into space quickly, or they would have been effectively blind, unable to track the Killer starships. The gravimetric sensors hadn’t been ruined — they were designed to track other sources of energy — but they wouldn’t be able to watch for incoming fire. “They need to know what happened here.”