Iceni remembered the same frustration from her time in the mobile forces, having to wait to repair any significant damage until civilian contractors could arrive. “We can change that, but it won’t happen overnight.”
“Thank you, Madam President. The other flotilla must have concentrated their fire on this cruiser. It’s a good thing they had fewer heavy cruisers than we did.”
Reports were also coming in on damage to the other side as the sensors on Iceni’s warships spotted and evaluated whatever could be observed, and Iceni could see damage markers blinking into existence on the symbol of the lone heavy cruiser in the other flotilla. “At least we hurt him worse than he did us.”
The extra firepower of Iceni’s three heavy cruisers had made a difference, inflicting serious damage on the enemy cruiser. “He’s completely lost maneuvering, drifting away from the rest of his formation,” the operations specialist said.
“But he’s not dead yet.”
“No. It looks like he still has comms to the rest of his force, and there are some weapons assessed still operational.”
Iceni turned a narrow-eyed look on Marphissa, who was frowning in thought. “I think we should go for the kill on the heavy cruiser,” Marphissa said.
“Why?”
“Because we can’t catch the rest of the other flotilla before it reaches the battleship. But if the commander on that heavy cruiser gets scared enough, they will be yelling for help and may order back their own units to save them.”
Another set of bad choices to choose from. “There’s no way of catching the light cruisers?”
“Not unless they turn back toward us.”
“A possibility that you didn’t mention when asking me to concentrate our fire on the heavy cruiser!” Iceni tried to suppress anger and frustration, knowing that she had to make the decision quickly and still worried about what might be happening on the battleship. Go for the head. When dealing with snakes, always go for the head. “Get the heavy cruiser. This time I want it destroyed.”
“Yes, Madam President!” Kommodor Marphissa adjusted the course of her units, curving away from a stern chase of the light cruisers and HuKs remaining in the other flotilla, and aiming for the crippled heavy cruiser. “Twelve minutes to intercept.”
“Get my attention at five minutes.” Iceni turned to focus on the display showing the soldiers again.
Many of them still showed empty passageways. A few revealed worn-looking mobile forces personnel in the engineering and fire-control citadels, their faces still reflecting disbelief and joy at the arrival of rescuers. Rogero and some soldiers with him were still stalled outside the bridge.
But roughly half showed engineering spaces, most of them with ranks of fuel cells looming nearby, the soldiers’ points of view swinging as they hastily examined the area for evidence of sabotage.
“I can’t see anything here that shouldn’t be,” an unfamiliar voice complained, probably one of the engineers on one of Iceni’s heavy cruisers. “Try to find something that doesn’t belong,” the engineer instructed the soldiers.
“How can I find something that doesn’t belong when I don’t know what does belong?” one of the soldiers replied in exasperated tones.
“Look for something that looks like it could explode.”
“I thought everything down here could explode!”
“It can! You want to find the things that could explode but aren’t supposed to be there, so they don’t blow up the things that could explode but are supposed to be there!”
“What?”
Rogero’s voice broke in. “Just scan as much as you can as fast as you can. Engineers, tell me what the most effective means of setting off the fuel cells would be. That might help us narrow our search.”
A pause, while the images of the fuel cells continued to stream past, then another voice came on. “Actually, if you want to make sure they all blew, you’d want to ensure the cells didn’t just rupture but were hit hard enough to detonate.”
“What would that take?” Rogero asked.
“Umm… ten-kiloton nuclear device or larger.”
“We can detect nukes. There aren’t any down there.”
“Then… oh. It’s not in the fuel cell area at all.”
Another engineer’s voice. “You don’t mean sympathetic ignition?”
“Yes, that would do it.”
A third engineer’s voice. “That’s obvious, isn’t it? If you work the calculations—”
Rogero, almost shouting this time. “Where. Is. It?”
“Primary feed for the fuel cells. If you rig the feed to release all energy in a single event instead of a controlled release into the power core, you’d get a blowback into the fuel-cell storage area, which would detonate the rest of the cells in storage, and the entire stern of the battleship would be blown to atoms. That’s assuming the power core didn’t also overload—”
“Get to that feed,” Rogero ordered his soldiers. “You in engineering control, I need a software check to see if any snake viruses are in the propulsion-regulation systems or power-core-regulation systems.”
“But, Colonel,” one of the soldiers protested, “the snakes said the fuel cells—”
“Run that statement by one more time and see what’s wrong with it! ‘The snakes said’? Doesn’t that mean the truth is going to be anything but that?”
“Five minutes, Madam President.”
Iceni jolted her attention back to the bridge of the heavy cruiser. Drakon had apparently been right about Rogero’s virtues as a leader. “We may save the battleship after all.”
“What?” Marphissa asked with an appalled look. “Something—?”
“Never mind. Where’s the rest of the other flotilla?”
“Here.” The other flotilla glowed brighter on Iceni’s display, the vector from it leading inexorably to the battleship. “Fourteen minutes before they can open fire on the battleship. I’ve warned the shuttles to get on the opposite side of the battleship so they can’t be targeted.”
“Good.” The course of their own formation was bending just as relentlessly toward the damaged heavy cruiser.
“The damaged heavy cruiser is putting out escape pods,” the operations specialist said. “One… two… three.”
Marphissa frowned at the display. “Only three? We can’t have killed that much of the crew already.” Red danger markers flashed on the displays. “The cruiser is firing its still-operational hell lances? We’re still far too— Damn. They’re firing on their own pods.”
“Who’s in the pods?” Iceni demanded. “Snakes or crew members trying to escape the snakes?”
“Three more escape pods just ejected.”
“We’ve got comms from one of the pods,” the communications specialist cried. “Kommodor, they say they’re crew, trying to escape and surrender. The snakes control the bridge.”
Marphissa looked at Iceni. “Are they really crew? Or escaping snakes? What do we target?”
“The cruiser. If the snakes turn out to be in the escape pods, we can easily run them down later.”
“But if the cruiser is already controlled by what’s left of the crew—”
“Then they waited too damned long before taking over.” Iceni kept her tone cold to hide the sick feeling in her gut. I have to decide now. I hope I’m right.
“One minute to intercept.”
Marphissa tapped a control. “All weapons target the cruiser. We want a kill this time,” she ordered in a flat voice.
The flotilla flashed by the heavy cruiser, hell lances and grapeshot slamming into the crippled unit, and as they curved away, Iceni watched the display light up. “We blew their power core. Did the escape pods get far enough clear to survive the core explosion?”
“Yes. They took some damage, though.”