Most things CSS Hector would be expected to shoot at would be armored. Nothing could really stand up to ten kilos of tungsten moving at one percent of the speed of light, but layered armor plates and voids, thorough compartmentalization, and sturdy construction went a long way toward containing damage and protecting vital systems; Aquilan material technology could produce some very tough armor indeed. All these different considerations led the various navies of the great powers to make their own subtly different design trade-offs. The Dremish made a cult of achieving the highest launch velocities possible, trying to get the best range they could manage. The Aquilan navy preferred to give up some range and velocity in order to get a slightly better rate of fire and maximize energy transfer for K-cannon rounds. The Nyeirans, on the other hand, favored buckshot-like projectiles that delivered dozens of half-kilo darts to the general vicinity of the target instead of a single penetrator. Any of the schemes was lethal, but Sikander supposed that the ongoing debate about the advantages of one system over another gave naval experts across the galaxy a way to pass the time.
He observed carefully as Ensign Girard fell into the rhythm of locking on to targets, selecting rounds, and choosing firing profiles. Girard’s quite good when he stops thinking about what he’s doing, Sikander decided. The console skill Sikander had had to work so hard to attain came naturally to Girard; native Aquilans were immersed in modern information technology from early childhood, after all, and naval systems designers took advantage of a hundred everyday interface conventions and shortcuts Aquilans took for granted. Maybe all Girard needed was a little more confidence in his abilities.
Other than Girard’s jitters, the rest of the weapons team seemed to function smoothly. Sublieutenant Karsen Reno, seated beside Girard, handled Hector’s secondary battery of UV lasers adroitly. At their posts in the ship’s mounts, the gunner’s mates responded well to simulated battle damage and casualties. That was Darvesh Reza’s battle station. In his role as an acting chief petty officer he’d been assigned to the gun crew in the number-one main-battery turret, since marines usually doubled as gunner’s mates during their shipboard service. Darvesh was not an Aquilan marine, of course, but he had similar training, and he’d served in gun crews during Sikander’s previous shipboard assignments. Sikander noted that Hector’s gun crews shot quite well when the cruiser reached the part of the course where she was required to fire in local control—practice in case the cruiser’s centralized fire control was ever taken out by a bridge hit.
I’ll have to ask Darvesh for his impressions of the turret team after the exercise, but it certainly seems like they’re pretty sharp. Captain Markham was right—the Gunnery Department is in good shape. My predecessor must have known what he was doing. That would make Sikander’s job easier. Getting the best performance out of a good team was its own kind of challenge, but he’d much rather concentrate on helping people to excel than on correcting basic deficiencies. It meant that he would be hard-pressed to show a lot of improvement with the department, but Captain Markham seemed to have a good grasp on the state of the gunnery team; Sikander doubted that she would expect him to keep bettering range scores that were already pretty good.
“Mr. Randall, let’s use the torps on this last target,” Captain Markham said as they approached the final portion of the range. “I seem to recall that we’ve got practice weapons in tubes one and two.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Randall replied. He glanced back at Sikander and the weapons team. “Stand by for torpedo engagement. Target Sierra, two torps, range ten thousand kilometers.”
“Solving for target Sierra, aye,” Sikander replied. He punched the proper icons into his console and sent the orders to Sublieutenant Angela Larkin, Hector’s torpedo officer. She sat in the battle station beside Karsen Reno, and so far today she hadn’t been very busy. Most firing-range work revolved around the main battery of K-cannons, because warp torpedoes were too bulky and expensive to use up in practice shots. They packed enough punch to threaten a battleship, but Hector carried only a dozen of the weapons. In a real engagement, the Aquilan cruiser would save the torpedoes for a high-value target she could hit at optimum range. Warp torpedoes left normal space during their run to the target, and required tricky timing to return to reality at their detonation point. Too soon, and the torpedo would be exposed to enemy defensive fire. Too late, and the dense matter of the target structure would incinerate the torpedo, preventing detonation. It would still be a damaging hit, but not the spectacular explosion expected.
“Good solution on target Sierra,” Angela Larkin reported. She was a native of New Perth, slender with light brown corkscrew curls in a short mop, and her Standard Anglic had the soft burring accent common in the system. “Ready on tubes one and two.”
“As torpedoes bear, fire,” Randall said. “Helm, bring us to zero-three-five, full acceleration. Let’s make these count.” The cruiser came around toward the right, and the drive plates applied a steady but noticeable push to the center of Sikander’s back. Any ship making a torpedo run naturally wanted to close the distance fast, and give the enemy less opportunity to rake her at close range. He watched as the range to the last target drone ticked down rapidly. Larkin hovered over her torpedo console, making small adjustments to the weapons’ programming in the last few moments before firing. The better the sensor picture when the torpedoes launched, the better their chance to land hits.
The range indicator turned green. Hector shuddered as the magnetic tubes hurled the torpedoes, each one massing close to two thousand kilos, downrange. Within a kilometer of the launch tubes, each weapon vanished into its own warp bubble, driving invisibly toward the target. “Two torpedoes away!” Larkin reported. “Run time ten seconds.”
“Very well,” Captain Markham replied. She leaned back in her chair. “Now we wait.”
Sikander took a moment to stretch, deliberately keeping his hands away from the console. Maintaining any kind of telemetry link with a torpedo in flight was impossible. Objects in warp could be detected with difficulty from normal space, but it was maddeningly imprecise, since they weren’t really in the universe. That was the point of the warp torpedo—a physical missile maneuvering in real space between two modern warships was just too slow and fragile to make it through most targets’ point defenses, but torpedoes didn’t offer the enemy anything to shoot down, because they weren’t even there until they struck. It was the same principle that allowed starships to travel faster than light, but torpedoes didn’t compress space for speed, they merely bent it a little to hide as they approached their target. They didn’t need to be fast to be lethal.
“Five seconds,” Angela Larkin announced. “Four … three … two … one … impact!”
Right on cue, a bright burst of light announced the arrival of Hector’s torpedo spread. Unlike the drones they’d fired on with the kinetic cannons, drone Sierra simulated complete annihilation—a real torpedo’s nuclear warhead would vaporize a small target vessel, after all. “Hit!” Larkin called out. She barely stifled a whoop, and settled for waving a fist in the air.