Ereshkigal’s War (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 5), page 11
That barrage knocked off way too much of the Kepler’s overshields for Foster’s liking. Tolukei as well, according to his retching face. Keeping the psionic overshields active during the assault was clearly a huge mental drain for Tolukei.
“Mr. Chang,” Foster said, her shaking hands gripping the arms of her chair. “Get us out of here!”
“Trying, Cap!”
The orbitals fired another salvo of projectiles, each strike hitting the Johannes Kepler. It didn’t matter where the Kepler was. The projectiles struck if the Kepler was within the satellites’ line of sight. Whatever the satellites were using, their projectiles reached the Kepler in a fraction of a second.
“Damn, those weapons are fast,” Chang said, swinging the Kepler aside from Apolnar. “It’s almost like Draconian beams.”
“Not quite, Flight Lieutenant,” EVE said calmly. She must have deactivated her emotional programming. “According to sensor scans, the satellites are launching rods of tungsten at us that are capable of reaching speeds up to 300,000 kilometers per second.”
“So the speed of light,” Pierce said.
EVE nodded and remained standing with her hands behind her back. “That is correct, Dr. Pierce.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound very encouraging,” Williams snorted.
“Nevertheless,” EVE said, maintaining a calm and professional tone during a crisis. “The satellites’ weaponry is actually slower than tachyon beams, not as fast as Flight Lieutenant Chang had suggested.”
The Johannes Kepler broke orbit and angled itself toward the void of space in preparation to jump to FTL. A fleet of battleships had other plans and flashed in front of the Kepler, blocking its path to freedom. Behind, another cluster of vessels flashed into existence, another battle group below the Kepler, followed by several more above. On the tactical hologram, Foster eyed what looked like a sphere of red dots encircling the Kepler and closing the distance fast. It was a lot of ships. Foster stopped counting when she reached fourteen.
Chang slowed the Johannes Kepler, preventing it from slamming into one of the enemy ships ahead. He grimaced and grunted. “So much for FTL . . .” Chang adjusted the Kepler’s speed and destination, his hands working faster than Foster had ever seen them move. “Now, where the fuck did they come from?!”
“Can you get past them?” Foster asked Chang.
He shook his head. “Negative, Cap! There’s too many of them!” And then Chang made a face that Foster wished she hadn’t seen. It was an “oh shit” face. “All right, everyone, strap in! This is about to get rough!”
“How are the overshields?” Williams asked.
“Keeping them active is taxing my mind,” Tolukei said, his voice full of pain.
One of the newly arrived enemy ships shot the Kepler’s aft shields with a beam weapon. According to EVE’s scans, it was an ion cannon. About six beams soared across the void and slammed into the Kepler’s purple rippling overshields, exploding with a burst of white light.
“Would Nereid be of help, Tolukei?” Foster asked.
Slowly, Tolukei nodded and said, “Yes . . .”
Williams sent out a ship-wide transmission amidst the blaring emergency alarms. “Nereid to the bridge, ASAP!”
A light show brought on by the attacking ships and orbital satellites exploded around the Johannes Kepler, with each successful shot weakening their overshields’ strength. If Tolukei’s mind couldn’t keep the barrier active, the Kepler would have no choice but to rely on primary shields, the ship’s last line of defense, which drew energy from its reactor. Foster doubted the Kepler had the juice needed to keep the primary shields functional with so many targets shooting at them. Their best bet was to put as much distance as possible while keeping the overshields active.
The attacking vessels weren’t making it easy.
Several enemy ships clustered ahead of the Kepler, pelting it with a brutal barrage of ion beams. Others hung back and discharged bolts of plasma from a long distance while the hostile satellites shot the Kepler with pinpoint accuracy, using rounds that moved as fast as the speed of light. The speed of light being 300,000 kilometers per second. It got Foster thinking.
She adjusted the tactical hologram and forced it into a grid display that showed distances. According to it, the Johannes Kepler was now 32,000 kilometers away from the satellites. If they put another 268,000 kilometers from the satellites, it would take exactly one second for its projectiles, composed of tungsten rods, to strike. Add another 300,000 kilometers to that, and it would increase the time it took for the shots to impact by one more second. Foster was confident Chang was a skilled enough pilot to dodge the projectiles with a two-second heads up.
“Mr. Chang, do your best to keep us at least 600,000 kilometers away from the satellites, more if you can. That should give you enough breathing space for evasive maneuvers.”
“Confirmed, Cap, moving us now.” He looked at his console’s screen and cringed. There was nothing but a cluster of attack ships ahead and shooting. “That’s gonna put us in the heart of the enemy fleet.”
“May I suggest we move to this location here, Captain?” EVE said, her processors adding a blinking marker on the hologram. “This is the most densely packed area of the enemy attack formation. With so many vessels, it could lead to a friendly fire incident should the satellites fire. In addition, it will put us over 568,000 kilometers away from the satellites.”
Foster nodded. “Let’s take the risk. Mr. Chang, make it happen!”
The Johannes Kepler entered a full burn and propelled to the location EVE suggested, rolling and evading what beam weapons it could. The enemy attack fleet moved to chase, some ships firing ion cannons, other plasma weapons, and several smaller craft using large coil guns. Returning fire wasn’t simple since the Johannes Kepler only had forward-mounted weapons, the railgun, and a particle cannon. Only enemy ships ahead of the Kepler took a shot or five. That would have been a different story if the Kepler had been an actual combat ship. Most ships in the UNE Navy had weapon ports on all sides of the vessel, and the ones that didn’t were at least armed with a fuck ton of guided missiles and starfighters.
A moment of calm arrived partway through the maneuver. As EVE’s calculations predicted, the satellites stopped firing. The orbitals were loyal to the attacking ships and didn't want to shoot them down.
Chang spun the Johannes Kepler in a downward spin, swiveled around six small ships shooting coil guns, leveled off, then accelerated forward. He pointed ahead. “There!” Chang shouted. “That’s our exit out of this shitshow. We punch through this gap in their formation, and we’ll be free to make a safe FTL jump without crashing into them.”
Like all FTL-capable ships, the Johannes Kepler needed a clear and unobstructed path ahead to use FTL. Crashing into a ship because you were in a haste to jump to FTL was an effective way to end your journey through the stars. Even clipping a vessel while in FTL with shields active could have dire consequences. Hitting small rocks and the like was fine; the shields could easily take care of that. Hitting anything large was not so fine.
Penelope Diamondrose and Nereid stormed onto the bridge a moment later. Nereid joined Tolukei at the psionic workstation while Penelope pulled up a chair, tended to one of the bridge’s rear computer stations, and then brought life to its holo screen.
“Penelope,” Foster said, spinning her chair around to face her. “Forgot you were aboard.”
“Thanks . . .” Penelope snorted. “Feeling the love.”
Foster was about to ask why Penelope had her jumpsuit top unzipped and was showing too much cleavage for someone on duty (though she wasn’t officially part of the crew), then she remembered that despite Penelope’s English accent she was a Hashmedai. She might have been born and raised on Earth, but Penelope often found the Kepler’s air too hot. The sweat that glazed Penelope’s pale skin probably wasn’t helping.
“Penelope, please tell me there’s something on these ships you can hack,” Williams asked.
“That’s what I’m looking for,” Penelope said, her red eyes facing the holo screen ahead of her. “But these ships . . . Hmm. Their systems are, well, pretty alien to me. It will take some time to find network vulnerabilities.”
The Johannes Kepler continued its push toward the gap in the enemy armada, but the surrounding ships holding its spherical formation, maintained their assault and pounded the overshields from all angles. Chang put the Johannes Kepler into an evasive roll to escape from seven ion beams then dove around a large cruiser that attempted to block the Kepler’s flight path. Three larger frigates plunged ahead and sent a dozen white-hot beams in the Kepler’s direction. Chang put the ship in a hard turn and veered away from them.
Leveling the Johannes Kepler off to continue its push, Chang snorted. “They don’t want us leaving.”
“Then let’s explain to them we are leaving whether or not they like it,” Foster said. “Heat up the particle cannon.”
The Johannes Kepler soared to the first of the three frigates with the particle cannon active. After a quick two-second power charge, the Kepler fired the particle cannon, and its beam slammed into the shields of the targeted frigate, sending rippling waves of blue energy across the barrier.
“They got shields just like us,” Chang said.
Foster didn’t care. “Keep firin’.”
The frigate returned fire, but Chang saw its ports charging with energy then pulled the Johannes Kepler to the left. The ion beam missed the Kepler. Coming about, the Kepler returned the gesture and discharged repeated blasts of ionized particles into the enemy’s shields and didn’t stop until the frigate’s shields shattered.
“Enemy shields are down, Cap.”
“Put some railgun rounds up its ass.”
Chang angled the Johannes Kepler to the frigate’s aft thrusters, brought the railgun online, and expelled a steady salvo of piercing rounds into the enemy ship, causing cascading explosions. One of the red dots on the tactical hologram vanished. Behind, three ships about half the size of the Johannes Kepler flashed into the battle, spun, and launched torpedoes. Homing torpedoes, each one following the Kepler’s flight path, crashed into the overshields.
“Now we’re being torpedoed,” Chang grunted.
“Evasive maneuvers, Chang!”
But the evasive action didn’t work. No matter where Chang spun the Johannes Kepler, the ships fired their torpedoes then let the guidance system do the rest. The torpedoes even moved around enemy ships when Chang tried to use the larger vessels as cover. Nothing worked.
“Fuck’s sake! I can’t shake them!”
“We can be of assistance,” Tolukei offered.
“How so?” Williams asked.
“Our telekinesis, of course,” Tolukei replied.
Foster smiled at the two psionics operating the psionic workstation, Nereid and Tolukei. “Do it. Swat those things away from us.”
“Wouldn’t that weaken your powers?” Chang asked.
“Our primary shields are still active and at full strength,” Tolukei said.
“And once we lose those, we’re dead,” Chang replied.
Williams chimed in. “And if we can’t get clear of those torpedo ships, we’re dead.”
Foster made her decision. “Do it.”
Tolukei and Nereid closed their eyes and put their minds in a deep trance, unlocking the full potential of their psionic brains. Their combined power reached out beyond the Kepler’s hull and captured the torpedoes that were seconds away from impact. With the torpedoes gripped with their telekinetic might, the duo forced the warheads to spin around and face nearby enemy vessels. A heavy telekinetic push hurled the torpedoes into the enemy ships with shield-shattering results.
Now, whenever the torpedo ships fired, they destroyed one of their own. As incredible as the trick was, it was taxing on their minds, and it showed. Nereid yelped at one point and had to grip the console before her with shaking hands. Beads of sweat rolled down her face and arms. Tolukei yelled in pain as his reptilian-like face twitched. If the strain on their brains kept up, the two might have an aneurysm. Foster hoped the two still had it in them to keep at it for a few more minutes. While the torpedoes were no longer an issue, the multiple energy weapons hitting the Johannes Kepler were. There was nothing Tolukei and Nereid could do about that. They could telekinetically push kinetic weapons away should they have ample time to react, not energy ones. Dodging the plasma and ion cannons was all up to Chang now.
“Shields are dropping!” Chang blurted.
“Mr. Chang, how soon can we reach that gap?”
“About another fifteen minutes or so, Cap. Provided that nobody gets in the way, of course.”
“Shields won’t last that long,” Williams said, eyeing his station’s screens.
“Take the particle cannon offline, transfer all power from it to the shields,” Foster said, establishing a link with engineering. “Saressea, Rivera, give me everything you got. The Kepler’s gonna need it if we’re going to survive this.”
“The reactor’s already in overdrive here,” Saressea transmitted. “Don’t know what else you want us to do.”
“Make it happen, Saressea.”
“Yeah, yeah.” And then Saressea whispered, “What the fuck does she want me to do? Pull a second reactor out of my fucking ass?”
“Uh, Saressea,” Rivera’s voice echoed on the link. “You’re still transmitting.”
“What? Oh fuck!—”
The link went dead.
Lucky for Saressea, she answered to her superiors in the Radiance Union.
“FYI, Cap,” Chang said. “You realize taking the particle cannon offline leaves us with the railgun that does fuck all against enemy shields.”
“Noted. Nereid, Tolukei, feel free to send those torpedoes into shielded enemy ships in our way.”
“I am not convinced that . . . such a tactic would work much . . . longer,” Tolukei said, struggling to get those words out too.
“Our minds . . . are growing . . . weak,” Nereid said, nearly failing to muster the words to speak.
“Those torpedo ships have to go,” Williams said. “We take them out of play, then it’s smooth sailing from there.”
“What about the other ships?” Foster asked. “The ones hitting us with energy weapons.”
“It feels like there’s a three to five second charge time before their weapons go off,” Chang said. “As long as I can spot that delay, I can move the Kepler away from their line of sight.”
The next phase of the battle began.
Chang twirled the Johannes Kepler in a series of well-timed evasive rolls and bolted toward three of the torpedo ships that were unleashing a never-ending salvo of warheads. The psionic minds of Nereid and Tolukei captured the incoming torpedoes then flung them aside. Not one torpedo had hit the Kepler since Tolukei and Nereid started using their powers, yet the three torpedo ships continued shooting. Foster wondered why those ships continued to do that even though their attack was no longer effective. She had a feeling the torpedo ships would be changing tactics once their own torpedoes ended up slamming into them.
Foster was wrong.
They didn’t change tactics at all. The torpedoes exploded over the torpedo ships’ shields and sent bright ripples of blue light across the spheroid barrier.
“Damn, they’ve got shields too!” Chang snorted.
“The particle cannon should make short work of their shields,” Williams said. “Once it’s down, the torpedoes Nereid and Tolukei are capturing should end them!”
“Except we took the cannon offline to give our primary shields more juice,” Chang said dryly. “Can we, like, weave the particle cannon and shields?”
“Weave?” Foster said, one eyebrow raised.
“Like temporarily transfer all power to the cannon, fire it, then transfer power back to the shields, and then do it again when we get another clear shot?”
“That would leave us defenseless each time we fire the cannon,” Williams said.
“And will take these fuckers out of play faster.”
“What Flight Lieutenant Chang is suggesting is possible, Captain,” EVE said.
Foster addressed the android who hadn’t moved since the battle started. “Really?”
EVE continued. “However, it is strongly recommended that I be the one to funnel power back and forth between the cannon and shields.”
“I’m game for that.” Chang gripped the helm and weapon controls. “Just tell me when I’m good to blast them.”
“Actually, Flight Lieutenant,” EVE said. “You will also need to give me control of the particle cannon. This maneuver will require precise timing. You will not be able to execute it fast enough.”
“Wow, thanks for that . . .”
“I think what EVE is trying to say is that you aren’t an AI with built-in quantum computing,” Foster said.
EVE nodded. “That is one way to put it, Captain.”
“Fine, fine,” Chang said and typed on his console. “Transferring control of all weapons to you, EVE.”
“Confirmed. I have control of all weapons now. Please focus on evasion and keeping the cannon in range of the targets I send to your terminal, Flight Lieutenant.”
The maneuver played out like clockwork. Chang kept the Johannes Kepler facing the nearest torpedo ship, since the cannon was on the forward end. He kept an eye out for the three to five second charge the enemy ships around needed to perform before blasting their energy weapons. When he spotted that, he made sure the Kepler moved away from the beams right as they discharged. Meanwhile, EVE blasted the torpedo ship when the particle cannon got a weapon lock and shattered the enemy vessel’s shields. When finished firing, EVE powered down the particle cannon, transferred its energy to the Kepler’s primary shields, protected the ship from a single beam strike, then dropped the shields right away to charge and fire the particle cannon again. There was a hidden benefit to all that. Dropping the shields to transfer energy into the particle cannon gave the energy weapon an extra kick of offensive power.
