Gold Peak’s reports almost perfectly.”
Captain Ivanov only nodded. His attention was on his repeater plot.
* * *
“Admiral, CIC’s picking up something—”
Liam Pyun turned towards Captain Steinberg. The operations officer’s eyes were on a side display, then she looked up at the rear admiral.
“It’s coming up on the master plot now, Sir,” she said, and Pyun’s eyes darted back to the display. The new icons pulsed to draw the eye, help him separate them out of the clutter, and he frowned.
“What the hell are those?” he demanded as the absurdly low ranges registered. Those things were less than ten thousand kilometers clear of his flagship!
“We don’t know, Sir,” Steinberg’ admitted. “All we do know is that they seem to’ve been there all along. They just popped up a second ago when they cut their stealth.”
“Cut their stealth ?” Captain Gilmore repeated. “You mean the Manties got recon platforms that close to us without our ever even seeing them?”
“That’s what it looks like,” Steinberg grated harshly. “And I doubt they just dropped their stealth for no reason at all. They want us to know they’re there.”
“Ma’am,” one of her assistants said, “we’re picking up grav pulses all over the place. Dozens of point sources.”
“Are these”—Pyun used a light pointer to jab at the new icons in the master plot—“some of those point sources, Chief Elliott?”
“Uh, yes, Sir. I think they are,” the chief petty officer acknowledged.
“Oh, shit ,” Gilmore muttered.
We are so going to get hammered , a quiet little voice said in the back of Pyun’s mind.
“How the hell did they fit FTL emitters into something that small? ” Steinberg demanded almost plaintively.
The question was obviously rhetorical, which was probably just as well, since no answer suggested itself to Pyun. Not that it would have made any difference at the moment. What mattered was that the Manties had managed to do it. Unless he was badly mistaken, those had to be recon platforms—dozens of them, as Chief Elliott had just pointed out—and if they were capable of what the wilder theorists had proposed, they were feeding those Manty cruisers detailed tracking information at FTL speeds. Which meant their missile control loop had just been cut in half, and the implications of that…
Belle Poule vibrated as counter-missiles began to launch, but it was already evident to Pyun that his ships mounted far too few counter-missile tubes and point defense clusters to deal with this salvo.
* * *
“Coming up on Point Alpha,” Brockhurst announced.
“Execute as specified,” Ivanov said formally.
“Aye, aye, Sir. Executing…now.”
* * *
There was little panic aboard SLNS Belle Poule , but only because her crew was too busy for that. There was no time for those who could actually see the displays, recognize what the readouts meant, to really consider what was happening, the stunning realization that they truly were as out-classed as the “preposterous” reports from Spindle had indicated.
And they were out-classed.
The Manticoran missiles came flashing in, still at that incredible—impossible—acceleration rate, and just before they entered the counter-missile zone, the electronic warfare platforms seeded among the attack birds spun up. Of the two hundred and forty missiles launched by Hiram Ivanov’s three cruisers, fifty carried nothing but penetration aids, and they’d been carefully saved for this moment. Now “Dazzler” platforms blinded Solarian sensors even as their accompanying “Dragons Teeth” suddenly proliferated, producing scores of false targets to confuse and saturate their targets’ defenses. The Solarian battlecruiser crews had never seen, never imagined, anything like it. Ignorant of the energy budgets the RMN’s mini-fusion plants allowed, they simply couldn’t conceive of how such powerful jammers could be crammed into such tiny platforms. The threat
Captain Ivanov only nodded. His attention was on his repeater plot.
* * *
“Admiral, CIC’s picking up something—”
Liam Pyun turned towards Captain Steinberg. The operations officer’s eyes were on a side display, then she looked up at the rear admiral.
“It’s coming up on the master plot now, Sir,” she said, and Pyun’s eyes darted back to the display. The new icons pulsed to draw the eye, help him separate them out of the clutter, and he frowned.
“What the hell are those?” he demanded as the absurdly low ranges registered. Those things were less than ten thousand kilometers clear of his flagship!
“We don’t know, Sir,” Steinberg’ admitted. “All we do know is that they seem to’ve been there all along. They just popped up a second ago when they cut their stealth.”
“Cut their stealth ?” Captain Gilmore repeated. “You mean the Manties got recon platforms that close to us without our ever even seeing them?”
“That’s what it looks like,” Steinberg grated harshly. “And I doubt they just dropped their stealth for no reason at all. They want us to know they’re there.”
“Ma’am,” one of her assistants said, “we’re picking up grav pulses all over the place. Dozens of point sources.”
“Are these”—Pyun used a light pointer to jab at the new icons in the master plot—“some of those point sources, Chief Elliott?”
“Uh, yes, Sir. I think they are,” the chief petty officer acknowledged.
“Oh, shit ,” Gilmore muttered.
We are so going to get hammered , a quiet little voice said in the back of Pyun’s mind.
“How the hell did they fit FTL emitters into something that small? ” Steinberg demanded almost plaintively.
The question was obviously rhetorical, which was probably just as well, since no answer suggested itself to Pyun. Not that it would have made any difference at the moment. What mattered was that the Manties had managed to do it. Unless he was badly mistaken, those had to be recon platforms—dozens of them, as Chief Elliott had just pointed out—and if they were capable of what the wilder theorists had proposed, they were feeding those Manty cruisers detailed tracking information at FTL speeds. Which meant their missile control loop had just been cut in half, and the implications of that…
Belle Poule vibrated as counter-missiles began to launch, but it was already evident to Pyun that his ships mounted far too few counter-missile tubes and point defense clusters to deal with this salvo.
* * *
“Coming up on Point Alpha,” Brockhurst announced.
“Execute as specified,” Ivanov said formally.
“Aye, aye, Sir. Executing…now.”
* * *
There was little panic aboard SLNS Belle Poule , but only because her crew was too busy for that. There was no time for those who could actually see the displays, recognize what the readouts meant, to really consider what was happening, the stunning realization that they truly were as out-classed as the “preposterous” reports from Spindle had indicated.
And they were out-classed.
The Manticoran missiles came flashing in, still at that incredible—impossible—acceleration rate, and just before they entered the counter-missile zone, the electronic warfare platforms seeded among the attack birds spun up. Of the two hundred and forty missiles launched by Hiram Ivanov’s three cruisers, fifty carried nothing but penetration aids, and they’d been carefully saved for this moment. Now “Dazzler” platforms blinded Solarian sensors even as their accompanying “Dragons Teeth” suddenly proliferated, producing scores of false targets to confuse and saturate their targets’ defenses. The Solarian battlecruiser crews had never seen, never imagined, anything like it. Ignorant of the energy budgets the RMN’s mini-fusion plants allowed, they simply couldn’t conceive of how such powerful jammers could be crammed into such tiny platforms. The threat
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