Angles of Attack (Frontlines #3)(67)
“We can launch, then have the bird drop stealth and run the opposite way,” the tactical officer suggests. “Maybe the Lanky will give chase. But even if not, we’ll have the background noise from a few nukes to keep their eyes off us. It’ll at least get their attention.”
“We’d be giving up the rest of our offensive fighter power to do the space-warfare equivalent of throwing a rock down an alley.” Colonel Campbell chews on his lower lip in thought. “That’s a mighty expensive distraction.”
“May be worth it just to increase the margin of error.”
The colonel mulls the idea for a few moments and then shrugs. “Let’s do it. Cheaper than losing the ship because we made the node three seconds too late.”
It takes another hour to prep and load Indy’s remaining parasite fighter. They are small and stealthy, and like the drones, the parasite fighters are remote-controlled from the weapons station in Indy’s CIC. Unlike the drones, however, they are designed for combat, to give Indy stealthy standoff capabilities for sneak attacks. They have ordnance bays for missiles, and while the weapons officer is prepping the ship’s guidance and targeting systems for launch, the flight deck crew loads four tactical nuclear antiship missiles onto the hardpoints.
“Bird’s prepped and ready for launch. Nuke yield is dialed in at five hundred kilotons per.”
“They’ll make a pretty light show at least,” the XO says.
“Next burn window for max clearance transition is coming up in seven minutes.” The tactical officer puts the corresponding countdown marker on the holotable display.
“Launch the fighter,” Colonel Campbell orders. “Prepare for acceleration burn and Alcubierre transition. We have one shot at this. Let’s not fuck it up.”
Indy does a sequence of short burns to extend the parabolic curve of her path and swing her around to gain speed for the transition. Then we reach the apex of our path and swing around in a wide arc to aim straight for the node, which means we are also aiming right for the spot between the two Lanky ships. The detached stealth fighter is five thousand kilometers off our starboard bow and heading straight for the closest Lanky seed ship, a mosquito taking on an elephant.
“Fifteen seconds on the burn, five-g sustained,” Major Renner announces.
“Thirty seconds to weapon release. Requesting authorization for nuclear fire mission.”
“Authorize nuclear release, commanding officer, 0437 Zulu shipboard time,” Colonel Campbell replies.
“Confirm authorization for nuclear release,” the weapons officer says. Everything we say and do in CIC gets recorded by the computer and logged in the ship’s data banks. If we live through this and the crew gets hauled in front of a court-martial tribunal, the log will undoubtedly serve as evidence.
“Two minutes and forty-five seconds to transition,” the XO says. I look at Dmitry, who watches the proceedings with his usual stoic expression, but I know him well enough by now to tell that he is as anxious as any of us.
“Ten seconds to weapons release. Five seconds. Three. Two. One. Birds away, birds away.”
On the plot, four little inverted V shapes pop into existence just ahead of the icon for the stealth fighter and shoot toward the nearest Lanky ship at an acceleration that would turn us all into pudding if Indy could pull it.
“All four birds tracking optically. Time to impact: forty-five seconds.”
The combined destructive power of two million tons of conventional explosives is hurtling toward the Lanky ship. For even our biggest warships, a two-megaton direct hit would mean catastrophic damage if not outright destruction, but after seeing an entire task force launch hundreds of megatons against a lone seed ship without effect, I have no hope of seeing the Lanky blotted from the plot by our missile fire.
“Thirty seconds to impact. One minute forty-five seconds to transition.”
“Sergeant Chistyakov,” Colonel Campbell says. “Stand by to transmit access code at the thirty-second mark.”
“Thirty-second mark,” Dmitry confirms. He walks over to the comms officer and brings up a holoscreen on the console. “Standing by for transmit.”
“Twenty seconds to missile impact.”
The gap between the two Lanky ships is close to a hundred kilometers, as wide as it will get on their predicted patrol pattern. Both are moving away from the transition point. I know that their ship-to-ship penetrators are strictly a short-range affair and that the seed ships are too massive to just turn on a dime to get into our path if they detect us at the last minute, but intentionally racing Indy between two of those monster ships is still the scariest, dumbest thing I’ve been a part of in my life. So much is riding on a second or two and the fraction of a kilometer. We are not just tickling the dragon’s tail; we are timing a flyby through its open jaws while it is yawning.
“Ten seconds to missile impact. Five seconds. Three . . . two . . . one . . . impact. We have nuclear impacts on bogey Lima-21.”
The optical feed shows the blindingly bright miniature suns of four atomic detonations in vacuum, perfect spheres of light and heat and deadly radiation. Then the Lanky seed ship bulls its way through the nuclear fire, trailing superheated particles behind it as it shrugs off the hits.
“Turn the fighter around and go active on the decoy transmitters,” Major Renner orders. “Give the son of a bitch something to chase.”