Dark Fate, Chapter 232

Chapter 232 – Mark

(Bridge, CRN Promise, Incux Food Resource System 3)

Captain Sumisu Yoichi had prepared his crew well. They were just four light-hours out from their target. Just. As if a distance that was only slightly less than that between Neptune and Sol back home was a mere trifle.

The planning for this strike was both simple, and horribly complicated. Simple, because everything was just math. Not terribly complicated math, either. It wasn’t unlike a marksman calculating long-distance shots with a rifle on Earth. Only, instead of accounting for windage, curvature of the planet, and Earth’s gravity, you needed to account for the gravities of every star, planet, moon, and collection of asteroids in the system, because a variance of a fraction of a degree was the difference between a successful strike and missing the target by thousands, perhaps even millions of kilometers. And a kinetic round only mattered if it hit the target.

Four shots, lined up from four different vectors, each one calculated to hit at exactly the same time. Each delivering a 100kg payload at 95% of the speed of light. Simple math said that each would hit with the kinetic energy of just under a billion tons of TNT. The formula of KE = 0.5(mv2) meant that you didn’t need to use much mass when the velocity was significant fractions of the speed of light.

Probably for the best that the Hellfire Cannon couldn’t be used in atmosphere. If a Hellspawn-class corvette tried to fire the main gun in a planet’s atmosphere, the effect would be much like trying to fire a supersonic round from a rifle underwater. The resistance of the air would cause the round to fail. Explosively. Almost immediately after leaving the barrel of the gun. Yoichi was not keen on seeing what such a blast would do to his Promise.

Interestingly enough, that same effect could be weaponized, if one shot down at a planet from orbit. Exactly how much of an effect the shot would have depended on just how far into the atmosphere it failed, and you wouldn’t get the full effect of the round’s kinetic force, naturally. However, you would get one hell of a blast wave from it. Made one consider if something similar was the reason for the Tunguska Event in 1908.

He took a breath, and cleared those thoughts from his head as the clock ticked over. The gun was primed, and ready. The vectors were laid in, checked, and double-checked. The computer had firing control. Then, there was the low thrum of power that could be felt through the deck plates as the gun fired, the round leaving the ship.

“Shot out, Captain,” said Lieutenant Scarlett West, his tactical officer. The American-born elf was also his regular ‘meal’. Other militaries would have issues with a captain sleeping with his officers, but the Ceres Royal Navy knew that certain races had physical needs that were actively unhealthy to ignore. An Incubus, as he was, needed to feed regularly, after all, and the elven woman was certainly attractive enough to his eyes.

Of course, that didn’t mean the Navy was blind to potential problems. First, he’d had to ask for volunteers from the female officers and crew, and then interview them to clear out those trying to sleep their way up the ladder. Second, any of his decisions regarding Lieutenant West were reviewed by his XO, Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Engineer. If he started showing favoritism towards her, or tried coercing her into things she did not want, then he could be removed from command. It was somewhat embarrassing to have to other officers review who he slept with and all that, but the rules were there to try and set precedents that would minimize long-term problems.

“Very good,” he said, bringing his thoughts back to the mission at hand. “Helm, take us to the next coordinates, maximum stealth speed.”

The first shot was only part of this endeavor, obviously. They wanted to hit the fleet with as many pulse torpedoes as possible, simultaneously with the coordinated attacks from the other corvettes. To do that, they needed to adjust their position so that, when they warped into close range to fire the torpedoes, they didn’t run into their own shots. The whole idea sounded absurd, but it wouldn’t have been the first time that a human craft had shot itself down. Back in 1956, a test flight of the American F11F Tiger conducted a weapons test in a dive, and ended up outracing its own bullets, and intersecting their path. He had no intention of letting his Promise join that club, naturally.

It took them almost an hour to reposition. Another three hours before they’d need to be ready for action. Time enough to make sure his people were fresh. He tapped the button for the shipwide intercom. “All hands, this is the Captain. Secure from action stations. Relief crews to stations. Duty crews are to be back in position in two and a half hours. Bridge out.”

As the relief crew entered the bridge, he looked to his officers. “Get some food, a nap, whatever. I expect everyone back in position on time, ready to ruin the day for a whole fleet of Incux.”

His eyes met Lieutenant West’s and raised an eyebrow. The woman just grinned, and nodded slightly. After all, he did say his officers should get some food. It would be a poor example if he didn’t do the same.

(Bridge, CRN Invader, Incux Food Resource System 3)

Captain Tara Cox took a long breath as she looked at the plot on the main screen. They had planned this well, but this first act was so ridiculously complicated that it would drive a staonaire to drink a brewery dry. While the flagships were stationary, most of the ships in system were on lazy patrol routes. With a bit less than three hundred ships in system, that was a LOT of enemies to keep track of, ensuring that they didn’t suddenly turn into the path of one of thes shots. Whatever ship it happened to would probably get the worst of it, but their friends would then be on the lookout, and all the harder to take down because of it.

The only reason there was any chance of a clear shot on the main guns from this range was because they were firing from well above and below the ecliptic. Most of the Incux ships were within a band just ten degrees above or below the ecliptic. It was a sensible arrangement, honestly. The way orbital mechanics worked, most of the material in a system was within that band, and the few objects outside that band were rarely worth thinking about, to be frank.

However, in this case, it meant that, instead of seeing the system closer to a first-person experience, where they would have had to be much, much closer to have any chance of finding an open shot, they were dealing with more of a top-down point of view. In other words, it was like trying to line up a shot on someone walking down the street from street level, or from the fifth floor. One was significantly easier than the other.

Lining up four shots from four separate locations so that they would impact the chosen truehive was relatively simple, once you put it in those terms. If that was all they were doing, then this wouldn’t have been so complicated. They also needed to calculate sixteen other tracks, so that twelve Renegades from Cinder Squadron and the four corvettes could streak in and blast the swarmships they’d targeted, without having any of those tracks intersect with each other, or any of the couple hundred ships in system. And then, after firing, they needed to make another jump to get out of the system, with all sixteen tracks having different vectors and end points, so that they didn’t lead bugs back to the Mercurial.

If all went well, then the Incux would be dealt a serious blow, losing one truehive and eight swarmships. However, that still left five more truehives, four swarmships, and over two hundred and forty smaller vessels to deal with. There was no way that they would win a stand-up fight, so Captain Griboyedov made the only call he could, poke at the bugs, and see if they stir in some way that could be useful, or if they just swarmed all over the place. Either way, this wasn’t an enemy they could take down all at once, so they had to be sneaky, and patient.

People liked to say that werewolves like her didn’t exactly do patience. That the beast inside of them raged and fought to break free. There was some truth to that stereotype, but only some. The beast had no patience for the kind of bollocks that most ‘polite society’ considered normal. The beast did not do a ‘customer service smile’. It certainly didn’t submissively go along with whatever someone said simply because they had a job title that put them in charge, regardless of their actual skills or abilities. And trying to cage the beast to live in a more pre-System society only made it rage harder.

But that was only if you tried to force the beast into ‘civilian’ life. The Ceres Royal Navy had a lot of meritocracy to it. People got rank because they’d earned it, and they could walk the talk. That kind of setup made sense to the beast. It felt natural, in a way, which meant the beast didn’t rage against it.

More importantly, the beast knew hunting, and this is what they were doing, here. Stalking prey, striking where you could, and falling back before the foe could respond? Her beast liked that. Especially since this was only the first strike. They’d strike again, and again, until there weren’t any more Incux here, if that was what it took.

She looked at the mission timer on the screen. “T-minus sixteen minutes,” she called out. “All hands, battle stations, full stealth protocols. A stations, go/no-go for operation. Tactical?”

“Go, Captain. Pulse torpedoes charged and ready.”

“Helm?”

“Go. Course laid in, engines ready.”

“Sensors?”

“Go, ma’am. No signs we’ve been detected.”

“Comms, signal Mercurial that we are go for action.”

(Main Bridge, CRN Mercurial, Incux Food Resource System 3)

Captain Griboyedov Ivan Tikhonovich took a long breath to steady himself as the reports came in. Invader, Promise, Vulture, Demon’s Roar, all ready to go. “Status of Cinder Squadron?”

“Cinder Leader reporting in. Cinder Squadron reports torpedoes charged and ready. Ready to go.”

Griboyedov nodded, and looked at the clock. Fourteen minutes until the first shots landed, if the calculations were correct. Two minutes until the jumps began. They would be pushing the engines to a ‘sedate’ 20c, or twenty times light-speed. Well, sedate for the corvettes, which could reach 60c, but that was top speed for the Renegades, after the upgrades and design improvements that came with the Mark II version. The rest of Mercurial’s air wing had been upgraded, as well, which was nice, since the first generation of Hunters had a limit of 5c with their rudimentary FTL engines.

Before they left, there was talk in the fleet of Ceres potentially selling a lesser version of the fighters and interceptors, with the older, slower engines and first-generation weapons and shields. Even with that, though, he would put a pair of X-Pattern Hunters against a squadron of any pre-System fighters, and say with confidence that the only way the fighters would be even scratching the Hunters’ paint was by attempting to ram. And, considering how maneuverable the Hunters were, that probably wasn’t going to work out well for the old-style fighters.

Thirty seconds until time to begin the second phase. He took another breath, and opened the command channel to all ships, and Cinder Leader. “Cinder Squadron, all ships, execute Attack Plan Alpha-2 on my mark. Mark.”