Charles Stross - Singularity Sky

“Yes, sir,” Helsingus said heavily. “Laser grid support?”

“Anything you like.” Mirsky waved a hand magnanimously. “If we’re still here to enjoy the light show.” Helsingus began flipping switches like a man possessed. On the screen, the outgoing birds passed their main engine cutout points and went ballistic; more enemy missiles began hatching like sinister blue fingers reaching out from the target point.

“Captain,” Rachel said slowly.

“—One-zero seconds. They’re jamming hard, sir, but the birds are still holding.”

“What if Kamchatka is wrong? What if those are civilian mining ships?” Captain Mirsky ignored her.

“Five seconds! Bird one ready to go — range down to one-zero K. Three. EMP lockdown is go. Sensor stepdown mag six is go. Optics shielded — bang. Sir, I confirm that bird one has detonated. Bang. Bird two is gone.”

“Radar. What do you see?” asked Mirsky.

“Waiting on the fog to clear — ah, got sensors back sir. Incoming missiles still closing. Fireball remnants hashing up radar, lidar is better. Uh, the impact spectroscope has tripped, sir, we have a confirmed impact on the target alpha. Oxygen, nitrogen, carbonitrile emissions from the hull. I think we holed him, sir.”

“We holed him—” Mirsky stopped. Turned to glance at Rachel. “What did you say?” he demanded.

“What if they’re civilians? We have only Kamchatka’s word that they’re under attack; no direct evidence other than bombs going off — which could be hers.“

“Nonsense.” Mirsky snorted. “None of our ships could make a mistake like that!”

“Nobody is actually shooting live missiles at us. The pre-jump briefing warned everyone to look out for enemy missile boats. How likely is it that the Kamchatka ran down a civilian mining ship by mistake and got a bit trigger-happy? And what you’re seeing as an attack is actually just the cruiser screen shooting in the dark at anything that moves?”

Dead silence. Enlisted men and officers alike stared at Rachel disapprovingly: nobody spoke to the captain like that! Then from behind her: “Spallation debris on radar, sir. Target is breaking up. Uh, humbly reporting, Captain, we have distress beacons. Civilian ones …” The Lord Vanek was going far too fast to slow down, and as flagship and lead element of the squadron, had a duty not to do so. Nevertheless, they signaled the squadron astern; and behind them, one of the elderly battleships peeled off to pick up any survivors from the disastrous attack.

The big picture, when it finally gelled some eight hours later, was very bad indeed. The “missile carriers” were actually refinery tugs, tending the migratory robot factories that slowly trawled the Kuiper-belt bodies, extracting helium 3 from the snowballs. Their sudden burst of speed had a simple explanation; seeing alien warships, they had panicked, dumping their cargo pods so that they could clear the area under maximum acceleration. One of the distant explosions had been the Kamchatka , landing a near miss on one of the “enemy battleships”—the cruiser India . (Minor hull damage and a couple of evacuated compartments had resulted; unfortunately, the cruiser’s chaplain had been in one of the compartments at the time, and had gone to meet his maker.)

“Ser-erves ’em right for being in the way, dammit,” quavered Admiral Kurtz when Commodore Bauer delivered the news in person. “Wha-what do they think this is?” He half rose to his feet, momentarily forgetting about his glass legs: “Simply appalling stupidity!”

“Ah, I believe we still have a problem, sir,” Bauer pointed out as Robard tried to get his master settled down again. “This system is claimed by Septagon, and, ah, we have received signals as of half an hour ago indicating that they have a warship in the area, and it’s engaging us on an intercept trajectory.” The Admiral snorted. “What can one warship d-do?” Rachel, who had inveigled her way into the staff meeting on the grounds that, as a neutral observer, it was her duty to act as an intermediary in situations such as this one, watched Bauer spluttering with mordant interest. Can he really be that stupid ? she wondered, glancing at the admiral, who hunched in his chair like a bald parrot, eyes gleaming with an expression of fixed mania.

“Sir, the warship that is signaling us is, ah, according to our most recent updates, one of their Apollo-class fleet attack carriers. Radar says they’ve got additional traces indicative of a full battle group.

We outnumber them, but—”

Rachel cleared her throat. “They’ll eat you for breakfast.” Bauer’s head whipped around. “What did you say?” She tapped her PA, where it lay on the table before her. “UN defense intelligence estimates suggest that Septagon’s policy of building carriers, rather than the standard laser/missile platform that your navy has adopted, gives them a considerable advantage in the ability to cover an entire system.

Simply put, while they lack short-range firepower, they’re able to launch a swarm of interceptors that can pound on you from well outside your own engagement envelope. More to the point, they’re frighteningly good, and unless I’m very much mistaken, that carrier, on its own , outmasses your entire fleet. I wouldn’t want you to get the idea that I don’t rate you against the Septagon Navy, but if you’re planning on fighting them, do you think you could let me know in advance? I’d like a chance to grab a survival pod first.”

“Well, we can’t argue with the government of Earth’s defense estimates, can we, Commander?” Bauer nodded pointedly at his executive officer.

“Ah, no, sir. The Colonel is quite correct.” The young and somewhat flustered Lieutenant avoided looking at Rachel; it was a minor slight she was getting plenty of practice at ignoring.

“Damned newfangled inventions,” mumbled Kurtz under his breath. “Blasted many-angled ones don’t want us to succeed, anyway — per-per-perfidious technophiles!” Louder: “We must press on!”

“Absolutely.” Commodore Bauer nodded sagely. “If we press on to Point Two on schedule, leaving the diplomatic niceties to the embassy — speaking of which — Lieutenant Kossov. What of the update?

Where do we stand with respect to further information about this Festival, its order of battle and motives? What have we learned?”

“Ah.” Lieutenant Kossov, removed and polished his pince-nez nervously. “Well, there’s something of a problem. The deposition from the Admiralty doesn’t seem to have arrived. We were supposed to be seeing an ordnance beacon, but although we quartered the designated orbital path, there’s nothing there.

Either they’re late — or they never planted it.”

‘This orbital beacon.“ Rachel leaned forward. ”A standard target buoy, right? With a diplomatic package containing anything the Republic’s intelligence services have learned about the Festival in the five years since our jump?“

Kossov glanced warily at the Commodore, who nodded. “Yes, Colonel. What of it?”

“Well, if it isn’t there, that can imply three things, can’t it? Either it was there, but somebody else stole or disabled it. Or—”

“Perfidious Septagonians!” Robard hastily leaned over his charge, then looked up and shrugged, eloquently.

“Indeed, Admiral. Or, as I was saying, the second option is that it hasn’t been put there yet — some miscalculation, or they couldn’t determine any useful information about the enemy, or they forgot about us, or something.”

The noise of Kurtz’s snoring cut into her exposition. All eyes turned to the admiral; Robard straightened up. “I’m afraid the Admiral’s legs have been paining him considerably of late, and the dosage of his medication is not conducive to lucidity. He may sleep for some hours.”