Charles Stross - Singularity Sky

On the other hand, the enemy base couldn’t be sure exactly where the ship was right now; it had changed course immediately after shutting down its search lidar. Four more brief lidar pulses had swept across the ship’s hull, as other members of the squadron dropped in and took their bearings: since then, nothing but silence.

“Second trace!” called Radar One. “Another live bird moving out. Range on this one is four-seven M-klicks, vector toward lidar source three, the Suvaroffi. ”

“Confirm course and acceleration,” ordered Ilya. “Log it as candidate two.”

“Confirm three more,” said Radar Two. “Another source, um, range nine-zero M-klicks. Designation beta. They’re thick around here, aren’t they?”

“Watch out for a—”

“Third echo from local target alpha,” called Radar Two. “Scattering relative to candidates one and two.

Looks like a third missile. This one’s heading our way.”

“Give me a time to contact,” Mirsky said grimly. Rachel studied him: Mirsky was a wily old bird, but even though he’d figured out what was going on, she couldn’t see how he planned to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. At any moment she expected to hear the shriek of alarms as one or another observer picked up the telltale roar of a relativistic particle stream, with a beamriding starwisp hurtling toward them on top of it, armed with a cargo of antimatter.

Of course, it was too much to expect the New Republic’s government to realize just how thoroughly they were outclassed; their cultural bias was such that they couldn’t perceive the dangers of something like the Festival. Even their best naval tacticians, the ones who understood forbidden technologies like self-replicating robot factories and starwisps, didn’t comprehend quite what the Festival might do with them.

The Lord Vanek’s chances of surviving this engagement were thin. In fact, the entire expedition was predicated on the assumption that what they were fighting was sufficiently human in outlook to understand the concept of warfare and to use the sort of weapons overeducated apes might throw at one another.

Rachel had a hopeless, unpleasant gut feeling that acting without such preconceptions, the Festival would be far deadlier to the New Republican expeditionary force than they could imagine. Unfortunately, it appeared she was going to be around when they learned the hard way that interstellar wars of aggression were much easier to lose than to win.

“More backscatter. Target gamma! We have another target — range two-seven-zero M-klicks. Ah, another missile launching.”

“That’s—” Ilya paused. “One base per cubic AU? One M bases, if they’re evenly distributed through the outer system.” He looked stunned.

“You don’t think you’re fighting people , do you?” asked Mirsky. “This is a fully integrated robot defense network. And it’s big. Mind-bogglingly big.” He looked almost pleased with his own perspicacity. “The Admiralty didn’t listen when I explained it to them the first time, you know,” he added. “Eighteen years ago. One of the reasons I never made flag rank—”

“I listened,” Bauer said quietly. “Proceed, Captain.”

“Yes sir. Solution on target alpha?”

Fire control: “Time to range on target alpha, two-zero-zero seconds, sir.”

“Hmm.” Mirsky contemplated the display. “Commander. Your opinion.” Ilya swallowed. “I’d get in close and use the laser grid.”

Mirsky shook his head, slightly. “You forget they may have X-ray lasers.” Louder: “Relativity, I want you ready to give me a microjump. If I give the word, I want us out of here within five seconds. Destination can be anywhere within about one-zero AUs, I’m not fussy. Can you do that?”

“Aye aye, sir. Kernel is fully recharged; we can do that. Holding at T minus five seconds, now.”

“Guns: I want six SEM-20s in the tube, armed and ready to launch in two minutes. Warheads dialed for directional spallation, two-zero degree spread. Three of them go to alpha target; hold the other three in reserve ready for launch on five seconds’ notice. Next, load and arm two torpedoes. I want them hot and ready when I need them.”

“Aye aye, sir. Three rounds for alpha, three in reserve, and two torpedoes. Sir, six birds on the rail awaiting your command. The hot crew is fueling the torpedoes now; they should be ready in about four minutes.”

“That’s nice to know,” Mirsky said, a trifle too acid; the lieutenant at the gunnery console flinched visibly.

“As you were,” added the Captain.

“Proximity in one-two-zero seconds, sir. Optimum launch profile in eight-zero.”

“Plot the positions of the nearest identified mines. Show vectors on command station alpha, assuming they fire projectiles holding a constant acceleration of ten kilo-gees. Can they nail us in just four-zero seconds?”

“Checking, sir.” Navigation. “Sir, they can’t nail us before we take out that command post, unless target alpha also has a speed demon or two up his sleeve. But they’ll get us one-five seconds later.” Mirsky nodded. “Very good. Guns: we launch at four-zero seconds to target. Helm, relativity: at contact plus five seconds, that’s five seconds after our fire on target, initiate that microjump.”

“Launch T minus five-zero seconds, sir … mark.”

Rachel watched the display, a fuzzball of red pinpricks and lengthening lines. Their own projected vector, in blue, stretched toward one of the red dots, then stopped abruptly. Any second now, she guessed, something nasty was bound to happen.

Guns: ‘T minus three-zero. Birds warm. Launch grid coming up to power now. T minus two-zero.“ Radar One interrupted: “I’m picking up some fuzz from astern.”

“One-zero seconds. Launch rails energized,” added the gunnery post.

“Fire on schedule,” said the captain.

“Yes, sir. Navigation updated. Inertial platforms locked. Birds charged, warheads green.”

“Light particles!” yelled Radar One. “Big explosion off six M-klicks, bearing six-two by five-nine! Looks like — damn, one of the cruisers bought it. I’m getting a particle stream from astern! Bearing one-seven-seven by five, sidescatter, no range yet—”

“Five seconds to launch. Launch commencing, bird one running. Lidar lock. Drive energized. Bird one main engine ignition confirmed. Bird two loaded and green … running. Gone. Drive energized. Bird three running—”

“Radar One, I have a lidar lock! ECM engaged from directly astern! Someone’s painting us. I have a range — five-two K — and—”

Mirsky stepped forward. “Guns. I want all three spare missiles ejected straight astern now. Passive seekers, we will illuminate the targets for them.”

“Aye aye, sir. Bird four, coming up … green. Bird four running. Five, green, running.”

“Radar Two, we have a seeker on our tail. Range four-five K, closing at — Holy Mother of God, I don’t believe it!”

“Bird six running astern. What do you want me to lock on?”

“Radar Two, feed your plot to gunnery for birds four through six to target. Guns, shoot as soon as you see a clear fix — buy us some time.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The Lieutenant, ashen-faced, hunched over his console and pushed buttons like a man possessed.

“Range to firing point on alpha?” asked Mirsky.

“Three-zero seconds, sir. You want to push the attack?” The nav officer looked apprehensive Every watt of power they pumped at the attack salvo via the laser grid was one watt less to point at the incoming interceptor.

“Yes, Lieutenant. I’ll trust you not to tell me my job.” The nav officer flushed and turned back to his console. “Guns, what’s our situation?”