John Ringo: Claws That Catch

“Do you think I should intervene?” Korcan asked.

“Your ship,” Spectre said.

“Not until they come to some consensus, then,” Korcan replied. “I would know what they are discussing, however.”

“And I think we’re about to,” Blankemeier said as the threesome made its way up to the commander’s position.

“Sir,” Guns said, looking at his Hexosehr commander and trying to pointedly ignore the human admiral sitting beside him. “The fault in the main gun has been detected. Capacitor Seven is functional, but it’s in bad communication with the main gun control. All it is is a comm relay. Local controls indicate that it is in full preparation for discharge. I wish to fire before repairs are completed on the relay.”

“And there is disagreement,” Korcan said. “Ship Technician Caethau?”

“The personnel making the judgment that the capacitor is ready to fire are undertrained,” the Hexosehr engineer replied. “I have Hexosehr personnel on the way to verify the fault.”

“Time?” Korcan asked.

“No more than seven treek,” the Hexosehr replied.

“Human terms, Caethau,” Korcan reproved. “This is a human ship. Fifteen minutes. If the fault is as determined, time to repair?”

“Another two treek,” Caethau replied.

“Adar… Monthut?” Korcan said.

“Fire,” the Adar said. “This is a battle. If you wait for everything to be perfect, you’ll never fight it.”

Korcan thought about it for a moment.

“Concur,” the Hexosehr commander said. “Lieutenant Commander Painter, you have my permission to fire.”

“Permission to fire, aye,” the human said. He turned and looked down at the guns position and made a gesture. “Firing, sir.”

“Override on Step Two, aye,” PO Braham said. “Override on Step Two.”

“Guess we’re going to have to fire without seven, then,” Zouks said. “Step Three: Pre-energize power runs.”

“Pre-energize power runs, aye,” Braham said, pressing the controls. The room began to hum as if filled by a billion bees. “I hope like hell this step works. Got purple on all power runs.”

“Report main gun prepared to fire.”

“Report main gun prepared to fire, aye…”

“ALL HANDS, ALL HANDS. STANDBY FOR MAIN GUN FIRE.”

In the end it was as easy as pressing a button. And the dreadnought, as wide as a human supercarrier was long and nearly a kilometer in length, a construction beyond any human endeavor save the Great Wall of China… shuddered. Seemed to almost stop in space…

“Yeah!” Shick shouted from under the capacitor. The discharge, despite heavy shielding, would have fried everyone in the compartment if they hadn’t closed up their armor. It especially would have fried the technician fumbling around underneath it. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“Capacitor recharge nominal,” Shafer said.

“And this baby is still up! Charge you bastard, charge !”

The penetrator was not just a chunk of random metal. The optimum design had been found on the Karchava engineering database and slavishly copied. At the core was a long, pointed, chunk of heavy metal, in the case of this penetrator depleted uranium. Of all heavy and hard metals it was the most available to humans since it was made from reactor waste that had been reworked to remove all trace of radioactive particles.

Out from that it was simple steel. A lot of steel. Enough steel to make a World War Two destroyer.

The outer layer was a thin sheaf of carbon monomolecule. It was there to prevent significant damage from micrometorite hits. Like a diamond, the penetrator was hard but fragile. Even a very small pebble could, potentially, crack the penetrator before it hit its target. And that would be sad.

Accelerated to a small fraction of light-speed, the titanic dart gained a boost of energy from Einstein’s famous equation, raising its potential kinetic energy to right at the output of every nuclear weapon on Earth at the height of the Cold War — several exajoules of energy.

When it hit, a significant fraction of that astronomical energy was transferred to the Dreen brain-ship.

The penetrator hit on the nose of the brain-ship, slightly to starboard. Most of its mass converted to plasma immediately, the inertia of the impact carrying the blazing ball of hell deep into the vitals of the ship. Bulkhead after bulkhead was vaporized as the gaseous fire burned through everything in its path. The plasma ripped through seventy percent of the weapons controls on the starboard side, devastated starboard fighter systems, which had yet to launch, and tore apart thirty percent of the ship’s environmental systems.

But at its core, in a way worse, was the massive dart of depleted uranium. The impact mostly vaporized the steel around it and, due to simple physics, the plasma front could outstrip the speed of even the relativistic dart. But the harder, stronger, heavier metal remained intact for a few moments, blazing at the heart of the plasma ball.

That is, until the plasma expended its last joule of energy. Leaving the dart to fly ahead of its wavefront and smash further into the interior.

Depleted uranium is very strong but it is also, again, fragile. As soon as it hit a major obstacle, a primary support beam for the ship, it broke apart into a thousand pieces. And like flint and steel, when uranium hits even itself hard enough, it sparks. Then, like magnesium, it burns .

Thousands of chunks of white-hot uranium crashed into the depths of the brain-ship like a flaming shotgun blast.

‹Mass driver impact. Significant damage to environmental, starboard fighter support, starboard fighter bays… ›

The sentient didn’t need its child to tell it that the damage was significant. It could sense the ship screaming. It was tied into the depths of its creation, as much the brain of the ship as the brain of the task force. The ship’s pain was its pain, and it had just had the equivalent of a flamethrower hit it on the shoulder.

But the hit had missed the heart and the brain.

Close to range for secondary weapons. Roll to engage from port when in range. Launch all remaining fighters.

“Ooooh, that’s gotta hurt,” Spectre said. He was looking at the long-range viewer repeater on his own console. The Karchava apparently didn’t have Star Trek viewers, either. The system was a near twin of the one on the Blade , the only difference being even better jitter controls and the fact that with the circumference of the dreadnought and the larger individual telescopes it hosted, it was the largest telescope ever built. The resolution was just awesome . And he’d never seen a better image to resolve than the one of a Dreen brain-ship spouting fire.

“Reports indicate serious damage,” Korcan said. “The brain-ship is streaming air and liquids.”

“You just blew out its whole starboard side,” Spectre said. “Serious is a bit of an understatement. I mean, it gushed plasma along a third of its length. I’m surprised it’s still operating at all . That gun is bad news.”

“Alas, it takes time to charge.”

“Commander, reaching optimum engagement range for fighter launch.”

“Launch fighters.”

“Tallyho!”

The midsection of the Thermopylae hosted thirty fighter bays, fifteen to a side. When it was captured, the Karchava fighters were long gone, replaced by Dreen organic fighters.

Now it hosted a new version of organic fighter, the Cheerick dragonflies.

Perhaps it had been some constraint that was still unknown to the Alliance or perhaps it had been simple oversight. But the Dreen had maintained one fighter in each bay.

When the dragonflies were boarded it became immediately apparent that the Alliance need not be so sparse in their allocation of resources. Dragonflies could maintain themselves for quite some time on minimal resources and there was more than enough room to pack them into the hangar bay. They could, in fact, be stacked on top of each other.