Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

One by one, the Syndicate warships, facing intercepts by superior firepower, broke off their runs against the freighters. They went back to positions hovering in front of and to all sides of the Midway Flotilla, roaming restlessly like wolves seeking openings to get at sheep guarded by alert watchdogs.

Over the next several hours, the Syndicate warships tried again and again at irregular intervals, sometimes all at once, other times in staggered rushes, and many times only one or two ships testing the defenders. “Sub-CEO Qui is trying to wear you down,” Bradamont said. “He’s hoping that if he keeps the pressure on, sooner or later, you or one of your ship commanders will get tired enough to make a serious mistake.”

“I can do this longer than he can,” Marphissa retorted. The up patch on her arm was trickling drugs that kept her alert into her body. There would be a price to pay for that as time went on, but, for now, she felt fine.

As the hours and the Syndicate probing attacks went on and on, the Syndicate warships spread wider around the Midway ships, so that eventually they completely surrounded Marphissa’s warships and freighters. The Midway warships were now defending an elongated bubble stretching along the vector that the freighters were traveling to the hypernet gate. In space, any ship could build up velocity if given time. Freighters usually didn’t move too fast, because accelerating and braking cost fuel cells, and transport companies liked to minimize costs, but this time Marphissa had told them to get up to point one light speed and hold it there.

It would have been nice to get the freighters going even faster, but she had to worry about their using up too much of their fuel cells. For that matter, the frequent attacks and counterattacks under way had been a serious drain on the fuel cells of her warships. The Syndicate warships have to be using up their fuel cells as well. How close to maximum were they when this started?

Sixteen hours into the running battle, a Syndicate light cruiser and two HuKs lunged toward the freighters along vectors that invited interception by multiple defending warships. Sub-CEO Qui was finally trying the trick that Bradamont had warned of.

“All units, maintain focus on your designated target. Do not attempt intercepts of any other Syndicate warships unless I order it.”

The light cruiser and HuKs held their approaches until the Midway warships targeting them were nearly within weapons range, then slewed around as fast as they could turn and darted out of range.

At twenty-five hours after the fight had started, every Syndicate warship again attacked at once. Two of Marphissa’s ships, the light cruiser Harrier and the HuK Vanguard , reacted slowly this time. The other Midway HuK, Scout , watching that particular Syndicate HuK tore after its target so ferociously that the Syndicate vessel broke off.

But the Syndicate HuK that should have been stopped by Harrier kept coming.

Marphissa’s eyes flew across her display, too little time available to run intercept calculations, her instincts feeling the next right move in the second she had to decide. “ Kite , alter course to intercept new target. Maximum acceleration authorized.”

Had she chosen right? No one was close to the Syndicate HuK, but the light cruiser Kite had the best chance. Kite ’s commander will have to push her past the red lines on hull stress to manage an intercept. I might lose Kite to hull breakup and have that Syndicate HuK get through anyway.

Kite was located above and about even with the freighters. The Syndicate HuK was climbing in from partly below and behind the two columns of freighters. If not for the velocity of the freighters themselves, forcing the Syndicate HuK onto a longer approach to catch up, there would have been no chance of stopping the attack at all.

A single tap by Marphissa produced detailed status information on Kite from the light cruiser’s data feed. Her thrusters firing, Kite was angling over and down, her main propulsion lighting off at maximum, hull-stress readings climbing.

An alert appeared next to Kite ’s symbol on Marphissa’s display. Excessive hull stress imminent. Reduce acceleration.

She negated the warning, only to have it pop up again. Action required.

Marphissa punched the negate command this time. It appeared once more. “I thought we killed this function in the software,” she complained.

Diaz motioned to the senior watch specialist, who went to work on that.

The vector for the Syndicate HuK formed a flattened curve aiming to pass between the top and bottom columns of freighters. The arc of Kite ’s vector was swinging over, sweeping steadily toward an intersection with that of the Syndicate HuK’s projected path.

Another alert appeared over Kite ’s symbol, this one blinking in red. Excessive hull stress. Reduce acceleration immediately.

Bradamont had knelt by Marphissa’s seat again. “Can Kite do this?”

“It’s up to her commander,” Marphissa replied without looking away from her display. “Only he can judge whether Kite ’s hull can take it.”

Excessive hull stress. Structural failure imminent. Reduce acceleration immediately.

The point where Kite ’s vector crossed that of the Syndicate HuK had crept just ahead of where the HuK would catch up with the freighters. The HuK was also accelerating for all it was worth, trying to steal the march on Kite , but wasn’t able to equal a light cruiser’s maximum effort. That’s enough, damn you! Marphissa thought, reaching for her comm controls.

But before she could touch them Kite ’s data feed changed. “He’s throttled back a little.”

Had it been enough? The warnings continued to blink their crimson message, and now Kite ’s data feed rippled as damage reports came in. “Asima,” Bradamont cautioned, sounding horrified. “If any of those stress points completely blow, that ship will disintegrate.”

This time, Marphissa reached for her override. All ships designed to Syndicate standards contained overrides that allowed a flotilla commander to take over control of that ship directly. She had once vowed that she would never do such a thing.

But it might already be too late.

Bradamont’s gasp halted Marphissa’s motion.

Kite had throttled back again, this time significantly. The damage to her structure was still there, but the red-line warnings of hull stress were sliding downward toward safer territory.

Kite whipped past the stern quarter of the last freighter in the upper column and bore down on the lone Syndicate HuK, pounding it with hell lances and the metal ball bearings known as grapeshot that became incredibly dangerous projectiles when they struck something at thousands of kilometers per second.

The Syndicate HuK, which had been pushing his own acceleration to the maximum, took those blows on a hull already under the most stress it could handle.

The HuK exploded into fragments, some large, some small, fountaining outward and forward along the vector the warship had still been accelerating upon when the vessel came apart. In an instant, the track of a single oncoming warship turned into hundreds of pieces of wreckage, racing toward the freighters as if the HuK’s remnants were still trying to get in a blow even after the warship’s destruction.

But because the HuK had been aiming to pass between the upper and lower lines of freighters, most of the debris went through that open area as well, passing onward harmlessly.