David Weber - Path of the Fury

Those failsafes were intended to protect Procyon's crew from the collapse of an unstable cyber synth, not to resist another AI's attack. They didn't even recognize it for what it was, but they sensed the turmoil raging in the systems they monitored and performed their designed function.

Procyon's entire control net crashed as Megarea convinced it to lobotomize its own AI.

Procyon writhed out of control, systems collapsing into manual control, leaving her momentarily defenseless as Megarea rampaged through them. Circuits spat sparks and died, backup computers spasmed in electronic hysteria, and Howell did the only thing he could. His hand slammed down on the red switch on his board. HMS Procyon vanished into the security of her shield, and he wondered if it was enough. In theory, nothing could get through an OKM shield-but no one had ever tested that theory against a battle-cruiser's full-powered ramming attack.

If she'd had even a moment longer, Megarea might have stopped the shield before it activated, but she didn't have a moment. There was barely time to snatch Tisiphone out of the dreadnought's circuitry before the shield chopped off her access, and even that delay was nearly fatal.

She'd cut her margin too close. HMS Issus opened fire with every weapon, and Megarea was locked into too many tasks at once. Her defenses were far below par. She was too close for SLAMs, but at least six sublight missiles and three energy torpedoes went home against her battle screen.

The alpha synth writhed at the heart of a manmade star. Screen generators screamed in agony, local failures pierced her defenses, and elation filled Issus's captain. Nothing short of a battleship could survive that concentrated blow!

A battleship … or an alpha synth. Megarea staggered out of the holocaust, blistered and broken, trailing vaporized alloy and atmosphere. A third of her weapons were twisted ruin, but she was alive. Alive and deadly, no longer distracted as she turned upon her foe.

Her holo projector was gone, and the battle-cruiser's captain had one instant to gawk in disbelief as Megarea stood revealed. Then answering fire slammed back. A direct hit wiped away Issus's bridge. More fire ripped past her weakened defenses, and panic flashed through Howell's squadron. Their flagship had been driven behind her shield. Cannae and her escorts had been destroyed. Issus was a shattered, dying wreck … and now they knew their enemy. Knew they faced an alpha synth which had carved its way through the heart of their battleline. Only the battle-cruiser Verdun stood in her path, and Verdun refused to face her. She spun away, interposing her own Fasset drive, and Megarea screamed past at thirty-six percent of light-speed.

The lethal chaos receded astern, and Alicia cursed herself viciously. Monkoto had planned for her to play the part of a battle-cruiser, slightly damaged in the inevitable engagement with Howell's screen, and she'd blown it. Howell had killed her SLAM drones-exactly as intended- but she could carry the same word in person … unless he stopped her. Yet thanks to Megarea's damage, he knew what she was. Dreadnoughts were built for speed as well as power; Procyon might have overhauled a battle-cruiser with battle damage, but nothing he had could hope to overtake an alpha synth. So he wouldn't even try, and-

Her head jerked up as Megarea's drive died. The ship sped onward, but she was no longer accelerating, and Alicia's mouth twisted bitterly.

"Nice try, but you don't really think you can trick them with a fake drive failure, do you?"

"Who the fuck is faking?" Megarea snarled back. "I just lost the entire after quadrant of the drive fan!"

"You what?"

"I said somebody threw a goddamned wrench into the works!" The AI snapped as diagnostic programs danced. "Shit! The bastards took out both Alpha runs to the upper node generators!"

"Can they be repaired?" Tisiphone demanded quickly.

"Sure-if you can think of some way to keep those creeps from killing us while I do it!" The alpha synth's point defense stations took out the first spattering of incoming missiles even as her maintenance remotes leapt into action. "In the meantime, no drive means no evasion and no nice SLAM-eater. If those battle-cruisers get their shit together, we're dead."

Alicia gripped the arms of her command chair, face white, monitoring remotes that ripped out huge chunks of broken hull and buckled frame members to get at the damaged control runs. There was no time for neatness; Megarea was inflicting fresh and grievous wounds upon herself as she raced to make repairs which should have taken a shipyard days.

More missiles sizzled in from Verdun-but only missiles. She must have exhausted her SLAMs against Megarea's mad charge, yet her two surviving sisters hadn't, and they were closing fast. One would reach firing range within fifty minutes; the other in an hour; and Procyon still had SLAMs in plenty once she came out from behind her shield.

James Howell sat grimly silent as damage control labored. Commander Rahman had replaced the shrieking, drooling Rendlemann, but Procyon no longer had a cyber synth. No one knew how it had been done, but her AI was gone, and massive damage to the manual backups left the big dreadnought defenseless. There wouldn't even be battle screen until damage control could route around the wrecked subsystems, and even if they replaced them all, Procyon would be at little more than half normal capability without her AI.

Which meant he dared not drop his mauled flagship's shield despite a desperate temptation to do just that. Verdun and Issus had almost certainly killed those mad-men, assuming they hadn't destroyed themselves against the shield. But if they had somehow survived and fled, his people might need Procyon's SLAM batteries to stop them-except that if they'd survived and hadn't fled, a single missile salvo would rip his crippled ship apart. And so he sat still, watching his crew wrestle furiously with their repairs, and waited.

"Why the hell aren't they coming after us?" Alicia worried, watching lightning glare as Megarea's point defense dealt with incoming missiles.

"Little One," Tisiphone observed with massive restraint, "I see missiles enough, and two of their battle-cruisers are pursuing us."

"Not them-Procyon. Why doesn't she drop her shield and fry us?"

"You're complaining?" Megarea flung half a dozen missiles back at Verdun. They had little chance of penetrating the battle-cruiser's point defense at this range, but they might make her a bit more cautious. "Alley, I gave that cyber synth piece of junk a terminal migraine. Unless I miss my guess, they're scraping fried molycircs off the deck plates and wondering what the hell hit them."

"Yeah, but for how much longer?"

"How do I know? Damn it, I've got more to worry about than-"

"I know, honey. I know!" Alicia said contritely. "It's just that-"

"Just that this waiting wears upon the nerves," Tisiphone finished. "Yet think, Little One- none but the truly mad would linger within SLAM range of that dreadnought if they could flee. Hence, they must believe our drive damage genuine, which means we may yet complete our original intent."

"Unless they get their act together and kill us," Megarea muttered.

The battle-cruiser Trafalgar raced towards rendezvous with Verdun. Another twenty minutes. Just twenty, and her SLAMs would have the range.

"Okay, people," Megarea murmured. "Now just pray it holds… ."

Circuits closed. Power pulsed through jury-rigged shunts and patches, and the alpha synth began to accelerate once more. At little more than two-thirds power, but to accelerate, and Megarea turned her attention to other wounds. She could do little for slagged down weapons, but her electronic warfare systems damage was mainly superficial, and it as looked as though she might need them badly. Soon.