Ivan Kal - Olympus

The room looked at him as if he was a madman, which he was. This is why Tomas Klein didn’t share anything with us, President Von Holt realized. He gestured for the security to take him away.

President looked at Admiral Weiss.

“Can we contact the other two ships?”

“The Bismarck has already surrender to Olympus. And I have already sent the recall to the Dauntless, they will turn back.” He said somberly.

“And the Viking?” President asked.

“Based on their actions and the comments the Minister made, we can assume that the Captain of Viking is his man. That also explains why they are ignoring our comms.” Admiral Weiss said.

President looked around the room.

“We need to get on damage control right away, contact the ambassador on the Moon. Let’s hope that Olympus can resolve the situation. And also I want to know how the hell we didn’t know about that warship.”

Adrian looked at the holo-desk, the dissident, or rather Concordis ship has surrender, and they identified themselves as Concordis warship Bismarck. They have turned off their engines and were currently firing their front thrusters in order to slow down. The intercept time on the board above the holo-desk was rapidly coming down. It now said 7 minutes. One of the other Concordis ships was in the process of turning around, while the last one kept coming, Adrian was studying it closely looking for any sign that it will turn and follow the first one, but with each passing minute he grew more and more certain that it would not.

Finally after three minutes Adrian was sure that they meant to ignore his warning.

“Weapons, target the remaining ship, ten missiles, five at the back, the rest spread out the ships length.” Arian said. He didn’t know much about the ship, but he knew that it had missile pods on its entire length, and he hoped to disable them and the ships drives.

“Captain! Missile launch from the Concordis vessel.” Sensors said. Adrian shifted his eyes to the hologram, a moment later fifty missile tracks appeared, and all of them were targeting the Bismarck.

“Impact in six minutes.”

“They are going to destroy their own ship.” Bethany asked incredulous, Adrian filled her in about the Bismarck’s crew when they surrendered.

“It looks so. Weapons, can we shoot down the missiles?” Adrian asked. They needed to keep that ship alive.

“No Ship Master, our missiles weren’t designed to track targets so small. There is nothing we can do.” Noah said regretfully.

“What about our railguns? Can we shoot the missiles down with them?” Adrian asked.

“In theory, but Adrian, we would need to fire them at the place where the missiles will be. It will take minutes to calculate based on the missiles track, I can’t do it fast enough.” Noah said.

Adrian tried to think about any other way, the Concordis ships didn’t have any point defense, and firing their own missiles wouldn’t work, they were all tracking missiles, and had evading capabilities. They might shoot down some, but not all.

“I can do it Adrian.” Adrian heard Iris in his head.

“What?” he asked.

“I can do the calculations. But I will need access to the ships computer.” Iris said. Adrian thought about it, but he couldn’t see any other way.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, but you will need Bethany’s and yours codes in order to let me into the system, and they will know about me, I won’t be able to hide.” She said. Adrian made his choice, he trusted Iris.

Adrian turned to Bethany.

“Do you have any ideas?” He asked.

Bethany shook her head. “No.”

Adrian took a breath.

“I’m going to need you to trust me, and enter your command codes into the computer.” Adrian said.

“Why?” Bethany asked suspiciously.

“I have a way of saving that ship, but doing that will require allowing someone into the ships computer.” He said.

“Allowing someo—” Adrian interrupted her.

“Bethany, we need to protect that ship.” He looked at her imploring her to trust him.

“Alright.” She said, and entered sent her codes over her implant. Adrian did the same, and a then he gave Iris access to the ships computers.

“What the hell! Something took over my station!” Noah cried out.

“There is no need to panic Noah, she will do the calculations for the railguns.” Adrian said.

Both Bethany and Noah turned towards Adrian. “She?”

“Hello, my name is Iris.” Iris said over speakers.

“Adrian, what is this?” Bethany asked confused.

“Everyone, meet Iris.” Adrian said. “Iris, is an Artificial Intelligence” Adrian said.

“But, how? Where did she come from?” Noah asked.

Instead of answering Adrian just touched the side of his head. Noah looked even more confused at the gesture. But Bethany got it.

“Your implant.” Adrian simply nodded.

“I have the calculations, we need to fire in thirty seconds, or we will lose the window.” Iris said.

“Weapons, execute the targeting solution.” Adrian said.

“Yes Ship Master.” Noah said.

“And fire missiles at the Concordis ship.” Adrian renewed his previous order.

Captain Smith looked at his first officer totally helpless, the Viking has opened fire on his ship, and they had no way of defending themselves. The Bismarck’s hull was tough and thick, and Smith hoped that they survived, but he knew there would be casualties. He should have never agreed to this mission, he knew that it was wrong, and yet he followed orders, to do otherwise would have been treason.

“Impact in seven minutes Captain.” His weapons office said.

“Turn the bottom of the ship towards the missiles.” Captain Smith ordered, the hull was the thickest there. He hoped that it was enough.

“Captain! The Olympus ship has opened fire.”

“Good. At least the Viking won’t get away unscathed.” Captain Smith said.

“They fired missiles at the Viking, but sir, there is something else going into empty space.” The sensor officer said confusingly. “The computer, can’t make sense of it, it says that it is a meteor shower.”

“Get me the tracks on that shower.” Captain Smith said.

A few moments later he saw that the new tracks interjected with the missile path. After a few moments of studying the tracks Captain Smith exclaimed. “Those are ballistic weapons, Olympus ship is trying to shoot down the missiles!”

Athena’s railguns turned as one, all pointed at an empty point in space, as one they started firing, in thirty seconds the railguns launched over five hundred metal shells at the fraction of the speed of light towards empty space, they were fired in such a way as to blanket the entire area, anything that crossed their path was going to be crushed with the kinetic force that would rip it apart. Six minutes later their path was interjected with fifty Concordis missiles. Missiles had evading capabilities, but their processors weren’t fast enough to recognize the danger until it was too late. By the time the evading protocols were initiated twenty missiles were struck by metal shells, and ten more exploded, hit by the blasts created from the destroyed missiles, the remaining ten engaged their evading protocols, but Athena’s targeting solution took every possible path in account, and the ten missiles were quickly destroyed by the defensive fire.

Six minutes before, after the railgun fire died down, Athena’s missile tubes opened, and ten 20 kilotons missiles shoot of towards their target. The missiles were slower than railguns at short range, it will take them a little over eight minutes to arrive at their target.