Past the Redline

Throttle Sixty-Six

Diana cackled as the cruiser’s entire arsenal was brought to bear against a single ship. That the ship they were targeting was the fleet’s flagship was just the cherry on top.

Her new—temporary—cruiser spun a little so that it could properly line up every gun against its sister ship. Lasers speared out with ChaOS-guided precision and ‘coincidentally’ happened to poke through tiny gaps in the other ship’s shields while the heavier blows from the cruiser’s railguns rammed into any weakened spot with just the right kind of timing to make the warship’s shield sputter.

A single shot finally snuck through the shielding array where a gap, no more than a metre or two across, was opened up by the shield having to absorb six other perfectly-timed blows nearby. It was like dropping pebbles into a still pond in just the right way that the little waves they created all happened to meet in the same spot.

Diana winced in sympathy as the smaller railgun round punched through the ship’s hull near the rear and the entire primary thruster winked out.

“That’ll be a bitch to fix,” she said.

“The Federation uses the same schematics across all vessels of similar make. It makes it rather easy to find singular points of failure to exploit,” ChaOS explained.

The fire stopped for just a moment as the turreted guns turned and picked out new targets. This time, when they opened up again, it wasn’t to concentrate all of the cruiser’s firepower on one ship. Instead, the cruiser started to hammer smaller corvettes and frigates who were more preoccupied fending off the increasing fire from the approaching Bolgian fleet.

“What are the chances we can beat the Federation fleet?” Diana asked.

“Four percent. Success would involve several failures on their part, as well as cooperation from the Bolgians and some luck,” ChaOS said. “More realistic goals, such as crippling the fleet or ensuring an easier Bolgian victory are more feasible, but still unlikely.

Almost as if to punctuate the statement, the ship around Diana rumbled as the Federation ships caught on to the traitor in their midsts and started to fire at them.

“Well, do what you can to inconvenience them,” Diana said. “Time until we’re ready to launch?”

“The Styx will be launch capable in two minutes, twelve seconds. The cruiser’s shields should hold out that long.”

“Oh, I can’t wait,” Diana said. She continued to watch the growing mess they were making of the once-organised Federation fleet. Ships were breaking out of formation, some of them backing up, others moving to create more distance between themselves and Diana’s new cruiser.

A few well-timed shots just after a frigate ate some Bolgian missiles was enough to have one of the fleet’s ships explode in a spectacular ball of fire and shrapnel that soon filled the space between the fleet’s ships with spinning chunks of spacecraft.

The cruiser’s sensors went wild for a moment trying to track all the debris before it settled down. A few of those chunks were tagged as missiles and some of the other ships diverted the attention of their point defence systems to slapping the debris away.

The Bolgian fleet wasn’t without losses, of course. The Federation fleet might have had a few big distractions to deal with, but with the way the Bolgians were charging towards them in nearly single-file, the Federation was still able to bring a disproportionate amount of fire down onto the nearest Bolgian ships.

Frigates and destroyers were ripped to shreds as they came too close, but not before launching impressive mid-range missile payloads that screamed through the gap between the two fleets.

“Damn, they sure love their missiles,” Diana said as she noted the literal thousands of small signatures racing to catch up to the Federation fleet from all of the Bolgian ships. It looked as though they’d been waiting to launch until they could saturate any defensive measures the Federation could pull out.

Diana doubted the coming rain of missiles was going to be too lethal to the Federation.

Sure, there were a lot of them, but most would be taken out or diverted off course. Those that made it through likely wouldn’t have the power to really punch through the fleet’s closer defences.

What they would do was sow a lot more chaos, and Diana was all for it. “Hey, those torpedo pods hanging off the back, do we have control over them?”

“We do. I was going to wait until we launched to fire them, to add more potential targets to distract the Federation from noticing the Styx.”

Diana refrained from ordering the AI to launch them all right away. ChaOS knew what he was doing.

A glance at one of the displays showed that the cruiser’s shields were down to half power already, and a few lucky strikes, mostly from close-range rapid-firing guns, had slipped through the shielding array in a few spots and punched some holes into the hull.

Without repair crews running around and fixing things, and without a ship made of nanites that could self-repair, any damage they took they would just have to live with.

The timer for the Styx’s completion ticked down, and Diana repositioned herself. The fighting outside was growing more fierce by the minute. Clearly, the Federation had someone decent in command because the fleet reorganised itself in short order.

The flag cruiser was still limping along, but it looked as though they didn’t plan on changing course much, so the damage to its main thrust assembly wouldn’t foil it too soon.

“Mistress, the Styx is ready. I’m ordering the cruiser’s crew into lifeboats now.”

Diana grinned. “Alright then. Fire those missiles, then punch it.”

Two things happened at almost the same time.

At the rear of the cruiser she’d stolen, flying out in space and only held in place by long tether, the single-use torpedo launchers came to life and immediately locked onto a dozen nearby targets.

The torpedoes, guided by a rudimentary AI, didn’t care that they were being told to ram into allied vessels at maximum speed. All that mattered was getting there and unleashing their payload on time.

An explosion rocked the cruiser’s side, exactly where Diana had punched a hole through the hanger. Bits of torn metal were tossed into the empty expanse of space, along with tons of sealing foam and some of the mechanisms that had once been part of the hanger itself.

A split second-later, a tiny ship darted out of the hole and immediately arced away from the cruiser under full burn.

Behind her, the first of the Federation lifeboats tumbled out of the cruiser’s side, further distracting everyone involved.

Diana didn’t get to see the impact of the torpedoes on the Federation ships; she was too busy being pressed into her seat as her tiny fighter craft zipped away from the Federation fleet as quickly as it could go.

A few point-defence weapons registered her vessel as strange enough to fire on it, but she was moving too quickly and too erratically for anything to make good contact.

That was probably for the best, she reasoned. The Styx was too small to pack powerful shields. It would have to make up for the lack with manoeuvrability and luck.

“Torpedo impacts registered. Nearly every one hit their intended target. Damage seems minimal, but it will weaken their shields and perhaps tip the balance,” ChaOS said.

Diana just grunted as she kept hold of the ship’s reins. Then, once she was out of the short-attack range of the fleet and slipping into its medium range, she let go a little, then flipped the fighter around so that she could see the destruction with her own two eyes.

Diana doubted that this fleet action was the biggest. Both the Bolgian fleet and the fleet the Federation sent were relatively tame.

Still, it was impressive just how much firepower was being thrown around. Lasers seared out into space, missiles left long pale plumes of exhaust across the void, and there was the occasional comet-like blur as a railgun round burned towards a distant target, only to end as a bright flash against powerful shields.

With her eyes alone, it was impossible to even guess who would come out on top. That was something she couldn’t begin to predict on her own.

What she knew was that she’d done her part in pouring oil onto the fire to make it that much more hectic.

She grinned. “Anyone tracking us?”

“A few, yes. The Bolgian carriers are starting to deploy their fighter ships on a long intercept course with the Federation fleet, but a few of them are loitering around, possibly because we were seen. I doubt our escape went entirely unnoticed by the Federation, though it seems they’re too busy to pursue.”

“That’s fine,” Diana said.

She paused as the cruiser she’d taken over had its shields finally go down. A moment later, something went critical, and the vessel burned up.

“Well, that was fun. Let’s head back and pick up our trophy, shall we?”

***