The massive flash of light engulfed the screens of the command center before static made the imagine unreadable. Simultaneously, an ever so slight jolt rippled through the station, like waves on a calm lake.
Commandant Andrews's initial relief at their successful strategy was immediately replaced by a jolt of worry.
A vacuum explosion powerful enough to be actually be felt from a couple of megameters away? And through a metallic asteroid 50 km in diameter?
"Daniels, what's our radiation readings?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level. Even 200 meters underground, an explosion that powerful could microwave them.
"Slight spike on this level, sir", replied the former helmsman. "5 times background for 0.2 mils, fading back to normal. Mostly gamma and X-ray." He paused. "Surface installations had it a lot worse."
No wonder. "Do we have weapons online?"
"Missiles and torpedoes are operational", reported Ramanchandran. "We're getting nominal internal telemetry from the turrets, but I can't activate their sensors. Looks like they're blinded."
Andrews swallowed the knot in his throat. He hadn't really taken into consideration what would happen if these ships were heavily damaged. Ibaka DID say these things resembled what we would expect from antimatter drives.
He took a quick glance at the science team to his back and left. Ibaka was standing, stroking his bushy beard and mustache, his dark complexion barely visible in the dimly lit room, intently watching the static-filled screen. Next to him, Sanderson was as still as a statue, hands behind his back. Batra was holding her hand over he mouth, her face a portrait of concern.
For a moment he wondered at his foolishness for not sending them bellow, to the shelters. If the explosion had been any bigger, we might have all taken a lethal dose of rads, he thought. They're civilians, they shouldn't have to take the risks.
Just as quickly, he brushed the thought aside. Moving about in the middle of a battle is dangerous. And they might be needed here.
"Visual is returning, commandant", interceded Daniels.
All eyes moved towards the slowly stabilising images displayed on the monitors. The surface installations appeared in slight relief, their gunmetal silhouettes in contrast with the dark grey of the asteroid's bouldery surface. Some had a slightly iridescent look, from the intense heat of the explosion. The rim of the surrounding space mountains was darkening, as the cloud of hot plasma that had once been an unstoppable armored monster rapidly expanded, turning from whitish-blue, to a mostly transparent and fading orange.
"Good thing the diodes are underground", offered Sanderson.
"Radar?"
"Still offline commandant."
"Launch a buoy, then", ordered Andrews. "And I want three more ready to deploy instantly."
"Radar probe.... away", said Ramanchandran, his fingers dancing on his controls.
On the visual image, one of the torpedo tubes had opened, allowing a large, fat, tubular object to shoot away. The torpedo shaped object maintained a steady climb, as it's data feed started streaming in information to the command center.
"Correlating data....", reported Daniels with a slight pause,"... tactical view is up."
The largest central monitor switched to it's pre-explosion view, a 3D image of the neighbourhood within 50.000 km of the asteroid.
Several contacts also materialised.
"Contact-Prime reacquired", reported APOLLO. "Vector confirmed", it added, as small arrows popped up around the newly highlighted target on the screen.
"Same heading, but slowing down", said Hauser, reminding the commandant of his existence.
"Trying to turn about", concluded Andrews, as he watched one of the secondary monitors now focused on the assumed-to-be Loroi craft.
It already had signs of battle when jumping in system, but after the recent fight, it looked far worse for wear. It's outer hull was filled with gaping rents, a spiderweb of cracks connecting the impact points of the enemy ship's gunfire. In some areas, what appeared to be a metallic honeycomb substructure was visible, mangled by heat and shock. By far, the heaviest damage seemed to be concentrated near it's starboard nacelle: the outer mold had been mostly stripped away, with the nacelle seemingly remaining connected only by a tangled web of blasted metal, with darkened cables and beams marking a sharp contrast to the rest of the ships' elegant exterior.
Sure can take a hit, though, thought the commandant. APOLLO had monitored and logged reading from the enemy weapons during the battle, to try and guesstimate the yield the alien weapons were capable of. Andrews only had time to glance at the data during the firefight, but the readings were quite spectacular. By all accounts, one of our ships would have been either mission killed or outright cut to ribbons every time they discharged a volley.
"Ottis?", inquired the XO.
"Lost contact on blast, sir", replied one of the comms officers. "I think it's dead," he continued, motioning towards another monitor displaying the magnified image of the orbital test target.
To say it was damaged was an understatement. Being so close to the explosion, it had lost it's circular shape, with one of its' edges slightly bent inward. The modular, hexagonal, orange plates that served as a contact surface for experimental weapons were fused together on the side closest to the blast, forming a crescent shape around the perimeter, glowing a dull yellow. Large cracks radiated from this fused section, and Andrews could guess that the installation was pretty much a write off. It had been violently showed aside, it's orbit taking it wildly off-course.
"Even with the plate emplacement and heavy armouring, the systems on the other side would've been fried by intense gamma", said Ibaka.
Andrews nodded. Gonna have to send a tug later to fish it.
"Target reacquired", said APOLLO, interrupting his chain of thought.
Simultaneously, a small blue-ish beam impacted the side of the EWT. This time, the jolt was somewhat stronger.
"It's one of the enemy ships, sir", said Ramanchandran in an urgent tone. "It's moving in."
"Caught the Mjolnir dead center", added Daniels. "Lost telemetry."
On the surface image, the view of the experimental weapon's emplacement was clouded by a dome of dust stirred up by the impact. The large, telescope-like structure was barely visible, but a part of it was shining a dull red, and fragments were flying about, signalling major damage.
About thirty degrees above the horizon, surrounded by a red targeting reticle, was an still invisible foe moving downwards on a lazy half circle.
"It's bearing down on us," reported the helmsman shakily. "Energy spike!"
Another bright flash occupied the screen for half a second, once more centered on the Mjolnir.
"One of the smallcraft", said Andrews, as he glanced at the Loroi vessel. It had turned around, but was still trying to cancel it's speed, having overshot the remaining Umiak craft.
The gunboat, for it's part, had turned away from the epicenter of the blast, and was now completing it's deft turn, making a beeline towards Star's End.
Not two seconds later another short pulsation of the targeting reticle informed of a further energy spike, quickly followed by a third blast centered on the EWT.
"Lasers, engage target", ordered Andrews.
"Aye, sir", said the helmsman.
"Torpedoes?"
"Nine primed and ready," reported Ramanchandran. "One tube primed for radar probes."
"Launch the torpedoes, and gimme another probe!"
One shot center to disable actuators, thought the commandant. One to the tip, to disable optics. And one to the rear, to sever lines.. His fears were confirmed: at this range, and with their superior systems, the enemy could snipe them at their leisure, picking off critical spots with precision. The probes would be easy pickings, but he knew he couldn't let the Umiak take the shot, or else he'd be blind. He had to distract them, even if it meant sacrificing ammunition.And all the emplacements are topside, wide open to counter-fire.
On screen, the heavy laser turrets turned slightly, and started painting the dusty sky with thin, barely visible beams. Behind them, a new series of oblong objects exited the launch tubes. One carried on gently, the others swerved and jetted away at high speed.
"Railguns charged", reported another officer.
"Open fire!"
He watched as the turreted barrels moved in place, and swung back with recoil as they discharged their slugs.
The umiak ship had started to dance, zipping around with sharp changes in vector.
Evasive maneuvering, thought Andrews. He'd seen that the torpedoes were far too slow to be able to come close to the target, even if they outnumbered it 9 to 1. It was easily twice as fast in acceleration as they were, and his best hope was that they'd draw some fire from the Umiak vessel.
The railguns were another matter. They could fire faster, didn't need to gain speed, and did just as much damage as a small nuke.
But there's only one battery, he whispered in his head, silently regretting his decision to not emplace more ample firepower.
As if reading his mind, the gunship's target flared again. This time, the blueish beam contacted the squat mass driver emplacement head-on, tearring a rent into it's face, before the blast once more obscured the view in a veil of dust.
Shit!
"System report!"
"Actuators shot," replied Daniels briskly. "Only receiving telemetry from one gun. Functional, but can't aim."
If this is what these guys can do, we're more screwed than we'd thought, thought Andrews. "Does the gun have line of sight clear of the ridge?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Then keep firing!". If we show them it's still online and aggressive, they might dedicate another shot to killing it for good. Internally, he winched at the thought of slowly sacrificing bits of his station to buy time. With the Mjolnir out of commission, and the drivers reduced to loud barking, he knew it was up to the laser emplacements to carry this fight.
Another blue streak shot across the screen, finishing off the mass driver emplacement with another slight jolt to their seats.
Dammit, they're carving us up!. He looked at the zoomed image of the gunship. It was buzzing unpredictably across the screen, but some of the laser fire was finding it's mark. Small puffs of ionized metal boiled off, and soon, the vessel appeared to look like a nicely carved piece of pumice.
But in the meantime, it had taken with it two of the laser installations, one with a dead center wrecking hit, that sent the topside panels of the turret flying; and another with a lucky strike that had severed the communication and power lines buried beneath the regolith. The turret went silent, but the Umiak, underlying their apparent thoroughness, had dedicated to more shots to reducing it to a smoldering piece of space art.
Down to one, in less than 12 minutes thought Andrews.And dodging all our torpedoes to boot. As they'd reach their point of closest approach, he'd instructed APOLLO to detonate them, in the hopes that one might temporarily blind their sensors. So far, though, they'd been far too off target. If we survive this, I'm gonna accelerate the development of those directed energy torpedo warheads. Hell, I'd buy Sanderson a dammed Christmas cake, just to have had some of those on hand.
He was trying to guess the intentions of his enemy. Even if they eliminated all the surface structures, they were taking major damage themselves, having already lost two of their four energy turrets. It would take them too long to blast through the iris that controlled access to the enormous, mile-long, cavity that the base was built around. Even if they did, and methodically glassed everything inside, the Loroi would eventually show up and turn them to mincemeat.
"Sir, bogey accelerating!" called Daniels.
What? thought the commandant, before their likely plan jumped into his mind. They're gonna ram us!
"Target on collision vector", announced APOLLO. "Probability of successful course change at 20 percent and dropping. ETA 35 seconds and counting."
If it had the same type of drive as the larger ship, the blast would be close enough to rip the asteroid to pieces. His eyes darted at the screens and consoles, desperately looking for a solution.
The last heavy laser had been silenced, having absorbed an astounding two direct hits and two glancing strikes. The torpedo tubes were still online, though, with their barely noticeable silhouettes sticking only slightly above ground.
"Load cluster torpedoes! Free fire!"
"Aye, loading clusters", responded Ramanchandran.
The tubes discharged what was to be the last load they'd loose on the enemy. Stubbier than standard torpedoes, these munitions shot away at a blistering 100 G's, firing brilliantly with what Andrews knew, was, essentially, a superconductor catalysed chemical rocket engine. Only burning for 15 seconds, they reached a peak velocity of 15 km/sec, pittifull compared to a driver slug. Once spent, they'd discharge a small cluster of missiles meant to take out targets within close range. A knife-fighting range weapon.
However, his last hopes were quickly dashed. Four of the missiles were destroyed before they even had the chance of finishing their burn. He watched in silence, as the cluster of thirty kinetic kill rockets discharged raced towards the Umiak vessel, impacting near it's rear engine clusters.
The engines sputtered and dies, but the small warheads had no chance of arresting the intruder's momentum, as it barreled on.
"Impact in 13...12..." started APOLLO.
Andrews dared not lock eyes with the people around him.
I tried... he thought sullenly, diggind his fingers into his armrests. He hated fighting from such an exposed, immobile position. If only I had a ship. Just one.
"8...7..." continued the VI, obliviously.
For a moment it paused, the sudden silence deafening.
"Contact reacquired", it reported.
Simultaneously, a beam shot out from below the horizon, above the ridge. The Umiak ship took the hit head on, carrening to the side as if hit by a giant, invisible boxer.
"The Loroi", realised the commandant, before a second shot quickly followed, hitting the interloper on it's side as it violently spun.
Knocked off-course, with it's engines dead, and vector out of control, it fell short of the canyon that housed the base, impacting out of sight several kilometers beyond the surrounding ridge.
The pitch black, airless sky had no substance to reflect the light coming from the explosion, but the shockwave hit the command center hard. People fell to the floor, or flew across consoles, as alarms started blaring. Instantly, the floating monitors has ceased, displaying only static.
Almost tossed out of his seat, the commandor's face smacked into his console. He heards several heavy thuds around him, then several seconds of silence that seemed to turn into minutes.
He found himself face down, his hands to either side of his head, atop his command console.
Slowly lifting his, now lightened head, he gazed around. The officers had been strapped in, and were apparently alright. Hauser shot up from the floor, more worried than injured. The scientists, though, seemed worse for wear.
"Status report"?
Several seconds passed, before one of the command staff slowly answered.
"No detectable pressure loss", he reported. "Power and air outages on decks E1, F7, and T6".
"Have response teams fan out. Search for..." he paused for a moment, trying to contain his dizziness. "...any signs of structural failure. And get those lines up and running again."
"Sir," reported Daniels, "bogey is off the radar. Last telemetry indicates impact in the far side of the roid, about 13 km from here."
"Send a probe to confirm impact, and get me visual!"
"On it, sir!"
"So... we made it?", asked Diane slowly standing up.
"I'd say we might have pulled off an epic magic trick", offered Ibaka, already on his feet.
"Dying twice in half an hour?", answered the xenobiologist skeptically. "Let's hope no one asks for an encore."
"Visuals reestablished, standby", reported the helmsman.
The images from the surface looked similar to what they's been before, only this time the sky was filled with ejecta from the impact and dust from the heavy fighting. In the low gravity, the particles floated lazily on long, barely arching trajectories.
The mangled , charred remains of the weapons emplacements were clearly visible, slowly radiating their remnant heat energy as they moved towards background levels.
The final screen once more came to life, and immediately sent the room into silence once more. Dizzy, tired, still catching his breath, Andrews inhaled sharply, as the damaged but still alive shape of the Loroi destroyer was outlined against the sky. It had arrested it's vectors, and was now hovering silently amongst the ejecta, looming over the now defenceless base like a hungry bird of prey.