Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 64
“Point defense is in autonomous mode and tracking,” Mayler said. The ship turned and twisted its way between the trajectories from the first salvo, and the slugs passed harmlessly above and below the hull. But the next broadside was just five seconds behind, and from the way the shots were dispersed, Dunstan knew that the AI on the Gretian ship was trying to anticipate their evasive maneuver, adjusting the follow-up shots to put them where Minotaur was likely to be next. The ship avoided the second spread, dropping from an eight-g burn to three g and then back to seven in the span of a few seconds. When the third salvo arrived, the Point Defense System went into action for the first time, blotting two of the rail-gun slugs out of space with a few megawatts of focused energy. And the Gretian cruiser continued to pump out broadsides, twelve slugs every four and a half seconds, saturating the space between them with salvo after salvo.
“We can’t stand up to this rate of fire,” Bosworth said. “Not even at this range.”
Dunstan didn’t know how many slugs the Gretian cruiser had in its gun battery magazines, but he doubted that Minotaur could keep up this dance until the enemy had shot those guns dry. The reactor was already running at maximum, splitting its output between the main drive and the Point Defense System. And despite their efforts to keep the distance open, the other ship had gained several kilometers on them since they had started their barrage.
Dunstan considered responding in kind and letting Mayler open fire with Minotaur’s own rail guns, but he dismissed the impulse right away. They only had four barrels, and the energy needed to fire them would divert megawatts of power away from the propulsion and Point Defense Systems. The rate of fire on their guns wasn’t nearly enough to duplicate the Gretian cruiser’s tactics anyway, he decided.
“Open all remaining missile tubes,” he ordered. “We have to give their AI something to do other than aim those fucking gun mounts at us. Maybe it’s enough to saturate their point defenses.”
“Aye, sir. Opening tubes one through sixteen.” Mayler flicked the safety caps off all the launch buttons on his console in quick succession.
“Randomize the intercept patterns and fire. Flush out everything we have left.”
“Firing one through three. Firing five. Firing seven through sixteen.” Mayler punched the remaining launch buttons. “All birds are away and tracking at fifty g. Time to target nineteen seconds.”
The space between the two ships became a chaotic display of overlapping sensor echoes. The Gretian cruiser kept up its broadside fusillades, twelve rounds every five seconds, and Minotaur weaved her way through the stream of tungsten slugs. Out of every salvo they dodged, one or two rounds got close enough to the ship to trigger the point-defense emitters. Minotaur’s missiles rushed past the incoming storm of rail-gun slugs and toward the Gretian cruiser, which turned fully broadside to them again to bring the maximum number of point-defense guns to bear.
A shudder went through Minotaur’s hull. Over at Lieutenant Bosworth’s station, a data screen materialized in front of him and began flashing red text and blinking diagrams.
“We took a hit to the aft port section,” Bosworth reported. “Hull penetration between frames forty-four and forty-five. Went through and exited the dorsal section right behind the aft missile tubes. We’ve lost the capacitor bank for the starboard emitters on the stern.”
Dunstan suppressed a curse. With one hit, they had lost 25 percent of their point-defense capability. The slugs from rail guns traveled at five thousand meters per second, and they punched straight through warship hulls wherever they hit. There were not too many angles where a tungsten slug could travel through the hull without hitting anything important. They’d lose essential components with every hit, and the resulting cascade failures would make it easier for the Gretian cruiser to score follow-up hits.
“Time to target on the birds is ten seconds,” Mayler said. The fourteen icons representing Minotaur’s guided missiles had passed another incoming rail-gun volley and were now starting to converge on the enemy cruiser, the AI seeking to overwhelm the other ship’s Point Defense System with warheads coming in from as many angles as possible.
Another hit shook the ship, then a third. This time, Dunstan could tell that something major had taken a blow. The lights in the AIC dimmed, then returned to normal before going out altogether. For a terrifying second, the AIC was in complete darkness. Then the illumination returned, and the tactical hologram and display projections popped back into existence.
“Direct hit on the main power trunk and secondary data core,” Bosworth shouted. “We are running on the backup trunk. The number-one water tank is venting into space.”
Dunstan returned his attention to the tactical display in time to see the sensor echoes from the Gretian cruiser clutter the space in front of the missiles from Minotaur, which were now just a few seconds away from their target.
“Enemy point defense is engaging our birds,” Mayler said.
“Come on,” Dunstan pleaded. The flak field from the Gretian cruiser’s point-defense gun mounts was stupendous. On the optical feed, it looked like the side of the enemy ship was on fire from bow to stern. Fourteen missiles turned to eight, then six, then four in just a few seconds. Then the point-defense fire and the explosions of the disintegrating antiship missiles were too much for the sensors to sort out at this range, and the area of space around the Gretian cruiser washed out into a blob of thermal bloom.
It took a few moments for the sensors to burn through the noise again. When they did,