Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 81

“Sir, we are getting a request from Rhodia control,” Lieutenant Mayler said. “They say one of the station’s shuttles just had a near miss with an unidentified ship in low orbit. They claim it didn’t show on the sensors until the last moment. Control is asking all units in the area to link into AEGIS and do a sensor sweep facing planetside.”

Dunstan did a double take.

“That is super odd. Confirm the request, Lieutenant. Link us up with AEGIS and bring up the sensor suite. Helm, bring the bow around to zero by negative one niner, steady on your heading and velocity.”

“Bringing the bow around to zero by negative one niner, steady on heading and velocity, aye,” Boyer confirmed.

“We have a data link to AEGIS,” Mayler said. “Firing up active sensors.”

The other ships in the pattern followed the request as well. Within a minute, a dozen nearby navy units added their own sensor data to the big picture, turning themselves into extended arrays for AEGIS, the planetary strategic defense network. Dunstan checked the class tags on the other ships and saw that Minotaur was the biggest unit in the line. The rest of the navy presence in the immediate area consisted of tugboats, supply ships, tankers, and a few escort corvettes.

And we’re not exactly in prime fighting shape right now, Dunstan thought, trying to suppress a kindling sense of unease. Let’s hope it’s a joyriding civvie in a speed yacht, buzzing shuttles for the fun of it.

They watched the tactical display as the sensors of the combined ad hoc drone fleet swept the space between upper and lower orbit. Three shuttles popped up at various altitudes, all headed for Rhodia One and flashing proper beacons and ID.

“Nothing on active, sir. From us or anyone else,” Mayler said. “Just tagged and scheduled traffic. And a lot of background noise from the surface.”

“I wonder what the shuttle jockey was drinking, then,” Dunstan said. “I don’t need any last-minute scares like that.”

“Ground-to-orbit transport isn’t the most exciting job in the fleet,” Bosworth replied. “If I had to do the same hop twice a day for a year, I’d start looking for stuff to dogfight too.”

On the tactical plot, two new contacts appeared between the sensor picket and the inner atmosphere boundary. They seemed to stand still in the air for a moment. Then they streaked off in different directions, accelerating so quickly they could only be one thing. The AI classified them as hostile instantly, and the shock of surprise that jolted through Dunstan made him react automatically.

“Action stations,” he bellowed.

“Bandit, bandit. Missile launch at 25 degrees by 4, distance 512 kilometers. Accelerating at fifty g.” Mayler had jumped to his station and was reading off the values next to the icon as the action stations alert blared all over the ship. His face showed the same profound disbelief Dunstan felt.

“That’s way inside the ballistic defense belt,” Dunstan said. “Bring the reactor up and set the point defenses to active. Tell the cargo cans on either side of us to keep their distance. And get a trajectory on that ordnance now.”

“One is heading our way, the other . . . sir, they fired the second one at the surface. Time to impact on the second bird is two minutes.”

“Active search the launch point and scan ahead. Find that launch platform.”

Dunstan looked at the diverging missile trajectories, and cold fear shouldered aside his disbelief. Whoever just launched missiles had fired from inside the planet’s antimissile defense belt, a network of sensors, rail guns, and interceptor missile batteries that orbited Rhodia and extended into the space around the planet for thousands of kilometers. It was meant to protect against ballistic attacks from Gretia like the one that had crippled the energy relays at Hades three years into the war. But these missiles had been carried in and fired at point-blank range, on the wrong side of the defensive ring. What they were witnessing was supposed to be so unlikely as to be statistically irrelevant, but the evidence was in front of them and streaking through the atmosphere at fifty-g acceleration.

“Unannounced planetary defense drill,” Bosworth said. “They’re checking to see if we’re still on our feet ten minutes away from the barn.”

“Afraid not, Lieutenant. Unless the AI has gone completely insane,” Dunstan replied.

“The first bird is changing aspect. Sir . . . it’s not aimed at us.” Mayler looked up from the plot. “It’s aimed at Rhodia One.”

A few dozen kilometers to their portside, Rhodia One was taking up millions of cubic meters of orbital space. It was a big and valuable target that had been positioned on the inside of the ballistic defense belt for a good reason. The incoming ordnance streaked in from the wrong side, the one direction the defensive planners never expected to have to consider as a vector for incoming fire. Whatever was heading their way, it was unlikely to destroy the station—Minotaur herself wouldn’t have been able to do that trick even with her entire load of antiship missiles—but it could still cause catastrophic damage.

“Active searching the launch area. New contact, designate Zulu-1, bearing 355 degrees by 10. Small ship, high heat signature. They just lit their drive, sir. Distance six hundred ninety kilometers.”

Dunstan opened his mouth to order Mayler to activate the rail guns and get a target bearing but dismissed the idea right away. The missiles and the bogey all had the planetary surface as a backstop. Any slugs that missed would travel through the atmosphere at ten kilometers per second and hit the ground, or whatever got in the way, with enough energy to punch through an arcology’s top fifty levels. And the slugs would never catch the second missile, which was now outracing anything they could have thrown after it.

“Lock up Zulu-1 with the fire control. We have no missiles left, but they don’t know that. Maybe they’ll do something dumb.”

“Target locked,” Mayler said. “They are really hauling ass, sir. Bogey is burning at fifteen g, up and away. And