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Chapter 10  

Chapter 11 - Battle

Battle

"Continue evasive maneuvering Beka, but stay at least 5 light seconds away from the mines. I want to stay outside the effective range of their energy weapons" ordered Dylan.

The Andromeda shook slightly as the slip fighters, combat drones and countermeasures were deployed. The radiating countermeasure devices were built on ES-15 Oracle frames, but rather than being used for surveillance they were used for deception. Each drone exactly replicated the electronic and thermal emissions signature of the Andromeda Ascendant and contained a footprint magnification system that electronically gave active sensors a signature of a ship the size of the Andromeda. Each drone was programmed to fly a path designed to replicate a ship conducting evasive maneuvers. To the sensors on the ES-8 mobile mines there were now five Andromedas where there had been one, and they began to do the cybernetic equivalent of milling about in confusion.

The ES-8s may have been confused but the Garudas were a different matter. A Garuda's three man crew included a weapons officer whose job was, among other things, to sort out real targets from decoys. Aboard one of the fighters the pilot looked at his tactical display. The display showed a multitude of icons both friendly and enemy representing missiles, drones and five symbols that bore the id of enemy warship. Four of them though bore the additional marking of decoy. Through his earphones he heard his weapons officer announce 'Target identified and locked." From beside him he heard his co-pilot grunt in satisfaction as he armed the fighter's AP cannon. It was time for the Widowmaker to live up to her namesake.

Unlike the majority of High Guard inspired fighters which were designed either as combat drone directors or stand off missile launchers, the Nietzschean designed Garuda class fighters were designed for direct combat. The Widowmaker variant even more so than a normal Garuda. as it's slipstream generating machinery had been removed to make room for a larger weapons loadout. The pilot flipped a switch giving control of the fighter to the combat computer. With targets and weapons moving at significant fractions of the speed of light human, or even Nietzschean, reflexes were orders of magnitude too slow to keep up with the pace of combat . The fighter began to shake as the shipboard computer, having been told what was the primary target. took control of the craft and began salvoing its missiles at the Andromeda. The Garuda and her cohorts closed the distance on the Andromeda screened by a hail of missiles from some of the nearby mobile mines as well as those from their own missile tubes. If they could get within AP cannon range of the Andromeda the battle would be over. The Garuda was nearly within AP cannon range when the electronic intercept alarm went off. The pilot had just enough time to realize that his craft was dropping decoys and taking evasive action when Andromeda's missile struck home reducing the Garuda and its crew to a rapidly expanding cloud of superheated gas.

Dylan studied the tactical display on the main viewscreen. The data was over a minute old which, considering the speed at which the combatants were moving, meant that it was already obsolete, but the overall picture was clear. The number of icons representing the enemy craft and missiles was decreasing as Andromeda's drones and defensive weapons fire began to take their toll, three of the incoming Garuda's had already been destroyed, but his combat drones were being destroyed at a faster rate than they were destroying the enemy drones. They and Andromeda were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

The Andromeda shuddered as Tyr launched salvos of OM-5 missiles towards the attacking fighters while Andromeda used her point defense lasers and AP canon to destroy the incoming missiles, and launched false target generators designed to decoy missiles that got past her defensive fire.

"Switch to defensive missile fire, Mr. Anasazi," said Dylan, sounding calmer than he felt. "Andromeda, direct the fighters towards the asteroid. Let's carry the fight to them."

"Directing the fighters towards the asteroid," said Andromeda. "Captain, I have detected a data signals emanating from the mines. They appear to be control signals. I have concluded that the mobile mines are not being directed by the asteroid but that some of the mines in the minefield are command and control mines and are directing the other mines.

Andromeda's defenses were formidable, but they were not impregnable. A handful of the missiles made it past her defenses. Her designers had anticipated this would happen and had built her accordingly. Her vital systems were built in triplicate, in some case in quadruplicate, and scattered throughout her hull so that a lucky shot would not disable a critical system. Her command deck was buried deep in the center of the ship protected by layers of armored deck. Her outer hull was composed of a fullerene composite, the hardest, strongest material the High Guard shipyards could produce. This armor had been augmented by the shipwrights at the Mobius shipyards with reactive and ablative armor. Strung between the extended battle blades was a fine web of monofilament fullerene cable which acted as a sort of stand off armor. At the speed they were moving, missiles striking the mesh would, along with a the segment of mesh they struck, be converted into plasma which the anti gravity generators mounted on the battle blades would attempt to deflect away from critical areas of the ship Additionally, the battle blades themselves shielded the most vulnerable portions of the ship. . When the missiles struck, the reactive armor exploded outwards, dissipating but not negating the force of the attack. The Andromeda shook violently causing the crew to grip their consoles for support as warning lights began to flash.

"Whoa!" hollered Harper. "What just hit us?"

"Hull breach in level 8, section A," reported Andromeda from the main viewscreen. "Port side point defense laser turret 1 and AP turret 3 destroyed. Point defense laser turret 3 damaged. Missile tubes 3, 4, 6, and 10 are inoperable. All immediately threatening incoming missiles have been neutralized, damage control and repair procedures have been initiated. Three of the five Garudas have been destroyed. I have lost contact with all my combat drones and have so far been unable to achieve control of the mobile mine."

"Continue to attempt to gain control of the mines, Andromeda," said Dylan. "Mr. Anasazi, engage the fighters with the remaining point defense lasers and AP guns as well as with our remaining missile tubes. Beka, open the distance between us and mines to 30 light seconds, rotate Andromeda so that our damaged areas are protected from fire. Mr. Harper, you and your wife see what you can do to help Andromeda bring any of those missile tubes back on line."

"Come on babe, we got a job to do," said Harper, glad to feel useful again.

Trance hesitated, looking at Aurora still playing in the playpen/escape pod. Beka noticed her hesitation and intervened. "Go on Trance. I'll make sure nothing happens to Aurora."

Her concern for her child somewhat relieved, Trance followed her husband.

On board one of the surviving Garudas the pilot was wearing a feral smile as he pressed home his attack. The enemy ship was within the effective range of his and his wingman's AP cannon. In just a second their combined fire would cripple the larger ship, leaving it easy meat for the mobile mines. The crew members of the Garudas were not heroes, just the opposite, but their craft had no slipstream capability, and under the laws governing Sinti IV, the Perseid government would turn him and his companions over to the Free Trade Association for punishment. The FTA's punishment for piracy was death by quartering. The pilot was quite literally in a win or die situation, and he intended to win. He had time realize his on board computer had fired two quick bursts from his craft's AP cannon before the Andromeda returned fire and both remaining Garudas were vaporized.

The pilot never knew the results of his fire but had he known, he would have been pleased. His first burst had destroyed two of Andromeda's port ventral battle blades. The second burst had burned through the hull armor behind the blades. A portion of Andromeda's critical systems was now exposed.

While the battle had been raging on the physical plane, it was also being waged on the electronic plane. The ES-8 mobile mines were one of the predecessors of what 200 years later would be Andromeda's combat drones. However unlike Andromeda's combat drones the ES-8 mobile mines were not fully self directing; they required a command and control system. and while they could be commanded from a remote base, due to time lag constraints they were usually controlled by special command and control mines located in the minefield. These mines were the Achilles heel of the minefield, but the designers of the system were aware of this and had taken steps to protect them. Upon activation the command and control mines, and the mines they were controlling, became engaged in a continuous exchange of data, most of which was designed to conceal the real command and control mines and the data they were transmitting. In order to identify the command mines Andromeda was being forced to sort through all the signals that were being broadcast and determine which ones were control signals and which ones were red herrings. The computers that controlled the mines were only semi sentient, but they were very very good at what they was designed to do. They and Andromeda began playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, the computers switching command frequencies and even command codes thousands of times per second with Andromeda following suit. In addition the control mines were attempting to interfere with Andromeda's ability to target the minefield. The mines began to fire their missiles. Some fired their missiles at the Andromeda, and while the missiles were not as powerful as the OM-5 missiles Andromeda carried, they were still powerful enough to force her to switch some of her missile batteries to defensive fire. Other mines were using their missiles in defensive mode protecting the entire minefield by intercepting Andromeda's missiles. Adittionally some of the mines did not have nuclear warheads at all, but rather contained thousands of small false target generators that, when deployed, simulated a real mine. The command and control mines ordered these mines to deploy their decoys. Tyr and Andromeda now had literally thousands of possible targets, of which only a few hundred were real. There was one critical difference between Andromeda and the computers controlling the mines, however; Andromeda could learn, the mines' computers, while sophisticated, were simply following a program. Eventually Andromeda was able to determine which mines were sending the control signals and neutralize them. She was a fraction of a second too late. The mines had one more trick in their repertoire. The nearest mines overloaded their engines giving them an unexpected burst of speed which ruined Andromeda's fire control solution, but more importantly closed the range on her. The overload destroyed the mines engines but that didn't matter, they had achieved their objective. They were now in firing range of their gamma ray lasers.

Twenty-two mines detonated sending beams of coherent gamma rays towards the Andromeda. Not all the beams hit, the light speed limitations that hampered Andromeda's firing accuracy worked both ways, but some did. sending their energy into the Andromeda, burning through armor, hull and deep into the body of the ship By sheer chance one of the beams impacted on the area that had been damaged earlier by the Garudas. With no armor to attenuate the force of the beam, the energy burned deep into the bowels of the ship. In the process it destroyed the antenna that was being used to send control signals to Andromeda's slipfighters. With the loss of the command signal, the slipfighters continued to mindlessly carryout their last order; attack the asteroid.

"Captain," said the holographic image of Andromeda, worry in her voice, "I have multiple hull breaches. All ventral point defense lasers and AP cannon are inoperative. Missile tubes 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39 and 40 are out of commission. I am completely blind on my ventral section. Primary and tertiary magneto-plasma dynamic drive systems are inoperable. Secondary gravity field generator is inoperable."

"Is there any good news, Andromeda?" asked her captain. He was trying hard not to let his own anxiety show.

"I have destroyed the command and control mines and taken control of the minefield Captain, and am ordering the mines to self destruct. Unless the pirates have been holding back some weaponry, the field is ours. I have also received the computer data files from the freighter that Harper's nanobots retrieved and have begun my analysis. I am also attempting to access the computer systems on the asteroid."

"Excellent news, Andromeda," the relief in his voice was obvious. "Let me know when you have finished analyzing the files. Tell Mr. Harper and his wife to stop whatever repairs they are currently conducting and start working on the primary MPD drive." He spared a look at the chronometer mounted on one of the bulkheads of the command deck. The entire battle had taken just a little over ten minutes.

A sentient computer has a weakness that a non-sentient computer does not have. Like an organic being, they can become distracted. For an instant Andromeda luxuriated in the sensation of simply surviving the battle and let other duties slip. Among those duties was rerouting command and control signals to the fighters to a new communications antennae . She had broadcast the cease-fire command to the fighters but the signal failed to reach them. The slipfighters, blindly following their last orders, were still attacking the asteroid. The asteroid was strong as asteroids go, but it was not armor plated. Under the concentrated attack from the fighters, it exploded. Segments of the asteroid impacted with the hull of the freighter, finishing the destruction Harper's drones had started. The magnetic containment field for the freighter's anti proton fuel failed and the freighter vanished in matter/antimatter holocaust.

"Andromeda, what just happened?" asked an astounded and angry Dylan. "We needed that freighter and the base to find out who Mr. Howard is."

"It's totally my fault, Captain," said an apologetic holographic Andromeda. "I neglected to order the slip fighters to cease their attack on the asteroid. However I have good news. I was able to decrypt the files obtained from the freighter, and I know who Mr. Howard is."

Chapter 10