Chapter Eleven - Prelude to Battle

Alternity - Chapter 11

Prelude to Battle

Time:CY 10090 AD June 5167
Location: the Sinti system asteroid belt

The Andromeda Ascendant moved slowly towards the asteroid the pirates were using as their base in the Sinnti system. It was presently three light minutes away, in full emissions control mode, with battle blades extended, and all active sensors shut down. Captain Hunt, with the holographic image of Andromeda at his side, was at the command console. Tyr was manning the weapons console while Beka was in the pilot's chair intent on closing the distance between the Andromeda and the asteroid as stealthily as possible. Harper was leaning over a remote sensor console with Trance standing behind him looking over his shoulder. Even Aurora was on the command deck. Her father had designed a playpen that could be anchored to Andromeda's deck, and that in the case of a sudden pressure drop would seal itself up rather like an emergency escape pod.

Dylan turned to Harper, "Mr. Harper it's all yours."

"Show time!" said Harper with glee, entering commands on his control console.

Six ES-14 Janus light sensor/attack drones were ejected from their launch tubes and moved toward the asteroid. Minutes passed as the drones slowly drifted closer to their target. Harper was concentrating intently on the display readouts, waiting for the proper moment to activate the drone's engines and send them hurtling into the freighter.

"I don't understand," said Trance. " Why can't we simply shoot the freighter's engines like the pirates did to the Maru."

Both Tyr and Andromeda spoke simultaneously.

"Time lag and targeting constraints," said Tyr.

"Weapon load out," was Andromeda's comment.

Seeing the puzzled look on Trance's face, Tyr explained further. "Listen closely, girl. Unlike the situation you found yourself in, there is no transmitter for our missiles to home in on. To have any reasonable chance of hitting the freighter's engines with our weapons we would have to close to within about three light seconds and use our active sensors. Doing so would alert the freighter to our presence and they would attempt to evade us. Since the freighter can move at a reasonable fraction of the speed of light we would never know precisely where it is and as such our firing solution would not be good enough to target the freighter's engines."

"Also," said Andromeda "I don't carry any weapons that are designed to disable a target rather than destroying it. Home Guard revenue cutters and pirate ships carry those types of weapons. I'm a warship. I kill people and blow things up."

"Hence the Janus drones," said Harper. "Their low observability technology will allow them to approach the freighter without being noticed. I replaced one of the sensor modules in each drone with a targeting computer that will calculate the precise speed and course necessary to cripple the freighter rather than destroy it. Additionally the drones are equipped with parasite nanobots. After the freighter is crippled the remaining Janus drones will release their nanobots which will in turn infect the freighter's computer, copy the data and relay it to us for Andromeda to analyze."

"Oh," said Trance, looking even more puzzled than before. "I see. I think"

More minutes passed with the only sound being Aurora as she played in her playpen then abruptly Harpers display lit up. "I'm receiving tight beam transmissions from the drones," he said looking up from the console, "Besides the freighter we have one asteroid, standard nickel-iron composition." An image of the asteroid appeared on one of the auxiliary viewscreens. "Point defense lasers here, here, and here." Three red dots appeared on the image. "Main communications antenna array right here." A green dot appeared. "Large docking port over here." Another dot, this time white appeared on the image. "Everything is on the sunward side of the asteroid except for an auxiliary ship-to-ship antenna array on the back side." The image of the asteroid rotated to show its other side and a green dot appeared roughly in the center of the image. "Take out the main antenna array and they can't call for help. Get rid of the point defense lasers and we can waltz in and take whatever we want."

"Good," said Dylan. "Target two drones for the communications array. Let's do it."

Harper sent the command that ignited the drones' engines. "Considering round trip light speed limitations", he said, looking at Trance as he did so, "it'll be about six minutes before we get confirmation that the drones have begun their attack runs. Almost exactly six minutes later the Andromeda's engineer announced. "Drones have begun their attack. Impact ... " What ever he was going to say was interrupted as Andromeda's electronic intercept equipment began to sound the alarm. The tactical viewscreen updated, displaying a series of icons representing unknown contacts arranged in a rough sphere around the asteroid.

"How did you miss those?" asked Dylan.

"They weren't moving or radiating any energy," explained Harper somewhat defensively. "They must have activated when the drones lit off their engines."

"Commence evasive maneuvering, Beka," said Dylan as he studied the viewscreen, "but don't get inside one light minute of the asteroid until we have a better idea of what we're up against."

Andromeda's image suddenly appeared on the viewscreen replacing the tactical display. "Captain," she said, "I have detected engine light offs from the asteroid. Engine emission analysis indicates that they are from five Widowmaker model Garuda class fighters."

"Very good Andromeda," said Dylan. Mr. Anasazi, do you remember your promise several days ago not to create any big baddabooms in this part of space? I was wondering if perhaps you would like to reconsider. You have batteries released. Try to take out the fighters before they launch their missiles."

Several things happened almost simultaneously. As Tyr launched Andromeda's missiles at the incoming fighters the tactical image on the main viewscreen changed to show incoming missiles and Andromeda's point defense lasers and anti proton cannon began to fire. Then the tactical display changed once more to show literally hundreds of new targets each with the designation of hostile warship.

"Harper, what are they?" asked Trance, concern evident in her voice.

"Andromeda, what do we know about these things?" asked Dylan.

"According to their electronic signature they are ES-8 series Mark 3 Mod 4 mobile mines," said Andromeda, appearing on an auxiliary viewscreen, "They were developed as combat drones five hundred years ago by the High Guard in response to the Pyreans attempts to employ a magnetic shield as a defense against our AP weaponry. They were discarded by the High Guard because of their short legs and their need for embedded command and control drones. However they were found to be admirably well suited to be used as mobile mines in defensive mine fields around drifts and asteroids."

"Release our own combat drones, Andromeda," ordered Dylan. Target them for the mines and launch two radiating countermeasure devices as well."

"Ship," demanded Tyr, "how many drones are there and what are they armed with"

"I have detected two hundred sixteen mines," replied Andromeda's holographic image. "The standard armament for an ES-8 was two eight round electromagnetic launch system missile tubes containing early model DPM-3 dual purpose missiles and two 35 megawatt point defense lasers"

"That's not good but it's not impossible," said Dylan. "Those DPM's were slow and their counter counter measure suite was poor. Andromeda, launch two more radiating countermeasure devices and the ready fighters. Target the fighters for the asteroid. I want to take the fight to the pirates."

'Captain," said Andromeda. "You didn't let me finish. the primary armament of an ES-8 was a gamma ray laser driven by a hundred megaton nuclear explosive"

"Oh oh," Harper whispered to Trance. "That's not good, babe. Not good at all."

Chapter 10