Extremis by Charles E. Gannon, Steve White Page B

light-seconds away, antimatter warheads were violently blossoming into sudden, blue-white spheres of pure, obliterating, noiseless energy. Wave-front halos pulsed out from those micro-stars, tossing, and tearing apart, warships that were almost a kilometer in length. Shields died with rainbow flares; armor buckled, melted, even sublimated wherever the energies actually touched them. And in many cases, the munitions and power plants of the stricken ships joined in the orgy of destruction, consuming themselves with a suddenness that an anthropomorphizing observer might have wrongly labeled as “furious.”
    Over the course of forty-five seconds, Ossian Wethermere watched almost a quarter of the bulging, diseased sac of red icons deflate, sagging limp where markers of dead enemy ships hung motionless in the plot. The bridge was silent—and then cheering broke out as the sac began retracting, attenuating as its rearmost extents began pulling away from Yoshikuni’s fleet.
    “Losses?” Yoshikuni’s voice was a stern reminder that the stunning victory had not come without a price.
    Ops’s voice was subdued. “SMT Hipper , MTs Marston Moor , Ting-Hsien , and Quebec . SDs Harrower , Resolve —”
    “Just the number lost.”
    “Six SDs, sir. And a number of pickets. No tenders or auxiliaries.”
    “And the Flight Brigade?”
    “Sir—”
    “ And the Flight Brigade? ”
    By way of answer, the Communications Officer interrupted by clearing her throat. “Brigadier McCullough on priority channel, sir.”
    Yoshikuni nodded. “Can you get us his data feed?”
    “Trying, sir.”
    McCullough’s voice sounded oddly young, almost cheery. “Quite a ride, out here.”
    “Brigadier, how are you? How are your—?”
    Tac muttered low. “Sir, he has only ninety-eight birds left.”
    Yoshikuni seemed to swallow back whatever words she had planned on uttering. After a moment, she said, “Well done, Flight Brigade. Time to head back to the barn.”
    “With the Admiral’s pardon, we’re not quite done. We are right in amongst them.”
    “And getting chewed to pieces by their fighters.”
    If McCullough had heard, he gave no indication of it. “We can get you a second salvo opportunity, can keep them on us a little longer if we—”
    “Brigadier, you are disobeying a direct order. You are to—”
    Ops interrupted softly. “Admiral?”
    “ What? ”
    “Sir—his data feed. Look.”
    Yoskikuni did—and went very pale. “My god. They’re running their tuners over the limit.”
    Ops nodded. “Sir, the rads—”
    McCullough had either heard or figured out what the silence meant. “Admiral, you never said it—and nor did I—but we both knew this was a one-way mission. Old hulls, old shielding, old tuners, old pilots: we had to push and spend it all if we were going to get this job done. Now let me talk to the people I have left—”
    “Brigadier, I order you to—”
    But the priority line snicked off with a buzz; they could still hear McCullough through his data feed, though.
    “Flight Brigade, report.”
    And they did:
    “External ordnance gone, Brigadier.”
    “Racks dry.”
    “I’m out.”
    “What now, Skip?”
    Instead of answering, McCullough toggled back to Line One, his voice thoughtful. “Admiral, the Baldy sensor arrays are phased, but they get their terminal lock on us with targeting lasers, yeh?”
    “Yes, Brigadier, but—”
    McCullough cut her off again. “Okay, in we go, boys and girls. Here’s the plan: wait until they graze a lock across you. Then dance away quick and give your computers time to get reciprocal telemetry on the source of their targeting lasers. Once you’ve got that, go to continuous fire with your beam weapons. We might not be able to kill these giants—but we can stick our needles straight into their eyes.”
    And so the last seventy-four fighters of the Flight Brigade rushed in, a flurry of furious gnats attacking a herd of elephants.
    And the elephants balked.
    None of