Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (47 page)

She brought
up her simulation routines and the bay control software and immediately began
comparing them to the pristine copies she had behind the secure firewall on her
comdev.  They all checked out at a superficial level so she began to run
another check, this time looking deep inside the software itself.  It
would take a few minutes.  In the meantime, anticipating that the bay
control software had somehow been compromised, she also began copying over her
known good version.  She wanted to complete the tests as soon as
possible.  She planned to pick up from where they had left off.  They
had left the dropships and the drones armed - that part of the
test had completed successfully.  She was already thinking about adding
some routines to the bay control software and the armoury software that might
help defend it against attack.  She was thinking about which other
software subsystems may have been compromised.  She decided to replace
them all on a rolling basis.  From now on, at any given time, one software
system or another would be being overwritten with a known good copy of itself.

As she
watched numbers scrolling up her screen as her AIs did a thorough scan,
comparing the sets of software, she thought about her outburst in the day
room.  She wasn’t sure whether it would be useful or not for the
commanders to know there was a traitor amongst their ranks.  Maybe it
would lead to a breakdown in trust and efficiency amongst the teams. 
Maybe it would save their lives if they knew not to put unthinking trust in one
another.  Maybe their suspicion would help her trace down the
offender.  She didn’t know.

She was
feeling sorry for herself for having made such an outburst.  She disliked
admitting to herself that she had lost self-control in that moment. 
As she inwardly berated herself she was startled by her comdev.  It was
Lucero.

“Lund, are
you running any combat simulations at the moment?”

“I’m not,”
she responded, “although I should be.  I’m planning to -”

“You’re not
running any combat simulations whatsoever, please confirm,” said Lucero with
steel in her voice.

Lund picked
up on the urgency.  “I’m not.  What is it?” she said.

“Probably
nothing, please stand by,” said Lucero quickly as she closed the line.

Lund glanced
at her terminal.  It was three more minutes before the bay control
software would finish copying over, and another ten before the deep analysis
would be complete.  She stood up and made her way to the bridge at pace.

At the bridge
she was barred from entering by a guard.  “You can’t come in here, ma’am,”
the guard said.  “The bridge is off limits to civilians.”

“For God’s
sake just let me in,” said Lund, “I need to speak to Commodore Lucero. 
This is an emergency.”

The guard was
about to insist that Lund was not cleared to enter when Lucero called out from
behind him, “Let her in.”

The guard
snapped smartly to attention and saying, “Yes, sir,” he stood aside to let Lund
enter.

“What is it?”
she said as she walked towards Lucero.

Lucero did
not look up from the terminal she was stood in front of.  “It looks like a
missile attack,” she said.

“Missiles? 
How many?  Are they from the orbiting platform?”

“I’m guessing
that’s exactly where they’re from,” said Lucero.  “There are three of
them.”

“You have
countermeasures in place, right?” said Lund.  “How long do we have before
impact?”

Lucero looked
at her terminal.  “Around three minutes.  Of course we have
countermeasures.  We’ll be launching our own missiles shortly.  I’m
interested in the trajectory of these three coming towards us.  They seem
to be making fine adjustments every twenty seconds or so.”

Lund looked
worried.  “Are we in range for them?  I thought we were taking that
platform out at the earliest possible opportunity?”

For the first
time Commodore Lucero looked up at her.  “We are taking them out at the
earliest opportunity; the earliest opportunity will be in about fifteen minutes
or so.  It looks like they have the drop on us.”

Lund was
concerned.  “Do we know what type of warhead these missiles have?”

“No,” said
Lucero.  “Speed and vector are all we have.  Prepare to launch
defensive missiles.”

“Preparing
missiles,” replied the weapons officer.

Lund looked
at the screens depicting
Ephialtes
and the three missiles streaking
towards it.  She had been aware of the development of
Ephialtes’
defensive missile systems.  Back then it had all seemed quite distant and
theoretical.  Right now she was desperately hoping that the system was
good enough.

Lucero was
concentrating on her terminal once more.  “Fire three missiles per
target.”

“Three
missiles per, sir, understood,” said the weapons officer.

“Fire when
ready,” said Lucero.

“Aye, aye,
sir.”

Lucero and
Lund stared at the encroaching dots on the screen.

“Missiles
away, sir,” said the weapons officer.

Lund
swallowed.  “What happens if we miss?” she said.

Lucero
shrugged.  “Fire some more, I guess,”
she
said,
adding, “some militarily tactics are quite complex.  This one isn’t. 
We just keep firing until we’ve shot them all down.”

They waited
in silence until the oncoming dots and the dots racing towards them met and
disappeared.

“Weapons,
give me an update on our status,” said Lucero.

“All missiles
deployed successfully,” said the weapons officer.  “There are currently no
missiles vectoring towards us.”

“Weapons,
please confirm, are there any missiles vectoring anywhere at the present time?”

“Negative
Commodore, no missiles at the present time.”

“Okay,” said
Lucero, “we are on high alert.  Everyone needs to be at their post. 
This is just the beginning, there’ll be more.  Until we’re close enough to
take out their missile platform they’re going to keep throwing them at
us.  We just have to keep batting them away.  Full alert, everyone,
let’s go.”

“Commodore
Lucero,” said the weapons officer, “I think you may want to see this.”

“What is it?”
said Lucero.

“I have some
data on the explosions of the missiles.  It appears that at least one of
the enemy missiles detonated itself as a reaction to the close proximity of our
own missile.  We’ve just read a weak electromagnetic pulse from that
explosion.”

“Shit,” said
Lucero.

Lund looked at
her.  “You’d better make sure that none get through,” she said.

Lucero
nodded, “I’ll do what I can.”

“They’re
gone,” said Walton.  “I’ve lost all data from the missiles.  That
wasn’t us.”

“Their
countermeasures seem to have been effective.  They launched nine missiles,
they took ours out,” said Baldwin.

Kostovich
paced.  “Okay, okay,” he said.  “That was just to feel them
out.  Here’s what we do.  Walton, prepare three nukes and three
EMPs.  And three standard explosive missiles.”

Walton took
her eyes from her terminal to look at Kostovich directly.  “Nukes? 
Seriously?  You want to fire nukes at a USAN ship?”

Kostovich
couldn’t hide his irritation.  “Prepare the missiles, please.  We’re
not going to fire nukes
at
it, we’re going to fire nukes
near
it.”

Walton turned
her gazed back to her screen, but she was not placated.  Kostovich sat in
front of a terminal and typed.  “Keep all eyes on
Ephialtes
,” he
said to Baldwin.  “If they fire anything at us I need to know
immediately.”

“We’re not in
their range for another ten minutes,” said Baldwin.

“That’s what
we think we know,” said Kostovich.  “Just expect the unexpected and keep
monitoring that ship.”

“Will do
that,” said Baldwin.

Kostovich
brought up a missile flight plan and patched it through to Walton.  “When
those missiles are ready fire them according to this flight pattern.”

“You don’t
want to use the regulation flight plans?” said Walton.

“Did I
stutter?” said Kostovich.  “Load this flight data into those missiles and
launch them as soon as you can.  Okay?”

Walton was
rattled.  “Okay,” she said quietly as she thought about punching Kostovich
in the face.

“When are
those missiles going to be ready?” said Kostovich, anxiously.

“We’re
waiting on the nukes.  Safety protocols in the arming routine take a
little longer on the nukes.  We should be good in a couple of minutes.”

Kostovich
scanned his terminal.  “How’s
Ephialtes
?  Any change?” he
called to Baldwin.

“Steady as
she goes,” said Baldwin.  “No further missile launches.”

Kostovich
nodded.  “As soon as we’ve launched this volley of missiles prepare the
same again,” he said to Walton.

“Same again,
acknowledged,” Walton replied.  “Less than one minute to launch for volley
number two.”

Kostovich
rubbed his chin nervously.  Though they were based on the surface of the
planet, and protected by a further four missile batteries, Kostovich felt like
he was aboard
Parry 5
.  He could feel the intense
vulnerability of the little platform floating above him, and he could feel the
massive weight of the task resting on it.  He double-checked the
missile flight plans he had sent to Walton and ran through various scenarios in
his mind, testing and probing his tactics for weaknesses.  He couldn’t
find any, but something nagged away at the back of his consciousness:
‘What
if you’ve missed something? /
What
have you missed?’
 
“How are we doing on those missiles?” he shouted across to Walton.

“Ready in a
few seconds,” she replied.

In sharp
contrast to the first volley time now appeared to be running at an accelerated
rate, individual moments seeming disjointed.  It seemed that
immediately - or was it simultaneously or even before? - Walton
had said there were seconds left she said, “Missiles away.”

At that same
now-earlier-later moment Kostovich looked down at his screen. 
He saw the nine blips streak away from
Parry 5
and then, as
planned, they drew closer to each other forming a single large blip on his
screen.  He felt relieved to see the flight plans working but he worried
that
Ephialtes
may have seen the original nine blips on their screens
too.  What would they have made of it?  Would they figure it
out?  How would they try to counter it, even if they did figure it out?

‘What if
you’ve missed something? /
What
have you missed?’

“Telemetry
from all missiles is currently good, all missiles are behaving as expected,”
said Walton.

“No response
as yet from
Ephialtes
,” said Baldwin.

“Good,” said
Kostovich as he watched the blip move across his screen towards a large blip on
the other side.

Lund was
still on the bridge when the second fusillade was launched.

“We have a
fresh missile launch,” said a signals officer.

“What
configuration?” said
Lucero.

“It appears
to be just one, but I doubt that’s the case.  It’s probably a very tight
formation of multiple missiles.”

“How long
till impact?” said
Lucero.

“Approximately
four minutes,” came the reply.

Lund checked
her comdev; the new routines had finished loading.

“Launch
countermeasures,” said Lucero.

“Aye, aye,
sir, preparing to launch countermeasures.”

“Listen,”
said Lund, “we have three fully armed dropships ready to go right now.  I
suggest launching them immediately.”

“Thank you
for that suggestion, but how is that going to help us right now?” said Lucero.

Lund nodded
at the screen.  “If one of those is an EMP and it gets through we are dead
in the water.  At least if we have some ships out of the blast range we
might maintain some capability.”

“If all we
have left are three dropships then the mission’s a bust anyways. 
Defending
Ephialtes
is our number one priority here.”

“I’m not
talking about the mission, I’m talking about maintaining some capability in
order to rescue us if we’re hit with an EMP.”

“Whatever,
Lund.  Do whatever you think is right,” said Lucero before barking, “Are
those countermeasures ready?”

“Offensive
missiles are in range, sir, launching counter measure in three,
two .
 . .”

“Go,” said
Lucero to Lund.  “Get those birds in the air.”

“Missiles
away, sir.”