Troy Rising 1 - Live Free or Die (58 page)

Other than
that
, all they needed was a laser tube.

Before the Horvath came through the gate.

The first tube, using a VDA, had taken nearly a week to burn.

Two light-seconds out was an UNG mirror waiting to go. About to receive the full power of
SAPL as every other project in the system was shut down and every ship started to run for
whatever it considered to be cover.

The six tugs were because if they were successful they were about to 'mine' one hundred
and fifty thousand tons of nickel iron with the usual admixtures. Nickel iron required
about one point three megawatts of power per second per ton to melt.

The UNG beam was pushing about sixty petawatts of power. Neither Nathan nor Tyler believed
the calculations they were looking at. What they said was they were about to burn all the
way through
Troy
in a second and a half.

“Ung, ung, ung,” Nathan muttered. “Argus... initiate burn.”

“Oh... my,” Tyler said as the UNG beam hit. A relatively small spot on the surface of
Troy
seemed to explode outwards.

“We're not cutting through in a second and a half,” Nathan said. “Thank God. But we
are
cutting a one-meter tube at about ten meters per second. The first tug is already
overloaded and we're getting significant spalling and dust.”

“Arrange them in a circle,” Tyler said. “Between all six they should be able to capture
the full cut.”

“Already done,” Nathan said.

The take was coming from a BDA cluster and there was enough refinement Tyler could zoom
in. There was a
lot
of dust, the vaporized nickel-iron was fountaining up out of the hole in a mushroom cloud.

“I'm going to let that subside for a bit,” Nathan said. “I'm afraid the beam is bouncing
around in the hole.”

“Be careful when you get to burn-through,” Tyler said.

“I've got sensors on the inside,” Nathan said. “When we get close, I'm going to drop the
power. I've also got a plate of steel on the far side. It won't last long but it will last
long
enough for Argus to cut power.”

Even with breaks to let the gaseous iron clear, what had taken a day with the VDA took a
bare thirty minutes.

“That is amazing,” Nathan said. “And very very scary.”

“Rout out the outer section for the collimeter system,” Tyler said. The tugs, which were
staying well back, weren't full yet.

A quick blast of the UNG beam, carefully missing the hole at the center, had the area cut
into a cylinder to accept the receptor collimeter.

“Sending in the cleaner bots,” Nathan said. “Tell the admiral we'll have a bypass set up
in about another thirty minutes.”

“It's taking longer to shut the door than to cut a hole,” Tyler said, shaking his head.
“I'll... Bloody hell.”

The Rangora/Horvath battleship looked immense coming through the gate. It was bigger than
the Glatun heavy ore freighters that had been plying their trade since Tyler started
seriously mining asteroids.

It also was a mass of guns and missile launchers. All of which started belching fire as
soon as it cleared the gate. Right at the
Troy
.

“Belay that order,” Tyler said. “Get an Ung mirror in place to bypass.”

“Moving the array into position,” Nathan said. “It's going to take a minute or two...”

“Mr. Vernon?” Admiral Kinyon said, mildly. “We don't seem to have access to SAPL. And in
case you hadn't noticed.”

It took a lot to make a multi-trillion ton piece of nickel-iron ring like a tocsin. The
hammer of arriving missiles from the Horvath ship was managing.

“We're bringing it online right now,” Tyler said. “Permission to come to the command
center.”

“Granted,” the admiral said with only a moment's hesitation.

***

“Admiral,”
Captain DiNote commed.
“Issue.”

“Go,” the admiral said.

“We have an inbound shuttle,”
MOGS said.
“Thirty-Three picked up the passengers from
Columbia Seventeen
. It's about two minutes out. Permission to slow door close.”

The Admiral looked at the icon of the shuttle and the notations on closing the door. And
then at the notation on the inbound. He could do the math.

“I have six hundred civilians in various ships in the main bay, Captain,” the admiral
said. “And a swarm of Horvath missiles hitting the
Troy
. They're working their way to the door. Denied.”

“Roger, sir,”
DiNote said.

“Damn,” Captain Sharp said, softly.

“Captain?” the Admiral said.

“That shuttle, sir,” Sharp said. “The pilot just did a flip and is now inbound at max
drive. He's trying to shoot the gap. Makes sense. Going to die
anyway
. Worse that happens is he misses.”

“Going to make it?” the admiral said, looking at the icons. Without SAPL up there wasn't
much else to do but watch.

“Barely,” Sharp said. “Even Paris is locking up. They can make it
into
the gap but out? And that assumes the pilot can stay centered. Then there's braking in the
main bay.”

“How long?” the admiral said.

“This is going to be over fast, one way or the other.”

“Visual.”

“Out of visual,” Sharp said. “It's in the gap already. Go baby, go...” he whispered.

“Staying nicely centered,” the admiral said.

“And we have SAPL,” Sharp said. “The laser is now online in the bay. But the damned tube
is blocked.”

“Missiles?” the Admiral said.

“No effect, sir,” Sharp said.

“We're not being a very effective defense,” Kinyon said. “And it
cleared
.”

“Oh,” Sharp said. “By a
whisker
! Damn this kid is
goo
ÑNo!”

“Speaking of...” Kinyon said, then... “SAPL. Did he just
skew turn
that
Myrm
at four hundred gravities in
my
main bay?”

“
And
around the control lever!” Sharp said. “Yes! And slowing... slowing...”

“Ouch,” Kinyon said. “
That
shuttle's a write-off. Going to be an interesting report on... Is it moving?”

“They can take some damage,” Sharp said. “Outgassing but they should make Bay One in time.
So that kid just saved fifty-three passengers, sir. The
Columbia
has already been taken out.”

“Well, back to the main battle,” Kinyon said. “Paris, remind me to involve myself in the
report on this incident.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Involve?” Captain Sharp said.

“I'm still trying to figure out if the kid should get a medal or a Mast.”

***

Tyler had determined by the time he reached the command center that the next thing on the
agenda for construction was grav walks.

“Door's closed,” Colonel Helberg said. “No missiles entered the bay. Unless you count the
Myrmidon
.”

“Ninety percent of missiles expended,” Captain Sharp said. “We're not getting through
their anti-missile defenses. Eighth Horvath ship through the gate.”

That was clear on the screens ringing the command center. As he said that, the ninth
battleship entered the system, effectively unchallenged.

“Fortunately, they're expending all their fire on us.” The battlestation rocked to another
hammer of missiles. “Powerful stuff, too.”

“The SAPL is moot,” Admiral Kinyon said as Tyler bent over, holding his knees and panting.
“Their fire had closed the firing port and they've destroyed every array within a light
second.”

“Use it... anyway,” Tyler panted. “Coming from two... light. It's... going to cut through.”

“And we just lost the single missile port,” Sharp said, shaking his head. “This would
work
with enough guns and ports!”

“We could throw
Myrmidons
at them,” Colonel Helberg said.

“Fire... the... SAPL,” Tyler panted. “You... don't... FIRE THE SAPL.”

“Do we have SAPL?” the admiral asked.

“Except for a slagged firing port,” Captain Sharp said, “yes, sir.”

“Fire the SAPL,” the admiral said.

“Here goes nothing,” Sharp said. “We don't have much in the way of aiming.”

“Nothing,” the admiral said. “As I said.” There had been no effect.

“Wait,” Tyler said.

The tenth ship exiting the gate suddenly seemed to ripple, its image distorting. Then the
rear of the ship blossomed in fire and the ship listed off to the side. A moment later, it
exploded in a flash of red and yellow.

“Yes!” Admiral Kinyon said.

“Burn through,” Captain Sharp said. “The SAPL must have melted the damage.” He stopped and
shook his head. “That port was
closed
! The aiming collimeter was totally slagged.”

“You're pushing
sixty petawatts
of power,” Tyler said. “What you just did was burn out the damage. Paris, can you adjust
fire using the internal mirrors?”

“About three degrees,” Paris said. “But it will be expended on the material of the tube...
For about two seconds. I see your point.”

The eleventh ship ran straight into the main fire of the SAPL. The shields held for a
moment, going nearly black with power, and then failed. The heavy laser sliced through the
refractory armor as if it were butter and the ship cut in half from just abaft the bridge.
It didn't explode, though, and the screen was suddenly marked with distress beacons as the
Horvath crew abandoned ship.

“Athena is requesting power to engage the ships already in the system,” Paris said. “I
have argued that we should take out the additional ships exiting the gate. Especially
since the emerged ships are concentrating their fire on us.”

As the AI said that, the twelfth ship ran into the UNG beam. It had come in at an angle to
take a VDA cluster under fire and the beam cut it in half just forward of the bridge. The
forequarters spun off in one direction as the rear spun in the opposite. Another shot from
the UNG and the rear portion, which was still under power, exploded.

“Paris,” Tyler said. “Pardon, Admiral. But if we aim carefully we can probably salvage
more of these ships.”

“Salvage is the least of my worries,” the admiral said as the twelfth ship exploded. “I'm
quite happy with scrap.”

“We're taking out their shields in about three seconds,” Tyler said, bringing up a
schematic of the
Devastator
on the main holo tank. “If we then concentrate fire here and here,” he said, pointing to
two spots on the ship design, “we'll take out their primary forward and aft capacitor
banks. That will leave them more or less powerless.”

“Paris?”

“I may be able to do it,” the AI said, shredding the next battleship.

“Ensure that they are not a threat,” the admiral said. “To us but especially to earth. If
you can do that and simply damage them...”

“We can easily convert them for our
own
use,” Tyler said, smugly.

“The beam...” Paris said as the
Troy
started to hum. “I have discontinued fire and transferred control to Athena. The enemy
fire is sufficiently powerful to have shifted us off position and the supplying UNG beam
was impacting on the surface of the station.”

“Looks like we're spectators for the rest of this,” the admiral said, crossing his arms.
Another flight of missiles rang the station and he grimaced. “I'd like to have more
internal power. The SAPL is great, but I'd like to have my
own
firepower, thank you.”

Tyler was looking at the drifting parts of ships and smiled.

“Admiral, there's four hundred terawatts of emitters drifting around,” he said. “I think
we might just be able to accommodate that.”

***

“That is all the ships which were reported on the far side of the gate,” Paris said.

“Damn we're going to be busy,” Tyler said.

Parts and pieces of sixty ships drifted near the gate. Three of them were, mostly, intact.
Athena, despite losing the two second UNG cluster, had managed to not only destroy all the
ships that cleared the gate but use Tyler's suggestion on three of them. They mostly
related to meter wide holes that went all the way through the ships' two main power
transfer centers. Tyler was practically rubbing his hands in anticipation of getting his
salvage crews on them.

“I'm seriously going to need some help from Captain DiNote.”

“Noted,” Admiral Kinyon said, his arms still crossed. “Status of the missiles sent
earthward?”

Towards the end of the battle the few remaining ships got the message that throwing
missiles at the
Troy
was a losing proposition.

“Athena or Argus caught all of them, Admiral,” Paris replied. “Earth is unscathed. Two
personnel shuttles inbound to us were lost with all hands. Several manned construction
sites were lost as well.”

“Crap,” Tyler said, his jaw flexing. “I
hate
losing people.”

“Damage?” the Admiral said.

“All the ports are closed,” Colonel Helberg said. “And lasers from the ships that got
around our backside have spot-welded the door shut. Other than that... scars.”

“Chicks dig 'em,” Tyler said. “Admiral?”

“
Yes
, Mr. Vernon?” Admiral Kinyon said.

“Do we have SAPL returned to civilian control?”

“Under the circumstances, I'm almost loathe to do so,” Kinyon said. “This thing is too
powerful for anyone to have control over. But... yes.”

“Thank you,” Tyler said. “Colonel Helberg, you're about to receive more damage.”

“What?”

“Argus. Initiate program Ilius,” Tyler said.

“What are you doing?” Admiral Kinyon asked, tightly.

“It was supposed to wait for the commissioning ceremony,” Tyler said. “But I think the
Troy
can be said to be officially commissioned.”

“Incoming SAPL fire,” Captain Sharp said. “Every direction.”

“Mr. Vernon?” Admiral Kinyon asked.

“Watch,” was all Tyler said.

From all over the system, VDA and UNG beams converged on the
Troy
in flashes of fire. It seemed, for a few seconds, as if the entire battlestation was being
mauled apart.

When the fire cleared, on five hexants of the battlestation there were, meters deeply
etched into the nickel-iron, the clear silhouettes o
f a helmeted hoplite with a legend ‘Ž•’. There was a smaller emblem on the door and under
it the words 'Born of Winter.'