Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9), Glynn Stewart [reading well .TXT] 📗

necessity. The elimination of the current generation of hyper-capable bioforms would render the rest of this force irrelevant.”

The flag bridge was very quiet.

“Casimir, Ashmore. Work together with Arnaud’s people to prepare a spread of sensor probes for hyperspace deployment. You won’t have very long,” Tan!Stalla warned grimly.

“Orders to the task force,” she continued. “All ships will enter hyperspace and prepare to engage the enemy.”

Jean Villeneuve shivered around Morgan as the superbattleship plunged into hyperspace. Fifteen of her sisters followed her, the massive Galileo-class ships spreading out into a four-by-four wall in the gray void.

A second set of sixteen ships followed them through, the Bellerophon-C class battleships expanding the wall into a fat cross as they moved onto the superbattleships’ flanks.

Forty-eight heavy cruisers—all hyperspace missile–equipped Thunderstorms—formed up in front of the capital ships. It was a powerful force, but Morgan was painfully aware of the odds they were up against.

“Anomaly localized and on the tactical plot,” Ashmore reported. “We are at one light-hour hyperspatial distance. Infinite force velocity has not changed; continuing on their vector at twenty percent of lightspeed.”

“Bring us onto an opposing course and up to point-five c,” Tan!Stalla ordered. “At ten million kilometers, the fleet will reverse course, match their velocity and hold the range.”

Morgan nodded to herself. Her best estimate was that the effective range of even the singularity cannon was maybe three million kilometers—ten light-seconds. The interface-drive missiles in their magazines had a velocity of point-eight-five c and a sixty-second flight time—over five times that range.

Of course, their hyperspace missiles had a range measured in light-minutes, but they weren’t available in this environment. The main battle line of the A!Tol fleet was heavily optimized for normal space engagement.

“All ships have the course locked in. We are advancing,” Ashmore reported.

“Probe spread is set to launch at maximum missile range,” Morgan reported a few moments later. “We are co-opting all of Jean Villeneuve’s launchers for the spread, one hundred and twenty probes.

“They’ll have a two-minute flight time, and we need to hope that the Infinite force doesn’t maneuver significantly in that flight time,” she noted. “The probes don’t have anomaly scanners.”

They did have sensor probes with anomaly scanners, but those craft didn’t have much else. Those drones were meant to be left in hyperspace as long-range observers, their data recorded and collected later.

Morgan could have used them to guide the rest of the probes, but even at fifty light-seconds, she figured she could control the spread well enough to put them inside a target six hundred thousand kilometers across.

“They shouldn’t be able to maneuver that much,” Morgan concluded aloud.

“Good.” Tan!Stalla fell silent. She was still standing by her seat, studying the tactical display showing the fleet around them. All of their ships were within the visibility bubble of Jean Villeneuve, allowing them clean communications and sight.

Relayed sensors from the rest of the ships meant that their true visibility bubble was larger than it otherwise would be. Against a missile-equipped enemy, they’d deploy their defensive drones to spread it even farther.

The Infinite didn’t have missiles or interface drives. In theory, the Imperials had more than enough of a range and maneuverability advantage to make this a winnable fight.

In practice, Morgan’s team had finished their analysis of the mass of the anomaly heading their way. They couldn’t definitively break it down by types or armament, not in hyperspace and not with their limited data on the Infinite…but there were over half a trillion tons of bioforms headed their way.

Versus the roughly seven hundred million tons of Tan!Stalla’s task force.

“Drones are definitely inside the Infinite’s effective range,” Morgan reported as her robotic minions approached the enemy. “They either don’t see them at all or aren’t registering them as a threat.”

“Both are possible,” Ashmore pointed out. “If they’re using unfamiliar scanners that they’ve somehow plugged into their nervous systems…calibration’s got to be a giant pain.”

Morgan winced at the thought of wiring sensors into her brain—calibrating the systems the Infinite were bolting onto their bioforms was probably a pain in more ways than one.

“Visibility bubble in ten seconds,” she reported. Truthfully, her probes were already on the other side of the Infinite and blazing into the nebula, but lightspeed delay was still a thing for anomaly scanners.

Her drones were programmed to turn around and come back once they were twenty light-seconds clear on the far side. She could track the probes, but she wouldn’t have any data until at least one of them made it back into her com range.

“Visibility bubble,” Morgan reported grimly. Alerts flashed across her screen as the long-range scanners made their assessment of her drones’ fate.

“Infinite engaged the probes zero-point-five-six seconds after they entered the visibility zone,” she told Tan!Stalla. “We lost twenty-nine before they left the visibility zone. Some of the Infinite are continuing to engage, which suggests they do have anomaly scanners.

“They just weren’t sure what to make of the signatures of our probes.”

She watched as more of her probes disappeared, grunting as the plasma fire appeared to cease around six light-seconds. “Forty-two probes destroyed, all told,” she said. “Seventy-eight continuing on course. Six will detour back to us at maximum speed and should arrive in approximately ninety seconds.

“The rest will make another pass of the swarm in just over a minute.”

“Understood,” Tan!Stalla said calmly.

At that point, the Imperial force would be making Tan!Stalla’s flip. They’d hold the range and pound the Infinite with missiles the bioships couldn’t reply to.

The problem Morgan was concerned about was that the Infinite had fought her old ship. They’d fought the traitors with Builder of Tomorrows and they’d, presumably, won that battle as well as the one against Defiance.

The Infinite had to be aware of how short their weapons’ range fell against those of their new enemies. Morgan had to anticipate what the aliens would pull out of their hat, and she was feeling frustratingly unclairvoyant.

“Sir,” she said slowly, looking at the data rippling across her screen. They still couldn’t localize the exotic matter in the Infinite