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

position, sir, and now match us for velocity. And we have to assume they can match our vector changes now.”

Morgan was running mental calculations and watching the screen as they spoke. More missiles were hammering their primary target, but the Six-A was huge. Even if they were scoring direct hits, it was a twelve-hundred-kilometer-diameter sphere wrapped in hyper-compressed armor.

It might take every HSM they had to seriously hurt the beast—and that was what she was planning on throwing at it.

“Hold the range open as long as we can without leaving the gravity zone,” she ordered firmly. “If we can empty our HSMs into the big bastard before we let anyone into missile range, that would make me very happy, people.”

New course lines and maneuverability spheres appeared on the hologram as the STG continued maneuvering.

“Wait…what was that?” Ort demanded as an icon flashed on the screen and disappeared. “Running analysis.”

Morgan held her tongue. She could guess and she didn’t like the answer.

“Teleported microsingularity, sir,” the ops officer finally reported. “It’s smaller than the ones they fired from the projector, and dissolved into Hawking radiation in under a second without new mass.

“But if one of those appears inside one of our ships…”

“That ship is in serious trouble,” Morgan finished. “Increase evasive maneuvers across the fleet. They missed once. Let’s keep them missing.”

The range was slowly but surely dropping. The Infinite understood exactly what Morgan’s limitations were—if she passed the invisible line in space where a hyper portal could be created, she was vulnerable to ambush.

She would also be able to escape—except that she no longer believed she was invisible to the Infinite. That rendered escape impossible. That left only the mission.

“Drown you,” Ort suddenly hissed. “Three internal emergences. I have detached armor plating and…and…”

“Blood,” Morgan finished for the Ivida. “Blood on the scale of a creature that size, I’m guessing?”

“Fluid loss and flesh, yes, sir,” Ort concluded. “Target remains mobile, but I think we just blew off a good chunk of her armor.”

“Program the remaining missiles to go for the weak spot,” Morgan ordered. “Time to regular IDM range?”

“Two minutes,” Rogers replied. “Laying in targeting patterns now. Defensive drones deploying across the fleet.” She paused. “Sub-Commandant Irisha is requesting a com channel, sir.”

“Put him through,” Morgan ordered.

The Wendira officer appeared in a hologram projected above the arm of her seat, putting him exactly at her eye level.

“Division Lord,” he greeted her. “I request permission to deploy my fighters. We can reduce the enemy’s smaller platforms before they are able to engage with missile fire. Respectfully, I am your expert on starfighter tactics, and I assess this as our best chance to influence this battle.”

Morgan paused. Irisha was definitely correct that he knew starfighters far better than she did—she’d barely even considered them in her thoughts as she projected the battle in her head.

On the other hand, her five star intruders only had twelve hundred and eighty starfighters between them. The odds were that none of those starfighters would survive closing with sixty-four Category Three bioforms.

Something in Irisha’s gaze told her he knew that. So did his Drones, who had almost certainly volunteered to a one to fly the strike.

“You are the expert,” she conceded. She glanced at the screens. The range was still over one light-minute, but the need to stay inside the star’s gravity well was limiting the STG’s ability to keep the range open.

“Deploy your starfighters as you judge fit, Sub-Commandant,” she told him quietly. “There will be later phases to this battle.”

“Only if we survive this one, sir,” Irisha said calmly. “Fighters will deploy immediately, targeting the Category Threes. I leave the Alavan sphere to you.”

“Thanks,” Morgan replied before the channel dropped.

“Rogers, Ort, deploy hyperfold-equipped drones to support the Wendira fighters,” she ordered. “They don’t have tachyon scanners, so we’ll keep them updated as thoroughly as possible as they close.”

She leaned back in her chair and studied her enemy through narrowed eyes.

“And, Ort?”

“Division Lord?”

“Kill that goddamn sphere.”

“Working on it, sir.”

The Six-A was now starting to take the threat seriously. Prior to the internal emergences, it had simply charged toward her ships at the head of its fleet, flinging microsingularities at her at long range. Its armor had shrugged off near and direct hits with ease, even the ten-gigaton warheads of the HSM missiles barely scratching the hull.

Now, however, a good chunk of that armor was missing and the beast was hurt. It was trying to dodge now—but it was also the only thing in the Infinite force that could reach Morgan’s ships.

“Another singularity miss,” Rogers reported. “That’s one too far and one too short. I think we all know what comes next.”

“I’m hoping for more misses,” Morgan said with a forced chuckle. “Or for Ort to blow the damn thing to hell.”

“Starfighters are out,” her chief of staff told her. “They’ll reach weapons range twenty seconds before everybody gets in missile range. They might do some good.”

“They might die for nothing,” Morgan replied. “But we need them.”

“Shit!” Someone snapped. “Direct hit on Tookoolale. She’s gone.”

“Confirm that,” Morgan barked. Tookoolale was one of the Laian starkillers. Her crew was small, only twenty-five, but the starkillers were still the point of this entire mission.

“Confirmed,” Rogers reported a moment later. “Microsingularity emerged inside the starkiller power core and consumed sixty percent of the ship before evaporating. Tookoolale’s command pod was consumed as well.

“Her crew is gone.”

“And so is a starkiller,” Morgan replied. “Ort, kill that sphere!”

The operations officer didn’t even bother to reply. He and four tactical officers were bending their every moment and thought toward that exact mission—and as Morgan snapped at him, he made a strange clicking sound.

“Hit,” Ort reported. “I think a missile hit the breach. I have more fluid loss…and she is losing speed. More missiles are incoming.”

“Hit!” Rogers snapped. “Taxula is gone. We’re down another starkiller.”

Taxula was one of the Wendira weapons, but it couldn’t be coincidence that it was the STG’s starkillers that were being hit. The Infinite knew exactly why Morgan was there.

And she realized