The Lost Fleet – Dauntless

According to Repulse’s last update, her propulsion system wasn’t that badly damaged. Why is she wallowing like that? Then Geary noticed the Syndic HuKs not altering course to further avoid Repulse and realized what his grandnephew was doing. He’s pretending to be in worse shape than he is. It’s his only ace, and he’s playing it very well. If only I’d had some time to get to know that man.

Repulse, swinging slowly and majestically up and around, barely managed to bring her main weapons to bear and fired her kinetic grapeshot, patterns of large metal ball bearings aimed to intercept the path of the oncoming HuKs. At the speed the HuKs were moving, relativistic effects would mean they’d have a distorted image of the outside universe, which together with the time-late lags caused by the distances involved meant the Syndic ships would lose vital time in seeing and responding to any threats.

Whether because they had too little warning time to react or simply chose to ignore the barrage, the HuKs swept directly into the grapeshot kill patterns, their leading shields sparkling with impacts as they absorbed the barrage. The Syndic warships surged onward, still fixated on the Titan. “No hits,” Geary commented tonelessly.

Captain Desjani shook her head. “There wasn’t much chance of one, but all those head-on strikes against the HuK shields by the kinetic rounds must’ve depleted the shields a great deal. The relative speed of the impacts was huge. They’ll have to shift a lot of power from the sides and rear to try to rebuild their front shields.”

“I see.” And now he did. Or rather, he was seeing what had happened over a minute ago. The HuKs sprinting past Repulse obviously weren’t worried about taking any more shots from the Alliance ship. But before the projected paths of the Syndic ships began to pass Repulse’s position, the battle cruiser had rolled with sudden speed and agility, changing aspect to bring her main batteries to bear on points the HuKs would pass through. The Syndics probably didn’t see the maneuver in time to react, maintaining their courses and allowing Repulse to target the spots they’d occupy as the enemy tried to race past.

A barrage of hell-lances erupted from the Alliance ship, racing outward to reach a point in space just as one of the Syndic warships passed through the same spot. The charged particle spears slashed into the HuK, then as Repulse kept rolling to bring her weapons to bear on another intercept point, another barrage fired and slammed into a second HuK. At fairly close range, the bolts of energy tore through the weakened side shields and the thin underlying armor, then ripped apart the guts of the Syndic ships.

Still moving at better than.1 light, the wrecks of the two HuKs raced onward, no longer accelerating, no longer living warships, no longer threats to Titan or any other Alliance ship.

But Geary’s eyes were locked on the third HuK, as Repulse brought her bow up and around in a wrenching maneuver to face it. He felt a familiar tension inside as if the display were showing events in real time, rather than revealing the light of actions already over a minute old now. The display showed what looked like a massive glowing ball leaping from the Repulse on a course that carried it straight into the HuK’s path. The ball seemed to hesitate a moment as it flared against the HuK’s shields, then it plowed through the weakened barrier and into the ship. Where the ball hit, the HuK simply vanished, a third of the ship gone in an instant, and the remaining pieces tumbling away as they were wracked by secondary explosions.

“What the hell was that?” Geary whispered.

Captain Desjani bared her teeth. “A null-field. It does exactly what the name says, temporarily nullifying the strong force that holds atoms together.”

“You’re joking.”

“No.” She pointed at the remains of the HuK. “Inside the null-field, atomic bonds fail. Matter simply falls apart.”

Geary stared at her, then at the display. Matter. Matter making up a ship, and matter making up its crew. Falling apart and gone. Not just dead, but vanished into nothing. “Does every ship have one of those null-fields?”

“No. Just the capital ships, and not all of them.” Desjani’s fierce grin faded. “They’re fairly new, short range, and they take a long time to recharge. I know why he fired it when he did. It was the only way to stop that HuK. But he may not get off another shot from it, and I doubt any Syndic capital ships will let him get close enough to nail them.”

“Can a shield stop those things?”

“A powerful enough one, yes.” She looked frustrated now. “Null-fields can’t be charged if you’re too deep in a significant gravity well, and the charge can only be held for a very brief time before you have to fire. As a result we haven’t been able to employ them against Syndic planetary targets, yet.”

“Planetary targets? You mean planets, don’t you?”

Frustration shifted to annoyance before Desjani cleared her expression. “Of course.”