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In addition, instead of sending up a hail of exploding «flak» like most antiaircraft weapons, it fired single free-flight bars of depleted uranium, accelerated to .3c in the path up the twenty-meter barrel. One hundred millimeters in diameter and two meters long, the bars would go through a command ship long ways when they hit. Besides the massive kinetic explosion such an impact would entail, as they passed through the atmosphere the bars created a standing relativistic wave in front of them that generated a blast of gamma and X rays sufficient to cook anything in the ships.
However, instead of nine such weapons there was a single gun. And, instead of the fortress being «buttoned up,» a mass of concrete and steel, with concentric, compartmentalized defenses and multiple firing points of the main guns, there was sunlight coming in from both directions in the firing area. Both the armored outer door, which should have protected the compartment from impacts on the surface of the fortress, and the armored i
Basically, they were naked as a jaybird.
Which was why the three-man crew decided there were better places to be as the gun swiveled and pointed down and to the southeast. The last one out grabbed the helmet for his skin-suit and then pelted after the others. Without his helmet the mass of radiation that was about to be generated would cook his brains.
The lander was currently below the horizon. But the Posleen had never heard of «nap-of-the-earth» flying; hugging the ground made no sense to them. The ship finally crested into view, visible both through the Galactic-supplied sensors and the various radars scattered across the surrounding hills.
«We have lock,» stated the control tech. Although there was a manual override, the system was designed to be automated. The tech only need keep his thumb on the firing tab and the weapon system would do all the work. The thumb was currently ready to flip off the safety cover.
«Engage,» said the operational commander. The tone was level and disinterested. It was the professional tone of the truly terrified.
The tech flipped up the cover and depressed the firing stud.
The gun gave a final, organic quiver and fired one round.
* * *
Althanara had finally cleared the obscuring trees. He began the rotation of the ship to align the main plasma ca
* * *
«Sir, damage control!» said the damage control officer. «We've lost number three, five and seven turrets. Four of the six Thermopylaes are out and Main Turret C is welded to the deck!»
The captain fa
«Lander, sir,» said the defensive systems officer. He pointed to a screen. «It's up on anti-grav firing on us with its secondaries.» As he said it there was another series of wracking explosions punctuated with a roar that tossed the multithousand-ton ship like a terrier.
The captain held onto the arms of his command chair as the ship rocked in the waves it had generated in the explosion. He had felt the distinct thud! of the hull hitting the bottom. Which meant it had been driven at least twenty feet downward by the explosion. «What the hell was that?»
«We're holed!» said the damage control officer tapping frantically at his keys to get data. «Something punched right through the ship! We lost number three boiler, number two engine, two five-inch magazines and, Jesus, sickbay!»
The captain spun on the defensive systems officer. «Can you see it?»
«Yes, sir,» said the officer, pointing at the screen, «but . . .»
«Then try to hit it!»
«Yes, sir,» said the officer, punching commands as fast as he could type. The remaining Thermopylae began to point skyward as the five-inch turrets followed.
The same communications technician who had found the firing locations on the Internet suddenly lurched to her feet, laptop in hand, and ran to the main-gun control center. Pushing another tech out of the way, she ripped out a standard computer plug and hooked it into her computer. Preempting the displaced technician's station chair she started loading a program.
«Come on, come on, come on you son of a bitch,» she chanted. Never had a simple DOS program taken so long to load.
* * *
«Yahai!» shouted Althanara, as the ship rocked in the water. Somewhere would be the magazines. Once he hit those it was all over. However, even as the next HVM loaded, the ship began to spit fire back.
* * *
«What are you doing, girl?» asked the gu
«Trying to save our ass, sir,» the tech said in a distracted voice. A solution light blinked on the computer and she hit the enter button. All six remaining main guns of the ship fired at one point in space.
* * *
Althanara had just raised his arms in celebration when he realized the fire from the ship was not a palpable hit. He did not, however, have time to panic. Before the thousand-pound shells of the ship had made it halfway to the target, the uranium bar from the distant Planetary Defense Center arrived.
The round penetrated from the bottom of Athanara's ship and exited the top. Along the way it passed through the matter-antimatter converter and the antimatter storage tanks. Puncturing the plasma conduits of the HVM launcher on its way out was merely a formality.
The expanding ball of nuclear fire that had been a lander caught the main-gun rounds in mid-flight and disintegrated them. The shockwave and thermal pulse caught the Posleen along its path and incinerated them as well. From the exterior it was impossible to tell which round had arrived first.
This incident would create a ru
It was tests of the hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll that finally broke the power of the battleship. On that morning of hydrogen fire a fleet of empty ships was sunk by a single weapon. However, the blast from the already depleted lander was far less than the blast from the Bikini Bomb. And the lander was rather farther away.
When the shockwave from the nuclear blast washed across the ship the damage was great but not catastrophic. The wave of fire searched down through the great rents in the fabric of the ship, but was stymied by the same blast doors that were containing the flooding water. It exploded a few more exposed magazines, killed a handful of damage control perso
Sunk or not, the North Carolina was done for the day. One turret welded to the deck, huge gaps torn in her armor, and belching smoke and flame from the punctured engine rooms, she raised her other anchor and turned to the southeast. Let one of the other battlewagons take the position. «Showboat» had some cleaning up to do. The Planetary Defense Centers, however, were still in the midst of it.