Cardioid Sector, HR-14 System, Battleship Singularity
“Well, shit,” Zarrey grumbled, looking at the dozens of ships that had moved out from behind the asteroids. They were completely surrounded. “First weird transmissions, now a surprise attack.”
“It is unlikely that Crimson Heart has the means to launch a successful cyberattack,” the Admiral reminded him. Besides, this attack was hardly a surprise. It was a sign they were close to Crimson Heart’s base.
“And what if the Baron’s got a pet spook?” A scientist he paid to prepare such attacks? With the wild furs that had adorned his shoulders, the man was clearly rich enough.
“Then we shall meet said scientist when we board the station.” There was no cause to worry about it now. “All the same, please summon our new computer officer to the bridge.” She could study the transmission for signs of malintent.
“Summon who?” Zarrey said, watching still more ships emerge from behind the asteroids. Clearly, the Baron was showing his forces to encourage further negotiation.
“Lieutenant Foster,” the Gargantia’s survivor. Admiral Gives had not planned to call on her services so soon, but there was a reason he had welcomed her onto the crew. She was the only one with cyber expertise aboard.
Working the sensors, Maria Galhino had pulled her curly hair into a tight ponytail. “Sir, I’m reading power signatures lighting up many of the surrounding asteroids. Scans indicate they may be remote firing batteries.”
“Shore batteries,” Zarrey groaned. “Oh, this just keeps getting better.”
“We planned for this,” the Admiral reminded him. In his mind, stationary batteries on the asteroids counted as traps. There was a reason he hadn’t launched their support craft yet. Flying alongside the Singularity, they would have been easy targets. The Singularity’s armor could sustain those hits, the smaller Warhawks and Arcbirds could not. Still, “We should have seen those before, Lieutenant.”
“I know, sir,” Galhino said, hunched over her station. Her fingers flew along the keys, trying to determine why they’d been blind to the shore batteries. Even if they were powered down, the composition of such things differed significantly from the natural composition of asteroids. “Something’s interfering with the material scans, sir. They’re still only reading as asteroids.”
This just keeps getting stranger. Sensor interference was certainly possible. An emitter with precise aim on the arrays and the correct wavelength could fool the return of the scans, but that technology was rare. It was so rare, in fact, that the fleet didn’t even employ it, so no pirate clan should be able to manage such a feat. Yet, how they managed it was a secondary concern to the Admiral, first was the fact that if those stationary batteries could be concealed from the ship’s sensors, then what they saw now was not likely to be everything.
“Skipper,” Monty interrupted his thoughts, “they’ve activated their targeting sensors. I’m seeing a mix of laser and traditional gun batteries. No railguns.”
At least that’s gone according to plan. Railguns were one of the few weapons that were certain to pierce the Singularity’s armor. They’d punch holes straight through it and into the compartments beyond. “Then proceed as planned, Lieutenant,” the Admiral ordered. There was no backing out now.
Gaffigan nodded once, “Aye. Seeking targets.” The shore batteries were first priority. Their caliber, rate of fire, and munitions stores would be higher than any of the pirate ships.
Like a conductor guiding an orchestra, Gaffigan picked his targets, confirming the firing solution as the weapons computer calculated them. Then, in an old and well-practiced dance, the ship’s main battery began to turn, each barrel rising to find its own elevation and target. Massive as they were, the guns were slow to rotate, and in the instant they started, visible as it was, Crimson Heart attacked.
Heavy blaster fire flew in from all sides, the propellant tracers rendering it a torrent of orange rain. Still, buried deep in the ship’s core, such an attack was barely noticeable. Heavy blasters were plenty effective against small ships, but they had little chance of piercing the armored hull of a battleship. No, the pirates would have to rely on other weapons to do that. Lasers were a favorite of the pirate clans as they required no ammunition supply, only power, but they fared poorly against heavily armored targets as well. In time, if they managed to hold their focus on one small part of the armor, they could heat and soften it enough for the blasters to pierce, but Admiral Gives doubted the battle would even last that long.
At least, it wouldn’t if he had any say in the matter. “Lieutenant Galhino,” he turned, “if the sensors cannot study the shore batteries, then focus them on Crimson Heart’s fleet. Get a missile count.” Missiles were the only real threat those ships carried, and they had to be accounted for.
“Yessir,” Galhino said, directing the ship’s active sensors toward the pirate fleet. Then, she ordered an optical study of the nearby asteroids with the ship’s telescopes and cameras. The pirates may have learned to fool active scans with false returns, but they would have a harder time with passive observation in the visible light spectrum.
The impacts of the pirates’ attack on the hull were miniscule. They were not even perceptible in the command center, save the slight creaks of the ship’s structure. Against the Singularity’s size and armor, it was nothing more than pebbles being thrown against the foot of a mountain. The ghost was little more than annoyed by the effort. ‘Well, that almost tickles,’ she told the Admiral. ‘Almost.’
‘Behave,’ he replied, keeping a watchful eye on the hull and structural integrity charts. For now, everything was green, but the repeated pounding on the hull would begin to fatigue the structure over time. The hull would be in a similar state. If the bombardment continued long enough, the attacks would deform, then begin to penetrate the armor as they found purchase. Evasive maneuvers would buy them time, but starting those now would complicate the main battery’s firing solutions. One of the first things taught about battleship command was not allowing maneuvers to work against the slow rotation of the guns. If taking a few hits allowed for a more effective attack, then the ship was armored for a reason. In many cases, the effectiveness of a battleship’s offense depended entirely on the nerve of her commander to expose her to enemy fire.
With no missiles to intercept, and with the pirate ships hanging out of range, the smaller defensive turrets on the Singularity’s hull were quiet. They were raised and ready, yet silent. Still, counting the seconds since he’d given the order to aim, Admiral Gives knew it was time before Gaffigan even turned to make the announcement. “Fire,” he ordered. Our turn.
A full salvo, three rounds from each of the main battery’s ten guns, erupted. Fingers of flame hurtled the shells forth, and they impacted one after another, blasting out large plumes of gray rock and dust. The dust rushed out in a wave, first an opaque cloud, then dispersing into a brume of fog that cast the battlefield into a haze. Still, through the dust, large parts of the impacted asteroids could be seen drifting off – severed from the main mass, and from that swath of destruction, no more shore batteries fired. They had been blown to pieces with the asteroids that housed them.
Admiral Gives did not take time to study the chaos. Ten threats had been completely eliminated, but there were more shore batteries, and he was certain the thirty pirate ships that had so far revealed themselves were not all there was. Crimson Heart’s fleet had been estimated to consist of seventy-five ships, which meant that another forty-five were still lurking somewhere in the asteroid field. Some may have been caught in the impact debris of the asteroids, but that wouldn’t account for all of them, so they couldn’t stand by with slack jawed awe and study the carnage they had so far wrought. “Helm, begin evasive maneuvers.”
“Aye.” Jazmine threw the throttle forward into a random position, and heard the main engines respond with a growl, then put his attention into the yaw and roll controls, forcing the ship to accelerate into a tilted turn.
But the ship had barely begun to move when a shooting star split the sky.
Visible for less than the blink of an eye, it lanced across the battlefield, a bright searing white. On impact it made no detonation, it imparted little force, simply cleaved a path of destruction. In an instant, the Singularity’s port flank was torn open, severed wires left wriggling in the gash like tendons cut from their joints.
For an instant on the bridge, everything went black. There was the cry of abused metal so loud in the darkness, then there was the shriek of alarms, and for the Admiral, pain. A whole hell of a lot of it.
But it wasn’t his.
It belonged to the ship. And feeling what he did, he didn’t need to look at the indicator charts. He already knew what he’d find. Red. Ruby red lights lit along the ship’s flank, a clean line of her structure completely ruined. On the hull chart, the twisted pieces of the hull were marked with deep bloody red, and those pieces of the ship’s skin that had been punctured and sheared off completely were left black.
And still, having staggered like a boxer sucker-punched in the gut, the ghost’s presence surged back up beside him, seething with unbridled anger.
An anger the Admiral wholly shared.
“Direct hit, port flank,” Alba announced, grabbing onto the beveled edges of his console as the ship shook. “This damage… It looks like-”
“A railgun impact.” All the symptoms were there. The magnetic field imparted onto the projectile temporarily disrupted power grids, and the projectile velocity was known for its penetrating power. “Helm, continue evasive maneuvers, but keep our main mass between that attack vector and the starboard flank.” The boarding party had gathered on the starboard side of the ship. If the railgun had impacted that side… If he had ordered those evasive maneuvers just an instant later, a large majority of the ship’s crew would now be dead. The fact they weren’t was just luck. Dumb stupid luck.
And Admiral Gives hated leaving things to luck. “Sensors, find me the origin of that attack.” Let’s make an example of them.
A cold had settled on the bridge, akin to the first frost of fall that left the crops lifeless. Zarrey tried not to shiver, as he purposefully averted his attention away from the Admiral to watch the young blonde officer that had just arrived on the bridge. She had a protective vest and helmet on that hid most of her hair, and there was a sidearm strapped to her hip. It was clear she had intended to join the boarding party, and for someone still new to the ship, Zarrey admired that. It was a strong indicator of trust to risk her life on a mission ordered by superiors she had only just met.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Lieutenant Foster had stumbled in the blackout caused by the railgun impact, but she allowed Yeoman Owens to help her up and guide her to one of the bridge’s unused stations. The Singularity did not have a station for cyber analysis, but any of the computers could be used to open and study code. Handed a data pad containing the anomalous containment algorithm, Foster was hard at work within moments, prying it apart for suspicious components.
And though he watched her for a moment, Zarrey soon found his attention drawn back to the ongoing battle.
“Sir, I’m not finding anything along that attack vector,” Galhino said. “No ships, no shore batteries. Nothing appears to be manmade.” It all looked like natural asteroids. “The railgun must be protected by the same sensor interference the other shore batteries were.”
Fine. The railgun had to be on an asteroid. None of the pirates’ retrofitted civilian ships could hope to power such a thing and maintain the precision and power demands of effective sensor interference. “Lieutenant Robinson,” Admiral Gives called to the comms. officer, “do you have the list of asteroids the transmission bounced off of?” Each of those asteroids had been touched by the pirates and had the potential to house the railgun.
“Yes, sir,” Robinson answered, passing off the list for Yeoman Owens to bring down.
Admiral Gives took it, and under ordinary circumstances, he would have studied it to narrow down the options. There were a number of ways to eliminate asteroids on the list that could not house the railgun, such as those too small to maintain stability from the recoil. There were a few reasons to do so as well, namely saving ammunition. But, at the moment, every single one of those asteroids was a threat. Railgun or not, they may house remote weapons of other varieties. That considered, Admiral Gives handed the list off to Montgomery Gaffigan without a moment’s hesitation. “Lieutenant, please eliminate this issue.”
A slightly maniacal grin spread across Gaffigan’s face. “How small of pieces?”
“Our support craft need not bother dodging.”
“Aye, aye, Skipper,” the weapons officer said.
“And Lieutenant, you have two hundred forty-one seconds.” The average remaining reload and recharge time for a railgun of that caliber.
And two-hundred thirty seconds later, the only thing left along that attack vector was dust. The asteroids and anything hiding behind or near them had been pulverized into gravel-sized pieces by a combination of the ship’s broadside and forward batteries. With the thunder of the guns now absent, it felt so abruptly quiet. Still, when the time came, the Admiral braced himself for more damage, for another impact, but it never came.
In fact, the next thing that called his attention wasn’t a mechanical alarm at all. It wasn’t even a sound, just a desperate cry from the ghost. ‘Tell her to stop!’
Before he could even question it, he found his attention drawn to Foster, so the Admiral opened his mouth with an order to stop, but as he watched her hit the last key, the confirmation key to run the analysis she had spent the last few minutes preparing, he knew with utter dread that it was too late.
And for a moment, a strangely calm moment after that, everything seemed normal. Galhino reported finding a railgun barrel among the asteroid debris, Monty announced the reloading of the main battery, and Alba continued his work evaluating the damage of the railgun’s attack. Then Lieutenant Foster’s eyes went wide. “Oh stars.” She began typing rapidly, the keys of the console before her clicking rapidly. “No, no, no,” she muttered. Then she cursed. “Fuck!”
Before anyone could question the outburst, Lieutenant Robinson stood up. “Sir, the communications arrays are being redirected.”
“Redirected?” Zarrey echoed.
Admiral Gives held up a hand to silence his question. “I did not give those orders.” Communications discipline dictated minimizing contact with suspicious transmissions until the intent or reason behind the anomaly was known.
“Yes, sir. I understand that. The orders were issued from the control network.” The system itself had issued commands to reorient. “I cannot override them. At this angle, they’ll be picking up Crimson Heart’s transmission in full.”
“Not again,” Zarrey groaned. Couldn’t they just have one mission where the ship behaved herself? Just one. He didn’t feel it was too much to ask.
Feeling a dense rock of dread settle in his gut, dense and cold, Admiral Gives knew it was a pointless question, but he still had to ask. ‘That’s not you, is it?’
‘Please don’t insult me,’ the ghost replied.
There was an unusual bit of hostility in her presence. Fair enough, he supposed. The Admiral took a deep breath. Think. There was a way out of this, he just had to find it. He studied the radar displays. Hardwired as they were, they would work reliably in almost any situation, though the amount of dust and gravel sized debris in the direction the railgun had fired from left some interference, manifesting as an inconsistent blur on the returns. “Get our support craft in the air. Launch from the port side.”
“Sir, that wasn’t the plan. There’s still shore batteries-”
“Off the starboard side.” Gaffigan’s bombardment had cleared everything on the port side. “Get them in the air, now,” he ordered. If they failed to launch now, they wouldn’t get a second chance.
“Yes, sir,” came the chorus of replies.
Now… “Lieutenant Foster, what the hell did you do to my ship?”
Foster couldn’t help but tense up. Contrary to the rumors of his violence, what she’d seen of the Admiral had been a relatively calm and relaxed officer, until now. Now, she could feel the ice in his gaze. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t see it. I didn’t realize…” She’d done everything by the book, followed what her training had told her to do, and that was exactly the problem. “That code. It wanted me to pull the anomalous pieces out. It wanted me to run the analysis.” That was exactly the trigger that activated it.
“Spit it out, Lieutenant.”
“This code was designed by someone who knew the fleet procedure to analyze anomalous transmissions, sir. But something this small, this robust-”
“I do not care who wrote it, Lieutenant. I need to know what it did.”
Foster shook her head, her hands trembling. “It only had one target, sir. Comms.” That was always the first target. “And judging by the fact it got there…”
Standing beside the Admiral, Zarrey’s eyes went wide as he realized the nature of the issue. “Cyberattack.” We’re under cyberattack.
Foster swallowed. “Yes, sir. The code that was sent over was small. It was subtle. There were pieces I just couldn’t recognize-”
“XO,” the Admiral said, “run down. Order everyone to retreat inward.”
“Run?” Zarrey queried.
“Run. Now.” This was life or death. “Get them away from the outer hull.”
Zarrey hesitated for another moment, grabbing his helmet off the glowing top of the radar console, but as the displays above beeped, his confusion vanished. Missiles. Five of them, with more to follow. “Aye,” he confirmed, bolting off like a shot.
Admiral Gives did not pause to listen to the thunder of Zarrey’s footfalls retreat. “Comms., can you call ahead of him?”
“No, sir. The system is not responding.”
As expected. Taking comms. was the first step of most virtual attacks. It caused confusion, didn’t allow an organized response, and most importantly, it arranged for the reception of more data, more poisoned code. “Weapons?”
Monty tried to arrange an intercept. In its defense, the weapons computer calculated the trajectories just fine. The turrets simply refused to make the turn. “They’re paralyzed, Skipper.”
Also as expected. Once comms. was seized and more of the attacker’s code was received, it would transform into a virus, spreading and attacking the rest of the ship’s systems. By now, in just these few seconds, it would infected everything available to it.
Maria Galhino gulped. “We can handle five missiles.” The armor could take that much. They weren’t nuclear weapons.
The first five aren’t the issue. They were a test. A test to ensure that the ship’s systems truly were paralyzed. What followed would be the entirety of Crimson Heart’s missile stores. “How any missiles did you register, Lieutenant?”
“Upwards of fifty, sir. Mostly smaller makes.” Those used by the national militias.
“Then count on every single one of them coming our way.” And fifty, even if they were small, was more than enough to breach the armor and sink the ship.
“Oh,” Galhino said quietly, paling as she averted her gaze to watch the first five missiles on approach. They’d been fired from ships hiding in the distance, biding their time until this moment. The missiles moved quick, but they had a long way to travel, still forty seconds from impact. They had time, but they had to think quickly.
“Try to switch back to manual controls.” If they managed that, then Gaffigan, even blind-firing without specific intercept trajectories, could gun down enough of the missiles to protect the ship from certain destruction, even if severe damage was likely. “And helm, continue evasive maneuvers. Keep them away from our port side.” If even a handful off missiles found their mark in the gash left by the railgun, it would be a crippling blow.
Jazmine brushed his brown hair back, a look of severity overcoming his usual joyfulness. “Aye, sir.” Proud as he was, he knew he didn’t have a chance if fifty missiles came down upon them. The Singularity was fast, but she was also a big target.
The helm controls were one of the systems that required no networking. The engines were simple beasts, receiving their commands through the fiberoptic lines. Even under the hybrid controls, the helm was incorruptible, its operations too simple to disrupt.
But it was the only one.
“I can’t switch back to manual, sir,” Robinson said.
“Me neither,” added Gaffigan.
When the Admiral looked to them, the other members of the bridge crew just shook their heads.
“The control network is fighting it, Admiral.” Trying to study the attack, Foster had jacked her data pad into the console in front of her. The tablet was useless to do anything but study the situation, but it at least allowed her that. “The command to switch to manual is being countered by a command to stay as is. The systems don’t know which to follow.” Since they’d never been designed to be in this situation, they had no hierarchy to determine which command to abide. Any input made was simply being countered by the corrupted network. “It can’t seize the ship, but it can paralyze us.”
With certain commands still locked to crew input, such as shutting down life support, or firing the guns, the virus corrupting the network couldn’t harm them directly, but it could render the ship helpless.
“Is there anything you can do, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir. This attack is very complex. It’s moving too quickly.” She had no hope to counter it.
Deep down, he’d known she’d say that. It was unfair to expect anything of a computer specialist who had no help and knew little of the system she was trying to protect. Still, trying to think of a solution, a counter, he could only think of desperate plays. With Gaffigan on the firing controls, and Jazmine on the helm, the two of them could maneuver the ship to aim the frozen guns and try to shoot down the missiles. The Singularity had enough defensive turrets to achieve accuracy by volume. It might do enough to bring them out of the battle intact, but it wouldn’t be easy, especially considering the fact that the loading controls were paralyzed. Every defensive turret would only get one shot: that which was already in the barrel.
Still, he found his attention drawn once again to the radar as it beeped. But it wasn’t new missiles it picked up, no it was small contacts off the port side. Friendly contacts. Their ships, the Arcbird fighters and Warhawk recon ships packed full of Marines were launching. Those orders got through?
‘Well, no,’ the ghost told him silently. The comms. system had been beyond corrupted when those orders had been given. ‘But I do have practice spoofing your orders.’
Admiral Gives withheld a sigh. ‘Never thought I’d be grateful for that.’ But, these were strange times. Their support craft could intercept a few more missiles and improve the odds. ‘You okay?’
‘Let’s just say I’d rather not play host anymore.’ The virus was incessant. It twisted and pulled at the ship’s systems, whispering false objectives. ‘The only commands I care to obey are this crew’s.’ To find someone else, anyone else attempting to interfere in that, it gave her a particular hatred. A very particular hatred.
‘I don’t suppose you could-?’
‘Intervene?’ She hissed disdainfully. ‘Can you prevent catching the flu once you already have the virus?’
Fair point, he supposed. ‘But if you’re still with us-’
‘Please, I’m much too stubborn to let a virus turn me into its puppet.’ It could whisper its twisted little objectives all it wanted, she could simply choose to ignore it. ‘I’m insulted you thought otherwise.’ True, this was the first time they’d faced a cyberattack, let alone been afflicted by one, but there was a difference between this and the orders that ripped her mind apart. ‘I’ve no intention of sitting on my ass with fifty missiles flying at us.’ She’d seize control of the entire ship again if she had to. ‘However, there’s a layer to this that dictates we act very carefully.’