Chapter Forty-Nine - Stand-Down
The plan from here on out was simple: disrupt and disable.
So the first thing Day did was launch a nuke right at the fleet of scavengers.
It was one of the torpedoes trailing along behind her, moving at about the same velocity as the fleet but drifting some distance away from Day.
The timing here was what was important. The torpedo raced forwards, loud and extremely obvious, but it would take the fleet some seconds to notice. That was the issue with having an organic crew, their reaction time was measured in entire milliseconds, and they needed to communicate between each other.
Day heard the first distress call from the FTL ship, a plea for help, a warning that they were under attack from unknowns in the system. Apparently whoever was at the comms there thought that Twilight was at least six corvettes, which meant that she was going pretty well.
Day calculated the time between the message reaching her, the message's speed, and how long it would take to reach the ships just a few hundred kilometres ahead.
And then she detonated her torpedo just as they would have heard the first part of the SOS.
The bomb was rigged to send out as powerful of an EMP wave as it could across as wide a band as possible. Sure, the message from the FTL ship was still there, but now it had to compete with the chorus of nuclear hellfire screaming into the void and lighting up every last sensor onboard the fleet.
It was Night’s move next.
Her drones were riding on six of the ships. That was six ships that were basically compromised already. All at once, all six of those ships suffered some sudden critical failures. Mostly Night was targeting their communication suites. She was able to slip in viruses into three of the ships, one of the destroyers, and two of the logistics ships were now only hearing what Night wanted them to hear.
The other three ships had to content themselves with other, more varied forms of sabotage. One of the corvettes had its life support shut down with a klaxon, another logistics ship had its manoeuvering thrusters start to feather, sending the ship shaking violently from side-to-side, and one of the two frigates-turned-cargo-haulers had all of its lights and screens turn off.
The rest of the ships though, were still in fighting shape, and they had more than enough tonnage to be serious problems.
They reacted to the nuke going off in their own ways. Some captains took to screaming orders, others panicked over the line, and one of the corvette captains started to beg for mercy to whomever would listen.
Day almost wished she was fighting an organised army, at least then they’d be more predictable.
She decided to bring a bit more order into the situation and opened up communications--using one of her other torpedoes as a relay, she didn’t need to give away her actual position just yet--with the entire fleet. Night could handle her talking to the compromised vessels as well.
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“This is the ERF Daybreak on Ceres. You have entered restricted space. Cease all manoeuvres. Maintain your current course and velocities. Shut down your drives and weapons systems and prepare for policing action. Any refusal to comply with these directives will result in punitive actions.”
She hoped her translation was entirely correct and properly formal. It wouldn’t do for her threat to be dismissed.
One of the first replies came from one of the corvettes, and it was transmitted wide, to make sure that everyone heard it. “Screw you, mother of whores!”
Day sighed to herself. That was... probably an expected response.
Now she had to decide on whether or not to make her threat seem credible.
She decided to take the risk.
Her main particle cannon fired, and a line drew itself across space and slammed into and through the belligerent corvette faster than most organics could process. She was nearly close enough that she could reliably use her point-defence weapons to fight, it only took thousandths of a second for the shot to land.
Then the corvette exploded and Day found herself momentarily confused. That hadn’t been her intended result. Had the corvette used a different internal layout than the average Accord corvette? Her shot should have struck some critical components in the drive, but nothing explosive.
One of the frigates signalled to the other ships, took a sharp turn, then started to burn hard. They were going to try and make a break for it.
She imagined the captain started to regret his choice when several torpedoes locked onto his ship in the loudest, most obvious way possible.
Then Night came in clutch. A dozen signatures appeared in the distance. Asteroids in the belt, Day knew, but they were transmitting drive and electronic signatures as if they were warships.
From one second to the next, to Day’s scanners, it looked as if several dozen rocks had transformed into warships.
To the more primitive scanners of these ships, operated by beings who were likely on the edge of panic... it must have seemed like a fleet had just decided to go loud all around them.
Day didn’t wait to capitalise on the moment. “The is the warship ERF Daybreak on Ceres. Final warning. Shut down your weapon systems, set your drives to idle, keep your current heading. We can guarantee the safety of those who surrender and the immediate death of those who don’t. Do not test us.”
She really hoped they didn’t test them, because if all eleven remaining ship did, they wouldn’t have enough nukes even in Night’s arsenal to take them all.
“This is the Flightless Bird,” One of the frigates transmitted, the one whose screens Night had shut off. “We surrender.”
Day let out a shuddering, relieved sigh. They’d done it!
Now they just had to actually capture the remaining eleven ships and tow them back to Ceres, imprison the crews, and make sure that Twilight’s capture of the FTL ship had gone according to plan as well.
So, there was still lots of work ahead of them.
***