Chapter One Hundred and Six - Easy Win
The rest of the battle, if it could be called that, was rather anti-climatic.
Day watched while her repair drones got to work as the Accord FTL ship tried to roll so that it could present its intact side’s point-defence. It was a valid tactical move, and Day respected whomever was piloting the ship for doing exactly the right thing.
It was far too late, but still.
Their second set of torpedoes rammed into the ship entirely uncontested. They’d launched two each, so there were only eight torpedoes in all. But all eight of them were multi-kiloton nukes.
Nuclear weaponry in space warfare was a crapshoot, Day knew. The size of a nuclear explosions was just too small for it to be entirely viable. A torpedo or mine would have to detonate dangerously close to the enemy, giving them plenty of time to react or shoot down the incoming explosive.
Casaba-howitzers were more effective, essentially becoming unavoidable at medium ranges in exchange for turning explosive power into penetrating power.
But when their target was a giant sitting whale, unable to react and entirely at their mercy?
The eight nukes went off within microseconds of each other. Eight balls of plasma ignited into the FTL ship’s side so close together that their forms warped each other and turned the entire explosion into a single misshapen blob of nuclear fire.
“Hmm,” Day said as she considered. “Tea, Earl Gray... Hot, obviously.”
Her kettle refilled, and she idly poured herself a cup, then Candle summoned a cup of her own and extended it towards Day.
“I didn’t know you were a tea-drinker,” Day said.
“I’ll try everything once,” Candle said.
Day smiled and poured her a cup. “You might want something sweet with that.”
“Aww, but I have you already, don’t I?” Candle said.
Her smug, self-satisfied grin twisted as she took a sip. “Oh, this is bitter, what the hell?”
Day grinned right back. “I might be sweet, but I’m not sure about you,” she said before taking a long draw from her cup. Notably without adding anything to it.
Lullaby’s head poked out from under a blanket that had flopped atop her, and she blinked a couple of times. “There’s lifeboats,” she said.
Day refocused. Lullaby was correct. A number of lifeboats were launching from the two civilian craft. Some of those were blaring out distress signals. That was worrisome, but the signals were unidirectional, and sent over radio. It would be literal days before the rest of the fleet caught those, and then they did... Day listened in, and the messages were a mixed, garbled mess. Some were automated distress signals, others had Accord citizens screaming about what had happened.
Or what they thought had happened.
Then Day caught an equally strong distress signal from Twilight. “Help! Help! We flew through a micro-meteorite swarm and navigation shut down, then we rammed the others!” Twilight said in the Accord’s common tongue. She even made herself sound sarcastic.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“That’s awful,” Day said.
Twilight shrugged. “It’ll cause a tiny bit more confusion. If the Accord is anything like humanity, then they’ll jump on any opportunity to deny a problem despite all the rest of the proof.”
Day decided not to dig too deeply into what that meant about their originators. Instead, she checked out the Accord FTL ship again.
Getting struck by multiple nukes did a number on it. But it was still mostly in one piece. A piece with a large, gaping hole all along its side, with multiple decks open to space, dozens of rooms vented, and several fires onboard, all being fed by what looked like leaking fuel, but still one piece.
“Should we finish it off?” Day asked.
“Not a bad idea,” Twilight said. “Those nuclear strikes will be visible to the other fleets, no matter what. We don’t need some clever tech-alien sending any information about us back.”
“Do you think you could convincingly send a message back with wrong information?” Day asked.
Twilight hesitated. “Eh, maybe? Wish Dawn were here, she’d be perfect for that. But yeah, if I can get some of my drones onto the ship, then I can clear out any survivors floor-by-floor, start gutting it for materials, and break into whatever databases they have.”
Day nodded. “Go ahead. You’re the least damaged amongst us, so you have the best odds. Keep some distance though, they might have a self-destruct or something.”
“Got it,” Twilight said. She reached for another scone.
Meanwhile, Twilight’s hull spun around then burned back towards the FTL ship even as she launched some of her larger repair drones ahead. She flashed some plans back to Day while they were still close, and with the two of them working on it, they were able to produce a decent plan for setting up a fabrication plant within the still-burning wreck using materials from the ship itself. That way they could produce more repair and salvage drones from the wreckage while taking it apart.
“Should we gun down the lifeboats that are sending out signals?” Candle asked. She sent over the trajectory math for her guns, all calculated and worked out so that she’d use a minimal amount of ammunition per lifeboat.
“They’ve done what we asked, for the most part. I don’t feel right killing a shipful of people just because one of them might have broken a rule,” Day said. She was feeling a small bit of guilt about the two civilian ships already. Not a big bit, but it was still there.
“I can blast out their comms then,” Candle said. “Or I can try. No promises that it won’t take out the entire lifeboat.”
Day considered it for a moment, then nodded along. “Alright. That’s more than fair. I’ll start heading over. My repairs are minimal. Lullaby, Candle, want to stay our of the dangerzone while I take care of the civilians?”
“Sure,” Lullaby said. “But if I see one of the FTL ships move weird, I’m blasting.”
***