The Admiral and the Assistant

Admiral Cora Din stood on the captain's dais of the ISS Striker, her arms crossed. She pursed her lips as the unreality of jumpspace sleeted past her. Even after all these years, the terror of jumpspace had not reduced a single shred. Just as she did on her first day as a cadet, she wanted to drop to her knees, cover her head, and howl in terror.

But that would not be meet. That was not how an Admiral of the Imperium behaved. That would weaken the morale of the crew.

That was not who she wanted to be.

She would be controlled. She would keep things tight. Rigid, disciplined, orderly, and by the numbers. That was the way to run a ship.

Mostly.

As much as she disapproved of Admiral Grimthorn Stonefist and his cowboy tactics, she reluctantly had to admit-- to herself, at least-- that he was effective. More so now that he had his strange companion by his side. Admiral Cora Din often wondered if the Kobold was more Assistant to him, or more wife? It was an unusual, non-regulation relationship, and Admiral Cora Din disapproved of that more than anything else.

She reflected again whether she should have expressed her feelings to Admiral Stonefist when she'd had the opportunity those many years ago.

She frowned. Of course not. That would have been a terrible idea, for everyone involved.

She scoured herself with her regrets. It kept the terror of jumpspace at bay, at least a little.

The Fifth Fleet emerged from the jumphole into the Ceon system. Her console immediately filled up with reams of data. She scanned it, reviewing the information about the Ash-Tongues.

Of course, the cowboy's approach was going to be to punch the Ash-Tongues right in the nose, so to speak. Her lips tightened. Not that there seemed to be much better of an approach available at the moment.

The boneship hung there silently, soaking up the abuse that the Ninth Fleet was pouring out on it. It didn't seem to be much affected by the hammering the Ninth Fleet was giving it. A stream of smaller scarab ships was heading back into the boneship.

"All ships, form up on the flanks of the Ninth Fleet," she said. "Support their attack. Just like the exercises. We will excise this scourge from our galaxy."

The Ninth Fleet surged forward toward the Ash-Tounge's boneship. The thousand warships of the Imperium blasted at it, chipping imperceptibly further into their interior. Another spray of organic matter erupted from the static vessel as a salvo of torpedoes struck home.

Admiral Stonefist watched the battle unfolding. It was less of a battle, he reflected, and more of a beating. The boneship wasn't responding at all to their attacks.

"Admiral," Kinnit said at his elbow. "The Fifth Fleet is arriving."

"Wonderful," he replied. "We can spit into the ocean twice as fast."

He paused and shook his head. "Sorry, that wasn't helpful. Open comms and ship them all the data we've collected."

Admiral Cora Din appeared on his console.

"We're here to help, Admiral Stonefist," she said. "What's your plan?"

Grimthorn frowned.

"Not much of a plan at the moment," he admitted. "We're just hitting them with everything we've got. Our scans can't penetrate their outer layer. You've seen the data on the boneship?"

"I have. It's an unusual design." She sniffed. "With your current tactic, it could literally take years to find a high-value target in all of that."

Grimthorn's jaw clenched, but he kept his reply calm.

"Do you have a better suggestion?" he asked with all the mildness he could muster.

Admiral Cora Din looked thoughtful.

"Instead of big salvos, we could try a peeling maneuver. Line up the fleet and have them fly by one at a time in a constant stream. As each ship unloads, they move to the back of the line for another pass."

Grimthorn nodded.

"That's a good thought. Less damage at one time, but it keeps steady fire on the enemy, and gives our ships more time to recover energy before the next attack. I'll reform the Ninth Fleet for that."

"We'll start a loop alongside you, then."

"Sir," Kinnit said. "Admiral Balia with the Third Fleet is arriving."

"Good. Send him our plan. He can form a third loop. With enough time, we'll crack this thing wide open."

Kinnit had her doubts about Grimthorn's last statement. She opened her mouth to reply, but then she saw the haunted faces of the officers around the bridge. She understood that they needed morale more than technical accuracy at the moment.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Admiral Balia," Admiral Stonefist commed. "Good to see you."

Admiral Balia appeared on his console as well.

"Young Grimthorn," he said. His voice thin and hoarse, but his eyes were bright and sharp. "Gotten yourself in trouble again, I see?"

Admiral Stonefist smiled thinly.

"You did teach me that if I wasn't in trouble, I wasn't trying hard enough."

"All the lessons I taught you, and that's the one that stuck?"

Grimthorn chuckled.

"Something had to," he replied.

"Admiral, the fleet's running low on torpedoes and ion shells," Lieutenant Renning said.

"Use every one of them up," Admiral Stonefist replied. "When we run out of torpedoes, we'll fire probes at the thing. When we run out of those, we can fling a bucket of wrenches at them. I don't want a single fire-able weapon sitting in anybody's inventory by the end of this battle."

"Yes, sir," Renning replied.

The three greatest fleets of the Imperium steadily ground against the massive boneship.

"Grimthorn, there's a new energy signature coming from the boneship," Kinnit said. Her brow wrinkled. "One we haven't seen before."

"Keep an eye on it. Maybe we've hit something that's causing problems for them."

"It's spiking, sir. I don't think it's--"

A narrow beam of white tinged with yellow lanced from the boneship. It zipped through the line of ships of the Fifth Fleet. It was almost imperceptibly thin, but impossibly bright. It pierced through hundreds of ships without dimming in the slightest.

"What the--"

The ships of the Fifth Fleet that had been touched by the beam erupted. Flames boiled within their hulls. After a few seconds, reactors began overloading. They detonated in sequence. Their reactor explosions engulfed nearby ships, torching those that hadn't even been touched by the beam.

With a single shot, the offensive line of the Fifth Fleet had been shredded.

Admiral Stonefist spat an oath.

"All ships, separate!" he barked. "Spread out! Dispersed formation!"

While Admiral Stonefist was still shouting orders, the boneship fired again, this time cutting across the ships of the Third Fleet. More explosions followed.

The fleets' formations slowly began to break apart, straining to get distance from each other.

"All speed!" Grimthorn yelled. "Get some range!"

The weapon of the boneship lit the blackness over Techterra once again, cutting through the linear formation of the Ninth Fleet. Grimthorn watched in horror as a hundred ships of his fleet began boiling, then erupted, detonating like a string of firecrackers.

"No!" Kinnit cried.

Grimthorn slammed his fists down on the banister circling the captain's dais.

"Get apart!" he yelled. "Faster! That thing's going to take this fleet apart! Get out of reactor overload range of everyone else!"

The boneship fired again and again, cutting mercilessly through the fleets.

"Lieutenant Renning!" Admiral Stonefist said. "I want all weapons targeting wherever that beam is coming from! Shut it down!"

"It's firing from a different spot in the boneship every time!" Renning cried. "It's not just coming from one spot!"

"Then shoot at the last place it fired from! Kinnit! Get the infographers looking for a pattern! Is it one weapon, or a bunch of them? Anything we can use!"

"Yes, sir!"

The boneship sliced into the boiling fleets of the Imperium as they scattered. As the fleets spread out, the reactor explosions damaged fewer ships, but the beam kept up its firing cadence, each blast cutting through multiple vessels, destroying Imperial ships in a deadly, tedious metronome tempo.

Grimthorn swore mightily. The Imperial fleets were still firing back at the boneship, but the return fire was sporadic, unfocused.

"Sir! We have comms from the surface!" Lieutenant Renning cried.

"We're busy!" Grimthorn yelled back.

"It's priority, sir!"

"Fine." Grimthorn slapped his console. The face of Master Chief Jack Lonharrt appeared. "Make it quick!" he barked.

"Admiral," Chief Jack said, unrattled. "We've got authorization to use the Celestial Slingshot. It's warmed up and ready to go."

Admiral Stonefist's jaw clenched. "So shoot that thing!" he cried.

"Admiral, it's only got one shot. Where should we hit the ship?"

"Anywhere!"

Kinnit grabbed Grimthorn's sleeve, drawing his attention up to the main screen.

"ISS Guardian!" he exclaimed. "You're too close! Get off our flank! Get off--"

The boneship's beam fired again, zipping through the ISS Guardian. The stricken ship rumbled, flames belching from every port and bay.

"Helm, hard starboard, all engines! Emergency evasion! Emergency--"

The Guardian's reactor erupted, engulfing the ISS Swordheart in its final, fiery explosion.

The moon Callix, high above the planet Ceon 12, hung silently, far from the fighting. Its pale surface reflected the light of the yellow star Ceon down on Techterra. It was the smaller of Ceon 12's two moons. To the Techterrans, it had long been a symbol of peace.

It was also the home of the Celestial Slingshot.

A deep rumbling began beneath the moon's surface. Reactors that had not been powered on in decades sprang to life, pouring energy into massive, complicated systems. Deep within the moon, ring-shaped coils-- big enough to fit a long-haul freighter through-- began to shift. Systems powered on, self-testing and preparing for the Slingshot's first and only use.

Many years before, Imperial scientists had secretly bored a hole straight through the center of the moon Callix. Within the bore, they had installed a series of massive powered coils: rings of windings that could drive a projectile forward as it passed through them. By lining up the coils and powering them in sequence, they could accelerate a projectile, each coil powering up at the right moment to increase the projectile's acceleration.

The principles of the coilgun had been long understood. The more coils, the faster the projectile could go. By putting a series of coils through the entire moon, they could accelerate the projectile nearly to the speed of light.

On top of that, they'd made the projectile a nuclear warhead. After all, if you're creating a massive secret superweapon, the world "subtlelty" is not in any design document.

There were a few problematic aspects, of course. It could only ever be fired once. The incredible forces involved would destroy the coils as the warhead passed through. And because of the time it took to start the nuclear reaction, the warhead would actually be initiated while it was still accelerating within the coilgun. Within microseconds, the reaction would complete, the projectile would achieve critical mass, and the warhead would erupt in a superheated ball of radioactive plasma as it struck the target.

That was the theory, anyway. For obvious reasons, it had never been tested.

The timing was going to be dicey, but the practical effect was that they had turned Callix into a massive nuclear coilgun.

The coils thrummed with ominous power. A circular hatch on the surface of Callix irised open, exposing a black, dull tunnel. Deep within, the circular coils aligned, lining up on the center of the invading Ash-tongue boneship.