“Maybe not,” the XO replies. “Maybe they don’t care. I doubt anyone’s ever rammed one of theirs at relativistic speed.”
The Lanky on the plot still plods down the parabolic trajectory toward New Svalbard at the same one-g acceleration he’s been pushing for the last forty hours. Nobody knows how their tech works, or if they even have tech, but whatever they use to sense their environment seems to leave them completely ignorant of the kinetic projectile hurling its way toward them at planetoid-shattering velocity. Either that, or they are aware of us and don’t consider the Gordon’s stored-up hundreds of gigatons of kinetic energy a threat, which is not a happy thought right now. I know just enough about physics to know that I understand the subject very little, and I sincerely hope Dr. Stewart is right about the destructive potential of the Gordon.
“What if they have a close-in weapons system like our ships?” I ask.
“Won’t matter a bit,” Dr. Stewart says. “It would take terajoules of energy to break that freighter apart and boil all that water away. And even if they blew it up right now, all the debris would still hit them at the same speed. Physics,” she adds with a slight smile. “Nobody’s immune to physics. I don’t care how big and tough they are.”
I watch the icons on the tactical display, the kilometer scale contracting with every passing second, and the dread in my middle is almost balanced by the excitement I feel. If we miss, or the Lanky dodges the bullet at the last second, we are as good as dead. If we don’t miss, we will have pulled off something that has never been done before, and we will get to live on. Maybe only until we get back to the colony and decide to take on the SRA force that will be moving into orbit there soon, but at least we will be going out on our terms and while putting up a fight, not exterminated like a bunch of cockroaches at the bottom of a garbage collector.
The CIC now has all hands on deck. Most of us are standing in a circle around the holotable. Dr. Stewart looks like she wishes she had something a little stronger than galley coffee right about now. Colonel Campbell’s expression is unreadable as he stands motionless with his hands behind his back. The tension in the CIC seems thick enough to refract light.
“Two minutes,” the tactical officer says.
We all watch the holographic display like it’s the last minute of the last episode of the world’s most interesting Network show.
“Come on,” the XO says under her breath. “Come on.”
The Gordon is still visible through the optical feed, a tiny speck of glowing fusion-rocket exhaust streaking through the blackness of space over 150 million kilometers in front of us. The Lanky on a reciprocal course is all but invisible to us, his presence and position only guessed by the computer based on sporadic sightings of reflections on his hull, or the occasional blacking out of star’s light in the distance. Without the Russian cruiser making a futile run for New Svalbard, we never would have known about the Lanky ship until it showed up in orbit over the colony and started landing its advance party.
“One minute.”
The shot clock on the CIC bulkhead jumps to its final two-digit seconds readout. The tactical icons on the orb are now so close together that they look like they’re on top of each other. I hold my breath as I watch the optical feed where the Gordon hurtles toward her target like an angry firefly.
Don’t miss, I think. Don’t miss, don’t miss, don’t miss.
“Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.” The tactical officer’s voice cracks with stress.
“…four, three, two, one. Impact.”
Nothing happens on the optical feed. We all still see the exhaust flare of the Gordon shooting downrange at close to five thousand kilometers per second.
“Fuck,” Colonel Campbell says.
Then the display turns white with noiseless fury. The computer kicks in lens filters to prevent frying the optical array and zooms out the scale automatically. Out in deep space, a white-hot sphere expands, much brighter and closer than the far-off sun.
The Gordon didn’t miss.
The CIC erupts into cheers and shouts.
“Impact,” the tactical officer calls out over the noise, jubilation in his voice. “One point one five nine AUs.”
Next to me, Dr. Stewart lets out a long, shaky breath and runs both hands through her hair. I grin at her, and she laughs.
“Science,” she says to me. “It works.”
“That is the biggest fucking fireball I have ever seen,” Colonel Campbell says. I look at the camera feed again. The Fomalhaut system now has two suns, however briefly. Even from 150 million kilometers away, the fireball from the released impact energy makes all the vacuum detonations of nuclear warheads I’ve ever seen look like someone briefly flicked on a helmet light.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I say.
“Nobody has,” Dr. Stewart says. “We just caused the largest man-made energy release in history.”