“Damn. Exactly what we hoped they wouldn’t do,” Homer said. “Guess they aren’t that inexperienced.”
“Or they’re just pissed. Or they have more missiles. However, their timing is terrible. They waited too long, and we’re now close enough to use the asteroids. Follow my lead.”
Instead of launching countermeasures or attempting to flee, we did a hard turn and dove down below the asteroid. As soon as we were out of line of sight, we fired a load of smaller metal detritus from our aft rail guns, at a speed that left the space junk at a dead stop in our wake. As the pursuing missiles came around the end of the asteroid, they ran head-on into the stationary flotsam. Three missiles detonated immediately, which unfortunately cleared the junk for the trailing missiles.
“Watch forward, while I take out the rest of this batch,” I said to Homer.
As I as preparing my busters for launch, Homer said, “Launches from up front. Looks like they had more missiles. I think we’re screwed.”
I spared a millisecond to review the situation. I had five missiles coming in from the rear. I could take two out, possibly three, with the rail gun. Homer had eight missiles coming in from the front. That meant thirteen missiles against eleven busters, to say nothing of the Brazilian ships which we would still need to deal with. It was very likely that the Brazilians had used everything they had by this point. We were far too close to them for any further missile play.
“We have to cut the numbers of the frontal attack. I’ll give you all my busters, save two. Try to knock as many out with shrapnel as you can.” I launched all my busters and handed control of five over to Homer, who sent them forward.
I concentrated on the five missiles coming up from behind me, sending wave after wave of junk into their path. I had destroyed two when I realized that two of the three remaining missiles had crowded together trying to avoid a volley. I immediately sent a buster toward the nearest one at full acceleration. There was a flash, and both the missile and the buster were destroyed, but yes! The other missile had been knocked out by the explosion. It was drifting aimlessly.
“They’re getting a little close,” Homer said. “Little help, any time…”
“Almost done. Hold tight.”
As I sent a huge wave of shrapnel at the final missile, Homer yelped, “Crap!” and his signal went dead.
I split my attention between my one missile and Homer’s battlefield. Homer had taken out almost all of his missiles, but one had exploded far too close. It appeared to have damaged but not obliterated Heaven-6. However, the ship was adrift with everything offline. A couple of busters had circled around and chased the two final missiles from the front, but only one was anywhere near close enough to do any good.
At that moment, a flash from aft indicated that my last volley had taken out the one remaining chase missile. That left me with one extra buster, but it wouldn’t be able to get around to the front in time.
They’re not very smart. The though came from nowhere, seemingly irrelevant. But original Bob had always trusted his hunches, and I reacted immediately. I fired a salvo of shrapnel, not directly at a missile, but just to the side opposite the pursuing buster. In true reflex action, the missile veered away from the shrapnel stream. That was all the buster needed to catch up.
I was now able to concentrate a burst of shrapnel on the other missile and take it out. I looked back to the one missile left, the one that my buster had caught up with, and realized I had a problem. The busters depended on kinetic energy to destroy their targets—high speed ramming, basically. This buster had instead run down a missile that was just as fast as itself. Now the buster and missile were flying together, with the buster repeatedly and ineffectually bumping the missile. It was interfering with the missile’s trajectory, but not causing any damage.
Stop trying to have sex with it, idjit! I sent a command to the buster, causing its reactor to fail catastrophically. The release of plasma and energy was more than enough to liquefy both units.
I did a quick inventory. I had two busters left. And two enemies. There was no time to deal with Homer at the moment. I called the busters home and did a full ping, trying to locate the Brazilian ships.
One of them was less than two seconds away, heading right for me. With a jolt, I realized he intended to ram. With no time for a formal calculation, I had to wing it. I accelerated upward at a full 5 g. Either the Brazilian would be able to turn to intercept, or he wouldn’t.
Two seconds later, the Brazilian passed by my stern, still attempting to change course. And two milliseconds after that, a buster passed through the Brazilian craft, right where the computer core was located. The Brazilian craft’s drive turned off, and it began to drift.
I pinged again but got no return from the last ship. Either the ship had been destroyed in some unknown manner or it was hiding behind one of the asteroids. We had shown our hands during the battle, so the Brazilian would know that it couldn’t win a straight foot race. That meant it was hiding, hoping to keep the asteroid between us.
I was out of rail gun ammo. I had one buster left, but the buster wasn’t going to be much good if it had to chase the Brazilian around the asteroid. I examined the return from my last ping and spotted what I’d been hoping for—the steel ball from one of the defunct busters. I sent out a couple of roamers, collected it, and loaded it into the rail gun. The steel balls had been deliberately sized so that they could double as rail-gun ammo.
I sent the buster out at an angle that should give it a clear view of the other side of the nearest asteroid. Sure enough, remote telemetry spotted the Brazilian ship, just as he spotted the buster. He took off around the asteroid in the opposite direction.
Bangarang, mofo! It took a millisecond to calculate his trajectory. I sent the ball off at full acceleration just as the enemy vessel came into sight. The Brazilian had no chance at all. The steel ball, backed by the full power of my rail gun, punched through the ship at close to relativistic speed. The impact literally tore the ship in two, imparting opposite spins on each half as they drifted away. There was a flash as the reactor lost containment, and one of the segments slumped and deformed from the centrifugal force.
That’s for Homer.
***
My roamers sent back detailed views as they investigated Heaven-6. Homer appeared to have been very lucky. A fluke piece of shrapnel had cut off power to his computer core. Though there was significant structural damage, the actual core systems were intact. The reactor had been able to effect a graceful emergency shutdown when control disappeared.
One of the purposes of the roamers was to repair and maintain the Heaven vessels, and I activated that program for Homer’s roamers.