The Black Gate (The Messenger #11) - J.N. Chaney Page 0,108
and configuration, but at least three times as big. Deeper ships of various sizes were now accelerating away from the base, heading directly toward the approaching Realm-League combined fleet.
“Dash,” Sentinel said. “Something is happening on the starboard side, relative to the direction of our approach of the Deeper base.” As she spoke, a magnified image of the part of the base in question popped into view.
“Something protruding,” Dash mused. “Yeah, it looks like—” He paused, staring. “Wait. That’s a ship. I guess it’s being launched. So there must be some sort of ship repair, upgrade, something like that inside the base?”
“Look more closely. Do you see a docking port?”
Dash did—and didn’t. The Deeper ship was emerging from the base, as though it was passing directly through its hull.
No.
“It’s being extruded,” Dash said. “Grown. They’re growing a new ship?”
“So it would appear.”
“Holy shit. That’s got to be so much more efficient than building them the way we do.” Dash shook his head. If the Deepers could grow ships whole, how fast could they build up their forces? How long before they were strong enough to just overwhelm them?
But Sentinel managed to tamp down Dash’s sudden surge of anxiety. “We have no way of knowing how efficient it is. This base seems to only be producing a single ship, and it is doing so quite slowly. That would be less efficient than our own production. Without more data—”
“Yeah, I get it. Don’t fly off the handle over something we don’t understand.”
“Of course, we could possibly find that your fears are true, and that it’s a far more efficient process than our methods. Again, without data, we simply don’t know.”
“And here I was just going to thank you for keeping things real for me.”
“I would rather provide difficult truths than pleasant lies. Of course, if you’d prefer—no, Dash, this is no problem at all, nothing to worry about.”
Dash had to smile. “Why don’t I believe you?” But the smile faded. “You just keep hitting me with those difficult truths, Sentinel. I’ll save the pleasant lies for when Leira tells me I’m an excellent dancer.”
“You cannot dance?” Sentinel asked.
“Not without physical danger to people around me. I don’t have rhythm, but I’m enthusiastic.”
“Much like your singing. I’ll make a note of this,” Sentinel said, sounding pleased.
Benzel came on the general fleet comm channel. “All units, we’re about to reach maximum effective range. Execute Gold One—I say again, execute Gold One. Benzel out.”
“Here we go,” Dash said, powering up the Blur drive.
They’d decided to use similar tactics to those they’d employed against the automated Golden defenses at the Scrapyard—a massed missile launch, every third projectile being a sand caster. The sand would form a wall of concealment, protecting both the remaining missiles and the fleet behind it from long-range fires and let them get in close, where the Deepers were more vulnerable.
The Archetype, Swift, Talon, and Polaris would once more range ahead, taking the battle to the Deepers right away. The four mechs were each equipped with Stingers. They’d only had time to fabricate one for every mech, plus enough to equip a half-dozen specially modified Denkillers aboard each carrier. Conover, in the Pulsar, would remain with the fleet, acting as the control node for an expanded electronic warfare capability. Dash didn’t like the idea of having the chunky Pulsar hanging back out of the firefight like this, but it was the most capable EW asset they possessed. That, Dash thought, was going to have to change.
All that mattered in the here and now, though, was the here and now. Dash confirmed that the other three mechs had fallen into station with the Archetype, then turned back to the tactical picture just as the combined fleet launched its missile barrage.
“What a beautiful thing to watch,” Leira said.
Dash grunted agreement. Missiles streamed from the launch tubes of nearly every ship in the fleet, accelerating and rapidly configuring themselves into a sprawling wall of projectiles racing toward the approaching Deeper ships. A few seconds later, the Deepers responded in-kind, loosing a huge volley of their own missiles—fewer of them, but most were much larger than their Realm counterparts, and potentially more destructive.
“Okay, let’s get to work,” Dash said over the comm channel dedicated to his flight of mechs. “We take out as many of their missiles as possible, then keep going, heading for those anchorlets and that base. Remember, try not to get bogged down in a firefight with their ships.”