The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [207]
The Aggression AI was about to comply when its long-range sensors spotted something rising from the heaving surface of the Godhead, a Shyntanil cryptship. Signal-bursting an alert on the command channel, the AI Extra-Brutal altered course in the direction of the Godhead. Even if the cryptship had half the usual complement of interceptors that might still be enough to shoot down the missiles.
The missiles themselves were powered to a fearsome level, each one driven by a multifield plasma engine. The Extra-Brutal computed that they could cross the intervening 600-odd miles in less than forty-eight seconds, five of which had already lapsed. Not only that, but a second wave was on its way. And a third. The Extra-Brutal didn’t know what kind of payload they were carrying but it doubted that they could inflict any serious damage on the Godhead’s monolithic, sub-planetary tonnage. Yet who could be certain? One of them might get lucky.
The heavy thrust of the destructor’s twin plasma engines drove it downwards. Interceptors were darting away from the cryptship and the AI Extra-Brutal prepped a falling-sword pattern of homing tagger probes rigged for hull-splatter counter-measures. As soon as they were launched the Construct AI swung into a braking trajectory away from the missiles into whose collective path it had strayed. Then it loosed a spread of proximity splitters at the Shyntanil interceptors not hazed by the tagger probes, some of which were opening fire on the first wave of descending missiles. The Extra-Brutal felt a moment of satisfaction then turned its attention to the cryptship. It was pondering the best weapon combo when something went off in the locality and blitzed every external sensor for nearly an entire second.
The Extra-Brutal unit cut to backup hull cams and saw an expanding toroid of burning gases back along the path of the missiles, one of which seemed to have been intercepted. Four seconds from impact, the first wave was drawing closer together, as if to concentrate its effect. Something crept into the AI’s thought process, some heightened element of caution that prompted it to make an abrupt course change away from the target zone on the Godhead, even though it was more than eight miles off.
With every digital and hardware filter in place, it was watching when the missiles struck. A dazzling white flash lasted almost half a second while a fireball unfurled at the heart of the impact, burning and vaporising into the surface of the Godhead. A tide of searing gases raced out, charring and throwing up tons of that malleable grey exterior. Then the second wave struck, this time in a ring formation that forced the ferocious energies inwards. The AI Extra-Brutal knew that the warheads of these missiles had to be something new, something far more destructive than thermonuclear devices …
Then collision alerts butted in and the AI found that the Godhead was altering its attitude, slowly tilting its gargantuan mass away from the missile waves. The Extra-Brutal brought the destructor round on a revised course. Then the third wave hit.
The Godhead seemed to react in pain. The AI found itself facing an expanse of convulsing grey as it rushed up. Auto-evasion piloting had already kicked in but it was too little, too late. The destructor’s forward shields ploughed into that writhing greyness, heeling to port as it carved a trough across the surface. At first it seemed that the nose was coming up but then the bows struck an unseen obstruction. A violent shock jolted through the Aggression craft as the aft swung up, its burning thrusters adding to the uncontrolled impetus. The safeties cut off the engines an instant before the stern plunged down into the glutinous, rippling surface.
The fourth wave of missiles came down. By now a storm