Defiant by Dave Bara

Author:Dave Bara
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2016-11-15T14:37:25+00:00

We were powered up and ready to go ten minutes later. On my display console the icon for the torsion beam had appeared: a red phoenix. I tapped the icon, and the display came to life with an array of data: distance to the target, spin speed of Drava (about eleven hundred clicks an hour), an estimate of the time it would take to run the weapon and at what energy cost, etc. I chose the most rapid scenario, which would take five minutes. I wanted this over with now. Once I had queued up the weapon and set my parameters, the phoenix icon reappeared, larger and in the center of the display. I had the power of the gods in my hands. I hit the intraship com again.

“All stations, this is the captain. We are about to fire a new weapon. This weapon is very powerful, but it should be safe for us to use. I hereby order all nonessential stations to stand down to safe mode. We’ll be turning off the Hoagland Field to fire the weapon, and the only technical units on full alert will be the forward coil cannon teams. Once again, all other nonessential systems are to stand down in safe mode. This is the captain; it is so ordered.” I looked to Gracel for any further insight, but she remained a blank stone wall. I felt strange leaving the ship essentially defenseless in such a recent war zone with the enemy still active, so I added one more order before signing off. “All stations maintain standard radiation protocols during the weapon engagement,” I said. I looked back to Gracel again after shutting off the com.

“Not necessary, Captain. The weapon produces no radiation,” she said.

“Thank you, Historian. But those automatons are still active, and I simply felt . . . better safe than sorry.” Then I turned my attention to Babayan. “A ten-second countdown, if you please, XO.”

“Aye, sir, ten-second countdown.” She turned on the intraship com and began the count. When she hit the mark, I pressed the icon on my display and activated the torsion beam.

The effect was odd. I felt a bit of dizziness, but it passed in a second. There was no beam to see in visible light, so I asked Karina to switch to infrared. Then we could see the beam spinning and swirling, resembling a DNA strand as it swept out of our coil cannon arrays and streamed toward Drava.

“Close-up on Drava, Lieutenant Feilberg,” I said. Karina quickly switched to a visible-light close-up display of the moon. I could see its spin rate accelerating as the torsion waves penetrated Drava’s surface and impacted the moon’s magnetic core. It turned ever faster, second by second, like a child’s toy top spinning out of control. The pressures exerted increased exponentially. At the three-minute mark, the helpless moon started to break up, large chunks of its surface breaking off and floating into space as the power tearing it apart grew stronger than the gravity holding it together.

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