The Honor of the QueenMy bold.
Nine missiles charged through space, and Thunder of God's computers blinked in cybernetic surprise at their unorthodox approach. They came in massed in a tight phalanx, suicidally tight against modern point defense . . . except that the three lead missiles carried nothing but ECM. Their jammers howled, blinding every active and passive sensor system, building a solid wall of interference. Neither Thunder nor their fellows could possibly "see" through it, and a human operator might have realized there had to be a reason Fearless had voluntarily blinded her own missiles' seekers. But the computers saw only a single jamming source and targeted it with only two counter missiles.
One jammer died, but the other two survived, spreading out, varying the strength and power and shape of the transmissions that baffled Thunder's follow-up counter missiles. They charged onward, and then, suddenly, they arced up and apart to expose the six missiles behind them.
Last-ditch point defense lasers swiveled and struck like snakes, spitting rods of coherent light as the computers finally recognized the threat, but the jammers had covered them to the last possible moment, and the attack missiles knew exactly what they were looking for. One of the six died, then another, but the final quartet came on, and an alarm screamed on Lieutenant Ash's panel.
The lieutenant's head whipped around in horror. He had less than a single second to realize that somehow these missiles had been programmed to use his EW systems, as if his decoys were homing beacons, not defenses, and then they rammed headlong into their target.
Two of them vanished in sun-bright fireballs that shook Thunder to her keel as twin, 78-ton hammers struck her sidewall at .25 C. For all their fury, those two were harmless, but their sisters' sidewall penetrators functioned as designed.
Cardones trick of using Saladin's ECM was genius. But if I'm understanding it correctly, that shouldn't have been possible.
Wouldn't have been possible if Saladin had an experienced crew and ECM had not been functioning under computer control.
I think ECM frequencies would have been constantly changing - modulating? Exactly what would have been going on with Saladin's ECM if it hadn't been operating in a canned mode?
...
Fearless writhed as a fresh hit killed two more missile tubes, but then someone emitted a banshee shriek of triumph, and Honor stared at her repeater. It wasn't possible! No one could get old-fashioned nukes through the very teeth of a modern warship's defenses! Yet Rafe Cardones had done it. Somehow, he'd done it!
But he hadn't scored direct hits. Saladin's impeller wedge flickered as she staggered out of the fireballs, clouds of atmosphere and vaporized alloy streamed back from where her port sidewall had died, but she was still there, and even as Honor watched, the maimed battlecruiser was rolling desperately to interpose the roof of her impeller wedge against the follow-up missiles charging down upon her. Her wedge restabilized, and her drive went to maximum power as her vector swung sharply away from Fearless.
She accelerated madly, breaking off, fleeing her mangled opponent, and HMS Fearless was too badly damaged to pursue.
Something I've always wanted to know.
Why can't nukes get through? If it's the size, then Honorverse tech can't engineer them so that they aren't any larger than laserheads?
