Blood Impulse

Part 24.2 - TRAINING EXPERIMENT

Liguanian Sector, Flagship Olympia

The dreadnaught fired a burst on her maneuvering thrusters, correcting to a suddenly obvious shearing angle. "It's a ramming attack!" That crazy son of a bitch. "Evasive maneuvers!"

"Aye!" came the call.

The high strain of the thrusters picked up around him, the stresses of the force and battle damage threatening to permanently distort the structure, but he felt his eyes involuntarily widen. Too slow.

The Singularity's black armor had already swallowed the view, and an instant later, the bridge around him surrendered to inky blackness, the virtual illusion falling away. He'd been too slow once again.

"Dammit!" Reeter cursed, tearing the VR helmet off. "That bastard is insane!"

Manhattan allowed a smirk to form on her lips. "Quite to the contrary, I'd say he's brilliant." She had hoped Reeter's combat experience would fare better against Gives' tactics, and he had, but only to a certain degree. Eventually, he'd fallen into the same traps that she had.

"No, he's insane. Making an attack like that is suicide." Pitting one ship's structure against another, that was just making a bet. There were other, better ways to win a battle. "It wasn't even a killing blow!" It was a useless, self-destructive attack that had no major effect on a ship's weapons or propulsion systems.

"Yes," she sighed, "it was." With a wave of her hand, Manhattan projected a small recreation of the Palindrome's final moments. "While the superstructures locked together, the Palindrome was tugged parallel. There was no hope of escape or evasion when the Singularity fired her broadside."

The attack had been ruthless and effective. "Historically speaking, ramming is a recognized, but extremely uncommon tactic. Pirates are known to use it as a precursor to boarding. The Flagship Capitol sank due to such methods."

"But ramming with a battleship? It's insane. She's not built for that." Pirates would armor, strengthen and sharpen their ships' bows to breach and board. It wasn't the same.

"No, she wasn't built for that, but I investigated what few of the Singularity's engineering schematics remain in our possession." Many of them had been lost, or more likely, burned. "Given the angle of her armor and the way her superstructure shunts and distributes impact forces on the bow, it's viable, and there is no doubt that he knew that."

The records of the fleet academy showed Gives had been a distinguished astroengineer, trained and gifted with ship engineering. He'd been quick and precise to implement an effective ramming attack.

"Perhaps it was lucky you weren't there, Charleston." While the Olympia herself may have turned the tide, a better match against the Singularity's speed and ability, Reeter's confidence would have been his undoing. "You underestimate him." Reeter never would have been able to counter such bold tactics from someone he had spent years demeaning and despising. "And until you no longer do, he will always have the upper hand against you."

Reeter tossed the VR helmet onto the inky onyx of the Olympia's conference room table. "William Gives is a bygone fossil of an old era. He is worthless."

"And yet, he remains one of the finest tacticians these worlds have ever seen." His combat record was spotless, better than Reeter's own, which he proclaimed to be so flawless. "How would you fare against the nine battleships?"

"I'd annihilate them. Blow past them, charge Thunderbolt, and do a flip burn." The Olympia's flagship weapon would leave nothing but graves behind.