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Chapter 11
The Adventures of the Beer Keg of Science![]
NMS Beer Keg of Science!
Above Ecliptic Near Niops IX
Niops System, March 15, 3158
Most ship-to-ship combat during the Star League era happened near some kind of objective: a jump point, or orbiting a planet, or near something else of strategic value, such that the differences in velocities between combatants was reasonably small, and engagement times long enough that human reactions were sufficient, tactics could be adapted, and weapons fire traded multiple times within the normal thousand-kilometer distances these battles were fought.
The NMS Beer Keg of Science! was not fighting that kind of battle. When the Keg and its larger foe met, at their combined closing velocities, a thousand kilometers would pass in a second. Both sides had no choice but to trust in plans laid down before they met, the power of their automation, and the one exchange of fire each side would get before they passed too far from one another to engage.
The modified M-5 Caspar drone they fought could have made it that kind of fight. It had ample thrust to slow down, reduce their differing velocities, to stretch out their engagement times. The minds onboard the ship, though, weren't interested in that, though, or even as interested the ship they faced, as they were in the shipyard and planet that refurbished it. Even with the shackled AI of the ship to some degree crippled in the name of retaining control, the cyborg crew in true command of the vessel was confident the Frail humans running their antiquated relic of a WarShip would be at a severe disadvantage against the combined power of their cybernetics-enhanced minds in conjunction with their AI servant, between them controlling a vastly powerful WarShip, one that made the vaunted Star League Navy tremble.
For all their intel on Niops, they didn't know about Mac, or the thermonuclear weapons he was being entrusted with.
Prior to reaching gun range, capital grade missiles leapt from their tubes as both Mac, and the shackled AI in the M-5 Caspar timed their launches to maximum effect. ECM and ECCM protocols chosen by Lt. Commander O’Brien-Howard, Lieutenant Howard, Lt. Commander Rozhenko and Mac burned through the powerful, but limited, jamming by the enemy WarShip, while the Caspar’s own ECCM was less effective.
The Blakist cyborgs controlling the Caspar were confident in their own abilities and their hobbled AI, choosing to fire earlier than Mac. That proved to be their undoing, as a combination of ECM and point defense prevented their missiles from striking the Keg – only a single near-miss from a Santa Ana passed close to the antiquated Cruiser, irradiating several outer panels and compartments, but doing no lasting damage.
”Got you,” Mac snarled to himself, letting his enemy make their mistake. It was then he knew that he did not face a fully-awake Caspar. It would never have been so overconfident. There had to be humans in the loop aboard that ship, suppressing the SDS AI’s higher mental functions, and inserting themselves into the decision loop. In a way, then, if Mac and his humans were successful, what he’d be doing now would be a mercy killing of a disabled AI. Mac didn’t spare many processing cycles to that thought, but those he did determined he could live with that outcome.
Mac launched the Keg’s own missiles, programmed to go active much closer. He watched the Barracudas race past the Santa Anas, split into trios of missiles: two with their warheads pulled for additional EW gear, and one, carrying its deadly three megaton payload and kludged with control boards from a Blackwasp. They failed, but their failures were not unexpected.
The Santa Anas, however, were more successful. Of the twelve nuclear-tipped missiles his captain, Lea Carpentier, and her XO, James Kirk, had authorized Mac to fire, half burned through the Caspar’s final attempt to jam them, its efforts to physically evade them, only to come under no fire from point defense! ”Didn’t finish your refit before being sent out to spy on us?” Mac wondered.
The first Santa Ana struck home in the right forequarter of the M-5 Caspar, detonating against armor, stripping away what armor plating, bulkheads and structural members, and brutally damaging the destroyer, but not killing it outright. The second struck nearby, finding little resistance, and detonated in an energetic burst of gamma rays.
The third Santa Ana, though, made the others redundant, striking the nose, penetrating the outer armor, and expending is full nuclear fury within the hull of the Caspar itself, breaking its back, and converting most of the front half of the ship into a rapidly-expanding ball of plasma, tearing through the remains of the M-5, and converting it to a cloud of superheated debris. The remaining three Santa Anas merely detonated within the cloud, dispersing it further.
Point-defense lasers aboard the Keg auto-engaged small debris that threatened the ship, with little guidance necessary from the SDS AI that had, temporarily, taken full control of the cruiser. Mac carefully eyed the debris as their momentum carried them past, but saw nothing large enough to constitute a threat to the ship or crew, but also no indications that anyone aboard survived. He tagged the more interesting pieces for review by Lt. Commander O’Brien-Howard, and began the process of reporting to his captain.
{“Target destroyed.”}
Despite dampeners, the bridge crew was still slightly dazed by the intensity of the tiny star they’d briefly brought to life, but Captain Carpentier managed to nod in response, and thanks. “Damage report, all stations. Secure from general quarters. Any indication of survivors?”
At her station, Mo O’Obrien-Howard sat up. “No, ma’am. No signs of lifeboats or escape pods. I suspect the EMP would’ve fried any surviving server racks. We can sift through the wreckage, but if there were any people over there, they didn’t make it out alive.”
“Very well. We’ve still got the Enceladus survivors to worry about. Helm, set course to rendezvous with their escape pods. We know what course the wreckage is on, and can investigate it later.”
“Course laid in, ma’am.”
“Engage.”
Author's Notes[]
I actually cracked open TW, StratOps and Interstellar Ops for this one, and printed out a couple record sheets. This was clearly a high-speed engagement, done at medium speed, which still meant for a closing velocity of something like 2500+ hexes/turn. That's still too fast for humans to do much once the shooting really starts, so they'd need to trust automation.
The Blakist M-5 Caspar, during the missile exchange phase, fired at long range, which is considered standard. They rolled OK on their ECCM role, and burned through 2 points of the Keg's ECM. They ended up needing 10s (on pair of 6-sided dice) to hit at that range and, in a non-nuclear engagement, would've proceeded to crush the Beer Keg of Science! like an aluminum can once regular weapons fire was exchanged.
But, as I noted, the Keg was built for nuclear fights. They rolled exceptionally well on their ECCM role, burned through all the ECM of the M-5 Caspar, and Mac didn't have the missiles engage until medium range, which gave them a slight to-hit advantage that made up for his 4/5 skills (the Keg's own crew is Green at 5/6). They ended up needing 8s as a result, and they had a lot more chances to hit during the missile engagement phase.
The Blakists rolled a 4, 6, and 7 for their three missile bays, missing with all three. The Niopians, meanwhile, rolled 4 and 10 with their Barracudas, and 9, 8, 7, 7 with their White Shark bays. In both cases, I obviously let both sides do waypoint launches, where the missile changes one facing after launch to change arcs, to let them bring as many missile bays in as they could.
In the case of the Barracudas, I decided to let them slide. Figure the changes made to them weren't quite successful enough to get the AMW-equipped missiles to hit, and the other two missiles just spent themselves trying to get the other to unsuccessfully hit. If I'd rolled a 12 on one of those bays, I'd have let it through, but those were a crapshoot anyway.
The Santa Anas, though, were another story. The Cruiser class organizes its White Shark launchers into two 3-tube bays in each forequarter, so one bay hitting means three missiles hit. So, at minimum, the Keg connected with 3 Santa Anas from each side, with one bay from each side missing. Yeah, waypoint launches were not necessary.
A single Santa Ana hit does 100 points, an M-5 Caspar has 48 points of armor per location, and 50 SI. Nuclear weapon damage to SI is, per IO, not halved, but I went ahead and did it anyway. I rolled for nuclear criticals twice, getting one failure with a 6, and one success with an 11. That put an end to things right there, as that's 1000 points, unreduced, to the SI of the M-5, which is only 50 points. There is no overkill. There is "Open Fire" and "I need to reload".
I hadn't intended or expected for the Beer Keg of Science! to get away from this undamaged. I didn't want to kill them outright, obviously, since that'd be the end of the story, but I wasn't quite expecting them to do that well. I considered doing a round of standard fire, anyway, but my reading of the high speed engagement rules made it look like you resolve all damage from that first. There just wasn't anything left of the Caspar after that to allow it to use conventional weapons.
So, yeah, bit unexpected, but I'll take it.