Miranda showed a moment of uncertainty, glancing sideways at John. The look of question drew up a tight smile unbidden to his lips, along with a question about what the emotion meant, which he instantly tucked away for later examination. He opted to simply nod, and Miranda looked forward again.
"And status of the Reaper fleet?"
"Low powered scanning isn't giving us as much as we could get... Sir." Felentia admitted hesitantly with a slight shake of her head. "We can only detect ships not blocked by orbital bodies. But, if their fleet density is the same on the other side of the planet, then there are well over a million enemy craft in the system."
"What about the ones on approach?"
"They aren't increasing their velocity-" Felentia hesitated, then snorted a derisive laugh, "-Hnnph, they obviously don't think we're any threat... They know that we're here. Still getting pings every few seconds."
"They are very persistent!" Deja announced over the comms, laughter in her voice. "Like gnats... Or digital sand flies? I feel like I'm slapping one-off, after another."
Miranda nodded, glancing briefly sideways at John again with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, but otherwise continuing to look poised and calm, despite her physical tension. "I'm assuming they've been attempting to gain access to the Kilimanjaro? Or the other ships?"
Deja emerged from a holographic pedestal to the right of Miranda's chair with her hands clasped over her navel, her dress flowing as though in a breeze as she nodded. "Their cyber-warfare technology is quite unsophisticated, considering that they are an AI species... I would extrapolate that their usual ability to physically dominate battlespaces has left them with no requirement to improve their cyber warfare capabilities."
"Can you hack into any of them, Deja?"
Miranda and the AI both looked at John for his question; Miranda pursing her lips again and Deja nodding. "I likely can, but given that I am still your only functional AI, and such a rudimentary one at that, I don't think that's worth the risk. If I fail, then that could leave you exposed."
"Understood."
Miranda nodded along with Johns grunted answer and turned her eyes forward, and the Bridge fell back into the quiet routine for the next hour. Every five minutes, Miranda requested the status of their drones, the MAC, the reactor, the rest of the fleet, the progress of their fusion bomb deployment, and the progress of the approaching Reapers.
"The bombs are fixed on, Colonel. Dr Hales reports that the laser sensor systems on them are functional. She just needs us to take a reading on the energy signatures of the Reapers primary weapons."
"Here we go...." Miranda declared quietly to herself. She pressed her lips into a thin line, suppressing their usual plumpness and nodding to herself. "You're in command here, Lawson," She added, loud enough only for John's keen ears to hear. "No mistakes, no hesitation. Perfection, perfection, perfection. Bloody perfection." She chanted quietly to herself with another firm nod.
"Order the fleet to fire all torpedos and missiles and slave them to our targeting arrays. Have all of the dreadnoughts charge their accelerators twenty percent over usual capacity, send their targeting data to secondary tactical." Miranda ordered tersely, then tapped quickly on the terminal on her left wrist to connect to the internship communications.
"Kilimanjaro, target your MAC on the Reaper on the left of the formation. We're targeting the one on the right."
"Confirmed."
"MAC going hot," Nagata declared in his Japanese accent from the helm in front of Miranda, the man making the announcement for Felentia as the Asari keened her attention onto her systems. The viewscreen showed a blown-up version of Felentia and Deja's targeting work, showing the projected path of the MAC slug to predict where it would intercept the Reaper.
Chapter Twenty-One:: The Exchange of Times ::
Start from the beginning
