A communications vessel was probably the perfect berth for a man like Chief Baylor. There was only a vanishingly low chance that the Aglaia would have to fire any of his beloved missiles—
But if she did, her crew could be certain the missiles would function perfectly.
“Yes,” said Daniel harshly. “Launching in an atmosphere will certainly destroy the Aglaia. Depriving the Alliance of this valuable prize is a secondary reason for what we’re about to do.”
Missiles were miniature spaceships which had only High Drive for propulsion. High velocities were a requirement of interstellar travel, even when those velocities were multiplied by judicious use of bubble universes whose physical constants differed from those of the sidereal universe.
The High Drive was the most efficient way to boost a vessel to such velocities, but a certain amount of antimatter inevitably escaped the conversion process and was voided in the exhaust. When this happened in an atmosphere, antimatter and matter destroyed each other in a burst of pure energy just beyond the nozzle and wrecked everything in the vicinity.
Antiship missiles depended on kinetic energy and had no explosive warhead. Even a thermonuclear weapon would have been pointless in an object travelling at .6 c. Lack of atmospheric capability wasn’t a handicap to the missiles because at those speeds, air was a solid barrier anyway.
Which didn’t mean being hit by a just-launched thirty-ton missile was a love tap, however.
Baylor shook his head disconsolately. “Yessir,” he said. “I’ve got my crew on alert, like you said, but I sure didn’t figure you’d be asking us to do this.”
The missileer’s expression was similar to that Abraham must have worn when God ordered him to sacrifice his son. “I hate it, sir,” he said simply. “I’ve served on a lot of ships in thirty-seven years, and this is the best of ’em. But we’ll carry out orders.”
Daniel nodded cold approval. “Make it so,” he said. As Baylor turned to leave him alone in the TOC, Daniel said, “Chief?”
Baylor looked over his shoulder, expressionless.
“A ship is a tool,” Daniel said. “It’s all right to love a ship, but sometimes a tool has to be used, even if that means using it up.”
He thought about the APC that was probably landing at the rear of the Elector’s Palace about now. “Humans aren’t tools,” Daniel added. “But sometimes you have to use them up too. That’s true for everybody who’s taken the oath.”
And for at least one librarian who hadn’t.
The sides of the APC’s troop compartment were lowered to give the big vehicle a less threatening appearance. Adele had examined the access restrictions for the palace. As she directed, Barnes idled them at surface level to the rear gate of the gardens instead of trying to overfly the wall and land close to the building.
The Alliance command had placed six posts of hypervelocity missiles on the palace roof and grounds to deal with vehicles which tried to evade the mandated entry checks. Properly designed layered armor could resist plasma weapons, perhaps for long enough to land a load of troops, but for defenders who didn’t care about backblast, 500 grams of tungsten monocrystal moving at five kilometers per second was a good way to drill through anything short of a granite mountain.
The antivehicle batteries functioned automatically, irrespective of the target’s Identification Friend or Foe signal. Adele had edited the control software to exempt their captured APC from the automatic defenses, but this wasn’t the time to inform the Alliance forces of the fact.
Lamsoe was in the cupola. He and Barnes would stay with the vehicle while Adele led Hogg and nine sailors to the subbasement where the Aglaia’s officers were held along with other important prisoners.
Woetjans eyed the guard post. A heavily laden surface truck was ahead of the APC. The guards had lifted the bed’s canvas cover and were checking individual crates of bottled liquor.
“These guys are regular army, not commandoes,” the petty officer whispered in Adele’s ear. “We commandoes think we’re hot shit compared to them, you see?”
She growled a chuckle. “None of ’em are worth a fuck compared to the RCN, of course,” she added. “But it’s going to be a lot trickier than it would be if the wogs was still in charge.”