“CIC, report!”

“Point scanners are tracking 68 inbounds with harmonics up the range to five frequencies. At least a quarter of those birds are track-on-scan and another 20% are likely track-on-signature. Forty seconds to impact.”

“Helm, reverse all engines, full power. Give me a course 170 by 180 and reorient our heading seventeen degrees starboard to bring port heavy point defenses to bear on the inbounds.”

“Aye sir, helm answering all engines reverse. New course one eight zero orienting heading to one-seven-zero relative.”

The autosystems opened up, spitting sixty high-energy superhot bolts of plasma energy a second at the rapidly approaching missiles. Half the incoming wave detonated, filling space with plasma disruptions, debris and interference patterns. The remaining missiles screamed out of the fireballs and continued to accelerate, dodging and swerving to avoid the Argent’s formidable screening weapons.

By all modern battle protocols, Hunter was playing it by the book. His biggest problem was his big ship. Citadel-class vessels were designed to direct maximum firepower at big enemy targets. While they were no slouch in a stand-up fight, they were three times as powerful in a battle group, where smaller, more specialized vessels like anti-missile frigates and escort destroyers could sweep the battlespace clear of missile barrages and fighters and leave the capital ships free to do what capital ships do best.

If any criticism could be directed at the young captain, it would have been his choice not to launch a larger combat space patrol. A properly formed strike squadron might not have been able to replace a battle group on a one-to-one equivalency, but it certainly could have provided Argent with far more effective screening.

Hunter wasn’t worried. Three dozen missiles were a concern, but even with X-ray or anti-matter warheads, they shouldn’t be able to overcome the mighty battleship’s heavy shields or magnetic armor belt.

“Tactical, launch countermeasures. Maximum power to heavy point defenses. Reinforce port side battle screens and stand by to sound collision.”

“Aye, sir. Launching countermeasures.”

A swarm of more than 100 tiny rockets packed with electronic warfare circuitry exploded in all directions from Argent’s hull. They all went live at once, pouring millions of watts of power through transmitters designed to scramble everything from short range ultrawideband to two cans and a piece of string. Some were set to pretend they were entire ships. Others were simply set to blast noise on a wide frequency range as long as possible until their tiny capacitors were drained of their energy.

“Zony?”

“Nemesis can’t punch through all this at once, sir. Some of those missiles are going for the countermeasures, but most aren’t. We’re just too big a target and we’re too close.”

“Then we’ll do it the old fashioned way,” Hunter said rhetorically. “Helm, bring us up on the Z-axis and stand by port heavy point defense.”

“Aye, sir, heading Z now zero four zero true.”

“Sound collision.”

The alarm sounded on all decks as the first missiles broke threat range. The entire bridge crew watched and waited for their heavy point defense batteries to obliterate the missile barrage.

Nothing happened.