Read The Battle of the Void (The Ember War Saga Book 6) for Free Online Page B

the brass rings around the moon. “Are they active?”
    “There’s an Alcubierre field around the planetoid, same as we saw on Ceres before the battle,” Santiago said.
    “The graviton mines should rip it away,” Calum said, “in theory. They weren’t designed to counteract something of this magnitude.”
    Communications requests from captains across her fleet popped up on her visor. They saw the same thing she did.
    “Tactical,” Makarov went to her holo table, “any reaction from the Xaros?”
    “Negative, ma’am,” said a commander at the gunner’s station. “At best-known speed, we’re eight hours from contact with the Xaros.”
    “Set fleet to atmo condition amber,” Makarov said. The fleet would re-pressurize, but the crews would remain in their vac suits, ready for an immediate return to combat conditions at a moment’s notice.
    “I want all ship captains on holo conference in ten minutes. We’ll figure this out.”
    Makarov gave a series of commands to the warrant officer manning the holo table. The fleet and the distant Xaros moon floated before her a few seconds later. Her brow knit as a bad thought came to mind. She reached into the tank and zoomed in on the moon until the dark filaments of the net came up, heavily pixelated.
    “Get me a better picture of this,” she said over her shoulder, “now.”
    It took another minute before one of the Midway ’s spotters sent up an image from their high-powered telescopes. The pixels smoothed out, revealing the oblong body of a drone, stalks joined to another drone. The net encompassing the moon was nothing but drones. Millions and millions of drones.
     
    ****
     
    Holograms of Makarov’s captains joined her around the operations table. All bore serious, stoic expressions, exactly the same mask of command Makarov wore. She didn’t care if each of them were full of doubt and fear, so long as they didn’t show or act like they were influenced by those emotions.
    “Eighth.” Makarov ran a hand through her short hair. “This isn’t what we planned on. This isn’t what we trained for. The Xaros moon, hereby designated Abaddon, is on course for our solar system. We can’t destroy it, but we’re going to figure out how to slow it down or knock it off course so it spends the rest of time plowing through empty space.”
    “Ma’am.” The holo of the captain directly across from Makarov changed into a rail-thin man with a weak chin. Captain Delacroix, the commander of the minelayer task force. “My engineers ran the numbers. It will take almost a full complement of mines from just one of my ships to have any effect on Abaddon’s Alcubierre field.”
    “And will that do any good?” Randall asked from Makarov’s side. “I can cycle the Midway ’s Alcubierre drive on and off in hours. I’d bet money the Xaros can do it faster.”
    “The graviton mines are designed to disrupt the warp fields…” Delacroix rolled his eyes. “We don’t have time for the PhD version. Watch.” His holo tapped a screen invisible to Makarov.
    The holo above Makarov’s table distorted into Abaddon, surrounded by a grid shell, a single Abdiel -class vessel in front of it.
    “That grid is the moon’s Alcubierre field. Now watch.” Delacroix hit a button and a mine shot off the rails and exploded. Motes of light hit the shell, to no effect. “One mine is about as good as pissing on a forest fire, excuse my language. But if we…” All the mines exploded and showered the grid. It wavered and fell away.
    “Now,” Delacroix lifted a finger like a college professor, “knocking it down is one thing. Keeping it down is another. A certain graviton density can retard the formation of a new field.” A line of minelayers stretched out from the Xaros moon. Mines shot away from the Abdiel -class ships and filled the space along the moon’s route with graviton particles. “We do this and it will slow their advance by up to fifteen years, even send them off course