“If we must, we will engage the hive vessel in space, but that is to be considered a last resort.” Iljta had no idea what an interstellar unit of that size and power was capable of. Radiant Endeavour’s own core release systems should be able to defeat it, but the Meer-Ulson had surprised them many times before. “We are here to find a way to stop its ascent without killing eights of millions of noncombatants. That is our goal. I open the floor to all officers and our guest so that we can proceed.”
Ekar-Fhell leaned forward. “What about munitions? My engineers tell me that ‘depth charges’ were a weapon of primitive ship combat in the past. We could modify missile warheads and sink them over the trench. We wouldn’t need to destroy the vessel, just compromise it structurally. Flooding and water pressure would cripple it for us.”
“It’s a possibility, but interception remains a risk,” Iljta answered. Implacable Agent of Retribution had deployed its three currently remaining underwater probes to get a better idea of what was at the bottom of that trench, but the Meer-Ulson would be on high alert. Until and unless those probes reached their target, there was no way of knowing what defences the hadal facility possessed. Certainly more than a single attack submarine, but Ekar-Fhell's idea had merit. They could bomb the vessel in its nest or during its asset. The size of their warheads would trigger tsunamis and earthquakes, but it would be much less destructive than converting the greater portion of an ocean to super-heated steam and ripping a hemisphere apart.
Other suggestions included collapsing the trench walls to bury the hive vessel under millions of tonnes of rock and the broken remnants of its own construction facility, but that would require an analysis of those same walls and carefully planned demolitions to bring the cliffs down in the right place. The likelihood of attack during those operations was guaranteed, and the Meer-Ulson had had more than enough time to adapt to operate this environment. The Hegemony forces would be rushing whatever they could build into the fray and hoping they’d have enough time.
A third suggestion was focused on the trench itself; the intent was to trigger a severe forced subduction in the descending oceanic plate, causing it to slide under the continental plate by enough to pull the shipnest, and the hive vessel within it into the fault and crush them both between the tectonic plates. It wouldn’t even require the entire vessel to be pulled down; it was oriented vertically in the trench, so losing even a few hundred meters would irrevocably cripple it. It was the best plan so far, but it would require an even greater level of geological knowledge to find where and how to strike the oceanic plate, and that was time that the Hegemony forces simply didn’t have. As a second point of concern, plate slippage of only a few meters at a time could cause massive earthquakes across a fault line, and this plan required a kilometer of more of the oceanic plate to be forced down the fault line. The damage to the planet would be substantial, but far less than bombardment would cause.
Further ideas included the broadcasting of warnings that the Hegemony knew about the hive vessel; the Meer-Ulson might not recognize Calnians as truly sapient, but they should be able to understand a clear warning. Red One pointed out the flaw in this plan itself: the Meer-Ulson would have to believe that the Hegemony was willing to begin planetwide punitive strikes to stop that vessel’s launch and the Calnians themselves didn’t, and wouldn’t, accept that.
Many more suggestions were put forward, but all required too much time to carry out, were increasingly risky with minimal odds of success or were closer to desperation than workable plans. Iljta was not an impatient man by nature, but the meeting was straining his nerves. Every minute that went by meant that vessel was one minute closer to freeing itself from its nest and surging upwards where his fleet would have to meet it combat.
There was one possibility, though. Omaw-Kresz suggested it. They could de-orbit Nightwatch Anchorage. It was almost as large as the hive vessel, but nearly twice as massive. If they couldn’t bury the Meer-Ulson unit under sediment, or crush it then they could do both under eighties of millions of tonnes of steel.
It was audacious and insane, but it just might work. The greatest problem was getting Nightwatch where it needed to go. Keeps had extremely limited thrust systems, and anchorages were intended to move even less than that. With every shortcut taken and every ounce of haste added, it would still take six hours before Nightwatch would be in position and ready to be dropped into the trench. Allis-Ranz ordered the anchorage’s evacuation as engineering crews rushed to plant scuttling charges and thruster packs for the station’s final descent. Synths and officers would be calculating the most optimal timing for de-orbit and the best course. They wouldn’t get another chance at this.
In the midst of the deliberations came a notification on Iljta’s panel, but before he could open it up, Red One spoke. The synth’s voice cut through the hub-bub and frenetic energy of the conference room. “My surviving probe managed to get additional readings from the hive ship before it was destroyed,” it reported. “The vessel is, as we assumed, powering up. Comparing readings between the original sensor snapshot and this newest data, I estimate that it will become mobile within four hours.”