Left Behind (Ghosts Of War Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

last detachable module left floating in space, the European warship assumed the last configuration. Shaped as an arrow, its black surface ridden with medium-range sensors and railgun towers, the “Roma” could do nothing more than unleash its full destructive potential.
    At the opposite side, the giant Chinese admiral ship was getting ready for war. Side sections of the hull, each longer than the enemy ship, slided back to uncover auxiliary battle stations. The command section, the core of the hive mind, closed all the internal doors and activated every watt of power from the emergency batteries. “Chang'e” was ready and deadlier than ever.
    Compared for size and for the complex of their battle resources there was no real match between the two ships. Their routes were set for a frontal approach and that was the key for the European strategy. “Chang'e” was developed as a long cylinder, with more than eighty percent of its firepower available when the enemy was at a side. At the prow there were a huge number of railguns, not enough to match a formidable warship like the “Roma”.  There were not only two spaceships but two different concepts of war in space.
    The two ships of the “Roma” class were built with two purposes only; to carry as much artillery as possible and to present the slightest section to the enemy in battle. All its railguns could be used face-front, projecting from fifty to two hundred Mach 20 tungsten-carbonite slugs every two seconds. With such a power to field even the thirty-eight pieces at the prow of the Chinese ship weren't a match. So both ships started to set up little changes in their routes, the Chinese to expose as much as they could of one of their sides, the Europeans to keep the head-on approach while avoiding as many shots as possible.
    To cover their actions, to drive away enemy's attention and to build themselves a screen of false targets they both open fire. It was open season, the end of the first space-based conflict of human history. For the Russian crew who got to have first row seats, it was even worst, what they saw was the uncanny rage of two ghosts hordes, riding the deadliest weapon system ever developed. Aside from any philosophy of historical consideration, it was about hate.
    Chinese drew blood first. A two-inch shot, traveling at the combined speed of Mach 35, blew away a chuck of the front shield of the “Roma”. Ten seconds after the first wave of slugs from the European warship partly hit home on the upper section of the prow, obliterating two railguns and igniting a secondary explosion in the underway deck. Both ships trembled under the combined vibrations caused by their own artillery and the hits received.
    From mid ship the “Chang'e” fired four hi-speed missiles that detached from the main body before igniting all their propulsion units. One of them was hit by a slug, another one suffered a guidance problem and got itself lost. The last two approached the “Roma” at Mach 40, both from the port side.
     

XVI
    Commander Scatena got the situation well in hand. With no more missiles to use for intercept what the Chinese could throw at his ship, he knew for sure that there were only two choices. The first was to use a specific kind of nuclear weapon in order to generate an EMP and burn the electric components of the missiles. But it wasn't a viable choice, the “Roma” will get damaged as well. So, he played a last resort card and launched twenty decoy buoys at once, running out of his last defense in a single move.
    It worked. Both explosions happened near the European ship, rocking its structure for a few seconds. Not enough to stop it.
    ***  
    Using railguns was tricky at best. Even the best models suffered from structure failures after a certain number of shots and if a critical damage occurred at the wrong time the secondary explosion could be awesome. So, in a normal battle a wise captain would never fire all his pieces at once in order to