First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 by MICHAEL KOTCHER Page B

continued to lay down fire with the forward heavy lasers, pounding on the hull of the battlecruiser through holes in the shields.  Her shots were only doing minor damage to the hull, despite the constant pressure.  A few salvos of firing at her hull armor punched through in a few places, but the damage she was inflicting was very little; a terrier attacking an elephant.
                  Tamara had her controls ready and she pressed the button that would activate the grav plate.  It was on a proximity fuse, which would activate only a bare fraction of a second before impact.  It closed on the Leytonstone ’s hull, and Tamara noted that the missile had missed its target lock, it would hit ten meters from the still-active propulsion unit, which was less than ideal but there was nothing she could do to alter its course now.  The weapon slipped past all of the battlecruiser’s fire and plowed into the ship’s unshielded and damaged stern.
                  Tamara’s modified weapon was essentially a complicated kinetic energy weapon.  It didn’t have an explosive warhead like the “throat ripper” missiles did, since she’d stripped it out.  It was meant to slam into the target and deliver a solid punch.  The addition of the grav plate was something she’d seen in Republic missiles from her time in the Navy.  At the barest fraction of a second before impact, the grav plate spun up, temporarily increasing the mass of the weapon by a factor of almost 10,000.  So a one-ton projectile became a 10,000-ton projectile, moving at the same speed.  The grav plate didn’t have the power to last very long, but then it didn’t have to.
                  The weapon crashed into the aft section of the hull like a titanic fist.  It missed the functioning propulsion unit, but it crushed the hull where it hit causing it both to crumple inward and at the same time fracture outwards.  Internal explosions rocked the ship and caused the damaged parts to glow with what could best be described as an infernal light.  The entire after third of the battlecruiser suddenly went dark, the engine went offline and the shields collapsed.  In an instant, she was adrift, her guns silent.
                  “Yes!” Garidhak screamed.  “Heavy damage to the after section, ma’am!  She’s helpless!”  The rest of the bridge cheered.
                  “Open a channel to the Leytonstone ,” Tamara ordered, her voice loud over the din.  “Order their surrender.”
                  “Sending now!” the comms watch replied happily.
     
                  “Damage report!” Gants demanded.  Half the displays on the bridge were showing static, including his own.  Only the operations console and the engineering station were live.
                  Hakami checked her displays while Paxton rushed over to the engineering console.  “Main power is offline.  That hit broke loose several of the power conduits.  Main propulsion, what was left, is out.  Shields are down.  Weapons are down.  Comms are down.”  The sensor officer looked up to catch the Colonel’s eye.  “Sir, we’re dead in space.”
                  He forced himself to remain calm.  They wouldn’t be sending over boarding parties.  He had four hundred fully-armed Army soldiers on board his ship, not to mention his regular crew.  Any pitiful boarding parties the FP people could muster would get chopped up by his Army troopers.  Which was something, at least.  “Is it possible that we can get main power back?”
                  Paxton scanned his console.  “No, sir.  Not right away.  Chief has damage control teams on it, but it’s going to be several hours at least.”
                  “Status of the reactor?” Gants asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice.  If the reactor was down and couldn’t be restored, they’d all