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story identification - War with remotely piloted micro-machines


While waiting to get onto a computer booked at the local library about 2 years ago, I picked up a sci-fi novel whose name and author I cannot recall and began reading.


Elements of the opening part of the book that I can recall.



  • A small squadron is trying to penetrate the defenses of an enemy power.

  • It is mentioned they are traveling at an altitude of NN mm (which seemed odd at the time)

  • They are swamped by autonomous flying defenders that hone in on the approaching craft and attack them (mostly by physically disassembling them in-flight).

  • The pilots have a conversation in which it is revealed that this is not the first time they've attacked, and the defenses have improved over time.

  • As each of the attacking craft are swamped the situation becomes more hopeless, until the last of the attackers is destroyed.

  • It then turns out the pilots of the attack vehicles were at a far distant point, remotely operating micro/nano-machines..



That was mostly in the first chapter, as far as I read. I'd guess it was written within the last 10 years (15 at the outside).


Can anyone identify this book & author?



Answer



This sounds like the 1st book of the Succession Series "The Risen Empire" by Scott Westerfield. The opening chapter called Pilot fits what you have described.


Below is a brief SPOILER ALERT excerpt explaining your remembering NN mm:



Marx checked the altimeter's last reading: 174 centimeters. At that height, the craft would take at least a minute before they hit the ground. Even with its sensor array furled and main rotor stalled, in a normal-density atmosphere an intelligence craft fell no faster than a speck of dust. Indeed, the Intelligencers were not much larger than specks of dust, and were somewhat lighter. With a wingspan of a single millimeter, they were very small craft indeed.


Master Pilot Jocim Marx, Imperial Naval Intelligence, had flown microships for eleven years. He was the best.




The Risen Empire Description


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