by Andrew Beery
“They are not meant to. They are snowballs.”
“Sir?”
“On earth rain often falls as frozen water. What we call snow. You can pack it together with your hands into little balls and throw it at other people. They tend to throw snowballs back at you. The idea is not to get hit. One way you can avoid being hit and, instead, increase your odds of hitting your opponent is to waste a snowball by throwing it high into the air. While your victim is watching the high-flying snowball, you nail them with a fastball.”
“I see,” the J’ni said. “The nukes are a distraction.”
“That’s the general idea.”
Of course, what I failed to mention to my furry friend was that what blinded our enemy also blinded us. That oversight damn near killed us.
WHUUP!... WHUUP, WHUUP!
The Gilboa shook as hard as I had ever felt her shake. The first kinetic took our newly regenerated shields down to eleven percent. The second strike overloaded the shields and punched a marble-sized hole clean through the ship. The third KEW hit near environmental and traveled through engineering and the main computer core.
Gil flashed out of existence. I knew he had a backup core, but it was anybody’s guess as to whether it would come online given the damage we were taking. Fortunately for me, I had strapped into my command chair after the first strike.
“Full evasive. Crazy Ivan. Get those shields back up!”
“Arquat! Are you still there good buddy?”
“Shields are coming online. They are at fifteen percent and climbing. I’ve attempted to adjust their modulation. They should be marginally more effective, but we have lost two of our quark fusion cores. We will not be able to regenerate as quickly.”
“Gil is offline. Can you take over control of the ship?”
“I already have, Admiral… We are… BRACE FOR IMPACT!”
KA-WHUUP!
The ship shook violently… too violently. The lights went out, and a crushing force threaten and then succeeded in breaking every rib in my chest. The inertial dampers had been knocked offline. We were feeling the full effect of a sudden deceleration as the KEW ripped the guts out of my ship. Systems all over the bridge, and as far as I knew, all over the ship… overloaded and began to smoke or burn or both. The smell of burnt dura-plastic filled the bridge.
When the emergency lights finally began to come up, I could see that Sa’Mi and the other J’ni were in a bad way. The engineer was hanging sideways and limp in his seat. Only the safety straps were holding him in place. I could see a dribble of blood coming out of his snout. Whether he was alive or dead, I couldn’t tell.
Somehow, I knew the Gilboa was dying. There was a pain in my chest that had nothing to do with my broken ribs.
I groaned. I had to know if I could still fight the ship. Even crippled and dying, the Gilboa still represented one of the best chances to save Earth. It just wasn’t in me to quit.
2100.1207.2070 Galactic Normalized Time
General Ahithophel was impressed. A single Earth ship had managed to destroy or disable seven of his ships. His own ship was heavily damaged but still serviceable. What was amazing was that the opponent’s weapons were inferior in every way. The damage inflicted on his force was purely a function of guile. He longed for a chance to meet this human commander that had visited such destruction on his fleet. Sadly, he was most likely dead. The single ship they had engaged was floating dead in space. Her power generation near zero. Her atmosphere bleeding into space. He would have spent more time surveying this proud defender of the Sol system but two other defenders were fast approaching, and he dare not dawdle.
Chapter 25: Dying Dog
The air around the bridge filled with massive amounts of static electricity. Just as my mind began to tie the current feeling into a memory of a similar event at the lunar base, a bright flash filled the bridge, and I was momentarily blinded.
Sadly, the bright flash caused me to suck in a sharp breath in surprise. That was a mistake. I had broken ribs before, but this was the first time I believed every rib was broken. The pain was, to say the least… memorable. And it was not, I should point out, memorable in a Gee we should do this again! –sort of way.
I suspected the safety harness which undoubtedly had saved my life, had also extracted its own price for the service. The joints in my shoulders also felt wrenched, but at least nothing else seem broken or dislocated.
It was then that I realized that Sa’Mi and the others on the bridge were gone. It appeared Arquat had used his magic transporter thingy to get them to safety… at least I hope that is what he did.
This, of course, raised its own interesting question. Why was I still here?
“Arquat? Are you still with me?” I asked for the second time in about as many minutes.
An ill-formed and unstable hologram formed in front of me.
“I am here, Admiral. There is much to do and very little time in which to do it if you wish to save humanity’s future.”
I pressed the release on my harness’s buckle. Nothing happened. It seemed some clod had bent the thing in the process of almost dying. It took a few minutes longer and quite a bit more pain, but eventually, I got the damn thing unbuckled.
Thankfully, Arquat had lowered the effective gravity to a mere five percent Earth-normal. It was enough to allow me to maintain orientation but also weak enough to allow me to almost float along with the hologram as he led me to various stations around the bridge.
To be honest, my mind was too fuzzy to fully comprehend what I was doing, but it seemed as if I was manually transferring the control of some of the systems to the backup bridge. It made sense to me because I had pretty much broken this one.
“Why aren’t the Defilers finishing us off,” I asked as I powered down the weapons and long-range sensor stations. Their function had managed to automatically transfer themselves. Two out of ten. The bridge was a mess. I tried not to think about the numerous pools of J’ni blood.
Even the popcorn machine was broken. The memories of teasing Commander Shelby with that particular addition to the bridge caused another twinge of pain. I was going to miss that popcorn machine. I was going to miss Shelby. Even more, I was going to miss Lori. My wife had become the light by which my day started and ended. I was going to miss Lori.
It was about then that I realized I had accepted my own imminent death. It’s strange that the thought of my own death did not fill me with the dread that I thought it might.
The Jabesh, with all their knowledge and experience, had concluded that there was a God and that in its own way it was benevolent, caring and compassionate. My wife held the same beliefs. I didn’t know if they were right or wrong… but it was nice to have hope. Hope was the one thing that could not be taken away. It had to be surrendered. I wasn’t surrendering today.
“They believe we are already dead,” Arquat said. “I sent a flash message to the Ticonderoga not to engage. They would simply be destroyed. Their services would be better utilized near Earth.”
It took me a minute to realize the Jabesh AI was not reading my mind. He was answering the question I had asked before my groggy head had taken me down memory lane.
“Right,” I said. “Already dead. That makes sense. Are we?”
“Are we what, Admiral?”
“Are we dead?”
“Not yet. We need to stop by sickbay. The turbolifts are offline. I can open the doors and modulate the gravity in the shaft to float you down ten levels. The last two you will need to climb on your own. Power has failed on those decks. I will not be able to help you there.”
“Understood. What do you need me to do in sickbay?”
“Sickbay has its own redundant power source. I’m going to meet you there and explain what I need you to do. Our window of opportunity is rapidly closing. I need you to hurry.”
“What? Wait….” I said as I began to move towards the turbolift. “Why would the Ticonderoga obey an order from you?”
“Th
ey would not. I sent the message utilizing a high-quality facsimile of you.”
“OK, that makes sense,” I said as the turbolift doors opened.
I suppose I should have been angry, but I was too focused on the shaft in front of me. The shaft was dimly lit with lights that were flickering even as I watched. The adrenaline that the sight elicited helped to revive me somewhat.
I stepped into the shaft and began to slowly float down. Arquat floated next to me. He wasn’t there in a physical sense. I knew that. Still, it was comforting to know that for at least a little while I would not be alone. A man should not die alone.
“You said our window of opportunity was closing. What did you mean by that.”
“Simple Admiral. I mean to help you to destroy the invasion fleet.”
“That’s nice I said,” as I closed my eyes for just a second. The next thing I knew someone was shouting in my ears. The sound was deafening. In addition, it felt like I was being bumped up and down.
“ADMIRAL RIKER… WAKE UP! ADMIRAL RIKER!”
“I’m awake. I’m awake already,” I mumbled.
I could see I was on the floor of one of the corridors just above medical. The bumping stopped. It seemed the creative little Jabesh AI had used the gravity plating to shake me awake.
“Admiral, I’m glad you are with us again. I have programmed a repair bot to carry you to sickbay. I’m afraid the trip will not be comfortable for you, but it is essential you get there in the quickest possible fashion. Even now it is possible we are too late to stop the advanced force.”
As the Jabesh spoke a roller-bot appeared and trundled down the corridor towards my position. I groaned in anticipation. Roller-bots looked like tubes with eight sets of moving tracks parallel to and equally spaced around the tube. They were designed to carry components to and from work sites within the Jefferies tubes that served as crawlspaces throughout the ship.
As the bot approached its endcap dilated open revealing a space inside that was about one and a half times the width and length of your typical human fleet admiral. I was obviously meant to crawl inside. Thankfully, I was still at five percent Earth normal... otherwise, I doubted I could have managed it.
I suspected getting inside was going to be the least difficult part of the next few minutes. Sadly, I continue to amaze myself at how accurate some of my predictions turn out to be.
I should probably take a moment to point out two things. First, there is no padding or even lights inside one of these roller-bots. Second, they require a modicum of gravity in order to hold their treads to a surface. Had the fit inside the bot been snug I might have been better off. As it was, I had a new appreciation for how an ice cube must feel being tossed about inside of a martini shaker.
An agonizing five minutes later I was finally deposited in the medical bay. The trip had involved travel through two separate Jeffries tubes, which while painful, shaved a good ten minutes off the trip had we traveled the corridors.
A vaguely ‘archonoid’ robotic medical assistant gently, in a relative sense, extracted me from the tube. It helped me to a diagnostic table and proceed to cut away the upper half of my uniform.
I could see Arquat in the corner looking impatient as only a hologram could.
The medical bot gave me an injection and immediately I felt more awake and energized. I knew it was a false feeling. It had become more difficult to breathe. If I were a betting man… and I am… I would say I had punctured a lung and was building up fluids in my diaphragm that was compromising my ability to expand and contract my lungs. With so many broken ribs it was a miracle I had lasted this long.
The diagnostic table must have come to the same conclusion. A needle jabbed into the back of my neck to administer a spinal block. Within a fraction of a second, I lost all feeling below my shoulders.
I watched as a pair of laparoscopic robotic arms inserted themselves into my chest cavity.
“Your major injuries are being tended to quickly. I’m afraid there is no time to do a detailed repair. The broken bones are being stapled together. That will provide a limited relief from pain. You should be able to complete the tasks ahead of you.”
Soon enough the arms removed themselves and quickly stapled their insertion points closed. Moments later I regained feeling in my extremities. The med-bot must have injected a general painkiller because while I still hurt… I was feeling hands down a whole lot better than I had when it had dragged me out of the roller-bot.
I slid my legs over the edge of the table and said, “Thanks bot!”
For some reason, I thought this was amazingly funny. In hindsight, I suspect it was the drugs that had been pumped into my system. As they say, better living through chemistry.
Arquat motioned for me to join him at an access panel.
“This is the main power distribution node for the medical bay. There is an emergency bypass that will shunt its output into the ship’s primary distribution node. From there I can redirect it to the backup bridge.”
“It looks simple enough,” I said. “Why couldn’t you have Tweddle-Dee or Tweedle-dum in the corner over there do this?” I pointed to the two med-bots.
“Please proceed, and I will attempt to explain. The moment you cut the power here, they will cease to function… as will the holo-emitters.”
“So, you are going to disappear the moment I do this?”
“That is correct,” the AI agreed. “I need you to meet me at the backup bridge as fast as you can. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance.”
No pressure I thought to myself as I redirected the power flow. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance. No pressure at all!
***
The backup bridge didn’t look much better than the main bridge. There were signs of burnt circuits and fire damage everywhere. Three separate repair bots were working at various stations. I knew the Gilboa’s AI was offline, so it must have been the Jabesh AI that was pulling the metaphorical strings.
There was a single bot working on a device that I didn’t recognize. If I had to guess, it was something of Ancestor design. The bot wasn’t working on the device per se as much as it seemed to be working on some type of damaged interface system.
“Admiral, if you will attempt to bring the A9 interface to the Skip drive system online, I will explain what I am attempting to accomplish.”
I moved to the section of the backup navigation console that the AI had indicated earlier. I saw immediately that the primary interface’s logic board had been splatted with what looked to be metal from a nearby but unrelated system. I pulled the board and began to rummage through the other systems to see if there wasn’t a serviceable spare I could steal… kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
“First, you need to understand,” the AI continued. “that if this force follows the standard operating procedures used by the Mahanaim… the purpose of this reconnaissance force will not be to evaluate the strength of your space-based defenses. It will be to land shock troops and determine the degree to which the general populace will resist enslavement.
“As the Defiler reconnaissance force passed the Gilboa, sensors determined that the Skip Drive damping field was only directed forward. This was likely a result of the losses their small fleet took during their brief engagement with the Gilboa.”
I was still digesting what the Jabesh AI was sharing. It had never occurred to me that the Defilers were going to try to land troops. Somehow repairing the Skip drive was going to help stop the Defilers… at least this group of them in their tracks.
I pointed to the control panel I had just repaired.
“The Gilboa is too banged up to risk a jump. She’s just as likely… as not… to blow up when she reenters normal space…” Suddenly I knew the Jabesh’s plan.
2100.1207.2071 Galactic Normalized Time
Ish-Boshet reviewed the data stream sent over for his analysis by Eshbaal. A significant portion of the advance fleet had been damaged, disabled or destroyed. The data suggested that t
he Galactic Order was now utilizing more advanced technology. These enhancements were still not on par with what the cabal was fielding, but it did introduce several additional considerations that must be factored into the battle plan. Where had these enhancements come from? Why was a single ship with inferior armament able to decimate the reconnaissance force?
Chapter 26: Epilog… A Dog’s Ultimate Sacrifice
“You want her to blow up. You plan to rig her to explode! A series of four quantum fusion reactors going critical at the same time would be enough to destroy a small planetoid… something the size of Ceres even,” I whispered. “You plan to use the skip drive to jump into the middle of them and then detonate the ship… if it doesn’t do it on its own.”
Arquat shook his head. He was continuing to work on the damaged interface to the what-ever-the-hell-it-was on the other side of the room. He now had all three repair-bots working with him.
“I cannot. My programming forbids me from willfully taking a sentient life.”
“Then…”
“The choice to make this sacrifice must be yours… and yours alone.”
Remember that thing I said earlier about ‘No Pressure?’ I was mistaken. My newest, bestest AI buddy had one additional gem of good news to share with me.
“…and you have less than ten minutes to make your decision. Longer than that and the enemy’s ships will be too far dispersed to ensure they all are effectively dealt with.”
Yeah… no pressure.
***
Eight and a half minutes later a light, twenty-eight times brighter than the sun, flared briefly. The source of that light was an explosion. The explosion represented the last full measure of service of a starship known as the Gilboa. She died as she lived… fighting to save others.
The force of the explosion shattered six other starships. Ships loaded with foot soldiers in a war that had yet to truly begin. The seventh ship, the one with the commanding general aboard had been spared the wrath of the Gilboa’s fiery demise.