by Drew Avera
"That's not supposed to be there, Ivanov said under his breath. "Sir, we paused the drill to do a perimeter scan, but the hologram is still showing up on our starboard side from two different sensor arrays. If it was just one I would think it was a glitch, but I don't know how both sensors could detect the same thing…"
"Unless it was really there," Chief Werner finished. "Sir, I think we have a problem."
As the chief's words fell from his lips, a torpedo launched from the belly of the holographic ship, but this time the realness of the vessel was evident. The PDCs came to life, their report causing the deck beneath their feet to vibrate. The sensation crept up their bodies, making their teeth rattle. The close proximity of the vessel gave few opportunities to evade the warhead’s concussion as it exploded less than thirty meters from the hull of the Cassowary. The detonation made the lights on the ship flicker and it was clear by the now dim lighting that the emergency generators had come online.
"Primary power is offline, Captain," Ivanov said.
"What systems have we lost?" he replied.
The young man scrolled through the bank of screens, taking notes on the screen. "Offensive weapons are down, point defense countermeasures are down, primary drives are degraded, and comms are down, sir," Ivanov said.
"What the hell? Get damage control on it. Chief, contact security and have them standby in case this ship tries to take advantage of us."
"Aye, sir," Chief Werner said as he stepped off the bridge and disappeared down the narrow, dark passageway.
"The rest of you," Captain Olafssen said. "Do whatever you can to restore some functionality to this ship. I don't care what parameters you have to bypass—get it done. We can always correct deficiencies later."
A chorus of "aye, sir" sounded on the bridge as the small crew began working. Tom kept an eye on the monitor and noted the ship drifting towards the Cassowary. There was nothing they could do to evade with the primary drive degraded and all necessary power being routed to life support, but if nothing else, he knew he could monitor the situation and hope he could restore the PDCs before they were able to breach the ship.
"Any idea who that is?" Captain Olafssen asked Tom.
"No, sir, but I can try to search the hull number in the database. We still have our ship's server functional."
"Do it. Any information we can use is helpful," the older man said, not bothering to mask his weariness.
Tom’s search took only moments. "That hull number corresponds to a ship called the Liminality,” he said, “It used to be a frigate, but based on the number of weapon mounts I see on the image, I would say she was heavily modified, sir."
"I agree. It's definitely pirates, and this group is damned good. Keep working on the PDCs. If we have to, we will light their asses on fire at close proximity. It might burn a hole in our hull, but we can seal off the starboard side if we have to. These bastards aren't taking my ship."
"Yes, sir," Tom replied. His heart raced as he went back to work because the name of the ship was familiar to him. Liminality was a name he'd heard since he was six years old and his mother dragged him kicking and screaming away from his father. The terror in her eyes as his father said he would find and kill her still haunted Tom to this day. As did the memory of what happened next. My father is on that ship, he thought, and there's no way I'm letting him take the Cass.
He fumbled with the circuit breakers, pulling them out and pushing them in one at a time, but each time the circuit failed to come online. "Damn," he hissed under his breath. He felt the seconds ticking loudly in his mind, and each time he failed, he looked back at the monitor as the Liminality slowly drifted closer. It was only ten meters out when Chief Werner returned.
"Security is standing by, sir."
"Very well. Based on their position, I think they will be breaching us from the aft airlock near the cargo hold. Have a team assemble there," the captain ordered. "Have two armed men stationed here when you return, Chief. I want to seal off the bridge in case they make it through our small force."
"Aye, sir," Chief Werner said as he wiped sweat from his brow and ran back down the darkened passageway.
"Where are we on system repairs?" Olafssen asked as he paced behind the crew on the bridge.
"Everything is still down or degraded, sir," Ivanov replied. "Honestly, I think we have a better chance of getting the drive online with a hard reset, but that will leave us without electrical power and life support for five minutes."
Captain Olafssen wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "That ship will be here in five minutes. Is there another way, Ivanov?"
Ivanov shrugged. "Reboot and skip the startup checks, but if anything is out of parameters, then we risk causing an emergency shutdown, which the computers controls. We would be dead in the dark until we could troubleshoot the issue."
Olafssen nodded. "It's a risk we will have to take. I want to outrun these bastards if I don't have the weapons to light them up. We know who they are, so we can come back for them later. Get on it."
"Aye, sir," Ivanov said, the look of dread on his face telling Tom the man did not like the prospect of what the was about to do, but it was an order and arguing it would waste more time. They could only hope the drive rebooted without any damage.
With nothing more he could do, Tom leaned back in his seat as the primary drive shut down, causing even the dim emergency lighting to go out momentarily. Tom counted three breaths before the sound of power coursing through the ship returned with flickering lights coming back to life.
"Thirty seconds and we should have power to the drive, sir."
"Very well, everyone, get strapped in," Captain Olafssen said as he grabbed the ship's comm, trying to speak into it, but realized that the comms were down. He released it and let it dangle as he pulled his shoulder straps over his body before grabbing hold of it again.
Chief Werner returned with two armed guards as the primary drive restored power to the rest of the bridge. "The security force is waiting at the airlock, sir."
Captain Olafssen nodded. "Let's hope they won't be necessary. Murphee, get us out of here."
"Aye, sir," Ensign Murphee said, taking hold of the controls and shifting them forward. The ship lurched, sending everyone back to their seats. Chief Werner and the two security men braced themselves against the bulkhead, the grim look of straining to maintain consciousness on their faces.
The Cassowary pushed forward, but the drives were not fully-functional and the speeds were only one-thirds of what they were capable of. At least we're moving, Tom thought, hoping his anxiety would fall away as they escaped the grip of the Liminality. But the pirate ship followed, blasting magnetic grappling cables towards the Cassowary that were more typically used for salvaging dead vessels in space.
One of them latched onto the Cass, causing it to drag the Liminality behind it.
"Shake them off," Captain Olafssen shouted.
The ship banked hard left into a roll, and the standing crew members on the bridge grabbed the consoles nearest them. Tom strained to maintain his balance and to keep from falling out of his seat while papers and supplies clattered to the deck. I should've strapped in like the captain said, he thought as he pulled one shoulder harness over himself, buckling it into place.
"Maintain our position," the captain ordered. When Tom looked at him he could see the redness of the captain's face growing bolder. He could only imagine the stress the old man was under to cause his face to flush in such a deep hue. "We're not going to let them take us, understand?"
There were only a few grunts of acknowledgment to what the captain said. Tom pulled the other shoulder strap over his body and buckled it into place, then focused on the task at hand: getting the PDCs back online and functional. "Come on, come on," he whispered under his breath as his fingers scrolled across the screen. "Why the fuck aren't you lighting off?"
"Status report on the PDCs," Chief Werner shouted from the other side of the bridge. Tom looked over at him, his eyes
wide and pleading for more time. He assumed the blank expression on his face told the chief all he needed to know, that the PDCs were still down and they were fucked. "Fix it!"
Tom nodded, sucking in a deep breath, hoping he could deliver on time. The last thing they needed was to be boarded by a pirate vessel.
"Chief," the captain said as he gripped the armrest of his chair in his right hand. "How in the hell did we get into this situation? This is supposed to be a training mission preceding our rendezvous with Victronas III. No one was supposed to know we were out here, much less pirates."
"I have no idea, sir," Werner replied. "But we're going to get the better of them, sir. You can bet your life on that."
Tom winced at the chief’s choice of words
On the screen, the crew watched as the pirate ship drew closer. Without PDCs, the Cassowary was vulnerable to the well-armed vessel. The small security force stationed in the cargo bay was their last line of defense if the Cass could not break free from their hold.
"Increase speed," the captain said to Murphee.
"I have her opened all the way up, sir. I'm just not able to get the drive to engage properly. This is the best we can do." Fear dripped from the ensign's voice as he spoke. Fueling the desperation Tom felt as the enemy closed in.
"What's the status on my PDCs?"
"Still down, sir," Tom replied, bringing his hand to the console to continue his attempt to reset the circuit breakers and hope for the best. It didn't work.
"Damn it to hell," Chief Werner snapped. "Let me try." Werner shoved Tom out of the way and knelt onto the deck and ran his hands over the circuit breaker panel. He pulled each one out and pushed it back in after counting to three. Tom watched curiously, hoping it would work, but knowing if it did that it would make him look bad in front of the captain. He knew there were more important things at stake at the moment as he peered back at the screen and their coming death. "Fuck," Werner said under his breath as both men looked at the monitor and saw the PDCs still did not register on the display.
"I'm sorry, Chief," Tom said, slightly relieved the problem didn't lie with him but still feeling the burden of failure.
"Keep trying, son."
"Roger that," Tom replied as he sat back in his seat and fumbled with the breakers.
As he looked away, the ship pitched nose down, causing him to slide out of his seat and slam onto the deck, hitting his forehead on the console hard enough to cause a knot to form right away.
"Status?" Olafssen shouted.
"They detonated a torpedo outside of our aft airlock and they knocked out our drive, sir," Murphee said. "We lost thrust and are only traveling forward based on our momentum. The harder they try to reel us in, the slower we will get until it is too late."
"Chief, lock down the bridge," Captain Olafssen ordered.
"Aye, sir," Werner replied, nodding to the two security personnel standing by the door. The two men closed off the space and typed in a security code that would not allow it to be opened unless the captain overrode the code.
The sense of confinement made Tom nervous. Knowing he was sealed in a room with no way of escaping made him nauseous even more than the idea his ship was about to be boarded by men intent on killing them. Maybe it's the fact I can't do anything about either situation and the confinement feels more immediate.
"Murphee, try to roll out and bank to the port side. Maybe we can break free from them," Captain Olafssen said, crossing his arms and staring at the screen.
Murphee acted on the order, but the frown on his face let everyone know it was futile. "Sir, the thrusters aren't providing enough torque to break free."
Olafssen rose from his seat and paced the room. Each step sounded to Tom like his heart thudding as the pirate vessel closed in. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but this fight cannot be won using the ship. Everything is down and the only way to win is to hope our armed forces in the cargo bay can stand up to them." The sound of defeat in his voice increased the heavy shadow over the already diminished morale on the bridge.
As the Liminality drew closer, the nose of the ship disappeared from the screen and the shake caused by the two ships mating to one another reverberated throughout the ship. "Standby," Chief Werner said solemnly. "We aren't giving this ship up without a fight."
The mumbling of the crew trapped on the bridge left much to be desired, Tom thought. But what can you expect when the worst-case scenario becomes your reality?
They waited as the pirates on the other side of the airlock prepared to breach the ship. How they went from a training mission to a full-scale assault was beyond Tom, but there he was, his heart pounding in his chest. The terrifying part of it was how and why the pirate ship looked familiar. It can't be, Tom thought.
"Prepare to be boarded, gentlemen," Captain Olafssen said. Tom watched as the captain paced nervously in the middle of the bridge. "Perhaps if we don't start any trouble then they’ll take what they came for and leave the crew intact."
Unfortunately, if Tom's assumption was true about who the ship belonged to, then there was no pleasantry that could protect the crew of the Cassowary.
The sound of gunfire outside the bridge froze Tom's blood. The muffled blasts in the door third of bodies hitting the deck made him feel as if Death was coming for him. "Do we have any means of protection in here?"
Chief Werner rested his hand on Tom's shoulder, "this is a no weapons zone," he replied. "The regulation is there to protect the captain."
Captain Olafssen scoffed. "Well, a hell of a lot of good it's doing," he snapped. "Brace the door," the captain ordered.
As two men scurried towards the door, it blasted open, sending them flying through the air, falling unconscious onto their backs.
"Hands where I can see them," a man said with his gun extended towards the group of people on the bridge. "Nobody has to get hurt, so long as we get what we're here after." He turned and nodded towards two other people standing outside the bridge. Both of them had their faces covered with masks, but Tom could see their eyes—cobalt blue like the people where he was from. That just made his heart sink further.
"So, who is the captain of this rust bucket?"
Captain Olafssen stepped forward, his hands lifted as if to show that he was not threatening. "That would be me," he answered.
Tom sat nervously as the pirate whom he thought was his father walked onto the bridge. His face was obscured, but he saw the cold, green eyes of the man he once called "Dad". "Get strapped in, gentlemen. If anyone moves, you're dead." The man's voice was low and authoritative, just as it was when he threatened to kill Tom's mother.
"What's the meaning of this?" Captain Olafssen asked. "Don't you know we're on a relief mission?"
"I did know that," the pirate said. "And that relief is coming to us." He gestured to his friends while holding his gun level to the captain's face.
"We have nothing to offer you. It’s just rations for the Victronas III," Olafssen said.
"Well, it's your lucky day. All I want is the cargo, so if you let us have it, you get to keep your ship, you and your crew alive. If you get in my way, you'll be the first one we toss out of the airlock."
"Hello, beautiful," another man said as he entered the bridge. He had a gun in each hand and his eyes were narrowed into slits as he stared at the trembling members of the crew. "You know, I really thought it was going to be harder to get here, but this shit just gets easier with time, I guess. Don't you think, Jon?" The sound of his father's name made Tom flinch.
"I'll say," he replied. "Come on in, boys."
Tom watched as half a dozen men entered the bridge behind their leader. His father's voice was hauntingly familiar and it made his heart sink. He shrank back, hoping to hide behind Chief Werner, but he was noticed.
"No no," his father said. "No one moves, or I'll blow your goddamn brains out." The man tapped the barrel end of his gun against the captain’s temple, taunting him. "I'd really hate to see how messy this beautiful ship will
get splattered with all your blood." The other men in his company began laughing almost to the point of making Tom's stomach turn.
Tom shrunk back in fear, lowering his face and hoping the man would not recognize him after so many years. It was a long shot. Men like Jon Frater had the capability to terrify people with nothing more than a glance; for Tom, it was a lifetime of feeling afraid of his father that made him feel this way. It was a torment forged in blood and it haunted him for as long as he could remember. He supposed he should have his mother to thing for that, but he couldn't bring himself to think like that. But there were other thoughts coursing through his mind and none of them were the kinds of thoughts that would make his captain very happy.
"We don't need any bloodshed here today, fellas," Chief Werner interjected. His response was met with a swift punch to his face, knocking him to the deck, the sound of his body slapping against the surface echoed in the room.
The laughter continued.
"Maybe it's time you guys get with the program. Shut the fuck up and give me the controls to your fucking ship. Do you understand?" Frater shifted on his feet, his weapons dangling near their holsters mockingly.
"I'm not just going to give you the controls of my ship," Captain Olafssen said.
"No?" Jon replied. "Maybe if I put a bullet in one of your sailors' heads, it will change your mind?" He pulled one of the women from the crew and pressed the barrel of his gun against her temple. She whimpered but otherwise did not make any sound. Tom suspected it was because she was afraid that the man would pull the trigger.
"There's no need for that," the captain replied. "I'll give you what you want, but please don't hurt any of my people." The old man shifted to the side, pointing towards the console where the pirates could control the ship. From Tom's perspective, it looked like they were giving up. In his experience from listening to his father's stories, that meant they were dead.