“I have it, Captain.”
“Fire when ready.”
“Firing,” Gāo said. “Torpedoes away.”
We watched on the main viewscreen as the torpedoes shot through the darkness of space, their secondary rocket boosters igniting when they had moved an appropriate distance away.
“Target locked,” Gāo advised. “Aquila has released countermeasures.”
We held our breath as the distance between the torpedos and the Anderson Universal vessel before us closed.
“One got through, Captain!” Gāo crowed. “His communication array has been damaged.”
“I would have preferred destroyed, Lieutenant,” Sophia said dryly. “But I’ll accept a slap across the face.”
Several of the crew chuckled.
“Captain,” Corvus said. “I do not understand. Why his communication array?”
Sophia stared out at the beams of energy arcing through deep space between us and said softly, “Justice, Corvus. He can’t communicate with anyone else now, can he?”
“Yes, Captain,” Corvus said, a note of awe apparent in her voice.
I was thinking ‘communicate’ was a euphemism for something else, but Sophia knew that saying the word aloud would only make Corvus remember Aquila’s attack.
I was thankful at that moment that Corvus couldn’t remember the phoenix.
“Distance closing, Captain,” Sokolov said. “We’ll be in close range in ten seconds.”
“Acknowledged,” Sophia said. “Target his main boost thrust this time, Lieutenant Gāo,” she added.
“Main boost thrust. Aye, Captain,” Gāo said.
“We’re taking heavy damage to the port nacelle,” I advised. “Engineering reports main boost thrust at 73%.”
“Hold steady,” Sophia ordered, as the ship rotated on a tight axis, trying to disperse Aquila’s energy strikes.
“66%, Captain,” I offered.
“Hold.”
“50%.”
I watched as Sophia gripped her armrests so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
“Now, Lieutenant!” she said to Gāo.
“Torpedoes away!” Gāo advised as the ship slid past its adversary, taking heavy damage to the port side.
“We’re venting air,” I advised. “Deck B. Repair bots have been sent to contain the leak.”
“Did we cause him damage?” Sophia asked.
“Scanning now, Captain,” Oleksiy advised. “Information is coming back. Stand by.”
“Bring us about, Sokolov,” Sophia ordered. “Prepare for another strafing run if need be.”
“He’s limping, ma’am!” Oleksiy practically shouted. “Damage to Aquila’s main boost thrust; he’s manoeuvring on auxiliary thrust only.”
“Outstanding,” Sophia said. “Wide beam ping of the system, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, Captain,” Oleksiy replied.
“Get me a damage report,” Sophia ordered.
“Compiling now, Captain,” I said. “Through to your station.”
“Thank you, Saitō.”
Sophia winced when she saw the damage we’d sustained.
“Get us out of here, Sokolov,” she said. “One hundred kilometres should do it.”
“Aye-aye, Captain. One hundred klicks above the elliptic.”
“Anything, Oleksiy?” she asked.
“Maybe. Its hard to say, Captain. I think the fleet might be in the asteroid belt.”
Sophia arched her brow but didn’t comment.
“Captain!” Gāo said. “I see movement on Aquila.”
“On Aquila?” she queried.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s…I don’t know what it is, Captain. But it’s broken free and heading our way.”
“Shuttles?” Sophia asked, looking at Kulik.
Kulik studied his screen.
“Hard to say. Definitely not stealth. And they’re clumped too close together to get a good lock.”
“If there’s a chance some of the passengers or crew have used Aquila’s distraction to mount an escape,” Sophia said, “then I don’t want to lose them. Reverse course, Sokolov.”
“Aye-aye, Captain. Reversing course.”
“Do we know how many yet?” she asked.
“I’m counting twenty,” Oleksiy said.
“I concur,” Kulik offered.
“Corvus, advise medical,” Sophia announced. “They may need attention.”
“Medical advised, Captain. Dr Lin is preparing a crew to meet them in Shuttle Bay Alpha.”
“Very good,” Sophia said sitting back. Her eyes flicked over to my station, and she grinned at me.
I couldn’t help grinning back.
“Captain,” Gāo said tentatively.
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I think I register a weapons lock.”
“You think? Be sure, man. Is it Aquila?”
“No, ma’am.”
Sophia’s head swung back around to face the viewscreen and the approaching shuttles.
“Do we have life signs yet?” she asked carefully.
Oleksiy paled. “No life signs. They’re being controlled remotely.”
“Captain,” Gāo said. “Definitely weapons lock. I’m picking up twenty armed warheads.”
“Shit,” someone said.
“Evasive manoeuvres,” Sophia announced, voice dead calm.
But inside, like us, she would have been shaking.
Alarms rang out across the bridge in the next heartbeat, as the torpedoes locked onto their target.
“Hold off on countermeasures until the last second,” Sophia ordered.
“Yes, Captain,” Gāo replied, sounding uncertain.
“Do we flee to the asteroid belt again?” Kulik enquired, standing resolutely at the captain’s side.
“No time,” Sophia said, shaking her head. “How’s our main boost thrust, Lieutenant Lebedev?”
“It’s at 43%, Captain,” the chief advised from the gel wall. “I wouldn’t place any bets on us outrunning those warheads.”
“Understood,” Sophia said quietly. “Ship-wide hail, Corvus.”
Sophia looked ill. Too pale to be healthy. Her face was stoic. Her breaths were even. But a faint sheen of perspiration coated her forehead. She didn’t wipe at it, but she would have been aware it was there. Kulik pointedly didn’t glance in her direction. I couldn’t stop staring.
“You are on the wall, Captain,” Corvus said.
I closed my eyes.
“This is Captain Anderson,” Sophia said, pitching her voice to carry. She sounded steady. Sure. She sounded like an experienced commanding officer. “Brace. Brace. Brace,” she said. “Multiple impacts pending. Bridge out.”
The gel wall darkened, and we turned our attention to the viewscreen and the oncoming threats. Too many to count, although we knew there were twenty warheads. The shuttles had to have been doctored by Aquila, as AU shuttles didn’t normally carry torpedoes. They were designed to ferry passengers and crew. They had plasma guns, but not enough power for energy cannons. And housing warheads in such close proximity to people was insane in any universe.
But there they were. Twenty torpedoes locked and loaded.
“Countermeasures on my mark,” Sophia said. “Brace for impact.”
We all gripped our consoles, as Lieutenant Gāo kept one hand ready to fire on the captain’s command. I held my breath. Watched those torpedoes get closer and closer. Wondered what was going through Corvus’ head.
The phoenix had felt pain. Did she when the ship was hit?
“Mark,” Sophia said, and Gāo punched his console screen.
“Countermeasures away, Captain!” he said.
It was up to God now, and He had abandoned humanity a long time ago. I wasn’t so sure that He had much left to say.
“Two down!” Gāo advised. “Four, five, eight! Thirteen torpedoes have exploded at eighty klicks, Captain.”
Sophia nodded. We held on. Thirteen torpedoes taken out by our counterme
asures left seven flying inexorably closer.
“Fire energy cannons,” Sophia advised.
“Firing,” Gāo confirmed.
“Brace,” she said, her voice hard.
The impact of the torpedoes could be felt through the deck. The ship groaned, even as explosions could be heard throughout the vessel. The alarms intensified across the bridge as the vessel rocked and lurched around us. Lieutenant Sokolov held onto the flight controls by the seat of his pants.
“Damage report!” Sophia shouted above the mayhem.
“Main boost thrust is down,” Lebedev yelled through sparks and bangs and pops and hisses in engineering. “Auxiliary at 50%.”
“Damage sustained to Decks B through F,” I added. “Medical reports casualties are high in the habitats.”
“I’ve lost helm,” Sokolov shouted, making my stomach plummet. “We’re on an intercept course with two of the shuttles.”
“Use the auxiliary thrusters,” Sophia ordered.
“There won’t be time.”
“Then turn them into dust,” Sophia growled.
“Firing,” Gāo immediately said. “Plasma only, Captain. We’re down to 3% on the energy cannons.”
“I don’t care what you use, Lieutenant Gāo. Throw flotsam at them if you have to. But get those shuttles out of our path.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We watched as the shuttles just sat there, suspended in the black; waiting. It was as if Aquila was laughing at us. He might be as dead in the water as we seemed to be, but he still wanted the last word.
One of the shuttles exploded. The vessel simply crumbling in on itself as the plasma connected with its core. Debris from that detonation flung out in every direction, some of it hitting the second shuttle. It pushed it out of position, which was just enough for Sokolov, using what was left of the auxiliary thrusters, to skim past it, scraping our starboard side and making the ship screech defiantly.
“Come about,” Sophia ordered.
“Ah, yes, Captain,” Sokolov said, clearly having to push the auxiliaries to their limits and struggling to make the manoeuvre anything less than a floundering motion.
“Target his engines,” she advised.
“Auxiliaries engines targeted,” Gāo said.
“Fire!”
We watched as the plasma shot across space between us, the distance too far now to be a surprise. Aquila, although equally as damaged as us, simply shifted position; making the plasma shot skim his underside.
Sophia curled a fist and said, “Cease fire.”
We sat there, staring across the space between us. What was left of the shuttles lined up like a receiving line. Neither ship moved. Then the shuttles locked their plasma guns on us and alarms started ringing.
“Evasive manoeuvres,” Sophia shouted. “Get us to that asteroid belt.”
I could tell the order cost her something.
“Aye-aye, Captain,” Sokolov said quietly.
We couldn’t outrun them; not with only auxiliary power. Which was why I wasn’t surprised when Sophia said, “Chief. Get me my main boost thrust back.”
“Working on it, Captain. Five minutes.”
“We don’t have five minutes, Chief. We have one.”
“Three minutes!”
“Faster, Chief. Twenty bucks says you can do it in one.”
Lebedev laughed. It was bordering on hysterical. But he simply said, “I’ll try my best.”
It wasn’t exactly what Sophia wanted to hear.
“Show him our belly, Sokolov,” she said a moment later. The order was met with a heavy silence.
Then Sokolov swallowed and said, “Belly up, ma’am.”
Kulik glanced across at the captain. Understanding and respect on his austere face. It wasn’t the sort of command any captain would want to make. Our lowest decks housed civilians. But in order to prevent damage to vital areas of the ship, such as engineering where we needed main boost thrust in action, Sophia had chosen to present an alternate target.
Deck H. Habitat Three. The pay-for-passages.
“Advise medical, Corvus,” she said quietly.
“Medical advised,” Corvus replied just as quietly back.
The plasma started hitting us thirty seconds later. Gāo kept up a continuing barrage in return. He hit some. They hit us more.
We took the hits, knowing we were losing lives, and I watched Sophia become stone before us.
“Captain,” Kulik said softly. I have no idea what he was about to say. Maybe that we couldn’t take too much more. Maybe that it had been an honour. I don’t know. We’ll never know.
Because Oleksiy suddenly shouted, “Contact! I have multiple contacts entering the system via the jump point. Captain,” she said, turning and looking at Sophia, face flushed. “It’s Pavo, ma’am. It’s the Sector Two Fleet. They’ve caught up.”
Thirty-Seven
Are You Mad?
Sophia
We watched, as on the viewscreen ship after ship after ship appeared at the jump point. I stopped counting at ten because that was all I needed to know. The Sector One and Two Fleets were travelling in convoy.
“I can’t identify Vela, ma’am,” Oleksiy said. “But I’m counting fifteen Earth vessels.”
“I concur,” Kulik offered. He glanced across the deck to me.
“Interesting,” I said. He nodded. “Corvus, how’s our fleet-wide comms coming?”
“I have almost completed it,” she said.
“Completed?” I glanced back at Leo.
“Corvus has a plan,” he offered, wincing.
“I have a plan,” Corvus announced with something akin to cockiness.
I didn’t have time to comment on that, as Gāo said, “Shuttles have ceased firing, Captain.”
I looked back at the viewscreen, noting that Pavo and another vessel I couldn’t quite identify, had shifted to cover the fleet of vessels behind them.
Everybody looked at everybody else. Without comms, it was hard to tell what they were thinking.
“Are we sure Aquila can’t contact them?” I asked.
“He won’t have had time to repair his communications array yet,” Leo offered.
“It was damaged not destroyed, Lieutenant Commander,” I countered.
“Aquila is on the move,” Oleksiy advised. “Vectoring.” She looked at me a moment later. “He’s heading toward the Sector One and Two Fleets, ma’am.”
“Are his weapons locked?”
“Negative, Captain.”
“Cease firing,” I said a moment later. This was not looking good.
“Aye-aye, ma’am,” Gāo confirmed immediately.
We waited for the shuttles to power up their guns again, but they simply floated in space as if they’d been severally damaged.
“He’s playing possum,” I whispered, pushing up from my command chair and walking closer to the main viewscreen. “He’s going to pretend we’re the aggressors.”
“He wants Pavo and the fleets on his side,” Kulik agreed.
“Damn that is cunning,” Gāo muttered.
“Corvus,” I called. “We need open comms with Pavo.”
“I know, Captain. And I am working on it. But systems are failing across the board, and it’s either comms or life support at present. I picked breathing, because, duh! Humans.”
I spun on my heel and stared at Saitō.
“Anything you can do to help our mouthy child, Leo?” I enquired.
He blinked at me. The rest of the bridge blinked at me.
Then he sighed.
“I’ll do my best, Captain,” he muttered. “Show me what you’ve got so far on comms, Corvus.”
“I like you, Leo,” she said. “I really do. But this is above your pay grade.”
“I beg your pardon?” he said.
“You’re pretty swish with computer code, Leo,” Corvus said. “But what I’ve designed here will be a little hard for you to grasp.”
Leo did not look impressed.
“Show it to me,” he ordered.
“All right. But don’t take it too hard. Oh, and it’s not quite finished. So, no sticky fingers. Do NOT hit the big red button! OK?”
“Is she for real?” Lieutenant Bahl at navigation asked.
“Damned if I know,” Gāo muttered. “But I like her.”
“Gentlemen,” I said steadily.
“Ma’am,” they both replied, ducking their heads.
Leo whistled when whatever Corvus had been working on appeared on his console.
“Keep an eye on those ships, Oleksiy,” I said, walking across the bridge toward Leo’s station. “All of them.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” she replied, returning her attention to the scans.
“Stand by weapons, Gāo,” I added, coming alongside Leo. “Let’s not take anything for granted.”
“Standing by weapons, ma’am, aye.”
“What have you got?” I asked Leo.
“Something spectacular,” he replied. “And, admittedly, incomprehensible.”
“You mean, she was right? You can’t grasp it?”
Leo scowled and offered me a brief glare. I grinned, making sure only he could see it.
“Laugh it up,” he quipped. “But our kid has graduated high school and skipped university. It’s safe to say; she’s outstripped her parents.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said, looking down at the code. A second later, I whistled.
Leo snorted softly at my side.
In the middle of a tense standoff, having made decisions that led to lost lives, I felt at peace. I felt like laughing. And not hysterical laughter, either, but the true, happy kind. The sort of laughter that only spills out when your insides are fluttering with butterflies, and your mind is filled with hope and dreams being realised.
Part of me still thought it was wrong, or that it wouldn’t last. But part of me didn’t care. Not when Leo flicked a glance in my direction and grinned from ear to ear. The bridge was busy, no doubt waiting for our verdict. But they had enough to keep them occupied. It was just him and me in this little corner of our universe.
But it felt like my world had expanded and limitless possibilities had opened up all around me. And the nexus of it all was right there at my side. Hair mussed with the untold number of head scratches he would have executed today. Dark eyes sparkling with humour and a type of familiarity I had only ever dreamed about in the past. An officer who was more than part of my command.
Right Ascension (The Sector Fleet, Book 3) Page 18