by Mike Smith
“There sure are a lot of them for one cannon,” the Tactical Officer replied dubiously.
“Then the sooner you start, the sooner you will get them all,” Paul snapped back.
*****
“Direct hit,” the Weapons Officer called, seated in the command centre of the orbiting defence station. “Looks like we took out one of their particle cannons.”
Commander Hackett winced as once again the station shook violently, this time unable to avoid spilling his tea onto his uniform trousers. “Blast it, man,” he called out in pain, quickly trying to dab the hot tea away with a tissue before it stained his pants. “Then hurry up and take out the other one!”
The first indication there was a problem was when the gravimetric sensors reported a wormhole forming. After that everything seemed to go to hell. Almost immediately they had lost all external communications and their targeting scanners effectiveness had been reduced by over fifty per cent, for the enemy warship seemed to be broadcasting an extremely powerful electromagnetic jamming signal that was interfering with everything. Hackett had no idea of the status of the other two stations but based on the explosions clearly visible twenty minutes earlier, he assumed at least one of them had already been destroyed, or at least very badly damaged.
Hackett had been momentarily stunned, wondering what could possibly have caused such immense damage. A Titan defence station was supposed to be all but impregnable, and easily capable of holding off a small fleet. Three of them combined should have been sufficient to destroy a Confederation Navy taskforce. Yet, his station had already lost its primary missile battery. Even seated in the very heart of the station the Commander had flinched at the fury of that explosion. Aside from one lucky shot that had destroyed the enemy ship’s particle cannon, so far they had inflicted little damage on the enemy warship. And the enemy ship’s remaining particle cannon was picking off their heavy guns, one-by-one.
“By the Maker,” Hackett shouted angrily, “It’s only one ship, man. What are you playing at? Why can’t you hit it?” And it was true, except for their early success an inordinate percentage of their shots were continually missing the target.
“We cannot help it,” the Weapons Officer replied helplessly. “That ship seems to have some sort of active camouflage system that is confusing our targeting scanners. The scanners are insisting there are multiple contacts. It’s as if there are a dozen ghost ships out there! The targeting computer doesn’t know what to aim at.”
Hackett could only slam his fist down in frustration. Suddenly a thought occurred to him.
*****
Meanwhile the Sunfire was also faring badly. While they fortunately had not lost the second particle cannon, the Tactical Officers comment regarding multiple targets unfortunately was very true. More and more guns on the station were opening fire, as the ship got ever closer. They had already lost multiple point defence guns on the bow, in addition to the armour taking a battering. It was only going to be a matter of time before another unlucky strike did critical damage to the bow of the ship.
“Breaching pods!” The Operations Officer called out. “The station has just launched breaching pods.”
“The Commander of that station is certainty confident, perhaps a little over-confident,” Paul mused aloud. “Destroy—” he started to order before stopping, brow furrowed in thought.
“Wait, are any of those breaching pods targeting the bridge or engineering?”
The operations Officer checked his scanners before replying, “No Captain, most of them are heading towards amid-ships.”
“I wonder…” Paul trailed off, before coming to a decision. “Hold fire.”
“What! Why?” Both the Operations and Tactical Officers called back, in stunned disbelief.
“Let the breaching pods through and prepare to shut down the ship’s main computer.”
At this announcement both Officers looked at the Captain in amazement. The main computer controlled everything on the ship, from the lights and environmental controls, through to the weapons and engines. Neither of them had ever heard of a ship’s main computer being shut down in flight, let alone in combat. This was usually only done when the ship was docked and undergoing maintenance.
“Do it,” Paul insisted urgently. “We need to buy ourselves some time.” Paul tapped into the ship’s internal communication system. “David, get yourself and your men ready, we are about to have uninvited guests. Prepare to repel boarders.”
“Acknowledge Captain. We will be standing by,” David replied, before closing the communications channel.
“Breaching pods have now docked with the Sunfire and are starting to cut through the outer hull,” the operations Officer reported, unable to believe what they were allowing to happen. For the breaching pods were equipped with powerful plasma torches, which could cut through even the thickly armoured hull of a warship, and disembark the numerous troops that were on-board.
“Get ready to shut down the main computer,” Paul ordered, holding his hand up high in readiness. Counting to sixty in his head, Paul let his hand drop. “Now.”
Closing his eyes in prayer the Operations Officer entered the necessary codes to shut down the main computer. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then one-by-one the various consoles on the bridge started to go dark, followed moments later by the lights. The ship suddenly felt very quiet as the life-support systems also fell still. “Main computer shutdown complete,” he whispered.
Paul cocked his head to one-side as if he was listening intently for something. After a few moments he announced with a smile to the astonished bridge-crew. “The station has stopped firing.”
*****
Lance Corporal Warren snapped his pulse rifle up as he stepped onto the enemy vessel, quickly scanning left, and then right but he couldn’t see anybody else. Growling in frustration he activated his communications gear to find out if any more of his squad had made it alive. He snapped the channel closed when all he could hear was static, as the damn ship was still jamming all communications.
Warren promised himself that if he ever made it back to the station alive, he was going to shoot Hackett. Who had come up with the dumb idea of just sticking one marine in each breaching pod, then firing them off towards a fully functioning enemy warship? It was suicide.
Hearing whispered voices behind him, he snapped around, bringing his rifle to bear on—an empty corridor. “Just great. Now I am hearing things too. Could this day get any worse?” he asked rhetorically. It seemed fate was listening to him, as at that moment all the lights on the ship suddenly went out. “Fantastic,” he sighed despairingly, switching on the small flashlight attached to the barrel of his pulse rifle.
More voices behind him caused him to quickly spin around once again, raising his weapon, to an empty and now dark corridor. “Okay, this is starting to really creep me out,” he muttered, deciding to see where the corridor led.
The corridor seemed to go on forever, he was surrounded by the dark, with nothing but his ragged breathing and the occasional whispered voice to keep him company. By the time Warren came to the first door he was so desperate to get out of the corridor he just palmed it open, and slipped inside.
“Damn it’s cold in here,” he cursed, his breath clearly visible in front of him, illuminated by the little light from the torch on his rifle. However, if he had hoped that by stepping out of the corridor the voices would disappear he was sadly mistaken. Instead they seemed to grow in volume and intensity. Warren was not sure if it was his imagination but they now seemed to have an angry hiss to them. Snapping his rifle left, and then right, he still could not see anything, but the voices kept coming closer. Close to panic, he took a step forward, tripped over something and went sprawling to the floor. Fortunately the safety was still engaged on his rifle, otherwise he would probably have blown his own head off.
Having dropped the rifle, damaging the torch, he groped around the floor trying to find both. Instead his hand touched something else
, which was cold and clammy. Jerking his hand away, he finally found the rifle and, hitting the light, had it flickering back to life. Pointing the light down towards his feet, Warren had to bite back a cry of terror at seeing a naked arm, reaching out as if to grasp him. Stumbling back, Warren pointed the torch back along the arm, until it reached the pale, white torso of a naked cadaver. The body was partially zipped up in a body bag, and Warren would swear on his life it looked as if the corpse had been trying to climb out of the bag.
He shone the light around the room, his hands trembling badly. The room was full of bodies. Dozens of them, hundreds of them. The crew were all dead! He stumbled back the way he had come and out into the corridor, mindless with terror. Once he was out of the room, he slammed the door shut, leaning back against it, trying to catch his breath. Cold sweat dripped down his face and his heart was hammering, as if it were trying to escape the confines of his chest.
The next thing he felt was a slight tremor in the door he was leaning against. For a horrifying instant he thought it was somebody banging on the other side of the door—from the inside. However, after a brief fright he realised the sound was not coming from the door, but all around him. Eventually the noise changed pitch to a heavy clanking sound that was slowly growing in volume. Whatever it was, it was coming this way. Snapping up his rifle in the direction of the approaching sound, he tried to make out whatever was causing the noise. However, it was futile, as the light on his rifle barely covered more than a meter or so in front of him. The gloom inside the ship was impenetrable.
As the clanking grew louder, Warren could finally make out a dark shape lumbering down the corridor. It was huge, like some darkly armoured beetle with multiple appendages, and must have been over eight feet tall. The ship had been overrun by some sort of insectoid alien species! No wonder it had not communicated with the station, only attacked. The occupants of the ship were not human! As if the alien had spotted him it lumbered to a halt, it’s glowing red eyes feasting on him hungrily.
“If you would be so good as to lower your weapon, old boy. Face the wall, place your hands on top of your head and spread your legs.”
Why was the alien insectoid speaking in a curt British accent?
Finally everything suddenly became clear, and he realised that it was no alien, but a person in some sort of powered armoured suit. So, instead of following the instructions, he lowered his pulse rifle, aimed at the chest plate and fired. A green bolt of energy shot out, hitting the armour squarely on the chest plate. The bolt fizzled slightly before disappearing. Warren could only gape in disbelief.
“Okay, now it’s my turn. Where is that damn button again, Gunny said it was—oh, here it is,” the curt British voice said.
The next thing Warren knew he was facing down the barrel of the largest rifle he had ever seen. It was not so much a gun as a cannon. Realising what was about to happen he dived to the floor as, with a deafening roar, a blast of heavy shells flew just over his head. The sound was so deafening he dropped his rifle and covered his ears with his hands. Then he was effortlessly picked up off the ground by one arm, the same way a parent might pick up an unruly child.
“You,” the voice continued on, “Are under arrest for trespassing on a ship without permission. You do not have to say anything, but anything that you do say—” The voice droned on conversationally as it carried him away. Warren struggled but to no avail, as the suit had him in a vice-like grip.
*****
“The enemy ship seems to be disabled, and is now adrift.” The Officer reported to Commander Hacket.
“Well, that was easy,” he congratulated his crew. “What do you know, those mercenaries were actually good for something.”
“Shall we cease fire?” The weapons Officer inquired.
“Of course. Of course,” Hackett replied. “After all we do not want to cause any further damage to the ship we have just captured. I am sure Mr Sejanus will be giving us all a nice bonus for this,” he added, wondering how he would spend the money. “Have you been able to contact any of the boarding parties?”
“No Commander, the interference is still affecting communications.”
“Oh well, never mind. Open the docking bay and launch a few shuttles to help secure that ship. We don’t know how many people are on-board after all. It’s possible the mercenaries I dispatched might need some help to subdue the crew.”
“Yes Commander.”
*****
“The station’s guns have stopped,” the Tactical Officer exclaimed, surprised.
“Of course,” Paul replied with far more confidence than he actually felt. “After all, they are not going to shoot at a ship they think they have just captured.”
“So what are we going to do now? We cannot wait here forever.”
“Helm, are we still drifting towards the station?”
“Affirmative Captain, we are still on the heading and travelling at the velocity we were before we shut down the computer. Based on the last navigation data, I estimate we have another three minutes before we pass the station at its closest point.”
“Very well,” Paul said, jumping to his feet and moving towards the tactical station. “This is what we are going to do. Load one of the Mk VI’s into the forward missile battery. As we pass by, at the nearest, point we will launch it.”
“At that range the explosion will do as much damage to us as to the station—possibly more, as we are not as heavily armoured.”
“I didn’t say we will launch it at the station, we will take a page out of Jon’s book. We will launch it into the station,” Paul whirled around pointing at the external hangar bay door to the station, which was slowly creeping open.
“You cannot be serious,” the Tactical Officer said, shocked. “That hangar bay must be barely twenty meters across, no way are we going to hit it first time.”
“I have complete confidence in you,” Paul replied cheerfully, patting the young Officer on the shoulder. “Oh, by the way, you will need to take the shot manually, as we cannot afford to risk alerting the station by bringing the main computer back on-line. However, look on the bright side,” Paul beamed. “If you miss, none of us are going to live long enough to blame you.”
The Tactical Officer went completely white and gave Paul a sickly smile before angrily snatching a datapad from another Officer and quickly entering heading and velocity readings, to calculate the angle of the shot.
Meanwhile Paul resumed his seat, continuing to watch the station creep ever closer.
*****
“Captain, McNeill here. We have just rounded up the last of the stragglers on the ship. What do you want done with them?”
“Good job David. Stick them in an escape pod and when we start our next manoeuvre launch them.”
“Very well Captain. McNeill out.”
“Helm how much longer?” Paul inquired.
“Thirty more seconds until we reach the closest point.”
“Tactical?”
“I’m working on it, sir.” Came back the waspish response.
“Very well, you know—no pressure,” Paul joked.
“Ten seconds,” Helm called out. “Nine, eight, seven, six—”
“Okay, I’ve got it, firing solution manually locked in. The Mk VI is now armed,” the Tactical Officer suddenly said in a rush.
“I have complete faith in you, honestly,” Paul laughed. “Okay, on my command bring the main computer back on-line, full thrust, hard to port. Is everybody ready?”
The bridge crew all acknowledged as the helm Officer continued the countdown. “Four, three, two, one.”
“Mark,” Paul insisted loudly, as the consoles on the bridge flickered back to life at the same time as the lights came on. Paul could feel himself being pushed back into his seat as the internal dampeners struggled to compensate for the sudden violent manoeuvre.
“Missile away!” Shouted the Tactical Officer over the scream of stressed bulkheads, as the large warship powered itself away fr
om the station.
“Shit. It’s going to miss,” the Tactical Officer cursed helplessly.
Paul quickly glanced back at the view screen, watching the missile fly straight and true, but just a little high. It was indeed going to miss the docking bay, overshooting by a couple of meters. Paul just closed his eyes cursing. Remembering his family back on Terra Nova, wishing he had one last chance to say goodbye to them—
With a shout of glee from the bridge crew, Paul snapped his eyes open, once again gluing them to the view-screen, wondering what had excited the crew, as the missile was still going to miss. Then he saw it. Something was departing from the station, a shuttle. Paul watched open-mouthed with astonishment as the missile and the shuttle collided. The missile, failing to detonate, scraped the underside of the shuttle, knocking it off course. However, Newton’s third law of motion, ‘for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’, came into play. For while the shuttle was knocked off course, the missile was knocked back on course, disappearing from view into the docking bay. Slapping the ship-wide intercom Paul ordered the crew, “Brace for impact.”
*****
Hackett could only stare in astonishment as, with lips glued to his teacup, he tracked the missile on the view-screen with his eyes. Only moments before the enemy ship had been dark, adrift in space, dead. Then, as if with a dying breath, the sole missile had ignited from the bow of the ship. In the darkness of space the missile was soon lost, but the glow from the rocket engine was clearly visible, like a flare, as it arced away from the ship, into the dark night.