by Ryk Brown
“What the hell?” Nathan exclaimed.
“Captain, that debris field, the one around the breach in the battleship’s hull. I’m picking up familiar alloys and composites. They’ve got to be from Scout Three.”
“Did she break up?” Nathan asked. “Maybe it wasn’t a jump. Maybe they managed to detonate their field generators?”
“Doubtful,” Mister Navashee disagreed. “Not enough debris, and not enough blast damage to the battleship. I’m thinking she jumped away pretty much intact, Captain.”
“Then those shuttles are going after her,” Nathan surmised. “Comms, tell Scout Two to track and pursue. Warn him they may be going after Scout Three.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Captain, if Scout Three jumped, that means someone is still on board,” Jessica reminded him.
“Our priority here is to keep Scout Three’s jump drive out of Jung hands,” Nathan said. He looked at Jessica. “You know that as well as anyone, Jess. Besides, Roselle will try to make contact before pulling the trigger. He’s not going to waste any friendly lives unless he doesn’t have a choice.”
“Are you sure about that?” Jessica asked, her eyebrows raised.
Nathan looked at her again. “Actually? No.”
“Holy shit,” Sergeant Arana muttered as he stepped out of the airlock and peered down the empty corridor. “This is too good to be true.”
Telles stepped out of the airlock after checking his tactical display. “Anyone picking up any movement nearby?”
“Nothing on this deck,” Master Sergeant Jahal replied.
“Same here,” Private Colmeany added.
“Three, One. Sitrep,” the commander called over his helmet comms.
“One, Three. Light resistance. We just got past the airlock. We’ve got full pressure here. Going off suit air to conserve.”
“Negative,” Telles ordered. “Everyone stay on suit air as long as you can. There’s got to be a reason they’re falling back.”
“Three, copy.”
“Gas?” Master Sergeant Jahal asked as the other team leaders confirmed the order over the comms.
“Like I said, there’s got to be a reason they all fell back,” the commander replied.
“Let’s move out,” Telles ordered. He continued ahead, his weapon held high and tight against his shoulder, sweeping back and forth as he sidestepped his way down the corridor. His men followed close behind in similar fashion, ready to engage the enemy in the blink of an eye.
“I’m not liking this,” Master Sergeant Jahal muttered. “I’m thinking we should have kept venting compartments, sir.”
“Objection noted,” Telles replied as he continued forward at a brisk but cautious pace. He turned the corner, coming face to face with three armed men. He fired three shots, ducking a single return shot fired by the last man just before the enemy was taken out by the commander’s third shot. The commander continued forward, stepping over the fallen without so much as a glance downward. He had no doubt that his shots had been fatal.
Another corner saw eight more men, some properly outfitted for combat, others simply technicians with guns. The commander and two of his men dealt with them without difficulty, their advance barely slowing during the brief confrontation.
“I’m getting a lot of movement above and below us,” Jahal warned. “You seeing this, Commander?”
“Yeah, I see it.” He held up a closed fist, signaling his team to pause. “Three, One. Sitrep?”
“One, Three. We’ve got lots of movement, coming our way…”
“Five! Heavy contact! Maybe fifty! Taking fire!”
“Three is taking fire! At least thirty targets!”
“Sir, movement on our deck, forward of the next structural bulkhead, about fifty meters ahead,” Private Willette reported.
“Five, One. Fall back, double-time. Get them to chase you aft,” Telles instructed. “Three, drop down to our deck and move starboard. We’ll move port and catch the advancing forces on our deck in a cross fire. Then we’ll both drop down to Five’s deck and pinch those fuckers fore to aft.”
“Three copies! Dropping down to your deck and moving starboard!”
“Five is hauling ass back the way we came!”
Telles gestured to his men to follow him as he turned to his left and headed for the ship’s port side. “Two, One, copy?” he called over his comms as he moved quickly down the corridor. “Two, One?”
“Static charges might be fucking with comms between us and Two, Four, and Six,” Master Sergeant Jahal commented as they followed the commander.
“Aurora, Telles, any contact with Two, Four, and Six?”
“Telles, Aurora. Negative. You’re the only ones we’ve heard from. Message from Porto Santo. They’re regrouping and sending you a few hundred men as quickly as possible.”
Commander Telles turned the corner, opening fire as the targets on his tactical display came into view. He moved across the intersection, taking cover on the far side. He ducked back for a moment and let at least a dozen shots streak past him, several of which ricocheted off the wall next to his head. Several shots bounced back off the wall opposite him, nearly hitting him as they deflected back across the corridor. “Fuck!” He glanced across the intersection at his men, as Private Willette took two ricochets, one in the thigh and the other in his chest armor.
“You okay, Willette?” the commander asked as the enemy fire continued to bounced around the corridors.
“Fucking stings, but I’m still good!”
“Stunners?” Colmeany asked.
“No good!” the commander replied. “Not if they’re wearing pressure suits.”
“How about a few charges?” Sergeant Arana suggested.
A shot rebounded off the opposing wall and grazed the commander’s helmet, causing him to flinch to the left. “Fuck! Worth a try!” He glanced across the intersection as the sergeant started slapping charges together, forming a big ball of explosive material. “Don’t be afraid to be generous, Sergeant!” Telles yelled.
The sergeant handed the mass of explosives to Master Sergeant Jahal. “Just roll it down the corridor at them.”
“Would you mind?” the master sergeant asked, looking across the intersection back at the commander.
Telles leaned back out just enough to return fire with a barrage of his own, taking two more glancing blows to his helmet in the process. “Why the fuck is everyone shooting at my head today?” he grumbled.
Master Sergeant Jahal reached out and rolled the makeshift ball of explosives down the corridor toward the Jung soldiers. It rolled past the first few men tucked into a doorway, coming to rest in the middle of the spread of enemy troops.
“Fire in the hole,” Sergeant Arana announced, a menacing lilt in his voice.
This time, the detonation was not silent. The corridor lit up as bright as a jump flash, and shook violently as the force of the explosion tore apart the deck, the walls, the ceiling, and the bodies of the Jung soldiers. Smoke and flame shot past the intersection, licking around the corners, threatening to burn everything in its path, including the Ghatazhak. The commander stepped back and turned away, feeling the heat of the blast through both his body armor and his assistive undergarment. He held his position for several seconds, face turned away and back to the blast, waiting until the fireball receded. He peeked cautiously back around the corner. The enemy weapons fire had ceased.
“Think you used enough explosives, Arana?”
“You told me to be generous, sir.”
* * *
“Jump complete,” Commander Ellison reported.
“Whattaya got, Weedge?” Captain Roselle asked.
“Nothing fore or aft,” the ensign answered.
“Jump us again,” Roselle ordere
d.
“One light minute, jumping,” the commander replied.
“We gotta be ahead of them, Cap,” Ensign Marka insisted.
“Jump complete.”
“Otherwise we’d pick up their old light,” the ensign continued. “If we’re ahead of them…”
“I know, they’d be traveling faster than their own light,” the captain interrupted. “I had relativistic physics too, Weedge. It ain’t the Jung ships I want to find. I want to find what they’re looking for.”
“Wait,” Ensign Marka said. “I’m picking up something. Five hundred kilometers ahead, two to port and four down. It looks like a debris field. Yup, definitely man-made. Something broke up here, sir.”
“Take us in closer,” Captain Roselle told Commander Ellison, his copilot. “Weedge, send the navcom the coordinates and feed me your opticals.”
“Roger that.”
Captain Roselle looked at the screen on his overhead monitor. The image was distant and poorly lit. “I can’t tell what the hell that is.”
“It’s gotta be Scout Three,” Ensign Marka insisted. “Same alloys, same composites, there’s even a plasma cannon, or at least part of one.”
“What about her field generators?” the captain asked. “Are they intact?”
“Wait one,” the ensign replied. “There are several larger sections of the hull still intact, but I can’t tell what they are yet. We need to move closer. Give me a couple minutes.”
Captain Nash groaned, opening his eyes slowly. It was dark, very dark, and it was cold. He could see stars…distant stars, and nearby glimmers of gray. He was inside something… He was floating.
The maintenance crawler. His mind raced, his eyes opening wider in an effort to see what was around him. He tried to see the controls on the panel directly below the forward window, but it was too dark. He looked at the overhead console, finding the main power switch. He flipped it on, but nothing happened. He flipped again and again, but still nothing.
He stopped and thought for a moment. These things have backup batteries, emergency kits… He thought back to his training in the cramped little things more than a decade ago. He reached down between his legs, opening the top of the partition and pulling out a small box. He pulled it up and held it in front of his face as he opened it, squinting to see through the darkness. He fumbled around in the small box until he felt something familiar, a small plastic tubule. He pulled it out of its holder and bent it between his thumb and first two fingers until it snapped and began to glow. He shook it for several seconds, intensifying the glow.
Ah, light. Glorious light. He looked inside the case, pulling out several more glow sticks and stuffing them in his pocket for later use. The little sticks would give him about thirty minutes of light each. He used the light to search his control console, looking for something, anything that might help him restore power. He needed electrical power. Without it, he had no heat, no comms, and no idea of how much oxygen he had to breathe. The maintenance crawler had CO2 scrubbers, but they required power, as did the heaters.
The debris outside suddenly lit up, reflecting a far-off light source. It wasn’t from any natural light source, Nash was sure of that. They were too far out from Tau Ceti’s sun. It was coming from a ship… But from whose ship? He twisted his torso, struggling to look behind him to see where the light was coming from, but he couldn’t catch a clear view.
Suddenly, the source of light flew right past him, not more than fifty meters away.
“Hahaaaa!” he cried out triumphantly as he saw Scout Two coast by. He pounded on the window and waved his glow stick, but something was wrong. Their engines were burning at considerable power. They were accelerating, and turning hard, and their laser turrets were rotating to point aft.
Then they began to fire.
Something streaked past him, striking a nearby piece of debris and sending it spinning toward him. “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!” He braced himself as the wreckage slammed into the maintenance crawler, causing it to tumble and spin at a slow rate. Then he saw them. Four shuttles… Black hulls with broad red bands along prominent edges… And guns, lots of them, all firing at Scout Two as it turned hard to starboard and pitched up, returning fire.
A sick feeling hit Nash in the pit of his stomach as the maintenance pod continued to rotate and spin. He spotted a large section of the hull, the starboard side, the portion forward of the propulsion section… Right where the starboard jump field generator was located. Oh God, at least one of them is still intact.
“Four of them to starboard!” Ensign Marka reported. “They’re firing rail guns!” he added as the ship shook from the impacts.
“I kinda figured that much out, Weedge,” Captain Roselle said as he brought the ship around. “Garza! Shugart! Target every piece of debris large enough to hold even part of a jump field generator!”
“What about those attack shuttles?” Sergeant Garza replied.
“You let me worry about those fucking shuttles, Flash. You just make sure there’s nothing left for them to recover!”
“Plasma cannons are charged and ready!” Lieutenant Oliver reported.
The ship shook violently as more rail gun slugs tore into their outer hull.
“We’re venting propellant!” the lieutenant reported. “Starboard side! No fires!”
“I’ll have tubes on the first one in five seconds,” Captain Roselle assured them. “Be ready with that escape jump, Commander.”
“I’ve got a firing line!” the lieutenant announced.
“Let them have it, Ollie!” the captain ordered.
“Firing forward tubes!” the lieutenant replied.
“Direct hit!” Ensign Marka reported from Scout Two’s sensor station. “Target destroyed!”
The ship shook even more violently as rail gun slugs peppered the outside of the scout ship, walking across the hull in multiple directions and creating a deafening rumble.
“Fuck! The other three have got us locked!” Ensign Marka warned.
“Escape jump!” the captain ordered.
“Jumping!” the commander replied. “Jump complete.”
“Coming back around,” the captain announced. “Gunners, when we jump back in, target the enemy ships first, get them to turn off of us to avoid your fire. When they do, switch to debris and keep blasting away until there’s nothing bigger than your fist out there!”
“New jump line is one four seven by two one, by four one,” Commander Ellison advised. “Maintain your rate of turn and add four degrees down relative.”
“Mas!” the captain barked as he pushed their nose down four degrees and continued turning. “Send word to the Aurora!”
“Our last two jump comm drones are down, Captain!” the communications tech replied. “They took a beating on that last barrage.”
“What about point-to-point?” the captain asked.
“At this distance, it will take at least five minutes for the signal to reach them, sir.”
“That’ll have to do.”
“Jump line in five seconds,” the commander said. “Think we can last five minutes?”
“Fuck yeah,” Roselle replied confidently.
Captain Nash watched in frustration as three Jung attack shuttles moved into position around his ship’s debris field. He twisted and turned, straining to keep his eye on the events around him within the cramped confines of the tumbling maintenance crawler.
A blue-white flash of light appeared in the distance to his right. A few seconds later, two bolts of red-orange plasma energy streaked toward the debris field from the distant speck that was Scout Two. One of the bolts flew past, missing everything, but the second bolt found one of the Jung attack shuttles, landing a direct hit.
“Yes!” Nash cheered in excitement, as secondary explosions from
the damaged enemy shuttle finished the job. “Give’m hell, Roselle!” Captain Nash’s eyes squinted as brilliant red lights flashed repeatedly from four evenly spaced points on Scout Two’s enlarging hull. Pieces of debris exploded into smaller bits. “Oh fuck,” he gasped in horror as he realized Roselle’s plan. “No, no, no!”
The remaining two attack shuttles turned and accelerated, firing their rail gun turrets at Scout Two as it turned and jumped away.
“Jesus, I gotta get this thing working!” Nash shouted urgently to himself as he started searching frantically for the cause of the maintenance crawler’s lack of electrical power. He continued to glance out the window every now and then, noticing the two shuttles had moved back into the debris field and were approaching one of the larger pieces of rubble. They’re trying to recover a jump field generator, he realized. How much did you tell them, Donny?
Another jump flash, this time from his left. They’re making another attack run, he realized. Both shuttles began to accelerate and maneuver erratically, as a pair of red-orange bolts of plasma energy streaked by, barely missing them. One of the shuttles opened fire on the approaching scout ship, the other shuttle disappeared as it transitioned into FTL flight. More flashes of bright red light appeared on the hull of the approaching scout ship and more debris started exploding around him. “No!” he cried out in desperation, fearing that the next bolt of laser energy from Scout Two’s turrets would find his crawler and end his struggle to survive. The larger piece of debris, the one containing the starboard jump field generator, exploded into hundreds of smaller pieces. “Yes!” he cried out. One down, one to go, he thought as he continued to try to determine the cause of his crawler’s electrical failure. He caught a glimpse of the other shuttle coming out of FTL in the distance, entering in from Scout Two’s port side. It opened fire as Scout Two turned away. Blue-white light quickly enveloped the scout ship, but it did not jump. Instead, its jump fields flickered sporadically in several places, then faded away without ever flashing.