William looked over, “You stopped to pee, didn’t you?”
“Well,” Bobcat walked up and looked at a few of the screens, “If it all goes to shit, I don’t want yellow pants, it’d be embarrassing.”
Marcus looked over, “You peed before getting here, too?”
“Nah,” William started hitting the screens next to Marcus, “we’re bullshitting you.”
“How in the hell,” Marcus asked as he double checked to screens, “are you two not gasping for breath?”
“We pointed out to Bethany Anne that if we ever needed to run somewhere quickly, it would be good if we could actually run,” Bobcat answered, “I suggest using that exact argument, in case you’re wondering.”
“Yes,” Marcus answered, “I think I have enough video proof that running wasn’t good for my health.”
“I’ll tell you what isn’t good for your health,” William moved a screen, confirming the ESD parameters were exactly how they’d been modified after the last testing two weeks ago. “Firing a fucking sun at somebody for the first time. That alone will make you piss in your pants if it doesn’t make you faint right away.”
“Are you shitting me?” Bobcat asked, checking the numbers that William had just reviewed, “C’mon, I’ll bet you three ounces of gold we are standing here after we punch that button.”
“You are speaking metaphorically, right?” Marcus asked.
“What? No, why?” Bobcat asked.
“Because Bethany Anne or Lance has to give the approval. We aren’t punching any buttons,” Marcus answered.
“Well, yeah, I knew that,” Bobcat argued, “I meant when the ESD fires, we will be standing here, with our thumbs up our butts, just fine.”
“I’ll take your three ounces bet,” Marcus answered.
“What? NO!” Bobcat answered, “I’ve changed my mind! We won’t be standing here.”
“Hell no,” William replied, “the bet is the bet, oh wise beer sage.”
“Shit.” Bobcat answered, “Ok, I’ll give you a chance to earn back a little of what you’ve lost.”
The other three engineers, usually the ones to help run the Arti-sun, stood in the back of the room - eyes open in shock listening to Team BMW’s comments as their hands flew over the controls.
“Reynolds!” Bobcat called out.
“Yes, Bahse?”
William bitched, “How the fuck did you get Reynolds to call you boss?”
“I didn’t,” Bobcat replied, smiling.
“I’m not calling him boss, I’m calling him bahse,” Reynolds replied. “Each of you has confirmed all information, are you signing off on the settings?”
“Yes,” Bobcat replied, stepping back from the screen.
“Yes,” William agreed, stepping back.
Marcus was still looking at screens.
“Dude!” Bobcat called out, “Answer the Gott Verdammt question already.”
“Fine!” Marcus grumped, “Yes.” He turned and stepped away from the screen. “Now I can’t see everything I want.”
Bobcat leaned over to Markus, “Just for the record, this still counts as here.”
Marcus looked at his friend and winked.
“Excuse me, sirs?” Arti-sun Engineering Specialist Hui called out from behind the trio. They all turned around, “Sorry! We didn’t say hi when we came in.” Bobcat reached back, hand out, “I’m Bobcat.”
The woman blushed, “Oh, we know who you are,” she answered as she took his hand and gave it a shake, “I was just wondering what ESD means?”
“Yeah, me too,” Marcus asked. “I suppose I can be entrusted with the super-secret name now?”
Bobcat shrugged and looked to Marcus, “Why do you think I know?”
Marcus just stared at his friend.
“Ok, I know. I’m just wondering why you think I know.” Marcus didn’t say anything, just stared more at his friend.
“Wow, playing weird psychic today will be Dr. Acula.” Bobcat murmured before answering Marcus with a smile, “I just asked Bethany Anne.”
“That’s it?” William interrupted, his face annoyed.
“Sure,” Bobcat admitted. “She said I had to tell anyone else who wanted to know they needed to go to her for the answer, but she said if we ever fired it, I was good to say what I know.”
Marcus finally caved, “Well, spit it out then!”
Bobcat winked at the woman, “Eat Shit and Die Beam.”
Everyone’s laughter overwhelmed Marcus’ groans.
Yollin Super-Dreadnought Empires Broken
“Ignore the tiny ships leaving their base,” Captain Drak-ehl stated, “We will make one pass to ravage their ships with a full barrage of missiles. We will drop our shields, fire missiles, shields up and then turn to come close. By then, what remains of their ships will be amassed. From there, it will be a slugfest but,” Captain Drak-ehl stood up and made a large show of looking around space before sitting back down, “they don’t seem to have a capital ship left to fight us with.” He shrugged his shoulders, “That’s such a shame.”
The chuckles on the bridge had continued for a few moments before they all got back to work.
Yollin Super-Dreadnought Bridged-ael
Admiral Thlock-nel had to take over command of the ship from his control room after Captain B’rehk was killed when an explosion caused a fire on the bridge.
He knew the alien’s ship was just as hurt as his own. Neither ship was going to survive this fight. Now, both massive beasts were simply slugging it out. Neither had the capability to move much anymore. If he could get this ship up to twenty percent power with patches out here in the middle of nowhere, he would be damned lucky.
One of the side wings on the other ship was gone, lost in an explosion that had engulfed a good portion of the rear port side. Fighters were flying in and around both ships, trying to do their little pin-pricks and kill each other as the behemoths ignored them.
Well, his ship ignored them, the other ship would shoot them from time to time.
The room rocked, an explosion occurring close by. Thlock-nel looked up and frowned, he had lost three more missile batteries, leaving him now at just over thirty-seven percent offensive weapons.
A fight to the bitter end for sure.
QBS ArchAngel
“This is Acting Chief Engineer Merlins,” the voice called out to the bridge from the speakers, “We’ve lost thirty percent of our people back here, and I need prioritization. Chief Rodriquez and then Acting Chief Kirby were both killed. What do you need?”
ArchAngel flagged all of the options running through her list and then started moving the ship one last time, “Give us everything to forward guns, Chief Engineer. Let’s send these sonsabitches to hell!”
“Roger, ArchAngel.” The people on the bridge kept the communications open and answers flowing, allowing ArchAngel, running above the new AI’s estimated efficiency, to try to keep as many of her crew alive as possible.
However, it wasn’t a question of staying alive, it was a question of whether they were going to defeat the enemy, or not.
Yollin Super-Dreadnought Bridged-ael
“They certainly wouldn’t ram us, would they?” the Admiral said aloud, “Tell the helm to start adjusting, don’t let those parasites ram our ship!”
QBS Minnesota
Admiral Thomas watched the whole battle and could see how it was shaping up, and that they would be victorious.
If the ArchAngel took out the Dreadnought.
He glanced over at the battle and then stopped, staring at his screens. “Get me ArchAngel!”
He waited for the connection.
“Sir?” a voice like Bethany Anne’s replied.
“Tell me you aren’t going to ram him,” the Admiral asked.
“I’m not going to ram him,” the ship replied.
Too damned much like Bethany Anne, he thought.
“Now, tell me the truth. Are you planning to ram that ship?”
“Not a
t the moment, but it is on my list of possibilities,” the AI responded.
“How far down the list?” he asked.
“Next,” she replied before she cut the connection.
“God help them,” Admiral Thomas whispered.
QBS ArchAngel
Acting Chief Engineer Merlins ran to the hacked together connections and looked at them, trying to see if he could fathom what John Rodriquez had done. He had lost two of the shunts in the explosion that killed John and needed to figure out his fucking genius.
“FUCK YEAH!” he screamed as he charged up the steps and grabbed one of the shunts, “Get me some fucking wire!” He yelled as he moved towards power lines 12 and 18. He yanked the dead connections on those that John had used, “Route these to 6 and 24, yester-fucking-day!”
They might be the ones going out in a ball of fireworks right now, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be the only ones.
—
Pilot Julianna Fregin and her wing ducked under the barely-limping ArchAngel and raced ahead to nail two fighters as they came across the top. They shot them from below, their pilots never realizing that the danger hadn’t been lost, it was merely under them, obscured by the alien ship.
Her speaker sparked to life, the voice sounded like the Empress, the volume was turned way up, “EVACUATE! This is the ArchAngel, all ships evacuate this position, or suffer potential destruction in ten, nine, eight…”
“FUCK!” Julianna shoved the controls forward as they darted ahead, trusting that the massive battleship behind her knew what the hell she was talking about.
Yollin Super-Dreadnought Bridged-ael
Admiral Thlock-nel’s eyes opened wide when his screens showed him that all of the alien’s smaller ships were rapidly leaving the local area.
All of the alien’s ships.
If he could have seen outside, he would have turned to stare at the ship battling him, wondering what the hell …
He never finished his thought when the massive beam of energy, powered by the shunts the human had figured out, powered the alien’s guns one last time, blowing the Bridged-ael apart.
Seconds later, the aft engines and engineering area on the ArchAngel exploded, sending debris out behind the ship, forever consigning her to a grave in the Straiphus system unless they figured out a way to move her.
Fully a third of her all-volunteer crew died in that one explosion.
Within a few hours, the remaining Yollin captains capitulated, but the battle was already over once the Bridged-ael had been defeated.
The Battle for the Straiphus system was finished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
QBBS Meredith Reynolds Military Operations Room
“Are you planning on providing a warning?” Lance asked his daughter as she waited for word that everything was where it should be with the ESD Beam. She had allowed Matrix to join her in the Operations Room, and had him on her lap, petting him.
He wasn’t sure if petting Matrix was calming to her or not, but it was certainly calming to Matrix.
He was asleep.
The Yollin attack ships were hours away, so there wasn’t any rush. They had figured out that the massive Super-Dreadnought ship had a shield around those that were in formation alongside it.
“Nope.” Bethany Anne said. A moment later she barked out, “Marshmallows!”
Lance had leaned forward in his chair, to check out her face, wondering if she was having another conversation with the voices in her head. He hoped that she would always be able to handle those conversations in the future. If she happened to succumb to other less tangible voices in her head, how the hell would she know?
“Pardon me?” he asked. She turned and smiled at him.
“Just imagine,” she said, holding her arms wide, “how fucking big the marshmallows you could roast on this beam the guys are going to create? I mean, fuck, probably a marshmallow the size of a football stadium.”
Lance had blinked a couple of times before the chuckles around the Operations room alerted him to what she was doing. He leaned back in his chair and replied, “Yes, but who is going to bake a graham cookie that large?”
“Beats the fuck out of me,” she answered, pointing to herself. “I’m the Empress, I don’t bake.”
“Thank God, we all voted and made that a prerequisite of your Royalty. I recounted your baking effort back in…was it fourth or fifth grade?” he asked.
Bethany Anne turned to him, a small blush on her cheeks, her previous effort to raise the morale in the room forgotten. “You did not!”
The room busted out in laughter.
—
The little probe recorded the Yollin ships heading towards the asteroid station, the asteroid station turning and all of the other ships moving away from the area. What it recorded next caused the little probe to turn around and head back to the gate through which it had arrived.
It needed to find another ship to hitch a ride back through the gate and report.
The fleet needed to stop advancing.
—
Those in the Ixtali ship witnessed the event, but they could not believe it.
One of the three ships that refused to move farther away, when commanded by the alien EI, melted. The other two were far enough away that those inside could be rescued, but their ships and contents were lost. They later tried to file a complaint about the danger they were placed in, and the human who talked with them suggested the punishment for frivolous lawsuits was seven years labor in the Eubos system.
They left peacefully, but they didn’t have anything good to say about the Etheric Empire.
Those on the planet, even those in the daylight, could see the streak across the sky.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds Military Operations Room
“The ESD Beam is ready and operational,” Reynolds spoke.
ADAM?
>> Yes, everything is ready to go.<<
TOM?
Hey, I’m just as anxious that this works as you are. I might be old, but I don’t have a death wish, either.
Ok guys here goes nothing…Well, except the whole bringing a scene from Star Wars into real life…Other than that shit, here goes nothing.
“Meredith, warn all personnel to sit down and strap in. Fire up the warning claxons and let them know it’s happening,” she said.
Breathing deep, Bethany Anne gave the final permission. “Reynolds, under my authority as the Empress of the Etheric Empire, I release permission to fire the ESD Beam at the Yollin fleet heading in this direction.”
All across the inside of the Meredith Reynolds, lights faded. In some areas, such as the crops and livestock, it looked like dark clouds had covered the sun for a little while. Then, what felt like a sonic boom reverberated throughout the asteroid, surprising many of those who had chosen to ignore the warnings.
Arti-sun area
“Why are you sitting down?” Bobcat asked as he watched Marcus sit down when the alarms sounded. The three engineers behind them sat as well. Bobcat turned to see William looking around, then slowing sitting on the floor, his eyes wide. “Oh no!” Bobcat shook his head, “You aren’t getting me to lose this bet by getting all worried. I’m telling you right here, and right now…”
The sonic boom tossed Bobcat from his feet, landing right on his tailbone, his shout of pain making those in the room flinch. When he rolled over, grabbing his ass due to the pain, he noticed his friend staring at him before Marcus said, “I may be sympathetic to your pain, but I still won that bet.”
“Yeah,” Bobcat agreed, “I feel you.” He rubbed harder, “Why the hell didn’t you say that this could happen in the meetings, you ass!”
“I did!” Marcus argued.
“The hell you did,” Bobcat replied, “If there was an earth shattering kaboom mentioned, I would have remembered that shit.”
“I did mention it, the information is on page seven,” Markus countered.
Bobcat grimaced, waiting for the pain to subside, “Sev
en? Page seven?” Marcus nodded and Bobcat raised his voice in frustration, “Page five to nine are all math calculations!”
Marcus nodded, “Right! In the middle of page seven, there are calculations that expressly show the chances of something like this happening are significant.”
Never Surrender (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 16) Page 24