Emwan

by Dain White

  “Janis, can I change this priority?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Very well, I need a firing solution on Master 81 now, please, route everything after that shot.”

  “It is done, Captain,” she replied smartly.

  I took a moment to reflect on the projection.

  “I can understand why you’re concerned about this,” I replied with a nod. Her projection showed more than a few remaining vessels fleeing.

  “I am not concerned, sir,” she replied brightly.

  “Are you calling me a liar, my dear?”

  “Yes, Captain, I suppose that I am. I hope that doesn’t cause you any concern. Your decisions are immeasurably better than my own, and while I may have identified probable negative outcomes about your approach, you are our Captain. Your decision is not the right one, sir; it is the only one, as far as I am concerned.”

  I replied with a bit of a smug smile. “That’s mighty appreciative of you, my dear, but I am not infallible.”

  As before, I was running out of time to chat. “Let’s go with the original route, and mix it up as best as we can, holding them here. How are repairs coming, Janis?”

  “Sir, I am nearly complete in the bridge, but I am afraid until I am able to assess the damage in our topside coolant harness, we will not have effective cooling in this compartment.”

  “Very well, carry on my dear.”

  I had us lined up for what was effectively another run, though we were definitely facing less ships at this point, especially with Yak and Shorty giving them hell. I hoped most of the remaining vessels were support, but I could tell that wasn’t the case.

  As we burned for our next intercept, I counted four destroyers remaining in close formation with their remaining carrier, seven cruisers, and a huge amount of light attack craft. More than I had time to count.

  I shut my eyes for a moment and tried to count from memory, but gave up. It was impossible, there were too many.

  They were not waiting around, either. A sizable armada was burning for an intercept on us, firing as they came. I held to our course, as it kept us dancing around their aiming point, but it was a respectable volume of fire. At our current range, it was doing little more than giving away their positions, and their current opinion of us.

  Well, I didn’t much like them either.

  Chapter 11

  08242614@02:32 Jane Short

  “He’s getting pretty far away, Jane,” Yak called over, as we both raced through a flight of smaller ships, stalking a cruiser that was itself on the flank of a destroyer.

  “The plan looks like it changed a bit, Yak,” I replied quietly.

  “They all do, at some point. I guess if you need someone to come up with a new plan, Captain Smith would be a logical choice.”

  “That’s the truth, Marine,” I replied softly. “All the same, I think we should try to get back on his flanks, don’t you?”

  “Yup. Should we blast this pig and jet?”

  I grinned. We might as well. “Light him up, on my target. Firing!” I called back, and started pounding the wasp-waisted thin section amidships of the cruiser ahead of us. It didn’t take long before it was shredded, and I shifted to the bow section, watching Yak’s focus change at almost the same time.

  The ship had hardly started to break apart before we shifted our focus on the destroyer behind it. On the flank as we were, it had no chance, and we rapidly took the upper hand and started to work on destruction in earnest.

  As good as the armor on these destroyers was, it just wasn’t designed for this sort of assault. It was designed around defense of high-mass penetrator rounds, most likely, and had the same sort of ultra-high viscosity thixotropic coating as the smaller ships – just much thicker.

  It seemed to hold well at first, but as our rounds continued to pound it, eventually it popped, and the damage from that point was ferocious. It was obvious there were some airtight compartments left in some of these hulks, but the ships were killed when we were done, nonetheless.

  As we worked our way along the dorsal ridge of the destroyer, I wondered what it must be like for these things to be trapped in the burning, fused wreckage of a dark ship, cut off, alone.

  I guess when it came right down to it, the fact that I was causing such horrendous suffering and death just didn’t bother me, not with these things.

  Secondary fire from active turrets were still chasing us as we continued our run across the destroyer, and there were more than a few fighters joining the fray, but our work was about done here.

  “Looking good here, Yak.”

  “Yeah, that’s affirm,” he called back.

  I sent him my best guess for an intercept. “How’s that look?”

  “Looks good, Jane. Let’s jet.”

  We hurtled away from the destroyer at max speed, and maximum stealth, chasing each other as fast as we could go.

  “There’s a juicy target there, Jane.”

  I looked over at the cruiser, burning towards the ruined destroyer behind us, and we both saw the exposed flank of the carrier beyond.

  “Tempting, Yak, tempting,” I replied softly. “My main concern with that is we’d expose our route and telegraph our intentions here.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. If there’s no ‘B’ on their route, how can they logically go from ‘A’ to ‘C’?”

  I smiled. “Yeah, exactly…. we let this one go, and stay on mission here.”

  “Is this our mission?”

  I shrugged, as we hurtled on. He had a point.

  “It is now, Yak.”

  “Copy that. You know… since we’re now making stuff up as we go along, we might as well consider overshooting this rendezvous a little bit, and get the drop on that other destroyer, start a little bit of chaos in their ranks before the Captain arrives.”

  I tried my best to look at the big picture. This is why I loved guns. They are elegant, simple machines with a well-defined purpose. I could clean them, calibrate them, repair and maintain them, and I didn’t need to have some sort of grand plan to use them, and bury myself in tactics and analysis.

  “I don’t know, Yak. Tell you what. Let’s get into position, and wait until they engage the Archaea, then ambush. Hold our initiative, and work to a position to take out that cruiser as well.”

  “That’s why we pay you the big money.”

  I laughed. “We get paid?”

  He laughed in reply. “Well, we did get some steak.”

  That sobered me up a bit. That wasn’t very long ago, but at the same time, it felt like a lifetime ago.

  “You think we can do this, Jane?” he asked suddenly in a quiet, serious tone.

  I sighed, watching the formations ahead of us shift. We were about to be in a pretty bad place.

  “I don’t know, Yak, honestly. I have a lot of faith in these suits, but… I just don’t know.”

  “Well…” he trailed off for a moment. “I want you to know Jane, I really couldn’t imagine being out here with anyone else.”

  A choking sob burst out of me, and for a moment, I allowed myself to be that little girl inside that wanted to cry when the world got sad.

  “You’re the best there is, Yak,” I finally choked out.

  “Damn straight,” he replied with a chuckle.

  I laughed as my eyes swam in blurry tears. I had never wanted to shoot someone more in my life.

  08242614@02:44 Steven Pauline

  I was more scared than I have ever been. I was keenly aware of every moment, as if it was being indelibly burned into my memory by sheer power of mental overload. I was petrified, and yet, somehow, I was functioning at some wildly terrified but effective level.

  We were in a terrible situation. I knew the captain knew it. He had been quiet for some time now, and as we continued our press into the fray, we both kept getting grimmer. Janis had an assembler working on the helium systems in the topside tunnel, but it didn’t look like it would be enough; we were running out of time
.

  “Pauli, can we pull heat using gun deck enviro?”

  I shrugged, or shivered, or maybe both. “Sorry sir, I don’t think it would help. Honestly, it might be a worse idea to vent the gun deck into the bridge.”

  “He’s right, Captain,” Emwan said softly.

  “Janis? Report, please.”

  “Sir, there are hardwired systems in here that have suffered significantly from the heat, but it is repairable.”

  “Very well, please keep me apprised of anything that slows you down. I’ll watch engineering and weapons myself, if you need a second assembler.”

  “Captain, I could repair this a lot faster with a second assembler.”

  “Very well, my dear, give me Gene and Shorty’s screens, and give Pauli my status screens. Pauli, I need you to watch these like an absolute hawk, son. I want you to already be bringing me up to speed on something that is about to turn yellow. No pressure, but if you fail, we all die.”

  I blinked at him for a moment, too terrified to move my face.

  “Pauli, can you handle this, son?“

  I nodded, and nodded some more, unsure if I even remembered how to talk at this point. The screens had loaded over, and I arranged them like I’d seen him do.

  It looked like the most intricate series of interlinked screens, and probably because that’s what it was. I knew in general what I was looking at, but understanding it was a completely different matter.

  “Son, watch for yellow, that’s all. Be proactive as much as you can, and do your best to memorize everything as you look at it. That’s what I do; it helps me to spot anomalies, if I know what the normal values are.”

  “Are we currently normal, sir?” I squeaked, my voice cracking horrendously.

  “Reasonably, but the Archaea is a living machine, in her own way. These screens are going to change as we run this ship. Values may stay green because they’re well within safe parameters, but there’s a lot of fluctuation even in safe levels, that you need to be aware of.”

  He paused for a moment, and my eyes flicked over to targeting again. We were heading into my worst dreams.

  “Engineering torus is going to show a bunch of oscillations as we fire, stepper rings in the main gun in the Weapons panel are going to go slightly yellow, sort of an off-green color, but that is normal. Let’s see. When we’re taking fire, keep a weather eye on enviro, naturally.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Captain,” I replied, somewhat reassured by the sheer quantity of green I was seeing on the various screens.

  “Just don’t get complacent, mister. This is serious stuff. Your starship may be the fastest, toughest, most dangerous ship in the Galaxy, but you should always think of it as made of the thinnest soap-bubble membrane, compared to the endless death that waits us on the other side of this little shell.”

  “You’re really freaking me out here sir!” I screeched.

  “Steady on, mister. You’ll do fine. Do your best.”

  “I will,” I said, nodding. What have we gotten ourselves into here? It took a force of will to ignore everything and pay attention. Everything was so chaotic, and seemed completely out of control.

  “Sir, we’re staged on the flank of Master 45, and ready to fly cap,” Shorty called on comms briskly, like it was a perfectly nice day out there, with sunbeams and maybe some damned butterflies all flitting around.

  Either nothing actually scares her, or she’s scared unto death and hiding it incredibly well. Either way, I couldn’t believe my ears. I stared wildly at the blurry green mess on my screens and allowed myself a few moments of complete, total freakout.

  “Pauli, are you out of coffee?”

  “Huh?!” I shrieked, scaring myself even worse.

  “Coffee, son. Do you have some?”

  “Uh…” I quavered, and shook my cup wildly. “Some!”

  “Very well. You may want to just hang on to that. I am not sure when we’re going to get more, and you don’t sound like you need it.”

  My eyes flashed back and forth between my screens and my cup. I reached out for a small sip, and the warmth and flavor had an effect of some sort, though I honestly couldn’t call it calming, to any extent.

  “Shorty, start your attack now on anything corvette and larger. Don’t waste energy on Master 45, we’ll burn that one.”

  “Solid copy, sir,” she called back and pandemonium started in the ships massing around Master 45.

  “Here we go, Pauli,” he replied softly. “Charging.”

  I raised my feet off the floor and tried to hide behind my console.

  “Firing,” he called out, and the heat roasted back, but only for a short moment or two. The enviro unit was making noise, and even though it didn’t feel like it was doing anything, the sound was reassuring.

  “That’s it for Master 45,” he called out, and hauled us towards a frigate that was clearly maneuvering for a shot on us. An incessant hammering started ringing out aft, but it wasn’t shaking the teeth out of my head – at least not yet.

  I watched the remnants of Master 45, slowly spinning in a cloud of debris, sliding past our forward screens as we rotated to line up another shot.

  “How are our systems, son?”

  I started out of my reverie, and realized I didn’t know.

  “Sorry sir, I am looking!” I called back, working through the summary levels. “She’s looking good, sir.”

  “Focus, son.”

  “I will sir,” I replied softly. I tried desperately to ignore the chaos around me, and watched the screens. A sudden blazing beam of light burned right across the bow, leaving glimmering purple afterimages on my eyes. A booming crash rolled through the Archaea.

  I saw it immediately. “Captain, we have yellow on Engineering!”

  “Very well, what systems?”

  I squinted hard against the shaking. “Klystron? Is that a thing?”

  “Yes, son, it is.” He was silent for a moment, clearly looking through the screens. I kept skimming the summary screens as another massive crash rang out, this time considerably closer to the bridge deck, close enough to make my teeth hurt.

  “This is pretty bad luck. Janis, I need an assembler to engineering, immediately.”

  “Engineering, aye sir - I am en route,” she replied immediately.

  The captain sighed ponderously, and took a sip. “You look chilly, Pauli. Think we should turn up the heat in here?”

  I laughed darkly, and stole a glance up at the target moving in.

  “Prepare to fire,” he called out softly.

  “Prepared,” I replied automatically.

  A smashing crash hurled us from the crash bars into oblivion.

  08242614@02:49 Captain Dak Smith

  I heard the sirens and alarms wailing, and knew this wasn’t a dream. I knew I needed to be here… now.

  I opened my eyes and frowned as they stubbornly continued to cross. I breathed hard, forcing air deep into my lungs, trying to oxygenate.

  “Captain, I am firing,” Emwan called out and the sudden blazing fury of heat snapped my senses into the moment, as I cringed in pain.

  “Very… well…” I gritted in reply, shaking my head, trying to move it anywhere but here, where it was being roasted into a screaming crisp.

  “Fire mission is complete, sir,” she replied sweetly. “Captain, may I suggest that you and Steven apply the bactine spray in your med kits?”

  I struggled for a breath in the dense, roasting heat, and nodded while rooting through my kit for the spansule. I felt like a complete grommet.

  “Pauli?”

  “Working on it, Captain,” he replied, and his blurry spot moved slightly.

  I nodded again and almost cried in relief, as the cooling spray landed on my face. We were definitely starting to smell like roasted meat, and my skin felt glassy and smooth to my tentative, probing touch.

  The pain reminded me to just keep my hands to myself.

  “Pauli…” I trailed off, blinking. “Can you see son?�
��

  “No,” he replied simply.

  “Can you see anything?”

  “I see a blur,” he groaned.

  “Is it mostly green?”

  He was quiet for a minute. “Mostly, sir, it looks like we have more problems in engineering.”

  “Janis?”

  “Captain, I have an assembler that is nearing completion of the repairs in the topside array, and another one in Engineering.”

  “What are we looking at here?”

  Pauli called out “klystrons are still yellow, and now we have a few oranges in the reactives screen.”

  “Janis, do you have an estimate for this fix?”

  “I do, Captain. Klystrons will be re-powered in two minutes and thirteen seconds, and the screen dampeners in our main drive system will be operational in three minutes and 52 seconds.”

  I cut the drive immediately. “Em, I need a slip route.”

  “Onscreen, Captain!”

  “What’s wrong, Captain?” Pauli wailed, like an animal caught in a trap. Poor kid, I felt for him, I did.

  “We have a ten stage ion screen, Pauli. Dampeners keep the exothermic reaction from running out of control. At the fusing point of our injectors, we’re slagging our engines without dampeners.”

  He replied with what sounded like a cross between a bark and a sneeze.

  I nodded in reply. “Indeed. It’s not all bad though son. I can still aim, and we’re moving right along through space right now. I hate to sound too cliché, but I do think these critters are hunting us now, and that means we have them right where we want them.”

  I paused to let that sink in, and then continued. “We’re going to be just fine, son. Heck, these are secondary effect sorts of damages. I’d say we’re doing pretty good, considering!”

  The words were hardly out of my throat before I felt the hammering of a ship in close, right over our heads, in fact.

  The bridge was taking an absolute beating.

  “Yak, target!”

  “Copy.”

  The beating suddenly stopped with a mighty crash that shoved me hard into the crash bars and physically moved the Archaea sideways.

  “Danger close!” I bellowed on comms.