by Dain White
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, however. The occasional hit would slam us hard against the crash bars and occasionally jolt my head hard enough to make me squint double for a while, but all in all, we were in a pretty decent place considering our current situation.
Our enemy was clearly at the precipice of giving up, though it was clear now that they had fallen into my trap, and were now motivated more by blood and revenge than common sense. A wise commander facing these losses would have pulled their flagship out of the system by now, which made me think either they weren’t all that smart, or they felt that this was a winnable situation for them
I took a sip, and surreptitiously looked for some wood to knock. My biggest enemy is my own confidence, despite it being my best asset at times. There was nothing gained in making assumptions about these critters, and only everything to lose.
In an instant, I went from being confidently dismissive on their capabilities, to second-guessing every move we were making here. The closer we got to the carrier, the harder it was going to be to dodge their primary weapons, and the last thing we needed, was to absorb any more of those shots.
The closer we got, the less we’d be able to do of either.
I ran through their formations, filtered to remove vessels corvette-class and below, watching with no small measure of admiration at their envelopment.
The more I looked at the way they were arraying their forces to defend the flank, using smaller vessels to harry us like a pack of carnivores, it became apparent what was happening.
We were being herded.
“Em, it looks like our hand might be getting forced here. Any way we can take the initiative?”
“Please remain on your current route, sir,” she replied in an incredibly soothing, slightly husky contralto that made me want to go put on my robe and slippers and spend the rest of the cruise relaxing in my bunk.
“Well I appreciate your confidence, but are you seeing this, Em?” I called back, highlighting some of the areas of concern I had, how Masters 57 and 81 were burning closer, but always pushing for our flanks, and maintaining their course even as ours continued to oscillate in a rough spiral. “They look like they’re going where we’re going to be, rather than chasing where we are.”
“That is correct sir. Our current flight profile is intended to evoke that specific response. Master 57 and 81 are lining up for a withering flank attack, and in doing so they will be off position.”
I nodded, seeing her point. “That’s definitely what it looks like to me - - but they’re still going to be directly on our flank.”
“Please remain confident, sir. This is crucial to our success.”
I snorted. “My confidence is legendary, my dear, I just want to make sure we’re considering everything here.”
“This is going to get worse, before it gets better sir,” she replied softly. “We will see this through, however.”
Another booming crash hurled us to the side, and Pauli’s screens flashed orange.
“Sir, gimbals are offline!” he called out, confirming what I had just discovered in the controls.
“We are dead stick here,” I called back, frantically swiping through screens to see if I could understand what was happening.
“Sir, it looks like power to the gyros has crashed,” he called. “All power forward of ring 30 is out.”
A pit opened up in my stomach, as the ramifications of what had just happened started to bloom like a dark plant of fear in the fertile soil of my imagination.
I swiped back over to targeting, and my worst fears were realized.
“We don’t have gravimetrics,” I replied in a quiet voice, but it was worse than that. Comms were down, targeting was down, and pseudomass was offline.
I dialed back our current burn rate, as we were suddenly being crushed in the deadly embrace of simple physics, without gravity compensation. I felt my eyeballs squishing, so I continued to ease off the main drives until I could see again.
“Janis, I need a damage report,” I called out, as one assembler slid into the aft lock, lit by the amber lights at the end of the companionway ramp.
Her reply was immediate, and businesslike. “I am inspecting the damaged section, sir, and will have more information momentarily.”
I pulled a ghost of the status screens to my side screen and frowned at the myriad yellows, oranges, and clusters of red status indicators. Another crashing boom echoed through the Archaea, clearly audible even through the screaming of the machinery.
I started to say something else, but it was clear the situation was rapidly slipping out of my control.
08242614@03:38 Jane Short
“Captain?” I called on comms in a voice that sounded like the tired, scared little girl I was.
The Archaea was getting hit almost continually now by the furious beams lancing into space around us from the carrier, and while it was still accelerating, the captain had cut the burn significantly.
“Comms are dead, Jane,” Yak called back.
A moaning wail started coming out of my throat, and it scared me that it was a sound I was making, so feral and savage it sounded.
“We have to do something, Yak!” I screamed back.
“We need to stay on task, Jane.”
“Damn, damn, damn!” I keened, in a mantra of frustration and rage. I vaporized an incoming fighter that was burning for a course correction and gimbal lock, shifted fire to another that came out of nowhere to my left and was caught by the hammering turrets of a third that appeared on my flank.
I spun wildly in a barrage of sparks and flashing impact, unable to do anything other than scream and cry and wait until the bitter end.
08242614@03:39 Steven Pauline
Captain Smith caught my eye, and looked as grim as I had ever seen him. I suddenly felt nauseous and tried to swallow the sudden lump in my throat.
I felt tears on my cheeks, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it, I was beyond my ability to maintain a façade at that point.
“Captain, the main trunk line at ring 30 has been severed due to a failure in the superstructure. I am going to need both assemblers to fix this.”
A crashing smash hurled us both into oblivion momentarily, and when I opened my eyes, the room was full of smoke and alarms were blaring.
“Janis, can you get me power to gyros?”
“One moment, sir”
“We don’t have many of those left,” he replied.
“I agree, sir.”
Another violent shove hammered me into the side of my console, and it felt like my arm snapped on the edge. A scream burst out of my lips like the steam from a boiling kettle.
“Pauli, report!” Captain Smith called in a concerned voice.
I gasped, reeling from a sickening pain searing through the center of my arm like a shard of white-hot glass being twisted. I fought for air and, finally managed to scream, “My arm!”
“Is it broken?”
I cried piteously, unable to catch my breath, unable to stop, I wanted to move my arm, but it was impossible. I held it gingerly in front of me, while I shook violently sideways from another impact, worse than the first.
“Hang in there son,” he called out, looking at me intently. “We…” he trailed off.
I was beyond pain, my tears pouring out of my eyes like a flood. The sickening spikes of pain when I moved my arm suddenly screamed, and I screamed myself hoarse from the pain.
“This is going to hurt, Steven,” Janis said softly, and I realized an assembler was currently on my console and holding me immobile, while another arm inexorably pulled my arm away from my side.
“What?” I shrieked, in utter agony that rose up around me like a black curtain as she pulled my arm suddenly and forcefully. I wanted nothing more than to drift away into sleep, letting this nightmare go on without me, but the pain was immense and undeniable.
I screamed and screamed, as she did something with my arm out of sight, and then suddenly, it w
as over and a warm numbing sensation started to pulse and throb through my arm.
“I am so sorry, Steven,” she replied in a voice heavy with concern and care, and the assembler moved rapidly out of view behind me.
“How are you doing son?”
I had a hitching sob that was completely uncontrollable that made it impossible to speak. I am not sure he would have been able to hear me anyway, as a sudden cacophony of impacts hammered overhead.
Blinking away the tears and trying to get my breath back, I couldn’t see my screens, couldn’t move my arm, and couldn’t talk. I was about as useless as I could be.
“Very well son, take some time and get under control. It’s a nice cast she fixed you up with.”
I pulled my arm into sight and blinked at it. For some strange reason, I now had an air cast on my forearm, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why.
08242614@03:43 Captain Dak Smith
“Captain, I can’t repair this with a single assembler,” Janis called up on comms.
I thought for a moment and looked around Engineering. A small electrical fire had been extinguished in a junction box on the forward bulkhead, but the acrid smoke remained, lit by the caution lights of what seemed like a million systems I didn’t understand, all of which were on the verge of failure, or actively failing.
“Task another one to assist, Janis, we need power to maneuver, or we are going to die,” I replied flatly, as the ship shook from stem to stern from a titanic blast that made my eyeballs vibrate.
“I agree, sir.”
“We can start fixing… some of this, maybe. We’ll hold the fort down, anyway, and put out fires – but get it done, Janis, we are out of time.”
“I will, sir,” she replied in a curiously emotionless voice.
Our situation was beyond desperate. I had no idea what our enemy was doing or where they were – but clearly they were using this opportunity to pound us as hard as they could.
Almost against my will, I started thinking pretty seriously about my life and the good and bad things I’ve done in my time among the living. I had no more schemes, no more plans, nothing left to hope for, or to look forward to.
I had made a difference once, but this was clearly not going to be one of those moments.
And then suddenly, at the end of it all, everything changed.
“Captain, I’m here!” Emwan called out happily.
Chapter 13
08242614@03:46 Shaun Onebull
Jane was twisting and turning through the arcing streams of turret fire, and I chased her as she flew like an angel of death through the calamity and chaos around us. I could feel a sticky wetness from my right side, and was clearly bleeding inside my suit, but I held her line onscreen and did my best to hold position on her flank, as we swept out and around the Archaea, and back across to a large frigate that had just moved into a solid flank.
We both opened fire at roughly the same time. I focused on the turrets that tracked our positions while Jane pounded the ridge structure we had both decided was most likely the bridge. We might have been wrong, but the ships went dead and stopped maneuvering once we removed the ridge, so it didn’t much matter to us at the end of the day.
Another frigate had moved in to the opposite flank, and I was about to break off and get to work on it, when a sudden cataclysmic explosion tore deeply into the vessel and cracked it in two.
“I found you, Jane!” Emwan called out on comms suddenly, and we saw the crab screaming into the fight, her guns ripping holes through space and leaving total destruction in her wake.
“Em!” Jane shrieked in surprise. “There’s something wrong with the Archaea!”
Her reply was soft, and comforting. “I know, Jane. We need to act now. It’s time to end this.”
She fired again and again into the frigate until it was left spinning and ruined in our wake, and fell into formation with us. Our target list suddenly shifted, and I noted that that our focus was now on the carrier, looming like a giant manta-ray in the distance.
“Comms are down,” I called out. “Are you in contact with the Captain?”
“I am not, Yak, but I am confident they are doing fine,” she replied smartly. “We’re still tracking very closely to an optimal solution, and I know Janis and I are doing everything we can to help the Captain – but we can no longer afford to maintain a defensive posture. We need to press the attack, now.”
“That’s a-firm,” I replied grimly. “How are you holding up, Jane?”
“Don’t worry about me, Yak. I’m solid.”
I grunted involuntarily as a random shot came out of nowhere and pounded hard into my shoulder blade, spinning me forward out of control momentarily.
“Stop getting hit,” she chided.
“Pain hurts,” I replied laconically, though the pain was excruciating, and sharp. I was still alive, though, so what didn’t kill me made me incredibly angry.
“Jane, Yak, please note target change. I have indicated the location of their teleport system, however, note this is a well-shielded compartment, and without the Archaea’s help, it will take a focused effort from all of us to render it inoperable.”
The point defense systems on the carrier were formidable, to say the least. As soon as we dropped the hammer, they’d drop the hammer right back. None of us wanted to be the nail.
“We need to keep moving,” I called out. “We can’t slow down, or that carrier will tear us apart.”
“Yak is correct,” Emwan replied softly, as we slipped silently through layers and layers of defensive formations towards the carrier.
“Please let me draw the initial priority on their target queue. Once I have been engaged, hopefully I will pull enough fire to protect you.”
“But what about you, Em?” Jane asked.
“Nothing here can hurt the crab, Jane,” she replied confidently.
That was a mighty bold statement. I followed the volume of fire streaming past us, and involuntarily saw the Archaea, completely enveloped.
“Oh Jane…” I trailed off with a dry swallow.
“I know, Yak. We can’t fail here.”
“And we will not fail, Jane,” Emwan said earnestly. “Stay on course, and stay on target.”
She paused for a moment.
“Ready?”
I watched the bulk of the carrier slowly blot out the stars underneath us, dark except for the occasional blinding flash of actinic blue from beams blazing forth from the main guns.
“Good to go,” Jane replied quietly.
“Ooh-rah,” I said with a sneer.
This was it.
08242614@03:51 Steven Pauline
“Pressure loss in coolant!” I screamed, the latest of many status lights going yellow.
“Very well,” Captain Smith yelled back. “Let me know if it continues to drop!”
The turbines on the pumps were screaming, and in an almost detached manner, I noticed a small electrical fire burning along a conduit running along the side of my console. I shook my head to clear it, to try and focus.
We were in a pretty bad way. The Archaea was dying, one system at a time.
Another screaming klaxon joined the terrible symphony of wailing alarms, whining turbines, and a deep hammering sound that had started a few moments earlier.
“Pauli, report!”
“Pressure drop forward of bridge lock, sir,” I yelled.
“Again?” he asked.
We had pressure for a short while again on the bridge, but the wailing alarm and the flashing red on my screen told a different story. We were losing hull integrity, and had too many faults in the power harness to the hull to maintain an effective charge state.
“Sir, gyros will be operational again in sixty seconds,” Janis replied.
“Very well, how soon until comms and gravimetrics are online?
“Captain, I need to focus on distribution. I am afraid we have too many faults in our starboard array.”
“Pauli, is thi
s true?”
I searched the set for distribution and brought up the correct panel. “She’s right, Captain.”
“This is more important?”
“Captain, if we are unable to maintain a sufficient hull charge, the results would be catastrophic.”
He let that sink in for a bit.
“Very well, as you were. It won’t be the first time I flew dead stick. Luckily, our target is fat and slow.”
My senses reeled, but I didn’t have the energy left to panic to the amount I thought the situation deserved.
“Helm is responding, secure for maneuvers,” Captain Smith called out as he hauled us over hard, pinning my poor arm beneath me.
“Pauli, see what you can do about that fire, would you?”
I shoved myself off the console enough to get my arm free, and looked. The little fire I remembered seeing a million years ago was now spreading tendrils and sheets across the bulkhead amid billowing smoke.
“Fire!” I yelled, slapping at the switch panel on the conduit junction to the side of my console until the sparking stopped.
“That ought to do it,” he called back. “Don’t worry about the extinguisher, son. With the ignition source gone, it ought to just burn out now.”
I nodded, and fell back into the crash bars again as another blast punched us hard directly under our feet. I was probably imagining things, but it looked like the deck plates flexed from the impact.
Another screaming wail from Gene’s station added to the chaos, but I couldn’t see anything new on the status screens to account for it.
“On target in fifteen seconds… any idea where the kids are, Em?”
“Captain, it is impossible to determine their current position, but I am extremely confident they will shortly engage in a direct attack on the teleport systems on the carrier.”
“That’s a pretty specific sort of guess.”
“All the same, I am worried it may not be enough. We may need to assist, given the mass of the carrier.”