Emwan
Page 35
“It’s incredibly fun, Jane. Clearly, you like flying in your suit, right?”
“Oh yeah,” I crowed. “Flying is the ultimate.”
“I find it positively the most exhilarating experience, Jane. I feel more physically alive, if that makes sense. I have physicality in my experience that is completely different from the experience I have through the Unet.”
“That makes perfect sense, Em,” I called back, watching Yak pull up casually, ten seconds ahead of the clock.
“Ready?” Yak called out.
“Ready,” Emwan replied.
“Ready,” I called out, “Firing.”
Our shots blasted again, this time punching solid into the depths of the hull. Through the ragged craters and twisted sections, the burned out blasted layers of decking, our impacts were annihilating everything in range from shrapnel and secondary effect. We were not only punching deep, we were punching pretty damned hard.
Suddenly, a brilliant green flash seared into my eyeballs, and continued to burn even more brightly, brilliantly glaring through my completely filtered screens. For a moment, it was brighter than I could handle, then, sudden darkness.
The final rounds from the turrets across the upper ridge of the vessel raced off into the starry night, and at that moment, we realized the carrier was dead, but we knew it wasn’t going to stay that way.
We made the most of a quiet moment and paced the hull, heading for the next gun. Above us was pure pandemonium, but I suddenly realized the deck was empty.
We had been picking our way through streaking blurs of light-fighters that constantly buzzed along the deck, but now it felt even more quiet and dark.
From my screens it was clear a lot of smaller targets were jumping somewhere, but I couldn’t tell where. I scanned gravimetrics to the limit of my range, but they were just… leaving.
As we skimmed the quiet hull I started to worry a bit about it, but there was still more than enough to worry about in the sky.
Or at least I thought there was.
Looking up as I reached the next gun, it was clear there were also far less corvettes now overhead, with even more winking out of existence as I watched.
I already wasn’t feeling so good about getting beaten by Yak to this gun, but I felt a lot worse thinking our target might be fixing to flee for parts unknown.
To top it off, while we waited for the remaining moments on the timer to tick slowly away, I watched the Archaea helplessly, with a growing lump in my throat as the remaining destroyer and its retinue of remora-like cruisers poured fire into the sky, while Captain Smith spiraled and twisted through the furiously flashing blasts.
And then just as suddenly, the sky filled up with outgoing ordinance as the turrets returned to life.
We hung there motionless, huddled in the midst of the chaos unfolding above, waiting for the timer to count down a few more remaining moments, moments that felt like years.
I took a last quick scan of the sky, and my breath caught in my throat as I realized that the smaller ships in the area were all but gone.
The clock was infuriating, maddening. I wanted to just open up on this gun and go back to work on turrets, I wanted to do anything, but sit here and wait for the gun below us to charge and destroy everything and everyone that I loved. We were out of time, and this was suddenly feeling like an inevitable end.
“Shorty, come in,” Captain Smith’s drawling voice crackled out on comms, like he was hanging out at the beach somewhere far away, somewhere that wasn’t enveloped in a nearly solid, continual stream of detonations.
My heart broke, and I burst into tears.
08242614@04:20 Captain Dak Smith
“Shorty, come in,” I repeated, braced against what felt like a giant paint shaker that had picked up the Archaea and tossed it deep into a giant can.
“I am never making popcorn again,” Pauli whined. “Now I know what it feels like to be popped.”
I laughed a bit more maniacally than I expected. “I don’t think it will help our current situation, son. Can you think of something more helpful?”
“I have you five-by-five, Captain,” Shorty called back on comms, matching my swagger with aplomb, sounding like she was out for a nice stroll somewhere.
“Where are you?” I replied smartly, knowing it didn’t matter how I sounded, I was still suddenly sounding just like the blubbering village idiot in a cheap novel.
“You don’t have us on track?”
“No… not yet... we have, ah… I guess you’d call it math, on our screens. We are only able to see targets based on their impact, so I am deliberately flying a little more conservatively than I normally would.
“Captain, be advised, we are tracking zero small targets at this time. How copy?”
I can’t say I wasn’t terribly excited to hear that, especially with our targeting down, but fundamentally, smaller ships were not our concern.
We needed to finish this fight, and the target clock was running out.
“Solid copy, shortest… listen, I need you to fall back now. Engage other vessels, and right smartly if you please.”
“Falling back, Captain. Our target is now Master 92.”
“Very well,” I called back, and took a brief, longing look at my completely cold, deeply dusted coffee cup, shaking against the clamps.
I was on final approach, when she called back.
“Interrogative, sir?”
“Send it,” I replied, channeling a grimy master sergeant on a dusty trail. Shorty might not realize it, but grunts were pretty entertaining.
“We might be able to neutralize their weaponry, sir.”
I had thought about this approach. There were still hundreds of smaller ships out there somewhere, and Pauli’s screens were glowing mostly orange with some nasty reddish spots I was trying hard not to notice.
I took a breath, and replied softly, “Shorty, these things fundamentally don’t deserve to live. They would kill you without a moment’s hesitation, right?”
“They would eat me without hesitation, sir.”
“Gross. Let’s stay on topic here, I am mighty hungry.”
“Me too sir,” she replied.
I held my current arc, watching the track of a long cruiser as it slowly occulted the carrier. The moment to fire was rapidly approaching.
“Shorty, I hate it when anything dies unnecessarily. You know I’ve spent my entire career defending and protecting lives, putting myself in danger so that others do not have to sacrifice.”
I paused for a moment.
“As I see it, these things literally represent the end of humanity. As a species, we simply have nothing militarily that can meet these things in open combat… except us. This is not only our job to do… we are literally the only ones who can do it.”
Her reply was terse, and immediate.
“Captain, please don’t misunderstand me. I am not at all adverse to killing every last one of these things, and I’ll take as many of them as I can. I only wanted you to know we might have other options. I felt that you might appreciate it.”
I smiled. “I understand Jane, and you are absolutely correct. I do appreciate having options, and who knows, this ship might just pack it in here in the next few moments and it’ll end up being the only option.”
I gritted my teeth through a solid hammering hail of impacts that sounded like they were about to come through the bulkhead lockers.
“Shorty, if these were humans, even completely feral, I might actually entertain the thought, but they’re not. They are clearly not people in any sense. In this regard, my will is set, and I will have this shot. I will see this through, and then we will all finally have some triple-be-damned lunch, and a nap.”
Yak called back, “Captain, I am actually pretty full of damn at the moment. Can I have one of your private beers instead?”
“Probably not,” I called back with a smile, lining up the shot, and doing my best to firmly put food and drink out of my mind.
At least it seemed like we were aiming at the same general area. Hopefully, between my memory, this crazy impact math, a lot of simulation, no coffee and a meticulously lined up shot, we would be close enough.
The long cruiser was sliding into my shot perfectly.
“Are you clear, kids?”
“Clear sir, we’re burning hot for Master 92 and closing fast.”
“Very well, firing,” I said without any additional hesitation, and punched the shot. Coolant levels were creeping dangerously low, but it looked like our current pressure was still handling the energy transfer. Gene would have absolutely hated the beating my lovely ship was getting.
“I’m going to turn it off for a moment Pauli, or we won’t have a bridge to go back to,” I called out, and banked the shot. I didn’t have a bridge temp anymore, so that wasn’t a good sign, but at least we were only sweltering hot back here, rather than roasted to crispy cinders like that long cruiser. I watched its target cloud fade off screen.
“I think we should stay here sir.”
“You know that bulkhead next to you is still on fire, son? Gene is going to have kittens here, if we don’t fix that.”
He laughed wryly. “Well, when he wakes up, I’ll gladly go take a turn in his coma, sir. Just say the word.”
“He is definitely, without a doubt, napping, isn’t he?” I said with a grin. “Janis, any idea what the bridge temp is right now?”
“The bridge is currently 385 degrees, sir.”
“What’s the ignition point of our consoles?”
“1,280 degrees, sir.”
“Ah, well then I am firing again,” I called out. We had some time to burn. I lit the fire again, and watched the blob shape in the center of my screen for a while.
“Janis, can you tell when the carrier has been hulled?”
“It’s possible, if it ceases to maneuver.”
“Well, you’d think they’d be conning that thing like the dickens with this hammering into them.”
“Sir, I recommend banking this shot,” she replied.
I banked the shot. “Shorty, can you provide battle damage assessment?”
“BDA is significant, sir. You have certainly hulled it. Track aft fourteen degrees and fire for effect.”
I hauled us over fourteen degrees against the pummeling and pounding of their fire, and burned again.
“Janis, please see to the fire on the bridge,” I called out, noting the new alarm joining the auditory mayhem we had swirling and crashing around us.
“Bridge, aye,” she replied.
“Belay that,” I called out.
“Belayed, aye,” she replied immediately.
“How close are you from being done with the charge controllers?”
“Captain, I have an imminent run forward to ring three for parts I have been working on. Should I send that assembler to the bridge, and return parts after?”
“Yes, I need you to keep an eye on Gene,” I called back and banked the shot as rapidly as I could, suddenly realizing I had been firing continually for quite some time.
A brief moment passed.
“Uh, that’s a solid kill, Captain. Recommend immediate redirect on Master 77, sir.”
“Very well, Master 77. Did we get the carrier, Shorty?”
“Sir, it’s ruined. Nothing could have survived that.”
“I can’t believe I just saw that,” Yak added in a quiet voice.
It took me a moment to realize it, but clearly we were not longer being shot at. The remaining Master targets slowly became more amorphous and cloud-like.
“Jane, just so you know, without impacts on our hull, we can’t see anything in here. We’re pretty much flying blind right now.”
I kicked off the reac drives completely, and maintained course-and-heading, but it was making my skin crawl.
“How are you navigating, sir?”
“Well, right now, I’m not.”
“Did you just lose targeting?”
“No we lost it a while ago. Last Wednesday, or was it Tuesday, Pauli?”
“Which week, sir?” he groused perfectly.
“Solid copy, sir. We will have the upper hand on the remaining vessels shortly and-don’t-say-it. Your sky is clear as far as we can tell, sir”
“Well… shortly… I’ll thank you properly.” I called back with a laugh.
“Thank you sir, out,” she replied softly.
“Good hunting, out.”
I sat there for a moment working through every screen I could bring up, trying to commit everything to memory.
“Are we still under attack, sir?” Pauli asked suddenly, and I realized that I actually heard him speak.
Chapter 14
08242614@04:43 Gene Mitchell
I suddenly, and without warning, opened my eyes and realized where I was. I couldn’t see anything, but it was all suddenly real, and I felt like a thousand onion layers of false memories were slowly fading away.
“Morning, Gene,” a blur that looked a little bit like Dak asked, in a voice that sounded far away and dim.
“Am I still dreaming?” I croaked through a mouth that tasted like a dusty, scaly hole in the desert. A tube was placed in my lips, and I sipped some water. It tasted absolutely glorious, and brilliantly cold.
“If you are, it’s a pretty good dream, Gene,” he replied. “It’s mighty good to see you, old friend. How are you feeling?”
That drew me up short, even in my current delirious state. “Am I okay?”
“Yes, you are just fine, from what I can tell. You had a bit of a nap there, apparently,” he replied smugly.
“You sound like you’ve been waiting for a while to say that.” I groused.
He laughed. “Yeah, you could say that! How are you feeling?”
“Well…” I took another deep pull from the water. “I feel pretty fuzzy, Dak, but I guess I’m doing pretty good.”
“Janis tells me you are now the proud owner of a new stint.”
“I am?”
“Yes. You should be just fine, Gene. Which is good because, well…” he paused for what I can only assume was dramatic effect, “…we will need just a few repairs, here and there.”
He paused for a moment, and cringed a bit when he looked at my face.
“Where exactly, is ‘here’ and where is ‘there’, Dak?” I grumbled, sitting up fast enough to float off the cushions.
“Gene, I’m going to level with you, but only because it was fun to hit you with the zap sticks. So if you don’t want me to haul you back from death’s door again, you need to calm down.”
“I’m calm,” I said calmly, and took another sip.
“Well, it’s easier to tell you what isn’t broken.”
I sighed, but smiled at the same time. “I guess I better get my tools. Am I cleared for duty, Dr. Janis?”
“Gene, you may engage in very light duty. Your handset is loaded with the tasks I am working on, please direct me as you require.”
I squinted a bit at my wrist screen, but so far everything was still pretty blurry.
Dak chimed in, “I concur, Gene. Let Janis do anything, and everything. I mean it, mister. This is a direct order, not from your friend, but from your Captain.”
I laughed, though it sounded a little bit like a croak. “You are impossible, Dak.”
“No, I am definitely possible. I proved that today. Are you hungry?”
“Strangely, no. I guess these tubes have been taking care of me,” I said, watching the assembler remove an IV with a touch so deft, it felt like I had a butterfly on my skin.
“Well, we’re starving, right Pauli?”
I looked over and realized Pauli was off to the other side, and gasped as he came into closer focus.
“Pauli, you look terrible!”
&nbs
p; He laughed. “It feels worse than it looks.”
I looked back over at Dak, and realized he was also savagely burned, a brilliant red with whitened patches around his cheekbones and neck.
“What happened to you?” I asked, looking back at Pauli, and realizing his left arm was in an air cast.
“Gene, two things… first, we’re not rated to fire our main weapon continually. We’re going to replace the Duron in the aperture shielding with the stuff the girls cooked up for the crab.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“We fought an invasion fleet.”
“A fleet you say?” I asked incredulously, mentally preparing myself for a properly embellished story.
“He’s serious, Gene,” Pauli added. “Three full carrier groups; or whatever those critters called them. They functioned as carriers for, what… over 700 total targets?”
“Steven, I tracked a total of 385 targets,” Janis added helpfully.
“Okay, so it wasn’t 700--” he started to reply, but Dak cut him off.
“It felt like 7000, Pauli.”
“Yeah. Or more. Millions.”
I laughed again, “That’s the story I am waiting to hear!”
Dak grinned slightly, wincing from the pain, and gasped heroically, “It was epic, Gene.”
“Did we get hit? Did we take damage?”
A moment of silence slid past.
“Yeah, we got hit, Gene. We lost the bridge.”
“What?!” I exclaimed.
Captain Smith reached out soothingly. “Settle down, Gene. We had already relocated to the combat bridge.”
“We have a combat bridge?” I shrieked.
“We do now. I am calling it ‘Engineering’,” he said, pointing out the marvelous word in the air with his fingers.
“So who did my job?”
“Well, I did. Janis helped, naturally, but I ran your console remotely at first, then directly once we moved to you station.”
That caught my attention. “You… know how to run Engineering?”
“Well sure, Gene… I’d be a pretty terrible ship-driver-person if I didn’t know how to drive the ship.”
I laughed. “Ship-driver-person, indeed. So you kept an assembler at Shorty’s station? I presume she was suited up?”