by Will Crudge
The Broadsword Squadron was relatively close by, by cosmic terms, and was able to respond quickly. But this is the exception and not the rule. The squadron of mighty ships is older hull designs mixed with modern ones, and the older ships are the only ones still operational. Their strength has dropped to sixty percent after the squids jumped, but those were just raw numbers. Truth is, they’re probably less than forty percent combat effective all told. The surviving vessels took a beating, and only the older hulls are still operational. I guess they don’t build them like they used to.
I’ve just received word that the Mwargoth boarders have been corralled and captured. Five survived, but only three remain uninjured. I’m awaiting a report of their disposition. But all I know is that our GBE allies have them well in hand. The Royal Marine Company of commandos cornered the survivors, and have them subdued.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. I snap back into reality and turn around. It’s Val, and he’s covered in black ‘squid jizz.’
“I’m sorry for my delay, dear.” He says casually, as he wipes some goop from his left eye.
“You’re never late!” I say with a sly smile. “We’re all on your schedule, father.”
“If you say so, child!” He winks and pats me on the back warmly. “Our guests are secured.”
“Have we learned anything from yet?” I ask.
“Tons, but we have more pressing matters,” Val says as he stretches his face to a more serious expression. He then points to the screen.
“The Mwargoths are trying to lure us in,” I say as I focus on the visual display. “We’re not buying it, though.”
“I can’t help but notice you’re reconsolidating the remaining fleet while pulling the Broadsword Squadron back in the opposite direction. Well done, my dear!” Val says as he rubs his sticky black chin. The Mwargoth blood seems to congeal like ours. I take a mental note to look into the alien creatures’ later but then put my mind back on task.
“The Mwargoth ships in this cluster seem to be converging. They’re very clever, but I get the feeling that they’re novices when it comes to battlefield deception.” I say. I have to say it. The seemingly impulsive decisions that I’ve made thus far have been subconscious at best, but now that my mind is getting used to it. I’ve begun to consciously recognize patterns. I’ve actually noticed that my Rage is in a holding pattern above my root chakra, and it seems to be providing me with some kind of endless stream of information.
“Ma’am!” The Scottish-hottie speaks up. “Three GBE warships have transitioned into normal space. They’re about a thousand clicks off of our main thruster array.”
“Hull types?” I ask.
“One battlecruiser, and one heavy cruiser, and a destroyer.” Scottie-hottie answers. I nod.
“Inform the flag officer to stay clear of the engagement zone, and prep for search and rescue ops. Also, if they’ve got any commandos or Royal Army troops, have them standby for boarding ops.” I order. Sergeant Major Scottish-hottie stared blankly at me for a moment, then he batted his sexy eyelashes before setting himself to the task.
I look up to the blue blips that denote the three new GBE ships, and I do a quick scan of their IDENT tags. The battlecruiser is the famed H.M.S. Hood and has been one of the dozens of hulls to bear that name over the millennia. The heavy cruiser is the H.M.S. Conqueror, and its lineage stems from the very first British nuclear submarine to sink an enemy vessel.
The destroyer is the H.M.S. Stork, and I vaguely remember the name originated from an anti-submarine sloop that survived a stern shot from a German torpedo in the Second World War. The ship was waiting for anti-submarine netting to be taken down before heading into port in Scotland. It is not as well-known as the others, but apparently, the senior ranking Petty Officer had made sure to go against the Admiralty’s policy of keeping all depth charges armed while underway. They were unarmed when the torpedo struck the ship, so they didn’t detonate as a result. The ship’s captain was so grateful that he reported the incident as a “Luftwaffe bombing” to cover his man’s tracks, and made the recommendation to change the Admiralty’s policy. There’s no telling how many lives were saved as a result… but to this day, the official Royal Navy records say the Stork was “bombed” and not “Torpedoed” in the Firth of Forth.
Ironically, the Stork had been ordered back to port after the original H.M.S. Hood had been sunk by the German battleship, Bismarck… And since it no longer had a flagship to support.
The Petty Officer’s name? William “Taffy” Crudge… Now, where have I heard that name before?
“Ma’am, Commodore Cumberbatch is respectfully enquiring as to the reason for the order,” Scotty-too-hottie said while he seemed to be choosing his words carefully. He’s obviously the middle-man, so he’s trying to de-escalate any potential insults to my authority. I figured they would be wondering why I want them to hold off from engaging, after all.
“Tell him to keep his eyes glued to his scanners, and his question will be answered in short order!” I say, as respectfully as I can. Sugar coating is not my strong suit, but I can pull it off when I have to.
Meanwhile, aboard the Doom-Raptor…
Turnbuckle was fumbling around to find sure footing in the LRF-90’s small berthing area. He was grateful that his flight suit was form-fitting, and didn’t add any significant bulk to his already muscular frame. His flight helmet hung from a nearby hook on the bulkhead wall just off to his left, which was to the right of the cockpit vestibule.
The bulbous mine looked like a round sea creature with spikes all around. The end of the spikes terminated into flattened pressure plates that the mine used to detect contact, or relative proximity to, an enemy vessel in open space. There was an access panel that was opened, and the cover was hanging loosely. The rectangular opening had a small display screen, keypad, and scores of manual switches.
Turnbuckle was well aware that the digital controls were prone to EMP, or even remote hacking. That’s why the analog array of switches and buttons had hard mechanical links, and could not be tampered with remotely. He feverishly accessed his internal HUD that was made possible by his advanced neural interface. He had a digital copy of the mine’s technical manual pulled up, and he toggled the pages with his mental ques, as his hands went to work to arm the device.
“How’s it going back there, Turnbuckle?” Doom asked.
“It would be nice if I had room to think… or even breathe back here!” Turnbuckle spat back out of frustration.
“C’mon! A Mark-8’s cockpit is smaller than the space you have to work with!”
“You try arming a nuke manually in the cockpit of a fighter, and then we’ll talk, smartass!”
“I like you,” Doom said with an overabundance of sincerity.
Turnbuckle ignored him and tried to keep his mind on task. He may have been certified to deal with nuclear weapons, but fighter pilots don’t handle mines, so his training merely glossed over the less pertinent tasks.
He felt his frustration for his ‘accelerated training’ manifest on his face. Like most space-farers, his skin was pale. But now he was flushed with redness, and his forehead was wrinkled from furrowing his eyebrows so tensely.
“Damn it! This is getting me nowhere!” He scoffed.
“Having issues? General Cooper ensured me that you’re qualified to do this.” Doom chimed in.
“On paper, yes. In practice? Pfft! Can you think of a situation where a fighter pilot would go near a mine, let alone arm one?” Turnbuckle fired back.
“Yes.” Doom chuckled. “I’m seeing it for myself right now!”
“Very funny, asshole! Not helping.”
“Does it have an auxiliary data port?” Doom asked.
“Yeah, but even if you remote into it to arm it, I would still need to arm the manual back-up.”
“Cable is in the deck plate compartment below the sink,” Doom said. Turnbuckle decided not to argue with him. He figured his intelligence was being questioned, and it did little to lift his spirits.
This fucking idiot won’t listen to shit! Turnbuckle thought to himself. He decided there wasn’t time to argue, so proving that he was correct by his actions was better than wasting oxygen trying to engage in a debate. Turnbuckle secured the thin standardized cable, closed the deck plate cover, and hooked the cable into position.
“Cable is secured, genius!” He said sarcastically.
“I know. Raptor told me.” Doom replied.
Who the fuck is Raptor? He asked himself rhetorically. But then he saw the digital display come alive. The fields he kept getting stuck on finally changed, and the warning chime began to sound.
“I’ll be damned!” Turnbuckle exclaimed.
“Yep. Good news is, it wasn’t your fault.” Doom replied. “Turns out that this mine is decades old, and the software was corrupted. Raptor re-wrote the coding, and now you’re all set for manual stuff.”
“When this mission is over, I’ll need to ask who this ‘Raptor’ guy is.” Turnbuckle said as he pulled up the manual arming procedures in his HUD.
“For the record… Raptor likes you too.” Doom said casually. Turnbuckle dismissed the comment in his mind and put all his mental energy into his task.
The mine gave out a second warning chime, and the entire control panel began to glow red. “All set! That was easier than I thought!”
“Good! Because the alternative would be to bombard the manual mechanisms with nanotech and rebuild it on the spot.” Doom said.
Nanotech? He thought to himself. As an Air Force pilot, Turnbuckle never had to handle Nano himself. It was something his NSAI handled for him, but he’d never considered using nanotech to rebuild something on a physical level.
“So, what now?” Turnbuckle asked.
“Put on your flight helmet for safety, then wait for me to open the hatch. I’ll tell you when to push.” Doom replied.
“Push?” Turnbuckle asked as he raised a single eyebrow. “I’ve experienced in handling cargo in open space, but it’s an art-form, not a brute-force shove!”
“Well, how the fuck should I know? I don’t have any hands, dick!” Doom spouted.
Ok, maybe I do like this asshole. Turnbuckle said to himself, as he cracked a sly smile. “Is this an open space deposit, or do I need to eyeball a specific trajectory?”
“Can you do that?” Doom asked incredulously.
“Of course! I’m a freighter captain. We cross-level loads in open space all the time! It’s too expensive to match vectors and dock with another ship when you only have a handful of containers to transfer. Plus, the mechanical arms are always failing, or are down for maintenance. I’ve hurled thousands of items at moving objects in a vacuum.” Turnbuckle explained.
“Remind me to have the Fleet Marshal by your commander a beer! He picked a good one!” Doom said.
“Ha! Like you would ever see the Fleet Marshal personally!” Turnbuckle jeered.
“Tap your HUD and read my IDENT code, dick!” Doom fired back. Turnbuckle humored him and mentally selected the IDENT code field.
“Fuck!” He shouted. “Fleet Marshal Darius is your owner?”
“Nobody ‘owns’ us, fuck-tard! But for legal purposes, we’re registered to him as personal transport.”
“Personal transport with a sentient AI, and a full arsenal of heavy weapons? What kind of ship are you?” Turnbuckle asked.
“First of all, I’m not a fucking AI!” Doom corrected him sharply. “I’m a sentient NAV system, and Raptor is a sentient hull maintenance system. And this is a first gen LRF-90 super fighter, fuck-face!”
Holy fucking shit! Turnbuckle thought to himself. How did I not notice that when I boarded this damn thing?
“We’re dropping in twenty!” Doom reported. Turnbuckle finished securing his neck straps that overlapped his helmet to his flight suit. The circular hatch opened up, and the atmosphere vented into containment ballasts for reuse.
“My mag-boots are engaged, so you can dial back the A-grav now!” Turnbuckle reported with his voice muffled. He made a mental note to link his neural interface into the wireless audio net so he could speak audibly once the atmospherics were fully vented.
“What’s the matter? Can’t lift a two-ton nuke with your impressive body augmentations?” Doom said with a heckling laugh into Turnbuckle’s helmet speakers.
“Dick!” He fired back. “My augmentations aren’t like that of a UAHC Soldier. Mine boost my strength some, but mostly it fortifies my bodily functions to survive heavy g’s!”
“I know, dumbass!” Doom spat back. “I can access your interface’s firmware.”
What the fuck else can this damn thing do? Even Milspec AI’s can’t do that without the correct tokens! Turnbuckle thought. But then he cleared his mind and decided to maneuver around to take a peek from the side of the bulky mine.
The view made him swallow in shock. The battlespace was riddled with debris and ruined ship hulls. The massive Mwargoth ships loomed in the darkness, but he could toggle his augmented optics which allowed him to see into the abyss. The hulls reminded him of images of 20th and 21st century (Gregorian) automobile transmissions for rear-wheel drive models. Their thruster arrays were large, but the hulls seemed to grow in girth as they went forward. There was a hammer like super-structure that was affixed directly above the prow.
“Any suggestions on what I’m aiming at?” Turnbuckle asked.
“Go for the super-structures base. The seam between the fuselage and the hammer looking shit is believed to be prone to stresses in the frame during sharp maneuvers.” Doom replied.
“Easy!” Turnbuckle spouted. “When do I throw this fucker?”
“Just standby. I have to transmit something first.”
Meanwhile, aboard the Mwargoth Manowar…
The Mwargoth equivalent of a CIC was dimly lit. The dim blue and green lighting seemed to warmly coalesce with the floating fog-like vapor in the atmosphere. The entities were nestled into nooks that a human might consider a type of cubical. There was the main display that roughly equated to a human-based holographic pedestal. Icons of obscure shapes and pictographic characters floated about. The display would be completely perplexing from a human’s perspective, but these entities found it simple and efficient to follow.
Ship Leader Gorgon overlooked the display from his elevated position. The parabolic vessel, from which he was perched, was floating above the multiple workstations on the main floor. He hovered about in order to gain insights from different vantages, like an owl would do as they rotated their head in seemingly impossible positions. His view of the battlespace was totally inclusive, and he kept his focus on the human vessel in the rear of the human fleet’s position.
Known to the humans as juggernauts, the ship was given the designation of Ishtar by the Mwarogths. The ancient human near-east goddess that represented fertility. The alien beings equated the juggernaut’s ‘mothership’ role to garner relevance in that regard. Using human superstitions, both
past, and present, to designate their ships were meant to be an insult. From a Mwargoth perspective, anything that even insinuates spirituality is equated to idiocy.
Gorgon was about to order one of his Manowars to make an FTL proximity attack on the Ishtar, but then his attention was instantly diverted by an abrupt – disturbance – in the main display.
The display flickered, and the existing images of operational iconography dissolved into squared-off pixels. Before he realized what was happening, roars and gargles from exasperated crewmembers filled the room. He maneuvered his floating platform to view the screens at the individual workstations, and what he saw was unsettling.
Images of some kind of Earth-based biological structures began to replace the display images that were supposed to be there. He darted around over their heads as the silent command vessel floated around.
The same image was locking out every workstation, and he darted his black eyes over to the main display. The image was there as well. He tapped an image archive in his ship’s database and activated an image matching search. Decades of studying every aspect of humanity and even their Earth-based biological hierarchy may prove useful.
The search bore fruit after a few seconds of processing, and the results sent Gorgon into a fit of rage.
{Image Match Confirmed. Subject Identity = Equine Species Male Penile Construct}
Back to Katherine…
I watch the seconds tick down in slow torturous agony. The human forces have withdrawn with the exception of four thousand human fighters of every known hull type. They’ve reached their RP, and begin to change vector back towards the Star Fury. I know what is happening, and my nerves are shot, as a result.