Hunger forgotten, he jumped to his feet and sprinted out of the galley, “No, no, no, what are you guys doing?!” he growled. Tapping his MOBIUS as he raced up the corridor toward the bridge, he connected with his first mate, “Andrea, to the bridge - on the double!”
■ ■ ■
“Target dead ahead, steady as she goes…”
The derelict off the nose of the Drake, filled the big screen when Steele dashed through the bridge door, “Belay that order! Helm, get us out of here - head us to the gate - best speed!” Slapping the back of the command chair, Steele ousted Sam Daxe, “Move! Move!”
Andrea appeared as Steele dropped into the vacated command chair, pointing at the First Officer’s chair, excluding Sam. “Give me weapons and shields…” Resetting the screen to full extension, the view of the wreck dropping away, Jack relieved to see they weren’t actually on top of it, at least a thousand miles between them. “What the hell were you thinking Sam? Why didn’t you notify me?”
“We just wanted to take a look Cap, we thought it might be a good opportunity to…”
“We?”
“I checked with the Chief and he thought…”
“That was your first mistake, Sam, checking with Chief instead of me…”
“We didn’t want to bother you…” he glanced sideways at Andrea, still addressing Steele, “you were, um…”
Jack shot him a scowl, “This is not a Democracy, Sam, you know that. There’s only one Captain on this ship and things will go a lot smoother if you follow orders…”
Sam Daxe shook his head in dismay, “I just don’t see the big deal in stopping to take a look - it might be worth a little profit, you never know what…”
Steele’s mouth twitched as he pursed his lips, his patience pushed, “Didn’t you wonder why that ship was dead-still, almost three thousand miles off the shipping lane?”
“I – “
“It was intentionally moved there,” countered Jack. “What we don’t know is; was it to move it out of the traffic lane for safety, or to lure ships out of the traffic lane as bait.”
“I scanned…”
“Sam,” interrupted Jack, “the Drake’s scanners are far from milspec. There’s no telling how much they’ll miss…”
“Contact!” shouted Arturro, from the electronics station.
“Confirmed” chimed Andrea.
“Son of a bitch,” snapped Jack, palming the red alert button. “Where?”
“Detaching from the wreck,” advised Andrea, zooming in on her screen. “They’re small…”
“Drones,” announced Arturro. “Five… no, ten. Wait, fiftee… twenty!”
Jack’s mind flashed back to the first time the Freedom entered Irujen with the Bowman and the Archer, the Bowman beset upon by swarms of drones before they’d even cleared the gate. He was fully aware the damage they could inflict on a cruiser sized ship - he didn’t even want to consider a small ship like the Drake… Steele pointed at the seats at the back of the bridge, “Sam, Latt; turrets. Now!” Steele keyed the comm, “Chief?!”
“Chief. What’s going on Skipper?”
“We have company… bad company. If you have any tricks for more power, now would be a good time!” For putting them in this predicament, there would be time for admonishment later. Maybe.
“How far to the gate, Skipper?”
“Two and a half hours.”
“I can give you a half hour boost, but then you’ll have to back it down or you’ll blow these things right off the ship. It will put us an hour from the gate.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get…”
“Tell Gordo he can push it all the way into the red in thirty seconds…” there was a pause before he continued, “you know we probably can’t outrun whomever it is…”
“I don’t need to outrun them if I have enough time to inflict some damage and discourage them…”
■ ■ ■
“Guys, fire as soon as they’re in range. Andrea, route all shield power to the stern. Gordo…”
The helmsman nodded, “Aye sir. Pushing her into the red, now.” The deck under their feet hummed, a low howl carrying through the Drake’s frame as she worked to exceed her design limits. It was a sound that set the teeth on edge and raised the fine hairs on the back of the neck. Gordo threw a glance back over his shoulder, his eyes wide, his expression uneasy, “That is not a good sound Captain.”
Jack rolled his shoulders to throw off the feeling, “Agreed. But we have to trust the Chief…”
“Here they come…!” Sam and Latt cut loose simultaneously, the quick wip, wip, wip wip, of the twin barreled auto-lasers, heard in stereo from both sides of the hull, just behind the bridge stations - adding to the cacophony of sounds.
“Andrea, where are those things being controlled from?”
“I can’t tell Captain.”
Steele scrutinized the derelict on a zoomed inset of the big screen. “Helm, ten degree roll to port…” Paging to his weapons control screen, Jack activated the Drake’s largest weapon, a single 75mm railgun. The turret unlocked, extending above its indented pocket atop the hull.
The Drake lurched, “Stern shield taking hits,” Andrea announced, “down to ninety percent - recharging quickly.” She cocked her head, “What are you going to shoot at?”
Steele swung the turret around, the camera sights zooming in, crossing the hull of the motionless ship, the trajectory computer tracking impact point, “A hunch…” Mashing the trigger on the control stick produced a steel roar and vibration that produced dust in the air of the bridge, an extended flame pointing toward the target as the solid projectile streaked across the blackness. Hearing the autoloader drop another projectile into the loading tray, the sound transmitted through the Drake’s frame, Steele adjusted point of impact to target a new area on the derelict, waiting for the indicator to tell him the system was ready. On the green light he mashed the trigger again, the railgun roaring a second time. Jack enlarged the zoomed inset on the big screen just in time to see the impact of the first round as it tore through the unshielded port engine nacelle, a quick fountain of fire extending beyond the target as it passed through the engine, spreading debris outward.
The Drake shuddered, once, then twice, the stern shields flaring, “Down to sixty percent!” shouted Andrea.
“Dammit! Keep those things off of us!” snapped Steele.
Sam’s teeth were clenched in concentration, “Like trying to swat a bug with a sledgehammer, Cap.”
With a metallic whang, the Drake bucked, “Shields at forty percent and dropping…”
Steele frowned, “Dropping?”
Andrea nodded, “Steadily.”
“EMP leech, Cap,” called Sam, “like a power vampire. It’s got to be on the hull…”
“Shields at thirty… Captain - the derelict has a power signature!”
A knowing smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as Steele targeted the port stern again, “Playing possum are we?” He let the railgun roar again.
For the first time since he’d met her, Andrea looked fearful, “Captain, our stern shields are down to twenty percent…”
He didn’t have time to consider the implications of her fear, whether it was possible or not for a biodroid to display fear… he was watching the track of the second and third railgun rounds, “C’mon, c’mon,” he urged, listening for the telltale final clank of the railgun breech locking.
“Her engines, shields and weapons are coming on line…”
Steele squeezed off another round, the Drake shuddering as the railgun fired, “That wasn’t the railgun…” he observed.
“Shields down to five percent and holding, but no longer recharging.”
Steele enlarged the zoomed image, the derelict starting to move, “C’mon dammit…” A flash amidships, below and behind what he expected to be the bridge, ripped a sizeable hole, flashes of light flickering through a section of the hull, debris and atmosphere venting through the opening. “Ye
s…” Checking his weapons screen, the railgun announced the target was out of range. “Damn…” In disappointment, he stowed the weapon, allowing it to automatically orient itself and retract.
“Drones are falling back, Cap,” announced Sam, “maybe that last hit damaged their communications…”
“If they’re still in range, destroy what you can,” replied Steele. He turned to Andrea, “Shields?”
She shook her head, “No sir, there’s a steady drain, they’re hovering at five percent.”
“Any chance we’re damaged?”
“No sir, I’m not reading any structural damage…”
“Then starve the damn thing, shut down the shields…”
“NO! Don’t do that!” waved Sam. “It’s staying put because it has something to suck on. Shut that down and it’ll search the hull for something else…”
Steele tugged his beard in thought as he eyed the zoom of the derelict, the third railgun round impacting the stern, farther back than the first, a brief spout of fire and debris spreading outward. “How the hell did that make it through their shields?”
Andrea pulled up an energy scale, “That first hit she took, must have damaged the shield emitters in that quadrant, she’s not well covered. But it probably wasn’t a full-force hit…”
“I’ll take whatever I can get…”
Sam had shut down his turret and climbed out of his seat, the wraparound gunnery screen folding back, “Drones are out of range, Cap.”
Steele raised an eyebrow, “How many did we get?”
Latt adjusted his neck, “About half, give or take.”
“Not including our stowaway,” commented Sam thumbing toward the ceiling.
Gordo checked over his shoulder, his hand on the Drake’s throttle control, “should I back her down, Skip…”
The deck tilted hard as the hull shook, a massive slam echoing through the Drake’s frame; Sam and Latt thrown to the floor, Jack, Andrea, Arturro and Gordo fighting to stay in their seats. A crimson slash passed across the bow. “Andrea, damage report! Helm, evasive action!” Steele hit the comm, “Chief, you OK?”
“Still here. What hit us?”
“Looks like they have the reach, Chief.”
“Dammit…”
“Shields are down,” announced Andrea, flipping the technical screen of the enemy ship to Steele’s screen, “but if the specs are correct, we should be out of range any minute.”
Steele motioned to the ceiling, “What about our hitchhiker?”
“I’m not certain, but it may have been blown off when they hit us…”
Steele wiped a hand down his face, “How do we know for certain?”
Sam leaned on Steele’s command chair, “Put on a suit and take a walk…”
Steele hit the comm, “Chief, we’ve lost shields…”
“Yep. And you’re not getting them back anytime soon. I’m looking at a whole slew of melted supercapacitors. Powerplant and cells are fine, but without the capacitors, well…”
Steele massaged his temples, “Terrific.”
Crimson slashes passed ineffectually on either side of the ship and Arturro spun in his seat, “I just lost navigation…”
Steele frowned, “What the hell, did we get hit?” He shot Andrea a glance, “I didn’t feel anything, did you?”
The bridge illumination flickered, the big screen winking in and out, the cameras failing. “Our friend seems to have found a power junction,” commented Sam.
Jack clenched his teeth, “Son of a bitch, if it interferes with engine power we’re screwed.”
Sam nodded, “Yep. I’ll suit up.” He motioned to Latt, “You’re with me, kid, I’ll need your help with gear.”
Jack swiveled his seat, “What do you do if you find it?”
Sam smirked, making a finger gun, “Kill it - then kick it’s worthless little carcass off our ship.”
■ ■ ■
“Cap, we’re at the airlock just waiting for it to cycle. Latt’s here to monitor my helmet cam and run the airlock…”
“OK, Sam, I’m watching your cam feed on my MOBIUS, the main screen and most of the camera systems are out.”
“So we’re flying mostly blind?”
“We’re managing, Sam. Just be careful out there…”
Alarm klaxons screamed the instant the Drake shuddered violently. “Blowout!” shouted Gordo, “I have a blowout! Engine-one is down… Or gone...!” he added, wrestling with the flight controls.
“I thought we were out of range!” shouted Steele over the din of the klaxon.
“We are!” yelled Andrea in return, trying to silence the alarm. “I can’t shut it down!” Scanning the systems statuses, it took her a moment to find and recognize the reason, “Fire in engineering! We have FIRE!”
“Shit!” Steele leapt from his command chair, “Chief!”
“I’m losing engine-two,” called Gordo.
Jack sprinted through the door of the bridge out into the corridor, “Then shut it down!” he called over his shoulder.
■ ■ ■
Slinging the oxygen tank and mask over his shoulder, pounding down the corridor, Steele recalled a very similar event in what seemed a lifetime ago, in which he lost a very good friend - who also happened to be his chief engineer. A man who gave up a relatively safe, cushy position to help him rebuild the Freedom. He dared not think his name, his psyche couldn’t bear to relieve the details of that event. Yet here he was, reliving it… Damn, not again. Not this time.
With comms down, Steele’s MOBIUS chirped, “Skipper, engine-three is nearing the thirty-minute boost limit…”
“Back it down Gordo. But keep us moving toward that gate.”
■ ■ ■
Converging on engineering from an intersecting corridor, Sam and Latt met Jack at the door to engineering, Sam moving awkwardly in the space suit and mag boots.
“You can’t go in there like that, Cap, let me go in, the suit will…”
Steele stiff-armed Sam away from the door, “You have a job to do...” He punched his security code into the keypad, to disengage the safety locks. “Go do it, Sam.” He watched the commando’s hesitation, “That’s an order, Sam.” He turned back toward the door, hiking the collar of his leather jacket up around his ears, “Andrea, alarms are off down here…”
“Looks like fire suppression has extinguished the fire.”
“Any word from the Chief?”
“No sir.”
“Seal this corridor section and manually arm fire suppression.” Hand on the door controls, Jack checked to be sure Sam and Latt had cleared the section, the fire doors secured. Pulling the oxygen mask over his face, he twisted the manual handle, the gear drives inching the engineering containment doors open, a blast furnace of heat washing past him into the corridor. In the absence of a flash re-ignition, he slowly opened the doors further, instantly breaking into a sweat, the air heavy, cloudy, dusty from the fire suppression chemicals. “CHIEF?!”
Stepping through the open containment doors into a mostly darkened interior, Jack felt like he had stepped inside a bar-b-que, most every surface blackened, smoking, paint and plastics blistered and deformed, alloys sagging, cables and wires hanging and lying about like black spaghetti. “Chief?” He could feel the hope draining from him… how could anyone survive this? He scanned the catwalks above the engines, a seven-foot tear in the outer hull where the port engine had detonated like a bomb, tearing most of itself free from its frame.
A hazy blue stasis field wavered over the hole, stars drifting slowly past outside. “Jesus,” whispered Steele. Chief was gone… he had failed again. He had lost another. He was torn between rage and soul-sucking anguish. Fuck.
■ ■ ■
Sam crested the top of the hull, the mag boots locking to the surface of the Drake in one, slow, carefully placed step at a time. “I see you, bug…” he hissed inside his helmet. He tried communicating to Latt, to the bridge, to the captain, but the drone’s EM signature inte
rfered with his efforts. At only about ten-feet across, it was smaller than he’d expected. No wonder we couldn’t hit these damn things. Adjusting his footing, he dropped to a knee, the magnetic plates in the suit helping him stay put. Bringing the carbine up from its sling, he flipped up the iron sights, “Enjoy your last sip, pal… now get off my ship...” Flipping the selector switch to full auto he squeezed the trigger, the weapon bucking against his shoulder as the slugs chewed through the drone’s frame, breaking it apart in chunks, the debris swept away as the Drake cruised on. “Bye bitch.”
His comm chirped, “Bridge to Daxe…”
“Daxe here, mission complete, we’re bug free.”
“Copy. We have comms and cameras back. Good job.”
Sam slung the carbine over his shoulder as he rose, “Copy. But it doesn’t look good out here… I can see there’s at least half of engine-one gone - completely off the hull.”
■ ■ ■
“Bridge to the Captain… comms and cameras are back up.”
“Steele, copy… Status of the derelict?”
“It is following our course, but we are well outside their range and the gap is widening. How is the Chief?”
Jack was forced to swallow the lump in his throat, “I think we lost the Chief… we’ve got a seven-foot tear in the outer hull down here. The rest of engineering is scorched black - I can’t even tell what I’m looking at…”
“Keep looking, Captain. I have his comm marker still located in engineering.”
Steele exhaled, hope going with it, “I have it… I found it laying on the deck.”
“Cap, it’s Sam, I’m on my way back in - I’ll help you search…”
Admittedly, Jack was hoping not to have to do it alone - and truthfully, he had searched the entire engineering space including the catwalks, but he prayed there was a space he missed…
■ ■ ■
Resurrection Page 40