by Chris Hechtl
“Aye, Captain.”
“I hope we get lucky. But I doubt it. This bastard is smart and vicious. He's not going down easy. With all those point defense turrets he's like Argus. He can swat missiles as they come in.”
“But he will go down in the end,” Ensign Drum vowed.
“Oh, definitely,” Renee echoed.
“Why. Why did they do it?” a soft voice asked, foggy with tears.
“They are pirates,” Firefly said quietly, looking at Sharif. The woman looked up, dashing tears.
“It still doesn't make sense, sir! Why? I mean, it's a waste of munitions! Besides, the people on the Kiev...”
“Undoubtedly, some were Horathians,” Renee replied. She frowned. “Though they could have abandoned ship in the initial engagement and programmed the ship to fly that course. Who knows?”
“We'll find out and get the bastards who did this.”
“Damn straight we will.”
“If we don't lose them. Space is big and dark, ma'am,” Sharif warned, and then bit her lip.
“In darkness, one needs to only turn on a light. It's fortunate we're a ship named for a light emitter right?” Renee asked, directing her question to the ship's AI.
“Light them up. Aye, Captain.”
“Sear them good!” Sharif snarled, fists clenched in rage.
“You heard the lady!”
Firefly fired a spread of missiles and then her grasers danced. The energy weapons were technically out of range, but the shots would force the ship into a box as it tried to maneuver out of the incoming weapons fire. With a bit of luck the ship would make a mistake that the missiles tiny computer minds could see and exploit.
---(<=>)---
The Cutlass used a primitive force drone to disable Firefly's missile spread. It was a one shot; when the device went off it exploded a few seconds later. “Damn! Didn't see that coming,” Stephanie said angrily, watching the missiles tumble end over end, crumpled and dead. Another two dozen missiles dead Renee thought.
“Funny how it's annoying when they do something right. You have to remember; the enemy wants to live and win as much as we do.”
“True,” the JTO said. “But they aren't going to. We're going to shove a missile far up their asses.”
“That's the spirit. Now get it done guns,” the Captain said.
“Too late, we're getting energy and mass readings now, Captain. She's charging her hyperdrive,” Leo reported. “Our missiles wont' get through the energy discharge now.”
“I know,” the Captain said, face working as she suppressed her rage into cold iron purpose. She quickly formulated a plan. She didn't like it; she knew the crew and the people outside would like it less, but she had no choice.
A few minutes later the Cutlass abandoned her fellows and jumped. “So much for honor,” the Captain said in disgust. The freighter was hit, but her fighters had been drawn off in the furball. The Horathian fighters were still fighting, despite being abandoned. One even tried to ram another fighter. She dodged it but their shields tangled, sending both tumbling off into the void. Renee breathed deep as the fighter's IFF flicked and then the fighter recovered. She mentally bet the pilot was a bit shook up but ready to get back into the mix to get even. At least she hoped so.
“Status of the other freighter?”
“She's charging her hyperdrive. She's moving at max safe jump velocity, dumping speed...now.” Leo said. “It looks like she's timed it well; she'll make the jump baring something happening.”
“Damn.”
They watched as two of the Horathian fighters attempted to recover by docking with the freighter. One was destroyed by a passing Navy fighter; the other was chased off, clearly damaged.
After a moment the freighter reached the jump point and jumped as well.
“Status report?”
“Two enemy fighters remaining, Captain. Both are headed for the planet,” Leo said. “One is damaged, I'm laying even odds she'll get there, and one in a hundred that she'll survive re-entry to land.”
“Okay.”
“Captain, permission to launch a refuel and recovery drone?” Firefly asked. “We have a lot of fighters and craft low on fuel.”
“Do it,” Renee said with a nod to the AI. “Dump a care package out too and kick it to the Kiev.”
“I thought you'd do that. Am I right on what you are planning?” Firefly asked.
“Depends on what you think I'm thinking. See in a minute,” the Captain said. A finger stabbed down on her communications button again.
“Report from the boarding party, Captain; most of the crew and passengers on Kiev are dead. One survivor found so far, wounded. She reported that the Cutlass has taken on some of their cargo the Admiral had them carry to make repairs or upgrades. They've been hostages for months,” Sharif interrupted before the Captain could say anything.
“Lovely.”
“Com, order our people to recover on Kiev or the planet. Senior officer in charge, tell them to render aid to Kiev and the planet as much as possible.”
“Captain, we're leaving them?” The XO asked in disbelief.
Renee nodded curtly. “Damn straight. I'm not letting the bastards get away and repeat this. We're faster. We'll catch them. Once they are dust we'll be back.”
“Do the fighters and shuttles have enough life support to recover on the ship or planet?” The XO asked.
“Yes to get to the ship, though her life support is gone so there is no point going there. She's a goner, engineering and drives destroyed.”
“Okay.”
“Can the fighters handle it?” the Captain asked. “Landing on the planet?” She checked the clock on her HUD. If she slowed to recover them the enemy would have quite a lead. She could easily loose them.
“Aye, Captain.”
“Then let's go. Set course for the jump. Ops, drop a buoy behind us and then get us out of here. But let our people know we'll be back.”
“Aye, Captain.”
---(<=>)---
Firefly jumped into to hyper. Renee toyed with the idea of doing a long jump, getting around the next system and then setting up an ambush on a jump point ahead of them.
It would be better to hit them now, in hyper if possible she thought. End it quickly so she could get back to her people and the wreckage they were dealing with.
But, as they hit the first octaves in the Gamma band they found that they couldn't find a trace of the ships in hyper. Firefly moved up into Delta but suffered an engineering casualty; two of her forward nodes and three on her starboard flank had been seriously overworked by the battle. The shield nodes had been stressed in the battle, and some critical parts hit their max impedance, triggering an auto shutdown. They failed shifting their load to other nodes, which were suddenly overworked.
The ship had to crash translate down to Beta band as the shield techs attempted to compensate. They were forced to drop back to Beta. The Captain seethed at the time lost; it took several days to sort the problem out. Saul, she thought, wasn't as good as Chief Chowler had been. Chowler would have done something to head that off she thought. Or not, she frowned. He might have warned her, but would she have listened. She forced herself to sit back and think about it. She shook her head. No, she would have been aware of the risk but had judged it would have been worth it. And she would have been wrong.
What bothered her was that Saul hadn't caught the problem ahead of time. Nor had his techs. She'd have to have a quiet word with them later she vowed.
“Skipper, we've done all we can from inside the ship. We can't do anything more now. We're talking about a node replacement, five at least. Two others are iffy.”
“Why didn't you see this before, chief?” The XO demanded.
The chief engineer spread his hands. “Obviously we missed something. She's way overstressed; that much I can tell you. We took some licks here. Or it might be something delayed that the Yard missed. I can't tell you until we get into the pods and take a look.
>
“So...to recap...” Renee said.
“We can't get above beta; we need an external hull repair for the grav nodes,” Saul said, looking defensive.
“Can you have them ready when we exit? A fast swap chief?” Firefly asked.
“I wish,” the chief said, face working. “We've got one spare in inventory, another I can cobble together out of the rest of the parts on the shelves. The rest we'll have to replicate. But here's the kicker, we don't have the materials on hand to do it right now. The room temperature superconductors are rare metals. Metals we don't have.”
Renee sat back with a sigh. “We'll have to pull the pods and reshape them? Use them as raw material? Is that what you're trying to tell us here?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the chief said with a curt nod. “And by the way, we're low on power. The runup was completely on our reactors, and that crash translation didn't help. We're close to our reserve wall. We need to cut back on power. And since we're in Beta and there are little free electrons around to suck up...” He waved his hands.
“I can try to find pockets of free electrons, but I don't know if the search will be worth it. We could spend a lot of time and energy...and of course we'd lose time,” Lieutenant House said.
“No, we need all the time we can get,” Renee said quietly. “That leaves only one option,” she said, looking at the Ops officer.
“Cut power. Got it,” the Ops officer said with a nod. “Though I'm uncertain what to cut at this point,” he said, scratching his head. “Most of the little things are chicken shit. Drop in the bucket.”
“Do what you can,” Renee said firmly. “Even little things add up over the entire ship and journey,” she said. He nodded. She turned to House. “But get us there. We've got to finish this.”
“Aye aye, ma’am,” House and the others said in unison.
---(<=>)---
In B450d seventeen days later, Firefly exited hyperspace in time to see the Horathian ships already halfway across the system. Frustration coursed through them, to see their prey near yet just far enough out of reach. She had pushed the engineers to get out into the void and fix her ship as soon as CIC reported the space around them was clear.
Once the chief had his initial teams on the move to do a hull survey and the Captain was certain no ambush lurked for them, she called a meeting in the wardroom. The Chief engineer was visibly annoyed at being there.
“Chief, we'll get you back out there as soon as possible,” Renee said as the chief made a show of setting his skinsuit helmet down in front of him. He was dressed in his engineering skinsuit, green for engineering, with blue trim denoting an officer.
“Captain, we're low on fuel, ma'am,” the navigational officer warned.
“We'll figure something out. We'll vampire them if we have to. They aren't doing this again.” Renee said, vehement and final.
The XO eyed her warily. He nodded, noting the signs of intransigence. She wasn't going to back down from this fight. “Aye, Captain.”
“Did we get a better estimate on the damage?”
The XO frowned and then shrugged helplessly. “Breakage is unknown. We don't have any census data on the planet to make an estimated guess at this point. I would say heavy. Thousands at least.”
“And the fallout from the nuclear bombs will be heavy,” the alien tactical officer said.
“I know. Secondary cancers,” Doctor Standish said, shaking his head. “We need to get back there soon.”
“I think that is why they did it. Why they launched on the planet.”
“What, why?”
“To get us to stop. To get us to render aid while they got away. Well, it's not going to work. Engineering, get it together or get out and push. I don't care which as long as we catch the bastards.”
The tired chief engineer nodded, face drawn. “Aye Captain. We replicated a lot of what we needed, we're tearing out the damaged parts even underway.”
“Safety chief, remember that. We're not putting an SAR flight out, and we can't pick up a Dutchman.”
The chief gulped and then nodded again, this time pale but determined.
---(<=>)---
The Horathian ships jumped for B449b. Firefly made up some distance in the chase since she was faster, but had to slow to a safe speed at the jump point. They jumped four days behind the enemy.
Firefly rose through Beta. The Captain forced herself to relax as the chief engineer ran careful tests to make certain of their repairs. It wouldn't do to have something go wrong at this point. She didn't want to risk her ship's safety any more than she had to.
When the chief gave the all clear, the navigator and helmsman took them to Gamma and then Delta.
“Skipper. We don't want to push her too hard too fast. Some of those repairs are with bubble gum and rigging tape. We're also low on fuel.”
“Damn it...”
“I don't know how long my people can handle Delta either, ma'am,” the chief navigational officer said, face drawn in near exhaustion. The Captain studied the navigator and then the chief. Both were fatigued but clearly concerned.
“Skipper, if we run her dry we'll be dead in space while they fly past sputtering raspberries at us! Or worse, come back around and hit us from outside our range!” He shook his head. “We'd be a sitting duck!”
“Damn it...” Renee's mental thoughts played out the decision tree that brought them to this point. At nowhere along it did she see where she could have done something differently. She had to accept the cards they had been dealt and do the best with them that she could.
“I'm sorry, skipper, it's the way it is,” he said firmly, spreading his hands apart in supplication.
“I still don't have to like it,” Renee grumbled. The tired chief smiled wanly.
---(<=>)---
She had planned to come out ahead of them, but after a day her helm crew had to scale back to Gamma after a near-death experience. Her navigator was now a bit shaky, so she reluctantly stayed in Gamma. Now it was a tossup on who would get to the system first. They might have made up for lost time, but how much was the big question.
They exited hyper a ten days after jumping in.
“Damn! They are quick!” Leo said in surprise when their sensors reported the betraying presence of the fleeing Horathians ahead of them.
“Gamma at least skipper,” the navigator said, looking up from his station. “They just got here, less than a day from their course and location.”
Renee nodded curtly. “Good to know. I wonder if that is all from what the Admiral had sent out, or did they have that to begin with?” Renee asked thoughtfully. She also briefly wondered how the hell they'd gotten around the lockouts. Of course, some things they didn't have to, like the coils of superconductor cable the ship had been carrying. That and hundreds of other things could have been used without a code. But the electronics...that didn't make sense. Something was wrong here, something Monty and the Admiral needed to know and look into. Not that it mattered, she intended for this chase to end here and now. They had only one way to go, to the southern Jump to Centennial.
“Or a little of both?”
“Well, the intel pukes can find out from what we leave behind. If there is anything left.”
“I bet it will only be small pieces,” Firefly replied. The Captain shot him a short cold feral smile of agreement.
Leo looked up from his station. “Captain, there is another ship in system. She's halfway to the B450a jump point. And the Horathians are splitting up. At least one is going to get away.”
“Damn. Com, send a signal to the party crasher. Warn her off. Tell her to steer well clear of the Horathians.”
“Aye, ma'am.”
“Captain, the Cutlass is maneuvering to intercept the new freighter. From the look of her course, she's not slowing. My assumption is they are going to do a firing pass. Either kill her or at least wound her.”
“A repeat of the Kiev?” the Captain asked.
“Yes, ma’am. It is t
he most likely plan,” the navigator replied tightly.
“Or just to piss us off. Course on the newcomer?”
“She's halfway to the B450a jump point Captain, past the star.”
“We're not getting a good reading on her Captain, again, occlusion from the star. She's at least three light minutes away.”
“Damn it. Is she a Horathian?” The Captain asked.
Firefly frowned thoughtfully. “It is a distinct possibility. She could be a prize or even another warship.”
“In other words, expect anything at this point. Joy.”
“CIC, status update. Newcomer two ships. Repeat, not one ship but two. Mass readings are off as well. One is larger than the other, which is in its shadow.”
“Crap. That's even screwier. Two ships moving in company?” Renee asked. “They've got to be Horathians,” she said.
“Or someone who's got an engineering issue. Or thought that traveling in company would be safer,” Firefly said. Renee nodded but didn't reply.
---(<=>)---
The new ships spotted the pirate destroyer maneuvering for them after ten long tense minutes and changed her course to move sharply away. One ship picked up speed, headed to the B450a jump point. But the destroyer adjusted her course to match. There really was no choice; the newcomers either had to outrun the Horathian or turn back. With Centennial pretty much closed to refueling neither ship might have the legs to run far.
“Captain, the Horathian freighter labeled Tango two, she's headed south to the Centennial jump point at max drive. She'll be gone in four point three days,” Leo warned.
“And we've got nothing to stop her with since I left our fighters in New Andres. Damn,” Renee said. She knew the dilemma she faced; she had no choice. She had to go after the warship.
“We could send the pinnace. They might catch her,” the exec suggested.
“No, she might be in range, but they'd have no reserve and no way to get back if she put on more speed and got away. They'd die out there. No,” Renee shook her head. She'd risked enough back in New Andres.
“We can ask for volunteers,” the XO said.