“Akema, are you ok?”
“Relentless Neural Core systems are operating within parameters,” she stated. “Some damage to Neural Core has been detected but will not affect operational efficiency.”
Captain Connor wanted to cry. It seemed as if Akema was no longer Akema. He didn’t have time to focus on that right now. He needed to get his ship back together. He stood and exited the Neural Core chamber. Across the way he could see Lokae working at the main engineering terminal.
“What is your evaluation of our status Kale?” he asked him as he crossed the catwalk over the VEGA.
“Not good. Galloway did a bang up job. He shut down the power core, disabled the computer and jettisoned most of our antimatter fuel. Then he boarded a shuttle and jumped it in the shuttle bay. The jump wake has caused serious structural damage to the aft portions of the ship. Everything on the other side of those blast doors,” he said pointing to the rear engineering bulkhead doors, “Is totally destroyed. Fortunately most of it was cargo holds, however, several of our reserve capacitors were in the aft portion that was destroyed. I am trying to see if I can stretch the power reserves to last until the VEGA is functioning again. I believe I can, if I divert power away from the nanites. Without power they should stay right where they are maintaining hull integrity, I hope. If this ship was of a conventional design it would not have functioned at all after that jump wake. The redundant systems and the way the power grid are made are the only reasons we are still alive.”
“Get damage control teams working. I’m sure Sick Bay is full. Get anyone with medical training there to help with the wounded. Get ship wide communications back up and running.”
***
Dr. Pendrie was beginning to receive the wounded from what she believed to be three explosions. She had been tossed around a bit herself but she was not injured.
The doors opened to sickbay. Jacob and another crew member, with what she figured was a broken arm, were dragging Kara’s unconscious body.
She ran to the door to help bring her to a medical station and hoist her onto the table.
***
“Captain. A ship just appeared on our sensors. We have limited information available due to the sensor array system malfunctioning,” Sotaki said to him through the commlink.
“Understood Mr. Sotaki. I’m on my way,” the captain responded. “Keep working Kale, get those sensors working better, we can’t be blind and crippled. How long until the VEGA is back online?”
“Nine minutes Cap,” Lokae said with a concerned look. “Let’s hope more trouble hasn’t found us. I’ll divert power to the sensors so we can get a full picture around us. Make it good cause it won’t last long.” He yelled the last part over his shoulder, never looking away from the screen, to the captain as he exited engineering.
“Captain?” Dr. Pendrie queried his commlink.
“I’m here Milli, go ahead.”
“I have Kara here. She has been injured but she will be fine.”
“What about Jacob?”
“Your son is fine.”
“Understood. Take care of them for me Milli. Connor out.”
Captain Connor reached the ladder to the upper decks and started his climb. As he reached the top Brice came over the commlink.
“Lokae got us full sensor power long enough to do a full scan of the area. It’s the Telarian. Somehow he has found us,” the concern was evident in Brice’s voice.
By the time Brice was done informing the captain he was walking through the blast doors.
“Mr. Deas, plot a course away from the Telarian ship, maximum sublight. Chaz what’s our weapons status?”
“We only have the gun turrets capable of anything right now and that’s only on manual. We need power to do anything else. The aft torpedo launchers and turrets are destroyed. Sending gunners to the working turret positions as we speak.”
Daxton Deas’ pilot station was dim and had little functionality during the previous emergency but he could use the override now. He had a button on his terminal that would automatically divert power to his station, he pressed it now. Dax’s pilot station sprang to life as he grabbed the joysticks. The monstrous sublight engines came to life. He turned the ship and poured on the speed.
“The Telarian is matching our course and speed. He is hailing us,” said Sotaki.
“Put it on screen,” Connor said. Yasa Tomac appeared on the viewscreen. The display had a spider web crack starting from the bottom of one corner where debris had hit it during the jump wake.
“Greetings Captain Connor. It seems you tricked me and stole my moment of glory. I have no more proposals, no more trades. Now I must destroy your crew and your ship,” Yasa Tomac’s pride and ego made him gloat as he attempted to torment Sean with the true story of his betrayal. “You have been betrayed by the President of the Union and it would seem so have I. Your ship was built on my research and then sent to destroy me. But you should know, my Tanari is a far superior ship in every way.”
Captain Connor ended the transmission.
“The guy never shuts up,” Connor said frustrated, half joking. “All hands battle stations!”
His short monologue did fill in a few more blanks. Confirmation that president was at the forefront of their betrayal was a disturbing development. This situation would not end well.
“We are almost out of power Cap,” Deas announced.
“Keep pushing It Dax. Right now it’s all we have between us and him. We don’t have any weapons in the aft section?” he asked turning to Chaz.
“Nothing,” Chaz told him. “The Tanari has closed to weapons range.”
“Two minutes until the VEGA is back online,” Sotaki stated.
Dax had an idea. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t. He tapped a panel on his interface, he diverted power to the front torpedo launchers. When the indicator turned green he tapped it again.
“Dax why are you diverting power to the torpedo launchers?” Chaz asked
“For this,” Dax said. “Hold on to something.”
“Wait-what,” the captain started to protest but it was too late.
Dax reversed the power to one sublight engine violently swinging the ship around one hundred eighty degrees. He then put the other engine in full reverse as well. The Relentless was now at full sublight traveling on the same heading only facing the opposite direction. He lined up his shots on the HUD and with some measure of satisfaction pushed the buttons on his joysticks to fire the torpedo launchers simultaneously. The Tanari had no time to avoid the torpedoes that struck them headlong at full speed. The Tanari returned fire but the time it took for Daxton to maneuver the Relentless had drawn the Tanari precariously close. The Tanari turned away as Lt. Deas continued to fire on its broadside.
***
“What is he doing,” the helmsman asked incredulously as he watched the Relentless spin one hundred eighty degrees. When he saw the torpedoes it became apparent.
“FIRE,” Captain Tomac screamed!
Several torpedoes pummeled the front of the Tanari. He groaned under the assault. The Tanari returned fire with its plasma cannons. The ships were in astronomical terms, point blank range. The Tanari’s helmsman panicked, turned away and decelerated.
“YOU FOOL,” Yasa screamed! The Relentless continued to fire torpedoes. Eight armor piercing torpedoes ripped through the Tanari’s thick exoskeleton. Yasa clenched his armrests tightly. He could feel his ships pain, it shrill cry echoing in his mind. The Tanari’s exoskeleton was not vulnerable to normal projectile weapons. The plasma charged torpedoes however bored holes through it and exploded inside near the soft tissue.
Yasa was dumbfounded. How could they have developed such and effective weapon against the hull of the Tanari? The president had misled him more than he suspected it seemed. Who was playing who indeed?
“They seem to have lost reserve power sir and they are catatonic,” Malik told him. Catatonic was the name Tomac had given to the condition a ship would be in
while its zero point energy device was initializing. It would be immediately evident to anyone scanning for the specific parameters.
“Come about. Stay at the maximum range of our disruptor from that ship and blast it out of existence,” Captain Tomac said smiling.
***
“I have been dying to try that since I sat in this seat,” Dax exclaimed as the Tanari veered away!
“It depleted the rest of our power reserves,” Sotaki scolded him. “Fortunately the vacuum energy generator will be back online in fifty seconds
The lights on all of the interface panels flickered and died. All that remained were the emergency lights. The Relentless was completely dead. It was an eerie silence. The constant hum of machinery was absent. The ventilation system blowers clicked as they decelerated, stopped and no longer circulated air. The viewscreen was black. Artificial gravity disengaged.
“Well this is awkward,” Dax said after many moments in the silence.
***
Lokae watched the only panel on the ship that still had power. The zero point energy device pulsated with a red-orange glow from the inside getting brighter as the seconds passed. The VEGA control interface counted down the final seconds until restart. He watched with anticipation as giddy as a child on their birthday. Four...three...two...One. Suddenly the bright red-orange light became blue in a flash.
“Subspace singularity restored,” came the voice from the control panel.
“Hell yeah!” Lokae exclaimed
***
“Magnetic shielding raised. Weapons at full power. The Tanari is charging some sort of weapon,” Chaz informed the captain.
Captain Connor glanced to the right at his tactical terminal.
“Get us out of here Mr. Deas,” Connor said urgently.
Dax wasted no time powering up the engines spinning the ship one hundred eighty degrees and pushing the throttle to maximum.
The Tanari opened fire with her disruptor. The green ball of lightning hit the rear of the Relentless. She left a trail of dead nanites as she continued on her way.
“The nanotech hull handled that disruptor blast pretty well. Hull integrity ninety seven percent,” Chaz informed the captain.
“Mr. Deas. Bring us about. Chaz. Shields and armor double front. Release the drones, set full countermeasures. Charge the plasma cannons and tell the turret boys weapons free. Let’s shove some more torpedoes down their throat.”
Daxton swung the Relentless around to face the enemy once more. The forward portion of the ship bulged as the nanites shifted to double their thickness on the bow. Another disruptor blast pounded the front of the ship. More dead nanites sloughed away leaving a stream behind the ship.
“Dax keep our nose to them. The aft is too damaged to take any more hits,” Connor said.
“I’ll do my best Cap,” Dax assured him.
***
“The disruptor is having little effect. They have turned back in to us Captain,” Malik informed Tomac.
“Continue firing the disruptor and bring the pulse cannon online. Take out a few essential systems Lieutenant.”
The Tanari’s pulse cannon fired a projectile with a velocity so great no amount of hull plating or shielding could stop it.
“Targeting port sublight engine pod with the pulse sir,” Malik informed him.
“Fire,” Tomac said smiling.
***
The Tanari’s pulse cannon fired a volley of three rounds into the port engine pod, more specifically into the constrictor manifold. The Relentless veered to starboard and there were several secondary explosions. Smoke trailed from the engine.
“The port engine is hit its losing power,” Deas informed the captain as he struggled to maintain his heading despite the engine loss.
“More specifically Captain the constrictor manifold assembly has taken critical damage from three direct strikes along its length. Those, along with secondary explosions, have destroyed the engine,” Sotaki informed him.
“Dax, keep our good engine out of their firing solutions,” the captain instructed him.
“That strategy won’t save the engine if they chose to disable it,” Brice said. “Look at the velocity of the round. It would penetrate clean through the ship.”
“Any ideas,” the captain started to ask but was cut short by the next three rounds in the starboard engine. The deceleration was immediate. “Deas switch to the backup sublights. Full speed ahead. Chaz. Give them everything but the kitchen sink.”
The small backup sublight engines came to life propelling the Relentless forward at a modest pace. The ships exchanged weapons fire. The Relentless fired plasma charged torpedoes. Volleys of hot orange plasma poured from the plasma cannons. The gun turrets blazed.
The Tanari continued firing the disruptor. Wave after wave of nanites blasted from the Relentless’ hull. By far the most devastating blows were from her high precision pulse cannon. The Relentless was helpless against its onslaught. The Tanari’s tactical officer was systematically disabling redundant systems toying with them.
“Mr. Deas. It would seem there is a large magnetic surge before they fire that cannon,” Sotaki informed the helmsman.
“Understood,” Dax responded.
The next few shots Daxton tried to evade using this new information. It was simply too much for a person to calculate. With more time to practice it could be done he thought but this was not a training simulation.
“No good sir. I can’t evade that round.”
“Captain. I believe I may be of some assistance minimizing the damage,” Akema’s voice came over the intercom. “We cannot dodge the projectile but we can make it miss, possibly.”
“Go ahead.”
Akema took control of the Relentless flight systems. There was no way of knowing which system the cannon would target. She calculated possible targets, reserve capacitors, life support, the power core, herself and many more. She would need to steer the ship in such a way as to avoid a direct hit aimed at any one of them and avoid the crew as well. The only constants were the timing and the velocity of the projectile. She dodged what would have been a direct him on the last reserve capacitor. The round still blasted through the hull, missing the capacitor by less than a meter.
“We have to end this captain, I cannot take much more damage. Nanotech armor is at thirty-four percent. Once we reach twenty-five percent hull integrity is going to suffer drastically and every shot from the disruptor will strike unprotected hull plating.”
Another disruptor blast. Two more pulse rounds. These she could not avoid. She calculated every possible scenario. They would hit the torpedo launchers if they aimed at them and because of the close proximity any shot would hit a component of the system disabling it. She opted to maneuver in such a way that it would hit the launch tubes. The plasma chargers or the loaders full of torpedoes would explode quite spectacularly. She was right, the dwindling number of primary targets and the damage they seemed to inflict must have moved the launchers to the top of their list. The rounds pounded the launch tubes. The magnetic coils erupted with a flare of electromagnetic energy that resembled a solar flare and then it was over.
“Akema. Does that ship draw its power from subspace?”
“Yes Captain it does.”
He had an idea. It involved a problem they encountered while responding to the distress call from the Nacuru.
***
Three weeks ago
The Relentless was cruising through hyperspace. The lights flickered once and went out. Then the engines stalled and with a great lurch that tossed the crew about she dropped out of hyperspace and floated. Completely without power. The emergency lighting flickered to life and redundant power systems came online.
“What the hell was that,” Deas exclaimed!
“What I was afraid of,” Galloway replied as he picked himself up off the floor. He walked over to the engineering terminal and examined the display. “Seems the VEGA is offline. Completely shut down. Something destabili
zed the reaction.”
“What could cause that?” Connor asked
“I’m not sure. We never experienced this problem in testing. This is the kind of thing I was trying to tell you about. None of these systems have seen action outside a lab. I’ll restart the VEGA it should take about thirty minutes to reinitialize.”
“No not yet. We need to investigate the cause first. I don’t want to experience this problem twice.”
“What about the enemy ship and the distress call?” Sotaki asked.
“I’m sure they will be gone before we get there. Chances are we weren’t the closest ship to respond either. Someone else will have to take this one. We will have to wait until next time. Mr. Brice, you have the bridge,” Captain Connor said as he exited the bridge.
Sean was a good engineer, a good ship architect and he was a good Razor but he really shined at physics. He loved solving the mathematical puzzles of the universe. This ship used a great deal of technology involving subspace. While its existence has been known and exploited in various ways for communication and experiments with wormhole technology, all attempts at drawing energy from subspace had failed. He was more familiar with those failures than this achievement. He had wanted to take some time and really dive into studying the technology but not like this.
Captain Connor entered the Avatar Chamber. Akema was waiting for him in the center of the room.
“How may I be of assistance Captain?”
“We have a challenge. As you have realized I’m sure the VEGA has turned itself off. We need to find out why.”
She materialized a tandem work station where they could both work and at the same time be uncomfortably close. When he saw the work station he said nothing about the proximity to her and went to work. Seemed maybe he wanted to be close to her too.
She sat down next to him. The sweet smell of cherries and strawberries permeated the air. It seemed she did indeed have a smell. It was the odor of a Bvaltari woman. It aroused him but he couldn’t think of her that way right now. He would save it for his dreams of her.
After hours of working together she had solved the problem. He had not. Akema was not constrained by his limitations. Once she had solved the problem she guided him to the answer but slowly over many hours. She would use this as an opportunity to be with him during his waking hours.
Relentless: Book One of the Union Warship Saga Page 24