Valessanna pulled the holographic plot back to her side and saw Vigilant begin to turn away from the attacking vessels. But again the ship was too slow. Part of another salvo blasted through the weakened shielding, blazing into the top of the stern, and taking out another engine. Fire and chucks of metal again erupted away from the hull. The great vessel shuddered and pitched up for a second time, complicating Darcon’s task of trying to bring her back on course. Fortunately no further strikes blasted through the shields in the following seconds and Vigilant was able to turn her stern to the Vazileks and once again project adequate shielding to safeguard her from her pursuers.
Valessanna’s com link was screaming as she settled back into the command chair. “For the love of Rock, what are you doing to my ship, Val?!” It was the always unpleasant and now screeching voice of an angry Calese Arkhus, the chief engineer.
“Calese,” she answered testily, “right now I have two Vazilek raiders on our tail that are trying to kill us. So stay off this channel and ready the deep drive. We’ll argue about this later.”
“I think not,” Arkhus replied icily. “That last shot was another direct hit on one of my engines. The explosion damaged the ones on either side as well. We’re working on both of them now but I’m not sure when or even if we can bring them back on line, and it will take damn near forever to get to deep drive velocity with four engines out. Just how do you plan to deal with this?”
Valessanna was momentarily stunned. She had not realized that the damage was so severe. “Calese,” she finally replied, “we need all the acceleration we can get. Do your best. Get those engines back on line if there is any possible way to do so. Captain out.” Before Arkhus could reestablish the connection, Valessanna instructed the ship to allow no more transmissions from the engineer to reach her com. Anticipating Arkhus’ next move, she turned to Busht. “Calese will be in your ear any moment. Deal with her, please.” The first officer’s only reply was a grimace.
The spatial plot was already revealing the truth behind Arkhus’ concerns. Although Vigilant was still pulling away from her pursuers, the rate of separation was visibly slowing. It would only be seconds before the now superior acceleration of the Vazileks would allow them to start closing the gap between themselves and the police cruiser, and that with Vigilant making only a shade over half the speed of light. It was a very long way to point nine two, the minimum velocity at which Vigilant was rated for deep drive activation. Engaging the drive at a speed anything less than that would mean heavy structural damage, if not outright destruction.
Valessanna pulled up the engine performance displays. Despite her anger and insubordinate behavior, Arkhus was indeed doing her best to increase acceleration. All of the remaining operational engines were blasting away at one hundred and twenty per cent of their maximum output, but heat levels were getting dangerously high. The ship could not take much more and yet she was only now approaching point six.
Behind the stern, the shields were taking a monstrous beating. Even with all of shield power directed aft, the generators were still straining to provide protection. Valessanna ordered the focus of the shields to be narrowed even more until only the engines and the deep drive were screened, leaving the wings and tail unprotected.
It did not take the Vazileks long to recognize what she had done. They split their two ship formation, moving away from each other as quickly as they could without losing ground. In only a minute the cruiser’s defenses again had to be widened to cover attacks coming from two radically different angles. Again the shield generators started to edge closer to failure, and there was no power available for Vigilant to fight back. With the engines burning well over their maximum output, the shield generators straining, and the deep drive powering up for light speed, there was no power in any system for the weapons to draw from. Charging them now was simply out of the question.
As the two Vazileks ceased moving away from each other and came to parallel courses with Vigilant they again began to slowly close the range. Each kilometer they gained enabled their weapons to strike with more violence, and each hit on Vigilant’s shields was more difficult to dissipate. Finally the shields could no longer block the entirety of the bombardment and bits of the lethal energy began to find its way through. Several hits impacted with enough residual power to cut through the hull and into the gun deck. Explosive decompressions shook the cruiser from amidships to stern. Klaxons wailed. Crewmen shrieked in terror. Some deserted their stations and ran forward toward the bow, seeking a safe haven. Valessanna checked the ship’s velocity. It was only point seven-seven light speed.
On the bridge, discipline was rapidly crumbling. The crew knew only too well that certain death was snapping at their heels. A crewman at one of the now useless weapons consoles suddenly freed himself from his chair and stood, looked furtively about the bridge, and then bolted out into the nearest corridor. Valessanna’s first impulse to send someone after him, but she thought better of it and ordered Busht to find a replacement. At that moment another explosion, this one somewhere close to the bridge, shook the vessel. Vigilant was nearing destruction.
“Maneuvering,” Valessanna bellowed desperately. “Prepare to engage the deep drive.”
Darcon, who had still not reengaged her cocoon, swung her chair around to face Valessanna. She whimpered between bouts of trembling that ran the length of her body. “Not fast enough,” were the only words her lips were able to form.
“Joella!” Valessanna yelled at her in the same way that had successfully penetrated her stupor minutes before. “Man your station and prepare to engage the deep drive!”
Darcon suddenly stood up from her chair, her breath coming in ragged gasps and her fists clenched at her side. “What is wrong with you?” she yelled, apparently aiming her ire at the Vazileks. “We’ve done nothing to you. Why do you hate us so? This is insane! What is the matter with you?”
“Joella,” Valessanna addressed her sternly. “Man your station!”
Darcon still stood unmoving. Then she began to bang her fists on the front of her thighs while a piteous wail escaped her throat. Suddenly she too sprinted from the bridge and was gone. Another crewman ran out after her. The monitor at the abandoned maneuvering station showed the ship moving at point eight-four.
Valessanna left her own chair and jumped down to the deck. As she landed another plasma impact wracked the ship, throwing her off her feet and tossing her about the bridge as if she were a dinghy in a typhoon. Only the impact of her left shoulder against a bulkhead stopped her momentum. She crumpled to her knees, then collapsed. The gold fabric of her uniform had been ripped in several places down her left side; beneath it blood oozed from wounds into the tight weave of the garment and through the sundered strands where her torn garb bordered the lacerations.
Lying prostrate on the plating, agony pulsing down her arm and flank, it took several long seconds before she could find the strength to push herself to her feet. Screaming invective at the walls, the pain, the Vazileks, and the universe in general, she staggered to the maneuvering station. As she reached it the inertial dampeners began to fail, nearly causing her to be torn away from her objective. But she hugged the backrest of Darcon’s former seat to her breast and held fast, preventing the g-forces from flinging her away to stern. The effort sent new ripples of pain running through her battered body.
Every inch she gained was an excruciating exercise in agony, but nevertheless she pulled and clawed her way forward until her head was next to the console, her body parallel to the deck, and her feet planted firmly against the backrest of the station’s chair. She held herself above the controls with her damaged left arm; hooking it over the top of the console while using her free hand to activate the drives. It took a few seconds for the starters to energize.
“Navigation, give me a plot!” she shouted, but the crewman there only stared at the viewscreens as if catatonic, watching as the pursuing Vazileks spat blasts of hatred at Vigilant.
There was
no more time; her ship was dying. Behind her, Busht, realizing her intent, shouted a warning. “Val! Strap in!” She paid no heed and punched up the deep drive, seeing as she did so that the ship’s velocity was point eight-nine.
Vigilant surged forward with such force that Valessanna was pulled backward over the chair she should have been strapped into and propelled, spine first, against the base of the command chair she had so recently abandoned. More pain ravaged her body as inhuman forces wiped her off the pedestal, around its side, and into the aft bulkhead. Likewise, every crewman aboard who was not strapped down tumbled about compartments or down companionways and corridors. The deep drive itself pushed forward with such force that the myriad and massive braces and supports that held it stressed and bent, some of them breaking under the strain. Deafening metallic shrieks issued from every corner and crevice of the big cruiser as she was thrown past the light barrier. Her weakened hull was torn open in a half dozen places by the force of the explosive acceleration. More airtight hatches slammed shut and more people died gruesome deaths, but Vigilant survived.
The ship hurtled into the sheltering gloom of faster than light travel, where no sensor could track her; no weapon could find her. She was, for the moment, free from the pounding of Vazilek cannons and was leaving the raiders far behind.
CHAPTER TEN:
Aftermath
Valessanna sat solemnly at the head of the long table that occupied the conference room adjacent to her quarters. She silently stared at nothing, mourning their losses; and brooding over their failure to accomplish the mission. The three other officers in attendance remained closemouthed as well. All of them had chosen chairs at staggered intervals, intuitively seeking to put space between themselves and their counterparts. No one wanted to be close enough to another for casual conversation. Too many of their crewmates were gone now, and any mention of their narrow escape would only have served to make everyone feel worse about those who hadn’t made it through. Melancholy clung to their psyches like the shrouds of the dead.
But there was more than bereavement moiling in Valessanna’s breast; guilt had also made its home there, swirling about her ribcage like a whirlpool, clawing at her essential being, pulling her down into blackness. She was the captain; she was responsible; she should have found a way to bring everyone home. The fact that she had been unable to do so weighed on her like a tombstone strapped to her back. Her heart literally ached. She had suffered no wounds to the chest, but nevertheless there was pain beneath her sternum, and her breath seemed to come in inhalations that were shorter than they should have been. It was woe that might never be salved. She was already sure that the memories of the Sol system encounter would hound her through the centuries like a pack of hungry wolves. She would never outrun them. But how long would it take for the pain to fade?
And it wasn’t just her heart, everything ached. She was sore to the core of her physicality. She had been carried by litter from the bridge to her quarters, where a med tech had repaired her cracked vertebrae and dislocated shoulder. The man had also tended to her cuts, bruises, and abrasions, but she had refused the painkillers offered her. She had no right to avoid the pain. It made no difference anyway. Even a massive dose of Distreban wouldn’t have given her any respite, not that the mood altering drugs were allowed on police ships during deployments. No pharmaceutical could have quelled the hurt inside her from having failed her crew so miserably. How could she look any of them in the eye ever again? She had not the moral authority to command now.
At present, she did not even have the appearance of a captain about her. Her long chestnut tresses, normally worn pulled back and tightly woven into a bun at the back of her neck, had loosened and unruly strands fell about her temples and cheeks. Her form fitting uniform was soiled by both grime and blood, and the rips in it, split wider by the med tech while he administered his treatments, allowed the cold air of the compartment to flow in next to her skin. As a result she shivered from time to time. The cold was yet another reminder of the clash and the damage they had suffered. Vigilant’s climate control systems had been fairly well scorched to near inoperability during their escape, and would not soon be repaired as they were far down on the list of damage control priorities.
Busht sat closest to her; three seats down and to her left. He too wore the gold uniform of a command officer, but his was still pristine. He had never left the confines of the OOD’s chair during their escape. His hands were clasped in front of him and lay motionless on the tabletop. He stared vacantly down at them. Brown as they were, they stood out in stark relief against the polished mahogany. For the first time, Valessanna noticed how lean and bony the Exec’s wrists and fingers had become, like those of a man who had waited too long to exchange his form for a new and younger body. She had not known him for a terribly long time, but it had been long enough to know that he should be nowhere near needing a replacement. The one he was in could scarcely be more than sixty years old. She made a mental note to speak to the doctor about his health.
The chief navigator, Pender Abblehoff, sat at the far end of the table. He was the youngest primary navigator on any ship in the extensive fleet the force maintained, and was considered to be something of a prodigy. He was also considered to be something of a bacchanalian wild child.
Leant far back in his chair, he propped his legs, now crossed at the ankles, atop the table and seemed to be studying the ceiling. He was out of uniform as he had been off duty when the Vazileks had made their appearance and; by the look of his matching, dark blue satin tunic and drawstring trousers; had almost certainly been in the act of seducing his latest conquest at the time. Normally Valessanna would have frowned upon constant debauchery by any member of the command crew, but Pender was so young—less than thirty-five years of age—that sex still had that quality of newness to him that most members of the crew had lost touch with long ago. The navigator seemed more like a wide-eyed moppet confined to a candy store than a predator in a ship teeming with potential game. And as Valessanna could still vaguely remember what it felt like to be that age and feel those feelings, she generally overlooked his satyric escapades, as did most everyone else. She reasoned that as long as it did not affect shipboard discipline, it was none of her business.
That was not to say that the scuttlebutt aboard did not abound with negative gossip concerning his trysts. The reputation as a philanderer that he had so doggedly worked for and so deservedly attained was well known by every female member of the crew, and yet there was never a shortage of willing, even enthusiastic, women ready to offer themselves up as his next prize. Nevertheless, as was the case in any small, tightly knit community, after the deed was done and Abblehoff was off chasing new experiences, each scorned lover had to save face and reputation with stories of how they had been used or misled, so the rumor mill was endlessly supplied with new grist to grind. It was a source of continual amazement to Valessanna how many of the self-proclaimed “victims” among the crew were so easily tricked into assignations with the man, some for a second or third time. Yet none of them ever seemed to be genuinely put out with Abblehoff after the dust had finally settled. The navigator, with his combination of looks, charm, and good nature, was one of those rare individuals whom it was impossible for anyone, even those he discarded, to look on with antipathy for any more than the shortest of time periods.
The third officer in attendance, who also claimed the status as third in command, was Calese Arkhus. Seated at the middle of the table to Valessanna’s right, the black uniform of the engineering staff suited her demeanor inimitably. Normally dour, at present she looked positively dyspeptic. She sat ramrod straight, her thick arms folded tightly over her ample but muscular abdomen, staring past Busht who was seated almost directly across from her. She seemed to be glaring at the bulkhead on the far side of the compartment as if angry with it for existing. Her lips were pressed tightly into thin lines across her wide face, while her strong chin jutted peevishly. At the rear of her jaw, Valessann
a could see the muscles rhythmically expanding and contracting as she clenched her teeth. Her closely cropped hair; which seemed to stand out from her scalp at right angles; did nothing to soften the image she projected. Valessanna sighed. The prospect of having to deal with Arkhus only served to lower her already bleak mind-set.
The door at the far end of the compartment slid open, grating slightly along its track as it did so and causing Arkhus to noticeably grimace. The ship’s doctor, Merco Beccassit, stepped through the threshold and into the room. The door ground shut behind him, and Arkhus reacted again, scowling in Valessanna’s general direction before rolling her eyes and looking away. The doctor slid into the chair to Abblehoff’s right and leaned forward, elbows on the table, his gray-bearded chin on his fists, saying nothing. It was most unlike him to offer greetings to no one.
Presently Valessanna broke the silence. “Nice of you to join us, doctor,” she said, reproach lurking just beneath the pleasantry.
Beccassit just shrugged. “My apologies, Mrs. Nelsik,” he replied earnestly. “There was a problem in sick bay.”
As a doctor and a scientist assigned to the force on a strictly temporary basis, Beccassit did not consider himself to be a police officer despite his special commission; therefore, he had an annoying habit of addressing all the members of the crew as if they were civilians. Valessanna had tried to break him of it, unsuccessfully, until it became apparent that his lack of etiquette was not merely a matter of misunderstanding protocol, but rather a stubborn insistence, rooted in his core values, of resisting all forms of authority. She still found it annoying, but as he was more competent than any doctor currently serving in the fleet and was only aboard for this one voyage, she had learned to let it pass without comment. Of more concern was the doctor’s reference to a “problem” in sick bay. The garrulous Beccassit was not given to brief responses, and Valessanna suspected that his lack of expansiveness meant that the problem was of sufficient proportions that he was reluctant to open the meeting with an explanation. A good idea, she thought, considering all the other difficulties now besetting the ship.
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