Paragon

by Rob RodenParker

  In theory.

  Unfortunately, things had become a bit more complicated once the need to avoid detection by the other battleship was factored in. The PFM drives used by these ships were so massive, explained Willhelm, that there was a scanner blind spot directly behind the ship due to sensor distortion from the masses of ejected ions. They had to hide in that wake. Jess carefully had to guide the trajectory to stay within this zone, whilst making sure she was smooth with her power demands. It was a task that required concentration - she'd ended up blowing the engines on one of the simulation runs, and now, she would have to take control for the full duration of the ship's flight to Earth. Some 12 hours, if Willhelm was right.

  She felt as if she stood at the bottom of a mountain with a peak so high it was invisible which she had to climb.

  Then she remembered Kepp's encouraging words.

  It's for real now - no mistakes. Come on Jess, she urged herself.

  It was 8:00 am in London.

  Johan slapped at his alarm clock with a sleepy hand. Eventually, he managed to find what he thought was the "Off" button. He rolled over and continued sleeping.

  10 minutes later, and the alarm rang again.

  For fucks sake, he thought, batting at the source of the noise again, gotta switch this off when I don't have shifts...

  At 9:00 am, after an hour of snoozing the alarm, Johan finally crawled out of bed. After having a wash and some breakfast, he ordered a cab to his local LEC, which was late as usual.

  Goddamn taxi companies, can't get anything on time.

  At 10:00 am, he had arrived and checked in. He proceeded first to the sports megaplex.

  Nothing like a bit of badminton to wake you up in the morning.

  At 12:00 pm, after he'd decided that he'd given his slightly flabby body enough of a workout, he proceeded, a mess of sweat and loser's frustration to the changing rooms.

  That fucking matchmaking system, he thought, always gives me unfair opposition.

  At 1:00 pm, he met with two friends for lunch.

  Johan chose to go for a steak, with all the trimmings, and afterwards a double chocolate fudge cake, all washed down a hearty pint of Kronenberg 1664.

  "Because I've earned it after all that sport this morning, yeah, you should have seen me. The guys I played never had a chance!" He boasted to his friends, neither of whom really cared about badminton all that much.

  At 3:00 pm, they decided to head down to the virtual reality pods and log on to their favorite online game. Johan was nearly about hit the maximum level, and his friends promised they would help him get there today.

  At 7:36 pm, Johan stepped out of his pod for a much needed toilet break.

  As he walked past the large billboard screens, displaying the usual cycle of junk food, sports and game adverts, the picture suddenly fizzled out to black, and then was replaced by a picture of a man, standing in front of a futuristic looking series of consoles. He looked familiar to Johan.

  Some stupid actor pulling a stunt, no doubt, he thought, and headed for the bathroom - he was about to burst.

  Morian grinned at the camera set up in front of him. A dark excitement in his chest bubbled; he was so close to the goal now. He glanced to his right, six old men sat out of view of the camera, bound and gagged to their chairs. The founders of Paradigm.

  Hah! he laughed inwardly to himself, Paradigm is no more.

  One of his aides signaled to him; he was now live to the world. Every major broadcasting center, every wireless screen which could be hacked and hi-jacked across the Earth, now displayed his face.

  "Greetings, my fellow Earth citizens. Some of you may recognize me. I am Morian, the newly elected leader of Alpha Cybernetics Corporation. Today, I am bringing a warning to all humanity. I implore you to listen."

  A pause for effect.

  "Out there in orbit, sitting in a secretly constructed prototype battleship, sit the leaders of The Paradigm. This battleship has onboard two hundred and five missiles, armed and aimed at the two hundred and five LECs in the world."

  He paused for a few seconds, to let that sink in.

  "They hold their principles of education and knowledge so dear that they would be willing to commit mass genocide for it, citing their reason; the best education is adversity!"

  His voice rose in intensity.

  "I, as president of Alpha Cybernetics, having learned of this plot, have been trying my utmost to prevent it from reaching fruition. Even as I speak, all the forces at my disposal are converging on their ship, and we will try to blow them out of the sky! But we may not arrive in time."

  Morian cast his gaze towards.

  "Please, citizens of the world, heed my warning and evacuate, get far away from the LECs, return to your homes. I expect they will have finished preparing to fire as of now."

  Suddenly, the battleship shook, leaving Morian stumbling to keep his balance.

  One of his aides ran up to him and whispered something in his ear. Morian looked at the camera, trying to maintain his composure.

  "We've arrived and are engaging them in battle. Wish us well, citizens of Earth."

  He cut the link, before he started screaming at his aide.

  "WHAT? The other battleship? How could that be here?"

  The aide shrugged his shoulders, speechless.

  "Incoming transmission," announced the communications operator.

  "Patch it through," growled Morian.

  The face which came up on the display screen had a mop of black hair, and plain features, which were cast in a bored expression.

  "KEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPP!"

  Morian's scream of rage echoed around the bridge of what was now re-named the Knight.

  Kepp closed the connection, a dark rage boiling inside of him.

  It's finally time, Morian.

  "500 km and closing," reported Prem, firing off salvos of the forward mounted railguns as he did so.

  "Give them everything!" ordered Curtis.

  Willhelm stood on the bridge, hands on his hips. The fifty engineers he had handpicked had operated the ship systems very well, even the crew on Earth had adapted to managing the engines well, although they had a scare. The SAS squad hadn't proved very useful though, taking over the armory and studying a blueprint of the ship.

  He was a man given solely to perfecting a design, realizing a vision; these ships. He didn't particularly care about fighting or battles, viewing it as reckless frivolity and ultimately a waste of time. For him, the rush came from seeing these behemoths fly.

  However, he couldn't suppress the surge of adrenaline at Curtis' order. This was both terrifying and exciting, and he was determined to play his role to the best of his ability.

  The Knight powered towards the Dragon, all guns blazing.

  Chapter 15 – Desperate Measures

  The four forward mounted railguns on the Knight drove round after round of depleted uranium shells into the side of Morian's ship. The recoil could be felt as poorly damped vibrations through the deck. The onslaught was relentless.

  "Range 150 km. They've got us locked," said Prem, monitoring the heat levels on the guns and the sensor readings, "I really think we should deploy the missiles now, sir," he said, diverting his gaze to Curtis, who was looking over his left shoulder.

  Suddenly, a new object appeared on his sensor map, announced by a melodic ping.

  "New contact," said Prem, turning his attention back to the readout. "Resolving details, it appears to be missile sized. Projected trajectory takes it into the atmosphere."

  Curtis swore, "That must be the first of planetary bombardment missiles. Can you get a targeting solution for that?"

  "If we fire the missiles in heat seeking mode I think we can get them to lock on, but we're still too far away."

  "Jenson? Get us in there," ordered Curtis.

  "How close?" replied Jenson, his reedy voice sounding across the intercom. Back on Earth, he swiveled in his chair, giving a hand signal to his team to dial the PFM d
rive up.

  Curtis watched the blinking icon for the bombardment missile move slowly towards the Earth.

  Not on my watch, you son of a bitch, Curtis clenched his jaw, resolve set. "Till we can see the whites of their eyes."

  "What's the ETA on that thing entering the atmosphere?" Kepp asked.

  Prem ran a few calculations.

  "Current velocity indicates entry in one minute. Our projected ETA to missile firing range is one minute, and then there's still the missile travel time..." His voice trailed off as he realized that they would be too late.

  Curtis swore quietly. "What if we fire now?"

  "It'd be a 50/50 chance at best," replied Prem, "I can program an initial burn trajectory, and then it's anyone’s guess whether the algorithm will pick up the correct signature."

  "Do it, we don't have a choice."

  "Ok, missile away," said Prem, tapping at the console in front of him. They turned to watch it streak away from the ship in the viewscreen. The yellow exhaust flare was bright against the starry background as it streaked towards the enemy ship, which was at this point a pin-prick in the display."

  "Range 50 km and closing."

  The bridge shook suddenly, as enemy rounds began to impact on the ship. "They've opened fire with their railguns," reported Prem.

  They all watched over Prem's shoulder as the blue triangle representing their missile flew away from their ship and made it's to approach the red triangle, which denoted the bombardment missile. The seconds ticked away as the two shapes converged ever closer. There was a collective holding of breaths, then suddenly, the blue triangle disappeared but the red one remained.

  "Lost telemetry from our missile," Prem said.

  "Let's pray to God they've evacuated like they were asked to," said Curtis quietly, as they watched the bombardment missile enter the atmosphere.

  "Range 25 km and closing."

  They turned their attention to the main viewscreen, which Curtis zoomed in on the battleship. Small fires could be seen raging across the structure of the ship, and it appeared to be stationary.

  The main engines were on full burn, powering them ever closer. The Knight shuddered with every round that was driven into it. A damage report made itself known on the Captain's screen in the center of the bridge. Curtis turned to give it a brief inspection. So far, there were only a few minor hull breaches, but with every round that the Knight took, the severity of the damage increased.

  "Range 10 km and closing."

  Suddenly, five more red triangles appeared.

  "Shit, they're firing them in batches now," said Prem, who began to calculate firing solutions for all of them, his fingers almost a blur over the console, "We're in range now."

  "Fire at will!" replied Curtis, looking on, his face a mask.

  The space between the two ships shrank ever closer, and was filled with the tracer lines from the railgun shells. If there was sound in space, it would have been like the naval movies of old, with two rival ships lining up and broadsiding each other.

  "2 km and closing," said Prem, fighting the console to program in targets as yet another batch of bombardment missiles were launched. "We only have five missiles remaining."

  They watched in silence as another five bombardment missiles were annihilated.

  "750 meters and closing. It seems it takes them forty two seconds to set up each wave of missiles," observed Prem.

  The enemy ship could now be seen without the aid of the viewscreen out of the bridge window. Blackened and twisted metal marked where shells had hit, and scattered plumes of fire and debris showed the puncture spots on the structure. The cylindrical engine housing appeared to be pierced too, and was shooting out uncontained plasma in a long blue jet. New shells found their target every firing cycle, slicing through the armor and into the soft interior of the stationary vessel. Unfortunately, the five missile launch bays lining the top side of the front half of the ship remained unscarred.

  "What are we going to do now, sir? If we use them on the ship, we can inflict critical damage."

  "Fire them at the ship - cripple them!" ordered Curtis, immediately.

  However, before Prem could complete the target recalibration, and as they watched on in horror, another row of bombardment missiles flashed out of the tubes, launching their way into a collision trajectory with Earth.

  "Okay, that wasn't forty two seconds," said Prem, his normally measured voice was strained, "What now?"

  Curtis was suddenly silent, what should they do?

  "300 meters and closing."

  The crew on Earth was decreasing their speed to bring them alongside the enemy ship. Warning sirens had begun to sound across the ship, and the damage report was showing multiple critical areas, indicating major hull breaches and structural integrity loss. Willhelm worked on his terminal, talking rapidly into with his engineers, with his head in his hands - his beautiful ships were being destroyed.

  Kepp slapped Haur on the back, and leapt into action.

  "Don't power down the engines! Ram them!" he shouted, "Aim for their missile launch bays! Use our own missiles to take out the bombardment weapons."

  Jess responded immediately, reaching to raise the drive output. Jenson grabbed her wrist.

  "No, hey! He said to ram them, what are you doing?" she cried, struggling to free herself.

  "Curtis! Do you affirm?" asked Jenson, holding Jesses hands away from the screen, "Curtis?"

  "100 meters and closing."

  Two of the railguns on the Knight had been hit, and were now defunct. However, the Dragon, with its leaking engine core, was now dead in the water and could only retaliate with two of its own guns. The two ships were practically stood toe to toe, and neither side backed off, trading punch for punch.

  Commander Curtis, the decorated starship captain, froze. The warning sirens, the noise, it all seemed to fade away.

  There were no guarantees - what if they rammed the other ship, and they didn't disable the missile launch mechanisms?

  What if they rammed the ship, and set off the remaining ordnance?

  They could ram the ship, and save the missiles to be launched afterwards, but their own ship would probably be critically damaged in that case.

  It would be a waste of 5 missiles.

  You can trade 5 Life Enjoyment Centers for a sure kill, right?

  It's a sacrifice for the greater good.

  Kepp shook him roughly. "What are you thinking about? Give the fucking order!"

  "Prem, target the enemy ship. Ignore the missiles," said Curtis.

  "No! You know the payload ratings! That's millions of lives!" shouted Kepp, reaching for his gun.

  "And what about the other one hundred and ninety odd missiles? What if your reckless scheme fails?" Curtis raised his voice, "Stand down soldier, I'm your CO!"

  Kepp froze, hand on the grip of his pistol.

  "It's not a numbers game," said Haur, aiming his own pistol at Curtis' head, "Give the order."

  Jess looked at Jenson, who was staring at his screen, which displayed a live video feed of the events on the bridge. She suddenly slipped free from his grasp and ramped up the engines to the maximum that she could.

  On the bridge, everyone stumbled as the ship suddenly lurched forward. The last hundred meters began to disappear very quickly.

  "Wha-?" Jenson was caught off guard.

  "Auxiliary capacitors draining! We need to up the core output, or else the deflectors are going to fail!" said Charlie, his voice tense.

  "50%!" shouted Charlie.

  Jess practically crawled over Jenson, in her attempt to reach the controls to up the core output. He threw her off, sending her tumbling onto the floor, and tried to reach to shut the engines down. However, she sprang up and kicked him hard, aiming for the crotch. She missed, but made him jump back. He clattered into Tenzen who was sat behind the pair of them in his wheelchair. Caught by surprise, he went tumbling onto the floor.

  "15% levels and dropping!" screamed Cha
rlie.

  Jess frantically swiped her fingers across the controls for the core, which she had watched Jenson use throughout their trip, raising the output to its peak level. She could hear Charlie's sigh of relief from the next desk.

  The groaning of bulkheads and the crackle and scream of tortured metal was felt throughout the ship as the Knight lanced into the Dragon. The bow of the ship knifed through the missile launch bays, stabbing like a sword through the middle of the enemy battleship's front section, nearly slicing it in two. Despite bracing, Kepp was thrown from his seat and forwards across the bridge. Control panels blew out across the deck as electrical fail safes were cut and fires erupted from sparks and severed oxygen lines. Multiple floors began to be exposed to the vacuum of space, the air rushing out with wild abandon, carrying with it equipment, debris, and unlucky crew members who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.