by Tony Healey
She’d use what time they had to make sure Carn regretted his actions.
“Commander, please assist Captain Dolarhyde down in engineering. Get the tubes loaded with the most dangerous warheads we have in our arsenal,” King ordered. “He’ll know which one will serve us best.”
Greene left without another word.
Hawk let rip a Yeeha! from the helm. “Finally! We’re gonna be shootin’ somethin’ big!”
Jessica nodded once. “You’ve got that right.”
* * *
Aboard the Defiant, all was not well. Down in the engineering section, Chief Meryl Gunn gave the order to evacuate.
“Come on! We’ve got thirty seconds to clear the whole deck! Everybody out! Get behind the blast doors!” she shouted at them all.
The engineering crew – Krinuans among them – ran past her.
“Come on Chief,” Belcher urged.
“No. I’m the last out. Go.”
“Not without you, Chief,” Belcher said.
Gunn rounded on him, grabbed him by the collar and screamed in his face. “I’m not messing with you, Gary! Get the hell out!”
He took the hint and joined the others.
Certain the whole section was secure and free of personnel, Gunn left too. The doors slid shut behind her and she accessed the control pad to the side of them, locking the section off. Then she evacuated the deck.
Not that it would do much good hiding behind a blast door when the entire reactor went up.
* * *
Chang felt the blood trickle down the side of her face but she ignored it.
Just a small bleed, she told herself. Or I’d have bled out already.
“Commander!” Gunn’s voice was loud and immediate over the speakers. “I’ve evacuated the entire deck. The reactor’s critical.”
Chang swallowed. “How long, Chief?”
There were many things that could be fixed aboard a starship. Even the beating heart of the ship, the reactor, could be mended on most occasions. But it was a given that when the ship’s Chief Engineer announced the reactor as critical, and told you she’d evacuated the area, that the heart of the Defiant had finally given out.
She was going to blow.
“Fifteen to twenty minutes. We might have time, if we start evacuating now, to get clear of the blast,” Gunn said.
This is almost unbelievable, Chang thought.
“Then get to the escape pods, Chief. I’ll issue a ship wide evacuation call.”
“Commander… Lisa… I’m sorry…” Gunn said.
Chang smiled thinly. “There was nothing you could do, Chief. Now get going, the clock’s ticking. Get your people out.”
Chang turned to the others on the bridge. “That goes for all of you, too. Once the ship is secure, we’ll get to the nearest escape pod. The Defiant‘s a ticking time bomb.”
Rogers and Beaumont shared apprehensive looks. Lieutenant Slavin visibly swallowed.
Alarms rang all over the ship, the bells of impending doom echoing through the deck plating to the bridge.
“Now I’d better inform the whole ship…” Chang said, her voice cracking despite her attempts to control it.
9.
Dolarhyde arrived back on the bridge.
“Well?” King asked him.
At the helm, Hawk kept the Warrior out of the Dreadnought’s reach. Their fire glanced the Warrior’s bow, struggling to keep a lock on them. If he’d been any less of a pilot…
The older man wiped his brow. He was covered in dust, sweat and some kind of grease. “They’re loaded and ready to fire. Not sure how they’ll work though.”
Jessica shifted in her seat. “And you say these are… ?”
“Something called a Duotonic Cascade Shell. Least, that’s what it says on the container. I don’t know if they’ll even work, sitting up here so long.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“I’ll be back in engineering with Commander Greene,” Dolarhyde said and left.
Jessica unclipped from the command chair and took a seat at the weapons console. She opened a channel to Captain Praror’s ship. Presently his people were keeping the Dreadnought moderately busy. It was no wonder they couldn’t fix a good shot on the Warrior with the Krinuans running back and forth, punching where they could.
“Captain Praror, can you hear me.”
“I read you Captain,” Praror said.
“You may want to pull your people back,” she advised. “We’re about to fire something at that Naxor ship. Something experimental. It might have . . . unpredictable . . . results.”
“Understood. We’re falling back now. Any reports from the Defiant?”
Jessica shook her head, though she knew he couldn’t see it. “No. They’re not responding to our transmissions.”
Silence then, between the two Captains, a moment that stretched on for what seemed like forever before Praror wished her luck and closed the channel.
He doesn’t want to say it, she thought. But it’s bad news. My ship’s hurting, I’m over here. They can’t hear me. Or they can, and they can’t respond. Whatever the case, I feel lost.
Her hands braced against the firing controls.
“In position, Cap,” Hawk said as he steadied the Warrior. The Naxor Dreadnought, a dark colossus with the Terran Union’s greatest enemy on board, glided past.
“Bottom’s up,” King muttered and fired the warheads.
* * *
The Duotonic Cascade Shells hurtled away from the nose of the Warrior, six seconds later slamming into the Naxor Dreadnought. They detonated on impact. The multiple shockwaves blew out ten decks. But it didn’t stop there. They continued to explode, the detonations larger and larger each time. Throughout the Dreadnought, the lighting failed, environmental and gravity controls whimpered and died. The ship lost all directional control, and tipped forward with its nose down. The Dreadnought’s engines still fired, causing it to loop the loop in a ballet of death.
Several secondary power conduits blew in the aft sections of the ship, resulting in power stations throughout the length of the vessel to blow in rapid succession.
Where the Draxx Queen sat in relative safety, beneath the command deck, a power conduit erupted, throwing her the length of the room, smashing her into a far wall. She did not die instantly, however. There was one final thing to do. The very last act of any Draxx Queen. She focused the last of her energies and laid an egg.
* * *
The moment Carn became aware of the explosions taking place throughout the ship, he realised the fight was lost. His first thought was for the Queen.
By the time he got to her, she was already lying half burned, in a pool of her own sickly blood. In her arms she clutched a single egg, a half metre across.
The light fading from her eyes, she gazed up at him and released her grip on the egg.
“General… the next heir…” she whispered, her forked tongue darting out, then staying out as her mouth lulled wide open. Her eyes became dim and she died in front of him.
Carn bent down and picked up the egg . The massive ship shook violently around him.
He left, carrying the Dominion’s new future ruler in his hands.
* * *
Outside the cargo bay, the General accessed a comm. panel.
“Abandon ship,” he said. “All hands. Every member of crew. Abandon ship. They have won this battle. But not the war. Next time we will come in greater numbers.”
He paused. Somewhere, far off within the veins of the giant Dreadnought, an explosion boomed. He leaned back in toward the comm. panel, “This is only the beginning.”
10.
“Communications are still down,” Beaumont said.
“Understood. You’ve done all you can here, Roland, get to an escape pod,” Chang said.
Beaumont nodded, got up and shook her hand. “It’s been a pleasure.”
“Same. Now get going,” she said sternly.
Beaumont left the br
idge.
“I have limited power,” Rogers said. “If anyone’s going to survive, we need to get the ship away from the escape pods. We can gain some distance, but I can’t set the auto pilot. The system’s totally blown.”
Chang closed her eyes. She’d known this was coming.
“Okay. I think you’re done here, Rogers. Both you and Slavin get to a pod. Get off the Defiant. I’ll hold the fort here for as long as I can, then I’ll ditch,” Chang said.
Rogers’s eyes widened. “Commander! You can’t stay! Don’t you understand? You’ll never escape the blast!”
Chang frowned. “It’s an order! Get up, and get out of here. Now!”
Rogers did as he was told. Slavin left with him, offering Chang once last backwards glance as she exited through the doors at the back of the bridge.
Now all was silent.
Commander Chang went back to her old station and checked the readouts. Most of the escape pods had been fired. She smiled. At least they’d survive.
Soon the reactor would overload, blowing the whole ship to pieces.
And she’d make sure that she got the Defiant as far from the pods as possible.
Chang went to the helm, settled in the pilot’s seat. The controls were sluggish, but still operable. The ship had power.
You’ve been good to us, she thought absently.
“Hey! Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” a voice said behind her.
Chang knew even before she turned around that it was Chief Meryl Gunn.
* * *
Captain King watched with satisfaction as the Naxor Dreadnought turned end over end before finally snapping at the middle. But not before swarms of ships could escape the crippled ship, fleeing into open space.
“We’re pursuing now,” Captain Praror told her.
The only thing Jessica could think to say was, “Good hunting.”
Hawk took them around the torturous hulk of the Dreadnought so they could catch a proper glimpse of the Defiant.
“Damn!” Hawk exclaimed.
Jessica drew in a sharp breath. Escape pods fled from the crippled ship as it lumbered away from them. She tried all the functions at her disposal, and not one of them resulted in a connection with the Defiant. She felt completely desperate. Completely useless to help.
“I can’t reach them,” she managed to whisper. She cleared her throat. “They . . . they’re not…”
Commander Greene and Captain Dolarhyde arrived on the bridge. They were both instantly transfixed by what was unfolding on the viewscreen. The Defiant crawled away, toward the planet, leaving the escape pods behind.
There was no need for anyone to come out and state the obvious. The Defiant was getting out of the way. The escape pods meant she’d been evacuated. Good as dead.
The fact the ship was gaining distance from them told Jessica one thing, and one thing only: She was going to blow. And it was all they could do to stay well back.
* * *
“Chief, I have to be the one who does this,” Chang said.
“No!” Gunn cried. She grabbed her by the arm, tried to pull her off the bridge. Chang fought against her. “Come on!”
“NO!” Chang yelled, yanking her arm free. “Listen to me! The auto pilot doesn’t work. The ship must be manually piloted clear of the escape pods. Chief, I don’t have time for this.”
“Now you listen to me,” Gunn said, jabbing a finger at her. “There’s no time to pilot her away. You’d never get out in time. We’ve gotta go.”
Once again, she grabbed Chang’s arm. And this time, the Commander gave in.
“All right. All right, you win. Come on, let’s get to a pod,” Chang said.
They left the bridge.
“You know it’s the right thing,” the Chief said.
Chang barely heard her. She watched the Chief hurry to a hatch covering an escape pod. The hatch slid open, revealing a short tube they had to crawl through.
“Go on, Chief, you go through,” Chang said.
“It should only take a second or two to fire her up,” Gunn said as she kneeled inside the tube and crawled toward the pod. She pressed a button. The opening to the pod revealed a small spherical craft beyond. The Chief crawled on her hands and knees through it, then turned around inside the pod.
Chang stood out on the deck. She hit the controls for the door.
“NO!” the Chief shouted as the hatch slid shut again. Seconds later the pod sped away from the Defiant.
“Good luck, Chief,” Chang said and headed back to the bridge.
* * *
Jessica King paced back and forth. “Del, what’re the readings? How long till the Defiant goes up?”
Greene shook his head. “I can’t get a definite reading, but I reckon she’s got about five minutes.”
King sighed. It wasn’t enough. None of it. If only she could have been over there, with her ship. She looked at the viewscreen, at the Defiant headed for the alien planet. Debris and different matter spewed from her open wounds. Her port engine flickered, barely operable. The escape pods lay behind her, like flotsam in the wake of some huge ocean-going vessel.
“There might be enough distance,” Hawk offered. “If she can keep goin’, that is.”
Jessica agreed, but it was a slim margin for error. Too close and they’d be annihilated in the eruption of the Defiant‘s core. With any luck, the clearing between them and the Union ship would be sufficient to keep them away from the blast radius.
But what about my ship? Jessica asked herself. And has anyone stayed aboard to get her out of the way?
* * *
Chang handled the controls like a pro, funnelling every ounce of energy left in the Defiant to get her away from everything. She focused on the only thing in her view she could aim for. The planet.
The ship bucked and heaved beneath her, systems overheating, manifolds bending and writhing like rubber limbs. The reactor was nearing critical, klaxons she couldn’t silence blaring around her.
And still she stayed. She piloted the ship that had borne them safe and free from countless skirmishes away from everyone she knew and loved and cared for. To keep them safe.
Because this was her responsibility. Nobody else‘s.
She’d see it through to the end.
* * *
Three minutes later, the Defiant exploded. She bloomed, a giant white ball of raw energy as the materials in her reactor became superheated to the point of causing fission. She expanded above the curve of the planet, broken into thousands of pieces by an immense fireball that tore her apart.
The wreckage from the Defiant fell into the planet’s atmosphere, where they rained down like a meteor shower.
Finally, the Defiant had met her end. She was gone, returned to the stardust from which she’d once come.
* * *
Jessica fell to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks as the Defiant blew before her. She couldn’t turn away from the screen. Couldn’t avert her eyes. That would have been a coward’s way out. Her old ship deserved more.
She’d seen them safe and well countless times. And now she was gone.
The Warrior lifted and dropped on the shockwave eddies from the Defiant exploding. Jessica closed her eyes. The light from the explosion was still there, burned into her retina. She realized it would never leave her. It would always be there.
She’d never be able to forget the day she watched the Defiant die.
11.
The General watched from his aft view as a small sun blossomed against the curve of the receding planet, then faded away.
He cradled the egg, the last heir of the Draxx Dominion. The future.
Entrusted to him, the greatest warrior the Draxx had ever known.
It was a sombre moment. He’d lost in his fight against the humans. He’d lost one of the Naxor’s greatest vessels in the process. And the Queen had perished in the attack.
But there was tomorrow. And the next artefact. Soon he’d close in o
n the one that would give him what he needed. He could feel it.
Carn looked down at the egg, then back up at the small viewscreen. His ship sped out of the system, piloted by two Naxors. The planet shrank away, the final resting place of the cursed Defiant. He may have lost the battle – but he’d also won, too. He’d finally crushed the Union ship. There were other vessels, of particular interest the smaller ship that dealt him such a crippling blow.
And that would be dealt with, in time.
The General laughed, shook his head. The Naxor officers eyed each other nervously.
Time.
If all went to plan, he’d have time on his hands. More than enough.
With a slight sensation as it shifted, the little craft engaged its Jump Drive and leapt into the stars.
12.
Commander Greene helped her up, then held her in his arms.
“Jess . . .”
She shook her head. “I should’ve been over there.”
“No, no, no. Don’t think like that,” Greene said. He looked sideways at the viewscreen, at the dissipating remnants of the Defiant as they fell into the atmosphere, shooting stars in the evening sky.
“Del, I have failed,” Jessica said.
Captain Dolarhyde noticed several indicators on the communications station flashing and moved across to see to them. He held the earpiece up, listened, and his eyes brightened. “I believe we have the escape pods on audio.”
Jessica wiped her eyes and looked up. “Sorry?”
“The escape pods. They’re making contact.”
She moved toward the comm. station. “Can you find out whether Commander Chang or the Chief is among them? See if we can get a handle on what happened?”
We already know what happened, she chided herself. You lost your ship. They died in the explosion. You family is without a home.
She pushed the thought away as Dolarhyde listened to the incoming transmissions and attempted to sift through them, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Where will you go from here? You’re lost. Marooned on an alien world. A bunch of refugees. Without a home and no way of reaching one, either.
Again she pushed it away.