Meal time came and went, but nobody left their seat.
Chris appeared at the door and waved Jim over. He stood, his joints feeling stiff from sitting too long. When he leaned over, Chris whispered. “First one’s ready.”
Jim nodded. “Launch it. No thrusters.”
The ship shook for a second and then was still.
They continued waiting, but the Razak apparently had other plans. “Captain,” Melissa spoke loudly. She put her hand over her mouth and her eyes went wide. She pried her hand from her mouth and whispered, “They’re breaking formation and heading for Earth.”
Shit. Jim knew this had been a possibility, but he hated their careful planning being taken off track. “Okay, power up. Bow shields on full.”
The lights came back up, and Jim blinked against the higher luminosity. “Resolve, open a line.”
The Razak captain appeared on the screen. He nearly passed for human, the grey and scale-like skin giving him away. A charcoal uniform left his shoulders bare to reveal bony plates that attached near the base of his neck. Jim’s head contained just enough knowledge of the Razak language to read the name stitched into the uniform.
Behind him, more of his kind bustled about stations. The crew on the Razak ship dwarfed their own. “The Resolve? We thought you had been destroyed ages ago. That captain’s descendants will be severely punished for this failure.”
As if on cue, two Razak guards appeared behind the captain and picked out a man sitting on a console not dissimilar from Chris’s. “I didn’t do anything. I’m a victim of my great-grandfather’s lies, too,” the man protested, but the guard pulled out a baton and pressed it into his back. The man screamed and collapsed. The guards pulled him off screen to a fate that Jim didn’t want to imagine.
Jim swallowed. “You might want to show that guy mercy, Krazirk. After all, your descendants are about to be in the same boat.”
“You think that rust bucket can defeat the Razak Star Destroyer?” Krazirk laughed. The sound reminded Jim of nails on a chalkboard. “If you surrender now, I will spare that planet you seem to be protecting. The occupants will merely become slaves in our mines.”
A bead of sweat rolled down Jim’s temple. What had he gotten himself into? Maybe he should have just let that General take command. He was betting the lives of billions of people on thousand year old information and a guess.
He straightened. “If you surrender, we will let you go back to your homeworld. Fight us, and you will be destroyed.”
The captain growled. “You’ve said that already. My scanners have taken stock of your pathetic ship. Outdated technology, half repaired systems, and I don’t think you are even Fagare. The eye color is wrong. You’re just a bunch of children playing soldier.”
“Did your scanners also show a curious lack of Selenium deposits in the asteroids around us?”
The Razak Captain blanched and barked an order that Jim’s Fagare-induced knowledge of the language didn’t recognize. The Star Destroyer ignored the Resolve while awaiting answers.
When Krazirk came back, he seemed angrier. The plates on his shoulder, which Jim had thought were ornamental, rose like the fur on a cat. Jim hadn’t anticipated that reaction. The Razak should have been frightened by the prospect of a catastrophic reaction if Selenium reached the catalyst in their engines, like they had been at Coucare. Either the Razak had designed some sort of defense, or this captain was confident enough in his ability to not take any damage in their encounter to risk it. Either way, didn’t bode well for them.
“So, what are your terms?” Jim hung his head. Survival required a delicate balance of aggression and withdrawal.
“Complete surrender by your ship and the planet.” The captain didn’t even pause before responding.
“Surrender of the ship, but the planet remains unharmed,” Jim countered.
“Now, wait a minute,” Chris said. “I didn’t sign up for no surrender. I say we fight.”
“Stand down,” Jim yelled. Softer, he added, “Now’s not the time. We’re outgunned.”
“We stand a chance.”
“I said, we are outgunned,” he placed more emphasis on the last word and gave a slight nod of the head towards Chris’s console.” The gunner’s eyes went wide.
“Well, you have some sense,” the captain butted in. “We reject your counter offer and stand by our original terms. What is your answer?”
Jim paced the bridge, his head down. Bobby and Melissa watched him as he made his circuit back and forth.
“I grow weary of waiting. I demand an answer now.” The plates on the captain’s shoulders rose to their full tilt and his nostrils flared like a bull’s.
“Well, here’s your answer. Strafe fire, now,” he shouted. Laser pulses shot from the Resolve. The shots went wide, and the Razak ship avoided them with apparent ease.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Krazirk laughed. He looked thoughtful for a second. “Actually, you don’t. I’ll just blow you out of the sky now.” Laser fire erupted from the black cylinder and hit the Resolve. The ship shook slightly.
“No damage,” Melissa said.
“Keep firing,” Jim said. “Bobby, put us three points starboard.”
“But that will move us closer into their range,” came the response. “I don’t know how much our shields will take.”
“Just do it,” he barked. “And put every ounce into those shields. Disable life support if you have to.”
“Yes, sir.” The ship veered right. If the move took the Razak by surprise, it didn’t show. Within seconds, their port torpedo bay opened and a missile sped towards the Resolve.
“Scatter shot.” Jim counted on the fact that Krazirk wouldn’t want to waste an expensive smart missile on so easy a target.
His guess proved true. The simpler weapon didn’t veer but entered the debris field of leftover asteroid pieces. It caught the rubble and detonated well clear of the ship.
“Aim for their port side engines. Fire bay one,” Jim yelled. Their torpedo took off to the Razak ship. The enemy elected for maneuver instead of deflection. The Star Destroyer rose above them but didn’t move quite quickly enough.
The payload missed the engines, connecting with the exposed bottom of the ship. The resulting explosion was impressive by Jim’s standards and even Chris whistled appreciatively. However, once the fire cleared, the ship remained unscathed.
“They’ve shown their hand. Can’t move that behemoth fast enough. We can fly circles around them. Bobby, wherever their guns are pointing, I want us in the opposite direction. Chris, think you can keep up?”
Chris smiled. “They won’t know what hit them.”
Bobby dove under the enemy ship. Chris twisted the turret as they flew and delivered a series of blows to the Star Destroyer. As the Razaks trundled around to face them, Bobby swung them around again and came in behind the other ship.
They loosed another torpedo. This one took a more direct hit at the engines, but shields still protected their prey.
Bobby continued to dart around the enemy ship. After a few passes, Jim could tell he was starting to get cocky. “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. They still have a more powerful ship.”
“C’mon, Jim. They can’t touch us.” Bobby swooped in front of the Star Destroyer. From the viewscreen, they came close enough to count the rivets.
Momentum took them past the ship and Bobby maneuvered to bring them around for another shot. Krazirk was ready for them. A pair of photon torpedoes slammed into their port side. The ship jerked, and Jim tumbled from his seat. The protective cocoons of the other workstations kept his crew in place, but just barely.
The bridge went to emergency lighting. Harsh red lights threw bloody shadows everywhere. A klaxon sounded, loud enough that Jim wondered if it was above his head. The sound echoed off the walls of the bridge. Bobby said something, but Jim could hear nothing over the sound of the alarm. “Shut that damn thing off,” he yelled to no one in par
ticular. The Resolve took it as an order and the siren quieted.
Jim stood and wobbled back to his chair. As he placed his hands on the armrest, another torpedo hit. He dropped to the floor again and his head bounced off the kick plate at the base of the seat. It was the only part not covered by the exotic cushioned material. Stars danced in front of his eyes. He blinked them away, and rubbed his eyes for good measure. His right hand came away red. Jim brought his hand back up to his forehead and felt a gash weeping blood.
“What were you saying?”
“We can’t take another hit like that,” Bobby reported
“Well, get us away from them.” The pilot pushed down on the throttle, as Jim rifled through the bag he’d secured to his station earlier. He’d anticipated some trouble and ransacked the ship’s infirmary for first aid supplies. Fagare seemed to favor their mechanical medics, like the ones on the moon, but the previous captain had at least seen the wisdom in emergency medicine. Jim wrapped a bandage over the wound. “Status report?”
“Shields are holding but not for long. And we’ve got another torpedo we can’t shake, Captain,” Melissa called out.
“It’s avoided all of our deflections and I can’t get a lock on it either,” Chris confirmed. “It’s almost like it knows what I’m going to do before I do.”
“viewscreen.” The image on the screen confirmed what Jim suspected. “That’s a smart missile. One like that nearly did this ship in a thousand years ago.”
“How did they avoid it then?” Melissa wanted to know. Her eyes were full of pleading.
“They crashed in eastern Colorado.”
Bobby joined in the conversation. “Why didn’t it just hit them after they crashed?”
“Maybe it felt sorry for them,” Chris offered.
“Must have lost them in the atmosphere.” Jim snapped his fingers. “Get us to Jupiter, fastest sub-warp speed possible.” He hadn’t finished saying the words, when Melissa flew into her console, setting a course for the planet.
Bobby had tested the limits of their engines while Jim had struggled to come up with a plan and used that full knowledge of that capability now. “Take us thirty minutes. Ten if you disable the safeties.”
“What safeties?”
“That missile will hit us in twenty,” Melissa chimed in.
“Forget the question. Resolve, disable all safeties limiting Bobby’s piloting.” Jim still didn’t know which way to look when addressing the ship’s limited AI, which resulted in him swinging his head about while looking at the ceiling as he spoke.
The ship chirped in response. White light flashed around them, and the ship shuddered violently. Jim barely held on to his seat to avoid being thrown again. “What the hell just happened?”
The viewscreen still showed the giant planet, but instead of the small disc of a moment ago, it now loomed large enough to fill the window.
“We just warp jumped a distance of fifteen light minutes, bringing us well into the gravitational influence of Jupiter. A jump like that can tear the ship apart if we’re not careful,” Bobby said.
Jim just shook his head. “A little warning would have been nice. Resolve,” he looked up again. “I revoke Bobby’s authority to do anything stupid like that.”
“Hey,” the pilot protested. “It worked.”
“Missile just popped out of warp, but it’s much further away that it was before,” Melissa said.
Chris chuckled. “I guess it really is a smart weapon.”
“Whatever, we got a head start and we’ll make it into Jupiter’s ionosphere before that thing reaches us now.”
Jim shrugged. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s get in there.”
The smart missile may have been well behind them, but it quickly closed the distance. The Star Destroyer headed towards them as well, but at a much more leisurely pace. They sank in the hazy wisps of the gas giant’s upper atmosphere, but it wasn’t enough to lose their tail.
“Take us to the Great Red Spot,” Jim said.
“We’ll get sucked in. The engines aren’t powerful enough for that,” Bobby protested.
“Don’t put us in the storm. Ride the edge. That missile’s motor has got to be even weaker than ours. Hopefully it will get trapped, and we can escape.”
Bobby took them to the very edge of the solar system’s largest hurricane and put them into orbit around it. The smart missile followed them in. The winds below whipped it around and gave the mighty weapon a boost in speed.
“It’s not working, Captain,” Melissa said. “It’s gaining on us. Impact in ninety seconds.”
“Just a little bit more. Bobby, get us closer.”
“But--.”
“No buts. Just do it.”
Sweat ran down Bobby’s brow as he pushed harder at the throttle. The ship’s engines, normally silent to the bridge, throbbed. The entire ship rattled.
“We’ve got damage to the port nacelle, Captain. If we don’t pull out now, it’s going to shake loose!” The proximity alarm sounded. It wasn’t as loud as the emergency klaxon a few minutes ago, but the sound still overpowered any speech below a shout. “Five seconds to impact,” Melissa screamed.
“Pull up, pull up,” Jim directed. Bobby pushed the engines to the max. The ship lurched and broke free of the storm’s winds. It rose above the yellowish bands of Jupiter’s atmosphere and the sky returned to the black they’d become accustomed to. The smart missile adjusted course to follow, but couldn’t overcome the pull of the Red Spot. As they continued to put distance between them and the planet, their pursuer got stuck orbiting the generations-old storm.
“We did it,” Chris shouted.
“We’re not out of the woods yet. We still have to defeat them.” Jim pointed to the Razak ship that had now closed half the distance from the Belt to the gas giant.
The rattling that had plagued them for the past minute didn’t decrease as they left Jupiter’s atmosphere. Instead, it intensified until everything on the bridge seemed to vibrate. The ship shuddered again and the rattling ceased. “What just happened?”
“We lost the nacelle, dad. Just like I warned you about.”
“Lost as in not operational? How long to repair it?”
“No,” Melissa said. “I mean lost it. It broke free.” The viewscreen switched to a rear view where the port engine tumbled in space behind them.
“Transfer power to the starboard engine. We still have a battle to win.”
“Transferring power,” Bobby reported. “But it’s going to take more work to follow a course. And a lot more fuel.”
“One problem at a time. Chris, how are we on munitions?”
“We ain’t low yet, but we sure are getting there.”
Jim bit his lip. “Hold your fire till we get them back into position. We need them near that bomb once we get their shields down.”
Bobby initiated another warp jump and brought them just outside of the Asteroid Belt. The return to normal space came with much less of a jerk this time. The Star Destroyer swung wide and returned to their pursuit. Once they were back within range, the Razak opened fire.
The first shots missed them, but as the large ship continued to turn, they came closer and closer until connecting. The shields dissipated the energy from these shots, and the power radiated over the hull like lightning strikes. More laser fire raked the Resolve. “We can’t take much more,” Bobby warned him.
He looked to Melissa. “They taking any damage yet?”
She shook her head. “Minimal. We need a new plan or we’re not going to make it.”
“The plan is fine, we just need more time.” He snapped his fingers. “Bobby, maximum thrust for three seconds. Let’s get so close we can wave out the window.”
Bobby stared at him, unmoving. “Do it,” Jim urged. Bobby bit his lip and pulled back on the throttle. After three seconds, he reversed to come to a stop relative to the Razak.
“Lasers are now missing us, Captain,” Melissa reported. “Looks like they ca
n’t angle high enough. Bet they never thought anyone would have the balls to do that.”
He grinned. “Chris, resume fire.”
Krazirk withdrew enough to get the Resolve back in his sights.
“Fire torpedo two,” Jim said. The Razak ship didn’t have time to maneuver before the missile hit. The explosion was spectacular and quite satisfying.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Chris shouted.
“Shields are down to fifty percent on the enemy ship,” Melissa added in a much cooler tone. “A couple more hits like that and we could get their shields down and do actual damage. But our shields are down to only twenty percent and we are sitting ducks right here.”
“Should we retreat, Captain?” Bobby asked. His hands trembled as he readied himself to pull back on the stick.
“Negative. Stay as close as possible. We’re still more maneuverable than that hulk. Use that advantage to stay out of their sights as much as possible while keeping them in ours. Chris, Keep firing everything we have. We need to get their shields down.”
The crew looked at each other but nobody moved. “Now, dammit,” Jim yelled.
Chris settled into his console and shot every kind of munition he could find at the enemy. The last of their photon torpedoes exited their tubes and caused a small series of explosions. Laser fire crackled over the enemy shields until the entire thing more closely resembled a ball of lightning than an interstellar ship. Jim watched the display as the indicator for the enemy’s shields slowly dropped.
Their shield numbers dropped more quickly. A torpedo made it past their defenses. Chris had been so focused on offense that he’d slacked on defense. Jim wasn’t sure they had any scatter shot left.
“That’s it,” Melissa called. “We are unprotected. We’re sitting ducks out here now.”
Jim eyed the indicator. So close. Part of him said they should try to get away. But the enemy ship was bigger, faster, and better armed. Chances of survival weren’t much better than staying where they were. He gritted his teeth. He’d put them on this course, and now they had to see it through. Seven billion people on the planet below depended on them, even if they didn’t know it.
Lost Fagare Ship 1: Resolve Page 7