by Ryan Krauter
Through it all, though, the Priman elements on the fringe were keeping the Crusaders isolated and under fire as the Enkarran ships tried to intervene.
Loren watched in amazement as he picked out the icon of the Enkarran ship heading their way. It launched a volley of torpedoes at the two Priman cruisers that were hounding Avenger, forcing them to scatter for a moment. Loren breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the shield generators try to rebuild the field between them and the Priman blasts, but it didn’t last.
The Primans closed again as Avenger was forced to turn. While she could to an extent outrun the Priman ships, it would have meant showing them Avenger’s engines for a lengthy duration. That would have most likely resulted in severe engine damage, which was no way to survive a battle. So, they’d maneuvered, changed pitch and heading, and rolled to show the Primans undamaged sections of the ship. Both Priman ships released another large salvo of torpedoes, though at least this time some of them were aimed at the Enkarran ship. Loren gasped in surprise when he saw that it was the Union.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
“No time for that,” Mastruk yelled as she ran by him on her way across the platform to issue damage control orders.
Captain Elco watched the fight as it started to die down. The Ninth and Priman fleets were just circling each other now, neither one especially interested in closing for a slug-fest. The Talarans, then, were working on the edges of the Priman fleet picking off the occasional ship. Sooner or later, the Primans would have to bug out.
Elco looked at the display of near space in the holo field. Avenger’s laser batteries, the ones that were still working at least, were still firing nonstop. He imagined they’d need a good overhaul when this was all over. Torpedoes screamed out of Avenger’s four forward and four aft launchers as the mag shield finally failed, exposing Avenger in all her glory to the Priman gunners.
Elco watched torpedo tracks and laser blasts crisscross space and knew this was going to be a close one. It was at that point he noticed the Union as she came to their aid. Avenger was suddenly rocked by a series of blasts that he felt on the bridge, either signifying a close hit or a very large impact. In reality, it was a Priman torpedo that cracked through a weakened external armor plate while detonating, sending a directed blast several bulkheads deep inside the ship.
The lights flickered and several port side consoles blacked out for a second, then came back as they rebooted.
“Explosion in one of the power relays on the port side,” he heard the damage control officer call out. “Port side batteries in manual reversion, forward torpedo tubes One and Two out, Three and Four manual load and launch only.”
“Shields?” Elco asked.
“Ten percent on the port side,” came the unwelcome news.
Elco watched the holo field as he gave more orders to the helmsman. There wasn’t much he could do until the Union was close enough to fly some sort of formation so their shields and point defense batteries could overlap; until then, all he could try was vector changes and hope for the best. He saw that Loren had ordered Cory and Merritt’s fighters away from the action, and they were actually complying. Trying to land right now was suicide, and with all the torpedoes and laser blasts filling up such a small area of space, Cory’s Intruders would be making suicide runs if they decided to strafe the Priman cruisers.
Then, it all came to a head, and Elco had a front row seat. Union and Avenger’s combination of torpedoes and laser batteries finally combined to destroy outright one of the Priman cruisers and vaporized the drive section of the other. Union took a dozen laser hits to the weakened shields on her starboard flank, and Elco could only watch in horror as two Priman torpedoes raced towards Avenger’s portside primary sublight engine pod. With the port side AA/point defense turrets damaged or unpowered, there would be no shooting these two down. They impacted within a second of each other, one right on the shuttle hangar door, the other a hundred feet further aft.
Loren came to in darkness. He groped for where he figured the wall was, but touched nothing. Finally, the battery powered red emergency lights snapped on and illuminated C3 through the haze of wispy electrical smoke that clung to the ceiling.
He looked around and found Sarria Mastruk lying on the ground beneath the display screen she’d been looking at. The screen was cracked and she had a hand to her head, groaning softly.
“Sarria,” Loren asked, then coughed on the acrid smoke as he inhaled a lungful. “Are you okay?”
“Good enough, XO,” she replied. Loren realized she wasn’t groaning at all, but swearing quietly with her eyes clenched in pain. She must be alright.
Loren heard a gentle whoosh as the fans finally kicked in, sucking the smoke out through the vents. The smoke came from a shattered light panel in the ceiling; he wondered if any was making it up to the bridge. He braced himself against the railing at the forward edge of the command platform and slowly hauled himself to his feet so as not to aggravate his previous injuries.
He saw several crew from the floor consoles up and about, tending to each other and working on getting their equipment restarted. Loren made eye contact with each one, and all were up and moving under their own power.
He had seen the torpedoes coming in at the last second, having been concentrating on getting the forward torpedo launchers reloaded, and now had to assume the yield he’d guessed at for the Priman weapons was about right. It would take a few kilotons of explosive power to knock around a 1700 foot long ship like Avenger and put everyone on the floor.
He spotted one of the crew at a nonfunctioning floor console and had to concentrate to remember her name.
“Ensign Skyler,” he began, “head up to the bridge and check on the Captain and see if he has any instructions. Looks like the comms are down.”
Ensign Skyler nodded and headed over to the port side stairway, taking them two at a time as she bounded up them to the bridge.
Chapter 16
Captain Elco had found the time to yell brace for impact before the torpedoes hit, and as a result the bridge crew, with one exception, had stayed in their chairs after the violent impact of the warheads.
“Helm, report,” Elco said, choking through the same smoke filled air Loren had dealt with in C3. He looked around through the red illumination and traced the source to the port side diagnostic and communications displays that crew passed as they exited the lift on the way onto the bridge proper. There was a steady stream of smoke coming from the panel underneath the light ballast and displays, and he got up and ran to the locker next to the lift to grab an extinguisher. The crewmember who had been at the port forward systems console already had the panel off by the time Elco got back, and he emptied the contents into the space. The foam quickly solidified and stuck to the offending components, and the problem was solved. He felt the air vents kick in and remove the smoke just as he saw an Ensign from C3 come bounding up the stairs.
“Captain,” she said quickly, “XO wants to know if he has any new orders.”
Elco thought for a second. If there were more Primans out there, Avenger was done for, plus Cory and Merritt’s ships were still orbiting somewhere as well.
“Tell Commander Stone to work on getting weapons operational and running damage control. Prioritize using standard damage control procedures; you’ll run the effort from C3. And contact our fighters once you’re able; we’ll want to recover them ASAP if our hangars are operational.”
As soon as he was done, the Ensign was off in a flash for the stairs and C3.
The helmsman had finally found something to report and was waiting his turn. “Captain, we’re spinning to port; I’m trying to stabilize. Main sublight engines are offline; in fact I can’t even get a reading on the port side engine pod. Hyperdrive appears undamaged but was shut down, and power generation is offline but rebooting. I’m trying to stop our spin with docking thrusters- the maneuvering thrusters on the port side aren’t responding.”
“Understood,
” Elco replied heavily.
He walked back around the front of the bridge and up to the railing that bordered the holo field projector. The field was operational, but only showed Avenger in the center; with the sensors offline, there was no data to send to the system. He quickly stepped to the rear of the bridge and the large main systems screen. He tapped a few buttons and tried to call up some information on the engines, but as the helmsman said, nothing came back from the port side engine pod, not even the black color denoting a destroyed section. While much of Avenger sported external armor plating, the sublight engine pods did not, as their internal systems themselves were armored. The hull of the engine pods provided surfaces to mount shield and hyperdrive field emitters, and was intended to deflect laser blasts or detonate torpedoes before they could burrow into the engine components and do even greater damage.
“Captain,” Ensign Caho called, “I’m getting a datalink feed again. We have a tactical picture.”
Elco turned to look at the contents of Caho’s screen. The battle seemed to be over, at least for the most part. The main Confed and Priman forces had disengaged, while the Talarans and Enkarrans had finally chased off the Primans who had ganged up on the Crusaders. Elco’s breath caught in his throat. He saw the grim news; six Crusaders had been destroyed, while the three who had made it were all heavily damaged. The Primans had obviously set up a trap, but it seemed as though they’d specifically targeted Avenger and her sisters. Could they somehow already know that Avenger had Velk aboard?
He saw an Enkarran ship, the Union, was holding formation off Avenger’s port side, and that the Comms board showed the Union was hailing them.
Elco sat at his chair and looked at the video screen on the port side bulkhead. “Communications,” he said calmly, “accept the Union’s hail and put it on screen.”
Seconds later, the somber face of Captain Krent appeared. “Captain Elco,” he began, “I am glad to see your ship is still intact. I only wish we’d arrived here earlier.”
“Thank you,” Elco replied.
“We’re watching your damaged areas for trouble, but I wanted to offer assistance if you need any.”
“I think your arrival is what saved us to begin with, so I think we’re already in your debt.” Though it pained him to make that admission after his past with the Enkarran captain, he had to grudgingly admit that the Union had most likely saved their hides.
“Still, we’ll maintain position until you tell us otherwise,” Krent said.
“Thank you for the offer, Captain,” Elco nodded, and waited for Krent to close the channel. He never thought he’d be thanking an Enkarran for anything, but there it was.
Loren, from his vantage in the mostly-repaired C3, saw the situation was finally under control. The various ships- Confederation, Talaran, and Enkarran- had all gathered over Anderson to lick their wounds and regroup.
The Confed fleet had been manhandled yet again, and he suspected the unannounced arrangement Elco had made with the Talarans was the only reason he was still there to ponder the fact. He had spent some time thinking dark thoughts about Senator Dennix and his supposed military experts for sending them on this mission, but realized he needed to focus and managed to put that train of thought away for now. He’d be back, though.
For now, he made one last check of Avenger’s damage control efforts. The port side sublight engine was completely destroyed, along with the associated main and auxiliary hangar and the forward maneuvering thruster. Their realspace speed and acceleration would be a fraction of what it had been, but their hyperdrive engines and field generators were within tolerances, so she was ready to travel. Admiral Illam had been forced to order one of the three surviving Crusaders destroyed, having been too damaged to even scavenge meaningful parts off of.
Loren made a quick and painful glance at the casualty list. Avenger had suffered over three hundred casualties. That was over a quarter of her crew killed or wounded in this single engagement, the worst loss for the ship since she’d been commissioned.
Only two of Avenger’s fighters hadn’t made it back, so Loren could at least be grateful for that news.
He figured Captain Elco had it worse right now, however. The Captain was in C3’s conference room hosting Captain Krent of the Union, an offer he’d made so he could formally thank the man for coming to Avenger’s aid and perhaps try to build some sort of peace between the former enemies.
Elco shifted in his seat and reached forward to pick up the small decanter of his private stock. He offered a refill to Captain Krent, who nodded his agreement. They’d been talking for a while now, and once or twice Elco had even forgotten their history, one that included the Union firing the shot that had killed his old XO and friend to himself and Loren Stone, Commander Delgin Marks. He knew in his heart that it was what soldiers did, and doubted that there was any personal animosity or anything above simply duty and following orders. Still, he knew changing his feelings about the Enkarran across from him would require an honest effort, and he had to admit that while part of him wanted to hate the man, also realized that the Enkarran was making the effort to start over as well.
“I wish I’d had more reasons to break this stuff out,” Elco mused as he stared at the glass. “I’m not much of a drinker, but I have to admit this label makes a heck of a spirit.”
“To more occasions for both of us, then,” Krent replied somberly, and raised his glass. Elco did the same, and they downed their alcohol.
“Well, I’ll need to find a way to even up this debt of ours now,” Elco said with the slimmest of smiles.
“I personally am not a fan of keeping track of debts,” Krent began. “I’m not sure it helps, feeling as though people have to keep track of some cosmic balance sheet. I worry it distracts, creates an opportunity for weakness. So here’s what I propose; we forget all of it, the good and the bad both. We shake hands and start over, build something new.”
Elco was at a loss. He’d wondered which direction this talk would take; now he knew, and he had to assume he’d have been able to make the same gesture as Krent. For now, it sounded like as good a deal as any he’d gotten for a long time.
Elco got up and extended his hand, which Krent took. “To starting over, then,” Elco said, and Krent nodded and echoed the statement.
Loren had been called down to Sickbay by Doctor Elrad. He assumed she’d wanted to brief him on the casualty list since things had finally slowed down a bit.
He stepped into Sickbay and was amazed by how ordered the situation was. The main area, as well as several other attached rooms, were full of people, both injured as well as medical staff. Loren gave credit to Doctor Elrad’s staff that they could keep the situation from devolving into chaos, even with so many crew in need of their help.
“XO,” Loren heard behind him, and turned to see the Doctor as she swept through the room, two officers trailing her as she dictated instructions to them. “I have news for you, but I’m pressed for time so I need you to quickly follow me to my office.”
Loren had gotten used to her businesslike manner and had also learned to not take it personally, so he simply fell into line behind the doctor’s two subordinates, though he started falling back as his injures held him to a slower pace than Doctor Elrad was setting.
When he finally reached her office, she’d already taken a seat. She looked up and noticed his condition; slightly out of breath with a few beads of sweat on his forehead, left arm still bound up in a sling.
“Sorry to make you work for it, but I have good news,” she began. “Sit down, please.”
Loren wished she would just get to it; he didn’t have time for theatrics, and considered telling her so, but he supposed it might be good news on the DNA weapon antidote’s progress, so he obliged and sat, then looked at her expectantly.
“We’ve figured out a cure,” she said simply.
Loren didn’t quite process that bit. The stunned look must have prompted the doctor to continue. “What I mean is, we hav
e a cure, Loren. Now that we have Velk’s DNA for comparison, the computers didn’t take much time in isolating exactly what the weapon is looking for. We created an antidote that tells the virus those exact DNA markers are already eliminated, and the virus will shortly after that take itself apart. We assume that’s a precaution to guard against mutation; the longer a virus stays in the wild, even an artificial one, the more likely it is to mutate and do something unpredictable. The good news is that, if it looks at everyone on Toral and decides the damage is done and then disassembles itself, it’s a good sign that it will start and end right here with this situation. No more plague. How does this all sound?”
“I don’t know what to say,” he said honestly. Truthfully, he’d blanked out a bit after hearing that Doctor Elrad said there was a cure. The only thing on his mind was that his wife would be ok. That was all that mattered. Everything else was just details, and he really didn’t care about the rest of it. As long as Cassie would live, that was what he needed to hear. He realized his eyes were watering, and relief washed over him. Suddenly, he felt more awake and alive than he’d felt in months, as though he’d been wearing a dark pair of glasses and gotten used to them, then taken them off and realized things were so much brighter than he’d remembered. “Thank you, Doctor,” he managed to stammer out through his thoughts and emotions.
Elrad simply smiled, a genuine smile that spoke of understanding. “We’re still working on a delivery mechanism and synthesizing large quantities, but the worst part is finished. I’m off and back to work, but you can let yourself out when you leave, alright?” She got up and walked by, gently placing a hand on his shoulder as she left.