by Ryk Brown
“Time to first impacts?”
“Two minutes,” the lieutenant replied.
“Aurora?” Cameron called. “Can the Cape Town handle that many missiles?”
“Without shields, negative,” the Aurora’s AI replied. “If all of her missile defense weapons could be brought to bear, she might have a chance, but…”
“What about with us running intercept?” Cameron asked.
“Assuming a fifty-percent intercept rate on all two hundred and eighty-eight missiles, the Cape Town will have a survival probability of seventy-eight percent. However, the Aurora will be destroyed.”
It took less than a second for Cameron to make her decision. “Helm, new course. Prepare to jump us in front of those missiles.”
“Jump to Sol plotted and ready,” the Mystic’s helmsman reported.
“Jump when ready,” Commander Kaplan instructed.
“Jumping in three…”
“Why was my meal interrupted?” Kor-Dom Borrol demanded as he was escorted onto the bridge.
“Two…”
“Your forces have arrived,” Commander Kaplan stated with disdain, not even looking back at the Jung leader.
“One…”
“That’s impossible,” the kor-dom insisted.
“Jumping.”
“They aren’t due for…” Kor-Dom Borrol’s words trailed off as icons began appearing all over the forward windows of the Mystic’s bridge, three of which were quite large and identified as Jung battle platforms.
“Time for you to make good on your end of the deal, Kor-Dom,” Commander Kaplan stated.
“Gunyoki are intercepting the first wave now!” Lieutenant Yuati reported from the Aurora’s tactical station.
“New contact!” Kaylah announced. “It’s the Mystic.”
“Comms, tell them to have the kor-dom call off the attack!” Cameron barked.
“Ready to jump,” Ensign Dorsay reported.
“Fifty-eight of the first wave are still inbound,” the lieutenant warned.
“Damn it,” Cameron cursed. “How long until the other Gunyoki reach intercept position?”
“Two more squadrons will be in intercept position in thirty seconds,” Lieutenant Yuati replied.
“Time to first wave?” Cameron asked.
“One minute,” the lieutenant replied.
“That leaves thirty seconds for intercept,” Cameron said, more to herself than the others. She had no choice. “Execute the jump,” she ordered. “Put us in front of the first wave.”
“Another missile launch!” Kaylah reported. “Another full wave!”
“Jumping in three…” Ensign Dorsay began.
“Channel all available power to our starboard shields,” Cameron continued.
“Two…”
“Comms, drop the comm-drone with the strike order, and pass its control codes to the Voss, just in case.”
“One…”
“Dropping comm-drone and passing codes to the Voss.”
“Jumping.”
“Comm-drone away!” Ensign Keller announced.
“Slip us into the missile path and match the Cape Town’s course and speed,” Cameron ordered.
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman replied, exchanging a worried glance with the navigator next to him.
“Mystic is starting their transmission,” the comms officer reported.
Nathan, Jessica, and the rest of the Voss’s flight deck crew listened to the communications speaker as Kor-Dom Borrol barked orders in Jung to the commanders of the battle platform.
“Doesn’t sound very convincing, if you ask me,” Jessica commented.
“You speak Jung?” Nathan asked, surprised.
“Naralena taught me,” Jessica replied. “Our mission to Kohara?”
“Ah, yes,” Nathan remembered. “Are they standing down?”
“Negative,” Jessica replied. “And there are still over four hundred missiles inbound.”
“Targets?”
“It looks like they’re all headed for the Cape Town.”
“All of them?” Nathan asked in disbelief.
“Captain,” Loki called. “The Aurora has just pulled in next to the Cape Town.” He turned to look at Nathan. “They’re trying to protect her.”
Nathan reached up to the comm-controls on his overhead panel. “Aurora Actual, Voss Actual!” he called over comms. “What the hell are you doing, Cam?”
“The same thing you would do,” Cameron insisted.
“She’s got you there,” Jessica stated.
“You can’t take that many hits, Cam!” Nathan warned.
“She doesn’t expect to,” Jessica realized. “They just passed a comm-drone’s control codes to us. It’s carrying strike instructions for an Orochi missile strike against the Jung.”
“Son of a bitch,” Nathan cursed as he changed channels on the comm-panel. “Mystic, Voss Actual. Come in!”
“Their shields are already weakened,” Jessica warned. “They can’t stop more than a handful of missiles.”
“How long?” Nathan asked.
“Twenty seconds to the first wave,” Jessica replied. “One minute to the second.”
“Voss Actual, Mystic, Commander Kaplan,” the overhead speaker squawked.
“Put Borrol on!” Nathan barked.
“Wait one,” the commander replied.
“Six squadrons are now working on intercepts,” Jessica reported. “First wave is down to twenty-seven inbounds and falling.”
“This is Kor-Dom Borrol.”
“Borrol, this is Scott. I’m only going to say this once. If those inbounds don’t start disappearing in the next few seconds, I’ve got a fleet of sixteen missile gunships that have orders to shoot-and-scoot until all three of those battle platforms are dust! Do you understand me?”
“Twenty-two inbound,” Jessica updated.
“I will do all that I can, Captain.”
“Twenty.”
“You’d better!”
“Eighteen.”
“Fuck,” Nathan cursed. “Get us closer!”
“I’m on it!” Josh assured him.
“All point-defenses are firing,” Lieutenant Yuati reported from the Aurora’s tactical station, his voice tense.
“Five seconds!” Kaylah warned. “Eighteen still inbound!”
Cameron pressed her all-call button. “All hands! Brace, brace, brace!” Both her hands grabbed the arms of her command chair as she herself prepared for the pending detonations.
Two more missiles were struck by the Aurora’s point defenses a split second before impact, blowing them apart but still detonating their warheads. The sixteen remaining missiles found their target, detonating on impact in a series of near-simultaneous flashes of bright, yellow-white light.
The Aurora’s bridge shook violently despite her inertial dampeners’ best efforts to reduce the effects of the detonations on the crew inside. Sparks flew from various consoles, the result of energy spikes overcoming protected circuits, while energy from the detonations overloaded shield emitters and eventually found their way to the Aurora’s hull and her exposed external conduits.
The sound of tearing metal caused Cameron to instinctively cover her head as an overhead ventilation duct broke free of its suspension, crashing to the deck below.
Cameron’s instincts were correct, and a moment later, overhead plating broke loose, missing her by inches.
“Medic!” someone shouted from behind.
Cameron spun around as her comms officer called for a medical team to the bridge. The officer from the starboard auxiliary station was already on her feet and attempting to pull a large section of ducting off of Lieutenant Yuati’s body, which was draped unceremoniously across the tactical console.
Cameron jumped up, rushing to the lieutenant’s aid as well. She immediately reached for his neck, feeling for a pulse. “He’s still alive!”
“Medical team is on their way!” Ensign Keller reported from the comm-station less than a meter away.
“Help us get this off him!” Cameron ordered the comms officer. “I need access to the tactical console!”
Ensign Keller also jumped out of his seat, coming out and around his station to help.
“Kaylah!” Cameron barked. “Shield status!”
“Starboard midship shields are gone!” Kaylah replied. “They must have taken most of the hits!”
“Captain,” the Aurora’s AI called over the overhead speakers. “All starboard shields forward of frame twelve and aft of frame twenty-six are still intact but are down to twenty percent or less. They will not take another hit.”
“Time to next impact!” Cameron barked.
“Forty seconds!” Kaylah reported. “Sixty-eight still inbound in the second wave!”
“Helm! Roll us over! Show them our port side!”
“Rolling over, aye!”
“Channel all power to port shields!” Cameron added as she and the other two officers hefted the fallen ducting from atop the unconscious lieutenant. “Get him down, but carefully,” Cameron instructed as a team of med-techs arrived.
“Gunyoki are intercepting!” Kaylah announced. “Their numbers are up to two hundred and five!”
“Just count the inbounds per wave!” Cameron instructed as she watched the med-techs move the lieutenant off the tactical console and down to the deck.
“Sixty inbound!”
Cameron stepped up to the tactical console, finding that the touchscreen console had been too badly damaged to be usable. “Damn,” she cursed to herself. “Aurora,” she called to the air. “Can you assume tactical control? The console is shot.”
“I can assume control of all defensive weapons, but I will require direct orders from you or your designated subordinate to fire offensively.”
“Assume control of all defensive systems,” Cameron instructed the AI. “Authorization Taylor, Alpha Seven Five Two Tango Four Two Four.”
“Fifty-two inbound!”
“Authorization confirmed,” Aurora acknowledged. “I have assumed control of all defensive systems. Based on current second wave trajectory, I can deduce which shield sections will take the greatest detonation energy and channel additional energy to those sections.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Cameron agreed as she stepped over the fallen debris and made her way back to the command chair.
“Forty-seven inbound!” Kaylah updated.
“Roll maneuver complete,” Ensign Tala announced from the helm.
“Recommend taking inertial dampening systems down to minimum safe levels,” Aurora added.
“Do it,” Cameron ordered as she took her seat again. “Comms, set condition blue.”
“Aye, sir!” Ensign Keller replied as he moved back to his station.
“Forty-two!”
“Attention all hands!” Ensign Keller’s voice blared over the loudspeakers. “Set condition blue. Repeat, set condition blue. All personnel in outer areas go to full pressure suits. Lock down all main lateral bulkheads.”
“Incoming transmission from Cape Town Actual,” the comms officer announced.
Cameron signaled for the ensign to patch her comm-set in.
“Thirty-five inbound!” Kaylah reported. “Twenty seconds to next wave of impacts.”
“Drop back three hundred meters and climb ten relative to us and we can get some of our missile defenses in play,” Captain Stettner suggested over her comm-set.
“That will increase your exposure,” Cameron warned.
“We can take a few hits. More importantly, we can take out more of those inbounds so that you don’t die any sooner than you have to.”
“Thanks, Stettner, but I have no intention of dying today,” Cameron insisted.
“Don’t be an idiot, Taylor,” the captain replied, ending the call.
“Twenty-nine inbound!”
Cameron looked at her helmsman. “Do it.”
“Aurora has twenty-nine inbound!” Jessica reported from the Voss’s starboard auxiliary station. “Make that twenty-four!”
“Cam!” Nathan called over comms. “You can’t stand toe-to-toe with three battle platforms!”
“The Cape Town is far more valuable to Earth than the Aurora, and you know it,” Cameron insisted. “I’m not going to let her go down because I took out her shields!”
“Multiple contacts!” Jessica warned.
“Where?”
“All over the damned place! Dozens of them! They’re coming out of FTL everywhere!”
“More missiles?” Nathan surmised.
“Negative!” Jessica rose from her seat. “Jung fighters! Looks like about a hundred of them!”
“He is broadcasting again, Admiral,” the Ton-Mogan’s senior communications officer reported.
Dom Mogan looked uncertain.
“It is a ruse, my lord,” Admiral Korahk insisted. A clever trick by the Sol Alliance to confuse us, to weaken our resolve. They know they cannot prevent their own destruction.”
“Then why do they not defend themselves?” Dom Mogan asked of his admiral.
“He is asking for Dom Mogan,” the senior communications officer informed the admiral.
“We must stand fast to the Tonba-Hon-Venar,” the admiral insisted. “To do otherwise would bring dishonor to our entire caste.”
“And if it is Kor-Dom Borrol?” Dom Mogan asked.
“It has taken us years to get here,” Admiral Korahk reminded his caste leader. “It took you months just to get back to us from Nor-Patri, and you have the fastest shuttle in the empire. It is not physically possible for the Kor-Dom to be here now.”
“Ask for authentication codes,” Dom Mogan instructed.
“My lord,” Admiral Korahk begged. “Do not do this…”
Dom Mogan cast a stern look at his subordinate. “If it is a trick, as we suspect, they will be unable to authenticate.”
“What if they somehow got the codes?” the admiral asked.
“Then there are other questions I can ask,” Dom Mogan assured the admiral. “Request authentication.”
Admiral Korahk sighed, looking to the senior communications officer and nodding.
“Voss Actual to all ships! The Jung fighters are going to try to interfere with the intercept of their missiles!” Nathan warned over comms. “Concentrate on the missiles and ignore the fighters as best you can!”
“Four fighters approaching to port!” Loki warned.
“I’ve got them!” Marcus called from the port gun.
Marcus swung his gun around to face aft, opening fire at the incoming Jung fighters streaking toward them from their aft port quarter. Within seconds the bolts from his plasma cannons found the nearest fighter, cutting it open and sending pieces flying, the debris bouncing harmlessly off the ship’s shields.
Marcus looked over his right shoulder as he brought his weapon forward, but the next fighter was too close for him to get his gun around in time. “NOSE DOWN, KID!” he yelled over his intercom.
Josh rarely listened to his old man, except when he got a certain tone in his voice. Instinctively, he did as Marcus had instructed, pushing his flight control stick forward, causing the ship’s nose to dip suddenly. He glanced up, just as the fighter slammed into the shields over the cockpit, causing them to flash brightly.
Josh shared a look of terror with Loki. “These fuckers are suicidal!”
“Gunners, you have got to communicate,” Nathan urged, uneasy with how close they had just come.
“If enough of those fighters ram us, we’ll lose our shields,” Jessica warned.
“What makes you think they’re going to answer you?” Dylan wondered.
“Because my sister, the president, told them to,” Nathan smiled.
The Cape Town pulled slightly ahead of the Aurora, giving her a clear line of fire at the incoming missiles with her forward missile defenses. The turrets opened fire, all four barrels blazing, panning slightly back and forth as well as up and down, in order to lay down an intercept field of explosive rail gun rounds.
The wave of intercept rounds streaked past the bow of the Aurora, heading toward the incoming missiles, breaking apart into clusters of several dozen tiny, explosive charges detonating as they reached the wave of inbound missiles.
Hundreds of explosions lit up in the path of the missiles, tearing more than a dozen of the inbound weapons apart.
“Eight still inbound!” Kaylah warned. “Five seconds!”
Cameron tapped her all-call button again. “Brace for incoming!”
Again, the bridge rocked violently as Jung missiles blasted their way through their failing shields, finding the ship’s hull.
“Shields are…”
More explosions rocked the ship as the warheads penetrated the hull and then detonated. Kaylah’s panel blew up in her face, knocking her backward and showering her with sparks. Overhead bulkheads buckled, some of them breaking free and falling to the deck. The navigator was the first to die, both an overhead panel and another section of ventilation ducting landing on top of him and destroying his console in the process. The helmsman was knocked from his station, flailing as he fell forward over his console, landing on the forward side on his back, rendered unconscious.
Cameron held on with both hands, barely able to keep from being knocked from her command chair as secondary explosions shuddered through the Aurora’s main longitudinal truss with a sickening groan.
“Multiple hull breaches!” Ensign Keller reported from the comm-station, wiping the blood from his open head wound from his eyes.