by Greg Dragon
She gripped the railing tight and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to come down from the excitement. The Ursula was being torn apart, and even now as the lift cleared the bridge deck to descend on the docking area, the fear of this being their last trip clouded her mind and made it hard to think. It touched down sooner than she expected, forcing her to snap out of her meditation and face reality. Here we go, she thought. Let’s get it done, Nighthawk. You’ve got this.
30
Bam-bam-bam. Helga heard the bullets from the dreadnought’s railgun striking the hull behind the section of bulkhead she knew to be the location of their energy generator. It was a disturbing noise that had her imagining being inside a fuel canister drum while someone from without swung a hammer trying to break inside. She ran back to her berth, peeled off the uniform, wormed herself into a skintight black 3B XO-suit, then pulled on over that the insulated pilot’s uniform.
Unlike her PAS suit, which she wanted to wear, the flight suit could be donned quickly, though the protection it gave was minimal in comparison. She picked up the helmet, quickly scrutinizing the oxygen reserves. It hadn’t been charged since the last time she’d been out spacewalking on the hull, but still had enough to last two hours, which she decided would be enough.
Many things ran through her mind as she prepared. Mainly, the thought of getting captured—always a possibility when dealing with the Geralos. For this reason, she decided to bring a small pack containing her sidearm, two ration bars, an additional wrist-comms, and a data card containing her information for the Alliance to ID her body in the event she died.
Helmet donned, emergency pack clipped to her black flight suit just below the waist, Helga completed her pre-flight ritual by stopping inside her doorway to observe all that she had, committing it to memory. Spacers were conditioned to have a small footprint of the decks of their ships, even within juggernauts like Rendron and Missio-Tral. What she owned could fit inside a backpack, and meant the worlds to her, but always with the thought that they were temporary.
Playing in the flames of battle came with harsh consequences at time, and while death was always looming, getting captured or boarded would mean what was hers would end up taken or sucked out into space. Her eyes fell on the old helmet that her friend Lieutenant Joy Valance had gifted her, back when she flew with the Revenants. Though she missed her friend and sometimes mentor, what the helmet gave her in this instance was renewed confidence.
From graduation up until now, there had been plenty of situations where Helga Ate should have died. She hadn’t, and Joy, an ace among aces, had admitted to Helga in one of her rare, complimentary diatribes that the Nighthawk was one of the best, not only from Rendron but the Alliance. She could do this, and she knew it, but doubts had seeped in after taking that fall back off Sunveil’s balcony.
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. The shots sounded as if they were within Ursula’s belly, striking the bulkhead on the far side of the passageway where Helga stood collecting herself. “Sambe,” she whispered to herself, using Quentin Tutt’s famous word to get motivated, and strangely enough it inspired action as if the big Nighthawk was there, shouting it at the top of his lungs.
Lengthy strides took her past the doors of the adjoining compartments owned by the Nighthawks and their resident Jumper, Sundown, who she too wished was in place to offer words of wisdom as he always did. Past the crew quarters, where she saw a multitude of spacers, their faces masks of horror as they waited helplessly while the dreadnought’s cannons continued to punch holes through the hull.
Seeing her dressed for action inspired cheers, and that too helped to lift the clouds, and she showed her gratitude with a confident nod before picking up her pace to gain the hangar. Before she knew it, she was pulling herself up the ladder to the cockpit of her Vestalian Classic, surprised it had taken less than fifteen minutes to prepare since getting the approval from Cilas. All the anxiety from before dissipated, leaving her blank and ready to fight to keep the Ursula’s crew safe.
Bam-bam-bam. The lights went out in the hangar and alarms blared, summoning the three dockworkers who had done as instructed and sat themselves at a station. One of the shots had cut through the hull, striking the cage they had set up for shooting. Raileo is going to lose his mind when he sees that, Helga thought before a crashing sound snapped her head around to where an emergency blast door sealed off the breach.
“Zan,” Helga spoke into comms. “All checks are a go, and I’m ready to depart. Give me a countdown then open the launch hatch at section C, where the Vestalian Classic is parked.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant Ate. Prepare for launch in five seconds, starting … now, with five, four, three, two—”
“One,” Helga whispered as the hatch opened below her, sloping down into a form of ramp. The Vestalian Classic, being an older model of fighter—prompting the “Classic” in its name—had wheels on its landing gear for landing on the surface of spaceship decks, carriers and landing strips. With a little thrust, Helga had it rolling down and out past the forcefield and into space where it drifted away from the Ursula until she tilted the flight-stick and rolled its mass away.
It felt so good to be inside the Classic, and she relished the feelings that came along with the whole experience. She maxed thrust to get out of range of the crossfire, and though the dreadnought was still over 4km away, the ship’s system could still track and destroy her if she wasn’t careful. A few hundred shots still managed to clip the Classic, and her shields were failing rapidly, forcing Helga to put everything into thrust to get away.
How embarrassing would it be to suggest this insanity of flying solo distraction on a dreadnought, have your commander actually agree to it, only to die before impacting anything?
Once in the clear with shields recharging, she exhaled to ease some stress, for she’d really thought she wasn’t going to make it out alive back there.
The fact that she would have been destroyed had the dreadnought used its shredders sent icy tendrils down Helga’s limbs, and she shook uncontrollably with fear. Never had she felt this lucky since she took her first flight and narrowly survived her dogfight with another cadet. Existential paradox flashed through her mind, coupled with fears of falling victim to those mysterious shield-piercing cannons.
What was I thinking? This wasn’t necessary, was it? Couldn’t we have just initiated a jump once we’d realized we were outclassed by this ship? Is this ego? What am I to possibly do?
“Get it together,” she screamed, slamming her fist down onto the console. “They are relying on you.” She forced her mind to stop sowing doubts and to stay focused on the task at hand.
She brought the Classic about, flying a wide arc to try and reach the dreadnought’s dead side. Shields were back to 60% and climbing, enough for her to take the risk on approach. Through the mask of her helmet, the Classic’s computer displayed an outline of the dreadnought in the distance after she had completed her turn. She came under fire, but again from the energy cannons and not the shield shredders. This made her think that they were being manually controlled since it would have been easier for the shredders to target her. Which meant no matter how much trouble she’d give them, they would continue to aim at the Ursula’s hull.
Being out alone on a diversion run meant she couldn’t employ the tactics of a squadron to be effective against a larger ship. Her Classic was nothing to that dreadnought, just a loud mosquito looking to be swatted once the Ursula was disabled or destroyed. They would ignore her, but not if she could help it, not after surviving that first salvo to be given this second chance.
Helga fiddled with the computer, quickly analyzing the specifics of this peculiar class of dreadnought. She saw a vulnerability, a flaw in the design, and a chance to make a significant impact on this fight.
“Ursula command, this is Lieutenant Helga Ate, do you copy?” she reported, dipping and twisting the Classic to avoid the shots incoming from the few cannons that were locked in.
> “Ate, this is Commander Cilas Mec. Are you alright? Maker, what were you thinking? What’s your status, over?”
“Still here,” she nearly shouted. “Commander, I think I see a way to cripple this vessel and force them to power down their cannons to jump away. But I am going to need a distraction, something to force their tacticians to panic, buying me time to approach it safely to do what I can.”
“Helga, you were nearly destroyed, and if something were to happen to you, I will be forced to live with the fact that I agreed to it. Rudder’s been repaired, so we need you back on board so that we can safely jump away to get repairs. When we’re out of range of the cannons, I would like you to dock. That’s an order, Lieutenant. It was a noble attempt, but we’re not prepared for this kind of ordnance.”
“Once you’re out of range, I will make my way back to dock and return to my duties,” Helga promised, slamming the thrust forward to speed her approach of the dreadnought.
She saw Ursula moving, circling to keep her stern away from the Geralos, while tilting ever so slightly to present her topside to the shredders. Aside from Cilas’s cabin, there were no important compartments up there, and the reinforced plating would do a better job of stopping the bullets from piercing the hull. This new move forced the dreadnought to engage its own thrusts to match the circling or risk exposing its own stern, where a well-aimed torpedo could wipe them out.
This new dance favored Helga, who, as she assumed, was ignored by the dreadnought’s mounted cannons. She came in hard but leveled out with its hull, careful not to make contact with the invisible energy shield. Clip that, even slightly, and it would send her flying out into space with disabled controls. The hard part was over, thanks to the Ursula being back up to form to reposition on her enemy.
Staying tight to the hull, Helga was able to avoid all the cannons while she added her own energy blasts to its shields. She flew down the length of its belly, nose angled down to allow her guns to maintain their accurate aim. When she reached the stern, she pulled up, barrel-rolled to one side and then slammed on her brakes, forcing the Classic to reverse its trajectory. This sudden change in motion always came at a sacrifice, as she felt her consciousness wane, nearly causing her to black out.
She flew back towards the bow, now on the port-side hull of the dreadnought. From her vantage she saw the energy cannons in rows before her, firing on the Ursula somewhere off in the distance. Friendly fire peppered the shields all about her, from the volleying return of the Nighthawk’s corvette. Putting it out of her mind, she launched a missile into the exposed base of a cannon sticking out beyond the shields.
The projectile imploded on contact, crushing it into a harmless chunk of debris drifting off into nowhere. Helga fired more missiles into the rest of them, knocking most of them out in just one go. Since she flew belly-to-hull, splitting their rows, it made it impossible for the cannons to stop her barrage.
Her computer showed the dreadnought’s shields to be failing, but it had already increased thrust, and she was unable to keep up with it, so she was forced to pull off. She took a wide arc to come about, curious at what the dreadnought would do now that it was vulnerable. A part of her feared that despite its cloaking, the Geralos may be committed to disabling their ship.
For what end? That was the part missing from this doomsday theory of hers, though it kept nagging at her as if it were real. A loud pop startled her so badly that she released the flight stick, and another pop and the console was going haywire. She experienced vertigo and before she could react, the canopy opened, and she was ejected out into space. Small boosters on her seat’s back responded to a set of controls on the pilot’s armrest.
Helga, still disoriented, had enough forethought to activate them, launching herself away from her beloved Classic, which was now permanently disabled while the dreadnought continued to fire on it. She wanted to see Ursula’s response, but she had started twisting, and getting the chair to right itself was a skill she hadn’t mastered. How could she? Would she have believed as a cadet that she’d one day be stranded outside of her fighter, awaiting rescue?
She was so angry she could scream but no one would hear her; she wasn’t even sure if they realized that she had been hit. Looking down, she saw that the flight-suit had expanded itself to become an EVA space suit, providing her some protection, though she questioned whether her helmet had been sealed properly. She fumbled for comms, hoping she wasn’t too far off for someone to pick her signal up. Then she heard some chatter.
“I see her vital signs and she’s alive. Though how, and where?” Cilas was saying.
“They could have taken her prisoner, Commander,” Ina Reysor offered.
“Not the lieutenant, she would bite off her tongue before she let the lizards take her in,” Raileo countered. “If she’s alive, she’s somewhere out there, and we’re going to have to find her, fast.”
“Thank you, Ray,” Helga croaked, suddenly exhausted, which she translated into something being wrong.
“Ate?” Raileo shouted.
“Yes, I am … have a malfunction. Follow my tracker. Come and get me, Ray.”
“We’re coming to get you, Helga, just you hold on,” Cilas said, and she smiled at hearing his voice. For some reason it made her feel confident that there was a chance she could make it. When Raileo acknowledged her, she had seen the flash of the dreadnought’s reactor imploding from a torpedo. It was a beautiful sight, and for a moment she had thought to herself, that for an exit out of this dimension called life, that view would have suited her.
Lady Hellgate, dead, but she took a dreadnought with her to the grave. She had been ready, but Cilas’s voice made her consider that perhaps it wasn’t time. She studied the readouts on the glass of her helmet, where it was warning her that oxygen was low, from what she had guessed, her Classic’s helmet. No pilot expected to live to perform a forced exit from a fighter. Many had tried; after all they were trained to use it, but most died before they could clear the ship, or were hit on the way out by the strafing bullets.
She was alive, and though oxygen was low, she had this strange sensation of being reborn, sure of much but pragmatic about her impending death. It felt freeing, but deep inside, a part of her was frightened of her having lost something with the destruction of the Classic. That ship had represented her in so many ways. Losing it, and knowing no other vessel could ever replace it, burned a hole inside her heart. She sat silently, staring out into the blackness, fighting back the tears.
“Can you fly that thing, Ray?” Cilas inquired, and it took her a while to realize they had been trying to reach her for some time, but she had been blacking out and distracted with her own thoughts.
“I’m out here. Come, I activated my tracker. Come,” she whispered, shutting her mouth stubbornly. Talking was likely taking away from her oxygen, and so she shut up. Tracker is on, come and get me, she thought, smiling mischievously. Maybe my Seeker powers will allow me to send them my thoughts through their comms. That elicited a laugh. No, laughing might be bad, she thought, then shut her mouth and applied a little more thrust from her chair.
“Yes, sir, but Zan should be the one to fly it,” Raileo was saying, but Helga couldn’t make out the rest as she drifted in and out of consciousness. They were so far away now, Cilas’s voice, Raileo’s care, and she thought of Quentin Tutt, and how he would have found a way to reach her before Cilas could make a plan. Then it was vacancy, nothing, the deep black that could swallow outer space. Helga Ate was off to the dimensional void, where dreams and nightmares keep the unconscious entertained.
Several kilometers away, the dreadnought drifted, no longer shooting off her cannons or trying to beat an escape. She had been declawed, her teeth removed, and her heart crushed under the weight of an energy torpedo fired with precision timing. She was dead and her crew along with her, but it all started with a Vestalian Classic that had dared to take her close. It had been destroyed, but before it did it took out th
irteen energy cannons and sent the crew into a panic.
Helga Ate had done that, and the dreadnought lost, despite having cannons that cut through shields and advanced cloaking technology that defied everything known about energy manipulation. And now she slept, unknowingly, dreams askance, her lips still turned up into a smile of mischief, the low-oxygen warning beeping every other second.
31
Though the Ursula’s hull looked as if it had been put through a shredder, it still had more than 50% shields remaining. The shredding railguns had ruptured more compartments and stations, bringing the death toll up to seven for Commander Cilas Mec. The dreadnought, however, was down to armor and an FTL working overtime to charge as it maxed out its thrust to get away.
To a man, Ursula’s crew was of a mind to disallow the Geralos from escaping; the butcher’s bill had been too high, and they all wanted their revenge. Desperate to pull away, the dreadnought again went into cloak despite being low on energy reserves, which should have been impossible. Cloaking wasn’t technology that played well with others, however, so for the time it worked at convincing Ursula’s system it was no longer there, its cannons were not firing.
Four charged torpedoes shot out from the corvette’s launchers, aimed at an area of space where Zan had calculated the ship would be. They struck with brilliant effect, tearing open the dreadnought’s hull to explode inside it. The massive vessel flew on, but with no obvious control, indicating that its navigational system was damaged. The FTL drive was no more, the crystal core generator becoming unstable, which spelled doom for any survivors on the ship.
While this went on, Raileo Lei, with help from Ina Reysor, took the R60-Thundercat out to rescue Helga. She had been tracked from the time she’d ejected, so they were able to find her, though it was still challenging due to the weakness of the signal. Once collected, she was placed in the care of Dr. Cleia Rai’to, whose large black eyes looked to not have slept in many cycles. Eight of her beds were occupied with injured spacers, including Helga Ate.