Lafier didn’t understand the appeal of the game, but she felt as though she’d made a new discovery. So this is what that game is based on.
Very much as though the elastic band bind the two sides had stretched to its limit, the distance between them and the enemy stabilized for a brief moment before receding, at first slowly, then progressively faster. The enemy, too, was back in a huddled formation.
“We’re going to even out our numbers this time around,” said Atosryua. “And if we fail to, we’re running. Got it? If we don’t end up having to flee, the next target is Ship 3.”
Lafier nodded reflexively. The Unit Commander’s plan was reasonable. The joust was always one-on-one, but this assault ship scuffle was not. Moreover, while it was true for any kind of battle that numbers mattered, numbers were almost everything in a head-on group clash. Earlier, by taking the first move, they’d successfully turned a four-on-six showdown into a four-on-five. Now that they were in a full-fledged firefight, four-on-five was on the verge of winnable.
The enemy drew nearer before their eyes.
“Fiiireee!”
Unconsciously gritting her teeth, Lafier fired an antiproton cannon. Through her frocragh, she could sense a part of the hull of an enemy ship fly off. At the same time, she could also sense the Gamrogrh’s armor plating detach.
A mutual kill!? A chill ran down Lafier’s spine.
“I’m all right,” said Atosryua, much to her relief. “Change of plans — aim for Ship 1!”
The ferocious Abliar blood coursing through Lafier’s veins delighted in the battle’s continuation. They and the enemy both altered course, while Ship 1 retreated toward the Aptic Portal. It appeared as though that ship had sustained even more damage than they’d realized.
“Change of plans,” said Atosryua; one could practically hear her licking her proverbial chops. “We’re back to hunting Ship 3. I’m of the belief that in an even-numbers battle, the Imperial Star Forces cannot possibly lose, and all the more so for my unit!”
All the more so for my ship, Lafier amended her statement.
But in fact, neither side could destroy the other this go around. Lafier soon rallied the ship for clash number 4. The target was once again Ship 3, and once again, the distance between them and the enemy grew rapidly shorter. Lafier’s trigger finger pulled back with a vengeance. At that moment, she realized that each one of the opposing ships’ bows were pointed her way.
The blood rushed to her head. Gunning after me now, are they!?
“All hands, brace for impact!” she yelled, even as she revved the attitude control engines so as to slip sideways. Naturally, her finger never forgot to continue pulling that trigger, either.
Almost immediately, scorching heat ran across her frocragh. Her circlet, sensing a potential overload, temporarily shut off, cutting access to her out-of-ship spatiosensory perception.
“Aughh!” Lafier tamped down her circlet-amplified frocragh, and luckily, the pain didn’t last for long. However, even after the circlet’s functionality returned, she still couldn’t sense what was going on outside. That could only mean that every one of the hull’s sensors had been fried.
Every kind of claxon was sounding simultaneously, and the bridge was dyed red by the lights indicating all the things gone amiss. The vessel rocked without pause, and informed them that serial explosions were transpiring somewhere aboard ship.
“Laser cannons down,” reported Ecryua.
“Hull temperature rising fiercely! At this rate she’ll melt for sure!” reported Samson, springing to his feet. Please, permission to dump armor plating!”
“Air sealing of Compartments 3 through 17 and Corridor 1, totally gone. Countless breaches. Likely three dead, five wounded. Explosions in Compartment 23, automatic extinguishing system not working. Temperature of Passage 3 rising.” Jint’s face looked grave: “This is pretty bad, Lafier!”
“Hurry and rescue the wounded!” Lafier had shaken her momentary stupor. “I authorize everything, Supervisor. Take action as you think best.”
“I appreciate it, but it’s hopeless,” he said, though that didn’t stop him from issuing orders left and right.
“Deca-Commander Abliar, what’s your ship’s status?” asked Atosryua.
Lafier scanned the other starpilots’ expressions, and bit her lip.
“I ask permission to break away, Hecto-Commander.”
“Permission granted, Basrogrh. A shame, but so it goes.”
“It really is a shame,” said Lafier, ending the transmission.
Owing to the sensors being out, she couldn’t grasp goings-on outside. So although she wanted to know how the enemy was faring, she had too many things she needed to attend to at present.
“Supervisor, can the ship be saved?” asked Lafier.
“I’m afraid not. It’s taking everything we’ve got just to postpone the inevitable. We could save the ship itself by cutting off the antimatter fuel tanks, but... we’d have to do it manually, and we don’t have any free hands... No! Another death!?” Samson’s fist pounded his console.
Lafier felt awful. She couldn’t help but regard every death as being on her. She had steeled herself for subordinates falling in the line of duty, but she didn’t expect that eventuality to be this heart-rending. This was even more upsetting than the fall of the Gothelauth.
Lafier’s shoulders drooped. “No other choice, I see. All hands evacuate!”
The starpilots got to their feet and saluted.
“I take it the smallcraft is undamaged?” asked Lafier.
“It should be, yes,” nodded Samson.
“Senior Starpilot,” Lafier addressed Sobash, “You are to prepare the smallcraft for liftoff at once. Clerk, see that the crew get there in time.”
Lafier then pressed the red button at one corner of her control counter, thereby sounding the evacuation alarm. The button she’d hoped she’d never have to press.
The horrible, ominous wailing reverberated throughout.
“This is your Captain,” she announced through the speakers. “All crew are to cease in their tasks. Abandon your posts immediately and make haste for the deck of the smallcraft.”
Having completed her announcement, Lafier stroked the control counter.
Forgive me, Basrogrh. Yours was a short existence.
“Linewing Starpilot Ecryua,” Jint addressed the Deputy Starpilot. “Can I leave the cat to you? He’s in my room, sitting tight inside his cage.”
Ecryua shot Lafier a look asking permission, and when Lafier gave the nod, Ecryua and the cat’s owner both nodded right back.
“Cool,” said Jint, running out from the bridge with a pressure helmet in hand.
“I’m off to prepare the smallcraft,” said Sobash, heading to the deck with his usual unruffled manner.
“Guess there’s nothing else I can do from here,” said Samson. “May I go help Linewing Lynn? My subordinates are the ones who’re injured, after all.”
“I told you: act as you think best.”
“Oh yeah. Right then, I’ll be back.”
Lafier was now alone on the bridge. She took down the ship’s banner and folded it. Then she took the memchip out of the control counter. This memchip contained all of the records from the completion of the assault ship Basrogrh’s construction up to that very instant.
Suddenly, a violent impact. Lafier staggered. Someplace else on the ship must have succumbed to an explosion.
Well then. It appears we truly haven’t any time to waste.
It wasn’t that she’d doubted what Samson told her. It was just that, at that juncture, the reality of the situation dawned on her anew. She resolved to hurry herself to the smallcraft’s deck. She put on pressure gloves and carried her pressure helmet. The uniforms of the Star Forces were air-sealed, so they could withstand exposure to the vacuum, if only for a brief while.
Right before exiting the door out of the bridge, she stopped in her tracks, turned around, and saluted the ship.
“Don’t say that so detachedly,” Neleth sputtered. “You had a hand in the strategy.”
“Calm down, Neleth. I know. This was our plan.”
“Besides, blame the enemy for acting so nonsensically. Who would’ve thought they’d chuck THAT many mines at us?”
It all stemmed from how the enemy’s mine blitz had greatly exceeded their estimations. Consequently, at this ship-on-ship phase of the battle, their combat lines had fallen apart. Now, the enemy units were breaching from the portal with ease, and aiming to cut up the defense network that was already riddled with holes.
The alarm rang as the floor of the Commander’s Bridge rumbled — the recoil from the EM cannons. The flagship Scacaü couldn’t afford not to participate in this fracas.
“The enemy’s lack of sense aside, what do we do now, Neleth? We couldn’t possibly retreat.”
“Of course not.”
It was only thanks to how the Aptic Defensive fleet was keeping the battlefield confined to the portal area that the enemy couldn’t spread out all of their forces. If they withdrew here and now, they’d just be giving the enemy the opportunity to assemble their optimal formations. The only advantage they had was the fact that only probability could dictate where on the portal any given ship emerging from planar space would pop out. As such, enemy ships directly following transposition were in a scattered state. That was the chink in the enemy’s armor that their numerically inferior forces could exploit.
At the cost of sacrificing ships every time they did exploit it.
They were, of course, inflicting more damage to the enemy than they themselves were taking. Yet the enemy ships were pouring out of the portal without interruption, like a gushing spring of copious water. Which would make the Aptic Defensive Fleet the dikes surrounding that upwelling. The earthwork was meager at best, but if they crumbled, the deluge would be devastating.
“Are we helpless to do anything but stand here stupidly while we get shot to shreds, Nefeh?”
“I’ve been expecting your madness to come up with something.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t got any madness to help me,” said Neleth, his commodore’s long robe swishing as he made to take his leave from the bridge.
“Where are you going, Neleth?” Nefeh could hardly just ignore his leaving.
“To bathe.”
“To bathe?”
“Yes, to take a bath. Look at all this sweat. An extremely exhausted Commander-in-Chief is no good to anyone. Better to take a breather while I can, right? You ought to, too, when the time is right.”
“Well, you’re not completely off base, but... you do understand the situation, don’t you? This ship is engaged in combat, too. We could get blown down any second. Think of how utterly silly it would be to ‘die in battle’ in a bathtub. Sure, it’s necessary to rest, but you could at least keep it at a nap, couldn’t you?”
“It would be an indignity if my actions led to the needless deaths of my subordinates, but as for my own place to die, that I reserve the right to choose freely.”
“And the place you’ve chosen to die is a bathtub?”
On the way to the deck of the smallcraft, Lafier felt the artificial gravity vanishing. Since it occurred so suddenly, she ended up flying diagonally upward at high speed. Of course, for a race that lived in space like the Abh, a loss of gravity was nothing to panic over. Lafier thrust out her right hand and slapped it against the ceiling to move forward. Since this was faster than walking, she actually preferred this. On the other hand, she also knew this portended the ship’s forthcoming demise.
Next, the passageway’s lights went out. Lafier relied on her frocragh to continue down it. Sobash was waiting on the deck, while the smallcraft was glowing brilliantly, as though declaring itself alive within the dying assault ship.
“Is everybody aboard?” asked Lafier.
“Linewing Starpilot Lynn has yet to board.”
“What in the stars could he be doing?” she frowned, while noticing the spare pressure helmet in Sobash’s hand.
“Üésach (NCC Leader) Pabhairyac was wounded and got left behind, and I believe some accident must have befallen the starpilot after he went to rescue Paveryua. It seems his pressure helmet wasn’t working, and we can’t tell where he is or what’s happening. I think he’s most likely around Compartment 1,” said Sobash, with uncharacteristic difficulty. “That is, if he is alive.”
The pressure helmet had on it an emergency transmitter device, which informed the crew of everyone’s positions during crisis situations like what the Basrogrh was presently undergoing.
“And what of NCC Leader Paveryua?”
“The Üésach appears to have escaped via lifeboat.”
A lifeboat had no motive power; it was akin to a raft. While it had the requisite air-sealing, it could only support life for 24 hours, with precious little by way of rations and first aid implements loaded aboard in advance. Their primary advantage lay in how little space they took up; even an assault ship comfortably held dozens. Lifeboats were to be used when one or more crewmembers couldn’t make it to the smallcraft’s deck. However, escape via a lifeboat was the one experience the soldiers said they least wanted to go through. Paveryua must have been quite desperate, though that was understandable, given that the ship could blow at any moment.
“Roger that. I will go and save the Clerk. You pilot the smallcraft as the Skipper, and pick up the NCC Leader.”
“But...” Doubt colored Sobash’s eyes.
“Captain’s orders, Senior Starpilot,” said Lafier preemptively, snatching the spare pressure helmet from his hands and thrusting the ship’s banner and navigation log into them. “Take these and go.”
“I suppose I must,” said Sobash with a salute. “Your Highness, please note that I think you are a splendid assault ship captain.”
“You have my thanks,” said Lafier, saluting back. “Now then, see to the crew.”
“Of course. They are my subordinates as well.”
“Captain!” Samson’s head poked out of the smallcraft’s door. “There are only five minutes left! Though the whole thing could blow at any second before then! If you can’t find him in five minutes, please give up... as hard as it’ll be.”
“You heard the man,” nodded Sobash. “I hope you come out unscathed. I do not want to be called a senior starpilot who abandoned his captain during his first sortie.”
“But of course. I have no intention of dying in a place like this. Just retrieve our lifeboats.”
“Yes, without fail.”
What pissed Jint off the most was how he couldn’t pinpoint what exactly had put him in this mess to begin with.
He folded his arms and glared at the cracked pressure helmet.
He’d passed through Corridor 1 in search of the NCC Leader, though thanks to the NCC Leader’s signal, he’d been able to get an accurate picture of Paveryua’s position, with no fear of losing his way.
But the lion’s share of the corridor had become airless. The air-sealing bulkheads had dropped automatically, forcing Jint to open each one in turn to progress. And once one lifted, he had to close it again behind him. Otherwise, it would cause an inadvertent atmosphere leak, and while Paveryua was probably wearing a pressure helmet as proper, it seemed the uniform was torn, meaning Paveryua couldn’t survive for long in a vacuum.
It happened when he opened the bulkhead to Compartment 1. A blow not unlike a fist to the face struck him head-on. And because of the microgravity, Jint kept twirling backward, slamming against the corridor walls. Had there been more gravity, his neck might have snapped in the process.
He nearly passed out, but managed to regain his senses.
The hell was that?
After some thought, he made the following conjecture: Some sort of debris must’ve been floating in the vacuum.
&nb
sp; And when he’d opened the partition separating the compartment with some air left and the compartment without, the wind rushed through. Whatever debris had collided with him had ridden that current of air, and then, much to his misfortune, smacked against his pressure helmet.
Man though, that thing came at me fast.
Military-issue pressure helmets were tough and sturdy. It took a great deal of kinetic energy to crack one. Perhaps it wasn’t just drifting in that space. Of course, no matter how he ended up like this, it didn’t change the fact that his pressure helmet was now useless.
Life really is just a series of fortunate events, he thought. It seemed he was about to become a statistic. An accident like this was rare indeed.
From the bottom of his heart, Jint yearned for an average, unremarkable life, bereft of such stormy turns.
The obœtec (transparent visor) of the pressure helmet usually displayed information imported from his wristgear, but now that too was offline. That said, he more or less knew the NCC Leader’s general position. If they hadn’t moved, they were beyond the door before his eyes.
Jint opened the bulkhead. That compartment had higher air pressure, and so he was assailed by another blast of wind. He braced himself in case yet another stray object came flying for his head, but his worries were needless.
Guess bracing myself wasn’t much use anyway.
“NCC Leader Paveryua! Where are you?”
No response.
The room wasn’t very spacious. The air was hazy and various debris was floating, but if there was anybody else there, he’d know it.
Jint gave the zone a once-over, and noticed a red mist hovering in the background. Apparently, this was what a blood brume looked like.
He glanced over to where the mist was thickest, and spotted the lifeboat boarding aperture. Once a lifeboat was fired away, the partition separating the boarding aperture door and the dead of space was lost. As such, in order to prevent some flustered individual from inadvertently opening it (and one could hardly refrain from being flustered if the time had come to use a lifeboat), an already-utilized boarding aperture would lock itself automatically and display the words DO NOT OPEN — the very words now adorning the boarding aperture.
The Ties that Bind Page 15
