“You'd think he'd stick around for a minute and help with some of those fighters,” Minh's copilot said offhandedly as he tried to balance the ship shields. “Strap in back there! We're losing shields and about to start taking hard hits!” he shouted over his shoulder before shutting the cockpit door.
“Wheeler isn't known for being polite or for sticking around long,” Minh said. “I got an earful about it from his first mate,” he continued as he spun the shuttle eighty four degrees and hit the thrusters, taking us straight towards the First Light. It started as a glimmer in the distance, a point of reflected light, but it was quickly growing.
I checked the landing path and I could swear I started sweating. “Laura's really not opening a big hole in the shields for us.”
“She knows I don't need much room,” Minh commented as he worked the controls. The shuttle was starting to take small impacts on the hull from whatever weapons the fighters were using. They looked like energy based guns, but the way the shuttle rattled I couldn't be sure.
“Might want to slow down a little?” I asked, cringing as the First Light got closer, dwarfed by the twin hulled monstrosity of a battleship behind it.
“Ye of little faith,” Minh grunted through clenched teeth. “No one likes a back seat driver.”
He spun the shuttle one hundred eighty degrees and fired the engines at full thrust. I watched the cockpit overlay that came up, showing him his ideal path for entry and speed of approach. We were slowing down fast, right on target.
We took a heavy hit and a seal broke in the cabin behind. I checked our integrity and saw that it wasn't a large breach, but I was thankful everyone was wearing vacsuits as the atmosphere in the main cabin started bleeding off into space.
The shuttle jostled as we came within a few hundred meters of the hole in the shields. I glanced up and saw that we had been knocked off our approach vector and were about to impact directly onto the shields of the First Light.
“Hang on!” Minh yelled.
He made several last second adjustments and struggled with the controls. He managed to guide us almost directly back on course. For just a moment it seemed that we had made it through unscathed, then my teeth clamped shut so hard I nearly bit the tip of my tongue off at the shock of our impact. We were sent spinning, rolling across the deck of the landing bay, and I could hear the scraping and colliding of our hull against the launch bay floor.
The inertial dampeners compensated for most of the collision, that is until the last few rolls, when they went off line. Everyone in the cockpit was hanging upside down when we came to a stop. I checked myself for injuries then looked around the cockpit. “Everyone okay?”
Minh, his copilot and the communications officer -- a young woman whose eyes were wide with shock -- checked in fine. I grabbed the handle by the cockpit hatchway and undid my seat restraint. The gravity in the launch bay was always light during landing operations, and I could hear fighters landing outside, which made it plain to me that the cockpit was no longer atmospherically sealed.
I managed to find my feet without landing too awkwardly and braced myself as I opened the cockpit hatch. The medical personnel were already assessing the injured, but from what I could see the main hold had kept together very well. “How does it look?” I asked Oz.
“We have one trapped in the port side rear turret, but his suit has a good seal and it sounds like he only broke his leg. We got out lucky.”
Minh was checking in with his deck chief over his personal command unit while his copilot ensured that the shuttle's systems were all shut down. “We lost five fighters. The remaining two have landed.”
The deck under my feet shuddered. Whatever was hitting us was doing so hard enough to overcome what the inertial dampeners could compensate for. “Are we on our way out of the moon's magnetic field?” I asked the bridge through my communicator.
“On our way out now. They're swarming us with everything they have now that the Triton's gone,” Ayan replied. “Get up here, Jonas.”
“You heard her. We've got this,” Minh said, gesturing to the shuttle.
“Aren't you going to stand by your divot so the Captain can inspect it?” teased his copilot.
“I think he's already had an eyeful, thanks,” Minh shot back wryly.
Oz and I walked right through a rip in the dorsal section of the shuttle onto the main deck. One of the fighters had entered the landing bay in a similar fashion to the shuttle, and the pilot was working to put out flames. “Put this out before we have an ammo explosion on our hands!” He yelled at the deck crew, who ran forward with fire suppression equipment.
My instinct was to help, but Oz and I had to run the other direction, to the nearest corridor and lift leading up towards the bridge.
As soon as we were out of the hangar and in regular gravity we made for the nearest lift at a full run. The ship shuddered several times and by the time I reached the bridge I had brought up my command unit's full status display and examined it.
The Vindicator's particle cannons were hitting us so hard and fast that our shields were draining within twenty percent of being gone completely after every salvo. The hull was vibrating with the shock of the impacts.
I walked onto the bridge and Ayan looked up from the command display. “Up to speed, Captain?”
“Oz and I were watching the ship status on the way up,” I replied.
She was out of the chair and halfway to the lift by the time I was about to sit down. “Good, I have to get to engineering. We won't be out of this for another two minutes.”
I could see that all of our reserve power was already gone, and we were generating at maximum capacity to maintain our shields, keeping our weaponry running was the least of our worries. “What are our gunners using?” I asked.
“Explosive or electromagnetic rounds to disrupt their shields,” reported tactical.
The main holographic display told the whole story. Our gunners weren't getting a chance to breathe. There were hundreds of attack drones no longer than two meters long, at least sixty fighters, and the twin hulled four kilometre long battleship itself to take care of. The battleship's shields were completely whole, and we were well within weapons range.
Surges of white and blue erupted from the forward cannons on the enemy ship and I watched as they passed right between all the fighters and drones to hit us squarely on the aft quarter a dozen or more times, shaking the ship and dropping our shields from ninety percent to seven percent. Those systems were immediately flooded with energy, recharging the shields as fast as possible despite the focused fire of the drones and fighters. “How long until we can enter hyperspace?” I asked.
“About a minute and a half,” navigation reported.
“Have all the gunners switch to flak rounds, I don't care about that battleship's shields, we need breathing room. Target the drones and the fighters. Hopefully we can shred some of them up, relieve some of the pressure on our shields.”
“You're not going to like this, but there's a cavity running between the hulls of that ship. It looks like a rail cannon,” Oz reported.
I looked at the tactical display and the shape of the enemy battleship. “No way, you'd need small asteroids to load a cannon that size. No one uses that kind of weapon anymore, it's too demanding.”
“I bet no one expected us to use refractive or plasma shielding either,” Oz countered.
I took a closer look and saw he was right; there was a space between the two hulls that formed a perfect barrel, and there was a slow build up of energy. “Scan that area.” I said, highlighting the center of the ship.
“It's a magnetic field sir, surrounding an object spinning at ninety six thousand revolutions per minute,” reported the sciences station. “It's increasing in temperature and if they fire that thing it'll go right through us like a drill bit. If it doesn't fragment against the hull, in which case the damage would be even worse.”
“Now I know why Wheeler and Fleet Intelligence wanted us
along for this trip. He cloaks and leaves with the researcher without a scratch while we lag behind as one great big distraction. Any suggestions?”
We took another salvo from the ship's particle cannons. I was nearly shaken right out of my chair. Our shields were down to eleven percent when that salvo ended.
I could see Oz working through different projections and collecting information on his command console. Then he stopped and looked to the main tactical display in the middle of the bridge. “I got nothin.”
“I was afraid you'd say that,” I said before looking towards the helm. “Faster, we have to move faster.”
“Short of getting out and pushing, we can't go any faster,” came the response.
I looked at the tactical display, thinking as the energy readings from the Vindicator kept building up. The flak rounds were doing their job; the gunners were killing dozens of drones and blocking most of the fighters, but that didn't solve our main problem. A white hot meteorite was about to be sent in our direction at such a great speed that there was no way we could move out of the way. Then a thought occurred to me. “A push!” I shouted.
“What?” Oz asked, startled.
“We need a good push. Our hull can withstand a direct focused nuclear explosion, right?” I asked him.
“Yes, but why would we want to?”
“Because we'll accelerate faster than our engines can move us if it's close enough, and it’ll cause a thermal wave large enough to obscure whatever sensors they have on that thing.”
“You're insane.”
“Tactical, load a nuclear torpedo in our aft launcher and set it to detonate at five hundred meters. Coordinate it with our sensors so they're shut down at the moment of detonation. We don't want to blind ourselves in the process.” I looked to the holographic representation of Ayan. She was directing repairs and manipulating systems from the command ring in engineering. “We're going to be taking a nuclear hit at near point blank range in about thirty seconds. Keep us in one piece.”
“You mean counter a self-inflicted worst case scenario weapon strike? Yes Sir, whatever you say, Sir,” Ayan replied before I was finished speaking. “Already working on it.”
“Navigation, will this get us clear?”
I could see the projection was still finishing up. She was running the simulation at eight times the normal speed. “Yes, it will, as soon as the initial blast dissipates we'll be far enough away from any large gravitational force to enter hyperspace.”
I took my seat and gripped the armrests. “All hands brace for--” I thought for a second.
“A self inflicted attack!” Oz whispered.
“Impact,” I finished. “Fire torpedo.”
I saw the pilot make the sign of the cross before he gripped the console.
The explosion hit and everything shook. It felt like the deck and bulkheads would burst into a million pieces under the shock. Our displays blackened and for a few seconds we were in complete darkness. Once the shaking had stopped everything started to come on.
“Sensors are dark, Sir, still resetting. We didn't sync it quite right,” came the report from tactical.
“We have shields. They're at one point three percent and charging. Our hull took half of that, no significant structural damage,” Laura reported.
“External communications are a mess, Sir. Internals are fine,” Jason reported.
“Our ion engines took a blast. Engines one and two are operational but I'm deactivating half the thrust nozzles on engine three. They might need to be rebuilt. As far as the rest of the ship is concerned, we're structurally fine but some of our power distribution network is fried, especially anything connected to Vindyne systems,” Ayan reported. “If we ever tangle with them again, looks like close range nuclear blasts are their Achilles heel. Then again, that's a pretty general rule.”
“We'll be able to enter hyperspace in less than ten seconds if enough emitters will fire up,” reported navigation.
“Tactical,” I addressed. “Load antimatter torpedoes in the turret launchers. Just in case something comes through the thermal wave behind us.”
Ayan came crackling through the communicator. “Hyperspace systems are online and ready.”
“Time to go,” I concluded.
“We're clear of significant energy and gravity fields. Activating emitters,” the navigation officer announced with great relief.
Within just three seconds the Vindicator was well behind us.
* * *
Following someone in hyperspace when they had the technology to contain all their emissions was like trying to fire a bullet through a bullet hole ten kilometres away while someone was jumping up and down on your back. There was little or no chance the Vindicator was on our trail. As we ran through damage reports and our post-hyperspace entry checklists, everyone was busy catching their breath. Two of our turrets needed repair, but as far as we could tell our rear engines had only sustained minor damage. Ayan's suggestion to take a look at the damage from the outside of the ship before making a final assessment made perfect sense, since most of the propulsion systems were still exposed while we detonated the nuclear torpedo.
We hadn't lost anyone on board, but three fighters were gone or captured while two managed to land. The other pair had faster than light systems and would meet us at our destination, near Starfree Port. Before I knew it, all the reports had been reviewed, the shift change to hyperspace skeleton crew was under way, and it was time to meet in Observation Two with the senior staff.
Oz and I made our way off the bridge and started down the hallway towards the staff meeting. “That was close. It seems that no matter what we do there's always something bigger, more dangerous around the corner,” I said quietly.
“As long as we're slipperier, smarter than whoever has got it in for us, I'm happy. You're right though, without that nuke manoeuvre that ship would be running a salvage op on our hull right now.”
“If those people, whoever they were, run salvage operations at all. That's part of what keeps me on edge out here. We don't know anything until it's almost too late.”
“Well, as long as we're one step ahead of the 'too late' mark, I'm happy,” Minh commented as he joined us from an intersecting corridor.
“I hear four of your pilots made it out,” Oz said.
“Five, actually. Garret was able to pick up Caruso after he ejected, then he made for hyperspace. We still lost two.”
“We got out of that light on losses,” Doctor Anderson added as he met us at the doorway into Observation Two. “Still, Lieutenant Caruso's going to have some stories. Hyperspace in nothing but an ejection seat for eight hours or so. That's got to be something.”
Minh couldn't help but chuckle. “We'll be hearing about it for months.”
Ayan was already sitting at the table in the dimly lit observation room. Anyone who wasn't supposed to be present for this meeting had already cleared out. Through the transparent wall we could see the hazy light of stars and interstellar phenomena through the lens of hyperspace distortion. I took my seat at the head of the table, Oz took his to my right, and Ayan was already sitting to my left. By the time Jason came rushing into the room with Laura everyone was ready to get started.
“Sorry. Night communications crew needed a briefing on a new listening system I installed,” Jason said as he sat down.
“I was just finishing my diagnostic on the shield emitters,” Laura added.
“How are they?” Ayan asked.
“Oh, the new comm crew are doing well. Just catching up on a few things I'm still working on. What will really rattle them is when I bring the new AI online--” He stopped as Ayan looked at him. I couldn't see the expression on her face, but I wish I could have. “But you meant the shield emitters, sorry,” he finished sheepishly.
Laura suppressed a grin as she patted Jason's hand and answered. “We burned out five emitters completely and one doesn't even look wired anymore. I'm pretty sure we'll see that it's completely slagged
once we get a crew outside.”
“Do we have replacements?”
“We do, but considering how badly the Vindyne technology is holding up compared to what we build, I think we'll be going through them a lot faster than anyone expected. Two of the emitters weren't even hit, they just burned out on their own. It's how they build their gear. They use mass materializers. They're great for building components quickly, but unless you add high density materials to the mix while you're manufacturing, any metal parts won't be anywhere near as durable as we're used to. Burnouts are going to happen until we can replace what we've built using their parts.”
“One of our beam emitters burned out too. It blew the second time it was fired,” Ayan added. “We should start machining our own parts.”
“Well, we'll have to make it a priority after we've finished this assignment. I didn't exactly have a chance to look at the data I was given planet-side, so I thought we could sift through it together.”
I put the data chip on the table and activated it. A holographic representation of Doctor Marcelles appeared. His aged face looked around and smiled at us. He seemed a little startled when he saw Doctor Anderson. “Well, they really did send their best. I've read a few of your papers on clone preservation research, Doctor Anderson.”
“It must be programmed with an AI meant to organize and present information in the database,” Jason whispered.
“Very astute. That's exactly what I am, only more. I am the intellectual representation of our work. Vindyne and Triad have combined their imprint and biological programming interface technologies to form an operating AI that can manage an advanced data base and maintain a basic consciousness. I am a product of that technology, only in a purely digital form that is not compatible with the human brain,” the hologram said to Jason. “It's important to note that I am a result of a cursory examination of the real Doctor Marcelles's experiences and personality.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins Page 49
