“I'm ready to make a link and start hacking into the station's computers.” Jason reported. “The quantum core is still intact. I can't get into the network at this range though. We need a direct uplink. I'm sorry”
“We saw this as a possibility. Make it happen Ronin. Start launching broadcast drones at the station's hull.”
“Consider it done!”
“Sir, the boarding shuttles seem to think we're dead in space,” came the report from tactical. I looked to my right and saw that both the tactical officers were in fine shape. A little shaken, but otherwise untouched. She had a serious expression until my eyes met hers, and I smiled. “Good to see you're still with us.”
“Good to be here,” she replied. “Orders?”
“Play possum until they're within a hundred meters. I don't want us to look armed and dangerous until we have to. Are those ordinance nine B’s all loaded and ready?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good, get set to fire. I think I have an idea.”
One of the night crew pilots came in through the lift at the back of the bridge and Oz relinquished the pilot's controls to her. “I think this thing is still flyable, though we'll be at one-third power, maybe a little more.” Oz said as he pointed to several status readouts on the control panel.
“Thank you sir,” she said as she looked at the previous pilot uneasily and sat down. “He trained me. We've spent weeks together.”
“He was a good man. Once we're out of this we'll honour him properly, but you have to get us there,” Oz said comfortingly. “Make him proud.”
She nodded and took the controls as she listened to the navigator, whose professionalism was unbelievably keen.
“Sir! Triad destroyer coming around the back side of the station. She'll have a clear line of fire in a few seconds.”
“Laura, how are the shields?”
“We have aft and dorsal shields, that's it. I'm working on getting the bow projectors on line but I don't think it'll happen.”
“Any chance of using our last two beam weapon emplacements as emitters?”
“No. Vindyne technology can't be re-tasked that way.”
“Tactical, any read on those cloaked ships?” I asked.
“Yes. We managed to mark four with flak fire. One's destroyed, the other three are behind us.”
“What's the margin of error for tracking them through the flak shot embedded in their hulls?”
“Nil. I doubt they've had time to step out of an airlock and dig it out.”
“All right. Tell the gunners, when the boarding shuttles are within one hundred meters, open fire. Helm, try to send us towards a part of the station we can use as cover.”
“Maybe this would be a good time to start using ordinance nine B’s?” Oz said, raising an eyebrow.
“I was just getting to that. Have torpedo launchers lock onto that destroyer and fire as soon as we're on the move. Without forward shields they'll make quick work of us.”
The tactical display showed our rail guns opening fire on the boarding shuttles, reducing them into scrap metal. They obviously didn't see it coming. The entire ship roared to life. We started moving towards the nearest girders jutting from the station. Ordinance nine B torpedoes were launched, our aft and dorsal shields came up, and for a few seconds it felt like the ship actually had a chance again.
I took a second to manipulate the comm controls on the command chair with my left hand and opened a channel to medical. “Doctor Anderson here. Captain, the treatment centre is full, but we're saving more than we're losing.”
“Glad to hear it. Losses?”
“As far as medical is concerned, we've lost eighteen, Ayan is in secure stasis.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I knew it was a mistake to check in.
“Initial assessment shows that she'll need some care, more than I can administer while we're mid-incident. Don't worry, Captain. Get us out of here and I'll have her on her feet in no time. She's a fighter.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“The station is firing on us!” tactical reported.
I braced myself as I saw the readout of several mid-sized rail cannon turrets, beam emplacements and a few disruptor cannons all opening fire. Our unshielded side was still facing the impact points and our hull was partially open where they were hitting us. The inner hull was starting to take serious damage.
“Wait, something is blocking the weapon fire,” Oz reported.
“Sir, it's the Triton! She's de-cloaking right under us!”
“Thought you could use a hand putting the last part of our plan in motion,” I heard Captain Wheeler say through our secure channel. “Now use those cannons of yours to blast us a hole out of here.”
I couldn't help but smile. “How is that hack coming, Jason?”
“The quantum core is making quick work of their internal security. We're almost in. Minh's pilots put those transmitter drones real close to an internal networking hub.”
The tactical display showed the full on impact of our ordinance nine B cloaked antimatter torpedoes on the nearest enemy destroyer, ruining the front end of their ship. Our aft shields were taking a lot of fire from the cloaked ships behind, and the trace scan of the flak revealed three of them while the line of the weapons fire revealed two more. “Mark those cloaked ships and open fire with antimatter rounds. Sight the undamaged cloaked vessels with our beam weapons. Have our torpedo and missile launch control target the station's weapon emplacements and energy nodes if they can find them, and open fire with the remaining ordinance nine B’s. Let's tear this place apart.”
Laura somehow brought port shielding back on line and was able to maintain our aft and dorsal shields, but we were still taking hits on other parts of the hull. “We can't take much more of this. The station's weapons are carving the outer hull to pieces,” Oz said. “We might have two minutes at this rate.”
“I'm hoping that's all we need. Jason, how is the hack going?”
“We're in!” he called out. He worked at the controls at a feverish pace, his assistant was trying to keep up but I could tell that she was having difficulty. “We have a problem. Hold.” His expression looked worried and he worked faster for a minute and then stopped, sitting back in his chair. “I'm sorry to report that the reactors they use cannot be overloaded.”
“What?” Oz asked, joined by Captain Wheeler over the communicator.
The ship jostled under the force of several un-intercepted torpedo hits. I verified that they didn't hit critical systems, but had decimated the forward observation deck.
Oz was still talking to Jason. “Okay, what do you mean the reactors can't be overloaded?”
“All their components and energy generation technologies are non-volatile. Some are a lot like what our ship uses, almost no moving parts on the inside with amplification technology scattered everywhere. A lot of their power comes from their hull, which absorbs solar energy just like ours.”
“Okay, what did they do with their reactors?” Captain Wheeler asked through the communicator.
“They're just--” Jason looked through the station schematics and brought up a detailed cross section on one screen. I could only assume that he was transmitting the image to Captain Wheeler at the same time. “--gone! It's an arboretum now. The power readings confirm it. That section of the station generates nothing except for biomatter and clean air!”
I thought for a minute, we had to destroy the station. It was the best way to slow down development and there was no guarantee that the other plan -- destroying the gravitational fields -- would do the trick. I silenced the comm so Captain Wheeler couldn't hear what I said next. “Anything on Framework software?”
“We've got it and we've downloaded their entire database. Our storage systems are eighty seven percent full.” Jason replied.
I unmuted the secure comm channel we shared with Captain Wheeler and tried to think of another way to destroy this installation. “Cloaked at
tack cruisers, Framework, advanced defence systems, and a station that could support a population of five million in the middle of an asteroid belt made up of the hardest, most adaptive steel known to man. It all belongs to Triad.”
“You're thinking that there's more here than we're seeing,” Oz said.
“We've got to get out of here. We should head back to the wormhole gate,” Captain Wheeler said through the communicator. “We can't take much more punishment.”
“We can't leave this place intact. There's too much going on here,” I replied quietly.
“What do you think you can do? This is pointless!” Captain Wheeler protested. “We're gone. Triton out!”
“Sir, the Triton is breaking off and cloaking. She's taken damage, but not so much that she's not capable,” came the report from tactical.
I thought for a moment longer, I could feel most of the bridge personnel staring at me, and then I got an idea. “Laura, is our wormhole generator still online?”
“Yes, it's operable.”
“Aim it at the least armed section of the station, the one we just cleared.” I opened a channel to Minh-Chu. “Ronin, get your fighters together. You have one minute to get in front of the ship.”
“Yes sir! What's the idea?”
“We're going to rip a hole right through this station with a wormhole. Get ready to follow us through.”
“We may not have enough power,” Laura said.
I turned on her. She didn't understand that there wasn't a choice here. This was our one chance to actually make a real difference in the war between Freeground and the Triad Consortium. Without this we would have made little or no difference after sacrificing so much. “Drain the capacitors, shut down everything but inertial dampening and engines, ramp up all our power generation, and get that thing tunnelling a wormhole straight through that station! I know it takes exponentially more power to do it through solid matter, but it's the one thing this ship has in abundance.”
“Yes sir,” she replied, working the controls. A moment later the holographic projection of the station disappeared as two more senior engineers joined her to help redirect power.
I opened a ship-wide channel from my command chair. “This is the Captain. All crew are to seal themselves into secure compartments and stand ready for potential decompression. We're shutting life support down in all areas but medical.”
Everyone on the bridge brought up their hoods and sealed their vacsuits. I watched the tactical screen as our fighters moved into position and our hull took continuous damage. Our gunners were tearing the cloaked cruisers to pieces with antimatter rounds and they were scattered, coming apart in flames and depressurization bursts.
Two main sections of the First Light lost integrity and I watched as five gunnery posts went dark, too damaged to continue firing. Their crews were either getting out or had already been killed. We were down to twelve turrets, and our beam emplacements were destroyed.
I could feel the unsteady vibrations in the hull as we began generating the energy field and gravitational force required to open a wormhole, and I punched in the codes for the arrival point.
“I'm proud to have served with you Captain,” I heard Minh tell me through my personal communicator. “Doesn't look like I'll make this ride.”
I searched for his marker on the tactical screen and realized his ship was attached to a narrow crook in the station. Hacking into the station hadn’t been so easy because one of the broadcast drones was well placed; it was because Minh had manoeuvred his fighter into a safe, vulnerable spot and used his infantry training to dock and wire his communicator into the station’s internal computer.
It was genius, it was unexpected, and he had to know that there was little chance he could get back to his fighter and to the wormhole jump point in one minute. He should have told me.
“God dammit Minh. What'll I do?” Was all I could manage to say.
“A bird does not sing because it has an answer.”
The space around us warped, and the station tore apart just off from the centre, exploding and shearing to pieces as the force of our forming wormhole bored straight through it. I watched as the wormhole pushed through, layer by layer, and prayed that we were generating enough power to force a way through the solid matter ahead of us. I prayed that Minh could somehow get to an escape shuttle or into a safe compartment somewhere before it all started coming apart, but I knew the chances were as close to none as anyone could imagine.
The sound of the energy and gravity generators was deafening and the ship rattled everyone. Even through the localized pain killers my broken arm sent mind rending shocks of pain to my brain.
“We've got a clear path, Sir!” came the cry from navigation.
“Helm! Give us a burst from the engines!” I shouted.
The inertial dampeners struggled to keep up as the engines fired briefly and we crossed the threshold into the wormhole. It started pulling us along, and after some fine adjustments, the bridge fell under a subdued silence.
Chapter 21
Aftermath
We weren't ready to emerge from the wormhole by the time we arrived at Starfree Port. The damage to the First Light was so severe that it took two tugs to guide us into docking position.
I placed the highest priority on getting the ship in good enough condition to make our next destination, Freeground. It would take a week, and even after those basic repairs were complete, over forty percent of the ship would still be open to space. Some of it was just gone, and as Oz transferred the casualty list, I couldn't help but just sit back in my chair.
We had lost over half the gun crews, fifteen damage control team members, five from main engineering and most of the fighter maintenance and lower deck crews. Over ninety people in all. Fighter pilots were still checking in, but still there was no sign of Minh-Chu or his second in command. I had never felt so tired or beaten. Even through all the work and bad news, all I could think of was Ayan's condition. I kept checking the medical status board, my eyes scanning right down to Rice and her condition, which was listed as inconclusive.
“Go see her. Get your arm treated at the same time,” Oz whispered to me.
I glanced at him, and he looked just like I felt. “You'd better get those ribs checked,” I replied quietly.
“Have someone from medical come down. I'm not the only one who got rolled around during the fight. Everyone in here has to be checked over, the sensors in our suits don't always diagnose everything spot on.”
I thought for a moment and looked down at my arm. It was true, if my suit had been working properly, someone from medical would already be on the bridge. “Jason, were communications hit at all?”
“We had to switch to backups. Our primary receiving hub went with the old bridge.”
“What about internal sensors?”
“They're out all over the ship sir.”
I sighed and made to run my hand over my face but stopped as pain shot up my right arm. “Have security and rescue teams do a sweep of the ship with hand scanners. We have to assume that there could be people trapped who can't communicate with us.”
“The station is offering their assistance as well. They have repair, rescue, law enforcement, insurance and legal teams standing by.”
“Tell them we'll take the repair and rescue teams on.”
“Yes sir,” Jason said before transmitting the response.
“I'll take this command shift. Now go see her and get some rest so you can step in when I'm ready to fall down,” Oz said more insistently.
I nodded, grabbed my long coat thinking I'd use the tools inside to help with rescue operations after checking into medical, and headed up the lift at the rear of the bridge. I was able to avoid the non-critical treatment centre, but medical was full. All around me were the resting wounded. The number of people that were saved was proven by what I was seeing.
The dozen emergency treatment beds that they normally had ready were joined by a dozen more, making for
close quarters. I had missed the urgent action. Everyone within was stable or treated and resting. No one stopped me until I was in the stasis centre.
There was room for up to thirty long-term stasis patients and the drawers were full. I always hated stasis centres; they reminded me of morgues with transparent hatches. I stood to the side as a surgical team retrieved the next patient from a tube and rushed him into a micro suite that would close over the patient, creating a completely sterile environment. Surgery would be performed with dozens of small tools including regenerators, lasers, injectors and nanotechnology.
I was stopped by a nurse, who looked at my arm then up at me. “We'll treat you over here, Captain,” he said as he began leading me to the non-critical treatment area.
“I'd like to see Commander Rice first,” I replied, resisting.
“She's where we're going,” he stated as he moved me along, carefully but expediently.
“I thought--” I started quietly, but didn't finish. I realized we were headed to the waiting room. They had obviously run out of space in main medical, and I didn't know what I would see where I was being taken.
The doors to the waiting area opened and the nurse tried to guide me to one of the sofas, which had been pushed into a corner to make room for temporary beds. I completely ignored him as I caught sight of Ayan in a bed across the room. I was mindful of the injured, but still strode to her as quickly as I could.
She was breathing, and I took her hand in my good one. The railing was up around the bed. To my surprise her eyes opened.
“How are things in engineering?” she asked.
I just stared at her in astonishment. She looked unharmed.
She raised up on one elbow and her expression softened. “Hey, I'm fine. They just wanted me to wait twenty minutes after surgery before I started running around directing repairs.”
I kissed and hugged her to me with my good arm and winced as my other one hit the side railing. “Doc said that you were in stasis.”
“I was thrown across engineering during one of the impacts and landed head first. I didn't feel a thing, knocked me out cold. Broke my arm, some ribs and my collar bone but they put me back together,” she said before looking down at my arm. “That's gotta hurt though.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins Page 53
