by James Evans
“Engines are dead,” said Midshipman Martin, her voice quieter than normal. “No diagnostics.”
“Hyperspace drive remains operable, sir,” reported Midshipman Jackson. A rare piece of good news. “But the guidance system is offline.”
A monitor flickered awake in the main display as power trickled back from somewhere. It showed a cut-down strategic overview with the limited information available from the remaining sensors.
“Get the rest of it back, Wood,” snapped Cohen. “We need more than just flashes and snippets.”
Warden peered at the monitor, but it was too far away for him to see the details. He pulled out his data slate and hoped the comms were working. “Come on,” he muttered as he poked at the screen. Then he had it, the overview.
“Oh shit,” he said, louder than he’d intended. Cohen’s head snapped round, and Warden wordlessly passed over the slate.
“Where’s the fleet gone?” murmured Cohen, not quite understanding what he was seeing.
“It hasn’t,” muttered Warden, “it’s right where it was.”
And then Cohen saw it. The ship status reports were blank, lost when the external comms system had failed, but the passive sensors told the story. The fleet had ceased to exist.
“External comms coming back online,” said Wood.
“–advised.” A sudden noise blared over the bridge speakers.
“That’s external, sir,” clarified Wood.
“Message repeats. This is HMS Palmerston. If you receive this message, please respond. We are in urgent need of assistance, and our immediate vicinity remains hostile. Discretion is advised.”
“Get the channel open, Wood,” said Cohen. The midshipman flicked at his controls then turned to Cohen and nodded.
“This is Ascendant. What is your situation, Palmerston?”
“Ascendant? Thank fuck for that. We have casualties, but we’re mostly airtight. Life support is pretty much working, and we have manoeuvring thrusters. Everything else is offline. You?”
Cohen ground his teeth.
“Comms,” he said, stating the completely obvious, “probably hyperspace capability.”
“That’s it?” said whoever was crewing Palmerston. “Okay, it’s better than nothing. Hang on; we’re coming to you. Can you get your hanger doors open?”
“Hanger doors?”
“The doors to your hanger,” said Palmerston with admirable self-control, “can you open them to allow us to dock?”
“What?”
“Because we have hyperspace capability, sir,” said White, leaning over. “We can get them out of here.”
“Never mind, Ascendant. We’re on our way. Course is laid in, and the thrusters are firing. Get your doors open in about thirty seconds, or we’ll be knocking them down.”
“Wait, what?” shouted Cohen, looking around.
“Palmerston out.”
“Shit,” muttered Cohen.
“Internal comms are still offline,” said Wood, “but the processors are bringing some of the sensors back online.”
“Can we open the hanger doors?”
The strategic overview flashed as Palmerston was highlighted and its new course flashed onto the display.
“There’s no atmosphere in the hanger, sir,” reported Wood.
“Twenty seconds to impact,” said Martin.
“Fuck,” muttered Cohen. Then he pulled himself together. “Get the hangar doors open, Mr Wood. And let’s make sure they are at least facing toward Palmerston, Miss Martin.”
“Aye, sir, calculating now.” Martin’s hands flashed across the controls. “Thrusters firing, manoeuvring only, short bursts.”
“Palmerston’s coming in faster than a greased whippet,” said MacCaibe, tracking the gunboat as it crossed the last few kilometres.
“Hangar doors are open,” said Wood, hardly daring to believe the monitors. Then he squinted. “Or they might be.”
“What? Are they open or aren’t they, Mr Wood?” said, White.
Wood shrugged hopelessly. “Don’t know, sir. Might be open. Might be damaged sensors. Can’t even be sure that part of the ship is still attached.”
“Holding steady,” said Martin, “manoeuvring successful.” She switched monitors and yelped, “They’re almost on us.”
“Close the doors as soon as they’re in, Mr Wood,” said White, still pushing at the dead controls of his own monitors, trying to find something that would tell him what was going on.
“Incoming,” said MacCaibe. “Looks like the Deathless have noticed we’re still moving.”
There was a long rumbling bang that reverberated around the ship, as if a rake had been dragged across a huge steel container.
“That was Palmerston,” reported Wood. “They’ve, er, landed.”
“Then get the doors closed, Mr Wood,” said White.
“Lay in a course to New Bristol, Mr Jackson,” said Cohen. “Take us home.”
“Negative, sir, guidance computers are still offline. They don’t seem to be restarting. We can engage the hyperspace engine, but until the navigation computers can be repaired, we won’t know which system we’re heading to. I’ll be able to give you an estimate in about thirty minutes if I put some data into my slate.”
Cohen cursed in frustration. An unguided hyperspace trip could leave them travelling for far longer than usual before they reached the next system. You couldn’t simply make a U-turn in hyperspace, after all. The ship would travel in the general direction of ‘forward’, but they wouldn’t know if that was taking them directly at a nearby system or fifty degrees away from anything closer than ten light years. They wouldn’t be worrying about that if they didn’t go somewhere, though.
“Fifteen seconds to impact,” said MacCaibe. “Brace yourselves.”
“Hanger door probably closed,” said Wood. “Palmerston probably sort of secure.”
“That’s very vague, Mr Wood,” snapped White.
“Best I can do, sir. Most of the sensors are shot, and even the internal video in the hold is out,” Wood said apologetically.
“Brace for multiple impacts,” said MacCaibe, hands locked to the arms of his chair.
“Punch it, Ms Martin,” ordered Cohen.
Martin, her hand already over the control, activated the hyperspace engine.
Ascendant vanished.
5
Ascendant flitted through hyperspace, carrying the crew away from the ambush. Klaxons screamed, demanding attention as the ship shook and creaked.
“Everyone okay?” asked a shaken Cohen. There was a murmured chorus of confirmations from around the bridge. “Then let’s work on the damage reports.”
The primary displays were still off but one small part, which had shown the strategic overview, now flashed a ‘hyperspace travel’ notice. Ordinarily the bridge was bright and well lit, but now it was dark and ominously shadowed. The only light at all came from the sparse low-power emergency system, accompanied by the angry red glows of the warnings that flashed across the remaining screens.
“Hyperspace drive working correctly,” said Martin.
But that much was obvious. Ascendant had left real space behind and with it the immediate threat from the Deathless vessels. There was a pause, a long moment of silence while Cohen waited for more reports.
“Well?” he snapped, looking around the bridge. “Anything else?”
“Multiple hull breaches I think, sir,” reported MacCaibe. “Er, but sensors are as stable as a newborn lamb, so I can’t tell how many or where.”
“But we’re losing atmosphere? Mr MacCaibe,” said White when he didn’t receive an answer, “are we losing atmosphere?”
MacCaibe turned to look at White and shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. The sensors aren’t reporting,” he said in a small voice.
“So what do we know? Come on, people, start working the problem,” said White, stealing a worried glance at Cohen. The commander was sitting back in his chair, face pale as he poked at
his data slate. “Gravity is off, power is limited, sensors aren’t working,” he summarised, “but what else?”
“Wormhole communicator has gone, sir,” said Wood at the communications desk.
“Gone?” queried White. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”
“No response to diagnostic requests, sir, although the hardened systems that connect the bridge and the wormhole communicator appear to be functioning. It looks like the WC itself has been destroyed.”
“Shit,” muttered White, entirely without irony.
“Internal comms are down, sir. There’s no way to know what’s happening in the rest of the ship,” reported Midshipman Wood. “Looks like life support is offline, but that might affect only the bridge.”
Then there was a metallic banging on the door as if someone were requesting entry, the sound ringing loudly across the bridge.
“All the power’s being routed to the hyperspace engine, sir,” said Wood. “There’s nothing left to open the doors.”
“Great,” muttered White, shaking his head.
“Pity we didn’t leave sooner,” murmured Warden. White shot him a look but didn’t say anything.
Then the knocking came again, longer this time and in a recognisable rhythm.
“Morse code,” muttered Wood. “A - N - Y - O - N - E - A - L - I - V - E. Anyone alive.” She looked at White. “They don’t know if we’re alive, sir.”
“I get that,” snapped White, releasing his straps and pushing himself out of his chair. He floated over to the door, his zero-G training coming back to him in a rush. He pulled out a multi-tool from his belt and steadied himself against the door, waving for quiet. He couldn’t hear anything at all through the thick door, but that wasn’t surprising. He began tapping out code.
“A - L - L - A - L - I - V - E - W - I - L - L - O- P - E - N - D - O -” he began, positioning himself so that he could reach the door’s manual controls.
A rapid and insistent banging from the other side interrupted his careful tapping.
“B - R - E - A - C - H - A - W - A - I - T - O - R - D - E - R - S.”
White stared at the door for a moment then carefully removed his hand from the lever. He glanced at the pressure indicator by the handle and saw that it was showing a big red cross, indicating an absence of atmosphere on the other side of the door. He stared at it for a moment, appalled that he had forgotten to check it – a schoolboy error. He tapped an acknowledgement, slipped his multi-tool back into its pocket, and pushed himself away from the door.
“I guess we stay here for now,” he muttered. He looked at Cohen, still strapped in his command chair and staring blankly at the main display. “Are you okay, sir?” he asked quietly, floating over so that the two men could speak privately.
Cohen’s head snapped up and, he looked round at White. For a moment, he said nothing, then he took a deep breath.
“I am fine, XO, thank you,” he surveyed the bridge, taking in the crew’s inactivity as they all watched from their seats. “Hull breaches, dead sensors, life support offline, power shortages, failed internal comms,” he said, summarising the situation. “Anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough?” asked White. But Cohen was back on top of things now, and he just raised an eyebrow. “Yes, sir, that’s everything we know of so far,” said White.
“Good,” said Cohen, releasing his seatbelt, “then we’re still afloat. All hands to the pumps, people. We might not be able to leave the bridge, but let’s at least do what we can to quantify the damage.”
Goodwin had begun fighting her way into a suit as soon as Colour Sergeant Milton had relayed Warden’s warning. She, Milton and a dozen others who had been close to the stores had moved quickly to climb into the bulky outfits.
Suited and booted, they had spent an anxious few minutes waiting to see what would happen. Then the first projectiles had ripped into Ascendant, and it was suddenly apparent what was going on.
“Helmets,” Milton had shouted, even as she reached for her own. As the ship shuddered and groaned around then, the Marines struggled into their helmets and checked each other’s suits for fit and function.
“Comms check,” ordered Milton, and the Marines counted off. Their names appeared in the HUD of Milton’s suit.
Then the lights went off and the gravity failed.
“Whoa,” said Goodwin, grabbing a strap to halt her motion. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing good,” snapped Milton. “Strap in, stay quiet.” The emergency lights flicked on, dim and red.
“Internal comms are offline,” said Goodwin, although that was obvious to everyone since their suit HUDs were warning of connection failures. The suits themselves had a mesh network feature allowing their wearers to communicate without needing to route connections through the ship’s systems.
The Marines looked at each other in the glow of the emergency lamps. With nothing to do but wait, they sat and waited as the ship shook and grumbled around them.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but was actually only a couple of minutes, there was a long-drawn-out rumbling bang followed quickly by the familiar tug that signalled the shift to hyperspace.
Milton waited a moment longer to see if anything else was going to change, then she unstrapped.
“Time to work for a living, people,” she said, pushing away from her seat and making for the door. She pulled the lever and braced a foot against the door to open the door. Then she tugged herself forward to float through the doorway, kicking off against the frame to give herself just a little momentum. The passageway beyond the door was dark, and the head torches on her helmet came on automatically to compensate.
“Work in pairs, stay in touch, find out what’s going on, and make a note of any problems you find. And remember, you may be the only ones in suits, so take care opening doors, especially if the pressure indicators show there’s no atmosphere in the area beyond.” She held her position as the Marines floated out into the corridor and dispersed into the ship. “Goodwin, you’re with me. We’re going to find the captain.”
“That’s it, Colour, all good,” said Goodwin, pushing back from the corridor wall. It seemed that much of the ship was still airtight, but the corridor that led to the bridge had been punctured several times, and the surrounding chambers were a mess.
Between them, Goodwin and Milton had found and patched seven holes, two of which led directly to the vacuum of space.
They had re-pressurised several rooms already, and now Milton hit the button to flood the corridor with air. A plume of gas shot soundlessly into the room, and the atmosphere quickly thickened until the pressure indicators showed a good level.
“That’s it, three-quarters atmosphere,” said Goodwin, checking the suit’s readout. “Enough to be going on with.”
“Right, let’s get this door open,” said Milton, pushing gently off the wall to float down the corridor. She stopped outside the bridge, checked the pressure indicator in the door, then pulled the lever to force the door to open. It slid smoothly open in a hiss of air as the pressures equalised.
Milton floated into the bridge and looked around, checking that everyone was in good shape. Then she removed her helmet.
“Milton,” said a relieved Warden, floating upside down and grinning at her. “It’s good to see you. Was that you tapping Morse code on the door?”
“Yes, sir. It was a bit fresh out there, didn’t think you’d want to try it. We’ve patched a few holes, but the ship’s riddled, and we didn’t do much more than come straight here.”
“Casualties?” asked Warden, dreading the answer.
“We don’t know, sir, sorry. There were a dozen of us close enough to the stores to suit up after your message. Goodwin and I have found a score of bodies or more, all killed by sudden atmosphere failure, but the rest of the team are still searching.” She glanced up at Lieutenant Commander Cohen and the XO who were floating in to listen. “It’s bad, sir. Very bad.”
Ascendant’s main b
ay was a mess. From where Cohen and White floated in the observation room above the bay, the damage done by Palmerston’s arrival was clear.
“We’re not going to get back our deposit,” muttered White as he looked down at the huge scars of torn metal where the gunboat had scraped and bounced its way into the bay. The main doors seemed to have closed correctly, despite what the sensors had shown on the bridge. “Do you think it’s airtight?”
Cohen shrugged. There was no way to know without flooding the chamber with air, and they didn’t have enough left that they could take the risk. They wouldn’t be able to test it until full life-support systems were back online and they could generate new atmosphere.
“Suits, I think,” said Cohen, heading for the airlock. They grunted their way into the environmental suits and cycled through the airlock into the main bay. Palmerston sat against the far wall, covering half the bay but twisted over and stacked against the bulkhead. Even from across the bay, they could see the puncture wounds in the side of the vessel, the ones that had incapacitated Palmerston’s main engines and weapon systems.
“She’s seen as much action as Ascendant,” said Cohen as they pushed off from the airlock door and floated across the bay. “And looks like she’s taken about as much damage. Can you imagine going to war in something as small as this? It’s not even as big as the fabricator ship the Deathless had in here.”
Palmerston’s external airlock door appeared to be intact, so Cohen triggered the opening mechanism. The door slid smoothly open to expose the small chamber of the airlock.
“Snug,” said White as they pushed their way in. The door closed behind them, and the airlock was flooded with air. Cohen removed his helmet as the inner door opened.
“Are you Cohen?” asked a suspicious voice from the corridor beyond the inner door. Cohen turned to see a pistol being pointed at him. He froze, hands in front of him, still holding his suit’s helmet.
“I am. Lieutenant Commander Alistair Cohen,” he said, suddenly aware that he was still wearing a Deathless clone. “This is my XO, Lieutenant Tim White.”
