by Hellfire
A quick nod. “Let’s go,” Driver said.
Lieutenant Jeff was already on-board, and Change called him up on the ship’s communication system once she reached the bridge. “Status, lieutenant?” Lieutenant Jeff answered: “It’ll take talent on loan from the Allbeing to keep those engines on-line, but lucky for you, I have it. Engines at the ready, Commander. Ready and willing to serve! I’ll have those engines… ”
Change flipped off the intercom. Another charge rocked the station. Driver took the helm position. Change took the command chair and powered up the remaining systems.
“Disconnect the docking clamps on my mark.” She switched to full inter-ship communication. “Warfighters Rook and Jordan, Please check in if you are on board.” More rumbles, they were coming closer together now. The ship was beginning to shake. Sparks burst from a panel at the back of the bridge.
“Rook! Jordan! Report to the ship immediately,” Change ordered.
The hatch to the bridge swung open, revealing a pair of stir-crazy warfighters, the last of the crew to be released from their quarters.
“I am so glad to be out of that tube,” Rook said.
Jordan was a little more circumspect. “I was just getting into myself. I had an opportunity to talk to my soul. It was very enlightening.” Rook turned to Change. “When we get back the ship, can you order Caliph to flip Cindy Lou’s brain back to normal?”
“Strap yourselves in,” Change ordered. “Change to Hellfire Station 3, we are secured for launch.”
Moto came on her viewscreen. “Here is a final tactical readout on the Solarite Pirate fleet.” The pirate fleet was now arranged in an arc on the side of the station away from the sun.
There was a gap at the top of the arc. The pirates were trying to lure them through the center into an ambush.
“We are sending the last of the boomerang drones as escorts,” Asso told her. “They are self-piloted, and they won’t last long. If the pirates board your ship, do not use energy-based weapons on them. They feed on plasma energy, your pulse charges will only strengthen them.”
“That would have been a good thing to tell us four days ago,” Rook grumbled, strapping into a seat on the bridge.
“Good luck,” Moto told them. He hesitated. “And, thank you,” he finished. And then he bowed to them, a gesture they had not seen previously among the Hellions.
Liminix CH-53: Space
Driver blew the docking clamps and reverse-thrusted Liminix CH-53 away from the docking ring as compression barrages popped in the space around the station. The ship was more sluggish in her responses than he had expected. The front of the ship had been up-armored, and she was fully loaded with fuel… giving her double the mass she had previously. The Bridge Sphere was now covered by a cage of depleted uranium armor plating.
The boomerang drones dropped from their docking clamps and moved in behind the ship.
Flight Captain Driver swung her nose clear of the station and engaged the four primary ion-drive engines. The tanker rumbled all along its length, and the bridge trembled. There had been no time to replace the engine dampeners, and the vibrations from the engines shook the entire ship. The ship shot forward, gathering speed as it passed through the ring barriers.
Seconds later, LiminixCH-53 cleared the docking ring and turned toward the pirate fleet, aiming for the gap in their defenses as the pirates expected them to.
With the drones not far behind, Liminix CH-53 shot toward the Solarites quickly achieving ludicrous speed. The pirate vessels unloaded on it, not with compression charges, but with metallic darts hyper-accelerated. The bullets made a series of craters in the protective plating mounted above the bridge, but did not penetrate. And Liminix CH-53 kept accelerating.
The impact of the accelerated Solarite bullets made a rapid succession of loud “Chung” noises across the top of the bridge. Unwavering, Eliza Change ordered Driver to keep the ship aimed head-on with the break at the center of the cordon.
“Are you ready for the surprise?” Jordan asked Rook.
Rook was manning the weapons console. “What surprise?”
“We don’t have any weapons,” Jordan told him.
Rook looked down at his weapons console, considered this, and then shut it down.
A few seconds later, they entered the gap. As expected, the Solarite ships closed in around them and began attacking as a pack. To draw their fire, the boomerang drones engaged full after-burners, overtook Liminix CH-53 and charged straight into the Solarite line of fire.
“I see missiles incoming,” Jordan reported.
“Matthew, darling…” was all Eliza said.
Driver twisted the ship into a spiraling evasive maneuver, preventing the missiles from locking on. The pirate ships were still closing now, and though Liminix CH-53 was outside the range of their guns, their escorts were not so fortunate.
The drones did their best to hold off the assault, flying between Liminix CH-53 and the pirate fleet and trying to block their fire. When a ship came within range, the forward of the two drones unleashed a pair of missiles from its hardpoints, which connected and exploded against one Solarite ship. Nearby ships scattered in response.
One boomerang drone was taking more than its share of the withering fire from the pirate ships. One engine was dead. The other was spewing plasma from a dozen ruptures. It spiraled out of control and into the underside of a pirate ship. The pirate ship exploded and the burning remains of the escort drone caromed directly into the path of Liminix CH-53.
There was no avoiding it. The bridge of Liminix smashed into the drone’s wreckage, which exploded like a pyrotechnic eggshell against the tanker’s armor cage as its fuel cells exploded.
The bridge survived, but several control panels exploded as if someone had been storing road flares behind them. Driver was strapped to his seat, but blinded by the flash of the exploding drone. Change was knocked off the command chair.
“What the hell?” Jeff demanded from the engineering deck.
Driver checked his warning readouts. Three were yellow. One was red. “Engine three is running a little hot,” he reported. “I’m going to have to throttle back.”
“Negative,” Change ordered. “Push us into the debris field.” She hit the intercom. “Jeff, you have to get more coolant into engine three.”
“I’m doing the best I can, but these engines can’t take much more of this,” Jeff shouted back at her over the link.
Change turned to Rook and Jordan. “Get to the Engine Room. There’s not much you can do here.”
“But we don’t know anything about…” Rook began to protest, but her answering glare shut him up, and he and Jordan made for the engine room.
Two pirate vessels bore down on a second escort drone and hit it with simultaneous missile strike. It vanished in a silent explosion.
“That’s the last drone,” Change reported.
“I thought we had four,” Driver asked.
“Two of them circled back to escort the Hellions,” Change explained, looking at her readouts.
Liminix CH-53 was all alone now.
“Full Speed Ahead,” Change ordered.
About that time, the other three tankers and a pair of manned escorts ships beat a hasty retreat from Hellfire Station 3. They had a clear course. All the Solarites were chasing Liminix CH-53.
Three minutes after they cleared the station, Station Manager Aso sent a command signal.
Three minutes after that, Hellfire Station 3’s reactor core exploded like a small supernova, and sent a shockwave of charged solar plasma whipping away from it at a third the speed of light.
Change could feel the wave approaching. “Matthew, come about, 96 degrees on the y-axis, and brace yourself.” Without questioning, Driver brought the ship around.
The charged plasma wave struck the ship a few seconds later. Liminix CH-53 was perpendicular to the wave front, and was pushed out toward the debris field, managing to pick up speed while riding the wave.
> A couple of the Solarite ships were not so lucky, catching the wave broadside, sent into uncontrolled tumbling.
“We’ve increased velocity,” Driver announced. The view forward showed the stellar atmosphere getting thinner. The reddish tinge of light that had colored the control deck began to soften.
Change deployed her navigational chart and began calculating. “Maintain this vector and velocity while I plot a course to intercept Pegasus.” A large pirate vessel that had been lucky enough to catch the wave and maintain course pulled up underneath Liminix CH-53. The vessel was a modified repair platform, flat on top, that had been used to recover and repair damaged ships. It fired a pair of tow cables at Liminix CH-53. One stuck in the side of the tanker.
Inside the bridge, they sensed a drop-off in Liminix CH-53’s velocity, and a strong pull to starboard.
“What’s going on?” Change demanded.
“Engines are at full, but it feels like the starboard engines are losing power,” Driver said.
He hit the intercom. “Jeff, engine status.”
“It’s not my engines,” Zulu said. “We have decompression in Section… I don’t know what the designation is, but it’s on our starboard side.” Change stood and checked the tactical scan, that showed the pirate ship keeping close exact pace with them. “Someone’s locked a grappler onto us. Lose them!” Driver took Liminix CH-53 into a barrel roll, not an easy task for an old tanker. He then tried rolling the other way, and finally zig-zagging through space.
“I can’t shake him,” Driver announced. Liminix CH-53 had no more speed to give him.
“Hard Stop,” Change ordered hitting the intercom.
Driver cut power and hit the reverse thrusters full. Liminix CH-53 didn’t stop completely, but slowed abruptly enough to rock the crew and send the pirate repair tug shooting out ahead. The tow-line tore loose, taking a section of the hull and a couple of bulkheads with it.
“Resume speed,” Change ordered. “Alter vector by 66 degrees z-axis.” Driver punched the thrust levers. Liminix CH-53. jerked hard back to port and resumed accelerating.
Between the speed, the drones, and the explosion of the station, Liminix CH-53 had left all but the fastest and toughest of the pirate vessels behind it. Only one pirate vessel could match her speed, but it was the largest and most heavily armed ship of all.
Pulling alongside, the great black pirate ship opened up with a fusillade of small, high-velocity missiles, focusing on the engines. The engines had been up-armored and could take the assault. But the hull plating forward of the engines was taking heavy damage, and sections began to break loose into space.
Change watched the ship approach through the tactical scope. “Captain Driver, on my mark, roll the ship 150 degrees…” Change ordered.
“You’ll expose the tritium tanks,” Driver reminded her.
Change kept her eyes on the scope. “I’m betting the Solarites won’t want to risk damaging our cargo. After you roll, vector the ship on the y-axis 75 degrees and drop thrust one third.”
Driver grabbed the thrust levers. “Acknowledged.”
Change tapped the intercom. “Brace yourselves… and … Driver… Mark!” Driver pulled the joysticks and rolled the ship, inertia throwing the crew for a loop as well. The Solarites fired a very short burst at the rolling ship, doing minimal damage.
Then, as Driver accelerated to peel away from the pirate ship, something in the Number three engine gave out. The engine shredded and exploded, knocking the ship hard and making all the lighting and instruments on the bridge flash out.
In the Engine Room, Lieutenant Jeff cursed and bloviated as he shut off the fuel shunts to the engine. On the bridge, Driver compensated for the power imbalance. Liminix CH-53 was now skew to its course as it crossed into the debris field.
The ship was surrounded by a field of charged plasma that deflected the tiniest bits of rock. Driver dodged the ship expertly past the larger chunks. But in between were pebble-sized chunks of asteroid that flew at them at super-accelerated speed. Every time they hit the armor-plating they made a “Tunk” sound that transmitted through the bridge.
If any penetrated the Bridge… well, they remembered what happened to Ono.
Six or more pirate ships remained in the chase, tight behind them. A couple of them were on fire. They were pockmarked from meteor strikes. Their ships were armored and built to survive impacts. But they still had to dodge around the larger chunks of rock, and this gave Driver and Change just enough advantage to put some space between them.
Change rose from the command seat and checked their position. “Change course, y-axis, 136 mark 4, x-axis 22 mark 9, z-axis… 0.”
“Right,” Driver acknowledged. Liminix CH-53 had three, flat-panel navigation readouts on the console. It was harder than the neural interface on an Aves, and not quite intuitive, but he got the numbers right. That was the important thing.
“How long until we reach the rendezvous point?” Driver asked.
“No way to tell,” Change answered calmly. “There’s a large mass up ahead, let’s use it.
y-axis, 12 mark 4, x-axis 82 mark 9, z-axis 20.”
Driver fought to adjust position. On the screen ahead, he saw what was looming; a moon-sized asteroid that had been hit so often by meteors in the preceding millennia that a thick ring of debris had formed. Change’s course would take them under the ring, and he would be skimming the moon’s cratered surface at just a few tens of meters.
He brought the ship low. Most of the Solarites stayed high. Low-level flight was not their forte. A couple of the ships gave half-hearted chase as Driver darted over crater rims and canyon walls. He traveled a jagged line from above the equator to just over the pole, then slingshot out of the gravity well, with an assist that help put distance between himself and the Solarites.
Change quickly scanned the COM frequencies. “Locking onto Pegasus beacon,” she said. “Adjust course, y-axis, 160, x-axis 10, z-axis 0.” Driver brought the ship in line to intercept Pegasus. A stream of charged ion gas from the third ruptured engine trailed behind like a comet.
“Solarites are closing,” Change reported.
“That doesn’t matter,” Driver told her. “We’re among friends, now.” Stading between Liminix CH-53 and Pegasus were two squadrons of Aves. Twenty ships, fresh for the fight and armed to the teeth, made a picket line between Pegasus and the rag-tag pirate fleet.
Flight Commander PonyBoy James was in the lead ship. He sent a signal to Liminix CH-53, and Change responded with the passcode, verifying that they were safe and the cargo was secure.
A few seconds later, Liminix CH-53 cruised past the Aves. James ordered the ships to fire a volley of Hammerheads across the Solarites as warning shots. Forty Hammerheads fired off into the night and popped off amid the Solarite fleet.
The remaining Solarite ships banked left and right, and hurried away back toward the sun. The Aves did not pursue them.
S3ct10n 07
The Hellfire System: Space and Pegasus
Maneuvering Liminix CH-53 to a docking position on Pegasus’s UnderDecks, proved to be a tougher challenge than evading the Solarites, such was the extent of damage to the ship’s maneuvering thrusters, and the imbalance of its mass caused by the armor plating. It took Matthew Driver an hour and a half to accomplish the docking, even with spotters aboard the Aves Leo and Xerxes backing him up.
Once the ship was in position, docking clamps deployed to hold it against the hull.
Docking ports and umbilical connectors that had not been used since Pegasus was constructed reached out to the old mining ship and connected, preparing to offload its cargo and crew.
Rook, Jordan, and Lieutenant Jeff were sent to Hospital Four for treatment of radiation exposure, a treatment that involved drinking a substance described by victims as “an iodine-and-hair-flavored milkshake.” Driver was judged to have received only moderate exposure, and after being given a packet of radiation pills and some meditation instructions,
he went to the food court. Eliza Change reported straight to the Bridge.
Pegasus – Main Bridge
As Pegasus was operating with only half its crew, the Bridge had been reconfigured somewhat. Some of the less essential and boring positions were occupied by androids with blank metallic faces. Only tactical, ship’s operations, telemetry, and helm were occupied when Change reached the Bridge. Lt. Cmdr. Alkema, performing double duty as tactical watch commander and commanding officer, met her at the captain’s station in the center of the oval-shaped Main Bridge. “Welcome back, Lieutenant Commander Change.” Change cast a disparaging glance around the Pegasus primary command center.
Efficient, ultra-modern, comfortable. She already missed the Spartan accommodations of the mining station.
“Where is Commander Keeler?” Change asked.
“Still at the negotiations,” Alkema reported.
“What is the status of negotiations?” she asked.
Alkema shrugged slightly. “He says they aren’t making progress, but on the plus side, he is drinking a lot.”
Change nodded grimly. “How soon can we begin offloading the Tritium from Liminix?”
Instead of verbally conveying a perfectly adequate approximate time estimate, Driver called up a hologram projection showing the old tanker attached to the aft part of Pegasus’s lower hull. “We can begin offloading the Tritium as soon as the booms are be secured and the fuel technician gives us the go-ahead.”
“Are the fuel crews on station?” she asked.
“Affirmative,” he answered, and then he smiled in that cloying way that always made her want to shove him into an open airlock. “I guess you gave those Solarites a pretty exciting chase.”
“I’ve had better,” she growled.
“Right,” Alkema agreed. He indicated the Liminix CH-53 hologram. “What should we do with the ship when we’re done with it?”
“I assume we will jettison it and continue our journey,” Change said testily, settling into her seat.
