by Ryk Brown
“What the fuck just happened?” Tilly shouted.
“The goddamned thruster wash pushed us over. The tunnel is falling to its side!”
“What?”
“There ain’t nothing holding the other end now!” Marcus scrambled to his feet and began running clumsily down the tunnel, stooping over slightly to avoid hitting his head on the low tunnel ceiling. “Come on! We’ve gotta get to that airlock!”
The pounding of rail gun fire continued as the Aurora rapidly closed on the first Jung gunship.
“One kilometer and closing fast!” Mister Randeen reported. “Quads are ready to fire!”
“Stand by on that roll, Mister Chiles,” Nathan warned. He turned his head to the left toward his sensor operator. “Mister Navashee, any sign of that second target?”
“Not yet, sir. She’s not due to break the horizon for another thirty seconds.”
“Five hundred meters!” Mister Randeen reported.
“Snap roll!” Nathan ordered. “Show them our quads!”
Four massive, quad-barreled rail guns were now sticking out of the bottom end of their transit tunnels. The Aurora rolled quickly to port, bringing the guns to bear on the rapidly approaching Jung gunship. Blue flashes of electrical energy sparked along the massive rails as the guns began spewing hundreds of projectiles. The meter-wide projectiles flew toward their target at startling speed, striking the hull of the Jung gunship with incredible force. The impacts tore into the enemy ship’s hull sending chunks of it spinning wildly off into space. The Aurora’s weapons automatically tracked the passing ship, attempting to concentrate their fire in the same location in the hopes of penetrating the enemy gunship’s inner hull, but the smaller gunship was closing too quickly.
The rescue tunnel suddenly collapsed only meters in front of Marcus as a section of the tunnel from behind them fell on top of the tunnel in front of them. Marcus came to a stop, nearly tripping forward in the process. “Shit!”
“What the hell do we do now?” Tilly wondered.
Marcus looked at the squished tunnel ahead of them. There was nearly enough space for a man to crawl through. “Follow me!” he declared as he dove onto his stomach and began scurrying along the bottom of the tunnel. The rings in the walls of the tunnel that served to strengthen it and keep it open dug into his knees and hands as he scooted along. He pushed himself forward into the crevice, lifting up with his back to wedge open the collapsed tunnel and make room for himself. The tunnel was not terribly heavy, as the gravity on Metis was minuscule. But the additional bulk did cause the tunnel rings to dig into his skin even further. “Damn, I shouldn’t have eaten so much dollag for lunch,” he swore as he continued crawling through the crevice.
A moment later, he was through the other side and standing up again, rubbing his knees. He turned around and hollered at Ensign Tillardi. “Lie flat, face down, with your hands covering your head!” Marcus waited a moment before continuing. “You ready?” He heard a muffled reply and assumed that the young ensign on the other side had answered in the affirmative. He squatted down and pushed upward against the squished roof of the tunnel, causing the tunnel section lying on top to roll away a bit. The collapsed ceiling of the tunnel popped back up, continuing to do so for another meter before stopping. Marcus looked down between his legs and saw Ensign Tillardi lying face down with his hands covering his head.
The ensign raised his head when he realized the tunnel had rolled over him. He looked up at the senior chief. “Damn!”
Marcus reached down and grabbed the ensign by his collar to pull him up. “Come on!” As they continued down the quivering tunnel, he heard several loud pops from behind followed by a whoosh of air as it began to flow past him from front to back.
“The tunnel’s been punctured!” Tilly exclaimed, yelling to be heard over the sound of escaping air. “We’re losing pressure!”
“Keep going! We’re almost there!” Marcus said as they continued forward.
“If the tunnel tears…”
“Shut up and run!” Marcus could see the end of the tunnel as it raised up slightly to clear the edge of the connection collar, then turned sharply downward toward the Celestia’s midship topside maintenance airlock. As he climbed up the small incline, he heard several more pops behind him, and the flow of air toward the far end of the tunnel became stronger and louder. He could feel the air thinning, as it was becoming harder to breathe. The tunnel was also beginning to collapse slightly under its own weight as the internal air pressure rapidly escaped through the holes.
Marcus cleared the small rise and jumped down the two-meter drop to the hull of the Celestia. He moved to one side just as Tilly dropped down next to him. The young ensign’s lips were turning blue, and he looked like he was about to pass out from hypoxia. Marcus quickly opened the outer hatch and stepped into the opening below him, falling through the three-meter tunnel and landing at the bottom of the airlock below. Again, he stepped to one side as the ensign fell down the tunnel and landed ungracefully next to him.
Marcus activated the control panel and closed the outer hatch, then began the pressurization cycle in the airlock. The airlock door opened, and they stepped into the safety of the Celestia’s inner decks once more. Marcus stepped through the hatch and dropped to his knees, falling backward into a sitting position and leaning up against the bulkhead.
Ensign Tillardi collapsed on the deck as well, in a less graceful fashion. After a few moments’ rest, Tilly finally managed to speak between breaths. “Thanks, Senior Chief.”
“No problem!” Marcus said, still panting. “Just don’t expect me to save your ass on a daily basis.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Tilly answered, smiling. Several more seconds passed before he spoke again. “How long have you been in the EDF?”
“I’m not in the EDF,” Marcus answered, “at least, not technically.”
“You’re not from Earth?” Tilly asked, somewhat surprised.
“Never been there.”
Tilly smiled more broadly. “Funny; you swear like you’re from Earth.”
“Some things are universal, kid.”
* * *
“The second ship has line of sight on them now,” Loki reported from his seat in the back of the Falcon’s cockpit. “They’re accelerating.”
“Toward Metis?” Josh asked.
“I’m not sure. I think so.” Loki studied his sensor displays for another moment. “Wait, I think they’re climbing… They’re trying to change orbit to a different inclination.”
“So they’re not headed for Metis?”
“No, they’re trying to change course and come up over the top of Jupiter.”
“What the hell for?”
“Maybe they spotted us,” Loki surmised.
“No way,” Josh argued. “We’re too far away, and we’re running cold. They’d have to scan actively this way, and they haven’t, right?”
“No, they haven’t, at least not that I can detect,” Loki said, realizing his friend was right. “Then why aren’t they going to help the other gunship?”
“They’re trying to get clear of Jupiter,” Josh said as he flipped on the Falcon’s maneuvering systems. “They’re gonna call home for reinforcements.”
Loki’s attention was diverted from his screens by the sound of the Falcon’s maneuvering systems coming to life. His head jerked up to look over the forward console at the back of his pilot’s head. “What are you doing, Josh?”
“I’m gonna stop him from calling for help,” Josh declared as he fired his thrusters and pitched the Falcon’s nose toward Jupiter, which sat far below them.
“No, no, no,” Loki objected as Jupiter rose up in front of them. “Our orders are to stand watch and let the Aurora know if anyone else is coming, Josh.”
“If
anyone else was coming, they’d already be here, Loki!” Josh explained. “If we don’t stop them, there will be someone else coming. We’ll lose the Celestia for sure then!”
Loki could hear the main propulsion system coming to life from behind him. “Josh, if they can see the Aurora, the Aurora can see them! If the captain wants us to attack, he’ll let us know!”
“The captain’s busy!” Josh insisted. “Plot me a jump to directly astern and below the second gunship! We’ll jump in, put a pair of anti-ship missiles into her tail, and take out her main engines…”
“It won’t matter, Josh! In less than a minute, they will have applied enough delta V to climb up to a line of sight with Earth, even without their main drive…”
“Then we have to jump now!”
“This is not our call!”
“Are you gonna make me calculate the jump myself?” Josh asked. “Cause you know, it’s been a while, and I might be a little rusty… put us into the side of Jupiter or something…”
“All right! All right!” Loki agreed as he started entering the jump into the computer. “Don’t fire the mains! Just give us a little forward momentum. If we’re going too fast, we won’t be able to get a shot off before we whiz past the target.”
“Good thinking,” Josh said. “Thrusting forward.”
“You know, I could lock out your controls and take over from back here,” Loki said as he finished calculating the jump.
“But you won’t,” Josh said, a grin on his face. “Give me a five second lag to jump so I have time to spin around and set up the shot.”
“Jumping in five……four……”
Josh spun the ship around one hundred eighty degrees, so the interceptor was flying backward.
“Three……two……”
Josh opened the weapons bay and deployed two anti-ship missiles into firing position below the Falcon’s belly.
“One……jump.”
The cockpit filled with the blue-white jump flash. Josh opened his eyes as his helmet’s improved auto-darkening visor disengaged the filters that protected his vision from the jump flash. Directly above them only fifty meters away was the enemy gunship, and it was pulling away fast. “Damn! Well done, Loki!” Josh tapped his flight control stick, causing the Falcon’s nose to rise slightly toward the fleeing target’s aft end. “Lock the missiles on her main drive ports!”
“I’m on it!” Loki declared. “Target locked.”
“Firing two!” Josh announced as he pressed the missile launch button. He waited a moment as the missiles left their rails and streaked away. Then he tapped his flight control stick again and applied full power to their main drive.
“Three seconds!” Loki announced as they pulled away from the target. “Don’t pull too far away, Josh…”
Two flashes of yellow-orange light filled the cockpit as the missiles found their targets. A secondary explosion followed, lighting up their cockpit again.
“Direct impact!” Josh announced with joy.
“Her mains are down!” Loki reported. “But she still might have enough momentum to climb up over the top. We need to take out her comm-array.”
“I’ll get us in close, and you blast her with the nose turret!” Josh told him as he rolled the interceptor to port and pitched his nose back toward the drifting gunship.
The interceptor closed quickly on the gunship. Josh maneuvered the Falcon alongside it, slowing slightly to give Loki an easier shot. “There it is!” Josh yelled. “On top! Directly amidships!”
“Josh! Not so close! They’ve still got guns, you know!”
“Take out the comm-array!”
Loki swung the Falcon’s nose turret around and opened fire, sending bolts of plasma into the gunship’s comm-array. The array came apart after only a few shots, and Loki walked the spray of plasma down the side of the gunship and across one of the nearest gun emplacements. “I got it! Now get us out of here!”
The Falcon lurched to one side as rail gun rounds slammed into her hull just aft of the cockpit.
“Fuck!” Josh swore as he fought to maintain control of the ship with the force of the impacts causing the ship to yaw to starboard and roll.
Loki felt his body lurch to port, his restraints digging into his shoulders. He grabbed the side rails just below the canopy to steady himself as more rail gun rounds slammed into their side. “Get us out of here!”
Josh looked forward as he prepared to apply full thrust. A wall of small puffs appeared out of nowhere directly in front of them. “What the hell?” he exclaimed, his eyes widening. “Loki! What is that?”
“Hold on!” Loki said while he fought to adjust his sensors as the Falcon continued to shake from rail gun impacts. “Shit! Those are tiny mines, Josh! They’re trying to block our way out!”
“Screw that crap!” Josh declared as he applied reverse thrust.
“No!” Loki warned. “They’re deploying them all around us!”
“What?” Josh looked around, panicked. “What do we do?”
“Hard to starboard!” Loki ordered. “Take us out perpendicular to the target! Full power!”
Josh spun the Falcon’s nose ninety degrees to starboard and fired their main engines. The interceptor accelerated away from the gunship. More tiny puffs appeared ahead of them.
“More mines!” Loki warned.
“Fuck!” Josh maneuvered the Falcon around the dispersing group of mines, barely missing the outermost weapon as it streaked toward their port side. More puffs appeared in the distance as the gunship tried to block the Falcon’s last escape route.
“Jump us out of here!” Josh begged.
“I can’t! If we hit one of those mines while we’re jumping…”
“Hang on!” Josh declared as he attempted to maneuver around the next group of dispersing mines.
* * *
“The Falcon is in trouble, sir!” Mister Navashee reported from the Aurora’s sensor station.
Nathan rose suddenly from his command chair at the center of the bridge. “What?”
“They jumped in and attacked the second gunship. Josh and Loki took out the gunship’s main drive and their comm-array. They’re being fired on.”
“Why haven’t they jumped away?” Nathan wondered. “Comms!” Nathan could hear Naralena calling the Falcon.
“Tubes coming to bear,” Mister Randeen reported from the tactical station.
“Fire as soon as you have a solution,” Nathan ordered.
“Sir, at this angle, the debris field may impact the Celestia,” Mister Randeen warned.
“No choice.” Nathan turned toward the helm. “As soon as we take out that gunship, come about wide to starboard, away from Jupiter. I want a clear jump line out to the second target as soon as possible.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Firing solution in five seconds!” Mister Randeen reported.
“Captain!” Naralena called out. “The second gunship is deploying miniature mines around the Falcon. She can’t jump out!”
“The Falcon’s taking a beating,” Mister Navashee reported.
“Firing plasma torpedoes!” Mister Randeen reported from tactical.
Nathan spun back around as four red balls of plasma streaked toward the first gunship. One by one, they struck the target, breaking her first into two pieces, then causing those two pieces to explode.
“Target destroyed!” Mister Randeen announced.
“Come about!” Nathan ordered.
The image of the exploding gunship moved quickly to the left on the main view screen as the Aurora turned quickly to starboard. In only a few seconds, the obliterated target was off the screen.
“Did we ever get a rescue shuttle away?” Nathan asked as he waited for the Aurora to complete her tur
n.
“No, sir,” Mister Randeen replied. “We were maneuvering too hard.”
Nathan looked at Naralena sitting at her forward-facing comm station directly behind Mister Randeen. “Did they make it back?”
“Yes, sir,” Naralena reported. “Senior Chief Taggart reported in a minute ago. He and Ensign Tillardi are back on board the Celestia.”
Nathan let go a sigh of relief.
“Ten seconds to jump,” Mister Riley reported from the navigator’s chair.
“As soon as we jump in on the target, roll us over so we can use our quads,” Nathan told the helmsman.
“Aye, sir,” Mister Chiles acknowledged.
“Captain?” Mister Randeen said.
“No plasma weapons on the second target,” Nathan ordered. “We don’t know how she’ll come apart, and the Falcon is still awfully close to her.”
Mister Randeen nodded his understanding as the navigator started his jump count.
“Three……two……”
“Turn complete,” Mister Chiles reported.
“One……jump.”
A blue-white flash of light flooded the second gunship’s hull as she continued to fire on the fleeing Falcon. The flash quickly subsided, revealing the Aurora as she made her pass above the Jung gunship. The Aurora rolled over to bring her underside toward the target. As she started her pass, her four quad rail guns hanging from her midship opened fire, pounding the small gunship with massive projectiles that tore deep into the hull of the enemy ship. The force of the impacts pushed the gunship’s nose down toward Jupiter. Chunks of the target’s hull flew in all directions as the impacts walked across her topside. Several secondary explosions reported from deep inside the drifting gunship. By the time the Aurora had passed overhead, the enemy ship had stopped firing.
