by Ryk Brown
“ECO! Start jamming her, full frequency spread, don’t let her missiles lock onto us!” The captain turned back to tactical. “Load all forward torpedo bays and prepare to fire! Let me know when you have a solution.”
“Captain, she’s transmitting!” the comm officer reported. “Tight beam, aimed for Centauri space.”
“How long?” the captain asked.
“Three point five years, assuming nobody intercepts it along the way and relays!”
“I have a firing solution, Captain!” the commander reported. “Tubes two and four are ready to fire.”
“Fire two and four!” the captain ordered.
“But Sir,” the commander reminded, “they haven’t fired on us yet. They’ll see it as an act of aggression and use it as an excuse to…”
“…If they get away and FTL it back to Alpha Centauri, they’ll be invading us in months, Commander, not years!”
“Aye Sir, firing two and four,” the XO responded, feeling guilty for questioning his captain’s judgment.
Along the forward, starboard edge of the Aurora’s massive propulsion section, two small doors slid open to reveal a pair of tubes. A second later a torpedo leapt out of the uppermost tube, followed a moment later by a second from the lower. Riding on massive tails of white hot thrust, the torpedoes sped away at fifty percent the speed of light, helped by the fact that the Aurora herself was already at nearly a quarter light.
“Torpedoes away! She’s launching countermeasures!”
“They’re not stupid,” the captain observed.
“Velocity at one-quarter light,” Nathan reported. His head was spinning as he tried to keep track of everything that was going on. It was nothing like the simulations, which of course had seemed so real at the time. But now, there was so much more happening, so much more to think about, he couldn’t understand how the captain was able to keep track of it all so easily. Nathan tried to concentrate on just his job, and shut everything else out, but could not.
“They’ve launched missiles!” the commander reported. “Six inbound. ETA thirty seconds!”
“Are we jamming?!” the captain yelled.
“Yes Sir! On all frequencies!” the Electronic Countermeasures Officer reported.
“Torpedo impact in fifteen seconds!” the commander reported.
“Time to gun range?”
“One minute,” Cameron reported.
Nathan looked over at Cameron to his left. She was still so calm, with no hint of stress in her voice.
“Bring the rail guns online, point defense mode! Knock those incoming missiles down!”
“Rail guns coming online!”
Outside, at a dozen different locations about the forward half of the ship, doors slid open and rail gun turrets quickly popped up into place, spinning around to come to bear on the inbound missiles. Not more than a few seconds after they deployed, they opened up in auto-fire mode, sending point-defense rounds out along their launch rails in a bright sparkle of blue current that leapt from their rails. The rounds were designed to break apart into hundreds of smaller explosive charges that would spread out and detonate, creating a wall of explosive kinetic energy designed to obliterate the incoming ordnance before it could reach the ship.
“Second contact! Down range of the first!” the sensor operator announced! “Transferring track to tactical!”
The commander examined the second track, comparing it against the first to save time, a trick he had learned on his previous assignment. “Same type of ship, Captain. Torpedo impact in five seconds.”
“Helm! New course, bring us onto the second contact!”
Aye Sir!” Within seconds Cameron had fed him a new course as Nathan raised the nose of the ship slightly and to the right to head toward the second contact.”
“Torpedo impact!” the commander reported.
Everyone held their breath as they waited for the impact assessment.
“Contact One lost!” the commander announced happily. It was the Aurora’s first shot fired in anger, and it was also her first kill.
“Can you re-target the second torpedo?” the captain asked, hoping to send it after the second contact to save time and ordnance. After all, he only had so many torpedoes in the forward bay. The rest were still in storage down in the hangar deck.
“Negative, second torpedo was destroyed by their point defense turrets!” The commander glanced back down at his tactical display, realizing that two of the six missiles launched by the first patrol ship had made it past their defense screen and were about to strike the Aurora. “Incoming ordnance!”
The first missile struck the bow, slightly port of her centerline. They were not big missiles, but without any shielding, they were big enough to take out one of their rail gun emplacements. And with less than half of them operational, they needed every one.
The ship rocked from the explosion, which could be seen on the main view screen, the glare bathing the bridge in yellow-orange light that faded quickly. The second missile could be seen streaking overhead on the view screen, striking aft of the camera emplacements against the elevated drive section at the stern of the ship. The second explosion could not be seen from the bridge, but they could definitely feel it.
“Deep space comms are down!” the comm officer reported. “That last missile must’ve taken out the array!”
“The second contact is making a run for it, Captain!” the commander exclaimed.
“Get a solution for one and three on that contact!”
“She’s still out of range, Sir.”
“Ensign, how quickly can we get in range at full thrust?”
“Two minutes,” Cameron reported.
“Full power, Lieutenant!”
Nathan brought the main engines back up to full power, pushing everyone back in their seats once more. Only this time, they were expecting it and were better prepared for the sensation.
“Torpedo range in a minute forty,” Cameron reported calmly.
“Will we catch her before she can get up to light speed?” the captain asked the commander. Their FTL system was offline, since the emitter systems were being used by the special projects team.
“I guess we’ll see,” the commander shrugged.
It seemed like it took forever for them to close the gap. The little ship could outrun them, but the Aurora could accelerate faster. But without the emitters, she could not generate the field that negated her mass and allowed for the transition into FTL velocities.
“We’re passing through the first contact’s debris field,” the sensor officer announced. All along the ship, the sounds of debris striking the hull could be heard as pieces of the destroyed enemy ship of varying sizes struck the exterior of the ship. Most of it sounded like rain, although a few were loud enough to cause Nathan to flinch once or twice.
“Torpedo range in sixty seconds,” Cameron reported.
“Firing solutions locked and ready,” the commander announced.
“She’s got an antimatter reactor on board, Captain!” the sensor officer reported.
“A patrol ship with an antimatter reactor?” the captain asked the commander. “You ever hear of that?”
“No, Sir. But our intel on their ships is still limited.”
“I wonder what else she’s got?” The captain thought for a moment. “Can you re-target the torpedoes to take out her engines without destroying her?”
“I can try, but I’m not making any promises.” The commander looked his captain in the eyes, as if reading his mind. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“She might have some tech we don’t know about yet.”
“Re-targeting,” the commander announced, not waiting for the order.
In the Special Operations section just forward of the Aurora’s flight deck, Jessica and her teammates sat waiting for something to do. They were all highly trained in the art of specialized combat and covert operations, and they could handle just about anything. But during a yellow alert, all
they could do was sit in their ready room and wait.
Being assigned to the Aurora was about the last thing that Jessica had wanted upon graduation. She had hoped to get assigned to a deep cover intelligence gathering team that would be smuggled onto one of the core-system worlds occupied by the Jung, in order to collect intelligence to forward back to Earth. Such assignments were the dream of every spec-ops officer, since due to the difficulty of getting info back to Earth, they were authorized to take whatever actions they felt necessary to protect the interests of their homeworld. It was a life of excitement and danger, where your fate was in your own hands, and not the hands of some brass hat sitting behind a desk somewhere back on Earth.
But instead, she had been assigned here. She understood why every ship needed its own spec-ops team. And this ship, with its FTL capabilities, at least had the ability to get her somewhere interesting. So in that sense, it was better than getting assigned to one of the older sub-light ships.
When battle stations had been called, she had been sure it was a drill, despite the fact that it had not been announced as such. Even when the ship started maneuvering hard and accelerating sporadically, she still had her doubts. But then they heard, and felt, torpedoes being fired. And then the constant pounding of the rail gun cannons as they laid down point defense flak. While they might fire the cannons in a drill, there was no way they were going to waste a couple of torpedoes. Those things were like small space ships, and were armed with small tactical nukes.
But the final evidence had been the explosions, the first of which struck very close, above and forward of them, knocking them out of their seats. A few minutes after that, two more torpedoes were launched. Either they were fighting multiple ships, or one really big one. But in the orbit of Jupiter? It just didn’t make any sense.
But after the last batch of torpedoes had been launched, it had suddenly gotten quiet. The main engines, which had been running at full thrust, had also quieted. And she was sure that she felt deceleration-sometimes it was hard to tell with the inertial dampeners in play.
Suddenly the room turned red and the action alarm squawked a single blast. The master chief in charge of the unit picked up the comm handset and took the call.
“Spec-Ops,” he announced. The master chief listened intently for a few moments. “Yes Sir!” The master chief hung up the handset and turned to face his people. “Alright! Listen up! Suit up for an EVA boarding action! Two insertion teams, four elements in each team! You move out in ten minutes!”
“Holy shit!” Jessica exclaimed. Maybe this ain’t such a bad assignment after all!
“Her main drive is definitely wiped out,” the commander proclaimed. We nailed her square in the ass with both shots. Just about blew her tail off.”
“What are you seeing over there?” the captain asked his sensor officer.
“She looks pretty dark, sir. I’m pretty sure she’s running on emergency power. Her shields and weapons are down, but her antimatter reactor is still online. She’s probably blown her power distribution system.”
The captain turned to his comm officer. “Any signals coming out of her?”
“No Sir, not a peep. But I’ve only got the local array to work with, so I’m not a hundred percent sure about that. If they used a tight-beam, I doubt I’d see it.”
“Could she be playing possum, luring us into a trap?” This time his question was directed back to Commander Montero.
“It is possible, but doubtful. She’s pretty busted up. Most of her aft section is open to space.”
“He’s right sir,” the sensor operator added. “In fact, the only pressurized compartments I’m seeing are engineering and her Bridge. Pretty much everything else is in vacuum.”
The captain thought about it for a moment. His first instinct was to stand off and pulverize her with his eleven remaining rail guns. But there was a good chance that there was some valuable intelligence on that ship, maybe even some technology that might come in useful. No one had ever captured a Jung ship before.
“It is a risk,” the captain admitted to his XO. “But I think it’s worth it.” He looked to his second in command for confirmation.
“Agreed,” the commander said.
“Very well.” The captain sat back down in his command chair. “Take us in, Lieutenant. Slow and easy. Roll us over and park us directly above her topsides, roof-to-roof. Since we don’t have any shuttles, they’ll have to do this the hard way.”
“Yes Sir,” Nathan answered as he began rolling the ship. They had already decelerated and had been slowly coasting towards the disabled ship for the last few minutes.
“XO, let’s keep all guns trained on her, just in case.”
“Already done, Sir.”
The two boarding teams walked out onto the flight deck. Wearing armored combat EVA suits, each of them carried a small close-quarters weapon attached with quick-connect fittings to the chest plates of their suits. The flight deck’s gravity plating was only one quarter of Earth norm, so carrying their transfer packs out across the deck onto the open landing apron was easy.
Jessica looked up as she stepped onto the apron. Directly above her was the crippled Jung patrol ship. It was only about half as big as the Aurora. It was badly damaged and she could see several openings in her hull through which they could probably gain access. But her rail gun turrets still looked operable, which made Jessica a little nervous.
“This is so fuckin’ cool!” her partner, Ensign Enrique Mendez exclaimed.
“You can say that again,” she agreed. Jessica knelt down and secured a heavy transfer line to the deck, setting the carefully coiled cable neatly down next to her.
“I sure don’t remember this scenario in training, huh Jess?”
“Me neither.”
“Cut the chatter,” her team leader ordered. “Mount up and let’s get this show on the road. We go across as one, then split up after we reach the target vessel. Alpha goes forward and Bravo goes aft.”
Each group lined up in pairs. One of them held the transfer pack in front of them, the other latched onto the first one’s back. With a blast of the maneuvering jets in the transfer pack, each pair lifted off the landing apron of the Aurora and began their ascent to the roof of the Jung ship. It was slow going, as they didn’t want to slam into the other ship at breakneck speeds.
Jessica and Enrique were the last to leave. Enrique operated the transfer pack, with Jessica attached to his back-one hand on her weapon with it pointed straight ahead, and the other hand on the free end of the transfer line she had attached to the deck. The transfer packs had just enough thrust to get them over to the enemy ship, so the transfer line would be their only way back to the Aurora.
Jessica kept her eyes forward, looking for any signs of a hostile threat as they coasted toward the Jung ship. It was a rather ugly looking vessel, dirty and not well maintained she thought. It looked more like what she thought a space pirates’ ship might look like, if such a thing actually existed.
“Approaching the vessel now, Sir,” the report came over the comm.
The main screen was displaying the view from a camera built into the top of the Aurora just forward of her flight deck. It gave them a clear view of the boarding team as they made their way across the void between the two ships.
Nathan was amazed as he watched the spec-ops teams floating across in pairs, not understanding how anyone could do something like that, let alone want to do it. Spec-ops had a reputation back on Earth. ‘Anything, anytime, anywhere.’ Apparently they had meant it.
“Any change in that ship’s status?” the captain asked.
“No sir,” the sensor operator assured him. “She’s still at minimal power.”
The inside of the Jung ship was dark, with only dim emergency lighting in operation. There appeared to be only a single battery powered light in each section, which seemed hardly enough for the job. It seemed a little odd to Jessica, since you could read in the emergency lighting in the Aurora.
Jessica’s team had gone aft toward engineering, while Alpha team headed forward to capture the bridge. There was no gravity functioning on board, although she could tell by the design of the ship and the floating debris that the ship was equipped with artificial gravity, it just wasn’t working right now.
As they floated through the corridors, the closest thing they found to a crew were dead bodies floating about. But there were very few of them, and Jessica surmised that the sudden decompression probably sucked many of the ship’s crew out into space. That was fine with her, as it meant fewer Jungs with guns.
They were forced to use the maneuvering jets built-into their suits, as there was little to grab onto and the deck didn’t seem to have enough metal in it to use the magnets built into their boots. Jessica tried to use her hands when she could, hoping to save as much of her limited suit thrusters as possible in case she needed them later.
Luckily it had not been far from their entry point to the engineering section of the smaller ship, and a few minutes later they reached the access hatch to engineering.
“We’re taking fire!” came a voice over her comm-set. “Repeat, Alpha team is taking fire!”
Jessica looked to her team leader for orders.
“You know the rules, Nash,” he warned. “They have their job, we have ours.”
She watched as her partner placed the demo charges on the hatch, taking a safe position just around the corner. After he finished placing the charges, he moved around the corner with her before reporting.
“Charges are set LT.”
“Blow it.”
“Fire in the hole,” he announced.
There was a flash of light, but no sound since they were in a vacuum. Hundreds of pieces of metal shrapnel flew past them. After waiting a moment, Enrique peaked his head around the corner to take a look. The corridor was full of smoke, but there was light shining through the smoke which he was sure was coming from the open hatchway into Engineering.
“We’ve got a hole,” Enrique reported.
The team leader and his partner took up positions on either side of the door. They each had to keep one hand on the hatch ring in order to keep from floating freely in the zero gravity of the hallway.
