Dreaming of Atmosphere

by Jim C. Wilson

  “Have you ever been in love?” she looked up at me.

  “A couple of times. First time didn’t end up so good. In hindsight I think it was more lust than love, but at the time I thought it was love.”

  “And the second time?”

  “So far, it’s been pretty good for me.” I smiled down at her. We kissed and held each other for a little while longer, then I left and headed for the bridge.

  The command module was a flurry of activity when I arrived. Seems I wasn’t the only one who wanted to close up at station early. The rest of the command staff were already at their consoles, doing last minute checks. I sat down and started my own round of checks. Soon, Maxine called the crew to close up, and we were as ready as we were ever going to be for what was to come.

  As the count down until we shifted ticked down we were silent. For once the command module was absent the usual banter.

  29.

  When a ship shifts, there’s an ever so subtle change that you can notice if you’re paying attention. I’ve heard it compared to entering and leaving a tunnel in vehicle, the slight change in sound and air pressures. It’s not quite the analogy that I’d use, but it’s better than nothing. The command module was silent as we waited for the countdown to finish, our only noise the steady thrum of the ion drives.

  Then suddenly, reality shifted and we were leaving the Jump Gate. Crege yanked the controls and sent us into a wild cork screw that pushed us all into our seats and nearly twisted our heads off. Fel managed a small whimper and a gasp, but I could see him fighting the gee forces and stay conscious this time. I heard something in the command deck crash to the deck and start sliding around, a tool or something left sculling around. A warning flashed yellow on our consoles, alerting us to the inertia exceeding stabiliser limits. A loud shrieking war cry burst forth from Crege’s beak and the ship rocketed out into reality.

  “Seventeen contacts, dead ahead!” cried Fel between clenched teeth. “Enemy weapons release detected!”

  “All crew! Brace for impact!” called Max of the PA.

  “Drone controls online! Link up established!” I reported

  “Launch!” I activated the drone release command and my console lit up with the data from my four Interceptors. I had feeds from the drones appear in my overlay as well.

  “Interceptors away! Engaging first enemy contacts!” I spun the drones into a twirling formation and dove them into a cluster of enemy drones.

  “Negative weapons impact!” called Fel, gasping for breath.

  “Crege! Head red two two, north nine, give me full thrusters for seven seconds!”

  “Aye aye, kitrak!” For a brief period our necks stopped trying to twist our heads off and instead we were pushed hard back in our seats. I could hear Fel fighting to catch his breath.

  “Evasive manoeuvres!” called Max, and the head twisting began again.

  “Captain, I’m reading 3 signatures that are not drones. Repeat, 3 contacts are not drones.” reported Fel.

  “Can you get a trace on their vectors? Show me!” Max started checking the data that Fel fed her console.

  Captain, I am detecting a military grade sensor barrage emission originating from the organo-ship 3724 kilometres starward from the Jump Station. Tac was monitoring the electronic warfare bands.

  “Switch to optical targeting! Seth, enemy contact designated Charlie 2 is on intercept, high g thrust. Take it out with the beamer!” commanded Max.

  I was still trying to break apart the first wave of drones, I’d taken out three but I could see there was at least nine remaining. The enemy drones were trying to evade my four interceptors, and were doing a good job of it, but it also meant they couldn’t get a good firing run on our ship. It wasn’t going to last, the dogfight was taking the swarm back around towards the ship’s trajectory and I knew they’d get a few runs in then. I activated the beamer’s target acquisition AI, and true to Tac’s words the sensors were all scrambled. I switched it to optics only, and ordered it to track the incoming enemy ship.

  “Target acquired! Tracking!”

  “Enemy weapons release detected!” called Fel.

  The ship was knocked sideways by a loud thud and our lighting flickered a few times. I could smell burning insulation.

  “Shields down! Concussion hit upper portside command deck. No breach detected!”

  “Damage control teams to Deck 1! Check for damage and report!” called Max.

  “That was a missile from one of those ships coming at us.” Crege called.

  “I still don’t see that last contact when we came out!” said Max, “Fel? Where is it?”

  “Unsure, Captain! I registered 12 drones, 3 enemy ships and the last contact disappeared before I could get a trace on it. It’s gone dark.”

  “Beamer within range!” I called, “Firing!”

  The shriek of the beamer filled the command module, and this time I was able to see the result on the optics.

  “Hit enemy contact, target assessed disabled!”

  “Enemy drones’ weapons released!”

  Several bangs and pops reverberated through the ship as the enemy drones completed a firing run on us. I’d managed to get another drone with my interceptors, but not before they got off their shots. I could see the damage on the drone feed, the starboard nacelle had taken some damage, but it only looked superficial. The aft cargo hold was venting atmosphere, though.

  “Hull breach detected! Aft cargo hold!” called Fel

  “Eric! Close off the aft hold!” called Max down the PA to the engineering spaces.

  “Aye aye, Captain!” came the reply.

  Once the enemy drones finished their attack run, they doubled around and counter attacked the interceptors. I barely managed to peel them off the attack before they were hit. One was destroyed almost instantly, and another took a hit but still appeared functional. I tore them around and down the port side of the ship, coming around underneath and hitting the drone swarm again. The swarm had gotten nice and close to us, and was using the ship as cover against our interceptors. It was a clever strategy, and I could tell the controllers on the Corporate ship were professionals. It may have been our undoing, if it wasn’t exactly what we were counting on.

  “Tac! Now!”

  Engaging Operation Awkward. Reported Tac.

  The jury rigged point defences on the outer hull activated, and the synthetics began to target and shoot at the swarm of drones surrounding us. They were caught completely off guard. In seconds three were destroyed, my interceptors hit another and sent it tumbling out of control. The rest broke off their attack and tried to evade our fire. Only one of the managed to get clear of point defence weapons. I chased it down with my last three interceptors and shot it to pieces.

  “Enemy drone signatures activated!” called Fel, “Origin is Charlie 2 contact. Count reads ten more drones. Charlie 1 on intercept vector, in range in three minutes!”

  “Crege! Head green three five, south twenty five degrees! Full burn!”

  The ship swerved and dived, and we were thrown heavily into our seats again. The enemy drones smashed into my three interceptors, taking them all our in seconds, but not before three of theirs were destroyed as well.

  “Weapons release detected!” called Fel.

  “From where?” asked Max.

  “Charlie 1. Unknown weapon signature.”

  “They can’t be in range!”

  Point defences firing, Captain. Incoming missile.

  “What kind of missile?”

  Optical imaging matches profile of Graviton Interdictor.

  “Grav missiles!” explained Fel. “If that hits we’ll slow right down!”

  “Crege! Evasive manoeuvres!”

  Crege threw us into an inverted dive that turned into a corkscrewing twirl and veered back upwards. It was too much for poor Fel.

  “Fel’s out!” I called as I saw him slump in his seat and give over to the inertia.

  “He’ll be fine! I got his da
ta streams!” called Max.

  Highlighting target profiles, Captain.

  “Thanks, Tac! What’s the status of that missile?”

  Pilot Crege has outrun the missile for now, but I believe it will enter into a new boost cycle once it had recharged.

  “I can hit it with the beamer. It’s slow enough!” I called.

  “Do it!”

  “Tracking! Firing!”

  Missile destroyed.

  “The drones have caught up with us!”

  Enemy drone weapon release detected.

  Even I have my limits, when it comes to gee forces, and I blacked out temporarily. When I came to, there was smoke wafting into the command module from underneath one of the consoles and Max was calling for Hergo and Denno to tend to a hull breach on Deck 2. Fel was stirring at the same time.

  “Arg, I’m up.” I said. Max glanced at me quickly and went back to her work.

  “Tac got three more drones, but they shot us pretty good. Beamer is offline. Mess deck is a mess. Command module took a hit too, I just got some polycrete foam on that crack up there.” She pointed above my head, and squinted in the poor lighting and saw a seam about forty centimetres long filled with hardened foam.

  “I think my console’s burning.” I mumbled and took a peek.

  “Power overload. Should be ok.”

  “Crege has defeated the bezak calak!” Crege declared from his seat.

  “We’ve out run them, for now. The drones peeled away and we pulled out of the fight.” Explained Max.

  “Tac, can you display a playback of the attacks made by the enemy on my console?”

  Certainly, First Mate Seth.

  My console display started to show the events that just occurred, but much faster.

  “What is it?” asked Max.

  “That dark ship, I think they’re….”

  “Contact! Red zero five! It’s the last ship!”

  “Crege!”

  “Evading, kitrak!”

  But it was too late. I’d seen this kind of manoeuvre before, you swarm an enemy from almost all sides and force them to flee in a certain direction, and there you lay your trap. In the military, it’s usually mines. When you’re a bounty hunter, though, you use a Grappler.

  “Enemy weapons fire detected!”

  “All hands, brace for impact!” called Max over the PA again.

  Several loud bangs thudded against the hull. The ship began to shudder and moan, as if it was suddenly pulling a great weight. Which it was.

  “It’s a Light Corsair! Grapplers have attached!” called Fel.

  Grappler’s were extremely long, very strong magnetically tipped cables fired by the enemy, a Light Corsair raider ship. These were essentially fast, lightweight troop transports. They didn’t catch you and drag you to a halt, they instead pulled themselves to their captured ship and board it.

  “Crew! Prepare for boarding! Crege, go with Seth! I’ll keep us accelerating as much as we can without burning any more thrusters.” commanded Maxine.

  I leaped out of my seat and opened the command module hatch. Smoke was filling the passageway ahead, and I could see the damaged deck head above dangling with live cables and flickering lights. The occasional spark flew out of the wreckage. I could hear a faint whistling from somewhere above us. I reported the hull breach to Max and Fel grabbed a polycrete foam canister.

  “Go! I’ll get it!” he waved us away, “Good luck, my friends!”

  Art, Zoe! Meet us in the cafeteria. I sent out texts to the women.

  Are we being boarded again? Came Zoe’s text.

  We met them as they came out of med lab and joined up with them. I sent a text to Hergo, Denno and the two engineers and told them to guard the engineering spaces.

  “If the fighting reaches us, Zoe, keep your head down. You’re on medic duty. If we’re hit try to get to us and drag us clear of fire before treating. Only shoot if you’re in immediate danger, okay?”

  “Okay, won’t I be better off shooting at them with you?”

  “Not really, you’ll probably just make yourself a target. Keep your head down.”

  “Are they more synthetics?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so, they’d have just used boarding pods on us if they were. I think we’re going to have mercenaries on us.”

  “Or worse,” offered Artemis, “Bounty hunters.”

  “My father was a bounty hunter.”

  “I won’t hold it against you, loverboy.”

  Just then a loud clang sounded towards the rear of the ship.

  “They’re attached!” came Max over the PA, “Aft cargo hold!”

  Eric! Stay in engineering, if they get through us, they’ll head straight for there!

  Aye, aye, Seth!

  “Let’s go! On me!” I called and made for a run down the ladder well to the forward cargo hold and Deck 3. We don’t often go into the aft hold, it’s larger than the forward hold, and full of supplies and spare parts. When we do cargo runs we move everything to the forward hold and fill the aft with commodities, but we haven’t tried trading much for the last year or so. Courier jobs were too lucrative to wait around for the right prices.

  We went to the rear of the forward hold and up to the hatch that led to the aft hold. The lock was intact, so they hadn’t gotten to the hatch yet. Good news, we were fast reacting to the boarding attempt. We might still have a chance. I hit the hatch release and peeked around to look inside. It was dark, and I could hear atmosphere escaping. It wasn’t a fast leak, though, just a few holes by the sound of it.

  Tac, can you measure the rate of venting atmosphere? How long until we’d need breathing apparatus in here?

  The Life Support system is able to produce enough O2 to countermand the venting to a degree. If the forward hatch is closed it will take approximately 22 minutes and 42 seconds before oxygen content drops to dangerous levels.

  “We’re going in, close the hatch behind us. Put up a twenty minute counter on your overlays. Get out of here once it runs out or you’ll suffocate.” I ordered.

  “Done.” reported Artemis, the others said the same a moment later.

  I activated my Tactical App, and my vision was filled with an augmented reality display of the aft cargo hold. The cameras in here had low light features, and I could see the hold clearly as if in a deep twilight. The others switched on small pen lights, while Art turned on a light on her gun. The cargo hold is big, the aft hold being the largest at just under seventy metres in length and almost twenty five metres wide. It was situated directly below the central engineering space, which sat to the aft of Deck 2. There were about a dozen cargo containers loaded into the hold, and there was plenty of smaller crates piled here and there. Now that I was in here and thinking about cover, I could see that it was kind of haphazardly stacked, and resolved myself to having a chat with Hergo and Denno about re-organising the cargo if we survived.

  “Art, Zoe, stay here and guard this hatch. Crege, you and me are going hunting.”

  “With pleasure, human!” he squawked.

  We strode in between the cargo and it wasn’t long before we could see the lights of the enemy’s guns sweeping the hold for us. I crouched behind a crate and watched them for a few moments. They were working in three man teams, moving from cover to cover and checking corners. There appeared to be about a dozen, four teams moving about. I could hear more noises from the rear of the hold though, so there was bound to be more.

  Frikk! Texted Crege.

  You’re right. This is going to be tough. Two on twelve. More further back.

  I’ll go easy on them then.

  No, you crazy bastard! Frikk are strong fighters, we do this smart!

  Remember the Iloz job?

  How can I forget?

  Same plan.

  I thought for a moment, remembering what he meant and agreed. I knocked on the crate I was behind three times, then ducked down behind it drawing my combat knife from its sheathe. The nearest trio swung their
lights in my direction, and said something in their harsh language. They moved to the next nearest cover, still covering my position. When they were nearly upon me, I heard a faint triple knock coming from Crege’s position. They turned as one and shined their torches towards the sound, I sprang out from my position and grabbed the nearest one, diving into cover with him as I drove my knife into his ribs and into his heart. The remaining two spun on their heels and were about to let loose a barrage of gun fire, except Crege used the distraction to leap across at them and sliced his blade across the backs of their legs. They screamed and fell, and were quickly dispatched by Crege’s lurzak. We ran forward to new cover as one of the other teams ran over to investigate.

  One of them saw us dashing off and fired off a three round burst that hit Crege’s shield and the cargo container beside him. We split up and doubled back around aft. When we were behind their cover, we silently ran up behind them and stabbed and slashed them. They screamed and fired off a few shots in their death throes, and we dived for cover as the remaining six converged on our location. It was time for a fire fight.

  The Frikk had better guns than we had, plus they had shields as well. They were using the same energy carbines that most mercs prefer, along with a few Thudguns. They used the Thudguns to great advantage, and it wasn’t longs before we were both forced to retreat. We were getting pinned and finding it hard to get clear shots. Already several hits had clipped my armour.

  Art! We need reinforcement! I sent an image of my location in the cargo hold to her overlay. I then tossed a party popper stun grenade behind the nearest cover that held mercs. It went off with a loud bang and a bright flash, sending a merc toppling over outside his cover. I finished him off with a three round burst from my E2S. I could see another merc writhing on the ground, but he was in cover too far to get off an effective shot. A couple of rounds smacked into my shoulder pad, sending me spinning away. It stung, but my armour took most of the damage. I quickly scrambled back to cover. Crege was pinned behind a small crate, which the Frikk were currently firing several rounds a second into.