by Will Crudge
The view of the menacing warship was now obscured by rolling flames of burning atmosphere. Debris filled the corridor of space between the station’s shielding and its metallic surface. The hull began to break up, and the two other destroyers desperately tried to execute evasive maneuvers to avoid an imminent collision… to no avail.
One of destroyers narrowly avoided a severed fighter launching pod that tumbled towards it from its wrecked companion. But it overcorrected and collided with the station’s shielding. The once mighty warship buckled on impact, and then tumbled downward into a lifeless chunk of floating steel.
The second destroyer was closer to the station and avoided most of the debris field. David couldn’t tell if the hull made contact with the station itself, but he couldn’t see any evidence thereof. The vessel turned again and unleashed a barrage of missiles at the Foehammer.
“Brace for impact!” David shouted into the shipboard PA system. He then looked as the impact indicator counted down until impact. A sense of helplessness filled his awareness. Our journey is over in five seconds. He thought to himself. Warning indicators flashed red, and he could see Kelley’s face revealed she had calmly accepted their fate.
Then the count hit zero. Nothing.
David looked back up to the screen and saw streaks of plasma fade in the distance, and the tell-tail signs of missile detonations. Then the Skull-Crusher flew past.
“Missiles down, Foehammer!” Jimma’s voice broke through the audio net. David’s heart dropped, and he let out a deep breath.
“Copy that, War Master. Thank you!” David replied.
“Weapons online! Firing solution set!” Steve shouted.
“Engage!” David realized he had no idea what weapon system the solution was for, but he supposed he didn’t really care at this point. A second later a five-inch rail cannon fired three successive rounds followed by a barrage of short range missiles from the sloop.
The third destroyer’s shields stopped the first rail slug, slowed down the second, but the third impacted the prow. Shields down, the destroyer couldn’t withstand the follow-on impacts of the dozen missiles that pounded into the main hull all at once.
“She launched fighters before she received the kill shot, Master Sergeant!” Kelley reported.
“How many?”
“Three… now four. Mark 4’s… reading Mark 6 ordinance!” She replied while clearing her throat and shot a look of concern towards David.
“They’ve gotten creative. Damn! The Mark 4’s were cheaply built hulls, but the Mark 6’s…”
“Have ship killing toys!” Kelley finished his sentence.
“I’ve over shot the debris field… Trying to intercept, but these lanes are too crowded. Can’t promise I’ll be back in time!” Jimma chimed in on the net. Her velocity had been too high when she made her attack run.
David realized it was the only way she could have generated enough forward inertia to deploy SK’s at relative short range. Now she would have to hard DECEL and try to double back.
The four blips on the CIC forward display represented the Crimson fighters as they maneuvered to get into an attack formation and get into an approach vector. Jimma wouldn’t make it in time before they’d be pummeled by heavy weapons. Weapons designed to cripple larger ships than a sloop.
“Trying to work a solution, but the debris field is making it impossible. If we go manual, then the chances are high that we’ll cause heavy civilian casualties.” Steve said.
“Energy signatures! Some big baddies have a lock on us!” Kelley was referring to the heavy weapons on the Crimson fighters.
Then lances of particle beam fire came out of nowhere. The fighters were consumed by a controlled arc of energy and flamed out to take their own place amongst the ruined bits of their mothership.
“Steve? Get these fine folks audio net tokens, would you?” David asked.
“Steve’s already taken care of that, Foehammer! My name is Captain Ives, by the way!” Ives had a soft but confident female voice.
“Captain Ives, I’m Master Sergeant David. Acting Commander of the mighty sloop, Foehammer. It’s very nice to hear your voice!”
“Are you sure you don’t mean cutter? We do have the same hull class, you know?” Ives laughed.
Officers among Us
Location: UAHC Mine-Layer Sloop Foehammer, CIC
Date Time: Post Interstellar 08/01/4201
System: Vulcan System, Outer Region
“I’ve got a data packet you could use,” Captain Ives said over the audio net.
“Copy that, Captain. Send it when ready,” David replied. He wasn’t exactly sure what it could be, but he wasn’t going to display suspicion towards someone who had just saved his ship… and him.
The data packet transferred successfully, and David decrypted it with his token. “What’s this supposed to be?”
“Let your ship AI apply it to your neural interface. It’s a patch update for your armor’s status display system,” she responded and then sent a digital wink icon to his personal HUD. He almost caught himself blushing.
“I’m on it, boss!” Steve said. The Unum Law enforcement AI was becoming comfortable with his new, albeit temporary, role as a ship’s AI. It showed in his tone and enthusiasm.
David was at a loss for words. We really are in wartime status! David thought. He didn’t doubt it for one moment, but the sudden receipt of his commission made it the reality of it set in.
“Captain on deck!” Kelley sounded off. David turned to see her standing up at her station with a smile ear to ear. She whipped out a sharp salute, and David snapped to attention himself, and returned the salute in kind. But Kelley’s own status display broke the silence. After the voice said its peace, she glanced down to see the rank of First Lieutenant. She now bore the appropriate rank for a first officer on a mine-layer sloop.
“Congratulations, both of you!” Steve said with an irreverent but joyous tone. “I’d hate to change the subject, but I’ve got the new QET online. I believe I managed to hail the watch officer aboard the Hailstorm. Their older model wouldn’t be able to reply, but I was able to secure a hand-shake either way. Turns out this new model had some of the same filaments in it as the one aboard the battlecruiser, but the difference in specs means it was a one-way conversation.”
“Meaning?” Captain David asked.
“Meaning, I may be the only AI to ever successfully transmit data directly through a gen 2 QET. But I can’t confirm it until we hit Tangine space. The Paladin Protocol can’t be transmitted via data burst, because its code is too delicate to allow for the occasional data packet loss. But with the QET, I was able, hopefully at least, to directly send a copy to the neural interface of the human on the other end. I included instructions as well. So, either we hit the gate to find a powerful ally, or…”
“Or we come out and face a subverted heavy battlecruiser head on!” Kelley finished the sentence.
Kara rushed into the CIC and smiled as she looked at the two Soldier’s status displays. “My boy Steve working miracles again?”
“We’re about to find out!” Kelley replied.
“The only miracle I know of is how Kara hasn’t gotten knocked up yet.” Steve’s sarcastic words were in rare form. Kara was caught off guard and buried her face in her hands.
David chuckled. “Well, first we have to get out of Clarendon Station. So, let’s hail STC and announce our intentions
.”
“Whoa, sir!” Kelley’s use of ‘sir’ would take some getting used to for David. “STC is obviously under the complete control of the Crimson fuckers! We just faced off with three warships! They’re not letting us through!”
“Yes.” David cracked a smile. “But the law is the law… even if we end up shooting our way out.”
After several minutes, the view of the STC control tower came into view. The UAHC sloop, and the Unum Cutter were now linked back up with the LRF-90. The three ships casually glided along their taxi lane and made sure the tower had direct visual contact with the three vessels. The visual scan from the Foehammer zoomed in on the tower windows, and then applied the necessary filters to cut through the glare and penetrate the radiation shielding layers.
The clear faces of STC controllers were now fully visible. Nervous. Defiant. Standing in the back of the room was a Crimson spec ops commando in full armor. The black visor fully covered his or her face, but the plasma rifle the soldier held at the ready position was the only visual que that mattered. The STC was the Crimson!
As David finished his sentence, the Skull-Crusher rose into a hover less than ten meters away from the tower windows. The weapons bays were fully splayed out while displaying a menacing array of heavy weapons, Gatling guns, and particle beam cannons.
David could see everyone in the tower on their feet and backing away in fear. The spec ops soldier shouldered his weapon as if he was even a remote threat to the almost indestructible ancient fighter. All it took was one shot from the lone defensive turret on top of the tower roof, and the LRF-90 began to show the occupants that its fangs were not just for display.
Plasma bolts stabilized in short-lived energy shields form blue balls of death and strafed the windows of the tower. Emergency energy shields snapped into place to protect the occupants from rapid decompression, but it offered little protection against the barrage of death it was being permeated by.
The armored Crimson soldier was the first to fall… launched rather… and the other controllers desperately ran for their lives. One by one they were mowed down in seconds. Only a few made it to the interior entrance of the tower, and out of visual range.
The LRF-90 drew back its fangs as it retracted its weapons bays, then gracefully turned to rejoin the other two vessels. David just grinned with joy and flopped himself back down in his chair. His Captain’s chair.
He quickly realized that the trusty AI, Steve must have been reading his mind. A firing solution icon was flashing in his command console.
“Steve, you do the honors!”
“Yes, sir!” Steve replied, followed by the immediate sound of machinery that indicated that the five-inch rail gun on the superstructure was traversing. The vacuum of space wouldn’t allow for the sound of a loud report, but the buzzing of the power coils was all David needed to hear. The five-inch tungsten slug hit the main tower support structure and triggered a cascade of structural failures. The follow-on barrage of short-range missiles finished what the slug started. The entire tower was nothing more than floating debris and wrenched metal plates.
“Steve, my boy. Take us through that gate!”
Final Run
Location: UAHC Mine-Layer Sloop Foehammer, CIC
Date Time: Post Interstellar 08/01/4201
System: Vulcan System, Outer Region
The three allies thrusted in between the lines of massive commercial vessels that jotted either side of the taxiway into the hyper gate to Tangine. David checked all his sensors and scopes to ensure they weren’t being pursued. In all reality he didn’t think they would be. Dedicating more than three destroyers at a regional hub, such as Clarendon, meant that that was likely all they could manage to keep concealed from prying eyes.
The presence of warships at a hub that lead to Tangine spoke volumes. David naturally assumed that Tangine was going to be a critical strategic target for the main Crimson forces if they were willing to dedicate combat vessels to protect its flanks. Even thousands of light years apart from one another, the hyper gate meant that Clarendon and Tangine might as well have been only ten kilometers apart in actual flight distance.
He almost lost himself in thought when he realized he needed to stay on task. “Steve, is our package ready?” David asked.
“Yes, sir! The probe is all set with updates on our status, and a full breakdown of what went down. The Crimson may have sealed the gate’s ability to transmit data bursts, but the probe is a solid object. She’ll get through ahead of us. If your mothership is already subverted than it will be a moot point, but if not, then hopefully they’ll have what they need to man their action stations before all hell breaks loose!” Steve replied.
“Launch probe, Steve.” David nodded. He knew if there were any more tricks up the Crimson’s sleeve to prevent the gate crossing, then they’d at least have a solid chance at warning the battlecruiser.
“Probe away!”
David looked at the visual display and saw a lance of light streak into the gate. It made it through at least.
“ETA until gate crossing?” David asked.
“Countdown on your HUD, Captain,” Steve replied. David looked to see about two minutes and counting. He decided against completely heading into the gate at full burn. He didn’t want to enter Tangine space blindly at a high velocity. Not to mention the risk of scaring the freighter crews in the tightly packed taxiway. The mega-freighters didn’t have much room to work with, and if they saw warships blazing a trail near them, then they may take evasive maneuvers and cause serious damage.
No one spoke in the CIC for the next two minutes, but then when the count got down to ten seconds, Kara broke the silence.
“Whatever happens next, I just want you to know that it’s been an honor to fight alongside you and your crew.” Kara almost teared up, but instead offered an appreciative smile. David felt a lump in his throat.
“The honor is mine, Major Elders.” David nodded.
“Kara. My friends call me Kara. You fine soldiers have more than earned my friendship. I’d fight at your side any day!”
“Crossing the gate in three… two…” Steve cut in.
The three vessels became one with the universe, as they all side-stepped know physics, and manifested thousands of light years away.
***
The ornate forward lounge of the Hailstorm was newly dubbed the Officer’s Lounge. Jimma, Sasha, Kelley, and David chatted around a round table with drinks all around. Even the mighty cheetah had an exotic drink with an umbrella and straw. Kara approached the table with a pitcher of beer, and a broad smile!
“Well, don’t we have a mission to accomplish, de
ar?” Sasha’s sultry growl was coupled with a raised eyebrow.
“We sure do!” Kara winked, and then straightened her face. “The local police have already been in contact with the CIC here. They both agreed it was unsafe for us to sneak around covertly right now. We’ll be linking up with our contact first thing in the morning, whenever morning is on this station, anyway.”
“Ab-about t-ten hours or so,” Kelley spoke, but could barely get the word out as she’d just taken a large gulp of her beer and was fighting back the foam in her throat.
“But, hey!” Kara turned to Jimma. “Your shoulder!” She then pointed at the freshly cleaned portions of Jimma’s thin armor. The hole in her left shoulder was gaping, but only bare skin could be seen beneath.
“What? It’s fine,” Jimma replied. David and Kelley both turned to glare at the perfectly healed wound. Their jaws dropped and the shared a glance at one another.
“How?” David gasped.
“My kind heals quickly… With a little help from her kind that is.” Jimma tilted her head towards Sasha.
“We share some common DNA. With the resilient nature of my flesh to resist serious injury, Jimma was able to fully heal by direct contact with me. It’s a whole quantum something or other we can do,” Sasha explained.
“Wow, we could use that tech for sure!” Kelley said with wide eyes.
“No. And it’s not tech at all. It’s a genetic trait we share. Our blood is… sacred. That’s why my armor is so clean. I can never allow it to be replicated. Or rather, weaponized!” Jimma stated as a matter of fact.
“Wow! I had no idea. I’ve grown up in relatively close proximity to the guild for my entire life, and I’ve never heard that,” Kara said.
