“That’s right,” I said with a laugh and then continued to mock sternly, “any more scratches on the hull of this ship and LeGodat might not let us get back the security deposit for it when we’re done using her!”
For a moment there was blank silence and a glare from Eastwood in my direction. Then there was a loud guffaw, which was quickly silenced from the Sensor section and more than a third of the faces around the bridge seemed to lighten at my words.
I smiled tightly, having hoped for a better reaction than that to my attempt to lighten the mood, but an Admiral did the best he could and prayed for success along with the rest.
“Gun deck to volley fire, on my mark…mark,” Eastwood shouted into his microphone, and fire dropped off for half a second before lashing out raggedly, “you can do better than that, gun deck. Pick your targets and prepare to fire as one…mark!” he ordered, and this time nearly every weapon on the broadside facing the Bugs blasted out in concert.
“Captain,” DuPont called out as we rushed closer and closer to the Harvester, “I need to reactivate the engines if we plan to get out of the way of that Harvester; I don’t see any signs of them diverting from a ramming course,” he said tightly.
Looking over at Laurent, I saw him visibly hesitate before nodding. “At your discretion helm,” he said finally, “just give gunnery the maximum safe time on target to pound that Harvester before pulling away.” No sooner had he finished speaking than a blow punched through our shields and the ship shuddered.
“Shields down to 18%, we have critical spotting,” called out Longbottom, sounding obscenely calm for someone whose shields were close to collapsing. “Our ability to compensate is minimal,” he continued calmly, as if able to read my mind.
“Do the best you can, Longbottom,” Laurent said shortly, before turning back to the main screen.
As I watched and the ship shuddered through another shield-penetrating blow, I saw the Bug Harvester start venting Bugs, atmosphere, and a strange, greenish liquid substance out the previously undamaged side of it hull. It was then that DuPont activated his engines.
“Going to 100% power on the main engines now!” the Helmsman cried.
“We just lost a heavy laser battery to Bug counter-fire,” Eastwood called out. Then the lights flickered and gravity slammed into me like a sledgehammer.
“Backing down to 80% of maximum,” DuPont choked out, and suddenly the boulder sitting on my chest lifted off it.
I gasped for air, and looking over at the bridge crew, I saw men and women falling out of their chairs—or already on the floor.
“Helm, what was that?” Laurent demanded, pulling himself back to his feet and wobbling before a hand on the rail held him back up steady.
“It wasn’t us!” Shepherd defended his partner immediately. “Check with Damage Control; our plates have been fluctuating the whole battle!”
“These old tech grav-plates on these ancient ships always have small fluctuations,” Laurent barked at the Navigator before rounding on the Damage Control watch stander. “Well? Is he right,” he demanded, “is this Engineering’s fault!”
“The Chief Engineer has just traced a critical fault in the anti-gravity system,” the rating said, sounding slightly perturbed and irritated with the situation, but not at all intimidated by receiving a tongue lashing from the Captain of the ship. “The fault appears to be linked to the starboard side backup power transfer system that was damaged during our last battle—we thought we already had it repaired.”
“Sweet Murphy avert, I thought Potempkin said he had the power distribution system all buttoned up,” Laurent growled.
“Obviously not as well as he’d thought,” the Damage Control operator said clinically.
I watched as Laurent’s jaw clenched at her words, and decided now was the moment to but in. “Fight your ship, Captain,” I told him seriously, and then turned to stare over at the Damage Control rating with gimlet eyes. “Next time I identify a potential problem with the ship, I expect Engineering to jump to it much faster than it did on this one. Battle or no battle, do you understand me?” I said with a stern frown.
The Damage Control rating blinked and then nodded.
“Good, because next time you’ll either tell me where the holdup is, or you’ll answer for it,” I said, dismissing the matter and turning back to the screen.
“I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to avoid all those missiles at only 80% on the engines; I held us on target too long for those extra shots,” DuPont said, straining to maneuver the ship optimally via the pair of linked control joysticks.
Laurent’s fist banged against the railing at the same time as my hand clenched down at my side. “Do the best you can, Helm,” I said, working to project a calm and control over the situation that I simply wasn’t feeling.
A moment later Eastwood shouted, “Mark!” A second later, our broadside lashed out despite the fact we were turned at a very hard angle for most of the lasers to hit. A few seconds later, Sensors gave a cheer as the Harvester shattered into at least four ragged, unequal pieces, and individual Bugs started pouring out of the ship.
“Yes!” I cried out in victory, right along with the rest of the bridge before a series of explosions rocked the ship.
“Shield collapse,” shouted Longbottom.
“Missiles!” screamed a sensor operator right before the entire bridge went dark.
“I guess I’d better knock harder,” I muttered under my breath, thinking about my encounter with the wood right after blithely proclaiming the ease of our victory. Even if the missiles didn’t finish us off, what about those relatively untouched Bug Scouts?
Were we going to make it?
Chapter 25: Recruiting: The Drop-off
“You called me up to the Bridge, Captain,” Lisa Steiner said neutrally.
“Your transport has arrived, Recruiting Officer,” the Easy Haven Captain said, gesturing for her to go to the communication’s console.
“Sir?” she asked with surprise.
“I understand you know your way around a Communications Console,” the Captain said, his face an unreadable mask common to commanding officers in her experience. “So unless that’s in error,” she flushed at this last, “then I think you’d better help arrange the transfer of the new recruits. The sooner we can get out of this dead, single planet, single asteroid belt system, the better I and the other commanding officers will feel.”
“I told you the meet wasn’t for three days,” Steiner pointed out, causing the Captain to glower at her. She quickly straightened her face into what she hoped was a professional com-tech’s mask and hurried over to the Console, “with your permission, Captain.”
“Go ahead,” he waved her away after one final glower. “Just remember,” he called out before she had reached the com-section, “hyper drives recharge and cycle in their own times; we can’t always hang around in systems long enough to get at a certain time and place at the whims of the Recruiting Office. Not only that, but hanging around in dead systems like this can be dangerous!”
“Of course, Sir,” she muttered under her breath. Of course, she didn’t add that Commander Spalding had probably chosen this dead system precisely because it was dead. There weren’t many routes one would think of as ‘off-the-beaten-path’ that did contain a life-bearing world.
Sitting down in an empty seat, she pulled on a headset and booted up her communications console. In a way, it was almost a relief to be doing something she was familiar with. On the way out here she had done part-time duty in the Comm. Section, but after the political flare-up in the Two Stellar’s daily democracy, or Auto-Democracy, or whatever exactly they called it, the Captain had informed her he had been less than impressed and limited her bridge privileges.
Looking up at the main plot screen, she saw there was a rather large ship moving cautiously into the system. Looking down at her communications screen, she saw that the contact was identified as the New Dream, a constructor that had suppos
edly been lost at the same time as Commander Spalding.
Even though she had known for some time that the New Dream and all the people who’d disappeared along with the Chief Engineer were still alive and kicking over at Gambit, or now off with Akantha and her small fleet, Lisa couldn’t help a contented smile from spreading across her lips.
“This is Recruiting Officer Lisa Steiner, calling the New Dream,” she said, auto-squirting over her ship identification so that whoever was on duty over there would know who they were talking to. Then she sat back and waited for the message to propagate over to them, and for them to then reply.
“This is the Minority Owner-on-board the Constructor New Dream, Jacob Marley,” came an angry condescending voice over her com-system. “And I have to say, Recruiting Officer Steiner, I am less than pleased to have to come all the way out to this dead system to pick up a bunch of shiftless, wannabe Confederation recruits.”
“Shiftless wannabe’s, Sir?” the little Recruiting Officer said with disbelief. “Surely, I misheard you. These recruits are all highly trained with University level educations, and there’s nothing temporary or—”
“You heard me correctly, Recruiting Officer,” Minority Owner Marley spoke over her, “which is entirely beside the point. Are you aware that I am using a Constructor ship for this ‘mission’? A Constructor! In a potentially hazardous system in order to transport fewer than two thousand recruits from place to place, like I was some sort of luxury liner or personnel barge captain! I must protest, ma’am; I must protest in the extreme!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Minority Owner,” Steiner said taken aback by the ferocity of the man’s verbal attack, “however, you’re here and, as you can see, we are also here. Perhaps it would be in all our interests to begin to transfer personnel as quickly as possible?”
“All this secrecy and sneaking around back systems is costing me money. I’ll send my shuttles now,” the Minority Owner snapped, there was a click.
“But sir, our ships are too far apart to send shuttles now…sir?” It took Lisa several additional minutes of dead air over her expected response time to process the fact that the Minority Owner really had just hung up on her.
“Well, Recruiting Officer,” the Captain asked in a frosty tone that let her know she had been wool gathering for too long, “what did the New Dream have to say?”
She flushed and turned to the Captain. “The Minority Owner is sending shuttles over to start transferring the recruits,” she reported, fighting the urge to twiddle with her headset nervously.
The Captain nodded and started to turn away.
“Captain, I’m reading shuttles exiting the New Dream…they appear to be on an intercept course for us—this ship, Sir” the Junior Lieutenant in command of the Sensor section said.
The Captain turned back to her.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Lisa said splaying her hands and looked at the top officer of the dungeon ship helplessly, “the Minority Owner isn’t pleased to be here. I tried to talk him out of it, but he would brook no delays.”
“This will mean a shuttle ride of several hours for our poor recruits. Unacceptable, Recruiting Officer,” the Captain said damningly.
“Sorry, Sir,” she said in a small voice.
“Please remain in the Communication Section until the shuttles arrive to take on the recruits. We’ll plan to send our own shuttles back with them,” the Captain said, his mouth now a thin, tight light as his disapproval was now aimed squarely at her. He turned to the Navigator, “Lieutenant Striker, please plot us a course for the Constructor,” he then looked at the Helm, “Warrant Officer Jacobs, as soon as the Navigator has plotted the course, please proceed to the New Dream at best speed; there’s no need to make our recruits suffer any longer than necessary,” he said, pointedly not looking in Steiner’s direction.
“Aye, Sir,” the Helm/Navigation pair chorused as one.
“Communications,”’ the Captain said, and for half a moment Lisa almost answered before remembering that on this ship she was the Recruiting Officer first, and just a backup com-tech a very distant second.
“Aye, Sir,” said the Senior Chief in charge of Communications.
“Please get me the Commodore on the horn. We need to clear any movement orders through the Pennant before randomly moving around the system.” The Captain then slapped his hands together emphatically, “Let’s get this done, people.”
Lisa felt sick to her stomach. Under the Admiral she might not have always been noticed, but when she was—even as a mere com-tech—she had always felt like an important, admittedly small, part of the team. Under Captain Striker, somehow he made her feel like the third, clumsy, and very much unwanted provincial wheel in his operations. It was only when they got to a system to start recruiting that she began to feel useful again.
She was coming to learn that the Captain and the Admiral were two very different people, with more than a few minor differences in their command styles.
Chapter 26: McCruising to the Rescue
The Heavy Destroyer and its accompanying Corvettes and Cutters raced through cold space at ludicrous speeds, pushing their drives to the absolute limit.
“Is the Flagship responding, Comm.?” McCruise demanded harshly.
“Not yet,” the Ensign in charge of the Com-system reported quickly, “we’re still trying, Sir.”
“Keep trying,” McCruise said sharply, and the tension on the bridge of the Destroyer was thick enough to cut with a knife. The Captain turned to her Tactical Officer, “Give gunnery their head,” the aging Command Officer instructed him, “if they even think they have a shot on those Scouts, they are to take it! The last thing we need is our only capital warship crippled or destroyed.”
“Aye, Captain McCruise,” the grizzled, former Confederation retiree barked, before turning to growl at his section of two ratings. “I want shots—aimed shots from our Gunners,” he told his Tactical team, before picking up his microphone down to the gun deck, “we have a fire-at-will order: you see a shot on those Bugs and you take it!”
“Sensors, Captain,” the Senior Lieutenant in command of that section reported crisply, “still no sign of life from the Flagship; the Bugs are still firing into her.”
“ETA to extreme weapons range is thirty seconds, Captain,” the Navigator reported.
“Steady as she goes and straight down their throats, Helm,” Synthia McCruise said loudly.
“The Heavy Cruiser is live; I have a power signature,” the Sensor Officer reported with rising excitement, and then on the main screen which mirrored the latest sensor data, the Heavy Cruiser began to move, “the Gift is showing drive ignition! She’s moving, Sir.”
“The Gun deck is firing on the Scouts,” the Tactical Officer reported snappily.
On the screen, one of the Scouts briefly vented air before listing to the side and crashing into one of its fellows. They both lost power and went dead, floating in space motionless following the improbable collision.
“Good work, Tactical,” Captain McCruise grinned, “you are to give the gunnery teams that fired those shots the Captain’s compliments and move them up the Top Gunnery ranking list.”
“Aye, Captain,” the Tactical Officer growled.
There was a stir in the Sensor Section. “Captain,” exclaimed the Sensor Officer after a brief consultation, “the remaining Scout is turning to ram!”
“Protect the Flagship,” Synthia snapped at her Tactical Team.
“The Gift is between us and the Scout,” the grizzled Tactical Officer reported, “we can’t get a shot, clear or otherwise!”
“Blast,” McCruise said clenching her fist.
Then the Heavy Cruiser suddenly went to full acceleration.
“She’s moving, Sir, but it won’t be in time to avoid the ram,” Sensors reported with despair in his voice.
“If you see a shot, make sure to take it!” the Captain yelled at her Tactical team, “don’t wait for orders.”
&n
bsp; “Already on it, Cap’n,” the Tactical Officer said absently, his attention clearly focused on his console.
With a lurch, the Flagship rolled and a single heavy laser lanced out, raking the oncoming Bug Scout across its engine section. The strike temporarily knocked out two of the Bug Scout’s three normal space engines, and the brief imbalance in drive force caused the Bug to go into a wild spin as it hurtled off its collision course.
“Yes!” the Captain said in support of the Flag.
“They’ve done it,” cried the Sensor Officer as the Scout passed within meters of the Gift’s hull, only regaining control of its motion after it had passed the Cruiser.
“Tag me that Scout,” McCruise said triumphantly.
On the screen, the last functional Bug ship exploded seconds later, having cleared the Flagship’s silhouette entirely and giving McCruise’s gunners a clear shot.
“Good shooting, Tactical,” the Captain said happily, “an extra hour of rec-time this week—and that goes for the entire gun deck.”
The Tactical Officer looked over at her with a sour expression. “Sorry, Captain,” the Officer said regretfully, “it wasn’t us who finished that one; it was the Flag.”
McCruise’s smiled faded. “Even so, the extra rec-time stands,” she said with a authoritative nod.
“Aye, Cap’n,” the Tactical Officer said, shaking his head and muttering something under his breath.
“Comm., raise the Gift and see if their command requires our assistance,” McCruise ordered.
“Sorry Captain, I can’t do that,” the Officer reported crisply, “we’re already being hailed, Sir; it’s the Admiral.”
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