As the helmsman maneuvered, ruby shafts of light illuminated through the dust of the asteroid field, and asteroids to either side of the ship glowed red, some even exploding from the sudden change in temperature after having been the target of powerful laser beams.
"How in the world are they able to keep up?!" Nathan growled in frustration. Being of heavier design, battlecruisers are generally the middle child between the battleship and cruiser classes, which means that, while they retain some of the maneuverability of a cruiser, they typically give up speed in favor of firepower more akin to a battleship. By all rights, that ship's power core should have already melted down having powered their engines and powerful lasers concurrently, and yet the Guan Yu seemed to be dogging their every step as the helmsman seemed to grow a little desperate in his efforts of trying to elude the Guan Yu.
"Gordy, how much longer until we have those canisters?" Hawke asked quietly, trying not to panic anyone. Gordy shook his head, and held up two fingers. Two minutes. Two long minutes. In combat, it might as well have been an eternity.
"The power conduit has been rerouted. Repairs should be completed in about five minutes." Gordy reported, then added, "The power conduit was routing power to one of our dorsal shield generators. It is running, but at reduced capacity." Hawke nodded his understanding. Don't let the Guan Yu get any shots at the bottom of The Black Wave for five minutes. Easier said than done.
"Helm, combat thrust for one more minute, and then change our heading one hundred and eighty degrees." Hawke ordered. The helmsman nodded, and started a timer off to the side of his touch panel, a common tool officers at the helm used. Often captains had to coordinate multiple actions requiring multiple ship stations to work together seamlessly, and they did so by providing a countdown to the task at hand.
"Raijan, three seconds after the countdown, fire all canisters as close to the Guan Yu as you can." Hawke commanded.
"Sir, the rocket battery with the canisters is the front ventral battery. He needs to be in front of us for us to be able to target him." Gordy said. Hawke glanced at Gordy and gave him a reassuring grin, which was all Gordy needed. He entered the intended targeting arc into the fire control computer, and waited as thirty seconds passed, forty five, and then finally a full minute. The helmsman's timer reached zero and reported its countdown termination with a loud beep that could be heard by throughout the bridge. Everyone was thrown against their restraining straps as The Black Wave's maneuvering thrusters kicked on hard, twisting the ship in its place as it continued its momentum. Now facing the Guan Yu directly, they were effectively moving in reverse. The ship's main thrusters fired, and everyone was suddenly and violently pushed back in their seats as the G-forces from the sudden change in acceleration was felt. The Guan Yu, some one thousand meters distant, quickly grew in size as The Black Wave slowed down. It would take them at least a minute to slow down to a manageable speed, and a bit longer to stop entirely as the force exerted to get them up to speed must be equal to the force exerted to bring them to a stop.
"Canisters loaded!" Gordy reported loudly, to which Raijan answered by firing all twenty canisters in front of them. The rockets detonated, one even splashing against the shield of the Guan Yu, which was still in front of them, and desperately trying to slow its own momentum as it inexorably drew to within point-blank range of The Black Wave.
"Tasha, tell me you have a lock!" Hawke yelled over the roar of the engines. Tasha started to shake her head, but then smiled and nodded.
"Locked!" She yelled back.
"Fire all assault batteries!" Hawke yelled as he strained against his seat's security straps to lean forward. Unable to slow down, the Guan Yu's maneuvering thrusters fired, swerving to pass The Black Wave Just as twenty-four missiles shot forward on streams of propellant to follow the Guan Yu. The Guan yu shot past them, its maneuvering thrusters working hard to now to twist itself to face them. Predictably, the Guan Yu faded from view, and the missiles continued for a short distance before its propellant was exhausted, but rather than explode as was normal, the missiles remained inert for a few moments in space. Hawke gave Gordy a grin, but Gordy did not see it as he leaned in towards the screen at his station, waiting for the Guan Yu to reappear, which it did, heading after The Black wave once again. The FOF missiles, having reacquired the lock, adjusted their trajectory and then ignited their second stage thrusters, leaping forward towards the stealth ship once again like a pack of hungry wolves. Then Gordy noticed a flashing red indicator on his display. Opening the warning, he read it and grimaced.
“Sir, that that last canister barrage fused the wiring to that rocket launcher.” Gordy reported dispassionately. Hawke grimaced. That meant that there was no more fire control to that launcher. He knew it was a risk, but it was a risk he had to take. As the first of twenty-four missiles reached the Guan Yu, shields flared, detonating the missiles before impact, but then there was a puff of fire on the Guan Yu, and Hawke felt elation when the other twenty missiles flew unhindered through the now absent shield to slam into the Guan Yu. The Guan Yu seemed to wobble on Hawke's Holoprojector as maneuvering thrusters attempted to keep it on course.
"Retract the damage launcher and get a team on repairs." Hawke ordered, then turned towards the helm officer.
"Helm, change our heading another one hundred and eighty degrees. I want to face him." Hawke ordered. The ship lurched as the helmsman complied, and Nathan let out a low whistle as the Guan Yu filled their front viewport.
"Indeed." Hawke agreed, for in front of them the Guan Yu was bleeding plasma, smoke, and debris into space as it struggled to maintain heading and orientation. Little did Nathan or Hawke realize, though, that the fight was not over. With alarm, they both noticed that the Guan Yu, though injured, had fired its thrusters and was charging forward right at them, quickly closing the distance.
"God, they're going to ram us!" Nathan said in disbelief. As one, every bridge officer froze in what they were doing and looked towards the viewport, their expressions stricken with panic.
Hawke came out of his seat yelling "Fire everything! Fire everything!"
“Sir, we’re too close! The explosion could- “ Raijan began
“He said fire them!” roared Nathan. Raijan jumped and stabbed a button with his finger, unleashing death on silent wings as twenty rockets and twenty four missiles shot out of their launching tubes and hurtled towards the Guan Yu, which was now less than a hundred kilometers away.
"Helm, get us out of here!" Hawke roared. The ship tilted, suddenly changing its orientation so that the top of the ship now faced the Guan Yu as it roared in, and then The Black Wave's combat thrusters roared to life, pushing the heavy assault cruiser forward in an effort to get out of the Guan Yu's way. Meanwhile, Hawke's eyes were riveted on the holoprojector as it tracked the twenty rockets and twenty four missiles flying towards the unshielded Guan Yu. The rockets hit first, peppering its bow and bridge causing a few minor explosions, and throwing the attitude of the Guan Yu off, tilting its bow downward. Then the missiles hit the Guan Yu, and the ship simply began disintegrating and breaking apart. The bridge crew let out a weak cheer, but the danger was not yet past as Gordy yelled, "Brace for impact!"
Hawke watched with horror as pieces of the Guan Yu diverted from its original path as it broke apart, creating a kind of shotgun pattern, one of which was heading in their general direction. It was impossible for them to maneuver around every piece of wreckage. The ship’s shields flared brightly as shield generators whined under the strain trying to keep flying pieces of ship away from The Black Wave, but one finally exploded under the strain, the force of which tilted the ship, making it look dangerously like a sinking ship on terran seas listing to one side.
“Sir, breach on five! Dorsal shield generators destroyed.” Gordy yelled to be heard over the alarm klaxons that now sounded throughout the ship. After a moment Gordy screamed "Another piece incoming!" The Black Wave spun wildly as a chunk of the destroyed ship's aft section smashed i
nto their starboard section. Crew members screamed as they frantically held on for dear life. With one hand gripping the console, and the other hand flying over the console, Gordy slowly brought whatever remaining maneuvering thrusters there were back online, but the best he could manage was to slow the ship's rotation.
"Captain, shields are offline, main engines are gone, containment field around the ship's power core are weakening...sir, we've got to get out of here." Gordy reported. Hawke, nodded grimly, and threw off his safety harness and stood, bracing himself against the slow spin of his dying ship.
"Aband-" Hawke began to say, but then another explosion rocked the ship, and the deck plating right under his feet heaved suddenly upwards. Hawke catapulted upwards and across the bridge, clubbing his head along the way on the banister surrounding the holoprojector, which also exploded in a fiery shower of sparks, and impacted with a bone crunching THUD against the viewport. Nathan ran to Hawke and checked him, and looked relieved as he looked around. He was unconscious, but alive.
"All hands, abandon ship." Nathan rumbled. "Raijan, get Hawke to a lifeboat. Gordy, go and-" Gordy shook his head.
"No sir, I have to go down to engineering. If I don't find a way to keep the power core containment field online before we can evacuate, everyone is dead." Gordy contradicted. For a moment Nathan and Gordy stared at once another, each knowing the other's thoughts. After a moment, Nathan sighed sadly, and turned towards the rest of the crew on the bridge.
"Well, what the hell are you waiting for!?" Nathan yelled angrily at the bridge crew. "Get out of here!" Jolted to action, the they all scrambled for the exit and the escape craft, Raijan shouldering an unconscious Hawke. Gordy waited a moment for everyone to exit, leaving him alone with Nathan.
"Sir, it's been an honor ser-" Gordy began.
"Aw shuttup, Gordy." Nathan growled angrily, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. The two men stared at one another a moment more, and then Gordy was off and running towards the damaged engine compartment of the ship. Nathan lingered a moment longer, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. He hoped Hawke would forgive him. Hawke loved that crazy engineer.
"It was an honor serving with you too, Gordy."
***
The Black Wave was recorded as destroyed, along with the Guan Yu. Debris from the two ships were spread over several hundred kilometers, so violent was the meeting between the two ships. Now Nathan and Hawke stood on the observation deck of the shipyards near the Jingashi Naval Station overlooking the Heaven’s Gaze, a massive carrier that Hawke, Nathan, and other friends had been having built over the past five years with the intention of exploration, something all four empires had all but abandoned. Supply shuttles were entering and exiting its hangers, reminding Hawke of worker ants entering and exiting an ant mound. The last of the supplies should be landing now. It had taken three weeks in life pods to be rescued. At some point, Hawke has regained consciousness, though his head had a very large bump on it where it had slammed against the unforgiving viewport of the ship, and he was quite sore. Amazingly, he had no broken bones.
The crew of The Black Wave had narrowly survived the impacts of the broken pieces of the Guan Yu smashing into their ship, all but one. In a feat of engineering rarely matched, Gordy somehow managed to maintain the power core's containment field for a full ten minutes as escape pods jetted away from the dying ship to safety. He had even managed to reach an escape pod and launch himself, but was unable to get clear of the blast as the power core exploded with the brilliance of a sun. When the Navy finally deigned to respond to the distress beacon and pick them all up, Hawke had received the news that pieces of Gordy's escape pod were positively identified in the debris field. Nathan rested a heavy hand on Hawke’s shoulder.
“Gordy would have loved this.” Nathan said, as if reading Hawke’s thoughts. Hawke felt a sudden lump rise in his throat as his eyes threatened to tear up. Not trusting his own voice, he just nodded in agreement. They stood there like that for a short time before Hawke roughly cleared his throat and took a deep breath.
"It's not fair, Nate. He should be here." Hawke said in a husky voice. "He shouldn't have had to pay the price for my sins...for any of us." Nathan sighed heavily, but could find no words of comfort, nor could he disagree. The two friends were silent for awhile longer.
“Every day, all of my sins are remembered. I see them played out in documentaries on the public news and history channels, lauded as heroic, or condemned as dastardly deeds. The problem is, they are right. Whether heroic and laudable, villainous and condemnable, the toll my sins have taken from me remains the same. My humanity, my ability to be shocked and to weep at the cost of war, or to be horrified by my own actions, as well as the actions of others, at the behest of some so-called higher ideal has faded with each contract. Now the only weeping left is for me, and I find that I have forgotten how to weep.” Hawke said quietly. Nathan squeezed Hawke’s shoulder, a sign of camaraderie bought with the high cost of shared experience.
“I wish I had an answer for you, my friend.” Nathan replied softly. “But this is one time I have no words of comfort, or good advice. Of all the talents or abilities to have, tactical genius is among the worst. Yet it is to humanity’s demise if such talent and ability is needed, but cannot be found.” After a moment of silence, Nathan added, “Who knows? Maybe our redemption is out there somewhere, among the stars. It just might be that somewhere out there, we – all of us – will regain what we lost.” Hawke gave Nathan a sidelong look and smiled sadly.
“Maybe.” Hawke replied. As they stood there looking out of the station windows to enjoy the view of The Heaven’s Gaze, they began to dream of what might be.
The End
All My Sins Remembered Page 22
