by Ryk Brown
“You mean they already fixed the shields we brought down last time?” Nathan wondered.
“Jump ten in three…”
“No, sir. They’ve rotated so that their number two arm is now forward…”
“…Two…”
“…Their damaged arm is now facing port and aft,” Mister Navashee explained.
“…One…”
“They’re taking damage!”
“…Jumping.”
“Transmitting launch signal in three…”
Josh looked out the port side of their canopy at the KKV flying alongside them no more than one hundred meters away.
“…Two…”
“Standing by for course correction,” Josh announced.
“…One……transmitting.”
Loki also looked out the window as the modified Takaran comm-drone began to accelerate away from them at an astonishing rate. “Damn, that thing is fast.”
The comm-drone quickly disappeared from sight.
“Comm-drone has gone to FTL,” Loki reported. “It should reach the target in twenty seconds.”
“Changing course toward the observation point,” Josh announced as he moved his flight control stick.
“Jumping in three seconds,” Loki announced.
“I can’t wait to see this,” Josh mumbled.
“…Two…me too…” Loki agreed, “…jumping.”
“Turn complete,” Mister Chiles reported from the Aurora’s helm.
“Jumping in five seconds,” Mister Riley reported.
“Contact!” Mister Navashee announced.
“Four…”
“Jump flash. Falcon One.”
“…Three…”
“…Incoming message from Falcon One…” Naralena reported.
“…Two…”
“…KKV launched on schedule.”
“…One…”
“Very well,” Nathan stated.
“…Jumping.”
“Estimate KKV impact in seven seconds,” Mister Navashee reported as the Aurora’s jump flash faded.
“Jump complete.”
“Position verified. Five seconds to… What the…” Mister Navashee stopped mid-sentence. “Contact! Dead ahead! Three kilometers and closing fast! It’s the platform! They’re firing! Missiles and guns!”
“Helm! Evasive!” Nathan ordered as the Aurora started a hard turn to port. “ECM! Jam those missiles! Tactical! Target those missiles with our laser turrets!”
“Target is firing on the Aurora!” Ensign Kono reported from the Celestia’s sensor station.
“What the hell?”
“She must have performed a micro-FTL jump,” Ensign Kono declared.
“They jumped in close, just like we would,” Luis commented from the tactical station.
“Aurora is hit!” Ensign Kono added. “Three missiles in her starboard side! She’s venting atmosphere! Heavy debris!”
“Is she still maneuvering?” Cameron demanded.
“Yes, sir! Power, propulsion, and maneuvering are still up!”
“Where’s our KKV?”
“It’s already passed the target point,” Ensign Kono reported. She turned her head to look at her captain. “We missed, sir.”
“Helm, hard to port. Parallel the target’s course and speed,” Cameron ordered.
“Hard to port, aye,” Ensign Hunt answered.
“Mister Jakoby, prepare to jump us alongside her forward arm. I want to be five hundred meters forward of the target and five hundred to port.”
“Five hundred forward and to port, aye,” Mister Jakoby answered. “Plotting jump now.”
“Stand by on all plasma weapons,” Cameron continued. “Triplets all around.”
“Yes, sir,” Luis answered.
“As soon as we jump, swing our nose to starboard and bring all tubes onto the target.”
“Jump ready, Captain,” Mister Jakoby reported.
“Starting yaw maneuver,” Ensign Hunt added.
“Snap jump!”
“Snap jump, aye,” Mister Jakoby acknowledged as blue-white light washed over them. “Jump complete.”
“Firing solution in five seconds,” Luis reported. “Ready on all plasma weapons.”
“Fire as soon as our tubes are on them,” Cameron ordered.
“Target is firing!” Ensign Kono reported.
“At us or the Aurora?” Cameron demanded.
“At us! The Aurora has jumped away! Incoming rail guns!”
The bridge of the Celestia shook violently as the battle platform’s massive rail gun rounds slammed into her hull.
“Energy spike in the target’s reactors!” Ensign Kono reported. “They’re going to FTL!”
“Firing all weapons!” Luis reported.
Red-orange balls of plasma energy leapt from the Celestia’s four forward torpedo tubes, as well as from her two port-side plasma cannons. The six charges streaked across the five hundred meters between the Celestia and the battle platform, but they were too late. The battle platform disappeared in a strange, bending of reality, leaving only empty space for the Celestia’s weapons to pass through.
“Target is gone, sir,” Ensign Kono reported.
Cameron wanted to swear, to pound the arm of her command chair, but she did not. Instead, she gathered herself and turned toward her sensor operator to her left. “Find the Aurora. If she made an emergency escape jump, she won’t be more than ten or twenty light seconds away.”
“Aye, sir,” Ensign Kono acknowledged.
“How the hell did they know?” Luis wondered.
“They didn’t,” Cameron surmised. “We thought we were laying a trap for them, when all the while, they were laying one for us.”
“Captain,” Ensign Souza called from the comm station at the back of the bridge. “Falcon One is reporting they have a track on the KKV.”
“Tell them to intercept, transmit the abort codes, and follow the recovery protocols,” Cameron instructed.
“I have the Aurora,” Ensign Kono reported. “Fifteen light seconds, bearing one two seven, down twenty relative.” Ensign Kono turned toward Cameron again. “She’s in bad shape, sir.”
“Helm, get us alongside the Aurora, ASAP.”
“Aye, sir,” Ensign Hunt acknowledged. “Coming to heading one two seven, down twenty relative.”
“Plotting jump,” Mister Jakoby added.
“Damage control, Captain,” Cameron called over her comm-set.
“Damage control, go ahead, Captain,” Master Chief Montrose answered over the comms.
“Master Chief, assemble all damage control teams in the main hangar bay.”
“We don’t have any damage in the main hangar bay, Captain,” Master Chief Montrose said. “We don’t have any damage anywhere.”
“It’s not for us, Master Chief,” Cameron said. “It’s for the Aurora.”
“Aye, sir,” Master Chief Montrose answered solemnly.
“On course,” Ensign Hunt reported.
“Jumping in three……two……one……jumping.”
Cameron watched the main view screen as the jump flash washed over them. A small, oblong gray object appeared before them. “Magnify,” she ordered.
The image on the screen suddenly became much larger, nearly filling the screen. The entire starboard side of the Aurora was full of holes big and small. Half her starboard fighter alley was open to space, and both fighter launch tubes had been blown open, leaving her plasma cannons twisted hunks of metal.
“Jesus,” Luis gasped. “I’m surprised she could jump at all.”
“The infamous ‘Scott luck’,” Cameron mumbled.
“Incoming call from the Aurora, Captain,” Ensign Souza reported.
“Tell them we’re sending our damage control parties over,” Cameron instructed.
“Yes, sir,” Ensign Souza answered. “They’re also asking we send all medical personnel as well.”
Cameron sighed, a sinking feeling hitting the pit of her
stomach. “Very well. Notify medical.”
* * *
Captain Roselle stepped through the port boarding hatch into the foyer. Down the lateral corridor, he could see personnel moving about briskly. Several men in fire-fighting gear, discolored from contact with burning gases, went by as well.
The captain charged down the corridor, determined to discover what had happened. He reached the end of the corridor and paused to look both directions. In the distance to his left, he spotted Captain Poc and Captain Nash walking away from him on their way forward. “Poc!” he hollered as he broke into a jog toward them. “What happened?” he called as he neared the two captains. “What’s going on?”
“Aurora took damage during their attack on the battle platform,” Captain Poc answered.
“How bad?”
“Pretty bad,” Captain Poc replied.
“Their entire starboard side is shot to hell,” Captain Nash explained as the three of them turned the corner and headed up the ramp to the next deck. “Their starboard fighter alley is open to space, and their starboard plasma cannons are a mess.”
“How do you know?”
“Wellsy scanned them as they approached,” Captain Nash answered.
“Did they destroy the platform this time?”
“God, I hope so,” Captain Poc said as they came to the top of the ramp and stepped onto B deck.
The wide central corridor that led from the main entrance to the hangar deck forward was busy as damage control teams and technicians scurried about. The three captains looked through the massive double doors that led into the main hangar bay as damage control teams that had just disembarked from the Celestia’s second wave of shuttles made their way across the hangar deck toward the transfer airlocks on the starboard side. They could hear chiefs and deck bosses yelling orders to the arriving rescue workers. It was chaos, but the controlled chaos that one expected from a well-trained crew during an emergency aboard a warship.
“Come on,” Captain Poc said, “Let’s get to the command deck and see what happened.”
The three captains turned and headed up the ramp, only to stop abruptly as they saw Captain Scott coming down the ramp, followed by Lieutenant Commander Nash and Sergeant Weatherly.
“Captain,” Captain Poc said. “What happened?”
“Did you destroy that thing?” Captain Roselle demanded.
“The platform performed a micro-FTL jump, came out two kilometers in front of us with all weapons firing,” Nathan explained as he descended the ramp toward them. “We took four missiles and a barrage of heavy rail gun fire before we could jump clear.”
“What about the battle platform,” Captain Roselle demanded a second time. “Did you hit it with the KKV?”
“The KKV missed,” Nathan said as he passed them by. “The platform went back into FTL.”
“So now what, hot shot?” Captain Roselle challenged. “Is that three times or four times you’ve failed to bring that thing down?”
Nathan stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the ramp.
“What’s your plan now?” Captain Roselle taunted.
Nathan turned around slowly and walked back up the ramp toward Captain Roselle. Jessica and the sergeant both stepped aside, as did Captains Poc and Nash as Nathan approached.
“My plan is to see to the rescue of the twenty-seven men still trapped in the starboard fighter alley. After that, I’m going to medical to make sure that the sixty-two wounded crewmen are getting proper medical attention, and that the twenty-three dead crewmen are respectfully tended to.”
“Don’t you have subordinates to do that, Scott?” Captain Roselle said, continuing to berate him, “or are you one of those captains who thinks he needs to hold everyone’s hand and tell them everything is going to be alright?”
Nathan took a step closer to Captain Roselle, his face only centimeters away. “How many times have you flown into combat, Captain? How many men and women have died bravely following your orders?”
“Oh, don’t give me that shit…”
“I asked you a question!” Nathan yelled directly into Captain Roselle’s face. “How many!”
Captain Roselle glanced to Nathan’s right, his eyes meeting those of Sergeant Weatherly’s. He then glanced to Nathan’s left, locking eyes with Lieutenant Commander Nash as she winked at him and blew him a kiss. He could see it in her eyes, clear as day. The look he had always heard of.
Nathan watched Captain Roselle’s face from centimeters distance as his expression suddenly changed. “Help out, or go back to your ship, Captain. Either way, stay the fuck out of my way, because I have work to do.” Nathan turned to look at Captain Poc and Captain Nash. “Captains,” he said before he turned and continued down the ramp with Lieutenant Commander Nash and Sergeant Weatherly following close behind.
“Jesus,” Captain Roselle said.
“What?” Captain Poc asked.
“You saw it. Both of you. That little asshole is out of control. He’s on a power trip, and he’s got his crew and the Ghatazhak backing him.”
“All I saw was you being an ass, Roselle,” Captain Poc said as he turned to head back down the ramp.
“Are you kidding me?”
Captain Poc stopped and looked back at Roselle. “The kid was right, Roselle. None of us has seen combat. He has… And plenty of it. You might want to show him a little respect, at least for repeatedly charging back into the lion’s mouth.”
Captain Roselle watched, his mouth agape as Captain Poc turned and headed down the ramp. “Where are you going, Poc?”
“To see how I can be of help.”
Captain Roselle turned to look at Captain Nash, who himself was turning to follow Captain Poc down the ramp. “I suppose you agree with Poc, right?”
“Yup,” Captain Nash answered. “Especially the part about you being an ass.”
* * *
Nathan stood staring at the Scout ship that all but filled the Aurora’s massive hangar bay. Before him was a piece of history… One of the first space faring ships built by post-plague Terrans. It was also the first post-plague ship with faster-than-light capabilities. They had been built for a noble reason, to reestablish contact with the original six core colonies of Earth.
“I would’ve bet my pension that this thing wouldn’t fit in here.”
Nathan turned to his left and saw Captain Poc walking toward him. “Nice landing, sir.”
“Easy enough, really. Just floated her in and parked her above the struts your people rigged up for us. Once they started dialing up the gravity, we just settled down nice and easy.”
“I watched the whole thing from flight ops,” Nathan admitted. “It might have been easy, but it was still pretty impressive to watch. I’m surprised you were worried, about it fitting, I mean.”
“Well, even with your bay wide open, the clearance was pretty tight,” Captain Poc explained. “When this thing was built, nothing ever came out exactly to plan. We didn’t have any experience building spaceships at the time. Hell, we had only put people in orbit a few years before they started planning these things. We thought we could just follow the blueprints we found in the Data Ark, substituting the methods and materials we had for the ones the designs called for.”
“I expect it was a bit more exact than you’re letting on, sir,” Nathan said.
“Well, I may be exaggerating a bit. We did the best we could with what we had.”
“You talk as if you were there,” Nathan said.
“I was,” Captain Poc said. “Hell, I was the one who flew this thing into orbit for the first time. Strapped a bunch of solid rocket boosters onto her and blasted our asses into the sky.”
Nathan looked at Captain Poc, his eyes squinted, unsure whether or not to believe him. “Exactly how old are you?”
“Chronologically, sixty-eight. I was thirty-five the first time I strapped my ass into that thing. Five years of test flights, then out to Eighty-Two Eridani and back. Made the Centauri run a few times a
s well. Hell, I’ve got more than twenty years in stasis altogether.”
“Must’ve been hard on your wife,” Nathan commented.
“She gave up on me the moment I took the assignment. Navy life had been hard enough on her. Married her dentist. Hardest part is looking younger than my kids. If I go to a bar with my son, everyone thinks he’s my father.”
“Still, you got to go places that no one had been to,” Nathan said, “at least not for a thousand years.”
“Sounds a lot more exciting than it really was,” Captain Poc insisted. “You go to sleep, wake up five years later and you’re there. Hell, the first trip to Eridani we couldn’t even get anyone to answer us on the comms. We never even left the ship, just ran a bunch of scans, took some pictures, gathered some SIGINT and came home. Two five-year naps and a week of data collection.”
“Still, it was a pretty brave journey, all things considered.”
Captain Poc looked over his ship. “I can’t remember the last time I looked her over from outside. You know, they built her pretty much the same way they built boats back then. At least the frame and the hull. Every piece, hand-welded… None of those laser-guided precision welding systems they used to build your ship.”
“And yet they have lasted more than thirty years,” Nathan said.
“Well, they over-built them a bit. Just between us, the damn thing barely made it to orbit. Tanks were bone-dry by the time we shut down.” The captain continued gazing at his ship. “Yeah, a lot of light years on this old hull.”
“Well, that number will be going up a lot faster than you ever dreamed,” Nathan said. “The first four mini-jump drives arrived from Karuzara a couple of hours ago. In a couple weeks you’ll be jumping all over the core.” Nathan smiled at Captain Poc.
Captain Poc also smiled. “I’m not going to lie to you, Scott. The idea is pretty exciting. It just seems… well, somewhat dangerous, you know? I mean, what happens if you inadvertently try to jump through something?”
“Well,” Nathan tried to explain, “as I understand things, it works pretty much the same way as linear FTL. At least in the sense that the smaller stuff will deflect off our hulls. If an object is big enough to damage you at normal speeds, it’s big enough to damage you in a jump. Actually, jumping is safer than linear FTL, since technically you’re still traveling at speeds less than the speed of light, so the kinetic energy of the impacting object would be less.”
