The bluish glow of the holo-image of Admiral Pierce gave him a faintly ghoulish look. After the last raid, Captain Lawrence had felt the need to break radio silence and let the Admiral know exactly what was on his mind. Having just completed his tirade he was now pacing in front on the image in obvious frustration.
“Do you think we can talk about this like reasonable people?” asked the floating image of Pierce. “Look, I understand your frustrations with Ramirez; I really do. He’s a young officer on a mission of some strategic importance and he’s eager to prove himself. I think we can both understand and accept that. The fact that he is aggressive in pursuing his assignment, while distasteful to you, is exactly why I picked him for this assignment. The more enemy shipments you intercept, the better things are for us, of have you forgotten why you are out there?”
Lawrence whipped around to face Pierce. “I know exactly why I’m out here, and the longer I’m am, the more I’m convinced it was a mistake.” The captain stopped his pacing in front of the image. “You say Ramirez is aggressive, and I’m telling you he’s bordering on reckless. We’ve got three wounded troopers in the hold—one critically—all because he charged blindly into an ambush. He was so damn sure that the crew wouldn’t put up a fight that he pushed right to the bridge without clearing the adjacent rooms. He’s just lucky they were boarding a freighter. If those had been actual soldiers shooting at them I’d have a cargo bay full of corpses instead of a couple of wounded.”
“Young soldiers make mistakes, and boarding parties don’t always go according to plan. No doubt you’d agree with me on that.” Pierce’s comment struck home and Lawrence clenched his fists.
After several long, deep breaths, Lawrence began to relax his hands, though the tension remained in his voice. “Maybe I’m not making myself clear enough. I want him off my ship. I’m done playing transport for you boys. We’re coming in, kicking them off, and then you will never see my face or my ship again.” With that Lawrence began moving towards the communications terminal, intending to terminate the conversation with the press of a button.
“James, wait!” The captain paused for a second. “Look, your mission is almost done anyway. As much of the fleet has returned as we can reasonably expect at this time. We’ve regrouped and are getting ready for a counter offensive within the next thirty-six hours. Unless you want to try dropping off your team in the middle of a firefight, I suggest you remain on station until it’s all over. If you happen to find any more supply ships headed towards the front and you can stop them, any help would be appreciated. After it’s all over, you can head home, leave my men on the first trade station you come across and that’ll be the end of it.”
Lawrence stood still for what seemed like an eternity, weighing his options carefully. There was no way he could make in back to friendly lines in under twenty hours, which would very likely mean the Absolution would show up in the middle of the fighting, something he was vehemently against doing. On the other hand, if he stayed on station and didn’t even attempt to go after any reinforcements that might be joining the fight, he was essentially aiding the enemy, which was doing himself no favors in the long run. “Damn you, Pierce. Why the hell couldn’t you have just left me out of all of this? You knew all I wanted was to be left alone, but you just couldn’t abide by that, could you? You want me to stay on station for one last raid, fine. I’ll do it. You don’t exactly leave me much of a choice.” As the Admiral opened his mouth to reply, Lawrence reached out and terminated the comm link. “God speed, you old bastard,” he mumbled,
– – –
Eight hours had passed, with the Absolution maintaining its position looking for enemy supply traffic. What had, at first, seemed like a fluke was now starting to emerge as an alarming pattern. One that looked to hamper their final efforts
“Something is definitely up” Captain Lawrence said, his frustration ever present. “This is the third ship we’ve seen that has been running continuous active scans along our entire corridor. If they’re not on to us yet, they definitely suspect something.”
While all ships are constantly gathering information from their sensors, it’s typically only from a small radius around the ship and it wouldn’t alert the crew unless certain thresholds or unusual conditions are met. Active scans on the other hand are constantly looking for and analyzing everything in a much larger radius, and providing real time reports to the crew of anything it finds. It’s not uncommon for a ship to use active scans while transiting an area that contains a significant number of hazards to navigation, but to do so while moving though open space, was nearly unheard of.
Ramirez look at the captain with thinly veiled contempt. He and Lawrence were on the bridge with Hunter and Gerald, watching the latest ship to pass by their plot of space. “Intelligence reports no indication that the enemy has figured out what we’re doing. If they had, they’d be taking a more active approach instead of just scanning the area. More than likely this is just some captains acting on rumors they’ve picked up at the depots. They have no idea what’s going on.”
“You’ve got too much confidence in DSF Intelligence. This is no coincidence and it’s definitely not captains acting on rumors. Any captain who isn’t a complete mouth breather would be trying to run as quiet as possible, not screaming their location to anyone paying attention. They’ve been ordered to do that. They know something.”
The panel in front of Gerald shifted, and he sat forward to inspect the sudden change. “Um, sirs…their scanners just went down.” At this everyone turned their attention towards Gerald’s panel. “Sensors indicate there was some minor power surge about twenty seconds ago and then they just went dead. They’ve lost everything, even the passive stuff.”
A smug grin crept across Ramirez’s face. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a winner.”
“I don’t like this.” Lawrence said studying the sensor readouts.
Ramirez cut him off “We may not get another opportunity. It’s an easy last target and they’re blind. We don’t even have to sneak in. We can go in full power and be done that much faster.”
Relenting, Lawrence sighed. “Alright, let’s get this over with. Get your teams together, and make it quick.”
Seven minutes and eleven seconds later the Absolution fired its engines.
“Are their sensors still down, Gerald?” Captain Lawrence asked, leaning over the tech’s shoulder.
Gerald quickly reconfirmed the readings on his panel. “Yes, sir, going on nine minutes now.”
“Alright, Hunter, they’re completely blind so don’t hold back. They’re probably working on getting their sensors back right now.”
“Got it. I’ll accelerate after we clear the gas cloud.” Hunter didn’t look up from his panel, and instead began plotting an intercept course.
As the Absolution slipped from the cloud Hunter pushed the engines to maximum thrust. The ship responded by lunging towards its new found prey.
“How long until intercept, Hunter?” Lawrence asked, beginning to stir uneasily.
Hunter glanced over his panel. “Ninety seconds, Captain.”
The captain took a moment to look out the front viewport. Though the ship was currently just a speck, he knew it would not remain that way for long. He reached over to the comm panel. “Ramirez, Bridge. Status report.”
“Bridge, Ramirez. All personnel on station. Bravo Squad will take the bridge, Alpha will take the engine room, and Charlie is on counter-boarding.”
Seconds ticked by as the Absolution approached its victim. With his usual precision, Gerald managed to disable the enemy vessel with a handful of hits. In the last few seconds, the crew braced themselves for the inevitable jolt as ships collided. Another eternity, and then the boarding teams had successfully made their entry.
Lawrence listened to the raid over the radio. “Bravo advancing… Alpha advancing.” There was a long silence. Then, the speaker crackled back to life “Bravo, Ramirez. Passage way sealed, attempting to breach.” A muffled thud was heard over the comms. “Passage way breached, under heavy fire, request backup. Repeat, under heavy fire, request immediate backup. Bring the doc.”
Things were taking a turn and there was nothing Lawrence could do about it. He could feel his heart sinking into the pit forming in his stomach. He staggered back a couple of steps and felt the edge of the captain’s chair against the back of his legs. With a nervous exhalation he sank into the chair’s familiar embrace.
Noting his reaction, Gerald turned from his panel to face Lawrence. “I know it’s tough, Captain, but Lt. Ramirez is one of the best at what he does. And so is the Doc. I’m sure they’ll get the guys out of this, no problem. See, I remember this one time we were…”
Gerald never finished his sentence. As the ship shuddered under impacts, Gerald’s console exploded in a fountain of sparks and shattered plastics. Lawrence was thrown from his chair and onto the deck, while Hunter managed to catch himself on the edge of his console. As he attempted to right himself, the ship again heaved under a second wave of shocks. “Weapons fire,” the Captain thought to himself, “that’s the only thing this could be. And not from a very big ship either, or we wouldn’t still be here.”
Managing to finally gain his footing, Lawrence began to survey his bridge. The operations panel Gerald had been seated was nearly gone. All that remained was a large scorch mark and some bent supports. Gerald himself had been thrown across the compartment, either by the force of the blast, the shock, or a combination of both. His right side was peppered with various gashes and puncture wounds where the remains of his panel had come to rest, and there was a growing pool of blood at the back of his head where it had obviously made contact with the bulkhead. His eyes were fixed and cold, one red from a burst blood vessel.
Coming to his senses Lawrence yelled out “Hunter, report!”
The ship’s pilot, normally the picture of calm and collected, was in a frenzy of panicked activity. “It’s an enemy light destroyer; they’re circling around. I think they’re trying to get in closer. We’ve taken hits to engineering as well as the forward habitation area. No hull breaches yet, but I can’t promise that’ll still be true after another volley.”
Lawrence pounded the nearest comm panel. “Michaels, what’s the damage?”
“Not good, sir.” The engineer’s voice came through, though it was nearly drowned out by the sound of alarms in the background. “Port and starboard plasma reactors have shut down and we’ve blown at least two major power transfer junctions. The backup generator is holding, but only just. Life support and grav systems have both shifted to emergency redundants.”
“They’re coming back around, sir. Destroyer is dead astern and fifty degrees up. They’ll be in weapons range pretty quick here.” Fear was now creeping into Hunter’s voice.
Time was running out and they were short on options. “Michaels, what’s the status of the plasma cannons?” It was a long shot, but at this point Lawrence would take just about anything he could get. Maybe luck would be on his side for once.
“No damage as far as I can tell, though they’re still shut down. Won’t know for sure without powering them up.”
“All right, get them fired up. Fast as you can, bypass the startup routines if you have to, just get them ready. We’re going to have one chance. Now let me talk to Larson.” Lawrence could feel his heart trying to beat out of his chest. Adrenaline was one hell of a chemical.
“Larson here, sir.” The young woman’s voice was shaky.
The captain calmed himself as best he could. If he began to show the panic he was feeling, Larson would most assuredly shut down and he couldn’t afford to have that right now. “Larson, how much stress can that docking collar of yours take? I need to turn the ship, but I don’t want to disconnect and cut off the boarding party if I don’t have to. Do you think the collar will hold?” There was silence on the other end. “Larson, I need to know now. Will it hold?”
“I…I…I think so, yes.”
That was all he needed to hear. “Hunter, rotate the ship up thirty degrees on the X-axis. If you can make it look like we’re drifting, even better.”
As the Absolution’s attitude thrusters fired, the two ships began to moan and creak as their hulls were bent in ways they were never designed to stress. The docking collar began to tremble.
The comms panel hissed to life once more. “Bridge, Ramirez. Ship is secured. What the hell is going on?”
Captain Lawrence became suddenly aware that the boarding parties were completely ignorant of the attack and the damage it had wrought. They must have felt the impacts, but very likely had other, more pressing matters on their minds at the time.
“Ramirez, Bridge. Enemy destroyer incoming. Get your people to an airtight compartment. We may lose the docking collar. Decompression protocols.”
“Understood.” Lawrence hoped Ramirez was as good as the Admiral said he was. If things went south, he might need every bit of skill and luck he could muster.
The Absolution shuddered as the next round of enemy shots blazed past them. Those were costly misses for the enemy destroyer, but Lawrence was not under any illusion. The next round wouldn’t miss.
“Captain, plasma cannons are fully charged. I’m not sure how stable the generator is though, these fast startups are notoriously insecure.” Given everything that had happened so far, Michaels sounded remarkably calm. Lawrence wondered for a moment if he had been underestimating his engineer all these years.
“Hunter, how far?”
“Twenty-three degrees.” That would have to do, they couldn’t wait any longer.
“Alright, Michaels, retract the cargo hatches and fire as soon as you’ve got a lock. Don’t wait for an order, just do it.” The Captain took a deep breath and began the wait.
Again, the deck beneath his feet bucked hard. This time he was lucky enough to be thrown back into his chair, instead of against the deck. The decompression alarm for Cargo Bay 8 began to sound, indicating it had taken the brunt of the enemy fire. Thankfully the cargo bays were airtight or else the crew would have had an even more pressing problem on their hands.
Once more the ship lurched, but it was too soon for another enemy volley. From where he was seated, Captain Lawrence could see four massive green plasma bursts burning towards the bow of the enemy ship. The jolt they had all just felt was the recoil from the cannon’s firing. Michaels’ timing was nearly perfect.
The first two blasts dissipated across the enemy shields in a dazzling mix of greens and blues. However, the second two shots crashed through and erupted into the underside of the destroyer’s bow. The ship jumped again and this time all four blasts found their mark, rending massive holes in the destroyer. As the ship continued to more forward it began to spiral upward and to starboard. A third salvo leapt from the Absolution several moments later, smashing into the destroyer’s now exposed engines. After the initial impact, several smaller explosions could be seen on the aft end, and then the entire ship was consumed in the telltale flash of a plasma drive losing containment. The shockwave hit a second later and caused the Absolution to shake vigorously for several seconds. Everything began to settle down into an uneasy silence.
As soon as his heart had calmed to a reasonable pace, Lawrence keyed the announcing circuit. “All hands, report damage and casualties.” The reports started coming in quickly. Engineering was a complete mess, Cargo Bay 8 was completely gutted by the plasma blast and resulting explosive decompression, and the galley and several starboard crew quarters suffered damage. The human losses were even harder to bear. Of course, Gerald had been killed in the opening seconds of the engagement, but the Captain was saddened to learn that Erik had also died. He and Mykar were standing near one of the power transfer junctions that blew. Erik was in front and therefore took most of the blast. Mykar had some serious burns on his back, but nothing that was life threatening, at least not with proper treatment. The boarding team fared even worse, losing six men with another three wounded. The enemy on route to the bridge had been waiting for the team and tossed grenades through the breach as soon as it was opened. The results weren’t pretty.
Something just didn’t make sense. If their sensors were down, how could the crew have possibly prepared for the boarding party? They should have caught the crew in the middle of repairs, completely unprepared. Beyond that, where did that destroyer come from and what were the odds of it showing up at exactly the right moment? Suddenly things became very clear for the captain. While he may never know the answer to exactly how this happened, Captain Lawrence was quickly becoming convinced that he knew exactly who was responsible for this complete disaster.
The Captain began shouting as he entered the cargo bay “RAMIREZ! Where the hell are you?!” The lieutenant came from around a corner just as Lawrence was about to question a young private. His armor had several small gouges in it from glancing shots and the entire left side was chewed up where he had caught more than his share of a fragmentation grenade. Ramirez was holding his helmet, the heads up display shattered along the left side. The corresponding location on the Lieutenant’s face was pocked with small lacerations that left a sticky trail of blood down the side of his face. When he saw the captain, he instinctively began making a status report. “Mission accomplished. We’re getting ready to starting the conver…..”
Ramirez didn’t get to finish his report. Lawrence grabbed him, one hand finding a loose plate of armor, the other wrapped around the lieutenant’s throat. The Captain picked up Ramirez and slammed him against the nearest section of bulkhead. Ramirez’s head connected with the metal surface a split second after his armor crashed into the same wall.
“You arrogant son of a bitch!” In his dazed state, Ramirez was nearly overwhelmed by the Captain’s screaming. “You walked us right into a fucking trap! The freighter was bait, you moron. They knew we were in the area hunting, so they gave us a target we couldn’t help but go after and we were stupid enough to take the bait. Eight men are dead because you had to have one more trophy to show the brass back home.”
“We are done, do you understand me! That’s the last time you will ever endanger me and my crew. You’re damn lucky I don’t riddle you full of holes and throw you out an airlock right now. As soon as we’re able, we are heading back. Consider yourself confined to this cargo bay. If you or any of your men set foot outside of it, I will shoot you myself.”
Ramirez dropped to his knees as Lawrence released him. As he attempted to stand up, Ramirez looked at Lawrence. “We still got the job done.” Lawrence could feel the rage bubbling up.
Therefore I Geek 