Archaea 3: Red (24 page)

I took a deep breath and waited.

“Range to Little Sister, Yak?”

“1,680
clicks sir, near enough.”

“Well, that should be
about right. Here we go folks, stand by for a bit of a pull.” As he spoke, I could feel the pull into my crash bar cushions building as he started pushing pseudomass ahead of us. It climbed and climbed, until I felt like I was starting to squish through the bars. The back of my throat felt like it was about to come out of my mouth, and my tongue started to throb as it squished against my clenched teeth. I shut my eyes tight as they felt like they were about to fly out of my head.

“Gene, I am about to the danger zone for our current level, cut to 40%.” Captain Smith called on comms in a level voice, seemingly unaffected by the strain of the maneuver.

“Aye… sir!” Gene yelled back. He wasn’t making any attempts to sound heroic. The booming thunder astern muted to a low roar while the pull ahead of us continued to climb. I felt like falling, flying forward, screaming into the depths of space out of my couch. My fingers clawed against the bars, pressing desperately. As if from a million miles away, I realized I was losing consciousness.

“That should do it folks. Now we’re going to push a little to catch up. This is probably going to hurt a bit. All hand
s stand by for acceleration, eight gees.”

A groan filled my ears, a sound of terrible agony, and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from me. The pounding of the engines matched the beating of my heart, or maybe it was just my heart, I couldn’t tell.
A brief moment of clarity gave me a glimpse of the forward holo, of the waves of energy flashing forward instead of reverse, dim through my lashes as I fell into the dark.

Chapter 6

“All hands report.” I heard the captain call out on the 1MC, above the braying honk of general quarters. I blinked and tried to focus on the targeting console, but it was blurry and my eyes didn’t seem to work. I reached up to rub them, and felt wetness on my lips and tasted copper. My nose was bleeding, and I felt like I had gone ten rounds with a prizefighter.

“Yak, are you there son?” The captain called across the bridge.

“Ah, I think so sir”, I replied, wincing a bit as I pulled back from the crash bars. I blinked my eyes and stared, trying to focus, but everything was a blurry mess. A sharp, stabbing pain knifed through my temples and I cried out involuntarily.

“Are you okay son?” he asked, real concern in his voice. “Janis, you have the conn.”

“I have the conn, aye sir”, she replied softly.

“
Yak… wake up, son”, he said suddenly beside me. I looked up and over, and realized I had slipped away again. Pauli started coming around, and groaned. He sounded every bit as bad as he looked.

“Captain, Engineering.” Gene groaned up on comms.
“I’m awake, but not pretty.”

“Captain, Weapons
, awake, and still pretty.” Jane replied with a laugh that made us all smile. “Pretty bloody, that is… anyone else have a bloody nose?”

“Pauli and I do, Jane”, I replied on comms. “Captain Smith looks as fresh as a daisy.”

He dismissed me with a wave of his hand and a warm smile. “Heck, that wasn’t hardly enough to make me dizzy, Yak”, he looked intently at each one of my eyes. “Can you see yet?”

I blinked a bit more and
nodded, and then tried to focus on my screens. He went back to pestering Pauli, who clearly wasn’t comfortable with the sight of blood – especially his own. The bridge was a little gory with blood globules floating here and there, but it wasn’t that bad.

I could focus, and a quick check of my screens showed
we were still endo, but not under acceleration at the moment.  Little Sister was ranged reasonably close astern, but the rate of closure was low. It looked like the captain had matched speed very well, giving himself a bit of time to check on his crew before he needed to maneuver into formation.

Before I checked our hostile targets, I took a closer look at Little Sister with gravimetrics, and other than a small cloud of debris, she looked pretty good. I pulled out and focused on the closest hostile, Master 7. I can’t say I liked what I was seeing.

I cleared my throat. “Captain, Master 7 is burning on the same course as Little Sister and well within turret range, and Masters 5 and 6 are roughly 200 clicks astern, in a delta formation.” I took a closer look. “Sir, they all appear to be burning to catch up.”

He fixed me with a look, clapped Pauli on the shoulder, and kicked aft to the helm station.

“Shorty, make our main gun ready for firing in all respects, including opening the forward port.”

“Making gun ready in all respects, sir” she replied immediately.

“Janis, I need a firing solution on Master 7, plotted to my nav so I can endo to the pip and get us lined up”, he asked as he belted back into his station and started swiping through his screens.

“Sir this is done.” 

“
That looks good, dear. Are we at our shining moment of opportunity yet?” he asked, as he belted back into his station.

“Yes sir, we are very near to the moment. Would you like a countdown?” she asked cryptically.

“A countdown to what, I wonder…” I heard him mutter under his breath, then he opened the 1MC. “All hands, prepare to come about in 3… 2… 1…”

I tried to keep both Little Sister and Master 7 on screen, but they were still ranged pretty far apart. Little Sister was burning to catch up to us, and
stars started sliding across our forward port as the captain hauled us endo.

“Yak… do you see that?” Pauli hissed across the aisle.

“See… what, Pauli?” I replied, sotto voice. I didn’t see anything, other than the typical tense situation.

“The countdown”, he replied, and pointed at my starboard screen. I looked and saw 38 seconds.

“Do you think that is Janis’ countdown to our golden moment?” I asked softly, but he just shrugged back at me.

Right as I was about to ask the captain if he noticed the timer
, flashing alerts on my center screen caught my eye.

“
Captain, I am currently tracking outgoing kinetics from Master 7!”

“Very well”, he replied with a level voice.

My port-side screen flashed. “Sir, incoming hail”, I added, and swiped it over to make ready.

“
Please open hail, Yak.”

I open
ed the hail channel and then swiped back over to targeting. Master 7 was a little out of turret range.

“Sir, it looks
like he is going to miss on this salvo”, I called out, noting the countdown showed 24 seconds.

“—chaea, Little Sister. We are again under attack – can you assist?”

“Little Sister, Archaea, we were just tracking inbound from the closest bogey. We are maneuvering to support and preparing to fire our main gun, please set filters to maximum.”

“
Very well, Captain, we copy and thanks!” The relief in the voice of the Little Sister’s captain was palpable. He sounded like a man at the frayed edge of desperation, being offered a lifeline. I just hoped we weren’t going to be too late to help.

The clock was at 14 seconds, an
d we were still hauling around, but he was clearly slowing down as he approached his aiming point.

“Shorty,
fire mission, I need you to fire a single shot on my mark.”

“Standing by, sir” she replied immediately. As always, I was struck by the ice in her voice. She knows more than any of us what we’re about to do.

At that moment, the stars slowed to a halt, and we hung dead steady. I scoped in tight on Master 7, waiting.

“Shorty, fire in 3… 2…”

I blinked, unable to reconcile what I was seeing.

“Captain, Master 7 is hit!”

“Shorty, check fire!” he called immediately. “Are you sure, Yak?”

I made damn sure I was seeing what I was seeing. Before I could say the words, another streaking blast impacted into the stern tubes, knocking Master 7 into a slow tumble, trailing a cloud of debris.

“Sir, they’re done. High order impact, looked kinetic.”

“Fired from what, son? I need answers, now.”

I swallowed, and flipped through the target list for the sector. “Sir… I don’t see anything on track!”

“Maybe it was fired by one of the other hostiles?”

I pulled back into the local sector and brought both Master 5 and 6 into as close of a focus as I could, given their separation. It was close enough.

"Sir”, I started, then swallowed, “Master 5 and 6 are both taking fire as well!”

A moment of stunned silence flooded the bridge, and none of us remembered how to swim.

*****

“Fire mission complete, sir”, Janis said smartly.

I took a brief moment to consider the impossible. “Very well Janis”, I said in a voice that sounded incredibly rational, for the crazy places my mind was going at the moment.

“Well lads, I believe we have just witnessed history in the making, and I owe Janis an apology.”

“
An apology sir?” she said lightly.

“Yes dear. I am afraid I was convinced you were finally going to fail on a mission, and was dreading the moment.”

Yak and Pauli both looked like they were waiting for a tonsil checkup.

“Sir, I will
never fail. Please do not worry.”

“Uh…” said Yak, adding, “um…” Pauli stared blankly back at me.

“Captain, weapons…” Shorty called up on comms. “Sir…? What just happened?”

I opened comms. “Well, it appears that approximately 5 standard days, and
eleven point some-odd million kilometers away, Janis fired the rounds that just incapacitated Master 5, 6 and 7.”

“What
…?” Gene jumped in. “She did?”

“Yes Gene, she sure did.”

“At what range again?”

“11,324,231.29… and something kilometers…”
I tried to remember more exactly, and failed. “Janis, what was the range to target when you fired?”

“Captain, Master 5 was ranged 11,324,231.29808, Master 6 was ranged 11,324,225.23923, and Master 7 was ranged 11,324,232.56232 kilometers from our position at the moment I initiated this fire mission”, she answered smartly.

“Captain, there’s no way our old gravimetrics had that kind of accuracy”, Gene said quietly. I felt a little tingle go up my spine.

“Janis, he’s right. How could you possibly know their positions to that level of accuracy with that gear?”

“Captain, our old sensors were not that accurate, however our new sensors provide more than enough resolution to make an accurate determination of their position.”

“Janis,” Yak asked on comms, “you didn’t have the
sensor package when you made the shot…” he trailed off.

“That is correct, Yak, but I have the sensor package at this moment in time”, she replied patiently.

My fingers reached unerringly into the unknown to starboard and touched the silky smooth finish of my well-worn coffee cup. What is real? Am I really here, at the helm of the greatest ship in the universe, with the best crew, with the best cup of coffee? Am I actually about to drink this coffee? I can already taste it. Is that just wishful thinking, or is it something more. That I am going to drink it, is inevitable.

I took a s
ip, and tasted the future.

“Sir, incoming hail”, Yak called back.

“Very well, please open comms”, I replied smartly, with an eyebrow tilted toward the stars.

“Archaea, this is Captain
Silas Mack of the Little Sister. I can’t thank you enough for the assist.”

“
No thanks are needed, Captain - it was the honorable thing to do. Do you require any additional assistance?”

“Well,
it looks like we’re venting, but not too badly. Unfortunately, our turret is inoperable…” the dismay in his voice was heavy.

I paused briefly. “That’s a bad situation to be in, out here.  Would you like us to form up and escort?” I offered, hopefully, with a finger crossed for good luck.

“Captain Smith, I am not sure I would feel good imposing on you in that way…” he trailed off momentarily. “But the fact is we’re in a pretty tough spot.”

“Well, I’d be glad to help”, I replied. “
We were actually burning for the jump to Talus Federation when we received your distress signal. I don’t think we’d get a very warm reception out there if we just left you defenseless here.”

A slight moment of silence carried the hiss of burning stars on the comms. “
What business do you have in Talus Federation?”

He sounded as cautious as I would be, with a stranger.
I figured the truth was always a good policy. “We’re hoping to acquire some system upgrades for the Archaea, before we push further out.”

“Further out? There’s not much
out there past Talus, it’s almost the end of the arm.”

“
There’s always more out there. In any case, that’s how we make our living, out in the fringe. I’m fitting out the Archaea so we can cover more territory. She’s a nice old gal, but doesn’t have enough get up and go for really serious work, you know.”

I realized my brief embrace with the truth had turned into a
horribly left-footed dance with deception, but I certainly couldn’t tell them the truth. Specific details aside, it was important to me that they knew our motives were pure. We were just simple working folk making a living among the stars, free from glom oversight and control, just like them.

“
Well, the Archaea looked great on our scopes, Captain, just like a bright star, coming down out of a plume.”

“
Yeah, we were moving right along… unfortunately in the wrong direction, but I got her stopped in time.”

There was a pause.
“What sort of gear are you hoping to get out in Talus? I’m having a hard time understanding how, but I’d swear you shot a nova. We had our shields up, of course, but our topside decks got roasted by something big. I can’t imagine what we might have out in Talus to upgrade that.”

I laughed, hoisted to new heights by my own petard.
“I don’t know if I would call it nova-class, technically, but yes, we did fire our main gun. I don’t think we have any need for weapons upgrades, to be honest.”

“What sort of upgrade are you looking for?”

“Actually, I’m hoping to upgrade our emitters.” I figured I might as well tangle-foot my way back to the truth.

“Seems like Luna might be better for that kind of gear”, he replied. “Before you burn for the rim, you should
check there.”