“Command Authorization Casey 4-7, all hands: Access the Empire’s equipment warehouse for gear transfers. Shuttles have failed, Herrat boarding vessels incoming. Fire at will.”
Alaris has blacked out all the anti-personnel weapons that would pierce her hull, so my crew won’t have to worry about putting a few explosive rounds through some savage cats. As much as I know my mistake in delaying the retreat caused this situation, there was no way I could risk letting the Herrat shuttles disrupt the warp and murder my whole crew once they got too close. This is why rogue action like the Admiral’s attempted Heroics, are unwelcome in war—it introduces too many uncertainties.
Her attack appeared to disrupt hangars and propulsion, but according to Alaris, that was a temporary effect of the stasis effect of the Admiral’s attack. An effect we realized mere minutes before the Herrat launched their fighters and breachers.
“Commodore, the Herrat have pinged our communications suite. Should I accept their link request?” My Communications Lieutenant asks.
“Lets see what the cats have to say.” I walk toward my large chair in the middle of the bridge and sit, posing myself with my ankle over my knee in apparent boredom.
“Human Leader, this is your last chance to surrender. As you have broken the terms of war, our boarders will hold no quarter and seize your ships should you refuse.”
“Terms of war? Your terms said the war would begin in two days, yet you have already invaded with thousands.”
/Alaris, is there anything else we have at our disposal?/
\Nothing I have access to would change our situation. Torpedoes would have a low chance to make it past their array of fighters, and our lasers do not have enough energy to pierce their hull.\
I can’t believe how this ship is so advanced, but we can’t effect them besides our big guns. A note to R & D if we survive this.
\If it is any consolation, the Empress’ focus on troop-scale combat gives us a weapons advantage when facing the Herrat in person, which should help level the significant skill gap in personal combat.\
/Well, Alaris, lets make them work for every inch of this ship. I hope you’ve got the pulse turrets ready./
She pings affirmative, allowing me to re-focus on the cat man who is still talking.
“We will not be surrendering. Your soldiers will make charming rugs for my stateroom.” I signal for my Coms Officer to cut the feed. I take a deep breath to steady myself and I segment the viewscreen to display long sections of the hull to see the first front of boarders, two pointed breaching ships on the portside and three on the left.
The laser arrays continue to hammer the swarm of fighters surrounding the boarding ships held in reserve, but are making slow progress in breaking through to the troop carriers. The fighters that were attached to the missile-style breachers break off in strafing runs, peppering the hull with small ballistic and light weapons, showing no appreciable damage to our heavily enchanted ship. When the breachers hit, the view zooms in to show the chisel-tipped craft dig into the outer hull , causing the surrounding Titansteel to bow, but not rupture.
My surprise continues as I watch the hull rebound after the breacher’s momentum stopped, the return forces crumpling the small ship and pushing it slowly back into space. The screen then zooms out to show the other breachers shared a similar fate.
“Ma’am, the kinetic attack was repelled, but it took a significant portion of our stored Aether to anchor the hull like that.” Weapons reports.
“Understood. How will we fare against light and plasma attacks?”
“Unless they’re mining lasers, we can diffuse them for a while, but plasma cutters will overload our point defenses. Especially near the escape hatches. It may be better to let them cut with plasma and save the Aether for inside defenses or a retreat.”
“Very well.”
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
/Tessa, have you assumed Alaris’ mobile chassis?/
\I have Commodore. I was preparing to gate to Astoria to pick up a blink fighter. Should I cancel?\
/If you have any experimental weapons onboard, yes./
The damn AI pauses while we’re in crisis, what the hell kind of game it playing.
Even the most advanced intelligences need to formulate a response to be best received by their audience.
And now my AI is calling me stupid, great.
\I have an experimental weapon for the shuttles. It’s a light-propelled ballistic round on a chain gun chassis. It is designed to punch holes in shields and hulls, but not do general damage that might collapse a shield generating matrix.\
/And I assume that would wreak havoc on our shields?/
\Commodore, Alaris, That weapon would blow out sectors of shields unless it was the cargo bay/shuttle entrance shields or the airlock shields. Those would just rupture a single section. This would create a persistent weakness until a suitably advanced enchanter could repair the damage.\
/Then put the bastard on a transfer crane and start blasting the enemy to pieces!/
“Ship alert: All hands clear port and starboard cargo bays. All hands clear port and starboard cargo bays. Two minutes to depressurization.” The almost natural voice of Tessa chimes through the comm system. It seems that her new chassis is more organic than the one Alaris can use. Some clever engineering that.
“Security teams in those spaces: Don helmets and runic air systems, engage mag boots and prime suit thrusters. Remain in the cargo bays.” I order and send similar orders to the fleet to consider low atmospheric preparation for likely plasma catting breach zones.
The itch to fight niggles the base of my brain as my cerebral cortex holds on to the reason of being in command and needing to direct a response instead of engaging in a consuming combat encounter.
As much as I have faith in the technical genius-touched psychopath that leads the Empire, we need some help with the big ships as we tussle with the boarding parties.
/Galilei, DE CDRE, If there’s any way we can get another cannon blast in the next hour, do anything short of sacrificing yourselves to make it happen./
Galilei pings me in affirmative and I grin. That self-important feline prick is going to choke on his preening hairball.
***
The timelines near and in Astorian space are normalized, and the anomaly that contains my body is isolated and consuming far less power from my reserves. I queried the Matrix in my mind on why I couldn’t shunt power from here to my body, and the answer apparently is that my soul would shatter if I did it again this decade unless I upgraded my soul? The queries told me to consult “life experience”. With as much shit as Andromeda gives me, I should get to call them my bestie by now.
A fish slaps me in the face and I hear the aether giggle at me. Yup, bestie. Bitch is pulling pranks on me and they’ve got funny instead of mean pretty well figured. I love you too, asshole. I pick up the fish and decide to transfer said fish to the giggle monster and seconds later a shock of surprise ripples through my mind. I full body laugh for ten minutes. Apparently, in the aether space, [My Will Be Done] freaking owns when coupled with space magic.
I look back into my work interface and wonder what the difference between the anomaly that my body is in and the local time, a.k.a the local time displacement. It seems that when nothing besides my body and my mangled ship are affected, the aether drain is significantly reduced. Good to know for future uses of time travel I suppose: bystanders are a problem. Not only that, but the metaphysical light-jell-o that I forced to power my attack nearly obliterated my consciousness. Not the first time, probably won’t be the last.
I get a nails on the chalkboard noise from . . . an unknown place that I can sense?
->//Hello Penny. Do not intentionally disturb my construct. Please.//<-
Oh shit. Uh, sorry Andromeda? Her voice feels like a vibration in the fabric of the Universe.
I’m always going to push boundaries, Andromeda. The skills and talents I have practically beg me to attempt whatever I can think of. And if I can do it with the skills you’ve given me . . . I can’t be breaking things too bad. I think of a dozen ways I could irritate space-time when Andromeda growls at me.
Real fear suffuses my existence, realizing that while Andromeda is friendly, and they may consider me a friend, they would absolutely end me if I continue to de-stabilize their galaxies. I put my hands up in concession, asserting that I would try to behave unless my family was in danger—I would break existence for them any mark-fraction.
Andromeda fades their presence so that I can go back to work considering the time dilation between my body and the surrounding reality. Two and a half-ish hours, of a slightly more than a three hour clock. I’ll be back in action half an hour or so after I disappeared? Andromeda bless my aether power and capacity. Being able to hold a time reversal for two hours is colossal and I seriously need to practice this . . . and my martial skills. Being a chronal apparition is cool and all, but being better at fighting would make everything smoother. Seriously though, Chronal Apparition would be a really cool Track name.
Before I get too lost in tangents, I attempt to school my mind and focus on the matters at hand. I’ve moderated the major tasks on my list and my body is nearly complete in its reconstitution. I mentally leave an anchor here in my Moderator space and spend the remaining time meditating and solidifying my will in order to return to my body . . . vessel? That’s going to bug me for a while.
Minutes pass before I finally feel the intelligence matrix complete its advancement and is ready to receive my consciousness. I pull gently on the linking thread to my matter and coast gently along the line as I fade to unconsciousness.