The inky black void of space erupted into bright golden light as if to loudly announce to the universe the birth of over a dozen stars. To celebrate any of these births would have been a premature celebration as the bright flash of light was immediately snuffed out by the void, leaving only the alien ship and several jets of atmosphere and moisture being sucked out. The aliens responded with another bolt of golden energy that struck the Atlantis along the starboard hull, taking out several cannons and energy emitters that were near the impact with several explosions sending shrapnel off into and away, the infrastructure shook, rumbling through the walls as the Atlantis, just like the aliens, vented atmosphere before bulkheads and other failsafes sealed off the affected areas.
With an angered response, Samantha was seething, her teeth revealing behind her lips, sharply pointing a finger at the alien vessel outside, demanding its destruction. Energy hummed around them via the electrical grid as the X-Ray lasers fired their invisible beams of concentrated power across the distance, smaller flashes went off in succession in a straight line along the hull.
“Clemens, why aren’t we halfway across the galaxy by now!? I thought you were supposed to be the best in the entire Alliance!” Samantha bellowed.
His helmsman spun around to respond, the look on his face and unkempt hair showing alarm, confusion, and the smart-ass attitude he recognised in him. He probably wanted to tell Samantha where to shove her attitude and accusation against his skills. It was long ago that Alex learned to not question his pilot’s ability to fly, sure his cockiness and smart-ass attitude would get on any other captain’s nerves who were more ‘by the book’ but when you needed someone to get you out of a tight spot, Clemens was reliable enough to look past his flaws. No doubt, Alex also suspected that Clemens might have thought of informing Samantha that the Atlantis couldn’t cover half the galaxy in the brief span of time, he knew that is what he could have expected if he was the commanding officer… Well, at least the commanding officer of this particular ship.
“Ma’am, respectfully I cannot get the bloody energy necessary for a successful jump. Every time we get hit in the engineering section our engines go offline; they need to be reset each time and the bloody energy required needs to recharge! Alright!” Clemens exclaimed frantically. His voice still contained the attitude that he knew he wanted to give to Samantha but was overshadowed by his barely concealed panic.
She looked around, the fire behind her eyes still raging as Alex thought of what to do.
“Clemens,” Alex said. “Adjust our bearing to about-face with the enemy vessel. Then do what you can to prime the Jump Drive!”
Samantha shot her angered glare over towards Alex, that very same fire behind her eyes and curled lips made her look at him as though she wanted to lunge out at him and rip his throat out. Within that same split second she tempered her emotions, then glanced over towards Clemens before looking back to Alex and her glare was less sharp.
“Aye sir!”
Then Alex started towards Samantha, careful to make sure his voice didn’t sound like he was challenging her what to do but still authoritative enough that she should at the very least consider his recommendations. “Commander, it would be wise to prepare all weapons and your vertical launch tubes for another volley.”
“Just what do you think you are doing?” She sneered, her voice was low as though to not be heard by others under the battle orchestra of alarms and hull impacts.
“Corvette Commander Hammer, I have fought these things before, our only goal is to evade and use trickery against these bastards.”
He felt his stomach press up against his spine, the starfield in the windows behind Samantha shifted slightly. When he turned to face forward, the Atlantis’ elongated hull was staring down the alien vessel. Every X-Ray laser emplacement spun forward on their mounts, the light indicators on their bases shifted to red when they fired since there was no visible component from the laser’s focusing lens. The alien ship responded with several short bursts of golden energy, only one had struck the prow of the Atlantis while the rest narrowly avoided striking the craft.
“Yeah? And is that what you did on your ship, is that why my brother isn’t around?”
As if someone had sucked all the heat energy out of his body, leaving only a drained, stone cold husk in its stead Alex stood there as still as a statue. He didn’t even realise his eyes had widened and his jaw went slack, staring at Commander Hammer who looked at him with steeled eyes and contempt, her chest steadily huffing, perhaps she was struggling the urge to grab his neck and throw him to the floor. But that was the only thing left for her to do now, now that her words sliced through him like the most sharpened blade had been put through his chest.
“Jump Drive primed and ready!” Clemens called out.
Samantha’s face softened, cocked to the side and only then saw what Alex had been intending. But his plan had become apparent to her too little too late for her to spare his feelings, Samantha didn’t seem apologetic for what she said after realising it. So without wasting any more time she ordered the gunners present to open fire and the missileer operators to prepare all missile pods and launch tubes. Two rows of hatches that ran along the upper hull in front of the bridge opened up to expose the rectangular tube and missile warhead poking out from underneath as rows of cannons fired relentlessly across the distance. Samantha bellowed out the order to fire the missiles which left the bridge blinded from the two rows of ten vertical launch tubes spat out jets of fire and trails of smoke that wisped from under the munitions before disappearing had gone above the Atlantis, then readjusted their vector towards the alien vessel.
“Helm, be ready to Jump on my mark! Gauss cannons, be ready to fire on my order.”
The missiles shrank as they closed the distance on the alien vessel that was dead centre in view of the bridge. Alex had switched the display readout on his terminal to show the relative positions of the missiles and the vessel. A few hundred kilometres from impact and closing in fast.
“Gauss cannons, fire!” Sam shouted.
The large cannons that rested both on the ventral and lateral hull’s briefly charged up then expelled their shot, throwing a half tonne tungsten slug at a fraction the speed of light so it would strike its target just as the missiles bloomed into miniature stars for a split second. The resultant destruction was damaging enough that even from their distance, unaided with optical gear it could easily be known that the gauss round and the missiles had struck with enough force that flung the alien ship back and put it on a strange spin on its roll and yaw axis’.
“JUMP!” Samantha shouted with such enthusiasm she leapt out of her seat, pointing both her middle and index fingers at Clemens’.
Clemens slammed the throttles forward and the vista had warped and twisted again. The inertial stabilisers must have been damaged as Alex felt the initial strength of the G-forces slam against him and nearly threaten to force him down onto the floor hard. It was only by the grace of his quick thinking and the nearby First Mate’s chair that he held on to prevent such a thing from happening. When the Atlantis dropped out of Jump a brief moment later Alex felt his tongue pressing against his teeth and his heart pressing firmly against his sternum as the sudden burst of inertia yanked him and everyone else on the bridge forward. One officer who hadn’t buckled themselves in time was violently thrown forward until their mass had slammed down on another operator’s console, smashing it and rendering it inoperable with a hard crunch sound.
Midshipman Clemens ran his fingers through his slick black hair as the stress started getting to him. Then he looked over to the navigator’s chair and said. “Buddy, you gotta find us a system. I can’t shake them in open space!”
The navigator shared a glance with Alex and Samantha, then over to the deceased crewmate who now laid with their legs above the console they had just slammed into, their upper body resting dead.Then the navigator looked back at Clemens then back to his commanding officers, Alex and Samantha looked back with an expression of assurance, trust that Clemens knows what he is doing. The panic in his eyes was unmistakable with shrunken pupils and quivering facial muscles and tics that could only be the result of an inner struggle to maintain the stoic expression of calmness that was drilled in. Then he looked back at Clemens a split second later.
“And lead those things back to a populated world, are you insane!?”
Alex felt terrible for the young officer, he didn’t project an aura of confidence and familiarity with stressful situations such as they were in. His voice cracked and went up in pitch in several of his syllables.
“Don’t ‘ave to be populated, mate!” Clemens shouted back. “I just need somethin’ with a ring system or a shattered rock, asteroid belt, somethin’, anythin’ with a ‘igh albedo.”
The navigator nodded shakily and began searching the navigational computer for anything that matched what Clemens asked for. Tactically, it made sense why he specifically asked for anything with a ring or the shattered remnants of a larger celestial body. Specifically why only those with high reflective properties. The reflective properties of the Atlantis’s hull, despite the charred and jagged appearance it now sported from the recent conflict, could still be seen with the naked eye - For humans and a few other species at least – would force the ship to hide someplace. Yet with the vast emptiness that is space and decent places for a starship to hide being far and few in between, especially among systems with dozens of satellites made any place that could hide a ship vital and important. Comets were among the best places for a vessel to hide, between the cavernous networks found on some and consistently being on the move, a comet could shroud a vessel as large as the Phoenix almost completely behind a cloud layer of dust and ice from visual observation and most scans. The only significant downside to choosing a comet was that they were almost under constant observation either by Stellar Cartographer’s, private vessels passing by for the view, or simply tailed by comet touring starliner’s. And while Alex had his fair share of experience dealing with pirates and vessels transporting contraband who made favourable use of these hiding places and luring them out, he shamefully had to admit to himself that he was drawing a blank on how to make use of these hiding places himself. As he contemplated further on what Clemens asked, focusing on why he specified by saying ‘high albedo’ could only bring out one likely outcome his pilot intended.
Pickers can’t be choosers, huh? Can you even get us there in one piece, helmsman? Can the Atlantis even make it, let alone survive that?
Alex started towards Clemens whose hands and focus pinged from side to side as he checked his controls and the status of the engines, occasionally making adjustments when needed. He approached close enough and leaned down and spoke softly. “Do you really think we can make it? Even if we somehow manage to not blow the engines getting there; can this ship even take that kind of damage?”
“Honestly sir,” Clemens replied. His volume and tone trying to match that of his commanding officer’s while burying the stress in his voice. “I truly dunno. Every system onboard this bloody ship is banged up. In the open we are a target, innit. Best I can do is even the odds. Maybe even set up some kind of trap or-or-or somethin’.”
Alex nodded then pushed himself off of Clemens’ seat.
By the time he spun around, Samantha was sitting in her chair with the microphone, the voice of Executive Officer Benner sounding off from the wired hand-held device
“Ma’am, this is engineering. We have a problem!”
Even from halfway across the bridge, the sound of worry in his voice could still be heard as easily. Alex could only imagine just what problem the First Mate was referring to; with how much damage they took they weren’t exactly in a decent fighting condition.
“Bridge here. Engine room, report.”
“Ma’am we took more damage than we thought.” Benner’s voice came through the crackling comm unit.
“Explain.”
Alex sat back down next to Samantha and gently leaned over to listen more intently to the conversation. At the same time he opened up the small display on the armrest and ran a brief scan of the ship's systems. The progress bar loaded, stopping itself short of three quarters of the way before rapidly finishing. And it seemed that Benner wasn’t exaggerating, the Atlantis had fire alerts all over the ship. Nearly one on every deck. Among the fires were the atmospheric leaks that were on a few decks, mostly contained to one side of the ship. Several of the externally mounted missile pods and point defence weapons were destroyed or rendered inoperable with only one of them displaying a rifling jam error code. Typical military hardware, under different circumstances Alex would have found this amusing, perhaps even hysterical as he thought to himself. Hah, it’ll always be military grade equipment failure that truly gets you in the end.
Several missile pods were displayed as empty or in the process of reloading, engines barely maintaining a decent enough thrust output, and it seemed like several life support functions were critically on the verge of collapsing, at least that’s what it began to feel like.
Benner’s voice came through as concerned with notes of his composure under duress. “Core shielding of our reactor took some serious damage in that last assault. Cracks are appearing all over and radiation is leaking out. Fusion output is spiking wildly, I’m having trouble keeping reactivity stable and I can’t guarantee it’ll stay up for long. Be ready to expect a sudden shutdown.”
Samantha briefly took the device away to allow her to swear under her breath.
“Helium fuel reserves were holed and got sucked out.” Benner continued in a voice that stressed the direness of their situation. “Jump drive is badly damaged. I strongly advise against performing another jump as I cannot guarantee the engine won’t breach while active.”
“Tell me you can at least fix it.” Samantha huffed; her voice heavy with desperation.
“If I had a dozen more pair of hands working ‘round the clock for at least three days straight I could probably get us to the nearest port. My team and I are already trying to keep engine pressure stable but I cannot guarantee we will be in any half-decent shape soon.”
Alex looked over to the radar operators who had diligently studied their screens for the first sign of the vessel using active scans to find them. He peered over the shoulders of a white-grey Garuda who stared at their screen unaware of his presence. If these aliens could somehow follow them then there was no use in trying to be stealthy with passive scans.
When the screen displayed a positive return signal, the Garuda in front of him rushed to confirm it wasn’t a sensor echo or malfunction. His heart had almost skipped a beat when he saw the signal appear in the corner of the screen but Alex showed no surprise as this wasn’t unforeseen.
“Positive signal on alien vessel. Five kilometres behind us. No sign of energy weapon detection.” The operator in front of Alex shouted.
“Nav, tell me you got a decent system we can hide in?” Clemens shouted.
“There’s a binary system three point four lightyears away, sixty degrees to starboard. Positive forty-five degrees elevation. Satama Alpha and Satama Beta… fifteen orbitals, twelve gas giants, three terrestrials with atmospheres, one that- Shit! It’s a restricted system, the second planet is Savannah.” The navigator said. His eyes widened, even from five metres behind, Alex could see his pupils struggling to focus on Clemens who was less than a metre to his left.
“Savannah!? The one inside Dragon space?” Samantha asked. Her eyes quickly darted from side to side as she struggled to weigh her decisions. Then with frustration she hissed. “Shit. Clemens, plot a course to the system. Nav, feed Midshipman Clemens the coordinates. Everybody else strap in, this next jump won’t be easy.”
Then Samantha reached for her radio unit once again and called the engine room.
“Benner, listen up, we are preparing for another jump to a nearby system. Do whatever you can to get us there, everything else is secondary!”
The radio went silent after she ended her call. For a moment the look on her face went to dread. Alex wondered if perhaps it was because she thought the silence had meant that something had happened to her First Mate. However, any morbid assumption the two officers possessed was quickly dismissed when Benner did finally respond, allowing Samantha’s facial muscles to ease.
“I’ll do what I can to prevent the bolts from popping off. The safety switch will still trip once the engines are near critical, so don’t be surprised if we are suddenly dead in the water.”
“Coordinates plotted in, Jump Drive is spooling up again. Power at fifty-eight percent and climbing.”
Alex looked around and firmly placed his feet shoulder width apart as he held onto his armrests with a vice-like grip and pale knuckles. “Everyone hold on!” He shouted.
Clemens continued to announce the power level in the Jump drive’s power level. First he announced the levels to have reached sixty percent, then seventy-nine. Ninety-one percent and then finally one hundred. Clemens adjusted the direction of the Atlantis’ nose quickly, even for his skill to compensate when he had overshot the correct angle and began to compensate with the RCS thrusters to recentre the Atlantis on a star slightly brighter than the rest. A brief hum throughout the Bridge followed by the shift in stars once again as Alex was subjected to ten times the standard Earth gravity pressing down against his chest. He felt like someone had grabbed his chest and squeezed on it while using power armour. While in transit, the Atlantis’s hull shook and rattled loudly all around them, along with her inertial stabilisers failing to compensate for the FTL travel. Alex could have sworn that several panels along the dorsal hull in front of the bridge were ripped off by the sheer force of gravity warping around the vessel.
The vista brought light into the bridge so suddenly that Alex found himself blinded for a moment. A habitable world lay in front of them with vast golden-yellow plains and divisive mountain ranges surrounding crimson-red windswept moors that spanned the near entirety of the large northernmost continent. A massive dull blue ocean that took up half the planet’s surface dimly reflected the light of the two nearby stars; A small blue star eclipsed by a significantly larger white star filled the surrounding space with its combined light and was largely reflected off of the ocean. Alex’s heart nearly threw itself forward against his chest when the Atlantis came out of Jump. The drag he felt inside him had felt like it carried the rest of him forward, were it not for the buckles strapping him down. To the far right of the available view on the bridge was a distant crescent moon. Somehow, a long time ago the satellite suffered some kind of calamity that could have been over hundreds of thousands of years ago that had shattered and broke it from its spherical shape to its now permanent crescent shape shrouded by lily-white chunks of regolith and rock that had once made the moon whole. With some chunks of rock that dwarfed the Atlantis. A miniature asteroid belt orbiting the remnants of its former parent moon with an incalculable amount of parts, and each one reflected the light from the binary stars brightly. At least, the ones that weren’t in the shadow of the largest remaining chunk of rock.
The world beneath; Savannah, it had become known as, with its inviting open grassy plains and vast expanses of ocean and stable tectonic activity made for a beautiful sight as it remained untouched. The mighty bulwark of the Dragon navy and the greater Dragon empire was very proactive in placing this world under its protection, even if the system existed just outside their borders and in shared Alliance space, had made every effort to place it under their care to ensure nobody aside from approved ships would enter its atmosphere. And even with permission granted, the Draconics were still insistent on escort craft closely following. But they weren’t here with official clearance. And sooner or later the Dragons would come and find them with an alien vessel firing on them…and that was how Alex planned to take care of this threat!
“Comms, begin transmitting an SOS to the Dragons on all frequencies,” Alex said. “And make it loud… We are really going to need their help” He got some looks from the crew. Unsurprisingly, nobody wanted to announce their trespassing within Draconic space, much less the Satama system. Regardless of the circumstances of the combined Phoenix and Atlantis crew, the mental image of being subjected to some of the infamous Dragon questioning techniques made it seem like a less stressful situation than they were currently in. Only by a small margin.
Perhaps they’ll get lucky and the I.D.N Galaxius Mons and Ship Master Armadra would be the ones to detect the distress call and be the first to respond to their predicament. At least Armadra might go easy on them.
Samantha unbuckled herself then stood up from her chair, maintaining eye contact with Alex before looking away to face forward, her gaze now fixated towards Midshipman Clemens. She walked along the wall, quickly checking the displays of each operator before moving on to the next operator.
“Long range transmitter is destroyed sirs, I can only transmit on short range. Connection to G.W.I.N has been lost!” A light grey Garuda with ruffled nape feathering and a partially ruined headset reported.
For a brief moment when Alex looked over to them he almost replied to them thinking they were his own communications officer; Junior Lieutenant Hazaari. A Garuda communications officer, granted the Atlantis’ one looked to be younger, masculine, and appeared to be struggling with controlling his talons from shaking.
Samantha bolted over to the Garuda and bent over to get a closer look at their display.
Clemens smacked his display with an open hand, hissing as he cursed at it. “Bloody hell, he’s right. Nav computer’s lost its connection. Only can be making blind jumps now!”
“We don’t need long range,” Alex replied. “We just need to attract the attention of the Draconic patrol ship that’s nearby somewhere.”
Samantha cocked herself upright and looked over to Alex. He could tell in her eyes that she finally understood what he was trying to do. Then turned her face to look out into space as though she just saw something in the corner of her eye. Her attention was diverted towards the shattered remnants of the moon, she walked up to the centre of the bridge and firmly patted down on Clemens’ shoulder with both hands then lifted her right hand and pointed towards the moon.
“Helmsman, can you take us into that debris field?”
Clemens looked over to the corvette commander with a perplexed expression. “What? In that three dimensional obstacle course? Respectfully ma’am you are batshit insane! Even if the Atlantis was in good condition we would take significant damage. Ya get me?”
The Lykan growled lowly, her black lips peeling away to show her rows of fangs shining brightly in the light. She spoke softly, almost quietly but not in a way that betrayed the seething anger that was bubbling beneath the surface. “Need I remind you to watch your tone when speaking to a superior officer, MIDSHIPMAN. As well as the fact that it was your suggestion that we come here.”
Alex had wanted to intervene before Samantha from physically beating his helmsman for the lack of respect. However he wasn’t wrong to point out his observation, even if he was out of line with how he went about it. Given all that they went through it was hardly surprising he would be so quick to snap. However, what was surprising was how long it took before Clemens had lost his cool.
Samantha’s upper eyelid relaxed slightly and she pointed her nose upward so as to look down on Clemens and remind him who was in charge, who was the leader on the ship. Her lips eased up and slowly fell to cover her teeth
“Ya, I know it was my bright idea to come here but I was hoping for-for-for a ring system or an asteroid belt or something.” He stuttered. “Maybe even a meteor shower. But that half destroyed moon!? That’s way too many meteors of various sizes and they will be too condensed for me to safely manoeuvre in this ship.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“But the albedo is still high enough that those rocks should blind their sensors nonetheless, perhaps even better than we could hope for. We aren’t any good in an open fight so maybe we can try hit and run tactics against these things.”
Clemens blinked twice, doubt slowly creeping into his voice. “Y-yes, but that debris field out there isn’t like a ring system or a protoplanetary disk. Those are structured, evenly spaced out and not entirely dense. Those boulders over there there are all over the place, its gonna be a tight fit.”
“Captain Rowan tells me you are one of the best pilots in the entire Navy, I believe you can do it.”
She walked away from Clemens and started towards the Bridge’s portside operators. Clemens on the other hand spun in his chair and glared over towards Alex, his face was static with his mouth slightly ajar. His lips quivering mildly. Alex had seen that look of disbelief and shock before, and though he made a conscious effort to not compliment his cocky pilot too often lest his inflated ego and sense of self importance spans that of the galaxy and threaten to cave in his own head. But despite the tough demeanour he projected towards the former convict for his lack of respect, discipline, as well as his crude candour and perhaps even his own self importance owed in large part to his natural skills as a pilot. Beneath the tough surface, he had come to respect and even depend on Zachary Clemens for his skillset, for his unorthodox and ingenious techniques, but perhaps most of all; his dependability.
Clemens had come a long way from being the hostile and standoffish convict with issues towards figures of authority when he was first assigned to Alex as part of his rehabilitation programme. And if the change in his attitude and the pride he took in what he did was in part due to Alex’s involvement in training and helping him become better than he used to be then it was something Alex could take great pride in. He had even gotten started on drafting up a letter to STARCOM for Clemens to be considered for proper initiation into the Alliance Navy as a proper member and no longer be an advisor.
“Reload missile pods A through F. Prepare to fire all VLS tubes and guide the missiles to follow. Chemical thrusters only, do not engage ion propulsion until I say so. Clemens, you have your orders; take us into the debris field.” Samantha barked out for all to hear.
In response to her commands, the ship centred its prow towards the fragmented moon. Atlantis’s main engines engaged with a strong kick. He got out of his seat and walked forward to get a closer view of the two rows of launch tube hatches opening up. As the last hatch was done, the exposed warheads were launched from each tube systematically. Each one fired upwards and out of Alex’s sight. Behind him, operators verbally confirmed the successful launch of their remotely controlled missile and that they were programming the projectile to follow alongside the Atlantis. Hovering around the corvettes' frayed and burned hull were several cylindrical tubes with a series of small thruster nozzles on both ends and in the centre of the tube. Every now and then one or a few of the small nozzle cones released a jet of vapour to rapidly adjust their vector and heading. Over two dozen successful launches, over a dozen missiles surrounding the Atlantis on its course towards the moon and another few dozen or so were being loaded up into their launcher pods.
Alex was curious with the tactic Samantha was employing here with the early launches and the refusal to use their long range thruster.
“Captain Rowan, come with me.” Samantha suddenly called out.
He twisted his neck in both directions trying to find the Lykan. He found her standing next to a large console with screens that flashed red intermittently. She looked at him and then looked at her screen and uttered something he couldn’t hear from where he was. He approached her and as he got closer he was able to read the text on the console screen. Samantha’s furred hand rested on a handprint scanner, with another hand resting above a flashing red button with the cover still on top. On the screen he looked to see three bars with the top bar glowed green with two blocks separated from each other. The lower two bars were still shaded red which left Alex with only one conclusion.
“Captain Rowan.” Samantha said. “Can I trust you still remember your nuclear codes?”
He nodded.
“Good. Scan your hand and speak your code.”
He complied. First by taking off his glove and placing his exposed hand on the scanner display. A pulse of light ran the length of his hand, then the text on the screen changed to an empty box beneath the words Command Code 2.
“Computer. Authorise launch of nuclear payload. Alexander Rowan, sigma - 778/5185 - upsilon.”
The computer chimed in response. Samantha placed her hand on the scanner again and spoke to the terminal.
She looked over to Alex after the computer chirped in response to her security code. Three sets of codes. Multiple steps of authentication for the launch of specific warheads. Keeping his hand on the left side scanner and Samantha kept her paw on the right side scanner. The three text boxes on the screen had been filled with black dots in place of actual numbers and letters were replaced with bold green letters that read ‘Authorised’.
Another chirp sounded off, except this time it could be heard all around them instead of coming from the console itself. A synthetic voice with feminine tones to it spoke with an echo. “Alert; launch of nuclear weapons has been authorised.”
A brief moment later and two larger launch tubes closer to the bridge opened up. Large cylinders obstructed Alex’s view as the nuclear missiles launched and a brief of bright blue efflux from their thrusters. Their mass was too great to launch using chemical thrusters but as soon as they had gained enough momentum and were far enough away then the ion thruster could be disengaged shortly after leaving the ship and would simply need to keep pace with the Atlantis on RCS thrusters alone.
The asteroid field expanded exponentially. Though they had yet to properly enter the field itself there were signs the Atlantis was getting closer. Several bright rocks flew past them at breakneck speeds, or more accurately, the Atlantis did. The condensed region of the asteroid field had steadily grown to dimensions that almost seemed to span the entire region of space on all sides with no way above, below, or around it. Like a wall of rocks that went on for as far as the eye could see, stretching to infinity. Alex knew this was not the case, that the asteroid field’s true size was far smaller than it appeared.
“What are you thinking, Hammer?” He asked the Lycan commanding officer. She stood with her back perfectly straight and her hand gently stroked her snout.
Truthfully, given her actions between ordering the Atlantis into the dense asteroid pocket and the missiles following close by, the decision to switch all but the corvette’s primary engines to chemical propulsion had made what she was planning all the more clearer.
Her response came out in a venomous sneer. “Those… things will eventually discover us, somehow, they can track us and follow us in open space. We go with Clemens’ original plan except we use this to our advantage; change the odds from one positive contact on scanners to millions.”
A loud clunk sound had cut their conversation short. The floor reverberated from the kinetic energy absorbed from the impact.. The density of silicate rock fragments had dramatically increased as more fragments flew past them. The size of said rocks had also started growing larger and larger the further in they went. One such piece had collided alongside the hull and shattered upon impact into smaller parts. The moon’s remains varied in size from fragments the size of cars to the size of even the Atlantis. Alex away from Samantha to look out towards the asteroid belt. He felt his weight shift in all directions from the carefully calculated and rapidly executed moves performed by his helmsman. His stomach felt like it was in a washing machine being spun in many directions, a sensation which quickly proved to be nauseating. The Atlantis dipped and weaved through the large chunks of silicate rock under the helmsman’s surgically precise skills.
Watching Clemens’ movements closely had shown that his helmsman rarely looked away from the front of his view, no matter how close a large chunk of rock may have gotten, he kept his focus and navigated through the field with calmness.
The intensity of impacts against the hull continued to increase as did the size of the rocks that pelted the Atlantis with some impacting hard enough to have gone straight through their armour and lodged themselves somewhere inside the ship. Several alarms related to atmospheric breaches sounded off but they were quickly ignored as the automatic failsafes kicked in each time and sealed the affected areas. In the back of Alex’s mind he began to wonder just what STARCOM and Admiral Valso would think of this little manoeuvre they were currently engaged in. Most likely the outcome would be along the lines of having protocol regarding allowed methods and tactics being recited to him and Samantha; followed quickly by being told that said protocols were installed to help to keep the maintenance costs of its fleet down as best as possible.
Alex did flinch when a small rock that was no larger than his fist had collided with one glass panel directly in front of him. The rock had shattered into sand, but the glass had a huge crack that spanned most of the panel itself. Even from inside, Alex could make out the small wisps of air and vapour escaping from the cracks before the blast panel came down and prevented him from seeing outside of it. Just in time before the window would shatter entirely.
One voice cried out from the bridge with restrained panic. “Contact! Unidentified vessel just appeared. Reading it over four hundred thousand kilometres astern.”
About time. What took those fuckers long?
Samantha retreated to her chair and sat down.
“Clemens, find us a decent parking spot and prepare to shut down our engines.” She ordered, her voice much more passive and calm than before. Her ears perked up.“All missileers scatter the payloads. Do not engage ion engines until I say so. Helm, bring us about one hundred and eighty degrees. Pitch, minus twelve degrees.”
Clemens responded affirmatively. And in quick succession, the ship swung around slowly according to her orders, the nose of the Atlantis dipped ever so slightly. Alex could only tell that it happened when a nearby, substantially sized rock slowly drifted towards the top of his view. The hull continued to be pelted as she swung around and batted rocks out of their orbit. Whilst several of them had embedded themselves into the main structure, the Atlantis was still space worthy… Relatively.
“Any indicators that they have found us?” Alex asked.
“Negative- wait… They are actively scanning the region but nothing suggests they know where we are.” One of the operators said.
It was then that Alex realised that for the first time since standing on the bridge of the Atlantis that it was silent. There was no murmur of information being passed on, there was no gentle thrumming of the engines. Alarms and impact alerts were silent. Samantha made use of the time dispatching damage control teams to patch up the worst of the hull breaches as best they could. She tapped on her screen, tsk’d, then mumbled whatever it was she had been reading. Alex was able to catch snippets of what she was saying under her breath. Reports related to several compartments in the fore section having chunks of rock embedded within the bulkheads, and the gaping holes their entry had made through the outer and inner hull. Likewise, Alex had taken to contacting his crew through his Wristpad to evacuate the storage hold and assist the crew of the Atlantis in any capacity they could. He hoped this would at least take their minds off of the conflict and give them something to do.
When he made his way back to his chair next to Samantha, he pulled up the screen and read through the list of deceased crewmen followed by the list of those reported as missing. His stomach churned and his heart ached as he knew that ‘missing’ usually meant someone was trapped within a breached compartment or had been vented out into space. He blinked once to suppress the urge to feel sad. Not wanting to show weakness at such a critical and inappropriate time.
Clemens had hid the Atlantis behind a substantially sized asteroid that looked to be the size of a small island. The Atlantis ceased its spin and settled into a position that placed Savannah in the distance outside of the asteroid field after several jets had fired to counter the inertia to a halt. The terrestrial world outside the asteroid field, with its rumoured vast expanses of golden yellow steppes, crimson windswept moors that lined the coastlines of the continents and dull blue oceans looked to be a prime example of a world ready for colonisation. Alex could only partially see the planet’s rumoured beauty in the distance behind the regolith and rocks between them and Savannah. The view would have been a sight to behold were it not overshadowed by the malevolent presence of the bright yellow ship far in the distance.
On a terminal screen he attempted to access the camera feed, hoping to catch some high definition glimpse of Savannah. Instead he had scoffed in disbelief as the first few externally mounted cameras he tried to watch through were disabled. He had no idea why he still felt surprised or frustrated while he started rapidly switching feeds as he saw the same black screen with the golden-yellow writing: CAMERA FEED DISABLED, REFER TO MAINTENANCE.
Another seven feeds later of seeing the same message again and again had made the captain shake his head and stop to ponder on his next move. To save time, he pulled up the diagnostic screen and browsed the layout plan of the Atlantis to see which live feed he can still access. He found one situated along the ventral hull that was still functioning. The terminal screen lit up with a clean quality, the camera seemed to be situated near the dual nose-mounted autocannons situated under the keel of the ship, while using a directional pad to rotate the camera and zoom in on the alien ship as far as the camera could and still maintain optimal picture quality of the alien ship. For the first time ever since encountering this thing in the mass grave site of Capricorn fleet back in the heart of the Sagittarius nebula could he see the damage the alien ship had taken, damage that reaffirms that this thing wasn’t some indestructible force that could not be held back by naval firepower. Even from a distance he could recognise the plumes of atmosphere and moisture leaking out into space in several places along the vessel. Scorch marks along the hull and even sections of the external hull had been removed from blasts. The vessel shimmered as it seemed to scan the region around them, including the Atlantis itself on a couple of occasions while it patrolled the outer rim of the debris field.
Alex found himself sighing in disbelief as he couldn’t believe that the Atlantis made such an impact against this foe when his well-armoured, heavily defendable cruiser was ripped to shreds by this thing. Perhaps if the Phoenix hadn’t been damaged by the ruins of the other vessels and was limited in its ability to fire then perhaps he could have stood a better chance against this damned thing.
Through the camera feed, the alien ship started to adjust its heading to take it deeper into the field but not directly facing the Atlantis.
“Enemy vessell is charging weapons!” someone called out.
A second later the vista was filled with golden light fired at one of the many large rocks within view. The meteor was obliterated from and reduced to a smattering of bright orange sparks. Nobody seemed fazed by this. A second beam was fired towards a smaller rock closer to the Atlantis. Small gasps escaped some of the bridge crew followed by the sound of small heated pebbles pelting the hull and glass in a chorus of clinks against glass and metal.
“They can’t see us,” Alex said aloud. “They’re just trying to provoke us into revealing our location.”
Samantha stood up from her chair and took two steps forward, eyes glued forward as the alien ship navigated the asteroid field. Seemingly every thirty seconds they fired a beam of energy at a random meteorite. She made her way to the display table and tapped on the keypad to provoke the black tabletop to come to life with an eerie blue hue.
Alex walked up to the table just as Samantha inputted several more commands to the tabletop surface. The table screen displayed a bird’s eye view of the Atlantis and the surrounding area. Small blue dots scattered all around the map attracted Alex’s attention, with many of those dots behind an asteroid. From his perspective, a bright red chevron appeared on the edge of the left hand side of the display and steadily moved across the display and into the field of asteroids. Looking at the locations of the missile identification markers on the map, the ones closest to what could be considered the edge of the field were wide apart and each warhead became progressively closer all the way up to the Atlantis.
Samantha’s eyes narrowed themselves at the display while her ears flattened themselves behind her head as she watched the enemy aimlessly and unknowingly walk into their trap.
“Gunners, prepare Gauss cannons. Missileers get ready to fire on my order. Whoever is in charge of the nukes; remain steady and don’t launch until I explicitly say so.” She broke away from the table display to look at Alex.
She would never admit it, not in front of her subordinates at least, her mixed feelings of hope and anxiety for the plan and trap she had set. Alex watched the pieces slowly fall into place on the tactical display with his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Another flash from behind and the micrometeoroid storm clattered against the hull and glass with such ferocity and intensity that a couple of rocks punched through whatever glass was still unshielded, a brief panic ensued, some concerned voices were raised. Thankfully those were quelled quickly when Alex ordered all blast shields to deploy. At least that should ease their minds for a bit longer.
The alien ship stood still in the debris field. Alex could have sworn he heard Samantha mumbling obscenities under her breath demanding the aliens get closer so the trap can be sprung. Looking at the map from the opposing angle of Samantha’s point of view had made Alex wonder if the trap could be less rigid and modified in case something didn’t work out.
“Are these all the remaining munitions?” His hand waved above the surface.
The lykan shook her head briefly. “Hell no… but it is most of it. We are running low on ammunition and ordnance. If this doesn’t work I don’t know what to do next.”
For a brief reprieve all was quiet. Everyone had remained quiet, careful with their actions as though any noise they made would attract the attention of the aliens. Nothing had happened on the map either, Samantha kept uttering under her breath urging the aliens to get closer and closer in the asteroid field.
“Captain Rowan, get ready to fire.” She sternly said to him.“All turret operators and missileers line up your shots, spool your turrets and power the lasers!”
The Alien ship was only less than one hundred kilometres away now… Eight hundred kilometres, then seven hundred. Rapidly closing in on the ideal spot. Alex could slowly start to see why Samantha was not springing her trap so early like he formerly thought to do only a moment ago. Once it was in the target zone it would be assaulted on all sides with very little room to move and be completely overwhelmed by trickery and cunning rather than overwhelming firepower. Though the overwhelming firepower would still come in hand right about now.
Finally, the moment arrived, it was dead centre in the middle of the killzone and Samantha's muzzle twisted into a perverse, grin of sinister delight and gratification. She shot up to look Alex in the eye with that sinister look. Without saying a word, Alex quickly took a deep breath in and shouted at the top of his lungs. “ALL WEAPONS, OPEN FIRE!”
And that was exactly what happened, a chorus of excited point defence autocannons chattering away their ammunition, the lasers humming with power as they sliced across the void with surgical precision. To complete the orchestra of death and destruction was the inclusion of pounding sensation of missile pods thrusting their payloads so carelessly at the enemy.
The pulsating beacons on the tactical display zipped around their silicate and chondrite protection, as soon as they were clear they had engaged their Ion engines to fling themselves across the short distance with such speed that it had almost looked instantaneous. Quick flashes pulsed behind him, loose debris scattered along the floor rattled loudly against the vibrating of the cannons firing hundreds of rounds into the alien vessel.
“Forward auto-cannon ammunition down to five percent!” One of the officers shouted.
“Missile pod’s Alpha through Delta are now depleted!”
“Switching to manual targeting, asteroids are making it difficult to get a lock!”
The aliens responded by retaliating against another rock nearby that was too close for Alex to not be convinced they weren’t already certain of their location. He spun on his heels to face Corvette Commander Hammer again and placed both hands on the edge of the tactical display table and looked her square in the eyes.
“They’re going to get a fix on our location very soon, Commander. I suggest we get out of here and hit them with the nukes!” He growled.
Initially she didn’t respond. Alex thought at first it was because he wasn’t speaking loud enough to be heard over the sound of cannon rattles and laser cannons droning and alarms ringing all around them. Or that perhaps she was so focused on the display layout and giving orders automatically without any further thought that she didn’t process his words. He was about to repeat himself much louder than before just as Samantha suddenly cocked her head up.
“I concur,” she nodded. Then turned to face the front of the Bridge. “Midshipman Clemens, get us the hell out of this field and fast! That thing will zero us the moment our engines light up. Any missileers in charge of the nuclear payloads get ready to strike on my command!”
Then she opened a channel to the engine room and spoke with her First Mate. “Benner, report on the engines and damage control?”
His voice came through the speaker immediately. “DC teams have made considerable headway on patching up much of the internal hull punctures. Decks A through D are completely spaced.”
“And the engines? Because we are going to need them up and running, fast”
“Ma’am the engines are held together by electrical tape and poor welding. Give us a few minutes to prepare then start the ignition… Just pray the containment shielding holds and we don’t erupt into a nuclear fireball.” Benner muttered towards the end.
Alex should have felt alarmed at that passing remark. But under the dire circumstances and the remaining missiles charging towards the aliens declining rapidly had left him with only two conceivable options and both outcomes were heavily reliant on a gamble with significant stakes at hand.
The Atlantis could stay and fight the aliens until help arrived, even though communications officers onboard the Atlantis gave no indication that a Draconic cruiser was entering the area, let alone whether or not their brief cry for help was heard by anyone within distance. His other option, one that he was starting to lean more towards was to turn tail and get out of the meteor field, detonating its nuclear warheads at the aliens and relying heavily upon Clemens’ skill as a pilot is put to the test with several factors tying his hands and hindering his ability. And hopefully avoid the highly energised shockwave of X-rays and neutrinos that came from the blast.
Both options didn’t seem too appealing, both were dangerous and only one of them was about to be decided as the next course of action. Alex’s eyes darted from side to side as he studied the readout on the display table, calculations ran through his head incredibly fast as he tried to figure out the right action at the right moment to increase their chances.
“You have two minutes, Benner. Make it worthwhile.” Samantha replied.
Alex spun to face his crewman at the Helm. “Midshipman Clemens, flip us about and slam the accelerator hard!”
Clemens acknowledged, albeit hesitantly.
The young, skilled pilot didn’t give off his usual sense of superiority and cockiness Alex had come to expect from him. If he was frightened or nervous then he did his best to hide it, but even still, trying to outrun a nuclear blast within a dense field of rocks with a damaged engine hadn’t made his job easier.
Another flash outside drew Alex’s attention away from the helmsman. The alien ship was starting to look worse for wear, multiple jets of whatever the aliens called a breathable atmosphere and moisture leaked out of large scars along the hull. Small plumes of fire were expelled alongside some of the leaking atmosphere.
Along the curved rim of the hull of the ship began to glow warmly before discharging another blast towards one of the missiles from the Atlantis. For a small moment, it almost seemed like a small glimmer of hope manifested within his mind that the option to stay and fight was looking far more hopeful than initially expected. However, that small glimmer of hope that shone brightly within his bleak outlook on the current situation was swiftly quelled by the strategic and logical part of his mind that told him staying to fight was a poor choice to even consider.
An assessment he found himself agreeing with more and more.
The alien vessel spun along its horizontal axis and angled its bow towards the direction of the Atlantis. Alarmed, Alex started back to Samantha who was shouting orders to her bridge crew.
“We need to go. Right now!” He snarled.
Samantha looked at him with a confounded expression. Then her big golden eyes broke away from him for a quick second to look to the side, presumably to look behind him. Then her eyes returned to meet his and a brief look of understanding was on her face. She opened a channel to Benner once more.
“Time’s up Benner. Ready or not, that engine is getting fired up. Clemens! Start it up, full speed… any direction!”
Clemens responded enthusiastically. “Aye!” His pale, lean fingers danced across the consoles as he pressed buttons and flipped switches so quickly that Alex had stopped following what he was doing as he had lost what Clemens was doing early in the process.
The engines hummed. Whirring grew more intense through the floor of the bridge, light fixtures flickered from the spike in energy reserves redirected to powering the ignition sequence within the fusion engines. The flicker only lasted a couple of seconds as the ignition succeeded in creating fusion and the lights returned to normal. Humming permeated the walls as the sound absorbing materials around the engines and the engine room was torn and ruined.
Clemens’ fingers, still a blur of movement above the console, had suddenly flung themselves towards the throttles and he pulled on them hard towards him. The Atlantis’s nose flung upwards as it spun on its central axis, a slight delay and Alex felt his stomach sink lower within his body as though he were in an elevator going up. A beam of light shot across the hull, narrowly missing. Clemens used his right hand to flick a couple of switches before bringing his hand back and thrusting the throttle forward into the console.
The engines rumbled in response, the sudden burst of momentum took Alex by surprise and he was thrown onto his backside by the sudden force of inertia working against him. He rolled up along his spine, losing all sense of direction as the world around him spun with only the cold metallic surface giving him any sense of direction to work with. The rolling had made him stand on his head for a brief second before falling on his belly against the floor. Even as he tried to force himself up off the floor, the sense of inertia helped get him standing upright once again but keeping his balance had proven more challenging than he thought.
His hands found the safety railing that surrounded the raised platform where the Corvette Commander and First Mate sat. The muffled roar of the engines and harsh expulsions of gas from ACS thruster ports made for sharp, quick heading adjustments as Clemens sped dangerously fast within the field. His quick thinking and full comprehension of three-dimensional navigation made him perform stunts with the corvette Alex was almost certain the Atlantis was not rated nor designed for.
By the time he got his bearings and suppressed the urge to feel sick from the contents of his stomach rolling around inside him, he was ready to witness Clemens pull another dangerous stunt as a large piece of rock rapidly closed in on them. The pilot twisted his wrists that still gripped the throttles and the Atlantis rolled almost one-eighty degrees counterclockwise until the boulder was underneath them instead of above them and then rose horizontally as Clemens sharply raised the pitch of the Atlantis. The Atlantis’ gravity plates and inertial stabilisers were relatively brand new, even top-of-the-line; so to Alex, it was rather telling of the state they were in when he could feel its attraction wavering at times and failing to keep him steady.
The Phoenix at least had an excuse for why standing during such daring evasive manoeuvres was listed as a health and safety hazard.
Just when Alex had parted his feet shoulder width apart in an effort to stabilise himself further he heard Clemens loudly exclaiming to no one in particular. “Everybody buckle up! This is going to be rough!”
And just like that, Alex grimaced in frustration. So now was the time for him to worry? Now, and not a couple of minutes ago when he just got done being bounced around the Bridge like a pinball? As much as Alex wanted to verbalise his disbelief he made his way over to the First Mate’s chair next to Samantha as quickly as he could. He sat down just in time as Clemens performed some kind of move that pressed him firmly against the lumbar support. After finding the seatbelts on the differently designed chair he was quick to apply them into the central buckle.
Alex looked over towards Samantha, an intense pressure pressing down on his chest. “Shall I give the order to deploy the atomic warheads?”
“… The word is given.” She said after a brief pause.
“Missileers, nuclear strike is authorised! Acquire target lock and fire at will!”
Some of the officers shouted their launch confirmation a short second later. Nothing noticeable happened. Nothing aside from more stunt moves by Clemens as he tried to dodge both the meteorites and the Aliens targeting them.
“Detonation confirmed. Positive impact!” A bridge officer shouted.
The surface of the rocks ahead shone brightly, a reflection of the brief flash from the explosion. No sound followed suit; no shockwave of pressure rocked the Atlantis. But the lack of air or pressure wasn’t going to hamper the spread of ionised radiation heading towards them. A second flash occurred shortly after the first one. Samantha called out, asking for confirmation on the destruction of them. Once more the glimmer of hope within Alex’s mind came to the fore and just like last time he pushed it aside knowing these creatures were far more resilient than they appeared.
“Positive impact confirmed. Wait, the vessel is still afloat sir.”
“Confirm, it has not been destroyed but has suffered extensive damage across its framework.”
“Spectrometers detected a massive pulse of X-rays coming towards us!”
Samantha leaned forward in her seat as she barked out. “Clemens find a large boulder and hide us. Quick!”
And he complied, his wrists twitched spasmodically with timed, microsecond precision while they maintained a firm grip on the throttles to guide the Atlantis. His head perked up and to the right, whether what he did next was part of his plan to save the Atlantis or just out of sheer desperation brought on by the rapidly encroaching invisible wall of lethal radiation. Clemens’ hand flew to another throttle by his side and forced it forward all the way possible and the Atlantis responded with a huge rush of G-force that threw Alex and Samantha’s head back against the chairs.
Under regular circumstances, the detonation of one atomic warhead was nothing to be concerned about. Even two. Standard construction designs took intense radiation exposure into account, even more so for armed forces vessels which were equipped with meter-and-a-half thick, lead-lined titanium armour harvested and forged from the smelters of Terra’s moon, Luna. But the Atlantis’s armour was in ruins, half its armour plates were gone, entire sections exposed to vacuum or destroyed. The bridge had its blast shields deployed and only a holographic outline of what was in front of them replaced an actual view. Their proximity to the detonations was far closer than they would have liked. Alex took into account the mathematical equations and knew the particle density released from the warheads would become negligible over distance but the state they were in, on top of the many detonations, the exposure for them was going to be more problematic. Both Samantha and Alex took this into account and knew the only ‘safe’ bet they had was to find something big, and thick and then hide behind it until the wave passed.
Chances were that the high energy exposure would result in the crew passing out and rendered comatose to the full force of the radiation and then pass away a short time later.
A large chunk of rock that looked to be the size of a small moon soon appeared in view, the face of the rock that was visible to Alex and the Atlantis had a massive impact crater in it. Clemen’s ducked and weaved the battered Atlantis past the smaller and larger rocks that he could avoid as the distance between the large rock grew to titanic proportions. Clemens had retracted the throttle to slow down the thrust output and even began to engage the forward-facing thrusters to slow their approach.
The pilot turned his face, his lips quivering and eyes steeled to avoid showing fear “Corvette Commander Hammer, let everyone know this is gonna be rough!”
Seriously, you think this isn’t rough enough? Just how much more did he expect before things became too rough for that cocky bastard?
Sam reached for her microphone and opened a shipwide announcement “All hands all hands, brace yourselves immediately!”
Without meaning to, Alex had found himself shifting his body to lean on the right-hand armrest in preparation for the number of G-forces that would force him to go the other way. Clemens had engaged the fore thrusters to maximum output and began a series concerning and alarming motions of the ship which Alex grew increasingly worried that the Atlantis wasn’t capable of handling.
The brazen pilot threw the throttles to his left, pulled them towards him and quickly threw his right hand to quickly input commands on the terminal next to him. The Atlantis then hooked around the rock, at first it looked like they were going to overshoot and end up performing a U-turn. Instead, The fore thrusters were cut as were the primary engines behind them, the stern starboard facing attitude control thrusters fired at full blast in sync with the fore portside thrusters firing at only quarter of their maximum output to spin the Atlantis on its central axis. The mildly terrified Captain Alex felt his body being forced in all directions by inertia that to him had felt rather unnatural. Suddenly the aft portside ACS fired at full thrust in conjecture with the fore starboard thrusters to bring the Atlantis’ spin to a stop and hold the vessel steady while facing the backside of the large asteroid.
He looked over to one of the junior officers and shouted. “ETA on that radiation wake?”
A brief pause ensued. The suspense and waiting became an overwhelming sensation that was bordering on torture as he waited, the invisible wall inching closer as they waited and hoped their cover would be enough to survive.
The Lykan officer threw his head back towards Sam and Alex. “ITS RIGHT ON TOP OF US!”