Chapter 13 – Delta-V
The Broodmother’s briefing room felt smaller than usual, especially after Cirakari activated the holographic display. The familiar blue glow cast shadows across our faces.
“Two Overseer interceptors,” Cirakari began, “detected on an inbound vector toward the Brando mining cluster.” The hologram shifted, showing a complex orbital plot. Red markers traced the interceptors’ trajectory aimed at the outer asteroid cloud of TRAPPIST-1.
“Another suicide run?” Tài asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.
Cirakari nodded grimly. “Analysis confirms no return capability. Standard Overseer playbook: maximum damage, zero survival intent.”
Gulliver leaned back and his chair creaked. “Classic, burn everything and call it a strategy. I don’t know how they convince these guys to do those attacks.”
My throat tightened as memories flooded back from the chaotic battle during my rescue, the stomach-churning acceleration, the bone-deep certainty that death was moments away. The room seemed to spin slightly, and I gripped the edge of my console to steady myself.
“Aren’t the mining stations spread across hundreds of asteroids?” I asked, forcing my voice to sound steadier than I felt. “How can just two interceptors do any significant damage?”
Cirakari glanced at me. “In all our encounters with them, we never managed to empty their missile magazines. So we assume they can bring a hell of a lot more.” She tapped a control, bringing up a detailed sheet with known data about the interceptors. “And with those rapid-fire coilguns, they could flood the mining bases with clouds of projectiles. It’s still a stretch for such small vessels, but it’s the leading theory.”
image [https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/082/181/389/large/rklehm-showdown.jpg?1732274779]
“Fantastic,” Gulliver muttered, “because a standard apocalypse wasn’t bad enough.”
“The Broodmother is going to deploy four Freedom-class frigates for interception,” Cirakari continued, either not noticing my distress or choosing to push through it. “That includes us. Mission parameters are strict: the Broodmother will slingshot us to the encounter zone. We will coast our way through with minimal RCS adjustments. We will have just enough Delta-V for the fight and our burn back to the Broodmother.”
“Translation: no fancy flying,” Gulliver quipped, but his usual levity felt forced.
“More like no second chances,” Tài countered. “We miss, we drift, we die.”
The hologram expanded, showing detailed thrust vectors and intercept calculations. Numbers and trajectories filled my screens, blurring together as my pulse quickened. The familiar weight of panic settled on my chest, making each breath a conscious effort.
“Fred,” Tài’s voice broke through the haze. “You good?”
I blinked, realizing everyone was looking at me. My hand was white-knuckled on the console. “Yeah,” I lied.
Gulliver's hand landed on my shoulder, solid and reassuring. “Relax, you’ve got the easy job. Just keep the engines running while we do all the hard work.”
“Right,” Tài chimed in with a warm smile. “And if anything goes wrong, we can always blame the quantum fluctuations or something like that.”
Cirakari’s gaze held for a moment before she turned back to the display. “Focus. The interceptors will reach the Brando cluster in four and a half days. From now on, we’re entering full combat mode—intense training and simulations. That goes double for you, Fred.”
“Guess I’ll skip breakfast,” Gulliver said with a forced laugh, but no one joined in this time.
“Any other jokes?” Tài said dryly. “Or are we done pretending this isn’t a suicide run too?”
“We’re not them,” Cirakari snapped. “Have you forgotten who’s piloting? Have any of you ever died with me at the helm?” She let out a short, sharp laugh, and after a beat, Tài and Gulliver joined in. I wasn’t so sure, but I managed a faint smile of my own.
✹✸✶✸✹
The following days blurred into a relentless cycle of preparation. My world narrowed to diagnostic screens and emergency procedures, each hour bringing new lessons in combat engineering. I couldn’t help but wish for Dr. Xuefeng’s guidance. The ship’s simulator became my second home, running countless scenarios until my fingers moved automatically across the controls. Surprisingly, I found myself becoming a fan of the minimalistic interface.
“Thermal spike in engine three!” Gulliver once shouted during one of the drills, timing my responses. “What’s your move, hotshot?”
I raced through the procedures, redirecting coolant flow, adjusting power distribution, all while monitoring a dozen other systems.
“Too slow!” he barked on a bad run, smacking the console for emphasis.
“If you keep yelling in my ear, the ship might explode just to spite you,” I snapped back once, earning a rare laugh from Tài.
Sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes theoretical deaths accumulated. Always, I learned.
Between drills, the crew swapped overly exaggerated stories during hurried meals.
“So there we were,” Gulliver once began, gesturing dramatically in the mess hall. “Only four missiles left, five incoming. The cap asked what we could do.”
“Let me guess,” Tài interrupted. “You just happened to be a secret missile multiplier?”
“Naturally,” Gulliver replied with a perfectly straight face. “Not to brag, but I’ve been credited with inventing spontaneous ammunition duplication. Classified tech, you wouldn’t understand.”
Cirakari, seated across from us, tried to suppress a smile but failed. “You’re an idiot, Gulliver.”
“An idiot who’s still alive,” he countered, grinning.
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These moments of levity were brief but vital. Back in the simulator, Cirakari pushed me harder. “Fred, you’re micromanaging too much. Trust the system. It’s designed to support you.”
“Trust the system?” I muttered, wiping sweat from my brow. “Easy for you to say. You don’t have a habit of blowing up in these simulations.”
“I don’t,” she agreed with a smirk. “Because I listen. Less hesitation, more instinct. Do it again.”
By the second night, exhaustion began to creep in, though the others showed no signs of slowing. During a rare quiet moment in the mess hall, I accidentally vocalized a thought. “Have any of you heard anything from the Virgo?”
The question hung awkwardly in the air.
Cirakari raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean: ‘Has anyone heard from Alice?’”
“Well... She’s part of the crew, so—”
“She’s aboard the Huánglóng cruiser now,” Cirakari interrupted, her tone clipped. “The Virgo is on a classified mission.”
Her answer was final, a clear signal not to press further. Still, Tài gave me a sidelong glance as if to say, Don’t take it personally.
On the final day, as we prepared for undocking, I realized something had changed. The fear was still there, my ever-present companion, but it no longer paralyzed me. Instead, it drove me to triple-check every system, every connection, exactly as Dr. Xuefeng once taught me.
The training was over. The real fight was about to begin.
✹✸✶✸✹
“Undocking sequence initiated,” Tài announced as the massive clamps released their hold on Peregrina. Around us, three other Freedom-class frigates—Jal-Gabon, Thunderborn, and Münster—detached in perfect synchronization.
“Attack group, form up,” Cirakari commanded across the tactical channel. “Maintain delta-v awareness at all times. We’re operating on a tight fuel budget.”
The frigates moved into a precise diamond formation, each ship five kilometers apart. As soon as we detached from the Broodmother, it began a retrograde burn, pulling itself out of the projected encounter zone. Its massive bulk dwindled as we drifted further away, leaving us alone in the vastness of space.
“Every time I see her leave, it feels like someone just shut the door on us,” Gulliver muttered, breaking the silence on the internal comms.
“More like locked it,” I replied, unable to keep the unease from my voice.
“Quit the dramatics,” Cirakari cut in sharply. “Focus on your stations. We’re not out here to philosophize.”
Three days carried by the Broodmother brought us to the coasting phase, five hours still remained until the encounter, but the combat itself would unfold in a handful of deadly, bloodthirsty seconds.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do but endure the five hours of near nothingness before the combat. I found myself staring at my console, running yet another diagnostic on the coolant system, despite it already passing every check twice over. The monotony stretched on.
“Status report on Jal-Gabon,” Tài called out, breaking the silence.
“They’re solid,” Cirakari replied, glancing at the tactical display. “All systems are nominal. Same for the others. Keep your focus on Peregrina.”
Gulliver leaned back in his chair, his voice casual over the comms. “You know, this part always gets me. All this effort, months of prep, and then the whole mission comes down to a blink-and-you-miss-it firefight.”
“That’s why you’re supposed to not miss it,” Tài replied, deadpan.
“Thanks for the advice, Dad,” Gulliver shot back.
Cirakari’s voice cut through their banter. “Keep the channel clear unless it’s mission-critical.”
The hours crawled by. Cirakari made every effort to keep us sharp, rotating between system drills and quick tactical quizzes, but even she couldn’t hide the tension seeping through her usually calm demeanor.
The tactical display suddenly pinged, pulling everyone’s attention.
“Preliminary target acquisition,” Tài reported. “Two heat signatures at twenty-five light-seconds out. Looks like—a burn?”
“What are they doing?” Cirakari murmured. She leaned closer to her console, scanning the data. “Make no assumptions. Gulliver, cross-check against known Overseer configurations. Fred, prep thermal systems for combat load.”
“Got it,” Gulliver and I said in unison.
The once-boring coasting phase was replaced by a suffocating tension. My hands hovered over the controls, running through the same sequences I had practiced countless times in the simulator. Yet, this time, there would be no reset button.
“Contact divergence!” The warning came from Thunderborn’s tactical officer. “Overseer interceptors are altering course.”
The tactical display updated, showing the enemy vessels veering away from our calculated intercept point. The sudden shift sent a ripple of unease through the fleet’s comms.
“They’ve never avoided engagement before,” Münster’s captain noted. “Could be a trap.”
“Or they’ve learned,” Jal-Gabon’s commander countered. “Either way, we need to decide: pursue or protect?”
The debate escalated quickly. Pursuing meant burning precious fuel, potentially stranding us far from the Broodmother. But abandoning the intercept would leave the mining cluster exposed. The stakes couldn’t have been clearer.
“They’re forcing us to show our hand,” Cirakari said. “We can’t just sit here.”
“We also can’t risk an empty tank,” Gulliver muttered, half to himself.
As the argument played out across the tactical channel, I turned my attention to the numbers. I cross-referenced engine specifications, fuel consumption rates, and Dr. Xuefeng’s theoretical limits. A possible solution emerged, unconventional but feasible.
“Captain,” I said, surprising myself with the steadiness in my voice. “I have a proposal.”
Cirakari turned to me, one eyebrow raised. “Go ahead, Engineer.”
“If we jettison our excess LOX reserves and switch the LANTR engines to efficiency mode, we can extend our range significantly.” I pulled up the calculations on the main display. “We’d have less oxidizer for high-g maneuvers, but the mass reduction would compensate.”
Cirakari studied the numbers. “And the return trip?”
“Strip everything non-essential after engagement,” I explained, warming to the idea. “Dump empty tanks, excess armor panels, unused ammunition. Between that and efficiency mode, we should have enough delta-v to make it back.”
“And what if they have enough delta-v to keep avoiding the encounter?” Cirakari pressed with evident skepticism.
“Then we would be in the endless possibilities scenario,” I replied, pulling up projections. “If they perform another significant maneuver, we’d have to keep chasing the encounter, but if they keep running, we’ll have no choice but to retreat.”
Cirakari’s jaw tightened, her eyes narrowing at the display. “Fine. I’ll send it to the Admiralty.” Though she didn’t look convinced, she forwarded the plan up the chain of command. “Admiralty is reviewing the proposal,” she announced after a moment. “Hold position and stand by.”
“This is crazy,” Gulliver muttered over the internal channel, though there was a hint of admiration in his tone. “Crazy enough to work, maybe, but still crazy.”
“Sometimes crazy is all we’ve got,” Tài replied philosophically. “Besides, when has anything about this job been normal?”
I stayed glued to my station, monitoring the engine readouts and triple-checking my figures. The plan would work. The math was solid. But math couldn’t account for the chaos of combat, the thousand unpredictable things that could go wrong.
“What’s the mood, Fred?” Gulliver asked, leaning back in his seat as though we weren’t standing on the edge of disaster.
I glanced at him. “Somewhere between hopeful and terrified. You?”
“Eh, leaning toward terrified,” he said with a grin. “Hope’s overrated anyway.”
The tension stretched, the moments dragging until a new voice cut through the comms, crisp and authoritative.
“All ships, this is Admiralty actual. Proposal approved with modifications. Implement efficiency protocols immediately. Weapons free upon intercept. Good hunting.”
The words seemed to echo in the silence that followed.
“Well, there it is,” Tài said softly.
“And so it begins,” Cirakari added. “Fred, initiate the protocols. Gulliver, keep tactical updated. Everyone, be ready.”
“Let’s see who’s crazier,” Gulliver muttered.
The hunt was on.