James was going off his rocker at the bridge crew for not doing their job when he was punched in the side of his face, sending him flying across the bridge, his head dinting the wall as he slid to the floor.
“You dare come up here and try to order my bridge crew around. Go back down there and do this shit with your knuckle-draggers; don't you ever come back up to my bridge again,” York said before turning to his bridge crew. “Throw out all the calculations and start again; we can't trust them due to this idiot's interpretation.” The entire bridge crew stared daggers at the man on the ground. Then York spoke to the guards at the door: “Can you two take him out of here and try to figure out what he wanted?”
“Yes, sir.” The two guards picked up their commander and carried him outside.
“That asshole; I will teach him for hitting me.”
“Sir, I would suggest you drop this. You have already cost them over a day's worth of calculations.”
“What do I care about that? He attacked me.”
“Sir, those calculations they were doing were to give us a chance of surviving. Also, sir, you are the one at fault here, not Commander York.”
“How?”
“You tried to mutiny, sir. He is the commander here, not you. You tried to take over his position.”
“I didn't do that; those people were carrying on like fools. I just tried to insert some order into that chaos.”
“Sir, how many people are on that bridge?”
“I don't know, like seven. So what's your point?”
“Yes, there are only seven. Seven people to do a job that would take all of us to do, and then we would still mess it up.”
“I don't get it. What's so hard about flying this ship?”
“Sure, we could fly the ship, but there is no way we would be able to do what they do. One of the things they were calculating was the ability to enter faster than light. They need to track every object in the path, and if they miss one, the ship would be destroyed in an instant.”
“Oh.” James said before continuing with, “I should probably go apologise to them.”
“I would suggest you don't; they are in a really bad mood now.”
“Then, wait, I was contacted by Alric. I need to inform York of the plan.”
“Sir, please stay here. I will go get him for you,” Jo said before going back into the bridge. A minute later, Jo came back out and said to James that he would meet him in the operations room in five minutes. He is just running a scan and can't leave until it's done. James walked over to a ladder, descended one deck, and entered the room alone before sitting on one of the seats. Ten minutes later, York slid down the ladder from the bridge. “I'm sorry I'm late; we just ran into some scanning errors and had to rerun them. So, you heard from Alric; what is his plan?”
“His plan is to use those ships to break us out before blasting anything that moves on the moon.”
“Does he know there is a small fleet of ships currently over the invaders' abandoned base, and that a fleet of ships has begun preparations for something?”
“He does now,” Alric said as he appeared beside the two men. “We are going to postpone the rescue mission till we can figure out what is happening on Earth. Hold on; we will come and get you.”
“There's no need. I might have a way for us to get out, but it's a bit dangerous, and I would need to ask the crew first. But if it works and the enemy fleet heads in a certain direction, we should catch them by surprise,” York said, only for a voice to say, “Let me guess, you're going to use the FTL engine.” Jake said as he lent on the door frame. “Sir, you're awake; are you feeling better now?” York asked.
“Not at 100% yet,” Jake said, only to cough up some blood. “Anyway, Alric, do you mind telling me why I was not informed that we had other ships?”
“Sir, I didn't tell you because they were not ready yet.”
“But both my highest-ranking officers were aware. You holding this information back could have gotten people killed. If I don’t have all the information, then how can I come up with an appropriate plan?”
“Sir, this information would not have killed anyone,” Alric said with certainty.
“You are right this time, but how can I trust you in the future if you hold back information?” Alric didn't have a response after that, so Jake asked York to tell him his plan, and it seemed he wanted to use the FTL system to make a very small jump of not even a second, which should put the Rusty Bucket behind the enemy fleet. After exiting the jump, the Rusty Bucket would open fire on the fleet as they were attacked from the front, giving the enemy fleet no retreat.
Ninety-two hours later, Jake was sitting at his console as the Rusty Bucket was waiting to begin its escape from the moon and into battle.
“Joel, do you have any communications from Earth?”
“Yes, sir, it seems the Earth has its own fleet of cargo ships equipped with light weapons systems, and they are heading directly for the enemy fleet. I think they're using the cargo ships as troop transports… Wait… it seems we have been contacted by a group called the United Earth Defence Forces, and the members include the USA Space Force, China Space Force, Russia Space Force, and the EU Space Force. Then there are theUK Land, Sea and Air Force, Commonwealth Land and Air Force, and finally the Ireland Land Force. It seems they want to hire us to protect Earth from the invaders.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Is that fleet attacking the enemy part of them?”
“One minute, sir; I'm getting further updates from Earth. Oh shit.” Jake looked over and was about to ask when Joel continued. “To answer your question, yes, and it seems the ships are full of explosives and runabouts. They're going to make a suicide run on the fleet. Sir, we don't have time to complete our plan; our ships won't make it in time.”
“York, change of plans. What is the earliest we can leave?”
“One hour, sir.”
“Frank, when will the United Earth Defence Forces fleet reach the enemy?”
“At their current speed, it will take them fifty-six minutes.”
“Shit, we're going to be late. Joel, communicate with Earth and see if they can slow them down a bit.”
A minute later, Joel spoke up once more. “They won't stop, sir.”
“Well, I guess we will be late to this one,” Jake said before going back to drawing up some new blueprints for new weapons for his moon base and his border regions on Earth. They were a kind of rail gun. But Jake was having issues with reducing the size of the power source and having the projectile survive long enough. His idea was to fire an object within a barrel using Harry's new FTL engine and a solid rocket engine. Then the objectwould come shooting out of the barrel at a speed just below the speed of light.
“Maybe we can add a small shield to it, but then it would be like firing runabouts out of a barrel. I'm going to have to send this over to Harry to see what he thinks,” Jake said.
“What was that, sir?” York asked.
“It's nothing; I was just thinking I need to talk with someone from the other world.”
“Why don't you ask Alric to help with that? He would make a pretty good go-between,” Joel said, only to have the man himself appear.
“I am not a mailman, Mr Communications Officer.”
“Oh, so you don't even know my name, but you know everything that happens inside Jake's territory. Has anyone told you that you are a pervert—always there, always watching?” Joel said.
“I follow the rules of the territory.”
Jake sat back and watched the exchange going on before stepping in.
“You do know, Joel has a point. I'm implementing a new rule. You are not allowed to eavesdrop on conversations or activities outside public areas; also, you are not allowed to just appear without people specifically asking you to. But since you're here, can you send this blueprint and these notes over to Harry? Ask him if it can be made.”
“Yes, sir, I will get on this right away,” Alric said. Once he was gone, Joel looked over at Jake and said,
“How do you know he won't be listening?”
“Well, I don't, but I do know right now he is.”
“Oh, public space.”
“Try to think of him as Google; nobody worried about it, always listening, did they?”
“So you're saying we should say 'Hey Alric' instead?” Joel said, laughing his head off.
“Hey, Joel, tell me the name of that Dracula movie, you know, the one with the lady that has a lovely neck?” Alan asked.
“Do you mean Nosferatu?”
“Wow, it really does work,” York said.
“Just as advertised,” Orange said stoically.
The jabs back and forth continued until the time had come for them to leave.
Jake opened his comms to the ship and also to those who chose to stay within the moon.
“We will be departing directly into danger, so I shall give everyone this chance to leave the ship. This territory will be safe, but it could take us a long time to return, so you will be on your own. But we will return, so hold on and wait for our victory.” Closing his comms, Jake sat back down in his chair.
“York, are we ready?”
“Yes, sir, one round has already been loaded, and our shields and comms have been modified.”
“Good, well, York, take us to war,” Jake said.
“Orange, take us out; Joel, give us a burst.” All the radios on the ship cut off a second later before a blue burst blasted out from all of the forward-facing antennas. The strange shock wave hit the crystal cutters crawling all over the tunnel entrance, turning them into paste.
“Orange, give us as much as you can.” The ship rocketed forward into the hole that was made. Everyone was pushed back into their seats as eardrums began bleeding from the acceleration while Orange threaded the needle, the point defence system rapidly firing to keep the crystal cutters at bay and the shields running at full power now that the radios crackled back to life.
“We need to jump before we run out of ammunition,” Harrison shouted.
“Orange, FTL now.” York ordered. The ship stretched and contracted in the eyes of everyone onboard, then exited right behind the enemy fleet.
“Jump complete,” Orange shouted.
“Action stations, launch the fighters. Orange, find me a target,” Jake said, followed by a repeat of the same commands by York.
“Three targets in close proximity, lining up for the biggest one now.” A second later, Orange continued, “On station.” York looked back at Jake.
“Harrison, fire the main cannon,” Jake said.
“Firing.” The ship lurched as one round thundered down the long barrel, blasting out into space. The enemy fleet didn't know what hit them as the flagship disintegrated right in front of them, blowing chunks of debris into their fleet.
“Get me another round; I want two more sent before they realise,” York said.
“On station.”
“Fire.”
The ship lurched once again. Then a call came up to the bridge.
“Main cannon out of action,” Harrison said.
“Switch to stage two of the operation,” Jake ordered.
Orange turned the ship to the side, giving the runabouts a shield as they formed up. Then the four fighters flew over the top of the ship, closely followed by fifteen runabouts.
“Good luck,” Harrison whispered as he activated chaff, and Orange moved the ship to intercept the enemy ships that were trying to break out of the trap.
“Sir, our allies are losing ground. What should we do?”
“We can only worry about ourselves,” York said. The rusty bucket moved to the right flank and began blasting away at the closest ship.
“I'm heading out; York has command.” Jake walked down the hall and into the elevator, exiting at the hangar bay. In front of him stood five people, all waiting for this moment.
“Jo, is everything ready?”
“Yes, sir, the runabouts are ready and waiting.”
“Alright, you all know the plan. This is going to be a dangerous one; remember, don't use your suit thrusters unless you have no other choice.”