Erica’s radio crackled to life as a garbled voice spoke, “Rear – Jaxxen go–; going to search – ship’s remains for – finish the job.”
“Repeat the last transmission,” Erica requested.
Receiving no further communications from Jake, she realised he was now out of radio range. “I will just have to hope he gets the job done. I will just complete my mission and see what happens.”
Jake was hurtling through the void of space, headed for the Pristine Rose. However, he noticed he was off course by a few degrees, which would send him out into space instead of the hangar bay. If Jake didn’t correct his course soon, the void would swallow him up. Jake used his thrusters one last time, using up the last of the gas. He slammed into the hull of the ship, bouncing back out into space, out of gas. He threw his safety line at the ship’s communication array as if he were lassoing livestock. His safety line hit the array, the clip catching on one of the support wires. Upon reaching the end of his safety line, Jake experienced a sudden jerk that slowed his movement, prompting him to tug on the line and shoot back toward the hull. He grabbed the array just as the support wire that his safety line was attached to snapped, sending his safety line clanging off the hull and out of Jake’s sight. Jake looked down the hull and saw an entry point just a short distance away. The only issue was that there were no handholds between him and the airlock.
“So it’s a leap of faith. I don’t like this; my luck is so fucking bad. I just know something’s going to go wrong.”
Jake counted down from five and once he reached zero, he yelled, “Lift off!” As he pushed himself off towards the airlock, his safety line trailed behind him, scraping along the hull. Click! The line went tight as Jake slammed into the hull, knocking him unconscious.
“Time remaining 00:23:20:10,” Jake groaned before muttering, “Twenty-three hours left, 365 days, and we’re down to twenty-three hours, right down to the wire. I hope Erica is doing well.”
Jake grabbed the rail in front of the airlock, pulling himself in and closing the external hatch. Once he grabbed the rail in front of the airlock, Jake noticed the red light rapidly flashing, indicating the absence of air. Then, a blast of air emanated from a ventilation port and continued until the airlock was fully pressurised, accompanied by a flashing green light. Jake cranked the handle, and as soon as he released the door locks, the pressure in the airlock blasted the door off its hinges, shooting Jake out and down the hallway. He screamed the whole time as he hit the end of the hallway, scoffing at his incompetence.
“It was so obvious that the inside of the ship would have vented as it had been in a battle,” Jake thought to himself.
He let out a deep breath before beginning his grand search of the Pristine Rose. He followed the hallway in the hopes that the Pristine Rose’s weapons room would be in a similar location as the Jaxxen. As he kept moving towards the aft of the ship, he came across a set of doors that looked a lot like a cafeteria. Jake opened the door, and to his surprise, a Nordicless without a spacesuit floated into his peripheral view. Jake spun around by pushing off of the wall and noticed just what it was, immediately feeling vomit bubbling in his throat. He struggled to hold it down as he looked across the room, seeing over a thousand Nordicless, each with different types of injuries. The room contained crystallised blood and dismembered bodies, with some Nordicless, like the first one Jake noticed, having been decapitated. But what was really disturbing was the expression of shock on all of their faces.
“They didn’t even have a chance.” Jake closed the door, saying, “I will avenge your sacrifice.”
Jake kept on with his search, moving from room to room. After three-quarters of the day had passed, Jake finally found the room he was looking for. In it, there were over a hundred missiles of all different sizes, but one caught Jake’s eye.
“That thing is huge, as big if not bigger than the Tsar Bomba. That’s got to do the job.”
He floated over to it, grabbing hold of the display on the side of the bomb and navigating what looked to be the arming system. Jake found himself in a bit of a predicament; it seemed that the device’s arming sequence was damaged, and he was unable to change the time limit, which was set at ten minutes. Jake had a feeling that there wasn’t enough time to escape the maze of a ship. He had gotten lost on his way to this room and came up with a really stupid plan.
Stolen story; please report.
Jake pushed the big red button on the display and ran as the timer started counting down. He ran as fast as his legs would let him, trying to get as far away from ground zero as he could. With only a minute left, Jake stood at the airlock. He pulled open the hatch and immediately hit the door override. The outer door swung open as Jake pushed himself out into the void. As he floated away, he summoned his busted shuttle, swinging himself into the cockpit seat. He activated its shields at 100%, with all of its power facing forward at the oncoming shockwave.
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Erica
Three hours before the explosion, Erica was watching the location where the ambush was supposed to happen from behind a moon. The space in the area started to warp, giving off a sense of wrongness that made anyone unprotected by an arcane barrier violently sick. Erica was one of those unlucky ones. She picked herself off the floor and wiped her face.
Bang!
One ship after another popped into real space until there were around twenty medium-sized ships and one large flagship, which looked to be of the dreadnought class. Each of the medium-sized ships had a minimum fighter force of ten light fighters, and the dreadnought-class ship had around twenty light fighters and ten heavy fighters. A heavy fighter can go up against a light fighter three to one, equipped with two close-in weapons systems, commonly rotary cannons, and one rocket pod, usually of the mana bolt type, along with an upgraded shield. As for the dreadnought itself, it had over a hundred close-in weapons systems, fifty rocket pods, and one planet-busting energy weapon mounted through the length of the ship. The enemy ships didn’t go with the Nordicless design aesthetic, preferring a more rounded aesthetic. The dreadnought comprised multiple elongated, rounded tubes within what looked like an old World War II battleship’s bridge tower section in the centre of the ship. It also had two nasals slightly lower than the primary hull, fitted with two fly-through flight desks and close-in weapons systems. The medium-sized ships had a similar design to the dreadnought, but were much smaller. They did not have planet-busting weapons, but instead, they were equipped with mana-based repeating cannons in the location where the dreadnought’s planet-busting weapon was situated.
Erica let out a startled cry when she saw the size and power of the fleet. “How am I supposed to be a destruction to them?” Erica sat and watched them for hours until she decided that there was only one way to do it, and that was to be like Jake and take a bold, daring approach. She pushed the throttles forward, blasting herself directly at the flagship. Erica put her shields to maximum forward protection and turned on the point defence systems. Finally, she put on her helmet, sealing it with an audible hiss.
“I hope this works,” she muttered to herself.
As she left the moon’s gravity well, she appeared like a spotlight on the enemies’ radar system. The entire enemy fleet rounded on her position, all of their weapons pointing at the Retribution. Erica sent out a repeating radio call, blasting it on all frequencies, blocking radio communication. It was a simple call that her people said when they went into a battle that would most likely be their death.
“To the heroes, we give our lives to the heroes.”
She maneuvered the Retribution in a way that she hoped would throw off the enemies’ firing computers. As the enemy ships opened fire on her, she commanded the Retribution to begin a roll so that the point defence system would protect her valuable sides. She plowed through the enemies’ fleet as if she were a drill; her target the flagship’s impulse engines. Her plan needed it to be dead in the water for when the destruction comes, but she also needed them to be facing in the opposite direction of the oncoming attack from Jake. The Retribution closed in on the flagship, and Erica placed her ship on a collision course. Just as she was about to hit, she fired the nose weapons and hit the reaction control thrusters, lifting the nose of her ship. The Retribution took a glancing blow as it scraped past the destroyed impulse engines of the flagship. Erica flipped the Retribution around 180 degrees and went into full military power, forced back into her seat as she shifted the shields’ focus on protecting the aft of the ship. She blasted out of the enemies’ formation once she was clear, cutting thrust and flipping the Retribution again, using the ship’s momentum to continue on its course.
“I can’t believe that worked. I’ve definitely got the devil’s luck,” Erica thought as she looked out at the enemy fleet.
Most of the fleet stayed in the ambush zone, right on the same plane as the Jaxxen. However, five medium-sized ships with their fighters were heading after her at maximum thrust. Erica could only think of one way out, but it was extremely risky. She flicked the switch for the FTL power. A loud hum rang through the ship as the FTL systems came to life. The charge was at a scant amount, probably just enough to make a quick hop, but there lay the problem. An FTL jump must be greater than a system’s length; otherwise, it could drop you out inside a gas giant. The navigation computer just can’t calculate in such a short time, so a short jump won’t use the computer. The jump would have to be done manually. Erica quickly checked the star charts, moved the ship 15 degrees off her original course, and then activated FTL, jumping out of the planet’s gravity well and out of range of the enemies’ sensors. Once she figured out her location, she plotted a course for the dark side of the moon and went into full thrust.
On her way back, she saw a space ripple above her as the five ships passed her by, chasing the wake of the Retribution. Surprisingly, once they reached the point where Erica dropped out, they just kept going. Erica let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding before focusing her thoughts back on the task at hand.