Polk didn’t like thinking. It was time-consuming, for one thing. For another, it was stressful as hell. Knowing that his decisions could get his crewmates hurt or killed was just something that he couldn’t stomach. He’d been thinking about taking some command courses at the academy when he had a chance; now, he wasn’t so sure.
Just being the helmsman, on the other hand, was much more relaxing. Different people had different names for it; ‘the groove’ or ‘the zone’ were two common descriptions. Polk preferred the term zone, because being at the helm felt like a completely different place. Thinking wasn’t necessary, even discouraged. You were supposed to follow the captain’s orders as quickly as your reflexes, without time to even consider where those orders took you. No thinking required; Polk was merely a bridge between the captain’s brain and the ship’s.
As the torperdo’s white maneuvering jets appeared on the viewscreen, Polk pulled back on the yoke and sent the Galaxie into a barrel roll. It was slower due to the engine shrouds, which helped the ship avoid detection by limiting emissions. Nonetheless, she responded well.
Realizing that not everyone had his iron stomach, he switched off the main viewer and transferred the image to a smaller monitor at his station. Meanwhile, the tactical and sensor officers read off what was happening to their torpedo.
“Spheres already in orbit are moving alongside,” the sensor officer read. “Wait… hold on, picking up something faint. Captain,” she called. “I’ve got a positive ID on a sphere launching from the surface. Attempting to boost the signal.”
“Excellent work ensign,” Casillo said from the captain’s chair. While the chair’s central position might’ve been good ergonomics, it was directly behind him, giving Polk a constant sense that Casillo was breathing down his neck.
“Tactical,” the captain continued. “What’s the torpedo’s status?”
“Perfect,” the tactical officer said.
“Then target the new sphere, but stand by to change targets,” Casillo ordered. Then he turned to the sensor officer. “Get us the coordinates of the launch site, as close as you can.”
Polk leveled the Galaxie out of the barrel roll just in time to see the torpedo streak past a cluster of spheres, heading towards a new one a few miles off. Something began tingling in the back of his mind, something about the spheres’ appearance. They looked like giant wiffle balls, he realized, flying alongside the torpedo like ducklings falling into line. Then he shook his head and went back to work.
“How’s that trace coming?” Casillo asked.
“I’ve got it narrowed down to within a few klicks sir,” the sensor officer replied, her hands dancing over the controls faster than Polk could follow. “We’ll need to get a bit closer to get a fix. Wait… sir!” she called. “Another projectile launched. Working on a trace now.”
“It’s pinging the torpedo,” the tactical officer chimed in. “Looks like a missile.”
Polk could practically feel Casillo’s smile. Reducing speed to avoid detection for as long as possible, he took the ship in closer to the estimated launch site. Once more, he realized how absolutely massive the ship’s computer had to be. They were thousands of kilometers away, and it picked up the missile’s vapor trail like a bloodhound closing in for the kill.
The Galaxie reached it in time to see the enemy missile on the main viewscreen. Some of the bridge officers stared at it with something approaching wonder; to Polk, a missile looked pretty much the same no matter who made it. A roughly cylindrical body topped with the warhead, in this case painted a glaring red. Rearrange the fins a little bit and it looked like a miniaturized Redstone Rocket from NASA’s old days.
“Sir, it’s within a kilometer of the torpedo,” the tactical officer warned.
“If we attacked now would we hit anything?” Casillo asked back. The tactical officer opened his mouth, but Polk answered for him.
“I wouldn’t count on it, unless you want to level a few hundred extra kilometers with a high-explosive round,” he said. “With a normal kinetic shell we’d have about a one in twenty shot of hitting the target.”
“Very well,” Casillo said. “Tactical, fire a straight shot when ready. Helm, get us out of here once that thing’s away.”
“Roger,” Polk said. As he piloted the ship to another place within scanner range of the launch site, he got a nice look at the planet below. Emerald green, with only a few cotton-wisp clouds and azure seas to break it up. It really was beautiful.
“Straight-shot away,” the tactical officer called. Onscreen, a steel-colored rod streaked from one of the ship’s launch tubes towards the missile. Electing to keep the viewscreen on, Polk rolled the ship to the side, completing two full rotations before settling back into orbit. With some amusement, he noted that more than a few officers were clenching their chairs a bit more tightly than before.
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What straight-shot lacked in sophistication it made up for in effectiveness. It was literally just a dense metal rod, shot out of the Galaxie’s torpedo tubes at something close to five kilometers per second. When the projectile hit the enemy missile, it punched a hole clean through the middle of the rocket before continuing on, oblivious to the damage it’d caused. With its fuel gone, the rocket sputtered and died, hanging in orbit for a few seconds before spiraling back to the planet below.
“Sir,” the sensor officer called. “I’m picking up multiple rocket signatures inbound on our position. I think it’s safe to say they’ve spotted us.”
“Had to happen eventually,” Casillo sighed. “Do you have a reading on the launch site?”
“Yes sir,” she replied. “Transferring the data to tactical now.”
“We’ll fire a straight shot when ready,” the tactical officer replied, his normally green eyes tinged blue by his display. “Based on the planet’s atmosphere it shouldn’t burn up on the way down.”
“Understood,” Casillo said. “Tell your beam crews to prepare for point defense. Helm, the minute the shot’s away we need to move fast. Take off the shrouds, empty your bag of tricks.”
Polk nodded acknowledgement and flicked off the engine shrouds, putting the Galaxie’s full power at his disposal. As always, he marveled at how much slower the ship was while under stealth. It wasn’t sluggish, but it still made the ship feel… well, like a ship, instead of an extension of Polk’s body. Not the case now, however.
“Bombs away,” the tactical officer told him. Polk responded, then emptied his bag of tricks; the ship spiraled up and away from the planet, the nearby star casting a muted reflection on the ship’s matte black surface. Meanwhile, the bridge was a study in organized chaos as the captain put the ship on red alert. Everyone was chattering into comms, ordering officers to seal bulkheads and man one of the Galaxie’s four point-defense turrets. Meanwhile, the main viewer highlighted four red dots headed their way.
“Enemy missiles are ignoring our projectiles,” the sensor officer read. “They’re coming for us, sir.”
“Tactical estimates that the launch site will be destroyed in fifteen seconds,” another officer piped up. “Enemy projectiles should reach us in about twenty.”
“Keep putting distance between us Mr. Polk,” the captain said, glancing across the bridge as he tried to keep up with everything that was going on. After his limited command experience, the helmsman knew it was no easy feat.
He decided to substitute acrobatics for speed, flying out of the planet’s orbit at full impulse. As the planet faded into a vague green blur behind him, Polk felt the ship lag slightly as some of his precious engine power was drained for the point-defense turrets.
“Scanners report impact at the launch site,” the sensor officer said. The image on the main viewer switched to a zoomed-in picture of the planet. Almost lost amidst that endless green landscape was a fiery orange cylinder, a small pinpoint of light that was spreading and gathering clouds as it went. However, the foreground was more worrying. The four enemy missiles were in sight now, their orange maneuvering jets homing in on the Galaxie’s position as the spheres kept pace with the ship.
“Tell point defense to take out the spheres, then concentrate on the missiles,” Casillo ordered, keying a few commands into his chair and fastening his seatbelt. Maybe it was his imagination, but Polk thought he heard the captain’s voice crack at the end.
“Attention all hands,” he said, speaking into a microphone built into the chair’s armrests. “This is the captain. Everyone brace for impact.”
A chorus of clicks echoed across the bridge as the crew fastened their own seatbelts. Meanwhile, the point defense cannons roared to life, firing unstable bolts of green plasma at the spheres and missiles. The spheres went down like ducks in a row, but the missiles were tougher. One of the gunners got lucky, striking a glancing blow that caused one of the rockets to veer off course and into the vastness of deep space. That left three.
“Can we hit them with a counterstrike?” the captain asked. The tactical officer shook his head. Screwing his lip to one side, Casillo then turned to Polk.
“Polk, on my mark I want you-” he began. Polk held up a hand to stop him.
“With all due respect sir, I’ve got this,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the viewscreen. If he was going to pull any more maneuvers, the missiles had to be close. But before that…
“Tactical, deploy noisemakers on my mark,” Casillo continued, his voice insistent.. “Helm, once they’re deployed we go dark and evade detection.”
“We need speed and power,” Polk warned him. “Stealth is not an option anymore.”
“Mark!” Casillo called, ignoring him. Polk growled, watching a pair of noisemakers launch from the Galaxie’s rear torpedo tubes. Their name was descriptive enough; the small plastic cylinders caused as much sensor interference as possible, hoping to confuse enemy missiles into switching targets. In Polk’s professional opinion, they were completely useless. But you didn’t disobey the captain. Not in this situation, anyway.
Polk flipped the switch to go dark and then dove down, which was to say he dove out of the noisemakers’ way. Down didn’t exist in space, a fact that annoyed many would-be helmsmen to no end.
Polk realized with some annoyance that his instincts were correct; the missiles ignored the noisemakers and dove straight for the Galaxie, who was limping along with most of her systems down and engine power reduced.
“Everybody brace-!” the captain yelled. Then everything went black.