Into the Fire Pt.II
The med bay opened, and Alice strode through like she owned the place, her tail darting side to side like it always did when she was excited. Alwen had just finished setting a broken arm, and was wrapping the splint as Alice walked up to her.
“When was the last time you showered?” she asked holding her nose.
Alwen, irritated at the question just glared at Alice, “It’s been a while.” She said flatly. Torweni didn’t sweat like humans, or at least not as much, but non-stop work and the constant stress had stained her clothes with huge sweat rings and skin felt grainy.
“I could tell.” She said casually as she leaned over Alwen’s shoulder.
“Is there a reason you’re here, or are you just bored?” Alwen snapped.
Alice stood up straight “right, sorry. Probably not in the mood, Cap’n wanted you to know that the ship is about to dive headfirst into a gas giant and wants to make sure all patients are properly secured. Heizer says the winds are going to hit us like a jackhammer from all angles.”
Alwen stopped what she was doing and stared at Alice in belated shock, “How-, how could I ever prepare for something like that?”
“No clue, I was hoping you would know.” She said with a shrug, “I mostly came down because it was a good excuse to check in on you and everyone else.” She looked around the room and saw the chaotic state of things. Drawers were left open, and equipment was left strewn about. “How are you holding up?” she asked, her careless attitude now gone.
“Well, I’m past the point of wanting to huddle up in a corner and breakdown, now I just wish I had a chance to drink myself blind.” Alwen stated flatly.
Alice’s ears twitched “Do you ever think that you might have a drinking problem?”
Alwen scowled and pointed a finger at Alice “I don’t want to hear anything about alcoholism from you, you can drink me under a table threes times over, and still have the ability to stand.”
“Years of practice.” She said proudly.
“Oh I know, you’re lucky we have medicine to deal with liver poisoning. Otherwise you would have been lucky to make it past thirty.” Alwen let out a loud yawn and she went to fill up another cup of coffee. Tea just didn’t have the kick she needed right now. “So, why are we attempting suicide via gas giant?” she said after draining the thick mud like brew.
“We got some sensors back on line and saw the Kruhur had the whole area surrounded, now our only escape is to dive into the upper atmosphere of the gas giant and try to sneak around them.”
“Will it be a slow death, or a quick one?” Alwen asked.
“Quick, if things go wrong you and I will be crushed into a fine paste before we even know we’re dead.”
Alwen considered the disturbing imagery, and shrugged. One way or another she would die without knowing why, or they would survive to fight another day. Either way she would keep working until the very end, maybe if she worked hard enough Ashendra would forgive her broken vows and except Alwen into her graces.
She returned to her work and began checking on Bachir, he still hadn’t woken up and Alwen was beginning to worry for him. He wasn’t in a coma, so he had that much going for him, but other than that she didn’t know what to do. He was out cold, and even if he woke there was little he could do to help. He wouldn’t be able to explain things to her since his jaw was broken. Even surrounded by people in an overcrowded med bay Alwen felt very alone.
“Have you at least slept?” Alice asked, her concern growing more and more evident by her drooping ears and still tail.
“I’ve had a few minutes here and there, but my last nap was interrupted when Gato woke up.”
Alice perked up immediately “how did that go?” she asked a little too quickly, and Alwen wondered if that was the real reason she came down.
“It went well” Alwen said quickly, her ears felt warm as she remembered the kiss. “His injury isn’t too bad, and I think I may have gotten through to him in regard to what we discussed earlier. I, uh, also may have violated several medical codes of conduct by kissing him.”
“Hold on, you did what?”
Alwen scowled “Technically he kissed me, but I invited him to it-“ she buried her face in her hands “Gods, why did I do that, I said I wanted to do things properly, if the Temple ever found out about this I would be stripped of the medical degree in a second.”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve already done worse by being here.” Alice pointed out “And if you wanted to do things the ‘right’ way, then why did you do it?” There was no accusation in her question, Alice just wanted to help Alwen figure out her emotions.
“Because I really wanted to” Alwen said in defeat, there was no hiding from her emotions
“Then there you are, you like him, he likes you. Quit trying to sabotage yourself, you can figure out all the other stuff later.”
Alwen smiled “thank you.”
“No problem, now that we got the mushy gushy stuff out of the way what happened after kiss.”
“Is now really the time or place?”
“We could all die in the next hour or so, when are we going to get a better chance.” She said with the typical Terran disregard for their own mortality in the face of the inevitable.
“Well after he kissed me I told him he had to take me on a date, and he told me about a Terran dance hall on Noctis.
“Dance? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him dance.” Alice said in wonder.
“What did you guys do when you dated?” Alwen asked, afraid that her idea of a date might what he’s used to.
Alice shrugged and leaned against a bedrail “Not much, we’d work out, shoot some guns, and then vigorously fuck all night”
Alwen coughed in shock, “What?” she asked in between coughing fits.
Alice smirked mischievously “Oh yeah, man’s got endurance for days, you’re not gonna be able to walk straight”
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Alwen felt her face flush and she punched Alice in the shoulder.
“What?” she guffawed “It’s just sex, we’ve all done it before.” She looked to Alwen and something in her face must have given her away. “You’ve done it, right?” Alice asked in shock.
Alwen stood up straight and turned away from Alice, “Well I better, uh, secure my patients.” She said quickly.
“Oh my gosh, are you a vir-” Alice began before Alwen covered put her hands over her mouth.
“SHH! I don’t want the whole ship to know” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“Beurh urmer a” Alice mumbled under Alwen’s hand.
She took her hand away “look I’ve been busy with med school and studying, I haven’t had time to do it.”
Alice looked offended “Its not something you gotta ‘do’, its something you ‘do’.”
“You just used the same word twice, I have no idea what you mean.” Alwen crossed her arms.
Alice dragged a big paw down her face “jeez Bones, I don’t know how to explain the difference to you. Like, haven’t you ever been in love before?”
Wraith’s face came to mind, and this time she didn’t feel as sad “I’ve had crushes before-”
“That’s not the same thing” Alice pushed,
She looked like she wanted to say more, but at that moment the lights on the ship went red and the PA crackled to life “All hands prepare for intense turbulence, all nonvital personnel are ordered to hunker down and await the all clear. I repeat, all hands prepare for intense turbulence, all nonvital personnel are ordered to hunker down and await the all clear.” The captains voice said over the speaker and the whine of the engines began to roar through the whole ship.
“Oh God,” Alice muttered. “That means the Kruhur must have found us, this is a lot earlier than what they were planning.”
“Is that bad?” Alwen asked.
“It means our chances just went down the shitter because they didn’t have enough to plan a safe descent.” Her ears and tail drooped downwards “Oh God, you’re going to die a virgin!” Alice gasped.
Alwen rolled her eyes and began to shoo Alice out of the med bay “You got a station to man, I’ll be fine” she urged as she pushed the Felinoid into the already chaotic halls. Once Alice was on her way Alwen turned back around and began to rush around the med bay, shoving any loose objects into any random drawer, and locking the medical beds in place. One of the heart monitors began to beep rapidly and Alwen turned to deal with the latest medical emergency. If she died, she died, but she would at least try save lives until the very end.
~~~*~~~
A Kruhur gunboat had strafed past the Astaroth’s hiding place and had noticed their presence, they activated the Astaroth’s gravity field and pelted the little ship with railgun rounds. But it was too late, several ships had already warped to the outside of the grav-spike’s area of effect and were now pressing down on them. They had no more time to plan, Astarte ordered their sublight engines to full and plunged the Astaroth out of the asteroid and down to the gas giant below.
She moved the ship to condition three and sent out her orders for all crew to hunker down, their only hope now lay in escaping the Kruhur within the gas giant’s atmosphere and popping out the other side. The Kruhur couldn’t possibly screen the whole world, the danm thing was three hundred times the size of earth.
Nervous engineers and navigators who had studied celestial bodies like this were informing her of all the dangers present, and she would occasionally call out a correction to the helm based on their information. Two Kruhur frigates closed the distance between them enough to begin taking pot shots at them, but despite not having any active shields up yet the blasts were mostly harmless against the Astaroth’s thick hull plating. But another two destroyers were gaining quickly, and their guns might actually prove a threat.
No longer concerned about giving away her position Astarte ordered active scanner to full and had gunnery officers train their aft cannons to bare down on the leading vessels. She couldn’t aim the two forward mounts at them without swinging the ship around to give them a full broad side, and that would sacrifice some of their forward momentum.
Several missiles were launched from the Kruhur destroyers, and they quickly ate up the intervening distance. Railguns snapped to attention and filled the space with bullets, several missiles were hit, but more continued towards her ship. To confuse their tracking systems the Astaroth’s VLS launched several bodkins into the air and burst not to far from the ship. It was a makeshift chaff and a flare all at once, it was a trick she had developed early on in her career as a space pirate, and one that had saved them many times over, and the bodkins were relatively cheap enough to justify the cost. The heat and metal shrapnel from their explosion confused the missiles and they overshot the Astaroth. And by the time they could finally turn around for a second assault the rail guns had enough time to gun them down.
The destroyers launched a second barrage of missiles, but the Astaroth’s automatic anti-missile systems did their job and kept them from hitting. The aft pulse cannons fired a second devastating round against the leading Kruhur Frigate, and unable to withstand the heat its shield bubble burst, leaving the ship vulnerable to the remaining power of their cannons. The bow melted, and a chain of secondary explosions within tore the ship apart. The second Frigate which had been tailing after the first received the shrapnel and slag from their ally head on, hitting that much solid material at full speed was too much for its weak shield systems. The shield around the second Frigate broke apart, and the wreckage of her sister ship ripped apart her thin hull.
With the two frigates handled all that was left were the two destroyers, but their missiles were completely incapable of breaking past the Astaroth’s defenses. Realizing the futility of their actions the two destroyers stopped launching missiles and focused on closing the gap between them. Minutes passed and the Astaroth closed nearly half the distance to the gas giants outer atmosphere, the planets gravity well grew stronger as they approached and soon enough they no longer needed to spend power to maintain their grav-spike as the planets natural gravity was doing that job for them.
Warp emitters worked best in zero-g, natural wells of gravity decreased the efficiency of warp emitters and they needed to pull more power from a ship’s power plant to overcome the resistance. But eventually there would be a point where the emitters just couldn’t pull in enough power to overcome large gravity wells, and a ship was forced to endure sub-light speeds. This principle of warp technology was what protected planets from warp speed projectiles because an object within a folded space time bubble was forced to drop into relativistic speeds with their own natural velocity.
The Kruhur destroyers entered the maximum range of the Astaroth’s targeting computers, the max range at which they could reliably hit a moving target. But Astarte ordered the gunnery crew to hold fire until the Kruhur got a little closer, the opening barrage would be what determined the flow of battle, and if they missed then they would need to wait for the cannons to recharge before they could fire a second time. During which the Kruhur would be able to fire on them without fear of return fire. As if they read her mind, the two Kruhur destroyers fired another barrage of missiles, trying to bait her into a retaliatory shot. The automated defenses dealt with the oncoming missiles, but this time they had gotten a lot closer than they had the first few times.
Astarte felt a bead of sweat form on her brows as she watched the distance between them slowly close, and the targeting computer continued to raise the odds of landing a direct hit. Another barrage of missiles came at them, and this time one made it past their defensive screens and collided with the port side rail guns. She gritted her teeth and crossed her fingers “FIRE!” she roared as the Kruhur ships readied another round of missiles. The computer only gave them a one in six chance of hitting their target, but if they didn’t fire now then that next round of missiles might take out their aft guns before the odds became more in her favor. The screens went momentarily white as all three barrels of the pulse cannons fired full bore on one of the Kruhur destroyers, and she could count the heart beats it took for the screens to adjust the video. She held her breath as the screens automatically darkened like a welding mask and showed them the silhouette of a single Kruhur destroyer lose its shield bubble and melt under the remaining power of the pulse cannon. There was no round of secondary explosions like on the Kruhur Frigate, but the damage to the bow was enough to vaporize the outer armor and super heat the hull underneath to a bright white glow. The heated hull and back blast of vaporized metal forced the Destroyer off course and quickly began to spin on its vertical axis and it quickly fell far behind the Astaroth. Even if the crew within got control over their ship again they would be too far behind the Astaroth to ever catch up.
The second Destroyer tried another barrage of missiles, but with fewer oncoming targets to focus on the remaining rail guns took care of them with ease. Incapable of hitting them with missiles, and vulnerable to another round of pulse fire from the Astaroth, the second Destroyer began to decelerate and quickly removed itself from their weapons max range. The bridge crew cheered as the enemy retreated, and Astarte allowed them a moment of levity before she returned their attention to the great challenge ahead of them. The day was not over yet.
~~~*~~~
Vicar Belogahst watched the tenacious Terran ship plunge headfirst into the atmosphere of a gas giant and felt a deep seeded respect for the ship’s captain as interference form the planet’s atmosphere obscured their position. The infidel, Astarte, had recognized the trap Belogahst had laid for her, and had realized that the only way out was a to dive headfirst into far more dangerous environment. That told him several things about this Deathworlder captain that the Mulka pirate had neglected to mention. She was a cunning and decisive, but also very reckless. There weren’t many who would willing try their chances at such an ordeal even if it was the only way out, it broke every standard convention that was drilled into any spacefarers mind over and over again. Which also meant she was very adaptable.
All excellent traits in a Captain, and the challenge of finally catching such a willy foe excited Belogahst. He hadn’t put much faith in this mission challenging him on an intellectual level, smiting a pirate who had aligned herself against them had seemed beneath him at first. But now he saw the wisdom in the High Vicars orders and knew that her continued existence would prove to be a great threat if she were left to her own devices.
There was also much praise to be given to the crew of the vessel as well. He had been incredulous to find the remains of the Mulka’s ship just floating aimlessly, seemingly blown from the inside out. Later inspection of the ships logs had revealed that the Mulka had successfully captured the enemy ship in a vulnerable state, and had boarded them just as planned. But recorded footage from the war monks had truly shocked Belogahst, the crew of the vessel had responded swiftly to the hostile offensive operation, and had held off the highly trained soldiers until a whole different caste of warriors emerged to take over and pushed them back onto the Mulka’s vessel. This truly showed Belogahst that he wasn’t just dealing with one worthy individual, but a whole ship of highly competent warriors. All worthy of respect generally denied to all the weak xenos that infested this galaxy.
He had dismissed the claims of Terran strength and militarism offhandedly, if they were truly so great then they wouldn’t have fallen to the Union so easily. But now he was reevaluating his opinions.
“Your holiness, how shall we proceed?” a command aid asked servilely. Not even doubting for a second that their Vicar had a plan for this unforeseen circumstance, he would have to ask the aid’s name and heritage later on as a reward for his devotion.
“They can’t dive too deep within the worlds violent storms, and their speed will be hampered. We shall divide our forces into seven squadrons, one squadron for every cruiser, and encircle where they dived. We should be capable of spotting whichever direction they flee in, and if we’re lucky we might even get the drop on them and destroy them within the giant’s storms. If one squadron spots them and is unable to destroy them swiftly then they are to stall the enemy until the other squadrons reach them and cut off any route of escape for the vessel.” He ordered calmly.
The aid bowed deeply “Very wise your holiness, I shall inform the others”
Belogahst placed a hand against the aids shoulder “be quick” he urged gently to the faith servant. “I want to deal with these infidels before the High Vicar arrives, we mustn’t soil the holy lance of the Prophet.”
The aid scurried off and Belogahst returned his gaze to the window of the bridge, staring vacantly at where the Terran vessel disappeared.