The Inferno Pt.I
Astarte was cackling like a madwoman, and Karega was worried that the last few days of constant action had finally stretched her sanity to a breaking point. The plan had been an audacious one, dumping the Kruhur onto a nearby Union fleet sounded easy at first, and if they didn’t plan on getting away with their lives it would have been incredibly easy. Just bring both of their greatest enemies together and let them destroy themselves after the Astaroth had been torn apart in the crossfire. To be honest Karega wasn’t sure how Astarte had managed to quickly observe the Union fleet and pick out a problem with their formation that they could exploit to make a quick getaway. He had barely enough time to register her commands before the next one came, and it was only when looking back that he could piece together how they had gotten out alive.
Astarte caught her breath as the rest of the bridge looked at her with shock and horror, “Helmsman Fager, set a course for Pandemonium, and someone tell chief Heizer that he has my permission to begin making the repairs he mentioned. Drop the ship to condition two, and begin cycling the crew through some R&R.” with that she stood up and exited the bridge to their private quarters and Karega followed after her.
Her door slid open, and she passed through with all her stately poise though no one was around to see, and the moment it closed she collapsed into a chair. She pressed her head into her hands and started taking several deep breaths. “Holy fuck!” she cursed.
“Yeah, been a rough week.” Karega agreed as he also collapsed into a chair. “At least it’s over now.”
“Don’t say that, you’ll jinx us” she moaned. “God, I’m too tired to even bother taking my armor off.”
“What’s next?” He asked, though he also didn’t have the mental energy to really think of anything besides his nice warm bed.
“We make our way to Temple Drive Yards for repairs, we can’t go back to Mars after what we just pulled, we shouldn’t even show our faces at all for the next few months. We’ll send a message to the fleet back on Mars once we get to Pandemonium, and then from there we’ll have to assess the situation before we make a decision.”
Karega nodded “What the hell was that?” that question had been nagging at his mind the entire time.
“I think Ah’ared went around to gather all our enemies together for some sort of unholy alliance. Alwen said some junky sabotaged our new reactor, which implies that the Guthulu were onboard with this. The Kruhur were probably pissed off after we handed them their asses during the Battle for the Confederacy, and were happy to let Ah’ared lead them to us. Now I’m wondering if we need to watch out for any Aunviry, or remnants from Greyson’s crew.”
He felt cold dread “We’ve made a lot of enemies along the way, if they all assemble a second time I don’t think we’ll be able to handle them.”
She grunted “Can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.”
“Well at least its over now” he said as his eyes began to close.
Astarte groaned “Don’t say that, you’ll jinx-” and just as she said the word ‘jinx, as if summoned by some deity of misfortune, something activated a grav-spike and forced the ship back into normal space.
Claxons blared as the ship went into condition four, and Karega and Astarte were on their feet. All exhaustion and fatigue faded away as they marched back into the bridge. “What’s the situation” Astarte snapped.
Kat looked up from her station and glanced at the captain with a befuddled look “I’m not sure. We were hit with a grav-spike, but the only sensor contact is an object only a few meters long. We’ve trained the railguns on it, but whatever it seems to currently be evading our attacks.”
Astarte frowned, “Try and leave the range of its distortion field.”
Kat went back to the helm and redirected the ship, and as the ship pulled forward the unknown object kept pace with them, keeping them well within its distortion field.
“Is it firing on us?” Karega asked.
Kat shook her head “Can’t detect any weapons, but judging by its size I’d say that its just engines and a grav-spike strapped to a battery.”
Karega was about to ask more when of their rail guns finally connected with little drone and the distortion field vanished. He exchanged a puzzled look with Astarte before the ship went back into warp. He had been puzzling over the use of a drone with only a grav-spike and no weapons, when a second distortion field hit them. Their sensors picked up a second drone craft, and then a second later a third. And then Karega realized exactly what a drone like that could be used for. “Their trying to slow us down.” He gasped.
Astarte nodded “Yes, but the question is who?”
“New Union tech?” Karega asked out loud.
“I wouldn’t rule it out, but the thruster technology seems more like what the Kruhur were using. They appear to be ahead of both us and the Union when it comes to maneuverability. Are they broadcasting any signals?” she asked.
“Yeah, but its faint, we can jam it easily.” Kat reported.
Aster frowned “That wont do us any good, if its Kruhur in origin I’d say it’s from a different fleet entirely, otherwise they would have already used these on us. But why use these at all, their destroyers are faster than us?” the moment she said it the ship’s rail guns hit both of the drones and they returned to warp.
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They remained in warp for a lot longer than before, but eventually they got grav-spiked again, and this time their were three. Astarte and Karega both remained silent as the ship’s guns did their jobs and took out the little drones before the ship went back into warp. The time they spent in warp was longer this time as well, but when they were spiked for a fourth time there were five of them.
“There hunting us” Karega said as he had an epiphany. “There’s a whole field of these deployed over a vast amount of space. They can’t track us with our stealth capabilities, so their trying to brute force their way forward with sheer numbers. The next wave is going to be eight of them.”
“But we can escape them right, the time in between keeps getting longer because they’re further out?” Astarte asked.
Karega shook his head “the more we have to deal with, the longer it will take to destroy them. Eventually we wont be able to kill them fast enough.”
Aster clenched her jaw “and while we’re too busy dealing with all the drones the real danger will come for us.” She took in a deep breath and let it out “from the frying pan and into the fire” she grumbled.
“With all due respect, I think we’ve already been in the fire, this is the Inferno. Whatever these things are buying time for is likely to be a lot bigger than what we’ve seen so far.” Karega said grimly as the ship’s guns shot down the five drones and jumped into warp once more, and like he predicted they were spiked by eight drones.
Astarte watched the sensors pensively “Their not that big, and they don’t broadcast much. How are they coordinating?”
Karega thought for a minute, trying to visualize the vast amounts of space in his head. “I think you’re right, but they don’t need sophisticated communication. They just need to cast a wide net and tell everyone else where we are, after that they just track our direction and try to intercept.”
“So what if we went in a different direction for a bit, we might be able to slip past their sensors?” she asked hopefully.
Karega frowned, “maybe, but these things are way faster than us, they can just reassemble their net and wait for us to fall into their trap again. And we might just end up fleeing into whatever is trying to catch up with us.”
“It will buy us time.” Astarte said firmly, “Kat, once these have been dealt with pick a random direction to flee in, then call Chief Heizer, I need to speak with him personally.”
“What do you need Heizer for?” Karega asked.
“These things don’t have as much power as a full-sized ship, that means their distortion field is a lot weaker than a normal ship’s. I had an idea for a grav-spike jamming device a while back, but while its possible to create one you’d have to have way more power than your enemy, which made it too impractical to pursue any further. But right now it sounds like the exact thing we need to break loose. I want to see if Heizer can retune our grav-spike to produce an anti-distortion pulse.”
~~~*~~~
Heizer had definitely seen better days, he looked like he had gone several days without sleep or rest, and the unholy stench coming off him backed that up. Aster knew she had been asking a lot of him these last few days, and she would have loved to have let him get some rest, but right now she needed him to do the impossible once again.
“Its possible, but it’ll take time. And it might blow out our grav-spike in turn.” He said after a big yawn, his voice was raw frown all the smoke and shouting.
“That’s fine, I don’t plan on using it for a long while. We just need to get out of this thing alive, before whatever’s chasing us catches up.”
He yawned again “I’ll need the data on their frequency, and some time to figure out what we need to counter it. After that we’ll have to drop out of warp so that I can send some men to the conning tower to retune our grav-spike. Are these drones armed?”
“No, any man you send out will be safe from enemy fire.”
He nodded “Alight, I’ll get on it” he turned and jogged out of the bridge, stumbling a little as he went.
Astarte looked around the bridge and noted that he wasn’t the only one who needed some time to recover. Everyone was starting to show signs of fatigue, some were even dozing off despite all the copious amounts of coffee they had been consuming. These last few days were starting to take their toll, she hoped her crew had enough energy to keep it up just a little longer.
In movies and books, this was when the valiant captain would give their crew a rousing speech, and it would fill them with the resolve to find a way out of whatever situation they were in. But life wasn’t like that, and Astarte didn’t have the mental energy to pick make any speeches.
The ship had faced dire circumstances before, but they had always faced overwhelming odds with a well-rested crew, a fully functional ship, and a plan in motion. These last few days had pushed their ingenuity and tenacity to their very limits, and none of them had it in them to preform another miracle. Shadowy doubts crept into her mind, and for a moment Astarte thought about her moms, Bell, Modius, and her other comrades that she might not ever see again, and she felt afraid. More afraid than when Kazlum had smacked her against a wall, and she thought she was going to die. More afraid than the time Greyson had choked her before dragging her by her hair and ordering his men to beat her to an inch of her life. More afraid than when she had been very young and had felt the ground shake, and saw the sky fill with dust as a tower collapsed on New-Mombasa.
A fear of death was something everyone had to face from the moment they were born, and it was with great mental fortitude that people faced that fear everyday and continued living. But today, at her wits end and with flayed nerves, Astarte came very close to breaking down. It was only with her last shred of willpower that she held off the tears.
They traveled unimpeded for about a half hour before the drones once again found them, this time it was one, and the gunnery officers had refined the aiming automatic targeting of the rail guns and were able to kill this far faster than the others. But the moment that drone had found them an invisible clock had begun its count down, either Heizer and his crew would retune the grav-spike, or whatever was chasing them would find them. Astarte stood on the bridge, watching with pride as her weary crew executed their jobs with flawless precision. They destroyed the first, then the second, then the next two that appeared, then the next three, and so on. They had tried changing directions each time, but the drones had learned their mistake and wouldn’t give them the time they needed. Eventually the time in-between grav-spikes had grown to about twelve minutes, but just as Karega had predicted the time hit a peak and then quickly went downhill. They never got to point were more drones arrive than they could handle because the rail guns ran out of bullets. After defect God knows how many missile strikes, and killing over two hundred drones their seemingly limitless magazines finally went dry. They switched to pulse fire, but they all knew that it was a vain attempt at holding off the unending swarm.
At some point the number of the drones in the nearby space had grown so numerous that they could take out dozens by swinging the bow of the Astaroth around. Smushing the fragile drones against their thick armor and the power of inertia. Pretty soon it was like they were flying through a swarm of flies, no matter where they went the ship was always surrounded by hundreds of little drones. Aster wondered who the hell would even make this many drones? Sure they were effective right now, but this was one very particular situation that likely didn’t happen often.
Their sensors could no longer differentiate the individual drones, and just registered them as one solid object. They bounced off the hull so often that it almost sounded like the gentle patter of rain drops, and they could no longer look outside the windows.
The whole bridge had gone silent as everyone tried to do something about all the drones, and Astarte had been so wrapped up in the silence that she jumped when her radio crackled on. “Its ready.”
Astarte let out a sigh of relief and turned towards Kat “Point us towards Pandemonium and activate the jamming device.”
Kat smiled “Aye, aye.”
The ship spun around hard and pointed itself towards a distant star. Kat punched in navigation data, and Astarte crossed her fingers and closed her eyes as she pressed a button that would activate the distortion jammer. At first she kept her eyes closed, and only after a minute of silence did she open them. And saw that the ship was still being swarmed by drones. The jammer hadn’t worked.
Why hadn’t it worked, did they mess something up?
Her mind raced as she tried to think of another way out of this situation, and then she saw that the sensors were beginning to clear up, and the endless numbers of the drones began to thin out.
“Captain, the drones are leaving.” Kat said in utter amazement. Amazement that Astarte couldn’t share.
“But why?” she asked hoarsely, as the worst possible situation came to mind and filled her with fear.
They watched the drone swarm thin out, and someone at the helm had turned the ship in the direction of where the drones all were heading.
Far away, cast in shadows by the light of the nearby red dwarf, was the sinister silhouette of a ship that defied comprehension. Even this far away everyone could tell that this thing was impossibly large, almost as large as a capital sized space station. The drones hadn’t left the space, but instead had spread out to cover a very large amount of space with their distortion fields. The Astaroth was being held in place by the much more powerful grav-spike of the ship before them, and any attempt to flee them via sub-light would prove pointless. Because at the ships center was the largest pulse cannon Astarte had ever seen, and she knew deep within her heart that any attempt to flee would be futile against the max range of that weapon. It would vaporize the ship whole if it ever hit them head on.
“Kar,” Astarte said, breaking the utter silence on the bridge. “You were right, this is the inferno.”