CHAPTER FOUR
ANGELA
Shadows in the mist.
There are no gods in the mist. No higher power can save you when a railgun round cracks your hull and lets the mist into the places you thought most safe. The mist doesn’t only kill, No. It Eats. Every last scrap of organic matter to be found, from your skin all the way to your bone matter, it will obliterate. No trace of your corpse will be left, and there will be nothing but memories for those that loved you to morn your passing. By far the most insidious thing the mist does is not that it can kill you in less than thirty seconds, buy exactly how it kills you. There is no pain, no feeling at all. The only warning you will receive that your suit is breached is when you fall over from of a lack of legs, or your arms drop whatever they were holding. The only thing that can prevent that inevitable fall to a true oblivion isn’t faith, or hope, or dreams or any other intangible thing. Only the strength and surety of metal can save you. And even metal, when subjected to the correct forces, can fail entirely. Trust in your shipmates, trust in your suit, trust in the Tinker. Always double check your seals and the seals of your shipmates. It will save lives.
The Sailors handbook, Revision 18. Chapter Nine: Your first day in the mist.
Bunkrooms usually had a calming quality to them. Once you stepped inside, the insulated tile and the noise-canceling wall panels made everything muffled and quiet. Usually that included thoughts. Instead, what should have been a calming place where thoughts could be carefully examined and discarded, the bunkroom today was doing just the opposite. The normally calming quiet allowed her mind to catch up on the last few days, and to begin its routine screaming judgement for her actions.
The ship’s engineer, Eron, had brought in the damage report from their recent battle twenty minutes ago. It was a long, dull read, full of dry fact and precise calculations. Despite that, Angela could have sworn the thin paper was heavier than the halfblade hanging on her hip. The railgun round had shattered upon impact with the shields, but a small fragment had impacted the outer armor and an even smaller fragment had gotten through. The report described the path of destruction that the tiny fragment had left in its wake. It had first hit the inner wall of water tanks, which had the effect of slowing the fragment down significantly, then it had passed entirely through the secondary oxygen generator, and the armored inner hull, and finally into and through the heavy bulkhead of the number two engine room. One of Eron’s engineman’s, a Mechator Third class by the name of Daniel Kim, had been unfortunately standing in the path of the deadly shard of metal. The piece of tungsten went entirely through the man’s leg and into a steam pipe behind him. The tiny fragment had been traveling so fast that the shockwave had taken the man’s leg entirely off, and thrown him against a bulkhead. Here, the report had begun to describe how badly injured the man was, and his estimated time until he was able to resume full duties. All of this was being presented in a clear and concise, almost clinical tone. That somehow made it worse than if Eron had described it in all the gory detail. One of her sailors was badly injured, and it was all her fault. Angela had skipped over that part after feeling the bile rising in her throat. What came after wasn’t much better. The steam pipe had burst, instantly pressurizing the room to several psi and heating it to well over a hundred degrees Celsius. The man had evidently recovered from the sudden loss of his limb and had crawled the boiler isolation valves and shut them, despite the blood pouring out of the wound. This action had single handedly saved the other crew members in the compartment from serious burns. There were automatic protective features that were supposed to have shut the valve immediately, but by sheer dumb bad luck the fragment had blown through the automatic trip before entering the man’s leg. There were other backups, but those would have taken much longer to take effect. Angela silently thanked the foresight of Eron requiring his Engineers to wear their masks at all times in the engine rooms. Without that, the man would have passed out instantly from the pressure change alone.
All this would have been prevented if you had just been smarter.
Angela shook her head. She could not stop the flow of the constant thoughts. Why hadn’t she seen the ship sooner? Why hadn’t she reacted faster? If she had ordered the pulse earlier, maybe her sailor wouldn’t have gotten injured. She felt drawn into this sick cycle of remembrance and regret, fear and uncertainty, panic and terror.
You were never good enough for this job.
Fuck. She shook her head again, trying to clear the thoughts out like they were a physical thing. She gripped the back of her chair, and tried her best to breathe slowly.
They all hate you.
Okay. Fuck off. Normally, her bunkroom was a place where she could breathe and let the thoughts come out in a calm and collected way. Evidently the universe had decided that today was not that day. She resolved to leave the room immediately, lest the thoughts coagulate into a grotesque monster she could not hope to control. She adjusted the clasps on her suit and opened the door. Forcing a neutral expression onto her face, she shut the door behind her. Something vile followed her out, but it was too muffled to make out truly. She was focused now, she had a goal to meet.
She took off down the corridor, heading for the ship’s infirmary. The corridors were full of sailors going about the million tasks that kept the ship flying. Angela moved through the crowded corridors easily. Most sailors moved out of her way, or turned sideways to allow her to pass. Each of them gave the ship’s informal salute, a finger tapped to the corner of one eyebrow. They weren’t required to give the salute, and certainly not underway, but they did it anyway. Angela returned their salutes with nods, always ensuring that her face was set in that carefully neutral expression. Most of the crew recognized it for what it was; The captain was pissed, but not at any of them. She passed by the site of one of the breach repairs, and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding light of the welding torch. She nodded appreciatively at the sailors working tirelessly to repair the breach. There would be many citations given out when they returned to port. Not wanting to interrupt them, she quickly left and continued to the infirmary. Angela bent down to fit through the first pressure hatch that was locked open. She found herself in a small airlock space, at the other end of the room was another pressure hatch, currently shut. At the heavily armored hatch, she knocked. The thick metal gave off a dull booming sound that echoed in the passageways behind her. Theoretically, she was allowed to go anywhere in her own ship without announcing herself, but doing that was a fast way to get your crew to hate you. It was much better to ask before entering a space as sacred to a sailor as the infirmary. With a click, the door unlatched. A muffled voice came from the other side.
“Enter.”
Angela pushed the heavy door open. It was hydraulically locked to prevent it from swinging open or closed at incredible speeds when the ship took an angle, and the long closing time allowed Angela to look around the small room before she had to fully engage in the conversation before her. Four medical beds took up much of the space. Each bed had straps connected to the frame, in case a patient needed to be tied down during maneuvers. Most of the rest of sickbay was filled with locked cabinets and drawers. A surgical table lay to one side of sickbay, in a pinch, it could double up as a fifth bed. Several oxygen bottles were strapped to the walls, along with a small carbon dioxide remover and scrubber assembly. Sickbay was exempt from the normal atmospheric controls of the ship in battle, and had a breathable atmosphere in it at all times. The airlock room she had passed through earlier would allow the nitrogen in the air to be changed out for oxygen. Though small, the room was meticulously organized and extremely clean. Angela finished shutting the door behind her. It clicked shut with a snap. She didn’t bother to seal it, the ship wasn’t in a combat situation.
Inside, the ship''s doctor was filling out paperwork at a small desk mounted to the wall. The doctor was a short woman, with almost shaved hair and thick spectacles that she kept perched on the very end of her nose. She was a Tinker, and wore one of their characteristic suits, though her did seem lighter than the norm. Her helmet was off currently, sitting on her desk. Angela’s attention was immediately taken by the injured sailor lying on the bed. He looked to be young, about early-twenties. Searching her memory, Angela arrived at his name. Daniel Kim was a relatively new hire from landing. Davon’s apprenticeship program has seen his file pass across her desk a mere year ago. She remembered the interview. He had seemed highly motivated, and extremely intelligent. Evidently he was both of those things, as Eron had allowed him to stand watch in one of his precious engine rooms after only a year on board. That in of itself was unusual.
Kim was awake, and reading a thick book with a hard black cover sitting propped up on his one remaining leg. Angela felt her stomach tighten up as she looked at the sight. Fight back bile, Angela forced a smile onto her face. Kim looked up as he heard the door snap shut. His eyes slightly widened and he shut the book. He looked up at her attentively.
“Good afternoon Captain. What can I do for you?”
Angela’s smile became slightly less forced.
“Good afternoon Mechator Kim. I wanted to come in and see how you were doing, and how-“ Angala paused. She had a whole conversation planned out. But seeing the kid lying there with no leg, looking entirely too un-broken made something inside her fail to work correctly. “I wanted to make sure you were alright” She finished lamely.
The boy nodded, smiling. “Thank you for askin’ ma’m. Im doin just fine over here. Me n’ doc were just talkin about my options goin forward.”
Angela exchanged a look with doc. She nodded at her and signed for Angela to continue. Angela turned back to the boy. “Did you deicide anything?
He nodded “I want to stay on the Phoenix Ma’m. If you’ll have me.”
Angela’s eyes widened. She had expected hatred and vitriol, anger and rage, She had not expected resolve and the want to stay on the ship that had literally cost him a leg.
The boy kept talking, a flood of words spilling out.
“I can still be useful! Im studi’n up on me plant knowledge, and im still trying to get me master engineer qual. I haven’t given up, and I wont because I lost a stupid leg. Doc said she could have me fitted with a prosthetic once we pull back in, and i donna have to pay for it or nothin. I want to be here.”
He said that last part with so much utter conviction, Angela was taken aback.
“I thought you would want to at least go home, spend some time with your famil-“
The boy was already shaking his head. “Aint got none. Davon gave me that ticket when I turned 16. I was at the landing yards until I turned 19, passed the test and got the posting here. I donna have no blood family. All my family is on this boat. I aint leavin less’ you order me.”
The boy bowed his head slightly. He seemed embarrassed to have said all of that. It appeared that the story had been building up in him for a while.
Kim continued, much more somber. “When Davon gave me that ticket, I had no plan, no nothin. I was gonna get out of that orphanage and right onto the streets. I prolly wouda ended up as a Detter.” He swallowed, his next words thick with emotion. “I Cant go back. All I know is this boat. You and Davon gave me a purpose, Gave me a home. That’s more than I evea thought I was gonna get.
Angela revised her mental picture of Mechator Kim. Not a boy. A man given purpose by a boat and fearing that it all could be taken away for something out of his control. Angela could empathize with the sentiment. She nodded to herself. At some point in the conversation, the forced smile had become a real one.
“Mechator Kim. Your orders are to recover enough to resume your duties. When we hit port at Landing, you will take two weeks of leave. After those two weeks, Doc will evaluate you. I would be honored to have you on this ship if she clears you for duty.”
The engineer nodded furiously, tears pricking the corner of his eyes.
“Aye Ma’m. I wont let you down.”
Angela turned on her heel and started to push the door open. She caught Doc’s eye and nodded to the outer hallway. She stood up and followed her out of the room.
Standing In the small airlock, she waited until Doc had shut the hatch behind her.
“How likely is he to make a recovery?”
Doc shrugged. “Aside from his leg, the injures are very minor. The suit protected him from much of the spalling and follow on shrapnel. If the piece didn’t pass right through the kid, he would have been entirely fine. As it was, the suit also shielded him from the steam blast, the active cooling kept his burns first degree instead of third.”
“And the prosthetic?” Angela asked.
The Doctor shrugged again. “It all depends on him. The shell took out the leg at the upper thigh, and attaching a prosthetic should be relatively easy. The physical therapy is the main thing that could hinder his recovery.”
“Overall time?”
“Give me three weeks. Eron is working on something for the kid, and ill start on the physical therapy right after its finished.”
Angela nodded. “I know I said all that in there, but you have full authority to deny him. I don’t want to take that from you”
A smile cracked the woman’s normally stoic face. “Of course Captain. Thank you.”
They turned away from each other, Angela began walking to her cabin. She passed through one of the main inner hull hatches. It was easily 4 meters in diameter, sized to be enough to transit parts and equipment through. The ship was divided up into two major parts. The inner hull and the outer hull. The outer hull contained compartments and equipment that could be lost and not cause the ship to fall out of the sky. The inner hull contained everything absolutely required to keep the ship flying. Things such as the four engine rooms, the prime and secondary bastion, and Eron’s machine shop. Each one of those rooms also had heavy armor surrounding them. For a railgun round to make it all the way through the three layers of heavy armor and impact the two alpha turbine generator spoke to how close they had all come to nearly falling uncontrollably into the dark yesterday. The Phoenix had been under fire before, but the rounds had all mostly been turned aside by the outer armor. No round had ever made its way all the way into the inner hull. For those who were newer to the ship, it was a wake up call that their job wasn’t normal or safe in the slightest. For those who had been with Angela since the beginning, it was a sobering reminder of the cost of their fighting.
Angela opened the door to her cabin in the outer hull, located next to all the officer’s cabins. There was an actual chair and desk, as well as a wardrobe setup that held more than one uniform set. It was also entirely private, and she could actually sit up in the bed without her head hitting the rack above her. Angela had spent most of her life on a ship, and she was used to sleeping in a bunkroom with several other people. When she was in the fleet, she was always stationed on tiny corvette class ships, and even the captain had to share a room on those boats. The Phoenix was different. It was the largest ship she had ever lived on, and the captain had their own cabin. She hated it. It felt wrong somehow. Angela barely spent any nights here. Angela’s tiny battle rack was in the inner hull section, and she spent nearly every night there instead. In the event of a sudden attack, the spaces outside of the secondary hull would be especially dangerous, and Angela did not want to fight her way through the passageways to make it all the way into the prime bastion to command the ship. Not to mention, it felt dirty to not be sleeping in the same room as several other people. All of her officers also followed Angela’s example. So much so, that some of their rooms had been given over for extra storage space.
Angela grabbed an extra uniform and changed. She hadn’t been able to do so since the fight yesterday, and even though the suit was actively cooled, it was not enough to prevent some sweating. Angela eyed the private shower lustfully. As much as she disliked the cabin, it did have some perks. She shook her head and put on the clean uniform. She resolved to use deodorant and the hint of ozone that still permeated the ship to hide her lack of a shower. On her way back to the secondary hull, she passed by the Engineer’s cabin. The door was open, and a sailor was stacking boxes of food inside. It looked like Eron had never even used the room before. Angela snorted to herself. For all she knew, Eron probably pitched a hammock under a turbine generator somewhere and used the extremely loud screeching to lull him to sleep. As she walked, she passed by more repair work in the outer hull. The single railgun round had done a moderate amount of damage, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed relatively quickly. The main casualty was the number two engine room. Without it, the ship lost much of its backup electrical power. Lose another one, and the ship suddenly couldn’t support both shields and railguns anymore. Not a good tactical situation. Not to mention that the lift arrays were located in the engine rooms, and if they lost two lift arrays on the same side, there was a good chance the ship wouldn’t pull into port ever again.
Angela stopped at the doorway to the prime bastion. She stared up at the Plaque mounted above the door. Sailors were a superstitious bunch, and if the true commissioning plaque was damaged or lost, and the ship survived, it was said that the ship would not survive much longer. Angela patted the ship’s name and bent down to enter the Prime Bastion. Once inside, she surveyed the compartment. The Navigator was standing at the Conn, watching the Oculus intently. Ameillia was a woman of average height with dark grey eyes and short black hair. She was one of Angela’s more intense officers. She tended to take her job extremely seriously, often to the point of near obsession. She was currently absorbed in tracking the wake of the Cortez class cargo ship that they were still trailing. Luckily, the ship wasn’t running very heavy, so they were much slower than Angela had expected. They also hadn’t run out their radiators, which told Angela that they were still trying to hide from someone at least. The captain made her way up to the Conn and stood next to her navigator. She watched her manipulate the Oculus for a moment and then broke the silence.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“When will we be in range?”
The Navigator looked at her.
“Another hour if we utilized the turrets. Ten minutes with the spinal, and two hours ago with a long-range torpedo or missile.”
Angela nodded. The railguns could hit from much further out than they currently were, but the enemy ship would dodge out of the way before the shells impacted. They were quickly approaching the range at which the enemy ship couldn’t dodge in time, and both vessels knew it. The chase would be decided within the hour, regardless of what happened.
“Have they sent a message?”
The navigator shook her head, a short birdlike motion. “No captain, We have sent your demand to surrender several times, but they have not responded”
Angela nodded her head. “Very well. I Relive you. The Captain has the Conn.”
The navigator nodded once again and saluted. “I stand relieved. The Captain has the Conn.”
The communication officer grabbed his logbook in reflex and started writing in it. Angela saluted her officer back, and once her hand had dropped she turned back to the Oculus.
Angela flicked a switch in the overhead and grabbed a mic holstered there.
She pressed the speak button on the mic twice, the loud click resonated through the bastion twice. Angela knew the click would also be heard all over the ship. The low level murmurs in the bastion quieted almost instantly. Each one of her officers and crew stopped whatever they were doing and listened. Angela held down the mic button and started her speech.
“This is the Captain. As most of you know by now, a shipmate was injured in the battle yesterday, to the extent of losing his leg. He will live, and we sank the bastards that did it. Now, we are currently in pursuit of their friends. Soon, we will be in combat once more. I call upon each and every one of you to do your duty to the maximum extent possible. The enemy out there wishes you were incompetent. Wishes you were derelict in your duties. But I know the truth. This crew is the finest I have ever served with. We shall prove that to the enemy today beyond any shadow of a doubt. I Expect to see you all on the other side. All hands, Man your Battle stations, Set condition one throughout the ship. Ashes to Embers!”
She un-keyed the mike, and the crew in the bastion responded to the battle cry with one of their own,
“Embers to Flame!”
Angela holstered the mic and sat down in the command chair. She drew the straps tight and took out her mask from its holder.
“Damage control, Set condition one throughout the ship upon muster confirmation. Quartermaster, sound general quarters. Weapons, Firing solution on Romeo-Alfa with the all mounts. Load shrapnel. Shields, Set for low ripple, heat up the hull.
“Aye Ma’m, One minute until loaded.”
Angela nodded. While waiting for the general quarters alarm to stop, Angela finished putting on her mask. She tested the seal and engaged the active cooling.
“Comms, send the following. Pirate ship, you will be destroyed if you do not stop your engines and prepare to be boarded. This is your final warning.”
The communication officer tapped away on his morse transmitter, broadcasting the message through the mist to the enemy vessel.
Angela waited for several moments. As if in response, the enemy ship flickered on the Oculus.
“Romeo-Alfa is extending radiators!” Came the cry from Sensors.
Damn it. The ship could outrun them easily with those.
“Weapons, fire two heat seeker missiles.”
“Aye Captain”
Angela pondered the Oculus for a moment. The ship was running somewhere, but to where was the issue. If there were more stealth warships out there, the Phoenix was in danger. The two missiles shot toward the enemy ship. They honed in on the pirate ship’s radiators, which had just started to emit heat.
“Romeo-Alfa is launching countermeasures!”
Angela watched as two massive thermal blooms showed up on each side of the enemy ship. Civilian ships were expected to have countermeasures at the very least, but-
“Missiles are diverting, Heat signature of the countermeasures has been matched!”
Damnit. Angela ground her teeth in frustration. Eron’s missiles were smarter than most normal military missiles, but the pirates had just launched military-grade countermeasures that matched their parent ship’s heat signature exactly. The missile''s dull minds had chosen the wrong targets, and Angela watched them veer off course and impact the countermeasures.
“Romeo-Alfa’s Speed is rising, estimate three minutes until they overtake us.”
Fuck it. Angela was tired of playing games with a godforsaken cargo ship.
“Engineering, prepare for burner activation. One minute Burn ready on my mark. Pilot, all ahead flank.”
“Aye Captain. Burner ready in thirty seconds.”
Angela took the mic from the overhead. “Quartermaster, sound rapid maneuvers. Weapons, sight in for a maneuvering kill.”
“Aye”
The alarm sounded, four short pulses spaced only a few seconds apart. Angela tightened her restraints, she saw the rest of the people in the Bastion doing the same.
She clicked the button on the mic.
“All hands, Prepare for burner activation.”
She holstered the mic and regarded her info panel. Calculating bearing was almost second nature at this point in her career.
“Burner ready Captain.”
Angela nodded.
“Very well.”
The enemy vessel was accelerating slowly, and would peel out of their range shortly. Time to change that.
“Activate Burners.”
The Tinker at the controls opened up a glass cover and hit a red button labeled ‘BURNER ACTIVATION’. Deep in the recesses of her ship, an interesting process was taking place. Normally, the four massive turbine engines of the Phoenix drew in mist from huge intakes on the front of the ship. At high speeds, this mist was compressed by the turbines until it formed a solid stream of highly pressurized water that jetted out the back of the ship, pushing the entire thing forward. This was the propulsion system most modern warships used and had used for hundreds of years. Eron had taken one look at that system and decided to give it one of his trademark ‘upgrades’. At the outlet of the engines, a powerful array of heat lattices was activated that heated the water up several hundred degrees. Normally, this would cause the water to flash to steam, but the high pressure at the turbine discharge held the water together, keeping it in a liquid state for the moment. The water travelled out the nozzles and suddenly found lots of room to expand. Pressure dropped, and nearly every drop instantly turned to steam. Since steam took up much more volume than water, it expanded rather rapidly against the nozzles, the constant quadruple steam explosion pushing the Phoenix forward at a rather alarming rate of acceleration.
Angela’s body pressed into her seat. The Oculus lit up with a streak of red as the heat from the burners lit them up for everyone in a forty-kilometer radius to see. The distance between the Phoenix and the Cortez class closed rapidly. Angela could imagine the look on their captain’s face as the several thousand-ton warship accelerated forward like a missile.
“Mount one and two, Fire!”
Angela watched the red beams blast out and blow through the enemy’s shields. The unarmored radiators were instantly shredded, and the ship’s speed dropped rapidly. Red streaks of hot water rained from the broken ports.
“Secure the burners!” Angela said. Almost immediately, the extra weight vanished. She breathed in deep, trying to get the feeling of normality back.
After shredding the radiators, the mounts retargeted. Two guns fired, their slugs turning to shrapnel upon impact with the shields. Some pieces of shrapnel continued on their way, and peppered the aft of the ship with craters. Most of the ship’s engines stopped. One prop entirely fell off and spiraled down into the dark. Much of the engine room’s atmosphere vented out the back of the ship, and then the mist began to flow in.
Angela cursed. The sentiment was echoed by the weapons officer, who was looking at his calculations with a furrowed brow. He turned to Angela. “Apologies Captain, I miscalculated the voltage, it wont happen again.”
Angela nodded once. “Ensure that it doesn’t.” The weapon’s officer turned back to his calculations and softly cursed again. Angela wouldn’t hold it against him. Railgun velocities were an incredibly difficult calculation at the best of times, and these certainly were not. They were unlikely to get the ship anyway with how the last one had fallen into the Dark.
“Pilot, all ahead Full. Set an intercept course for Romeo-Alfa” Reflexively, she turned her eyes upward to the open mic to the secondary Bastion.
“Davon, gather your marines, Use the shuttles and tell Eron to prep the crane array. I want that ship.”
“Aye captain” Came the muffled reply. “I would like to attend the raid if you would allow me.”
Angela raised her eyebrows.
“Any particular reason why?
“A leader must be willing to do themselves anything that they command others to do.”
Angela grinned slightly.
“Then by that logic, I will be joining the boarding party next time.”
There was an interrupted laugh, and Davon replied.
“All due respect Captain, but I’m not entirely sure we could fit the Throngler in the shuttle.”
Angela felt a slight heat of embarrassment color her cheeks. The weapon was a constant source of contention between her and the Xo. Basically, it amounted to Davon wondering “Why in the black dammed fuck do you need a god-damn woman portable tank cannon as a primary weapon?”
Evidently ‘Because I can’ was not an acceptable response. Unless your name was Eron evidently, who had happily made the stupid overpowered thing at her request.
“Very well, Carry on then.”
“Carry one Aye, I will report when my party is ready.”
They crept toward the enemy ship. The mist incursion had stopped, but whether that was because the compartment was full of the murderous substance, or because they had sealed the breach, Angela couldn’t tell.
“Multiple red contacts! Bearing 015 Mark 34 range fifty kilometers! Designate Romeo Bravo and Charlie!”
Angela’s head swiveled. The Oculus now showed two large distinct dots approaching them a decent rate of speed. The ships were bringing their shields up, and their signals indicated only four railguns between the two of them, unless they were keeping a few in reserve.
Angela watched the ships closing. “Still there Davon?” She asked.
“Aye, got back in my chair as soon as I heard the alert.”
She nodded. “I think those are missile ships. Only two mounts apiece, and a rather low shield signal. I think they intend to get in range and open up with their entire magazine. Davon, get in contact with Eron and get me an estimate on how many missiles they carry”
“I concur. Should we launch now or wait till they close in?”
Angela frowned and shook her head. “I don’t want to waste the missiles. If they launch too many for us, we can always run.”
“We should probably launch a scout for the ranging information.”
“Agreed. Flight control, launch two scouts. Make sure they stay quiet.”
“Aye Captain. Launching now.”
Just as the officer finished the statement, the two contacts began to bloom with heat.
“Vampire Vampire Vampire! Confirmed missile launch from Romeo Bravo and Charlie. Twelve and counting!”
The tiny red dots began accelerating toward the Phoenix. The enemy contacts slowed their rush forward now that they were in range and kept disgorging missiles. Angela’s eyebrows raised further and further up her head as yet more missiles were fired. It was clear they weren’t going to stop anytime soon.
“Pilot! Right full rudder, Port ahead full, Starboard stop! Make your bearing 345!”
The pilot split his throttle lever shoving the leftmost one all the way to the forward stop and pulling the rightmost lever all the way back. He manipulated his controls and the ship swung around, tilting to the side as the engines shoved the cruiser in a powerful turn.
“Weapons target the countermeasures, set for ten kilometers.”
Once the ship spun, she gave the next order. “Ease the rudder! All ahead flank!”
The Phoenix was slowly accelerating out of the missiles’ path. Slowly, their trajectories curved to follow. The Enemy ships had finally stopped launching missiles, and over four hundred were now streaking toward the Phoenix. The ship’s had resolved themselves on the Oculus. They were of a class Angela had never seen before, and while their weight indicated a frigate sized hull, they were extremely long, with missile hatches lining their entire length. It appeared their entire purpose was to launch an overwhelming wave at missiles at any opponent, and hope that they could take care of the problem. Based on the lack of closed tubes, both ships had fired their entire magazine at the Phoenix, and were now closing in on the Cortez class ship.
“Captain, Eron says a maximum of two hundred and fifty each based on their current configuration. He also notes that the enemy vessels are entirely unique, and he has no knowledge of their designs.”
Angela shook her head. Uncannily accurate as always.
The scouts were holding back, coasting silently along on electric drives, they were producing excellent ranging information with their arrays. She calculated bearings and distances. Ultimately, there was not much her ship could do against the missiles. With that many, even a Syphon ship would be hard-pressed to absorb that much damage. It was an odd tactic to use against a relatively nimble single-target contact. Saturation fire was much more suited to fleet engagements, or a battle with a Syphon.
Angela tapped her chin with one hand. She could take her shields to full, but there was a chance that another one of those stealth ships was waiting out there for exactly that to strike a killing blow.
“All Stop! Drop ballast tanks one through four! Right full rudder! Launch countermeasures!
Several things happened at once. The bastion exploded into movement as nearly every panel operator suddenly found things to do. The ship groaned as thousands of pounds of water were dropped from the bottom. The lift arrays were taken to full power immediately afterwards, and the ship shot upwards. Streams of vibrant red shot out from the Phoenix as the countermeasures launched. Such was their acceleration, Angela was pressed down into her seat for the second time that day, though this time in a downward direction. The missiles tried to follow them up, but the cruiser''s ludicrous change in velocity made that a difficult prospect. Adding to this, their greatest source of heat had vanished as the Phoenix’s engines turned off and the ship jetted upwards. The tiny clockwork brains worked the problem and decided that the countermeasures were now the appropriate target. The great wave of missiles split off in two directions, looking like the upraised wings of some massive bird.
They kept rising, faster and faster. Once they had finally turned around Angela gave the order to ease the rudder again and secure the rise. The ship was now pointing directly toward where the Enemy ships were. The Phoenix’s main signal array couldn’t actually see the enemy vessels, but the scouts that they had launched earlier were providing excellent targeting information and forwarding it using their paired lattice arrays.
One of the enemy’s missiles hit a countermeasure far below. The missile instantly began to emit heat, and a vibrant sphere of red emitted out of it. Instead of stopping there, the missile got hotter and hotter, quickly reaching a temperature that would have made the missiles shear through the Phoenix’s shields like they weren’t even there.
An alarm began to ring, a loud buzzing roar that filled the bastion. The heat limit alarm.
All of the air left the room at once as all of the bridge crew and she realized what the alarm meant.
The enemy was using heat penetrator missiles in the deep mist.
Above a certain temperature, coincidentally the same temperature required for an object to pierce the shield of a shield lattice, the mist reacted, sending out a signal that could be seen from hundreds of kilometers away. Any ship with sensors would know exactly where they were. But that was not the problem. The problem was that the signal the mist sent out attracted something that every sailor feared.
The enemy ships were prepared to do anything to kill the Phoenix, and that included risking attracting a Sentinel.
“All stop. Secure all shield lattices, drop all ballast. Rig the ship for silent running.”
Angela’s orders came out in a quiet tone, almost a whisper. Despite that, every officer in the bastion could hear her clearly.
Officers hurried to follow her orders. Railguns were de-energized, shields were lowered, and the Phoenix made itself as light as possible by dropping the remaining ballast it had. The ship wobbled in the air. The lift officer secured all of the normal lift arrays, and transferred over to the signal blocked arrays. These were smaller than the normal arrays, but would entirely block any lift signal from leaving the ship.
With the tiny lifting power of the signal blocked arrays and the lack of weapons, the Phoenix would be utterly defenseless if any more stealth ships showed themselves, but in that moment, Angela did not care. Far worse than a stealth ship was what would happen if they were detected by a Sentinel.
The crew waited. The temperature of the Bastion seemed to have dropped by several degrees. Conversation was held in whispers, each station conveying orders and reports as quietly as they could, as if their silence would save them.
The two enemy ships continued forward, toward the Cortez cargo ship. They had their radiators out, and were charging their railguns. They probably couldn’t see the Phoenix, but they were moving in a position to search for their target that had so quickly vanished.
They would never get the chance.
Up out of the dark, a sphere of black grew incredibly quickly. Gargantuan in scale, dwarfing all contacts in the immediate vicinity. It was if a mountain had appeared out of thin air. It was so large; the majority of the Oculus was taken up by its insane form.
The Oculus itself had had a hard time rendering it. Jagged ever changing angry black lines emanated from it, and the object fuzzed in and out of view, as if on a television with bad reception.
There was a SOUND.
A screaming, pulse of energy that was felt at a deep visceral level instead of heard. It left a ringing in her ears that grew until she could hear nothing but it. The mist pulsed, responding to the sound, swirling around the Sentinel like a whirlpool. The two enemy ships were fleeing, their propellers spinning with all the power they could muster.
Another SOUND. Blood trickled from her ears, pooling in the neck seal of her helmet. One of the vacuum tubes on her panel exploded. Powdered shards of glass dusted the conn.
Then, all the sound in the world stopped. The Oculus flickered, spasming in the way a calculator did when someone tried to divide by zero. The falling shards of glass stopped in midair. Time froze.
Gravity vanished. The phoenix began to fall. The pilot adjusted his controls, attempting to glide the massive warship away from the angry god.
A beam of nothing appeared, connecting the Sentinel to the enemy ship that had launched the missile, spanning the distance in less than the time it took her to blink. The beam was wider than most cities.
The beam of light became narrower and narrower until it was a single pinprick of light on the hull of the offender. And then, in a great instant of violence, the enemy vessel crushed inwards, thousands of tons of steel collapsing into the space of a clenched fist in less than a second. There was a flash of light from the enemy vessel, a gigantic explosion contained by an incredible shielding force.
A breath, and the glass fell to the deck. She could breathe again, and the did so, taking in deep gasps of air like she had just run a marathon. Gravity returned and the ship began to regain the altitude it had lost.
The Sentinel flowed back into the dark, evidently satisfied that the interloper had been dealt with. The ball of light and heat that had once been a ship followed it into the dark.
Within seconds, there was no trace of either remaining.
The sensor officer cleared his throat.
“Romeo Bravo destroyed. Romeo Charlie on course 134 at twenty-five knots.”
Angela reorientated. The lingering effects of the Sentinel cleared, and the Oculus resumed showing her the position of the ships. The remaining missile ship was spiraling slowly down toward the dark, none of its shields active. It had been too close to its sister ship when the beam fired, and probably suffered a loss of all electrical power. Luckily the Phoenix was so far away, else they might have been caught up in it as well.
“Weapons, prepare a full volley with all mounts, targeting Romeo Charlie.”
The officer’s acknowledged, and Angela studied the information coming in from the scouts who were thankfully still flying.
The salvo thudded out all at once, an overwhelming burst of sound and energy. The ship was cleaved entirely in twain as the spinal shot simply erased a large portion of the hull. Its pieces fell into the dark. A mercy killing, like ending the suffering of a wounded animal. She felt no pleasure in this victory. The enemy had tried to kill her with their missiles, and they might have succeeded against a lesser ship, but the Phoenix was powerful. Even if the Sentinel hadn’t shown up, she would have had no problem erasing the ships from her Oculus. Regardless, the souls on board those two ships were still sailors, and they hadn’t deserved the death they got.
Angela did not believe in a god. Higher powers were irrelevant when faced with the certainty of reality. But whenever she watched as a Sentinel rose, or a dragon flew, she was reminded that the world was full of things far more powerful than they ought. It was at times like these when she understood the Tinker’s worship of the Lattices and the Mist. For when a logical person was confronted with something unexplainable, clear, and terrifyingly observable, they had to come to some conclusion deep within themselves. Lest they fall into madness. She recalled a prayer, one that was far older than her, far older than most civilizations. She was rarely one to pray, but she felt as if the occasion demanded it.
She spoke the prayer, holding her clenched fist against her suit’s pressure regulator strapped to her chest, as she had been taught by her mother.
“Ashes, dust, light, By our memories and our logs we shall remember those souls that we condemn to the dark, in hope that their journey to the shall be short, and that when they arrive, the Progenitors shall greet them warmly as one of their own and allow them into the paradise of Last Light.”