Chapter Fifteen

“I’m losing power to the engines!” Arzesaeth Ernebee called from the helm of the decommissioned Alliance frigate.

Under her breath, Saracasi cursed. The power distribution systems were not designed along any means that made any logical sense. She had tried bringing the ship’s systems online following a standard start-up sequence. When that had failed, she had resorted to trial and error.

They had succeeded in bringing the ship to life and beginning their ascent from the surface of Roc 5. While Arzesaeth flew, Saracasi and the others had tried to get more systems working, particularly the shields. That was when the engines had cut out.

“We’re starting to lose altitude!” Arzesaeth called again.

“I hear you!” Saracasi snapped. “Sheanna, what happened that time?”

“I don’t know,” Sheanna said over the comm. She was in engineering with Tadashio. “The power transferred just fine, but the shields collapsed as soon as they started to form. That might have caused a feedback surge, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

Saracasi tapped her fingers on the control panel, her face tightened into a grimace as she thought. As confusing as the ship’s systems were, there was an element of order to them that felt just out of reach. They had either been designed by a genius or a crazy person.

A flash of inspiration occurred to her. The ship was powered by an anti-matter reactor capable of dramatically more energy output than typical fusion reactors. Unlike the Defiant Glory, which had to ration its insufficient power generation across several greedy systems, this ship had power to spare. Almost too much power.

“Bring the shields on, full power,” Saracasi said out loud.

Next to her, Saisee bent his eyestalks in question. “But we keep shorting out.”

“Exactly,” Saracasi said, not explaining. “I’m bringing the engines back online; once I do, throw as much power at the shields as they’ll take.”

“Okay,” Saisee answered skeptically.

Saracasi reinitialized the engines and heard a relieved shout come from Arzesaeth. The ship must have stopped falling back down toward Roc 5. That was a great relief, as Saracasi did not fancy the idea of crashing on an uninhabitable planet. But with an Alliance battle carrier between them and freedom, if her idea for the shields didn’t work, it wouldn’t matter.

As Saisee brought the shields up, Saracasi watched the display nervously. Most shield systems required some time to build up their protective layer of energy. This was caused by limited reactor power output and the limited amounts of energy that the generators could channel. But the shield bubble for this ship went from non-existent to a full field in a matter of seconds.

What happened next surprised her. Instead of expanding and growing the field, the shield generators stopped. The protective field was far more dense than was typical, but the layers were not expanding. This resulted in a far weaker field than she would have expected.

“The power drain is not reducing,” Saisee said, sounding just as confused as Saracasi felt. “With the field density, it is going to require this same amount of power to maintain the field.”

“That would explain the anti-matter reactor,” Saracasi said.

On the comm, Sheanna added, “But that doesn’t explain why it works that way. A dense field will give us better protection, but without multiple layers, they’ll fail quicker.”

“Well, for now, we don’t have to worry about a sustained fight. We’ll only need to cross into weapons range of that carrier for a short time,” Saracasi stated. “Let’s focus on keeping the ship flying and getting the hyperdrive ready to go.”

As she worked, Saracasi tried not to think about what her brother must be experiencing onboard the Defiant Glory. No more capable of going toe-to-toe with an Alliance battle carrier than any of the rest of them, he would be forced to flee with all the other ships. It would not sit well with him, and she hoped he would not dash into the fray in a vain attempt to rescue her.

The ship broke free of Roc 5’s gravity well and continued to move into space. “We’re coming into range of the carrier now,” Arzesaeth said.

Despite there being nothing to look at, Saracasi turned toward the front of the bridge. The room was buried deep inside the center of the frigate and had no windows. None of the tactical displays or video screens were active. But it felt right looking forward as they attempted to skirt the edge of the carrier’s field of fire.

Several tense seconds went by, and Saracasi started to think the carrier would ignore them and continue to fire long-range shots at the fleeing Defiant Glory. A sudden warning broke her of that notion. Turning back from the useless view forward, she looked down at the shield status.

Once again, the frigate surprised her. The shields’ field level remained the same as it had always been. They had taken two hits from the Alliance carrier’s powerful main blaster cannons, but the shields had absorbed and dissipated the energy and then immediately regenerated to their full strength.

She glanced at Saisee, who wore the same astonished expression she felt she must have. The ship kept moving away from the enemy. Another warning alarm sounded, and two more blasts came from the carrier. Again, the shields absorbed the fire without any noticeable damage to the ship.

Just as she was starting to think that the shields were a miracle, the entire field suddenly collapsed. One second the field was stable, and the next the entire field disappeared. Warning messages started appearing on her status board, showing blown power circuits all over the ship.

“We’ve just lost the entire shield grid,” Sheanna said over the comm. “The power conduits have fused. There’s no way we’re getting those shields back up.”

Sheanna’s assessment matched her own. Quickly, Saracasi turned away from the engineering board and over to a tactical terminal. She brought up the positions of themselves, Roc 5, the Alliance carrier, the Defiant Glory, and the other fleeing ships. They would still be in range for dozens of seconds.

“Arz,” Saracasi said. “Go evasive.”

“It will take longer to get out of tracking range.”

“Better taking longer and becoming harder to hit than going quickly and being an easy target,” Saracasi replied. She just hoped Arzesaeth was up to the task. He had said he was a good pilot, but this was the first time she would see him demonstrate it.

On the tactical display, Saracasi watched their course shift erratically. Several shots from the carrier missed them. Being on the outer edge of their effective tracking range helped. If they could get much further away, the odds of being hit would drop precipitously.

The ship suddenly shook as her hull absorbed the energy of a neutron blast. More warnings started to sound.

Behind her, Saisee shouted, “We took a hit to the port aft section. We have a hull breach in what looks to be crew quarters and a storage bay. Emergency bulkheads remain sealed, so we’re not in any danger of decompression.”

Saracasi nodded. They’d need the atmosphere inside the ship well before they reached Kol, but so far they were still wearing their suits.

“Looks like we’re reaching the edge of their effective range,” Saracasi said after turning back to the tactical display. “They’re shifting targets back to the Defiant Glory. Looks like she’s loitering on the edge.”

“Hyperdrive should be ready to go in just a minute,” Sheanna added.

“Then let’s get out of here.” She let out a slow breath. They were going to make it.

Solyss couldn’t focus. Before him, the world of Ailleroc spun around as the Chimopori twirled out of control after the missile hit from the Alliance cruiser. Warning alarms blared, the sound pounding into his head. The spinning image of Ailleroc and the earsplitting sounds combined to overwhelm him with nausea.

Solyss struggled to turn his eyes away from the viewport. Without the spinning image, he lost all sense of movement. It took him another moment, but he soon managed to shut down the emergency alarms.

Looking around him, Solyss saw Isaxo fighting with the ship’s helm controls. The Notha’s face was compressed in a tight look of concentration. Kard was crawling back toward his chair. Ymp remained in hers, but held one of her eyestalks as if in pain. Behind them, the emergency bulkhead door to the flight deck had sealed itself.

Satisfied that everyone on the flight deck would live, at least for the next few minutes, Solyss turned back to the operations display. He had shut down the alarms, but warning lights were still flashing on the ship’s status screen. The number of warnings were too many for him to process; he changed the screen to report only high-priority warnings. Several messages vanished, but not as many as he would have hoped.

“We took a direct hit to our ventral port quarter,” Solyss said, registering the information as he relayed it to the others. “Engines two and three are offline. Ventral shield generators are down. And …oh, no …“ Solyss’ heart dropped as he read the next warning message. “We have a hull breach in the cargo bay. I’m reading no atmosphere.”

Turning back toward Ymp, he had no idea what to say next. There had been more than a dozen marines in the cargo bay. To his surprise, Ymp’s expression was neutral.

“We should focus on getting the rest of the squadron to safety. My sensors aren’t functioning. How many enemy ships are we facing?” Ymp said calmly.

Nodding his understanding, Solyss felt his respect for Ymp go up. She was a professional, and they had a job to do. There were almost sixty other marines out there plus the crews on the other ships to worry about.

“We lost several sensor clusters as well,” Solyss reported. “I’m rebooting the system now. We should get a better picture of what’s out there, but there will be gaps.”

After a moment, the tactical display came back up, showing the locations of nearby ships. “I’m only reading three of our ships, but the last one might be in our blind spot. There are a dozen Alliance fighters swarming over them. They appear to be leaving us alone for the moment.”

“That’s because we’re still tumbling out of control,” Isaxo said through gritted teeth.

“Right,” Solyss replied, quickly turning his attention back to the operations controls. He shut down the dorsal shield and rerouted its power to the remaining engine. With the extra power, Isaxo was able to correct their spin and stabilize their course with just the one engine.

“We’re not going to be any good in a fight with just one engine,” Isaxo said, the tension on his face easing slightly.

“No, we’re not,” Solyss reluctantly agreed. “It’s time we made our exit. The hyperdrive, fortunately, is still functional. Isaxo, get us to a safe jumping distance.”

“What about the other ships?” Kard asked, concern for his cousin evident on his face.

“Hopefully they can get free from the fighters. We’ll just be a liability to them.”

As Isaxo flew, Solyss spent the next several minutes plotting a hyperspace course and then trying to get the communication array functional. He also watched the sensor display out of the corner of his eye. To his relief, he saw no Alliance fighters approaching them. The other three gunships he could detect were also attempting to break away from the planet.

The flight deck was quiet while they waited. There was not much to say and nothing the other two could do until they restored atmosphere to the cargo bay and gained access to the rest of the ship.

Finally, Solyss succeeded in opening a comm line to the squadron. “This is Chimopori. We have sustained heavy damage and are attempting to get to a safe distance for a hyperspace jump.”

“We read you, Chimopori,” Zeric’s voice said over the comm line. “We thought we had lost you as well. All of us have taken some damage from these fighters, but we’ve held our own and should be able to jump with you.”

A dark feeling settled over Solyss. “What do you mean, lost us as well?”

There was a noticeable pause before Zeric replied. “Unending Justice was hit in that initial missile barrage. She’s a wreck and in an uncontrolled descent down to Ailleroc.”

“Frac,” Kard said, his voice coming out as a whimper.

A weight pressed down on Solyss’ shoulders. First the marines aboard his ship, and now they had lost an entire other ship. All in a vain attempt to stop or delay the Alliance forces. Disgusted, he found some consolation in the fact that Unending Justice had carried the least number of marines of any of the gunships.

Just as Solyss shut down the communication equipment, the silence was broken by a loud banging on the door to the flight deck. Kard let out a startled yelp, and everyone turned around to stare at the door. Tentatively, Ymp stood up and moved to the door. She activated the controls, and to everyone’s surprise, it slid open. One of the marine sergeants, a Terran named Rielly Stower, stood there, looking just as surprised as they were, but very much alive.

“Oh, thank the Great One,” a Kowwok marine behind Rielly exclaimed, followed by several other declarations of excitement and relief. Rielly turned to Ymp and saluted. “Good to see you alive, Major. We thought everyone up here was dead.”

“We thought the same thing about you, Sergeant,” Ymp replied. “The ship said the cargo bay had lost all atmosphere.”

Rielly nodded. “It did. But it started inside the head. The chamber held long enough for us to move into the crew section. When we didn’t hear anything from the flight deck and the emergency door sealed, we started to fear you had lost atmosphere, too.”

Solyss felt a wide smile spread across his face. They had not lost all of the marines to a horrible decompression. The hand of fate was indeed on their side. They had come close to death, but their righteous cause had saved them. That meant there was still a chance that Fracsid and the crew of Unending Justice were still alive.

“You see that, Kard?” Solyss said. “These marines survived. That means there’s a chance your cousin did as well. We’ll come back and find him.”

The young Braz nodded solemnly. Solyss knew the odds were low that Fracsid and his crew would survive an uncontrolled reentry. But hope was an important thing.