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“Go away.” Olivia groaned.
“Captain says to get up,” Noah said continuing to shake her shoulder.
Olivia tried to ignore the big man. She squeezed her eyes shut to avoid the searing bright light and tried desperately to return to the sweet embrace of sleep. Despite Noah shaking her, it almost came.
“All right, guess I need to pull out the big guns. I didn’t want to do this kid, but you leave me no choice.”
The sudden shock of cold water pouring over her head sent Olivia bolting out of her bed. The icy water ran down the length of her body soaking her clothes. As she stood there, water dripping from her hair, she stared in shock at Noah.
“What the hell?!”
“I warned you.” Noah said with a shrug, “Let’s go. The captain needs you at the helm.”
Pulling her arms around her as she started shivering, Olivia shook her head adamantly, “I can’t go. I’m drunk.”
Noah made a dismissive sound with his mouth and waved his hand, “No you’re not. You’ve been asleep for hours.”
“But I feel terrible.”
“That’s called a hangover. Should have drunk some water. I told you that too.”
Noah walked through the door leading out of Olivia’s room, and then stopped when she still didn’t follow him. He stared intently at her. Olivia glanced at him and the floor.
“Am I going to have to carry you? Because I will.”
“You shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be safe to let me fly the ship. And I don’t mean because of the hangover.”
“What are you talking about?”
A long moment passed. Olivia stared at the floor. Finally, she quietly said, “I almost got us all killed when we fought those pirates.”
“Bullshit. I saw that move you pulled and avoided three well-aimed shots. Saved us from being carved to pieces.”
“Luck. But then I ran us right into a missile. It almost killed the captain.”
“It happens.” Noah said with a shrug, “But if you don’t get up to the helm, you’re going to get us all killed for sure. More pirates, or something, want another go.”
“What?”
Noah visibly cringed, “And there it is.”
“There what is?”
“That shrill teenage girl voice. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how old you are. But that sound reminded me you’re just a kid. So, thanks for that. I guess. Let’s stop dillydallying and go not die. Okay?”
Unsure what to think of the last few minutes, Olivia followed behind Noah. Water still dripped from her hair, and she continued to shiver. Her clothes were clinging to her she realized, and were quite sheer from being wet. Defiantly she stuck out her chest in a bid to make Noah uncomfortable.
He left her at the helm in the control room, staring a little too long before rolling his eyes when he turned away. She smiled at the small victory. The fleeting feeling lasted only a second as she found herself alone at the helm.
Reluctantly, Olivia took the controls, put in her earpiece and linked her handheld. “Helm, here.”
“Finally.” Ariana said, “Match my course. And get started on an FTL jump. Anywhere but back the way we came or to the Hub.”
“Why not back to the Hub?” Vlasa asked.
“These guys knew Javi was aboard, so they obviously have some contacts on the Hub. And with a fleet this size, they could threaten the station. We wouldn’t be safe there and neither would anyone else.”
Olivia searched the sensor display and quickly located the mass of ships they were approaching. Unexpectedly, their captured pirate ship engaged its engines and started toward the mass of ships.
“Olivia, keep up. We need to stay in formation.” Ariana’s voice startled her.
Engaging the engines, she asked, “Captain, what are you doing on the other ship?”
“Returning it. Now get started on those calculations. You have less than three minutes.”
Olivia blinked, still confused. But the tone of the captain’s voice brokered no argument, and she hastily pulled down the navigation charts. Quickly she picked a nearby star system and started calculating the jump. The pressure to work quickly helped focus her, and for a few moments, her headache receded to a mere background throb.
While she worked, she half listened to the others.
“Squee, are those shield upgrades up and running?” Ariana asked.
“They are, Captain. I must inform you that to power them up will mean shutting down other systems.”
“Vlasa shut down the weapons. We aren’t getting out of this one by fighting.”
“All ready done. But we will still need more. I assume you do not want me to shut down the teleporter?”
“Not really. Shut down environmental systems. Might get a little uncomfortable, but no one will suffocate for a few hours.”
The gentle hum of the circulation fans stopped, and the lights dimmed to darkness. Olivia cursed to herself as the dim glow from the helm control panels were not bright enough to allow her to see her charts. Pulling her handheld out, she activated a flashlight and held it under her chin.
Finally, she entered the coordinates into the navigational computer and confirmed them against the computers own calculations. Done, she glanced at the sensor display and felt another shiver. They had moved very close to the fleet of ships.
“FTL calculations done, Captain.” Olivia reported.
“Good. Vlasa, time to jump?”
“Two minutes.”
“Olivia, get ready to go evasive. Things are about to get interesting.”
Nervously, Olivia shifted her seat and set her hands on the controls. Her mind kept flashing back to that missile. The horrible vibration as it impacted, and the tense moments of silence when no one could reach the captain.
They continued to approach the massive ship. The big ship rotated to its port side revealing a pair of docking ports. Olivia followed the captain’s changes in speed, giving every indication that they were preparing to dock.
“Olivia, now!” Ariana ordered, her voice firm but not harsh in her ear.
Olivia fired Seraph’s dorsal thrusters and engaged the sublight engines at maximum thrust. They dived under the big ship just as the captain’s captured ship also accelerated. It slammed into the larger ship sending bits of shrapnel twirling through space in all directions.
“Captain’s aboard.” Noah declared.
Noah’s announcement triggered a warning to Olivia. She suddenly juked the ship sideways and fired the ventral thrusters. She continued to shift the ship’s course randomly and rapidly. The more unpredictable she made her maneuvers, the harder it would be for anyone to board them via teleporter.
Warnings flashed on the display as the sensors identified incoming weapon fire. The first few shots missed by a wide margin thanks to Olivia’s rapid maneuvers. Her warning display soon started to become indecipherable as more ships fired at them, creating a rain of energy bolts in space.
Several slight vibrations were the first indication that some of the bolts had found their target. The newly enhanced shields had absorbed the impact, but now registered as depleted. Desperately, Olivia redoubled her maneuvers, this time firing the main engines on a reverse course. For a moment they hung at a relative stop in space before accelerating back toward the fleet attacking them.
Her maneuver bought them a few seconds of calm, and by the time the enemy gunners had realigned their firing vectors, Squee had restored the shields. Studying the layout of the fleet around them, Olivia tried to identify which ships were firing on them. One of the closest one caught her attention.
For a moment, she froze. The sensor profile for the ship sent a chill down her spine. It almost looked to be an AI warship. Shaking her head, she repeated to herself, “No, no, no, no, no.”
Several more blasts dissipated against the shields drawing her attention away from the ship. More followed these first few and these made it past their ships shields, impacting on the vulnerable hull. Olivia’s starboard side sensor display cut out as the external sensor cluster was either cut off or destroyed.
Blind to her starboard side Olivia started shifting mostly to port before realizing how predictable that would make her. Instead, she started to roll the ship using the port sensors to give her a partial picture of everywhere. More blasts impacted the hull through the shields.
“Fire in environmental control room.” Vlasa announced.
Beginning to lose the battle to stay unpredictable, Olivia started to feel the sense of panic returning. She unleashed a defiant scream at the feeling in a final desperate bid to stave it off. As she screamed, the world outside suddenly vanished, replaced by the unknowable weirdness of an FTL jump.
Seconds later reality returned to normal. Alarms still blared all over the ship. On instinct, Olivia continued maneuvering the ship randomly for several seconds before her mind registered that they were no longer under attack.
Slowly, she pulled her hands away from the controls. Sweat drenched her, and her hands immediately begin to shake. A sudden wave of exhaustion hit her as the adrenaline spike ramped down. It was only the steady stream of voices in her ear that kept her from immediately starting to doze.
“Nice flying, Olivia.” Ariana’s calm voice said, lifting her spirits. “Noah, get to environmental controls and vent the room before that fire does what Olivia kept that fleet from doing.”
“On it,” Noah answered.
“Vlasa, damage report?”
“Starboard sensor cluster is nonresponsive. I will need to get a closer look to see how severe that damage is. A few minor outer hull breaches but not in any vital areas.”
“Okay, that’s noncritical at the moment. Meet Noah at environmental and make sure we’ll still have breathable air. Olivia, give the ship some roll so we can keep an eye on our blind side.”
Olivia acknowledged and then set the ship on a gentle roll. She let her eyes slide closed even though she knew she should probably get started on plotting another FTL jump. But that could wait for at least a few minutes. The AI ship she had seen must have just been a figment of her hangover. It hadn’t been real. As the adrenaline started to leave her, the headache began to return, putting everything else out of her mind.
“Umm...” Noah said, “The manual purge controls aren’t responding. I can’t vent the fire.”
“You will need to....” Vlasa begun but Squee cut him off
“Shields down, Captain. I have power, but systems are overloaded and will not respond. It is as if we have been hit by an ion weapon.”
“Olivia, increase rotation.” Ariana ordered.
Olivia responded immediately, and began surveying the sensor data as it came in. No contacts appeared. At the rate she had Seraph rotating it would be nearly impossible for a ship to remain in their blind spot at any safe distance.
“I don’t see anything out there.” Ariana said in agreement, “Oh, no. Olivia, where are we?”
“PSR J0108.”
“That’s a pulsar. If we don’t get the shields back up soon, we’re going to all get fried by the radiation.”