The Burden of Command, page 19
part #14 of Empire Rising Series
Two things happened in quick succession, cutting off any further celebration. Energy spikes from the unknown alien vessel told him it had just fired. His mind was barely able to register the fact when Python shuddered. If he hadn’t been strapped in, Jake would have been thrown from his chair. All those around him weren’t so lucky. Marines in combat armor, Lydia and the gunnery petty officer were flung about. Knowing Python couldn’t survive a second volley, Jake hit the fire button again as soon as his plasma cannons were recharged. This time, all six bolts smashed into the unknown alien vessel. It hadn’t had time to begin evasive maneuvers. The bolts burning through its hull didn’t cause any secondary explosions. Yet the power readings from the ship vanished. Seconds later, it split in two! Jake had cut its internal superstructure in half.
For a few brief moments, Jake was still concerned the alien vessel might be able to fire again. Yet when it didn’t, he finally turned around to check on Lydia and the gunnery officer. Only then did he realize the gunnery compartment had been torn to shreds. He winced when he saw the petty officer lying on the floor not far from him. At least two beams had hit him in the back. Most of his torso had been burnt away. There was no sign of Becca or the other marines. His hand shot to his buckle to release it when he saw Lydia. She was lying slumped against one of the compartment walls. He rushed to her side. “Lydia, Lydia,” he said as he reached her. Gently, he propped her up straighter. His eyes searched her body looking for any sign she had been hit. She had a bruise forming on her right temple, but other than that, she looked okay. “Lydia, can you hear me?” Though her eyes flickered, they didn’t open. As gently as he could, Jake laid her down on her back. Then, he got up and moved towards the compartment’s hatch. He needed to get help and find out what was happening on the rest of his ship.
Stepping out of the gunnery compartment, Jake was confronted by three dead Flex-aor. There were no marines, however. That was a good sign. Pulling out his COM unit, Jake activated it. “Sergeant Samuels, what is your status?.. Major Onoda?” When no reply immediately came, he carefully made his way down the corridor back towards the bridge. That’s where the action would be. He already had his plasma pistol out.
Thirty seconds later, his COM unit crackled and then Becca’s voice came through loud and clear. “Lieutenant, we just killed the last of them. We are about to board their shuttle before it can undock. You can order your crew to come out of hiding.”
“Great work Sergeant,” Jake replied. “Lieutenant Morrison has been injured. Can you send a medic to the forward gunnery compartment?”
“Sending one now Lieutenant,” Becca replied. “I’ll contact you again once we have secured the shuttle.”
“Understood,” Jake replied. He then switched COM channels. “McKay, get everyone out of the service decks and back to their stations. Tell them to be careful. We’ve taken several hits. We need to know just how bad the damage is.”
“We’re on the move Lieutenant,” McKay said.
Slipping his COM unit back into his tunic pocket, Jake increased his speed as he continued towards Python’s bridge. He kept his plasma pistol out, just in case. Fifteen meters from the main hatch into the bridge, he encountered where the main fight had taken place. Nine dead Flex-aor littered the corridor. Two injured Marines were propped up against a side wall and a third was helping them. Jake lingered just long enough to see how badly injured they were. Not being able to do anything more for them, he headed onto the bridge. Being the first one there, he moved over to his command chair and sat down. First, he activated the emergency power capacitors, bringing the bridge’s main stations online. Then, he sent damage queries to all of Python’s major systems. Most of what came back to him was little more than gobbledygook. Half of the systems weren’t responding or were sending back conflicting information. Jake shook his head. They’re all going to have to be checked out visually. Of most concern were Python’s reactors and engines. Neither were showing they were operational. We need to get drones outside to survey the hull, Jake decided. As more damage reports came in, he started to realize that they were lucky to still be in one piece. The unknown alien race’s energy beams had done a number on Python. We could be stranded here, he feared.
“Lieutenant,” McKay said as he entered the bridge, leading the rest of the bridge officers behind him. “It’s good to see you in one piece.”
“And you, to,” Jake replied. “Though I fear we can’t say the same for Python.”
“I know, we have already seen some of the damage. We had to make two detours around sections that have been breached or badly damaged,” McKay said. “What do you want us to do?”
“Man your stations here on the bridge for now, let’s try and get as accurate a picture as we can from here. But then, we’re going to have to spread out and inspect everything by hand. We need to get a full account of the damage before we can start to prioritize repairs. It’s going to be a long day.”
“It sounds like it,” McKay replied. “But at least we are alive. And your plan worked! We stopped the weapons falling into Flex-aor hands.”
“That we did,” James said as he nodded. He had been so worried about Lydia, the thought hadn’t sunk in until that moment. “That we did,” he repeated as a small smile played across his lips. Lightfoot’s tactic had paid off after all.
“Lieutenant,” Becca’s voice said from Jake’s COM unit before he could say anything more to his bridge officers.
“Go ahead,” Jake responded.
“We have secured the shuttle, what do you want us to do with it?”
“Leave it for now,” Jake replied. “We’re not going anywhere any time soon. It can stay attached to our hull. We will investigate it later. For now, you better get back on board Python. We’re going to need all the help we can get to assess our damage and figure out a plan.”
“Understood, we’ll re-join you presently,” Becca said.
“Thank you, and pass on my ‘well done’ to Major Onoda and your marines. We couldn’t have pulled this off without you,” Jake replied.
“No sweat Lieutenant, our part was easy. I have to hand it to you, you’ve got balls. That trap took some nerve. I’m glad it paid off, for all our sakes.”
Jake couldn’t help but laugh at the sound of respect on Becca’s voice. It was the last thing he had been expecting. “So am I Sergeant, so am I.”
Chapter 17
Though most naval cadets already have a firm idea of just how they want to serve on a warship when they graduate, every cadet is trained in the basics of naval warship design. In times of war, and especially during fierce firefights, having officer interoperability is essential.
-Excerpt from Empire Ascendant 3015 AD.
It took twelve hours for Jake to organize his crew, carry out a complete analysis of Python and get an accurate picture of just how much damage the enemy fire had caused. In that time, Jake also dispatched Python’s only shuttle to survey the wreckage from the two alien ships, as well as assign a team to investigate the captured enemy shuttle. When he was confident he had all the information he was going to get, he called Becca, Onoda, McKay, and thankfully, Lydia, who had made a quick recovery from her head injury, to join him in Python’s small briefing room. “Thank you for coming,” he said to them all when Becca joined them and took a seat around the small briefing table. “We have a lot of work to do if we’re ever going to get out of here. It is going to take maximum effort from each of us. Before we begin, I wanted to make sure we are all on the same wavelength. Then we can make a plan and execute it together.”
“That sounds good to me Lieutenant, you’ve got us this far, I’m sure you can get us home,” Becca said. For the second time in one day, Jake was surprised by the respect in her voice. “Where do you want to start?” She asked.
“Let’s start with our casualties, how are they faring?” Jake asked Becca. He had placed her in charge of overseeing them.
“We still have four seriously injured I’m afraid,” Becca answered. “Private Hatun, our medic, doesn’t think Jamieson is going to make it. Not without access to proper medical facilities. The other three are stable. He is confident he can keep them that way until we get back to Imperial space.”
“How long has Jamieson got?” Jake asked, though he didn’t want to hear the answer. They had already lost three Marines in the firefight with the Flex-aor boarders. Another five crew had been killed when an enemy energy beam had vaporized the service ducts they had been hiding in. Jake didn’t want any more deaths on his conscience.
Becca shook her head. “Hours at best.”
Jake nodded as his head fell. Words he had heard from his father echoed in his mind. The burden of command. “And there’s nothing we can do for him?” He asked without meeting Becca’s eyes.
“I’m sorry Lieutenant, but we just don’t have the facilities to deal with his wounds. He has serious internal bleeding.”
Jake’s hands clenched into fists. Python had been equipped with a small medical bay. Yet, it had been completely destroyed by another energy beam that had burnt through the pirate ship’s armor. If only we had a stasis pod, he wished. Then at least, Jamieson could have been put in stasis until they got back to an Imperial world that could have operated on him. If there’s nothing you can do, Jake said to himself sternly, then you need to prioritize getting everyone else home. Though it was difficult, Jake raised his head back up to meet everyone’s gaze. “All right, then we must move on. McKay, you understand Python’s condition the best, you may brief us.”
“Yes Lieutenant,” McKay responded. “As best we can tell, we took three energy beam hits when we had our systems powered down. With the proximity missile strike and energy beam that hit us during the missile duel, Python has taken a battering. Reactor One is out of commission. I can’t get her to cold start. Maybe if we opened her up, we could figure out what is wrong, but that could take weeks and we’d need to berth her in a repair yard with the necessary equipment. Reactor two is giving me five percent power. It’s enough for life support for now and to keep the systems we’ve been using to run diagnostics online.” As he spoke, McKay shook his head. “I’m really not sure how much more we can get out of it at this point. Trying to push it any further could cause a meltdown. That’s not our biggest problem though, all four of our impulse engines are off-line. An energy beam struck them, damaging all of them to various degrees. We also have three hull breaches and several compartments that have been vaporized by the enemy fire. The damage has caused disruptions to secondary systems throughout the ships as energy transfer lines and other communication cables have been destroyed. It was actually a good thing all our crew were in the service ducts. If they hadn’t, we might have lost two or three times as many people. In short then, we are barely space worthy, and a long way from being able to go anywhere any time soon.”
“What about the shift drive?” Becca asked. “If it’s destroyed, then is no chance of us getting out of here.”
McKay gave the briefest of smiles. “Miraculously, the drive itself is intact. We lost two shift nodes, but the remaining six are functioning. From the spare parts we have, I believe I can jury-rig a seventh. That should be all we need to tear a hole into shift space. Provided we ever have enough energy to try it.”
Jake clapped his hands together. “That is good news. It means we have hope. If we can get Python’s other systems put together, we can get home. We just have to figure out how we’re going to do it. So, what about our impulse engines, can we salvage parts from three of the damaged ones to repair a fourth?”
McKay shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “I’m afraid at this point, I just don’t know. There are some spare parts in one of our cargo holds. With them, and salvaging the others, we might be able to. At least, we might be able to put together something akin to an impulse engine. We won’t know until we try.”
Jake nodded. “But it is possible. That has to be our priority then.”
“That and Reactor One,” Lydia added. “If we can’t get more than five percent power, it could take us months, if not years, to get back home. By my calculation, we need to get it up to at least thirty.”
“Then that is our next target,” Jake said. “We can worry about patching the holes in our hull and bringing weapons systems and other secondary systems online later.”
“But what about protection?” Becca asked. “It sounds like we’re going to be stuck here for days, if not weeks. What are the chances the Flex-aor or the other alien race send someone to look for their missing ships?”
“High, I’d say,” Jake guessed. “Though that is the one other piece of good news we have,” Jake continued. “The survey I had Sub Lieutenant Davidson carry out of the enemy wreckage confirmed the unknown alien vessel was carrying Karacknid weapons. She managed to collect an intact missile and two laser cannons. We’ve stored them in a hangar bay. We can worry about investigating them properly later.”
“It means we did the right thing,” McKay said as he nodded in approval of what Davidson had found. “We’re not in this mess for no good reason.”
“Agreed,” Jake replied. “But it means Becca is likely right. Whatever Flex-aor are still out there, they’ve been hiding from us for nearly thirty years. There’s no doubt they would be desperate for whatever technologies the Karacknids might give them. Once they realize their freighter is missing, they are bound to send ships looking for it.”
“Which means if we are still here, they’ll find us for sure,” Lydia said. “If our hull has been shot to pieces, our stealth coating will be completely useless.”
“Which is why the first task I have for you is to tow us back to one of the asteroid fields on the edge of the system,” Jake replied. “We can attach our shuttle to Python’s hull and use its engines to slot us into the middle of the asteroid field. With luck, we can hide there until we can carry out enough repairs to get out of here.”
Lydia’s eyes widened. “You want to maneuver a frigate using only a shuttle’s engines? And worse, into an asteroid field?”
Jake nodded and flashed Lydia a small smile. “I didn’t say it was going to be easy. But I have confidence in you. We need to get out of the open where we’d be a sitting duck. Once we’re safe, we can take as long as we need to carry out repairs. Are you up for the challenge?”
Lydia glanced around at McKay and Samuels. “It’s going to take a lot of preparation. And I’d like to simulate it a number of times before trying. But if we have no other choice, I’m willing to give it a go.”
“Excellent,” Jake said as he flashed Lydia a small smile. “We have a plan then. It’s vital we all work together. Stopping the Karacknid weapons was just the first part of what we must accomplish. We need to get back to Earth now with news the Flex-aor are still a threat. For nearly thirty years now, we have thought them no longer a factor. If there is a Queen out there with her own fleet, it could change the entire strategic situation. The Admiralty needs to know as soon as possible.”
“Not to mention these new aliens as well,” Onoda added. “Did Davidson find anything else out about them?” Jake glanced at Lydia and nodded. She had been heading up that work as well as assisting McKay with assessing Python’s damage.
“We haven’t found too much. Of most interest are two bodies, and one largely intact computer core we managed to recover from the wreckage of the unknown alien ship.” Lydia explained. “However, Python isn’t equipped with the same Kulrean computer tech our warships are. Breaking the encryption and translating the data on the core is proving difficult. We are basically limited to what Kulrean cryptography and translation software we have on our datapads. We have been able to decipher one thing though, they call themselves the Racumin. Who they are or why they are working with the Karacknids and the Flex-aor, I have no idea. This is what they look like.” The small holo display they had been using changed from a schematic of Python to that of a three-legged, three-armed alien. Surprisingly, its body and head looked almost Human, but its two sets of three appendages made it look very disconcerting.
Becca screwed up her face. “They are weird. How do they walk or keep their balance?”
“I’m sorry, none of our crew are semiologists. Your guess is as good as mine Sergeant,” Lydia replied.
“They are strange, but clearly, they know how to fight. If nothing else, at least we have a name and a face to go on,” Onoda said. “That will give the higher-ups back on Earth something to go on.”
“And if they are transporting arms of the Karacknids for the Flex-aor, we have to assume they are one or both of their allies,” Lydia added.
“I suppose we do,” Jake agreed. “Though it makes little sense. The Flex-aor have tried to exterminate every other race they have met. The Karacknids might be a little kinder, but only just. Whoever the Racumin are, they could be making a big mistake by getting into bed with either of them.”
“And they are also making a big mistake by making enemies of us,” Becca assured him. “Once we get this tin can fixed up, we can get back to Earth and let the Admiralty know. In months, this whole sector will be crawling with scout ships and patrols.”
“Let’s hope so,” Mackay said, “for that will mean we make it back in one piece. There are a lot of things to do before then.”
“Indeed there are,” Jake said as he clapped his hands together. “Now that we are all caught up, it’s time to get to them. I’m going to split the duty rosters between the five of us. We can each take six hours on Python’s bridge standing watch. Then we can oversee our own duties the rest of the time. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep though, this is going to be a long process. Trying to rush things isn’t going to get us home any faster.”
