Far From Home: The Complete Series (2 page)

But from what she could see, the damage to the
Defiant
was dramatic. Large black scorch marks like Godzilla-sized scratches ran along its hull. In the places the Draxx weapons had penetrated they’d left gaping holes like punches through the metal sheeting. Those decks had been evacuated and sealed after the fact, though that hadn’t stopped many lives from being lost. Repair teams had found the bodies of crew members in their quarters, killed instantly by exposure to the void.

She arrived at a buggy with a half dozen other passengers on it. She stepped on board and went to the back. Nobody looked at her. The buggy started to move, racing along a specially laid track that allowed fast and convenient travel of goods and personnel around the station. King glanced behind her at the view of the
Defiant
through the view ports. She turned back around, took a deep breath. The buggy continued on. She arrived at the centrifuge in no time at all.

* * *

Admiral Grimshaw’s office door was already open. She knocked anyway to announce her presence. He looked up from his desk. King saluted him.

“Ah. Commander King. Please, come in and take a seat,” he said with a sloppy salute back.

There was an older woman there with a data pad, presumably to record the minutes of the de-brief. She got up and shut the door.

“You’re feeling well?” Grimshaw asked King.

“As well as can be, Admiral. Considering,” she said.

His face grew serious. “Yes. Well, Captain Singh was a very good friend of mine. And it’s a terrible blow not only to this fleet, but to me personally. I believe there is a service tomorrow?”

King nodded. “Yes. In the morning. In the conference centre.”

“I’ll make sure that I’m there, Commander. He was a good man, and a fine officer. I might say a few words, too. I trust
you
will be …”

She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Everything was such a blur. But she said “Yes,” anyway. There was no doubt she would.

The Admiral nodded to the older woman in the corner for her to start taking notes, then he proceeded to get down to business.

“I’ve had time to read your report, Commander. And I have a few things to say. But first of all, I want you to tell me what happened in your own words. From the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I want to be entirely clear on all of the details,” he said.

“I understand,” Jess said.

“Would you like a coffee or something before we get on?” Grimshaw asked her.

She shook her head. “No thank you sir.”

Grimshaw smiled. “I understand completely, Commander. I’ve been in your shoes more times than I can count. I don’t envy you in the slightest. Now. The
Defiant
was tasked with protecting a convoy of ships through the neutral zone between Draxx space and ours, correct?”

Jess nodded.

“Everything was proceeding without incident. But at 1600 hours, there was a problem,” the Admiral stated. “Why don’t we start there?”

She cast her mind back, swallowed.

“We detected several unknown craft approaching the border. The Captain ordered Lieutenant Chang to monitor them and report on their progress. After a while we lost sensor contact.”

“But they came back,” Grimshaw said.

King nodded. “Yes sir. We held a tight formation behind the convoy when the Draxx re-appeared on the long range sensors. The Captain ordered that we go to red alert. We polarised the hull plating, charged the main batteries.”

“Normal procedure, in other words,” Grimshaw said.

“Yes,” Jess said. Already her mind shot back to that day. As she spoke about it, she began to relive it all as fresh and vivid as though it were happening all over again. “Normal procedure.”

“I understand this is difficult for you, Commander. Especially given the losses sustained. Please press on.”

King swallowed.

“There were three of them …”

3.

“Lieutenant! Time until they are within firing range,” Captain Singh snapped.

Lieutenant Chang did a quick calculation in her head before answering. “Forty seconds and counting.”

Singh nodded. He strapped himself into the captain chair, pulled the restraint tight around his waist. “Everyone buckle up.”

“Twenty-nine seconds,” Chang reported.

“Ensign Boi, instruct the convoy to maintain a tight formation. Follow our vector. Stay close at hand so that we can protect them if this
is
an attack,” Singh ordered.

“Aye,” Ensign Boi answered.

He turned to King. “Commander, we have birds in the tubes?”

King nodded. “Yes, Captain. Tubes one to four are ready to go.”

She strapped herself in at the secondary tactical station below Lieutenant Chang then set about monitoring the bogies progress into their close-range sensor sweeps.

“Eighteen seconds,” Chang said from behind King.

“Let’s see them on the main display,” said Singh.

A second later the front viewscreen switched from the convoy ahead of them to a data readout. The imaging processors showed the blips on their sensors to be ships Draxx ships. There was one in lead ahead of the others. It was immense.

“The first ship. How big is that? What are the dimensions?” Singh asked, cocking his head to one side.

King peered over at Chang’s readouts. “Three …
thousand
metres!”

“My God …” Singh said. At that length, it was more than ten times the size of the
Defiant
. At that size it was several times larger than even the biggest Union dreadnought classes.

“Eleven seconds,” Chang said, her voice a little constricted.

“Red alert,” King said, throwing a switch. The lighting dimmed to a dull red, and power was instantly diverted away from non-essential systems to give priority to combat and defensive operations.

“The bogies are slowing sir,” Chang reported. “They’re holding off at two thousand clicks.”

“Hail the lead vessel, Ensign. Open a channel,” Singh said to Ensign Boi. The display went blank for a moment before it was replaced with the face of a Draxx unlike any she’d seen before. It was a male, and he didn’t have the huge snout and cold dark eyes of a common Draxx. He was more humanoid, with a flat, almost featureless face. His eyes were yellow, and his skin more like wet leather than scales.

Not your average reptile.

King looked first at the screen, then at Singh. He had a frown on his face. She knew how he felt, but there were many Draxx variants. This was evidently one they hadn’t seen before.

“I am Captain Andrew Singh, of the Union Starship
Defiant
. To whom am I speaking?” he said.

The Draxx on the screen shifted visibly from one foot to the other. King imagined it standing with its hands clasped behind its back.

It spoke perfect, fluent Terran Standard.

“Prince Sepix, first-heir to the throne of the Draxx Dominion. The name of my vessel is not important. Neither are the names of the two vessels that accompany me,” it said.

Singh glanced sideways at King before he said “Then what
is
important?”

“The terms of your surrender, of course,” Sepix said plainly, a note of humour in his voice.

“We are in neutral space. We are not encroaching on Draxx territory. You cannot ask that we surrender to you, when there is not just cause. Now -“

“You are wrong, Captain,” Sepix broke in. “I do not
ask
. I
demand
. You, and the convoy you protect, will surrender immediately to the Dominion or face the consequences. From my standpoint, you do not have any choice but to obey.”

Singh looked down for a moment, quickly weighing his options. “I will need a moment to inform my crew,” he said.

Some of the bridge crew looked at him with horror etched onto their faces. King knew better than to think he’d turn them in.

“I will allow it. A courtesy from one leader of
men
to another. You have your moment, Captain,” Sepix said. The screen switched back to a view of the convoy.

Singh quickly unstrapped himself and started to pace back and forth.

“Okay listen up. Lieutenant Banks, you will manoeuvre us over the convoy. Put us between it and that Draxx ship. We will take the brunt of any enemy fire until they’re safely away. It’s imperative they reach Carridian VI,” he ordered.

He spun on his heel and jabbed a finger in the direction of Ensign Rayne. “Ensign, you will plot a course out of here. Fire up the Jump Drive and be ready to go at a moment’s notice. As soon as the convoy has left the party, so too will we.”

“Are we to open fire?” Lieutenant-Commander Greene asked him.

Singh smirked. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I want you to co-ordinate the batteries with Lieutenant Chang. The Draxx favour projectiles over energy weapons. I want the batteries’ focus to be on detonating their warheads before they can reach us.”

“Understood,” Greene said with a nod.

The batteries were located at multiple points all over the hull, and once fully-powered could fire a continuous stream of energy bolts to protect the ship from attack in all directions. They operated under computer control, but could be guided manually to focus on a specific objective. In this case, shooting down Draxx warheads.

“Ensign Boi, signal the convoy on the emergency channel. Tell them to Jump,” Singh said. He walked to the front of the bridge, rested his hands against Banks’s chair back and watched as the first ship made the Jump.

Sepix reappeared on screen. “We see that you are moving between us and the convoy. I expected such deception,” Sepix said.

“I won’t let you have them,” Singh said. “And neither will I allow you to have this ship or its crew.”

Sepix laughed. It was an awful sound. A crocodile’s cackle.

“Then there is nothing further to discuss,” Sepix said.

The screen went dead.

Singh spun about. “Action stations!”

* * *

King explained how the
Defiant
had held off against the enemy fire that rained down on them as the convoy Jumped away.

“Of course, they didn’t all Jump at once. Their drives fired up at different times,” she explained.

Admiral Grimshaw shifted in his seat. He looked across at the note-taker, to make sure she was following the conversation.

“And this led to several of the ships in the convoy being destroyed,” he said.

King nodded. “Yes. We couldn’t cover them all. The hull plating destabilised early on. As we held off against the lead ship, the two at its flank started to pick off the ships that hadn’t made the Jump …”

* * *

On the front viewscreen, another ship from the convoy burst into flame. It listed to one side, rolled slightly then exploded. The
Defiant
shuddered from the shockwave of the blast.

“Another one lost, sir,” Lieutenant Chang reported.

“I can see, Lieutenant,” Singh snapped, irritated.

King monitored the department reports flashing up on her own display.

“Captain, decks eight and ten have lost pressure,” she said. “Crews are sealing those decks off. Nine reported killed.”

Singh’s jaw tightened at the news. “How many more ships until they’re all away?”

King looked toward Chang’s station. “Another six.”

He shook his head. “This won’t do.”

The
Defiant
took another hit. The ship rocked from the impact. The lights flickered on and off several times.

King checked the ships diagnostics. “Stress on the hull now at seventy percent. If we keep taking hits like that, we’re going to lose more decks.”

“I know,” Singh said. Up ahead the two smaller Draxx ships pummelled the convoy. So far all of the
Defiant
’s efforts had gone toward fighting the lead ship. He turned to Lieutenant-Commander Greene. “Del, target the smaller Draxx ships. Prime tubes one and two.”

Greene nodded and set about targeting the two Draxx ships.

Singh turned to King, his face a mixture of emotions. Duty versus morality. He had only ever had occasion to fire a Duotonic Missile a handful of times in his career, King knew. But if they were to survive, they had to get the two smaller ships out of the way. Then they could deal with the behemoth that pummelled them from above. The Duotonic Missiles were so powerful, they almost guaranteed instant destruction. But one of the prime directives of the fleet was to cripple an enemy vessel and take it prisoner rather than outright destroy it.

“Tubes locked,” Greene said. He had his hand braced on the firing trigger.

Still looking King dead in the eye, Singh said, “Fire.”

Lieutenant-Commander Greene depressed the trigger. Two bolts of sparkling blue burst free from the front of the
Defiant
. The crew watched them split, each heading for a Draxx ship. Seconds later they both hit. The ship on the left broke in two before exploding. The second ship spun out of control as several explosions burst from its torn underbelly.

“Direct hit. Both ships,” Chang reported.

“Lieutenant Banks, ninety-degree roll. Bring us to bear on the lead ship,” Singh ordered.

“Captain, at that vector we won’t be able to stop every warhead getting through,” King advised. They couldn’t use all of the batteries to their benefit if they were face on.

“I’m aware of that, Commander. However they will have less ship to shoot at. I plan on ending this
now
,” he said. “Del, target the lead ship. Tubes three and four.”