Penance (RN: Book 2) (26 page)

Guimar stared at her screen, her jaw dropping in horror as a large red warning flashed the loss of all external sensor feeds. “El-cee!” She cried with genuine distress, “I’ve lost all external senor feeds. I can’t see nothing!”

“Same here.” Honus said. “Tactical is totally blank.”

“And here,” the navigator said.

Canthouse moved to stand behind the tactical and navigation officers, both of whose screens flashed the same red message as they typed like devils to recover their systems.

“Switch to secondary.”

“I tried, sir, but they use the same bus. I can-not get any response.”

“Honus, anything?”

“No, it’s all totally dead.” Honus replied.

“Did you reboot the system?”

“Yes, sir. The local system is reporting fine, but the sensor external hardware is a complete blank.”

“Guimar, can you confirm?”

“Honus is correct. The hardware connection to the sensor tower is severed. I cannot even run a diagnostic as the hardware does not respond.”

Canthouse grimaced from frustration, “Do we have any external feeds?”

“We have the cameras and some radar sounders, sir, but that is all.”

Somewhere in the recesses of Canthouse’s mind an old voice said,
So she’s both blind and crippled, aye! I’ll take her for a walk and’ll be coming back alone.
The images of an aged collie and a stooped weather faced man with a shotgun crooked over his right forearm appeared in his mind. He remembered that dog, and he remembered how powerless he was to prevent something happening to something he loved by someone he so feared. He watched her old frame plodding arthritically behind as she followed the gamekeeper up the cobbled track and into the trees. The single gunshot made him jump and signalled the ultimate end to something he knew and cared for.

Canthouse stared at the schematic of the Bristol on the main screen, her wounded form speared with so many red flags it looked as if she were bleeding to death and something twitched inside him

I’ll take her for a walk and’ll be coming back … No! Not today, old man!

“Put the cameras on screen,” Canthouse said as he moved to the command chair and depressed a button, “Engineering.” He watched the grainy images from the hull cameras cyced on the screen as he waited for a response. “Engineering!” he snapped, again with no response. His face reddened as he shouted, “God damn it! Won’t somebody answer the –“

“Engineering.” A panting voice responded.

“What the hell has happened to the sensors? We’re blind up here.”

“We know, sir, but it’s kind of a mess down here and –“

“I don’t care about your mess; we can’t see a damn thing! Get the sensors back on line and remove the sub-light limitations, now!”

“Aye, sir. Of course, sir. We’ll do whatever you want, sir!
You stupid
…”Canthouse was sure he heard the man utter an expletive before the link dropped.

“
God damn you all, you useless sons of bitches!”
The first officer cried, slamming the arm rest with his fist. He pumped with pure emotion with his face crimson as he turned to the command crew, who shifted their attention to ship business on witnessing his uncharacteristic fury.

Canthouse pushed himself from the chair and stood breathing through a clasped fist as he considered his options. The view cycled to a rear camera showing the nebula behind, with much of the copper-yellow backdrop obscured by the flaring globes of stars and other celestial bodies local to the area. Yet, those flaring white spheres also hid a capable enemy, an enemy that would stop at nothing to reacquire the small black case so recently taken from them, and what could he do to stop them?

They were toothless, effectively blind and crawling arthritically down a path with no idea what lay at the other end:
I’ll take her for a walk and’ll be …God damn it, NO!

He rubbed his eyes to help reboot his way of thinking, cursing himself for ever imagining that scenario as now he couldn’t get rid of it. Their immediate requirement was sight, they needed to see what the enemy was up to and try to counter any threat that – something in the starboard rear camera caught his attention. One of the flaring orbs was moving but he lost it when it entered the movie projector brilliance of a background star. He watched the screen until it reappeared, its rocket exhaust lighting up the haze from the Bristol’s engines as it curved toward them.

“Incoming,” Canthouse cried grabbing the command chair.

The bridge shuddered from the impact on the lower forward hull.

“That was a class one.” Honus shouted over the alarms as he watched the scrolling data from the internal sensors. “I’d say that was a ranging shot to see if there targeting systems work.”

“Then that means more will be following. We need to get out of here.” Canthouse sat in the command chair, “People, I know she’s damaged, but the Bristol is a modern combat vessel and there must be something we can do. Optio -”

ding ding

The unfinished sentence sat perched on the first officer’s lips as the navigator spun to face him, his face alive with excitement, “Sir! We have the gate drive back!”

“Are you sure?” Canthouse asked dubiously. Too much was going wrong for something to go right.

“Yes,” the navigator said looking over his displays. “The system shows as compromised but operational. We can leave.”

“Well done, Mr Penton. Can you take us to the gate point?”

“The sub-light motives are still running and I think I can use the inertial navigation system to take us to the gate point, but with the gravity rotors slowing it’ll be best guess only.”

Canthouse nodded at the navigator’s suggestion. It was truly a stab in the dark, but any good news was good news and it proved his people were still trying. “It’ll also give the impression we’re still capable, to some degree at least, so do it. Weps?”

Honus looked near panic as he turned to face Canthouse, “Sir, I’ve tried everything to get the acquisition systems back on line, but nothings responding.” His eyes flitted as he hunted for something positive to say, but he needn’t have feared as Canthouse was more than impressed with the weapons officer’s abilities, and knew that if there was a fix, Honus would find it. “I guess I can try bore sighting the main batteries using the cameras, but it’s just a long shot at best.”

Canthouse dug up a reassuring smile as he could manage, “Try it, Mr Honus. We just need to keep sending something their way so they don’t just walk up and open an air lock. Operations?”

Any positive momentum generated by the navigator and weapons officers was stilted by Guimar, who sat with her chin in her left hand; a finger idly circling the touch pad on her console. She never even looked away from her display as she said, “There’s nothing I can do.” Guimar looked completely resigned to the fact that the external sensors were unrecoverable, and even though there were in the middle of a battle with plenty of other things demanding her attention she appeared to have given up.

The first officer stared flabbergasted at the operations officer. His impression of Guimar to date had been one of a diligent person who operated with an efficiency far above the other operations staff, so much so he had a partly completed recommendation for merit and consideration for advancement on his tablet for her. But this petulant resentment of things not being to her liking had changed his view of her completely.

“Have you tried reinitialising the main bus from the service systems? Or maybe there’s a way of redirecting power from one of the systems local to the sensors. Or …” Canthouse’s eyes flitted as he raped his intellect for possible solutions, “Have you tried contacting engineering again to get an expedite?”

“Yes, not possible and they don’t respond,” Guimar said lackadaisically, her attention still on the display.

Her finger continued on the touch pad, and from the light that played on her face he was sure she was involved in some sort of video game. Anger surged in the first officer along with the urge to slap her, he made to move to her position only to stop on hearing the voice from behind.

“Just launch a class five and use its sensor feed.”

The command officer turned to see Stavener standing to the rear left of the command chair.

Stavener looked about them with his usual suspicion and let his paranoia respond, “What?”

Canthouse swivelled the chair to face him, “What did you say?”

“What.” Stavener responded.

The first officer tilted his head in an exasperated fashion as if coaxing information from a half wit, “We’ve no time for fun and games, Mr Stavener. What did you say about the class five and the sensors?”

Stavener gave him a cryptic look, “You have no sensors.”

Still partly fuelled by his anger for Guimar, Canthouse closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath and spoke deliberately, “Yes, we’re fully aware we have no sensors, Mr Stavener. You said something about using a class five as sensors. Did I hear you correctly?”

“Yes. Launch a class five and have it tag close to the hull. You can use its sensors until we gate out. They’re just as good as the crap in the sensor tower.”

Canthouse spun back to face the main consoles, “Weps! Fast cycle a class five for VLS launch and have it leech to the hull.”

The weapons officer worked furiously with Canthouse sighing from despair as he predicted what Honus’s shaking head signified, “There are no class fives in the VLS silos. They were all removed to make room for interceptors.”

“The rear tubes?”

“Still indicate as offline, sir. The weapons boys are doing what they can, but it’s cramped and hot down there.”

The first officer stabbed at the communicator on the arm rest, “Tom! We need a class five and we need it now!” He stared at the digital channel indicator willing a response.

Hewton’s fatigued voice bore the isolated quality of a man in an EV suit, “No, LC, no can do at present. We’ve almost finished freeing up the magazines and to restage a class five means dragging it from number four magazine. Not something we can do in a hurry.”

“Expedite it, man. We’re blind and need its sensors.”

“I understand, LC, but a class five weighs three tonnes and to manhandle it there will take at least twenty minutes.”

With his face reddening from frustration, Canthouse made to press the urgency of the request when Stavener’s waving hand caught his attention.

“Tell him to leave it as we can use one of the launches as a bridge.” The operation’s officer said.

“Tom, forget what I said and continue as you are.” Canthouse inclined his head to Stavener, “What do you mean?”

“We can use one of the launches to connect wirelessly to the sensor pod.”

“Is that possible?”

Stavener gave a matter of fact shrug, “It’s how we send sensor data to the shuttles.”

“Guimar said the sensors are none-functional. That they have no power!”

Stavener glanced at Guimar, “Why would you say that? The sensors are fine and have power. Just the hard link has been severed, the inalambrics are fine.” He looked back to the first officer only to find a red face fuelled by disbelief and simmering rage. He stepped away.

In a controlled voice as he could manage Canthouse said, “
Mr
Guimar
, can you confirm what Mr Stavener has just informed us?”

“
No
. What Stavener said is not correct. There is no power to the sensor array. It won’t work.” Canthouse considered Guimar in slow wonder and surging intolerance. Her resentment of Stavener’s superior knowledge fuelled her petulance to the point that she looked as if she were about to throw a tantrum. She sat bolt upright, her large eyes red and moist and her bottom lip actually protruding as she speared the keys so they gave a very audible
clack
from every stabbing finger.

Pointing at Guimar’s screen from behind Stavener said, “Of course it’ll work. Look; the system interrogator says the sensors are still pulling 135 amps. Just patch them through the Brunel or Bayden-Powel and we -”

“
Noh!
” Guimar said her French accent growing stronger as she slapped at the pointing finger. “You are not crew. You do not belong on this stupid English ship, so go away!” She turned and pushed at Stavener’s chest in an attempt to remove him.

Stavener continued to point at the screen, “Look, I’ll show you what to do. Just open the –“

Guimar suddenly stood with her slap to the face catching Stavener completely off guard. Eyes wide with bewilderment and too stunned to be angry, he took a step back as he watched her unravel.

“Who the hell do you think you are, you stupid English man? Nobody tells me how to do my job. Je ne peux même pas croire qu'ils me ont envoyé ici . Qu'ai-je fait pour finir sur ce dieu détesté navire? Ugh!”

Canthouse stared with bewildered amusement at the display of entitled petulance. He had seen some bridge drama in his fourteen years of service, but nothing quite like Guimar’s foot stamping display of command entitlement. Whilst it was true that most officers obtained some sense of elevated status or the feeling of being ‘part of the command process’ that came with bridge duty. With her stamping of feet and thrusting of fists, Guimar had taken the melodrama to a whole new level, which made what happened to her next seem almost deserving.