Penance (RN: Book 2) (7 page)

The floor shook as if the ship were being fed into a grinder as Canthouse staggered across the bridge to the weapons station, almost losing his footing when the deck shifted beneath him. His mouth moved but his words were inaudible as he spoke to the weapons operator. The
thun...thun
stopped briefly to be replaced by a deeper
thum...thum
when the gunners swapped solid shot for breaching charges, which were little more than enormous shotgun shells. The effect was immediate, with the floor bucking like tectonic separation as the creature struggled to tear its teeth free from the stinging food that had been so easy to catch.

Men clasped their ears and cried out when a deep resonating moan, like some great wounded beast caused the bridge to resonate. With a final seismic jerk the creature freed itself and moved some distance away, with the great head shaking in agitation as it circled the ship in insane bursts of speed.

Denz staggered to the ops console where Canthouse was speaking to Cummings who paid no attention to the blood running from her brow to drip from her chin to the keyboard.

“It’s released us sir, but hasn’t gone away. It’s circling the ship at a distance of two kilometres and looks very unhappy,” said Canthouse.

“Do you think it’ll come back?”

“Most definitely. It knows we can sting it, but any hunger or base fury may lead it to attack any minute.”

“We need to let it know that if it tries again we’ll give it indigestion.” Denz looked towards the now empty weapons officer’s seat and noted the slumped form beside it. He moved across to the prostrate weapons officer and sat him up against the console. “Weps!” Denz shouted. The man never responded, and appeared asleep with his chin on his chest as blood dripped from his nose and pooled on his shirt. Denz shook him by the jacket and the weapons officer stirred into life with the uncertain movements of a drunk as he slowly lifted his head. His eyes were vacant and uncomprehending as he stared at his commanding officer whose words he could not comprehend, and with a series of jerks he lowered his chin to his chest again.“Give me a hand.” Denz said to Canthouse, and they slid the injured man from his station and lay him on the floor at the rear of the bridge, where a medic took over.

Denz sat at the weapons console looking over the unfamiliar controls. “The main batteries appear to sting it, but I doubt they’ll seriously wound or kill it. If it’s determined enough it’ll probably just ignore them. I don’t think we can use the long axis weapon as it’s moving too fast, so we need to use a torpedo with a high yield.”

“Nuclear?” asked Canthouse.

“No. We’re too close. What’s the highest yield non-nuclear weapon we have?”

“The class five, CN3 composite, sir.”

“Can it be fitted with a penetrator tip?”

“It comes as standard as it’s a dedicated hull breacher.”

“That’ll do!” Denz looked over the touch screen weapons console and realised he had no idea what he was looking at. Even though the console was physically the same as before the Bristol’s refit, the interface had changed entirely. He gave several of the touch sensitive controls a tentative prod, only to have errors and multiple options boxes appear.”

“Erm ... may I, sir?” Canthouse said in a hesitant tone.

Denz watched as his XO manipulated the screens and armed two torpedoes to the required specifications. It took several minutes for the gun crews to rearm the warheads and for the check light to turn green.

“The weapons are ready, but the targeting computer is having trouble locking on.” Canthouse continued to type has he talked.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure, but there appears to be a delay in acquiring the targeting data. I suspect the sensors are having problems with the target cutting across so many magnetic contour lines. It’s creating too many variables.”

“Options?”

“I could launch it as a TOW weapon and guide it manually. The problem is TOW weapons are designed for distant or slow moving objects, so we only have forty percent of the manoeuvrability. We may not catch it.”

“Do you think you can?”

“One can only try, sir. But I was my classes darts champion at uni,” Canthouse said with a grin.

“Then score us a bulls eye, Mr Canthouse,” Denz responded with all the humour he could muster.

Canthouse worked the keys, and with a final hesitant stab said, “Weapon away!”

The weapons display changed to a split screen with one side showing a view from a camera mounted in the nose of the torpedo, the other a sensor overlay of the area. The camera view contained little more than a shifting star field or the occasional glimpse of the green mist until Canthouse got a feel for the controls and the torpedo went more or less where he directed it. Yet, still he shook his head and fought with the controls to try and follow any fleeting glimpse of the creature as it flashed by.

“It’s just not responding,” he said, leaning left and right as if his body movements would somehow be translated to the torpedo’s agility. After several swooping passes and a near miss the screen went black and the weapon disappeared from the sensor grid.

“Damn it!” cried Canthouse giving the joy stick a frustrated smack.

“What happened?” asked Denz.

“The torpedo consumed all its fuel and auto detonated as a safety measure.” Canthouse rubbed the bridge of his nose and eyes. “I’m sorry, sir. It was moving just too fast to track.”

Denz exhaled slowly to release some frustration. He knew his XO was doing everything possible “We can try again with –“

ding ding

Both men glanced at each other. Canthouse rotated his chair and they stared at the vacant operations console for several seconds. He glanced about to see the operations officer having her head bandaged at the rear of the bridge and moved across to the empty seat.

“No, no, no, no ...” he said studying the display.

Denz couldn’t understand what he was looking at, at first, until he realised the large undulating bloom to the rear of the ship to be the detonated torpedo and the dot representing the creature was moving toward it.

“The residuals of that cloud will be burning at over three thousand degrees. The heat will drive it insane!” Canthouse gave Denz a wide eyed look of near panic. “We’ve got to move the ship!”

“Navigation!” Denz called across the room. “Full power. Now!”

“Sir, the engines were compromised during the last attack. We have less than 60% capa -”

“No excuses man. Move the damn ship.”

The Bristol’s superstructure groaned as the flaring engines pushed her at a crawl through the web of the magnetic tendrils weaving through the area.

The creature stalked the rippling sphere of the torpedo detonation with curious interest. This too had come from the other prey, but it was much bigger and sang in a different voice, so it may taste different. It circled this new prey with mounting appetite until no longer able to resist the seductive flashes, and drove into the burning cloud with its mouth wide open. The far side of the burning sphere erupted as the creature exited like a flaming arrow. Blind and crazed with pain it dashed in huge circles, the immense jaw snapping as it shredded strips of burning flesh and vented great funnels of smoke and flame. It needed to release this agony on something else. It needed the pain maker to suffer as it did. What remained of its senses made it aware of a distant struggle, and with a swift banking turn it sped towards the Bristol.

“Navigation!”

“I’m trying, sir. She’s just not responding.”

“Try harder, damn you!” Denz shouted at the frustrated man.

Thum...thum ... thum thum.
The returning sound of the batteries sparked everyone to a new sense of urgency, and some to mild panic, as the bandaged operations officer counted down the time to impact.

“No, no fusion weapons, we’re too close for that. It’ll incinerate the ship.” Denz said shaking his head. “Try increasing the driver charge to the rear batteries.”

“Message sent.” The ops officer said. “Engineering acknowledges. Bypassing the limiters. Driver charge increased by 30%.”

The sound of the batteries changed to a deeper
thund thund
, with the bridge lights dipping noticeably with each shot, but the creature kept coming.

“Twelve seconds!” Ops shouted over the noise.

Canthouse activated every mine, grenade and missile in the rear of the ship with the point defence system sounding like a purring tiger as its thousands of rounds a minute joined the blue-white meteors from the main batteries in shredding the oncoming monstrosity, but it kept coming. It was a desperate measure that saw him jettison every rear weapon and the second torpedo powered from its tube in unguided flight, directly into the expanding maw of the attacking creature.

There was a flash as the torpedo penetrated the rear of the creature’s throat followed by a rolling eruption of flame that detonated to blow the colossal jaw clean off. The creature’s great tail flapped in a death spasm as it climbed sharply, streaming smoke and shredded innards as it missed the rear of the ship by less than five hundred metres and continued in a long circular death glide that saw it curve past the Bristol one final time, and then it was gone.

Apart from the beeps and chirps of warning buzzers the bridge was stock still as the crew watched the creature leave a trail of smoke and debris as it spiralled back the way it came and disappear into the green mist. The palpable silence was broken by a huge cheer from the medic at the rear of the room, who stood with his fists high in victory and a smile on his face. He was soon joined by others, with the crew shaking hands and clasping shoulders.

With a relieved chatter enlivening the bridge, Canthouse looked towards Denz. “Bulls eye, sir?” He said, a relieved smile breaking across his sweat glistened face.

ding ding

“You can’t be serious!” The first officer cried giving ops a dejected look.

“Has the creature returned?” Denz asked anxiously.

“No sir,” Cummings said her unbandaged eye flicking about the screen. “The restrictive tendrils are dispersing and we’re gaining speed. And sir, we need to reduce thrust as the engines are well past critical.”

Denz turned to the navigator who had slumped forward on his console with his head on his arms. “Navigation! Wake up man. What sort of business is this in a crisis situation?” Denz cried at the white faced navigator, who immediately sat up and began to address his uniform as if caught slacking on cadet review. Of all the bridge crew he appeared to be the least injured with no sign of bleeding or other trauma anywhere about him. Yet, he winced and loped to one side with a hand clutching his ribs as if suffering from some unseen injury.“Mr Canthouse, take that man’s name!” cried Denz, his face red with rage as he pointed at the mortified navigator.

“Mr Feathers you are relieved of duty and confined to quarters. You will report to me the moment I have leisure to receive you.” Canthouse said in a sergeant majors voice. Gone had the relaxed easy going first officer to be replaced by some ember eyed beast two feet taller than usual, and who swelled with unnatural rage as he pointed to the rear of the bridge.

The navigator stared disbelievingly at Canthouse before slowly rising, he was pale and sweating and pitiably solemn as he moved toward the rear door in a dejected step.

“Unbelievable! Of all the times to rest at his post.” Denz said tossing his hands in the air in a fit of enraged despair.

The first officer slid into the navigator’s seat where he throttled back the complaining engines and re-engaged the thrust limiter. His fingers worked the keyboard and a view of the nearest gate point appeared on the main viewer. “Four hundred and eighty four kilometres, commander.”

Denz observed the coordinates with a considering eye before turning to face the ops console.

“Status of the clo –“ Denz’s heart skipped a beat, his jaw falling slack when he saw Cummings sagging at her terminal. Blood ran freely from the red soaked bandage covering her right eye, with the front of her grey jacket now matted burgundy from congealed blood. What facial skin remained visible beneath the bandage was deathly white with her left eye dark ringed and depressed, seemingly painted on. She sat hunched forward and tilting to the left, threatening to topple at any minute, yet still her fingers pecked at the crimson encrusted keyboard

“My God! Cummings!” cried Denz. He rushed to catch her slumping form and push her upright. Cummings appeared not to notice his presence and sagged like a cloth doll against his supporting hand, her body flaccid as the blood loss took its toll. Denz’s jaw wagged but despair stole his words until the anguish overflowed and his call for help filled the bridge. “Help!” He cried. “Someone help me here. You, Medic! Leave that man and come and help Cummings. I think she’s dead!”

The next moments were a blur to Denz as grief stole his experiences and training to leave behind an impudent and feeble old man who could only hinder. His actions were those of a drunk with every blink stealing great scenes from what passed as people moved about him at insane speeds.

Canthouse beside him in an instant, Cummings’s head pushed back, check the dilated pupil, two fingers on her carotid artery; a shake of the head. Medical staff jostle Denz aside as they push for access. Cummings’s limp form slid to the floor.
One, two, three lift
- to the rear of the bridge. Denz follows offering weak instruction, too many bodies crowd her. He couldn’t see, he wanted to see, they needed to take care. A flat monotone. Raised voices:
no pulse, no pulse.
A tube in her forearm. Clasped hands compress her chest, again and again. Fingers on her neck, another shake of the head. Cummings on a stretcher and out the door. Denz stands weak and useless as he watches them take her, watches the door slide shut. More to himself than anybody he tells them they needed to take care; that she was his ...
that
s
he was his.