This Corner of the Universe (23 page)

As
the bow ripped from
Anelace
, it crushed the leading edges of her upper
deck “wings,” destroying the first six meters of the upper deck and demolishing
her forward stores and several banks of computers in the process.  However, her
starboard laser turret compartments were safely behind two additional
bulkheads, a full fifteen meters aft of the destruction.

Heskan
actually heard the explosion when vampire Alpha hit.  In conjunction with the
deafening noise, the entire bridge lost power just as the bridge rocked in the
shock wave.  Knocked violently around in his shockseat, Heskan heard several
cries over the clamor as he tried to bring an arm up to re-close his visor.  However,
the forces throwing him about were so ferocious he found he could not control
his movements and decided to just grip the arms of his chair and hold his
breath until the end came.

The
shaking did stop, in mere seconds, but the expected decompression never arrived. 
Ears ringing and body aching, he sat in a pitch-black silence.

As
Anelace
reeled from the direct hit, her first iridium round struck
Blackheart
. 
The schooner’s entire profile was available to the projectile since the missile
boat had continued rotating to keep her broadside facing her enemy.  Had the
schooner offered a narrower target, the round may have missed to starboard. 
However, the iridium round shattered the last ten meters of the schooner,
sending deadly fragments through her engine compartment.

Although
originally a civilian ship,
Blackheart
had been heavily modified.  She
was now an enforcer ship for a pirate organization and great steps were taken
to make her lethal and survivable.  She had double the number of containment
fields originally designed and the fields themselves were stronger.  Despite
being unarmored, her retrofit included reinforced bulkheads and her captain had
instituted several standard combat procedures that were routine on military
ships but unheard of on civilian vessels.

When
the hundreds of fragments sliced through the engine compartment,
Blackheart’s
computer sensed the pressure differential and activated the required
containment fields.  Even though the engine compartment would leak its entire
atmosphere, the rest of the schooner remained secure and the eight engineers
inside the compartment had pressurized suits in preparation for the event that
their compartment lost its atmosphere.  What they were not prepared for was the
incredible kinetic energy in each fragment.  The fragments knifed through
anything in their paths.  Four engineers died instantly, ripped apart.  The
shrieks from the injured were all but drowned out by the noise of exploding
equipment.  Each fragment that cut through engineering equipment, including
Blackheart’s
power plant, shattered into smaller and smaller pieces.  These pieces destroyed
the power plant’s cooling system and breached the restraint shield for the
power cells dozens of times.  As the iridium fragments reduced further to dust,
sparks from failing engineering systems combusted the particles into a flash
fire.  What had once been a calm, normal operating engine control room became a
living hell in seconds.

The
wavering power on the pirate bridge made the first mate’s cry superfluous. “We’ve
been hit, Captain!”

Blackheart’s
captain growled, “I know we’ve
been hit, you idiot!  Tell me something I don’t know like how bad!”  In his
heart, he was just relieved to be alive… and surprised.  The hit had not been
bad at all for him.  In fact, other than the lights dimming, he would have
never known.  He looked at the optical of
Anelace
; the ship was angling
away and would soon be out of mass driver range.  His confidence returned as
the corvette opened the distance and he believed he had surely found his
calling if he could shrug off the mortal danger imposed by an attack from a
Brevic naval vessel.  Then he saw the corvette’s mass driver spit a second
time.

The reduced
time lag between the ships meant
Blackheart’s
captain watched
Anelace’s
second shot just five seconds before it hit.  He spent that time contemplating
how he could orient
Blackheart
to best protect the bridge.  After some
hesitation, he decided there was not enough time for maneuvers so, instead, he screamed
at his missileer to continue firing.  The missileer was about to tell him that the
next volley would be ready in nine seconds when the second iridium round hit
Blackheart
amidship.

Vernay’s
second shot was a bull’s-eye.  The round hit one meter from the missile boat’s
center point and just three meters from one of her port missile launchers.  The
fragmenting projectile opened the schooner’s side like a gutted animal,
punching a two-meter hole into her and leaving a six-meter hole exiting.  Of
her four, only one of
Blackheart’s
missile launchers survived the hit. 
The closest port launcher vaporized in the heat and energy transfer along with
both starboard launchers as the fragmentation pattern spread out like a shotgun
blast.  Only the second port launcher made it through unscathed.  It still
would never return fire.

In
between the launchers on each side of the ship,
Blackheart’s
retrofitters had inserted the missile magazines.  They had hoped that placing the
magazines in an armored central compartment deep inside the ship would keep them
safe in combat but no amount of armor or size of shield generator that could
fit into
Blackheart
could fully protect its cargo from a mass driver
hit.  To the retrofitters’ credit, most fragments bounced off the thickly
layered armored coat that
Blackheart
wore around her ammunition.  Nevertheless,
three large pieces penetrated through the armor with pitiful ease.  Ultimately,
the fragments passed through the mostly empty magazines but struck and disabled
the loading system rails that each Interceptor-B rode upon on its way to the launchers.

The
bridge missileer closed his mouth when his launcher status lights
simultaneously switched to steady red hues.  He looked blankly at the
indicators, confused, and then reported, “All launchers are down?  Is that
where we were hit?”  Thinking it was a computer error, he pressed the reset
button and the computer blinked as it rebooted.

“Captain,
Engineering reports heavy damage!” another bridge crewman alerted.

Panicked,
the pirate captain asked, “How’s the core?  Do we have propulsion?”

The
crewman began rapid-firing questions into his mic as the captain looked on in frustration.

The
fire had died inside of
Blackheart’s
engineering room, not because of
the recently installed fire suppression system, which had failed, but because
the atmosphere had vacated the compartment.  The lone survivor, the third
engineer’s mate, had managed to crawl over the wreckage and bodies of his
fellow crewmen to reach the main power plant control panel.  The situation indicated
on the panel was not good. 
Blackheart’s
power plant was both melting
down and overloading.  The meltdown would occur in less than ten minutes unless
they could restore the cooling system inside the power cells.  The overload
would take place in half a minute when the restraint shield failed.  He was
clawing his way up the instrument panel toward the core “FLUSH” safety controls
that would solve both problems by killing the inductive energy in the core and
bringing the whole reaction to a stop when
Anelace’s
third shot roared
through Engineering.

There
was neither the blast of decompression nor the inferno of a flash fire the
second time around.  Most of the engineers and equipment had already been
broken and the additional damage was negligible.  The greatest amount of damage
done to
Blackheart
by the third shot was to her starboard hull as the
widely spread fragments exited the schooner and ripped even larger holes from
her side.  Compared to the devastation already present in the aft of
Blackheart
,
the death of one third engineer’s mate seemed almost inconsequential.

Anelace
silently zoomed past
Blackheart
at .26
c
.  As the distance between them grew, neither ship had fired a
shot for nearly thirty seconds. 
Anelace’s
last act before the direct
hit was to obey the course change from Ensign Selvaggio’s adjustments to
intercept Ketch-One, 105
ls
ahead of her.  The ketch, still on course to
reach the RALF, 10
lm
away, was moving at her maximum speed of .2
c
. 
All of
Anelace’s
drives had darkened and although her momentum carried
her forward, she was essentially adrift.

Heskan
sat in perfect darkness as Chief Brown struggled to restore minimal power to
the bridge.  He had already impressed, with great urgency, the need to get the
bridge operational.  As the chief worked, he turned toward the direction of
Riedel and spoke into the blackness, “Mike, if we can’t restore ship communications,
I’m going to need you to get down to Engineering and get me a status report.”

While
waiting for a reply, Heskan fought the urge to release his shockseat restraints
even though he knew stumbling around the bridge in the dark would serve no purpose. 
Instead, he sat in his chair, feeling helpless, until the bridge lights began
to flicker.

“Gettin’
it now, Capt’n.  This is just power from the bridge’s batteries.  I still got
nothin’ comin’ from Engineerin’,” Brown said as the lights flickered again and
then stayed lit.

“Mike,
get going,” Heskan ordered as he looked over to his first officer’s seat.  It
was empty. 
That’s right; he was fighting the fire when the missile hit
,
Heskan remembered.  He turned to look behind him and saw Riedel’s crumpled form
near the back of the bridge.  “Mike!” Heskan shouted as he popped his seat’s
restraints.  Heskan covered the five steps to Riedel in an instant and knelt
next to the man.  There was blood from his ears, nose and mouth.  He tentatively
placed his fingers to Riedel’s neck to search for a pulse.  Finding nothing, he
moved Riedel’s head slightly for better access and pushed harder against his
friend’s neck as he murmured, “No, no, no, come on, Mike.”

Nothing. 
Heskan stared into unblinking eyes and realized his friend was dead.  Slowly,
he pulled his hand away.

He
stood up and turned back to face the bridge.  Everyone was looking at him.  He
paused to search for the right words, something that would inspire the crew and
make all the deaths aboard
Anelace
be easier to accept.

“Chief,
what is the power situation on Ana?” he finally asked in a quiet, somber voice.

“Dunno,
sir.  The bridge is runnin’ off batteries an’ I can’t get through to Engineerin’.”

Heskan
looked down as he thought.  He realized he was staring at Riedel’s body and
forced himself to look away as he considered the situation.  It had been well
over a minute since the last missile impact.  There were two possibilities:
Blackheart
was unwilling to return fire or unable to return fire.  He needed to know which
one it was and quickly.  Even though he wanted to talk to Lieutenant Jackamore
desperately, he realized he could not leave the bridge in a combat situation. 
“Boats, is there anything else you can do up here to restore power so we can
see outside?”

The
chief looked at Heskan with frustration and shrugged helplessly.  “Not really,
sir.”

“That’s
okay.  I need you to get to Engineering and inform them of our situation on the
bridge.  Tell Jackamore his first priority is restoring power and
communications.  We’re blind and crippled with at least one, probably two enemy
ships out there.”  The chief nodded as Heskan talked.  “If you can do more good
down there than here, stay and help Jackamore get Ana on life support but send
a runner back here to give me a status report and an estimate on when power and
comm will be restored.”

Chief
Brown removed his shockseat restraints and hopped up.  “Goin’ now, Capt’n.”

As
he walked by Heskan, the captain shot his arm out and grabbed the chief.  “Be
careful, Chief, we have no idea what’s between the bridge and Engineering.  If
you can’t make your way down there, just come back.”  Brown nodded back with a
grim look, manually slid the door open and left the bridge.

Heskan
looked at the remaining crew.  All three had numbed looks on their faces and as
he looked into each officer’s eyes, he could see the shocked and disbelieving expressions
of people who did not understand how they were still alive. 
They probably
mirror my own expression
, he thought. 
I need to keep them busy, which
shouldn’t be too hard since there’s plenty to do.

“Each
of you needs to start diagnostics of your sections and computer systems.  Then
start working to restore at least a basic functionality on your consoles.  I’ll
work on the tactical plot.  Jack, you work on restoring sensors.”

Heskan
heard the various acknowledgements from his bridge officers as he moved to the damage
control locker.  Fishing out a med-kit, he walked down to Selvaggio.  “Let’s
look at that leg, Diane.”

He
pointed the portable medical diagnostic scanner and pressed the auto-doc
button.  It told him there was a minor break in the right fibula on the medial
surface and recommended administering a splint and a painkiller.  Pulling out a
red and white flexible splint, he began to wrap it around Selvaggio’s lower leg.
 “No marathons for you for a while, Diane.”

“Yes,
sir,” she said, wincing as he tightened the splint.  “Aren’t you supposed to
freeze it before you put the splint on, sir?”

Oops
.  “Uh, yes, I guess I could’ve
done that,” he answered sheepishly.  From the med-kit, he grabbed a twenty
centimeter implement shaped like a wand, nicknamed a “shiver-stick.”  After
pressing it against the diagnostic scanner so the auto-doc could set the
dosage, Heskan poked the wand’s tip to her shocksuit just below her right
knee. 

“That’s
better,” she sighed as the pain subsided.

“Sorry. 
Okay, gonna lock up that splint now,” Heskan said as he selected a different wand,
colloquially called a “stiff stick,” and pressed it against the splint.  The
splint’s molecules lined up and immediately went rigid.  “Good as new.  Can you
function, Diane?”

“Yes,
sir.  I’ll be all right, thank you,” she answered back shyly.

Heskan
nodded and then moved to his seat.  Placing the med-kit next to his chair, he
sat down and re-secured himself to his shockseat.  Bringing the tactical plot
controls to the front of his right arm console, Heskan first brought up the
image of the tactical situation frozen just before
Anelace
took her
direct hit and placed it on the main screen.  He didn’t bother posting the minutes-old
opticals of
Blackheart
and Ketch-One and used the space on the main
screen to post
Anelace’s
status display instead.  Both were outdated but
it was a start.

After
five minutes of hard work, Heskan’s comm unit chirped.  The noise made him jump
but he quickly pushed the button and simply said, “Report.”

Lieutenant
Jackamore’s voice came through crystal clear. 
Why did I think it would be
scratchy and distorted
, Heskan wondered.  “Captain, communications is up
and emergency power should be restored shortly.  Our power plant is cold right now;
Ana popped the ‘chicken switch’ during the big hit.  We’re checking the systems
and— No, no, don’t bother with the inductives, they’ll be fine, just run
through the core systems, dammit.”  Jackamore cleared his throat.  “Sorry,
sir.  Uh, after we check the system, I’ll initiate a hot start.  It’ll take
about ten minutes from when we start.  Just a, just a second, Captain.”  Heskan
waited impatiently.

“Okay,
emergency power restored now, sir.  Is the bridge up?”  As Jackamore asked the
question, the bridge lights intensified.

“It
looks like it, Brandon, good work.  Get the core going and then tell me the
conditions of our drives.  Tell the chief to contact me in five minutes if he isn’t
coming back to the bridge.”

“Will
do, sir.  Jackamore out.”

Heskan
heard the connection terminate.  “Reach out to your sections, folks.  Lead your
departments.  I want status reports on your systems in two minutes.”  He
returned his attention back to tactical.  The plot was up and it would be up to
Truesworth getting the ship’s sensors online before it would show anything close
to a real-time picture.  He used the remaining time to look over
Anelace’s
status.  Unlike tactical, the status display was not frozen and as power
returned to the thousands of sensors built into
Anelace
, the display
updated.  Even destroyed sensors provided information by not providing
information. 

The
situation looked bad.  No sensor forward of the enlisted quarters on the lower
deck was transmitting.  Heskan reminded himself that power may not be getting
to the internal sensors but deep down he understood the last big hit had
brutally damaged some part of
Anelace
and if it was not the middle of
the ship or Engineering, it had to be her bow.  The good news was a small
portion of the enlisted quarters had life support but things got sketchy again
as he looked further back on the lower deck.  Auxiliary Control was a total
wreck and the shuttle hanger had been destroyed early on but there was a pocket
of life in the navigation room and medical bay between the dead zones.  This
was a very good thing since the majority of the life support systems were located
next to navigation.  A quick check told him
Anelace
had about thirty
percent of her original atmosphere with much of the ship uninhabitable without a
pressure suit.

The
upper deck looked marginally better.  There were no sensor readings forward of
the AIPS room and the room itself had clearly been smashed.  However, besides most
of the officer berths being damaged, the upper deck looked operable.  Most
importantly, the sensor control room, directly aft of the bridge, seemed mostly
undamaged. 
It may have taken some shock damage like we did but with any
luck, we’ll still be able to get an outside picture soon
, Heskan hoped.

“Captain,”
Vernay said, “all our weapons are currently inoperable.  I’m not even getting a
reply from my ping on the mass driver.  I think it’s lost, sir.  Port lasers
were already out but the starboard lasers are responding although they’re
sending me dozens fault codes ranging from power insufficiency to targeting
system errors.”  Her head dropped slightly as her eyes turned downcast.  “No
word from our gunners yet.”

“Very
well, Lieutenant.  Work on clearing those codes and I’ll arrange for someone to
make their way to the starboard turret control rooms.”  Heskan noticed that
Selvaggio had turned from her station and was ready to report.  He gestured at
her to wait as he tapped a text message to Chief Brown into his console. 
Finished, he looked at his navigator and asked, “What do you have?”

“All
drives are dark but I guess Lieutenant Jackamore is bringing them up after the
core.  Inertial compensators have been severely weakened and assuming we get
the drives back, we’re still going to be very limited in terms of mobility. 
Frankly, I can’t believe Ana didn’t tear apart during the last hit.  We’re
lucky our thrusters didn’t misfire when the inertial compensators went down or
we’d be paste.”

I
can do without that kind of commentary, Diane
, Heskan thought with more than a little
irritation.  “Best guess on where we’re headed, Diane?”

“I
managed to get the course correction into
Anelace
before the hit so we
should be on an intercept course for Ketch-One as you ordered, sir.  Our speed
was point two-six-C and that shouldn’t change anytime soon...”  She paused as
she thought.  “We were rolled seventy degrees to port so the starboard turrets
could fire… I think that’s about it.”  She turned and looked up at the main
screen.  “Oh, the tactical is pretty accurate, sir,” she said as she pointed toward
it.  “The schooner is behind us now; I’d estimate we’re coming up on two light-minutes
apart.  We’re due to reach the ketch in twenty-nine minutes.”

Heskan’s
comm blinked and a text reply appeared on his screen.  “Thank you, Ensign. 
Propulsion and mobility are your priorities, Diane.  We have a fight coming up
soon and we need to be able to maneuver.”  Selvaggio’s head bobbed and she turned
back to her station to get to work.

“Stacy,
we’re working on getting you a damage controlman to the turret control rooms,”
Heskan informed before turning his attention to Ensign Truesworth.  “What’s our
sensor picture, Jack?”

“The
BigEye is down.  I actually think it sheared off Ana.  The fixed sensors will
be up soon along with the forward-looking optics.  I’m trying to spin the
SnapShot to face
Blackheart
but it won’t turn.”  He paused to type
furiously.  Heskan saw the tactical plot on the main screen flash and then
begin to update
Anelace’s
position and attitude.

“There
we go,” Truesworth said triumphantly.  “The SnapShot optical sensor is moving. 
It’ll only turn right but I’m just spinning it around the long way to face
Blackheart
.” 
He tapped more keystrokes and the main screen split into thirds.  He then
divided the new third into two views.  One showed a distant view of Ketch-One
and the other was a view of a spinning starscape as Truesworth rotated
Anelace’s
second most powerful optic toward the schooner’s last position.