The tension on the main bridge of the Triton was incredible. Laura manned her station at field control, manipulating two and three holographic displays that hung semitransparently all around her. There were two junior officers, at least that's what she called them even though they only had two and a half slashes on their cuffs, sitting behind her, watching everything she was doing.
After the near disaster she and the engineering team had gone through less than ten hours before she had reconfigured the simplified interface she had been using so it could present all the information she'd need as it became available, enabling her to properly control the myriad of energy fields all around the Triton manually, something that surprised even Alice.
As she was satisfied that the refractive, gravitational and hardened energy shielding was in balance and ready she looked around the bridge. Almost everyone suppressed their nervousness fairly well. Panloo seemed extra anxious as she looked to her pilot's station then back to the main holographic display over and over again. The main display would be dedicated to tactical and critical information as soon as they finished the quick deceleration from hyperspace but for the time being it displayed only the time until engagement and whatever sensor data was available from the distance they were coming in from.
Little by little more detail appeared around the brown, green and black Asom moon as the navigational database confirmed the locations of listed objects like commercial satellites, servicing stations, port facilities, orbital leisure complexes, energy collection nodes and many other non-critical objects in the arrival area. The military assets wouldn't update until they were actually in range of their transponders. Navigational databases only included information on what areas were reserved by the military, nothing about what was actually inside those areas or regularly on patrol outside of them.
The sheer number of commercial objects in the area they'd be arriving in was unbelievable and Laura hoped that Panloo and her navigation team would be able to manage the work of piloting them safely into position. She couldn't help but glance at Captain Alice Valent. By any measure the woman had transformed herself, taking control of the bridge, the ship, and carrying herself with so much confidence and visible sureness of self that no one doubted her abilities. After the news of Frost quietly stepping down from the Chief Gunnery position after a conversation with her got around the ship that respect and almost awe only intensified. Everyone knew he had a reputation as being difficult and chauvinistic, to see him brought down so low impressed many and frightened more.
On the bridge Alice was the picture of a professional Captain. The questions she posed the various departments were specific, could have only been posed by someone who had a firm knowledge of the ship and the crew. The month their Acting Captain had spent training the crew with Jake had taught the woman well, it was obvious to everyone.
There was no room for error and Alice demanded the best from the entire crew. The three pilots who had left the Mission Theatre weren't restricted to quarters, they weren't sent to the Habitation Section, they were put on the lowest quality escape shuttle they had and jettisoned towards the nearest spaceport. It would take them at least a week to make the journey.
Laura was familiar with that kind of paranoid reaction to crew members withdrawing from service after knowing operational details, Jason, her Husband was intelligence after all. There were things he couldn't even tell her about missions that he'd been on. She was the only person in the entire universe that he trusted completely, and she'd seen his suspicious, hyper vigilant side. Trust was something that he granted few, even in the slightest measure and as she grew to know the crew of the Triton she had come to trust them. Well, not all of them. To her dismay part of the plan that Alice had put in motion involved a number of the original Samson crew to man the ship they were most familiar with. That included Ashley, Finn, Frost and several of the more tried and true support staff including the lead navigator for the ship, Larry, who was always partnered with Ashley regardless of what she was flying. She had come to trust everyone from the Samson except for Frost and Leland March. Sadly the only Samson crew member that had remained behind was Agameg Price, who was a point of curiosity and fascination for her.
She had never met one of his kind that she was aware, and had especially never seen one who was confident or proud enough to actually remain in their native form. His big, expressive eyes and fine collector tendrils with which they gathered moisture and smelled as well as created intricate forms on their faces with to aid with shape shifting were so strange, so unlike anything she'd ever seen. At the same time his mild demeanour made him possibly the most friendly person she'd met in recent years.
Jason was always on her mind, and no matter how much she liked the crew of the Triton or Samson she always missed him. The topic of Triton going to Pandem had come up, and after very little prodding Laura discovered that getting the hypertransmitter was key to them getting there in much less time than they would if they started out using hyperdrive systems. Laura's suspicions were confirmed; the hypertransmitter would be used to rebuild the main array required to generate high compression wormholes for the Triton. Ease and speed of communications preoccupied Alice as well, there was something important she wanted to tell the galaxy as a whole and Laura suspected it had little to do with their rebellious cause.
If they managed to complete their mission, if they pulled this off, if they stole the piece of technology they were after, worth over three hundred billion credits they would not only silence one of the most major outlying military and resource rich Regent Galactic solar systems they would fully be connecting Triton to the rest of the Galaxy in a real, meaningful way. They could have real time conversations with anyone in the sector and send messages to Freeground in a matter of minutes using the highest wormhole compression capabilities of that hypertransmitter if it were integrated properly.
As Laura looked over the bridge, watched Alice and Price going about their final preparations as they neared their target and everyone else handling their near frayed nerves in their own ways she started to believe that they might just pull it off. As the arrival counter hit five seconds Panloo jerked at the helm.
“Our exit point is blocked!” Announced one of her navigators.
“Adjusting!” announced the other.
Panloo manoeuvred the ship the very second before they emerged from hyperspace to avoid a nine kilometre wide asteroid that had been placed exactly where the Triton was to arrive. As the Triton finished decelerating and emerged from hyperspace the tactical display flickered for a moment as it adjusted the entire field of view to account for the unexpected change in course. They were coming around the outer edge, one navigator keeping the silent nafalli helmswoman aware of objects in her path and the best routes through the space ahead.
Laura's terminal noted that they had collided with three small satellites as Panloo accelerated through an unplanned route well beneath the hypertransmitter. The collisions didn't affect the shields noticeably even though they practically ran through them at over one hundred twelve thousand kilometres per second.
The ship rotated and they were moving backwards, ingeniously manoeuvring to decelerate enough to compensate for their chaotic arrival and to close the distance between the ship and the hypertransmitter. The transmitter satellite looked like a silver spike on the tactical display, drifting above the dark side of the moon and the vast metropolis below.
“They knew we were coming,” Alice said under her breath as she highlighted several destroyers and small carrier fleet led by a long command carrier in the distance. There were already over a hundred starfighters moving in for the attack. “Set to contingency one, start moving us out of position,” Alice said calmly.
“Aye!” Panloo chirped from the controls, increasing the throttle and turning the ship towards the asteroid belly first.
The shields started taking hits from the planetary defence cannons and the incoming fighters but thanks to new power feeds and the fusion reactors running hotter than ever they started recharging as quickly as they took damage, not dipping below ninety seven percent. Laura hoped that they could maintain that charge but she knew better. Things were about to get interesting. “Tactical, is there a read on what those destroyers are doing?”
“Opening fire now! They're not using beam weaponry but going straight to high charge gauss shells.” Price told Laura and Alice.
“What? Did someone tell them we use refractive shielding too?” Laura said as she diverted power from the refractive shielding and shored up the other systems. “Is anything using beam weaponry?”
“Nothing, not even the Gemeelan, that command carrier, and they have the long range capability,” Agameg replied.
“How do they know how to exclude weaponry that's easiest for us to overcome? They haven't even seen us use our shielding effectively yet,” Laura said as the first volley of explosive shells came into contact with the gravitational shield. The shells were slowed down suddenly enough to set them off, causing strain on the outer gravity shielding but not touching the hardened energy barrier underneath or the ship. “Outer grav shield strength is down to eighty one percent and decreasing. Those explosions are taxing them just enough so they can't regenerate.”
“Can you divert more power?” Alice asked.
“No, the lines can't take it.”
“Captain, we have to make a decision now; send them out or escape,” Agameg reminded her calmly.
Captain Valent was difficult to read as she glanced up from her ring of command holograms up the main display on the bridge where the tactical screen showed nine more destroyers trying to manoeuvre into place to begin firing at the Triton.
“Launch our remaining nuclear torpedoes on the highest yield setting towards the primary population centers on the moon. Gunnery deck, open fire on targets of opportunity with seeker rounds on the fighters, I'm giving officer level quarters to the gunner with the most confirmed kills. Cynthia, open up with our scrambler, let's see how well they coordinate when their wading through forty terawatts of static. Ashley, your team has a go.”
“There are a billion people down there, I don't think-” one of the Navigators started.
“There's a planetary defence shield in place and anti-bombardment measures that can easily deflect our nukes. The cities are safe, all we're doing is distracting their planetary cannons for a few seconds!” Alice called back. “Do your job or get the hell off my bridge, Hanson!”
The navigator turned back to his station, red faced. “Aye ma'am.”
For the first time Ashley could remember the Samson felt small. It was the only ship on the launch deck of the Triton and as Ashley throttled up and propelled the vessel out into space she watched torpedoes and heavy weapon points on the Triton fire all around her. She knew none of the ordinances would strike the Samson as long as she didn't do anything unpredictable for the next few seconds, but watching heavy, four and a half meter long fusion torpedoes slide by then on towards the heavily populated moon below was almost as frightening as the points of light swarming towards them. She knew each point of light represented a fighter and soon many of those fighters would be after her.
“Engine pods extended to full, we have as much manoeuvrability as we'll ever get,” Larry told her before scanning for the best routes to their goal, the hypertransmitter several thousand kilometres away. The Triton would only follow them half way.
“Gunners, target the fighters. Finn, how are my shields?” Ashley asked.
The sound of thousands of bursts per minute firing off from the gun right behind the small darkened bridge forced everyone to yell. Even with the hatches closed you could hear the turrets, feel the deck vibrating with every shot. “They're charged and giving us an energy halo about four times the size of the ship,” he chuckled. “Looks like the work we put on the new emitter grid is paying off.”
Fighter rounds started striking the Samson as Ashley flipped the vessel and accelerated as hard as safety limits would allow right towards the asteroid. The navigational advisory hologram in front of her showed that she had chosen perhaps the most dangerous course, but as she operated the hastily bolted in countermeasures control box with her off hand anyone watching could see what she was doing. “Frost, can you get a solid bead on the hypertransmitter with the ion cannon?”
“Not happenin' until you get us outta the shadow of this bloody rock.”
“We'll be leaving it behind sooner than you like.”
“This is Hardcase, my group is engaging the enemy.” the lead allied Uriel fighter pilot announced over the laser link he had with the Samson. With all the scrambling interfering with communications it was the only way to get a message through. The small holographic display on the left side of the pilot's station showed that he and six other fighters were closely following her course, the Samson's shields were reaching out and fortifying theirs, and while the group accelerated towards the asteroid at great speed they turned and fired at all the approaching fighters and gunships in the area.
“Shields are holding up, we're recharging at seventy three percent. If we can avoid any serious hits we'll be back up to ninety in four seconds.”
“Who'da thought this old bucket would end up as a shield ship?” Frost commented.
“Larry, tell our friends what I'll be doing,” Ashley told her copilot as she prepared a firing sequence for the engine pods, working the switches and computer interface with a practiced hand.
“All right, we're going to close to within one hundred fifty meters of the asteroid surface and drop a batch of thermal shells. They'll superheat a part of the asteroid, creating a thermal flare behind us so no one will be able to get a good read on us for at least a few seconds.” he said as he sent the escape trajectory to the fighter pilots.
“Straight out of the Desperate Times in Valera sim, loving it,” Hardcase replied.
“Breaking in three, two, one, mark!” Ashley called out before initiating the thrust sequence and pressing the launch button on the improvised countermeasures control panel.
The hull of the Samson and the inertial dampeners strained as the vessel changed direction, narrowly missing one edge of the asteroid as it ejected half a dozen improvised high explosives out of the rear cargo bay. Pressed out by the escaping atmosphere they drifted towards the asteroid and exploded as they bounced against the rough stone.
Anyone who was looking out a porthole in that direction just then was blinded by the white light of the explosion and superheated surface of the asteroid. The Samson and six of her escorting fighters shot straight for the hypertransmitter, all their weapons turning to the fore.
To any of the fighters unlucky enough to be in the way it appeared as though the vessels were coming out of a small sun, and for the pair of small enemy fighters that managed to manoeuvre away from the small group of ships there were half a dozen that were picked to pieces by high intensity particle bursts and rail guns that cycled through twelve hundred rounds per minute. “This is Hardcase, all fighters break and get ready to cover the Samson while she picks up the package.”
The fighter group moved out of the range of the Samson's spiny shield projectors and as the shock and overwhelming attack on the senses of the flares dissipated Finn breathed a sigh of relief as the shield profile shrunk back down to the shape of the Samson itself.
They immediately began taking fire from their port and dorsal sides, where the bulk of the fighters were milling, swarming to escape the devastating guns on the dorsal side of the Triton. “There you are, time to shut ye down!” Frost exclaimed under his breath as he targeted the hypertransmitter and opened fire with the ion cannon. A fighter got in the way, taking a full blast and as the operation of its internal power systems were completely disrupted the energy reading on it dropped to near zero. “Oi! To the side!” he shouted at the disabled fighter as he pounded the control panel.
Ashley manoeuvred the Samson around the lazily drifting snub fighter and cringed as she heard small shells strike the outer hull. “Better?”
“Aye!” Frost replied as he took aim with the Ion turret and set it to full power. With the glimmering silver hypertransmitter satellite, the most valuable object in the area pound for pound, directly lined up in the crosshairs he opened fire and didn't stop until he drained the power cells connected to the weapon. When the halo of energy left behind from the blasts of the Ion cannon subsided the power readings indicated that the device had shut down. “She's asleep! Time to have our way!”
“I'll never see what Stephanie sees in you,” Ashley commented as she rotated the body of the ship in the direction of the hypertransmitter and fired the engines so they moved in a perfect line towards it. “Fighters, keep our path clear!”
“Hardcase here, we're on it!”
Ashley grinned at the pilot she'd seen several times in the pilot's den. He was shorter than her by eleven centimetres and was always smiling. While growing up he had learned to fly an old air hopper and as soon as he got his licence he was transporting parts for a commercial excavation operation. He had a natural knack for all things in the cockpit. After he whipped through the fighter pilot tutorials he passed the qualifier on the first try. Within a week he became one of their top pilots and Ashley had recommended he lead the small group of Uriel fighters covering them.
Her jaw dropped as the navigational display noted his fighter was destroyed just then, leaving no emergency beacon. She stared at the notification and the display as the profile of his Uriel fighter became just another obstacle, a grouping of heated, twisting metal.
“Ash, focus,” Larry said from beside her. “We're coming up on it.”
She cleared her throat and focused on the task at hand, making one final minor adjustment to their course as the remaining three fighters along with the gunners on the Samson fought tooth and nail to keep their path clear. The Samson shook and rocked violently, turning just slightly.
“Engine three is gone, shields down to eighteen percent, draining our reserves to compensate!” Finn announced.
“Compensating for the missing pod.” Larry announced beside her.
“We've rotated too much, turn us back or we'll smash into the satellite side on!” Frost called out.
Ashley didn't let the controls reset, but manually rotated one of the port engine pods and fired it, guessing at how much thrust they'd need to make a good capture with the maxjack. As the ship slowly rotated she lined up the other pods as quickly as she could to slow the Samson down so it and the satellite wouldn't be destroyed when they made contact. The engines fired at full power. No one knew whether it was enough and as the many controls reset everyone held their breath.
“We're comin' in too fast!” Frost called out, still standing at the ready at the maxjack controls.
“It'll have to do!” Ashley said the instant before the Samson collided with the hypertransmitter satellite. The sounds of gunfire were drowned out by the cataclysmic noise of the hull crushing, screeching and grinding into the object.
“God dammit!” Frost shouted as he tried to manipulate the maxjack, to get a grip on their target.
“Breaches in five compartments, sealing sections off. Half our lower shield emitters are dead, I'm compensating!” Finn reported. “Somehow,” he muttered to himself.
“Do you have it Frost?” asked Ashley in a rush.
Frost struggled with the controls of the maxjack, trying to work with the working gripper arms he had left, activating magnetic capturing fields and pressing the satellite against two of the largest curled arms that were stuck in position with no power.
“Frost, do you have it!” Ashley repeated, waiting to take the newly calibrated controls and try to get the Samson out of danger.
“Shut it! You're not helpin'!” he snapped back.
“Is it possible?” Finn asked.
“Nay! I don't think-” Frost started but was interrupted as the whole ship shuddered violently and alarms sounded for two seconds before Finn shut them down.
“That was a heavy collider shell, ran us straight through, sealing two non-essential compartments and shutting down a line of capacitors! We have to get out of here!” Finn said as he watched the ship's power reserves and generation capacity drop drastically.
“Frost! Do we stay or do we go?” Ashley asked harshly.
“That did it! The thing is impaled on one arm and I could trap it with one of the ones that still work! Go! Fer all that's holy! Get us out o' here woman!”
“Finally!” Larry commented as he started plotting a hyperspace course. “You have to get us clear of this mess before we can start hyperacceleration.”
Ashley looked at the summarized status display as she fired the engines and tried to start the Samson in the right direction, towards the nearest edge of the combat area. The report told her that their shields were down to nine percent and didn't effectively cover the aft end of the ship, that they had six open compartments, and that there were only two fighters left. “Fighter wing, get out. Generate wormholes and escape now!” she ordered.
“Flightnut copies, I'm gone!”
“Byfly copies, heading out!”
“Finn, give me a burst of hyperspace particles on my mark,” Ashley commanded.
“Ready,” was all he said as he turned white.
Larry worked feverishly to find a nearby, straight, clear path but couldn't locate one on the tactical hologram or screen in front of him.
“There! Right there! ” Ashley pointed to the asteroid behind them.
“You want to-”
“Send us in the opposite direction so fast they can't keep up,” she finished for him.
He plotted the course quickly, just over fourteen thousand kilometres. “At your peril,” he said, throwing up his hands.
“More like-” Frost started.
“Two, one, mark!” Ashley interrupted loudly.
Finn's hand came down on the final initiation button for the particle emitters to send a burst of hyperspace particles out across the hull of the Samson and their cargo that would allow them to accelerate at many times the normal rate and for a split second the Samson increased speed at a rate of several thousand kilometres per second, effectively stopping it's motion in one direction fast enough to begin sending it careening recklessly towards the asteroid. Fighters, gunships and the asteroid itself whipped by as Ashley fought to guide the small ship right across the bow of a destroyer, past a wing of fighters that had freshly launched from a more distant carrier. “Plot our course fast!” she said through gritted teeth. “I'll have to blink sometime.”
Larry's fingers worked the console as quickly as he could. “Can't get a clear exit path, keep it together just a few more seconds Ash,” he said in a tone that feigned calm as he struggled with the math and constant trajectory updates.
As the exotic particles coating the hull dissipated evenly across the vessel it started becoming more difficult to make course corrections. The engines were firing at full thrust as they swivelled and swung at the ends of their thin pylons. “Hurry, hurryhurry,” Ashley whispered.
“Got it! Locked in!” Larry announced.
Ashley quickly rotated the engine pods in the right direction, locked the manual controls and initiated the automated hyperspace entry sequence. The Samson lurched under the sudden increase to full thrust and as the hull was once again coated with energized exotic particles it accelerated to faster than light speeds.
“Energy shielding down to four percent on the dorsal section and I have no power reserves to reinforce them. The rest of the ship isn't much better,” Laura announced as she watched the hull start taking direct strikes from antimatter enhanced gauss cannon rounds. She winced as a torpedo struck the upper quarter of the aft section. “Aft down to one percent.”
“The Samson 's clear!” Price announced.
“Explosive decompression reported in section A12, we just lost the main lines to the primary port engine,” came the announcement from engineering.
“Time to leave. Best speed to my designated point,” Captain Alice Valent ordered, marking a point in space on the main tactical and helm displays. “Let's see if they're willing to play chicken. Bring all weapons to bear on the command carrier and open fire.”
The remaining torpedo launch tubes, beam weapon emplacements and all the turrets aboard the Triton took aim at the command carrier ten times her size as Panloo fired the engines towards the largest ship in the fleet trying to combat them. Every knuckle on the bridge was white as all but the forward and bottom shields on the ship failed, the ablative hull began taking hits and the massive command carrier in the distance slowly began turning, trying to accelerate out of the way.
“Gunnery deck here, we're down nine cannons and sealing into sections! Get us the hell out of here!” shouted Frost's third in command.
“If you panic and fall apart, I swear I'll go up there and shoot you myself! Keep it together!” Alice shot back.
“We've lost containment in compartment E71 to E84,” Price said sedately. “No casualties.”
The carrier's main batteries began to open fire as the three destroyers and many other smaller ships moved out of the way.
“Forward shields are taking massive fire, they'll be down in eleven seconds at this rate,” Laura said, trying to keep her voice steady and calm.
Lalonde, Randolph
Spinward Fringe Frontline
“Nice of them to clear a path for us,” Alice said with a wolfish grin. “Plot a course that takes us into hyperspace at a six degree upward angle from them. Panloo, start on this trajectory right now,” she said as she sent the course to her station.
The Triton angled up with a jerk, reflecting the anxiousness of her pilot and started suddenly away from the line of fire, but through a narrow, clear space between the engaging ships.
“Course ready!” announced the sweaty navigator to her right.
“Go!” Captain Valent ordered.
The Triton accelerated suddenly and before anything else could get in her way they were far from the defensive fleet.