Far From Home: The Complete Second Series (Far From Home 13-15) (24 page)

21.

In other circumstances, she might have called off the hunt. But on this occasion Cessqa did not have the luxury of returning home for repairs. Or to take command of another ship and return to finish what she'd started.

Things are as they are.

"The
Defiant
has entered the comet's tail," Gelvin said. "I can't track them on sensors, nor can I make visual contact."

"A clever move," Cessqa said. She
stepped forward to stand behind him. "How are we holding up?"

"All systems functioning, by the looks of things. Risa is performing admirably, holding the ship together."

"Yes, she is most efficient," Cessqa said, herself impressed by Risa's single-handed coordination of the drones elsewhere in the ship. They could be trusted to fix almost anything, to repair any and all systems . . . and yet they still required a sentient mind to guide them. They needed a living being to order them about, ensure they didn't waste time.

"Do we follow the humans?" Gelvin asked.

Cessqa thought for a moment. She turned back to her holodisplay, to the image of the comet there before her. It had an icy core and ejected a plume of blue-grey ice for millions of kilometres behind it. It's tail consisted of highly charged particles and radioactive matter – perfect for hiding a starship.

It's like trying to see through a hail,
she thought.
A tempest of ice the likes of which I have not seen since I left our wasted homeworld, so many centuries ago.

"Proceed slowly, with caution," she told Gelvin.

"As you wish."

Cessqa left the command deck and ran through the bowels of the ship to where Risa was busily conducting the intuitiveless drones as to what to fix next. She passed sections of deck that had been blown inward, debris everywhere, cables and wires hanging like spilt intestines. Risa looked up as her commander approached. "Cessqa."

"Risa. How long until we have the energy shield?"

"A while," Risa said.

"Very well. I need you to make it your priority."

"Yes," Risa said.

Cessqa regarded her. Risa, one of Namar's most celebrated warriors. Before the fall of their people. Before they were lost from memory, relegated to the very mists of time.

"You still have your blade?" Cessqa asked her.

"I brought it aboard . . ." Risa answered, her head tilted slightly to the left as she tried to ascertain Cessqa's intentions. "Why?"

"Keep it handy," Cessqa said and stalked off, back to the command deck where Gelvin piloted the
Jandala
into the tempest, once more in pursuit of the
Defiant
.

*

"Jeez, it's like flying into a hail storm," Banks said. They were advancing on the comet itself, pushing through the megatonnes of material and matter it left behind.

First extreme radiation, gravity, and time dilation
, Commander Greene thought.
Now ice. Deadly ice that could destroy us any second.

As it were, the comet's tail proved mostly harmless. But if a sizeable chunk of it were to break away and head straight for them, the
Defiant
would not be able to move out of the way. For all the cold outside, Banks couldn't help but sweat.

"Take us around the comet, Lieutenant. I want to get ahead of it."

All eyes turned to Jessica.

"Jess
. . ." Greene said, forgetting himself in his shock. "You can't be serious."

"Captain I seriously advise against it," Chang told her.

"I can do it," Banks said, face taut with tension as the comet's body appeared out of the din. He pushed the
Defiant
's engines as hard as he could, pushing on past the giant icy satellite. It spewed material from every inch of its surface, it seemed. Some of that violently, catapulting debris away from its surface, clattering against the vessel's hull.

A jagged piece of ice hurtled toward them. Banks pitched the
Defiant
to the left. the made a grinding noise that rattled the ship as it scraped the hull.

"Damn that was close," Greene said.

Before, it had been hard to judge just how fast the comet was travelling. But now they struggled to overtake it, the
Defiant
's engines pushed to their limit.

"I'm getting some detailed telemetry of the comet," Chang announced.

"Overlay on the viewscreen," Jessica ordered.

Chang did so. Her data appeared over the view of the comet sliding past to the right as they
appeared to inch forward. The telemetry showed the comet's jagged, sharp edges as an almost donut shape, a hole in the middle like a tunnel straight through its core, hurtling through the cosmos, racing toward its own inevitable destruction.

"Orders?" Banks asked, his voice strained.

Jessica eyed Commander Greene. "A Driscoll special."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Oh," he said. He looked back at the viewscreen, at Chang's scans of the comet. "I see."

The bridge crew shuffled in their seats nervously, unsure of what was about to commence.

Jessica opened a channel to the munition's bay. "This is the Captain. Load one nuke into tube one."

"Yes Captain,"
came the somewhat stiff reply.

She closed the channel. Now she definitely had everyone's attention. You could have heard a pin drop. "Banks, here's what you're going to do
. . ."

22.

The image of the
Defiant
flickered momentarily, then disappeared on the holodisplay. Yet there could be no mistaking their present location.

"Gelvin, take us closer toward the comet's nucleus," Cessqa ordered.

Risa arrived on the command deck. "I thought I might be of help up here. The drones are doing all they can. We have limited energy shielding, which I've assigned to the front of the ship."

"A good plan," Cessqa said. She eyed the giant blade at Risa's hip. "And you have come prepared."

Risa nodded slowly, her hand falling to the hilt of the weapon. "I thought it prudent, considering we are nearing the end of this matter."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to say that, given your tactics, you mean to either completely destroy them or cripple them so they have no choice but to surrender," Risa posited.

"Perhaps I mean to take them by force."

"And not offer a chance at surrender?" Risa asked, her face lit with amusement.

"Only the weak surrender, Risa. I do not think this Captain King will ever succumb to my demands. She is surprisingly resilient. No, she will have to die first. Then her crew," Cessqa said. "One by one."

*

Banks took the
Defiant
ahead of the comet, using every ounce of available energy to pump extra thrust from the engines. He ran a hand over his face, dried his palms on his trousers, then set to pivoting the
Defiant
about.

Jessica didn't need to tell him he would only have seconds to perform the manoeuvre before the comet caught up with them, smashing them to smithereens.

"Okay . . ." he said, not entirely full of optimism.

Damn him
, Jessica thought.

They all watched the viewscreen, collectively holding their breaths as the
Defiant
lurched to the right. Banks threw the engines into full reverse, to give himself additional seconds to complete the turn. There before them, the comet rushed to meet the
Defiant
and directly ahead lay the hole that gave the ball of ice its donut appearance.

Lieutenant Banks accelerated again. They closed in on the hole, the sides rushing past at incredible speed.

"Activating external illumination," Chang said.

Search lights along the
Defiant
's exteriour came to life, showing the sides of the tunnel in stark relief. Lieutenant Banks made minor adjustments to their course as they barrelled through it.

A sharp outcropping appeared ahead of them, but the helmsman reacted quickly, yawing the
Defiant
to avoid it. There was clearance of less than two metres, but they made it past.

"That was too close," Greene said.

Light showed at the end of the tunnel and the
Defiant
was soon racing to meet it, leaving the insides of the comet behind.

*

The image of the ship flashed rapidly, seemingly out of nowhere. Cessqa barely registered that it was headed straight for them. Gelvin, luckily for her, did. He attempted to steer away, though it was futile.

How did they get around that thing so fast?
Cessqa asked herself.
It's impossible.

"We can lock weapons," Risa said next to her. "We should take the opportunity."

"Do it," Cessqa said coolly.

"Locked. Shall I fire on them?"

"Yes."

23.

"
Jandala
on sensors."

King looked at Chang. "Certain?"

The Commander nodded. "More than certain, Captain."

T
he
Jandala
opened fire on them. The
Defiant
shouldered the hits, and the concussion of the Namarian weapons thundered against the hull.

"Jackson, are you ready?" Jessica asked the weapons officer. He gave her the thumbs up signal. "Then aim and fire. Detonation on impact, not proximity. Enable remote detonation, in case we need it."

"Yes Ma'am," he said, his hands braced above the controls. "Ready to fire."

"Do it," she ordered.

The nuclear warhead pirouetted through the short distance between the
Defiant
and
Jandala
, sparkling yellow. It found the Namar ship and exploded on contact with the
Jandala
's hull. An incredibly bright, white explosion filled the screen, then the aftershock slammed into the
Defiant
.

Everything seemed to turn upside down right then as the aftermath of the awesome force exerted by the exploding nuke. Banks wrestled with the controls, tried his best to keep her from succumbing to the
wave.He managed to fly the
Defiant
straight. The bow shock chased their tail, Banks steering the
Defiant
barely ahead of it, then it slammed into their hull, a gigantic crash that sent them reeling but the after effects subsided swiftly.

"Man, that had to have done some damage," Banks said with a wince.

"The
Jandala
! What is the situation of the enemy?"

Chang looked up. "Crippled. No propulsion to speak of. Minimal weaponry."

Jessica watched the viewscreen. Now that the glow had faded, she could see the outline of the
Jandala
in further detail . . . and the spots where she burned. Where she lay open to the ravages of the vacuum.

"I can see for myself," King said. "If I know anything of them by now, it's that they'll have that ship repaired within the hour. That's why we must put them out of action entirely."

"They're lucky they weren't destroyed," Greene said. "A direct hit like that from a nuke . . ."

"We took quite a hit from that ourselves. Hull plating is now inoperable and other systems showing signs of failure," Chang advised. "But if it's any consolation, the
Jandala
's defences are also down for the time being."

"Let's start taking damage reports from all sections, Del. Start with
–"

Jessica found herself suddenly suspended in darkness, with only the audible presence of those around her to remind her she was not floating in a void.

"Looks like those systems failed sooner than I'd thought," Chang said glumly.

Commander Greene sighed. "Is this what you had in mind?" his now disembodied voice asked Jessica.

"Not exactly."

24.

Cessqa opened her eyes.

I still live.

The
Jandala
creaked and groaned around her. She rolled over to her front and with great determination and strength she pushed herself up off the deck. With a drunken stagger, she stood and reached out for the nearest edge to steady herself.

Sparks rained down from somewhere, the stench of burning plastics and alloys thick on the air. The
Jandala
listed, throwing the artificial gravity off. The imbalance made her want to go skittering off to the side.

"Gelvin
. . . Risa . . ." she asked the room, eyes still focusing.

"Here," Risa's strained voice came from behind her. Cessqa turned to see the tall
, slender Namarian clutching a duct overhead.

"And Gelvin?" she asked.

Looking back at the front of the command deck, she made out an arm on the floor, pose loose and flaccid. Cessqa got there as fast as she was able, but she knew it was futile. He was already gone.

Gelvin lay sprawled on the floor, his face staring up at nothing with a fixed, empty expression. She looked down his body, to where a section of the ceiling had collapsed on him, crushing his internal organs.

"Gelvin," Cessqa said softly and she reached out to touch the top of his head, as if his thoughts still lingered there.

She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling a stab of what could only perceived as grief. But it passed. It always did.

She stood, turned to Risa, now fully composed. Recovered from her fall.

"Gone?" Risa asked.

She didn't say anything to the contrary. "We have work to do."

*

With a perceptible groan, emergency lighting came on around them, systems started to reboot.

"What happened?" Greene asked, unclipping himself.

Jessica opened a channel to the engineering section. "Chief?"

"That nuclear blast blew half a dozen relays down here, hence the power cut. We're working to fix it, but
. . . it's going to take time."

"How much time?"

"At least two hours."

King sighed. "Can you find a workaround? Just for the time being?"

"I'm sorry, Captain, but they have to be replaced. I can get you some engine power, but for the time being both the weapons systems and the hull plating will be out of action. At least until I can get these relays changed over."

"Understood, Chief," Jessica said and closed the channel.

"Damn," Greene said.

"We didn't have full power to the plating when I ordered the nuke," Jessica told him. "I shouldn't have ordered it."

"You did what you had to. There was no knowing it would cause this."

Ensign Olivia Rayne stuck her earpiece in, looked up, eyes wide. Captain King saw her reaction to whatever was coming in on the
other end. "Ensign?"

Rayne's eyes were wide. "Captain
. . . it's Cessqa."