Talosian Chronicles 3: Talosian Alliance (25 page)

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“S
ummer Dawn, this is Terran Raptor Damocles. What is your situation?”

“Blessed Goddess! Thank you! We are being pursued by what we think is an Imperial warship. We’ve been ordered to halt and be boarded. We’ve taken missile hits to the engines and are losing power. Please hurry!” A panicked voice replied.

“Hold it together, Summer Dawn, we’ll be there shortly. We have notified Alliance command of your position and situation. Help is on the way.” Cindy said.

“Thank you, Damocles. We’ll hold.” Cindy thought that she could hear a note of relief in the voice.

Cindy got up and headed back to the Common Area to face her sleepy team. She noticed that they had gotten into their armor but hadn’t put the helmets on. She smiled in approval. “Okay campers we have a Benesian civilian liner under attack by an unknown hostile. It’s most likely an Imperial Light Cruiser. Thankfully the damn thing is only about a third the size of Star Dancer or we’d be in a world of shit. We still could be. This is what we’ve been training for, campers.

“Imperial shielding isn’t like ours. They have a weak EM field and a very thick hull. I want to drop out of hyperspace right in front of them, let’s open both cannons to hammer the fuck out of them. If we can open another portal behind them but turn away so they think we jumped back out, that would be good.” As she explained a holographic depiction of what she was describing appeared over the table. It was a little slower than her description as the computer was trying to display what she was saying.

“If they have as much trouble seeing us as the Caldarians did, how are we supposed to distract them? We can’t present a viable target for them to see.” Jerry asked.

“Good question. If we need to, we can unshield our engine emissions. That should get their attention. If that doesn’t work, well I guess we’ll have to slap them in the face with a dead fish,” Cindy replied.

They all chuckled over that. “Okay, so what do you want the rest of us to do?” Sam asked.

Shrugging, Cindy said, “Hold on. Watch the fight from your bunk via the monitors and make suggestions for the rest of us. Other than that, praying might help. Now we have about ten minutes before dropping out of hyperspace, let’s get set," she said, making for her locker to get her armor on.

She walked through the ship, quickly checking that everything was secure. She got ‘thumbs up’ signals from the three men, now safely strapped into their bunks with their helmets on. She quickly returned to the cockpit; Sasha was below them in the gunner's position, and Lissa was sitting at the navigators/co-pilot station. Cindy put her own helmet on and sat down to strap herself in.

“Real-space interface in 3 minutes.” Lissa’s voice sounded in her ears.

“Okay, Sasha are you ready?” Cindy asked.

“Yes, Targeting and holographic interface are on-line. Weapons are deployed.”

“Good, master safety off. Arm all weapons systems. Stand-by for interface,” She ordered and began running through her own systems checks.

Finally after what seemed to Cindy to be about three seconds, Lissa called out; “Interface in 30 seconds.”

Cindy placed her hand on the control sticks for the Raptor, and raised her eyes to the forward screens. Her heart was beating fast and she was breathing heavily. Adrenalin surged through her veins.

A nova of light appeared in front of the Raptor. In real space, it would appear as a bright flash of light, here, on this side of it, it looked mostly like the swirling motion from a toilet.

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T
he world that Sasha was in was a holographically generated view of space outside of the ship. Currently she was looking ‘ahead’ or at least what the computer told her was that direction. She had never been able figure it out herself. She had activated and armed both cannon turrets after she had powered up and gotten Cindy’s approval. She listened to Lissa’s count as she watched the swirling colors begin to twist into an interface point with ‘real' space. She never really understood hyperspace physics, so the damn thing only looked like a clenching sphincter to her.

The computer knew the plan as well as she did and would assist her in keeping the weapons locked on target. She began firing ultra high velocity projectiles as soon as she saw something that looked like normal space. The computer adjusted the velocity of the rounds to compensate for their own speed and by the time interface was complete she had already fired nine thousand times. The plan called for the use of only the cannons but she had armed the lasers as well. All she had to do to fire them was change her hand position. Therefore when the blinding flash from the enemy ship hit her she jerked in an unconscious effort to shield herself... and fired every weapon the Damocles carried.

Cindy was watching too. She saw the pulse of light and tried to evade. She actually managed to get the Raptor to start turning. She heard Lissa scream and felt the Raptor shudder, smoke and sparks leapt from the control boards in front of her. She watched in horror as every single light and readout in front of her died. The Damocles began to tumble.

‘If I survive this, Ian’s gonna fuckin’ kill me.’  Cindy thought to herself

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I
mperial weapons technology was lacking in many ways; targeting systems being one of them. They compensated by modifying the gunners. The optic nerves are modified in such a way that, once plugged in, the ships sensors became their ‘eyes’.  The weapons systems assigned to each gunner tracked with eye movement.

The Imperial light cruiser Treel had two gunners; one forward and one aft. The flash of a jump point forming almost right in front of them could not help but catch the attention of the forward gunner. He glanced up at it just as the first rounds from the Damocles slammed right through the bow of the ship, through the Captain behind him, and continued on to expend the remainder of their energy deep in the bulk of the ship. He didn’t feel the rest of rounds that shredded his body as well as the forward third of his ship.

The only weapon that was armed when he spasmed from the round going through his head was an ion cannon. Meant for the sole purpose of disabling a ship’s electrical systems, it had a very pronounced effect on the Damocles. No one on the bridge was alive when the Damocles lasers cut completely through the aft sections, severing engineering from the rest of the ship.

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C
indy fought against panic as her suit’s internal systems started up automatically. She knew it was a normal reaction to the loss of external systems, but it still upset her.

“Report! Sound off!” She barked into her comm.

“Sasha here! Can someone get me out of this damn closet?”

“Sam here. I’m okay, what the hell happened?”

“Jerry here, I’m okay.”

“Ben here, the bastards woke me up!”

“Jerry, you and Sam get unstrapped and get Sasha out of the weapons chamber. Ben, come up here and help me carry Lissa back to her bunk. Her suit reports her as breathing but unconscious. We’ll get her plugged into the ‘autodoc’ as soon we figure out if it’s working,” Cindy ordered as she unstrapped herself from the pilots’ chair. She floated up as soon as she was free. Artificial gravity had failed as well. This was not looking good. What the hell hit them?

She glanced up as first Ben and then the other two men came floating through the hatch. “Ben, since we are weightless, I can manage Lissa. Get below and do a damage assessment. The AG unit’s out, I think we can assume our main reactor is off line. Turn off all systems as you go. I'll come down as soon as I get Lissa secured and see if we can’t get it back on-line.” She saw him nod and reverse himself to float over the men working on the access hatch to the gunnery chamber.

Cindy went to work on getting Lissa unstrapped and back to her bunk. It stood to reason if the Damcoles was knocked out that Lissa was unconscious as well, but why? How was she going to cover the fact that Lissa was an android?

“Uh... Major? I’m not sure, but I think I’m blind." Sasha said, her voice quavering with fear.

“Just relax Sasha. You’re in a dark room; what makes you think you’re blind?” Cindy asked reasonably.

“I cannot see my suit lights. All I can see is big bright ball no matter where I turn my head. I was looking right at the enemy when they fired. Now all I can see is the after image of that blast.”

“Sasha, when you are in that room, you are using the Damocles' sensors as your eyes. They would have cut out before a bright flash could do permanent harm to your eyes. You know that. The after-image will pass and you’ll be able to see again. Don't panic, just relax and let the boys get you out of there. You can relax on your bunk until your sight clears. That’s an order.” Cindy said. “Sam, Jerry, make sure you shut off the weapons systems after you pull her out of there. If we power up with systems already turned on we could damage something more then it might be already.” She had freed Lissa and was floating her back out the hatch as she gave the order. She got a ‘thumbs up’ from Jerry as she floated past.

She got Lissa strapped into her bunk as Sam guided Sasha to her bunk and began to help her get strapped in.

Cindy headed for the ladder down to the hold and engineering section. 

“Hey Ben, what’ve you found?” She asked as she glided over to him.

“We have a small problem. Whatever knocked our systems out, also activated and armed all of the plasma mines. We’ve got three cases of armed mines ready to blow at the slightest bump. The problem is, they are designed for use in gravity. I don't think I dare try to disarm them without gravity. However, if we restore gravity, they will probably blow.”

“Can you get them out the airlock?” She asked.

“That’s what I was thinking. But I wanted to wait for you before sealing off the living area. I’ve checked all I can and shut down the systems that weren't already off. The rest are in the engineering section.”

“Okay. Let’s get the bay sealed then and bleed off the atmosphere. I need to try to get the Damocles fixed. Can you get these by yourself, or should one of the boys come down to help?"

“If we each take a case it should lessen the chance of a bump setting them off,” He suggested.

“Jerry, Sam! Get down here! We’ve got work to do!” She ordered.

“On our way.”

“Good. Seal the hatch after you. Be careful with those damn mines!”

“Yes, mother.”  Came the smart-ass comment.

Cindy chuckled to herself. A little humor helped to ease the building tension. She headed to a storage locker for the tools she knew she would need. Once equipped, she moved to the hatch separating the engineering crawl space from the hold. She pulled the hatch open and smoke billowed out. ‘That’s not a good sign’ she thought to herself. As she squatted down to enter the tunnel, her suit warned her of the decrease of external atmosphere. She ignored it as she made her way to the control unit of the main reactor, shutting down every system prior to a restart. She checked them off in her mind as she went along. Finally, she arrived at the control panel for the main reactor. Sure enough it was in stand-by, not completely powered down. She hesitated before turning it back on; trying to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. The only system Cindy could think of was Lissa. She glanced up the ‘tunnel’ to where she knew Lissa really lived. It was listed as the main memory section for the Damocles' on board computer systems. Cindy later learned that was where Lissa’s higher function processor units were stored as well. She moved up to the access panel and removed it. Lissa had a power unit that was separate from the Damocles.

She noted it was in standby as well. There was a display screen set above the control suite, and she located the switch she knew to be there and turned it from ‘AVAT’ to ‘DISP' thus disabling the Avatar and restricting it to Display only. She then re-activated the power unit. Lissa’s face appeared on the display screen, she looked a little panicked and was opening her mouth to speak. Cindy hastily put a finger up to the outside of her faceplate where her mouth was to indicate silence. Lissa nodded understanding. Cindy pulled out the keyboard under the control suite and typed; ‘Be patient sweetheart. We are trying to get the ship back up and running.’

‘What happened?’ was printed under Lissa’s image.

‘Don’t know yet. Ship is completely down. ‘You’ are unconscious on your bunk upstairs. Sasha is worried about you. She was temporarily blinded. Now let me get this ship fixed before we get into real trouble.’ Cindy winked at Lissa who gave a tentative smile back and nodded.

‘Have you checked the armor charge?’ Lissa asked.

‘No. Have no way to do so. I will as soon as I can.’ With that Cindy moved back down to the main reactor panel.

“How are you doing, boys?” She asked.

“The last case is out the lock. We are trying to get it closed now,” Ben reported.

“Well then, how about I turn the lights back on?” She said as she turned the main switch back to ‘ON’ “Now, I’ll go through the list to power everything back up and get out of here. I hate this little hole.” She admitted. "Now get yourselves set, I’m gonna turn the gravity back on.” She said as she went from system to system turning them back on. The last two were the propulsion systems and weapons. She got red lights on the laser cannons, and no lights at all on the hyperdrive system. Unable to locate the malfunction from here, she moved back up to Lissa’s control unit.