The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (32 page)

* * *

As Parks had spoken to Hawke, a member of the bridge crew had
alerted him to a damaged Imperial fighter streaking towards them.
Even in its damaged state, the pilot had been a master of his craft
and had managed to guide it straight towards
Griffin
‘s
launch bay, whilst evading all the carrier
’
s attempts to bring it down. As it
had disappeared from view, security cameras all about the flight
deck had relayed the short, but terrible seconds that
followed.

Deckhands had watched horrified as the last bursts of the
fighter
’
s cannons
had eliminated what remained of the bay quadrant
’
s already weak shielding and sped
down the launch tunnel towards them. There were cries of panic from
the crew and awaiting pilots, before people had fled in all
directions, some attempting to take cover behind cargo containers
whose contents would offer nothing but a much swifter death. A
missile had detached from the bottom of the fighter, slamming into
the forcefield that lay ahead. With its last obstacle overcome, and
with nothing left to stop it, the Imperial fighter had slammed
straight in a row of waiting TAFs, all in the process of being
rearmed, where it had gone on to do the most damage.

Its
unspent payload of missiles had exploded, along with its reactor.
Unopposed, the blast had ripped its way across the entire deck,
which - as was its nature - was stocked full of volatile equipment.
The resulting chain reaction had impacted almost every area of the
ship, including the bridge, the total damage being nothing short of
astronomical.

* * *

Parks felt a warm flow on the side of his head. He placed his
hand against his temple and, even in the half-light of the bridge,
could see the blood covering his fingers. His left arm was also
aching from where he had fallen on it. From the
bridge
’
s frontal
viewport, he could see that the carrier was no longer aligned with
the on-going battle and that the blast must have thrown them off
course. The view was skewed, no longer aligned at an angle
appropriate to the task.

He
turned back to the bridge itself, trying to see down its length,
but finding that the smoke and haze was making it almost impossible
to see what was happening around him. There was a sudden loud
clunking noise, the sound of emergency systems engaging, and the
bridge was filled with dim lighting, allowing Parks to see the true
extent of the damage: consoles sparked and smoked; people lay
slumped forward in their chairs, burns all about their bodies,
where equipment had exploded in front of them. Parks hoped that for
their sakes they were already dead. Others were struggling to their
feet, some trying to wake the unconscious and checking them for
injuries.

“
Talk to me, people!” Parks called, his voice a distant sound
even in his own head, as he struggled to regain all his
senses.

“
Here, Captain,” a voice answered. It was
Liu. Aside from the bruising on his face and an injured left arm,
he looked none the worse for wear, more shocked than anything;
though the inability to take his eyes off the dead, still form of
O
’
Donnell
was not helping.

“
Stay calm, Lieutenant,” Parks urged the man, drawing his
focus away from the corpse. “Are you hurt?”

“
No, sir. Well, I am a little, but nothing
I can
’
t
cope with, sir,” Liu managed, his eyes dropping once again to the
corpse splayed out on the floor.

Parks
reached out and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I need you to
stay focused and maintain order here, Ali. Can you do
that?”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Good, you have the bridge,” Parks said. “I have to get to the
flight deck and find out what the hell’s happened.”

“
Yes, sir,” Liu said, managing to tear his
eyes off O
’
Donnell.

Leaving
Liu to focus on getting the bridge back to order, Parks hurried to
the stairwell, limping as he went.

* * *

Estelle stumbled down the poorly-lit corridors of the
carrier
’
s lower
deck, trying desperately to locate the other
Knights
. She had been making her way
towards the flight deck when the Imperial fighter had crashed onto
it, plunging the entire ship into darkness.

She had
been lying on the bed vacated by Dodds, when the call for pilots
had come in. She started towards the quarters’ door, when a loud
explosion and the rocking of the carrier knocked her off her feet
and sent her tumbling backwards, causing her to strike her head
against one of the metal beds. The blow had not caused any serious
damage, but had left her with a headache. She was now experiencing
a dull ache, that smarted with each step she took.

She had
to find Dodds, Kelly, Enrique and Chaz. She had decided to head
straight to the flight deck, in anticipation of finding them there.
Other crew members were running and pushing past her, hurrying to
deal with their own problems. As she continued her journey, she
discovered an emergency door was cutting off her most direct route.
She doubled back, attempting to find another way around.

“
Estelle!” a desperate voice cried out to
her. Along a smoky corridor, just off from the one she walked down,
a woman lay on her back, buried beneath wreckage that had fallen
from the ceiling. From where Estelle stood, the wreckage appeared
to have trapped the woman
’
s legs and one of her
arms.

Estelle
started forward to try to help.

“
Be careful!” the woman shouted to Estelle as she
approached.

“
Andrea?!” Estelle asked, startled as she saw who it was
trapped beneath the collapsed steel. She gingerly walked forward,
wary of any loose sections of the roof that may not yet have
fallen, as well as dangling electricals.

“
Estelle, help me… No-one will stop to help me… Please,”
Andrea pleaded.

Estelle
looked around herself for a way to help her remove the wreckage,
but could see nothing that could be of any assistance. “What
happened?” she asked, kneeling down next to Andrea.

“
We were heading for the bridge, the others were… walking
just in front of me… The wall ahead of us exploded. I managed to
grab on to something, but the others…” she started to
weep.

“
What happened?”

“
They were spaced! I
couldn
’
t
save them, Estelle! Their faces… I watched them die,” she said
through the sobs. “I tried to find another way to the bridge… and
then the ceiling came down on top of me… Estelle, I
can
’
t move my
legs… It hurts so much…”

It had become apparent to Estelle that
Andrea
’
s legs had
been crushed by the collapsed roof, and that the same fate had
befallen the woman
’
s trapped arm. She grabbed at some of the steel, trying to
find a way to pry it loose. When it became clear that it was not
going to budge, she moved around to try another section. She only
managed to move a handful of light parts, before the heavier
portions of the wreckage defeated her. Andrea watched her the whole
time, coughing and sobbing. Estelle ducked down next to the woman,
trying to see if there was a way to pull her out from under the
mess. There was none.

“
I
’
m going to find help,” Estelle
said, standing up. “I won
’
t be long, I promise.”

“
Okay,” Andrea managed, gravely.

Estelle
hurried away, darting down the corridors, looking for someone to
assist her. Few paid her any attention, Estelle unable to get the
words out before the person she tried to stop pushed past her, and
those that did listen already had higher priorities. She wished
that the others were here now. The five of them would have little
trouble freeing the trapped woman. Even Enrique and Chaz would have
had enough strength between them. Eventually, a man and woman
followed her back to the scene.

“
Andrea,” she called, returning to the
trapped woman
’
s side. “I
’
ve got help. Don
’
t worry, we
’
ll have you free…” She stopped talking and knelt by the
curly-haired blonde, seeing her eyes open, staring straight upward,
a trickle of blood running from her mouth. “Andrea?”

The woman who had followed Estelle knelt by her side and felt
Andrea’s neck. She then shook her head. “She
’
s dead.”

“
Help me!” a hysterical cry came from behind. Estelle saw the
woman next to her turn around, and then spring up to assist the
owner of the voice. She heard those that had accompanied her to
where Andrea lay, urging someone to keep calm, before all three
hurried from the scene, their voices fading away down the corridor
as they went.

Estelle saw none of it, her eyes focused on
Andrea
’
s face,
racked with the guilt of the jealousy she had felt only hours
earlier. She reached down and closed the dead
woman
’
s eyes, no
longer wishing she could be in her place.

* * *

An out of breath Parks arrived at one of the flight
deck
’
s
observation galleries; or at least, what remained of it. All access
to the deck had been sealed off, blast doors preventing anyone from
getting any closer to the source of the devastation that had
crippled the carrier. Even the gallery refused to permit its
occupants any idea of the destruction that lay beyond: thick blast
screens covered the windows, allowing them to see no further than
the inside of the room.

The smouldering remains of terminals and computer screens, as
well as shattered glass covering the ground, was all that remained
to suggest what the gallery
’
s purpose may have been. Everything
around Parks was charred black, the damage spreading down the
approaching corridor. The doors, which usually slid open
automatically as they were approached, had to be pushed apart by
hand. As on the bridge, people were attending to the wounded and
trying to revive others.

Kneeling
down on the floor, just inside the doorway, was a woman attending
to the injuries of a man, propped up against a wall. His face was
quite bloody, the result of a wound somewhere on the top of his
head.

“
Captain,” he said upon seeing Parks enter.
He pushed aside the woman
’
s hand and attempted to get to his
feet.

“
As you were,” Parks said, waving him back
down. Though they were injured, Parks had found that some of the
carrier
’
s
crew still attempted to adhere to a certain standard of
correctness. Right now, he did not want either of these two to
stand and salute.

“
What
’
s the status of the flight deck?”
he asked, though by the state of the observation deck he believed
he already knew the answer.

“
Badly damaged,” answered the man on the
floor, wincing as the woman tended to his wounded head. She was now
making a clumsy effort to wrap a bandage around the affected area.
“There is no hope of launching fighters until it receives some
extensive repairs, and that won
’
t be before we re-establish the
forcefields. The whole deck has been exposed to space. If we open
it up, then we risk depressurising the entire ship.”

“
Survivors? Anyone still alive down there?”

“
Not a chance. If they weren’t killed when that damn fighter
hit, then they would have been spaced straight after. We’ll have
lost everyone: pilots, attendants, the OOD and the junior,
technicians and munitions handlers…”

“
Stay calm, man!”

“
Captain!” another voice came.

Parks
looked around as a man came bounding up the stairs to the remains
of the observation room; it was the security officer who he had
sent to fetch Andrea.

“
The
Red
Devils
are dead, sir. They were spaced
during the frigate
’
s initial attack.”

Though he knew the shock on his face was clear for all to
see, Parks made no attempt to conceal it. This was news that he had
not been prepared for. As it stood, the entire plan to attack and
retake
Dragon
had
been nothing short of a total disaster. Even retreating would not
be possible until the engines were brought back on-line, and
abandoning the ship was not an option. The evacuees would be
sitting ducks in their escape pods. Prisoners would not be taken,
lives would not be spared. Even without full shielding or weapon
systems, they stood a much better chance of survival by remaining
on the carrier and attempting to restore power, than floating
around in escape pods in the middle of the battlefield.