“Confirmed! Target at two-clock-high, at a
distance of one-thousand-kilometers!” Jones declared sharply, wide-eyed,
pointing at the sensor icon.
Aaen
faced the front of the bridge, “Lock
torpedoes!”
Sandberg
abruptly carried out the order, then roared, “TARGET ACQUIRED!” He hovered over the “FIRE” command button.
“Fire torpedoes two and three!” Smith
commanded.
“AYE! TORPEDOES
AWAY!” The torpedo launch alarm flooded through the bridge as Sandberg
watched the warheads soar at the target in a nearly straight line.
“Evasive!”
Smith commanded Wilson.
“Aye, executing emergency evasive maneuver ‘Alpha-Two-One’!”
Wilson declared.
Two
seconds later, Sandberg turned left, pumped his fist sharply and declared, “IMPACT! Target’s defensive matrix, tractor beam, and Translight drive are down!”
The
crew cheered.
“They’re
still coming around!” Jones added
sharply.
Another
loud alarm sounded. Jones turned left and shouted, “INCOMING HIGH-YIELD WARHEADS from HARD STARBOARD! Bogey’s inbound!” The red triangular
icon was drawing closer by the second, and its speed was increasing. “IMPACT IN FIVE SECONDS!”
The
alarm sounded again, this time twice as fast, “ANOTHER BOGEY’S FIRED! INCOMING
FROM PORT!”
“Wilson!” Aaen commanded. Wilson understood
the order and nodded sharply.
“I’M ON IT!” He executed another series
of sharp maneuvers.
“We’re running out of main power! I’m going to have to switch us to secondary
backup systems in five minutes if we keep this up!” Connors sharply
declared to Smith.
“Understood!” Smith turned to Aaen.
“Two torpedoes have been dodged—there’s still
one incoming!” Jones shouted. Wilson
clenched his jaws and growled under his breath, frantically maneuvering as
sharply as thrusters would allow.
A
thundering explosion knocked Odyssey on a sharp roll to port. The
crew was thrown across the bridge in a violent stroke. The bridge lights
flickered sharply, gradually dimming to near pitch-darkness. For ten seconds,
the crew got their bearings and scaled back to their seats as the internal
lights struggled to stay on. Wilson fired the starboard roll thrusters for
nearly a full minute to bring Odyssey out
of the rolling spin.
Connors
lifted her hair back over her head as she examined her screen, looking at the
tow, then biting her lower lip out of frustration. “Commander!. .We just lost the
tow. The Valiant’s adrift. We’ve also
lost our Translight drive,” she gasped out of frustration and fatigue.
“We’ve
only got half of sublight capability,
Captain,” Wilson reported.
“Main
power’s struggling. We’ve got three minutes left before I have to
switch to secondary backup power systems,” Connors interjected.
Aaen
frustratingly gasped, “Understood,” Jones
noted the smaller bogeys were hovering around the Valiant like a hawk getting ready to go for the kill on a mouse.
A
sensor alert sounded. Smith looked at Jones as she declared, “Detecting a large anomaly at extreme-long-range,
closing fast! The anomaly’s energy signature is distinctly different than the other two sensor contacts. . . The
anomaly’s getting closer!” Jones
declared.
“Could
be a ship,” Smith suggested to Aaen. Aaen looked at Wilson and gave his next
order, “Continue evasive maneuvers,”
he turned around, “Connors, put
everything we’ve got left into the stealth
system,”
She
nodded acknowledgment.
Jones
noted new short-range sensor data: local
space is somehow being distorted as the anomaly rapidly enters the area. The
anomaly stopped three hundred meters above and five-hundred-thousand kilometers
away from Odyssey’s port bow.
The
front of the bridge filled with gasps of shock and expressions of terrified
awe. Jones leaned back to see the large anomaly: it’s the massive 'mother ship'
Odyssey encountered before! The
'mother ship' is actively scanning for Odyssey.
The scan’s reverberating static hums flooded the bridge. The entire crew got
goosebumps.
Connors
noted the stealth field is struggling to hide Odyssey.
Another
alarm, this time from Connor’s station. She abruptly declared, “The stealth field is failing on the aft quarter!”
“That
mother ship is towing-in the Valiant!”
Jones announced.
The
crew members on the front of the bridge watched the Valiant consumed by the mother ship through a docking port on its
ventral-forward quarter, like a massive stingray opening its mouth to ingest
its prey.
“Commander!” Connors called.
Smith
approached her station, “What is it?” he asked directly.
“I’ve
managed to break into that mother ship's central computer mainframe and access
its classified command code database.
I’ve downloaded the mother ships remote
command override codes.”
Sandberg
turned in his seat, “Captain, I suggest sending a few high-yield torpedo
warheads aboard the mother ship and one of the smaller ships. We still have enough power to remotely
detonate them if we wanted to. I think we could disable the larger ship and one of the smaller ships.”
Aaen
looked at Smith. He nodded agreement.
“Do it,” Aaen commanded sharply.
Connors
worked on decoding the classified command codes. Wilson armed the high-yield
torpedoes. Low mechanical grumbles filled the bridge for three seconds as
the torpedoes were loaded in the queue.
“The
distorted space is affecting the main power grids on our ship and the other three
ships,” Jones reported. Aaen recognized this effect as familiar.
“Commander,
I suggest we hack into the larger ship's main computer and ordering the ship to
be shut down so we can recover the Valiant,”
Connors said.
“I
agree, sir,” Smith affirmed to Aaen.
Aaen
nodded at Smith.
“Whatever we do, we need to do it quickly!”
Jones said, “With the weakened stealth field grid, they’re focusing their scans
in our direction!”
“Adjusting
power levels to compensate! Should by us a minute or so!” Connors said.
“It’s working!” Jones announced. But for how long?
“The
torpedoes are armed and programmed!” Sandberg declared.
“We-need-to hurry!” Jones said.
Connors
noted Odyssey’s stealth system is
still struggling because of hull damage sustained.
Jones
observed the smaller ships are now gradually bearing down on Odyssey.
“We’re in!” Connors declared.
“Deploy
torpedoes!” Aaen commanded. “Torpedo detonations at Jones’ command!”
“Aye!”
Connors acknowledged. She phased the torpedoes to their destinations, then sent
the main power shutdown command to the larger ship. Sandberg hovered over the
remote detonation command.
Jones
watched the sensor data for the larger ship: it was already beginning to shut
down. Its external lights flickered into darkness.
“NOW!”
Sandberg
detonated the torpedoes. The crew watched multiple violent fireballs shoot from
the second smaller ship as the targeted smaller ship drifted of its ‘x’ and ‘y’
axis’. The bridge crew cheered at the sight.
“The
smaller ship is crippled beyond recovery! I’m detecting escape pods launching
from it! Moderate damage to the larger ship!” Jones announced. The crew
continued cheering. “the larger ship is adrift! I’ve located the Valiant! We’re gonna have to get a lot closer if we’re going to have a
chance to recover it!”
With
that, Aaen snapped, “Wilson, take us to extreme-close-range of the mother ship.”
He
nodded acknowledgment.
“Connors,
standby to remotely jettison the Valiant
into space so we can recover it. Wilson, standby to take the ship to the best
possible speed.”
“I
doubt we’re going to have enough power for that, Captain!” Connors said
directly. “We’ve got sixty seconds of
main power left. I’ve started the secondary power backup system startup sequence
so power to the ship isn’t interrupted,”
“Very
good,” Aaen said.
But how long will we last on
secondary backup power?
Connors wondered in silence, her heart nearly beat out of her chest with
anxiety as she watched the main power gauge continue to decline.
