There was an audible release of breath as the bridge crew gazed at the patch of space where the mother ship had been not a moment before and no one said a word for a while.
Eventually the silence was broken by Captain Walker, “Could someone please tell me what we just saw? Was that damage on the enemy ship?”
Samantha jumped as she snapped out of her thoughts, “Yes sir, please bear with me.”
She frantically typed onto her console and then shook her head and turned towards the captain.
“Honestly Sir? I don’t know.” She shrugged helplessly, “It looked like it but I’ll need to see the full reports of the battle and Orion’s currently busy dealing with damage reports and hasn’t git any runtime available for me to use. As soon as she’s available, I'll be able to give you more information.”
Walker nodded, “Karl, I want you to work with Sam until we get Orion back and tell me what just happened. I want to know if that was us who damaged the ship, and if it was then how we did it. If it wasn’t us, then who the hell was it.”
The two officers nodded and Karl moved over to stand next to Sam’s console and they put their heads together.
Captain Walker turned to Chris. “Chris, I need a diagnostic of what we actually have working at the moment and how long it will take to get basic helm controls back.”
Chris nodded, “Yes sir,” and turned to his console.
Gordon then pressed the communicator stud on his chair.
“Captain Walker to Chief Engineer.”
After a moment, there was the sound of sirens from the chair speaker and a frazzled sounding voice.
“Richard here Captain. Things are a mess down here, can I call you back?”
“What’s the status Chief? We’re currently dead in the water here. We need power back as soon as possible.” Captain Walker said.
There was a pause and then Richard took a deep breath, “Things are not good down here, Captain. The main N-Space drive is shut down. The safeties kicked in when we took some massive damage and Orion just shielded off the entire section. Luckily there wasn’t a leak, so the people I had in the section at the time are still alive. Because of this we’re running on emergency power from the auxiliary batteries. I wouldn’t suggest trying anything major, because those batteries won’t last long under any kind of strain. As to how long until power’s back?” Richard paused for a moment, “I couldn’t give you an accurate timescale, but hopefully, if we can get to the N-Space drive soon, maybe four or five hours. Orion’s working with the trapped crew now to lock down any damage, so as soon as I have any information, you’ll be the first to know.”
Captain Walker looked at Nathan and swore.
“I take it when you mean any strenuous energy drains, you mean long range sensors, weapons, that sort of thing.” Nathan asked.
“Yes Commander, that’s exactly what I mean.” Richard sighed, “The batteries were designed for just this situation, but we have the added drain of the Orion’s A.I. That means the batteries won’t last as long as under normal circumstances.”
“Can’t we shut down Orion to conserve power?” Nathan asked.
“Not really sir,” Richard said with a hint of exasperation in his voice, “She’s pretty much integrated into everything on this ship. Even if we could shut her down, we run the risk of systems going down with her. As it is, she’s spending all her CPU just keeping systems active. Without her, we’d have no life support and no structural integrity, no gravity; actually, we probably wouldn’t even be talking now.”
“I’ll make sure that we don’t use any major power drains up here until you tell me otherwise.” Gordon said with a grimace. “Let me know when you have an idea when we can be up and running again.”
“Yes sir,” Richard said, and the comms link shut down abruptly.
The Captain turned to the Communications officer, “Robert, do we have any communications at all?”
Robert turned, “Not really sir. We possibly have short range comms, but there’s no one out there to contact. Long range comms is definitely down. We have no way of contacting the Bristol, Covington or Endeavour unless they decide to come back to see if they can pick up any pieces.”
“Let’s hope that they do decide to come back, in the meantime, contact the medical bay and get some medics up here.” Gordon stood and looked around the battered bridge, “Alright everybody, just do what you can. Until Richard gets the engines back online we’re running on a limited power budget, so please don’t use any more than absolutely necessary. I know you all know your jobs better than I do, so carry on. I’ll be in my ready room if you need me.”
“Captain, I’ll go and check on Flight Operations, if that’s alright.” Nathan said.
Gordon smiled, “Worried about your baby?”
Nathan smiled back, “Yes sir. I do want to go and make sure she’s still in one piece, but we’re going to need all the Talons out there to protect us, and I can be more use out there then sitting here.”
Captain Walker nodded, “I agree. Keep in touch though and let us know what you find.”
Nathan stood, “Understood sir. Are you coming Beth?”
She nodded and they walked up to the security door and it opened at their approach. Thankfully the lift was working however nothing happened when Nathan asked for the landing bay, so he pressed the button on the display. Still nothing happened and Nathan frowned, He pressed a button for a lift entrance on the same floor as the hanger and the lift started moving.
“I don’t think that we’re going to like what we find down in the landing bay.” Beth said with a worried expression.
Nathan just nodded, a knot forming in his stomach.
The lift stopped and the doors mostly opened. Nathan squeezed through and helped Beth. He turned to survey the area and cursed.
Crew members were running all over, many with dirty bandages wrapped around various body parts. Sparks flew from blown panels and exposed wiring.
He stopped a rather harassed looking lieutenant.
“How are things?” he asked.
The lieutenant looked cross for a moment and then noticed who had stopped him. He immediately saluted, “Sorry Commander, I didn’t realise who you were.”
Nathan shook his head, “I understand Lieutenant, things are a little stressed at the moment.”
The lieutenant looked relieved, “Yes sir. But we’re managing sir. We’ve sealed all the hull breaches in the immediate area, and we’ve made a start on the essential repairs. Hopefully in a few hours we’ll have this ship back in some kind or order.”
Nathan smiled, “Well done. Keep up the good work.”
They hurried on and Nathan was amazed at how much damage had been done. He’d heard some of the damage reports whilst the battle had been going on, but he’d been more concerned with keeping the ship alive to worry about most of it. He hadn’t realised just how devastating the enemy weapons had been. They came across an area of particular chaos and Beth stopped to look through a sizeable hole in the corridor and pulled back alarmed. Nathan took a look and swore, the hole led through shattered bulkheads at least thirty feet to emerge through the hull. He could see space at the end. If it wasn’t for the force fields in place, they would all have been sucked out.
Beth silently picked some fabric from one of the sharp shards that was all that was left of the wall. Blood covered the fabric, that had clearly been a part of someone’s uniform. She looked from the fabric to the hole. “I hope it was quick.” she muttered.
Nathan placed his hand on her shoulder and nodded, “We all know the risks of space travel, but it never stops hurting when I see the effects on the crew.”
They couldn’t take the direct route to the hangars due to all the battle damage and they had to backtrack a few times before they finally walked through the large doors.
“Bloody Hell.” Beth exclaimed as they entered.
The area was in a horrendous mess. Of the four fighter racks, two were smashed, spilling most of their fighters across the hangar. One was being worked on by a swarm of people clambering over the frame frantically trying to release the mechanisms to allow the remaining Talons to be removed. The final one seemed to be working and the fighters were being rotated to allow them to be unloaded and flown out of the hangar and into space.
Nathan made his way through the chaos to the central command console and found Mike O’Callaghan lying under it with his arms in an open panel.
Nathan waited until Mike poked his head up to test the console before speaking.
“Hi Mike, is there anything I can do to help?”
Mike grimaced, “Not unless you can magic up some new couplings!” he said, “I’m having to jury rig this console to even get it to accept commands. Until I can get this working, we can’t even unload rack B.”
“How’s Rack A?” Nathan asked.
Mike managed a slight grin, “Your Talon’s in one piece, if that’s what you’re asking. I could probably do with it out of the way, if you could find someone to fly it! Yours too, Lt Fletcher.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Thanks Mike, we’ll get them out of your way now. How are you unloading it though, if the console isn’t working?”
“Manually.” Mike grunted.
“Ahh,” Nathan said. “I see. I’ll see if I can get those Couplings. How many do you need?”
“Three or four to be honest. But I’ve already spoken to Richard, and he doesn’t have any to spare.”
Nathan smiled, “Leave that to me. There’s one advantage to seniority. Besides, we need these Talon’s up and running in case the alien ship returns.”
Nathan called up Richard on his arm PDA. “Richard, we have an issue in the hangar.”
Richard looked stressed for a moment before composing himself again, “With all due respect sir, but we have issues everywhere at the moment.”
“I know Chief, but we really need this resolved. Only one Rack can launch it’s fighters at the moment. We need rack B working as well. We need four Couplings, do you have any?”
“Commander, Mike’s already asked, and I don’t have any to hand. We need them elsewhere.”
“Surely you have four that we can have?” Nathan asked, “Without the Talon’s launched we have no way of defending ourselves against that alien ship if it comes back. I know the state of our weaponry, so I know we don’t have any. We need those couplings down here as soon as possible, otherwise we’re sitting ducks.”
Mike looked at Nathan for a long second; eventually he took a deep breath and sighed in resignation, “Very well sir, I’ll get three couplings sent down to the hangar. That’s all I can spare.”
“Thanks Richard. That will be fine. I appreciate the problems you have. Scott out.”
Nathan smiled at Mike, “Now that’s sorted, we’ll get our Talons out of your way.”
“Thank you sir.” Mike smiled gratefully as Nathan and Beth walked over to Rack A.
Whilst the harassed looking techs rotated the rack until Nathan’s Talon was in the loading position, Nathan climbed into his flight suit and clambered into the cockpit.
As he leant back in the familiar seat he couldn’t help but sigh.
“It’s been a while sweetheart.” He muttered.
“Sorry sir?” asked the tech who leant over the edge and reached for the fuel release button.
“Nothing, it’s been quite a while since I last sat in this seat.” Nathan said with an embarrassed smile.
The tech smiled, “That’s OK sir, we’re used to you all having relationships with your ships! We do to in a way I suppose. Good luck sir.”
The Talon swung on its hook as the fuel cable ejected and the rack rolled around and deposited the fighter into the launch bay. Nathan pulled the cockpit closed as the anti-gravity generators kicked in and the hook released the talon.
“Talon Gold Alpha ready for launch.” Nathan spoke in to his headset as he ran the pre flight checks.
“Flight control acknowledged. You are cleared for launch, Talon Gold Alpha.”
“Acknowledged.” Nathan looked up as his Talon moved forward into the launch bay, the anti-grav system manoeuvring the Talon into place and Nathan pushed the launch button. The Talon rocketed out into the freedom of space.
Nathan grinned as he banked the Talon away from the bulk of Orion and away into the black depths. For a moment all he could see was space stretching away into infinity until a large piece of wreckage span slowly into view. Banking to avoid it, Nathan spun his ship to look at the Orion from outside.
A curse escaped his lips as he looked at the blackened and scorched outer shell of the flagship of the confederation. Gouts of escaping air and other gasses erupted out into space through great gouges that had been cut along the side of the ship and electricity arced into space from exposed wiring.
Other Talons were circling the ship clearly highlighting the damage to the control teams, so Nathan turned his fighter away and approached the wreckage of the Samuel.
Escape pods from the Samuel were being picked up by a couple of drop ships from the Orion so he swooped past and approached the hulk that had been the starship. The rear of the ship had been almost cleanly removed which had then suffered catastrophic failure in the NSpace engines. The resulting explosions had rippled down the length of the ship causing the outer armour to buckle and warp. Rents in the armour gaped, showing the still glowing innards of the ship.
Circling the wreck he could see the amount of damage that the enemy weapons had done to the destroyer’s supposedly strong armour.
“What kind of weaponry are they using? It looks like it just melted straight through the armour.”
Nathan turned his head to see another Talon sitting to his right, close enough to see Beth wave at him.
“I really don’t know. Hopefully Orion can come up with something soon, or we’re going to run out of ships. The energy signature is so far beyond what we’re used to, that no one can match it to anything.”
Suddenly a frantic voice cut across the channel, “This is Blue Seven, you’re not going to believe what we’ve found. We need assistance.”
Nathan looked down to the scanner to see where Blue Seven was and turning pushed his Talon to full speed and banked up and over the wreck of the Samuel. Beth flashed after him.
They flew towards the indicated coordinates and very soon came across a gathering of Talons.
Nathan keyed his comms unit, “Blue Seven, this is Gold Alpha, what have you found.”
The other Talons moved away and Nathan stopped his fighter and gasped.
Spiralling around in a tight circle was one of the enemy fighters. Something had clearly gone wrong as it wasn’t making any moves to escape or attack the gathered Talons.
“Well, fuck.” Beth said, “We caught one!”
Nathan grinned himself and changed channels to the Orion, “Orion control, this is Talon Gold Alpha.”
After a few moments he got a response. “Talon Gold Alpha, this is Orion control.”
“We require the assistance of one of the drop ships. We seem to have an enemy fighter here that’s been damaged. We need something with a tractor beam to bring it in.”
There was another pause and then a familiar voice came over the comms, “Say again, Talon Gold Alpha.” Captain Walker said, “You’ve caught an enemy fighter?”
“Yes sir, Talon Blue Seven found it circling here. We’ll need something to get it back to the Orion.”
“Right, understood, we’re sending a drop ship with a tractor beam to tow it back. Please stand by.”
“Understood Captain. We’re sending the coordinates now.” Nathan switched back to the local talon channel, “Talon Blue Seven, you stay here with me, the rest of you, back to you’re assigned tasks.”
The Talons dispersed until only Nathan, Beth and Blue Seven remained.
“Blue Seven, what’s your name?” Nathan asked.
“Ryan, sir. Ryan Simmonds.”
“Well done Ryan. You may have tempered this disaster with something good. This ship may well give us first hand information regarding the aliens.”
“Thank you sir.”
The drop ship arrived and edged as close to the circling alien ship as it dared and after a couple of tries managed to catch it in the tractor beam. It was a long process to pull the ship back to the Orion as the motion of the alien ship kept pulling it out of the beam, but eventually they reached the carrier and handed the alien fighter over to the docking computer which pulled it into the docking bay.
Nathan and Beth followed the ship in and Blue Seven raced off to re-join his patrol.
Almost as soon as his Talon stopped in a cleared area in the loading bay, Nathan climbed from the cockpit and hurried over to the main hanger. Beth joined him as he walked into a maelstrom.
The Alien ship was sitting in the exact centre of the hangar with a large circle of open space around it. Nathan spotted Mike and hurried over.
“What’s the plan Chief?” he asked.
Mike O’Callaghan grinned at Nathan and shook his head, “You sure send me nice presents Commander. The first thing we need to do is work out how to shut it down. The only reason it’s not currently running in circles wrecking the bay is because we have it locked down in a force field. This means we can’t get near it however! As soon as we’ve figured out how to stop it from moving we should be able to take a look and see how to open it.”
“Is there anyone I can send down to help out?”
Mike nodded, “Certainly. If you can spare Sam or Richard from the repairs, they’d both be invaluable.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Sam may be free; Richard’s busy patching the ship! But I’ll ask.”
Nathan patted Mike on the shoulder and turned to leave. He reached for his wrist communicator to call Sam, but it beeped before he could.
He pressed the receive button, “Commander Scott here, what’s up?”
Nathan was surprised to hear Gordon’s voice, “Nathan, please return to the bridge, we have incoming hyperspace signatures. Something is coming back.”
