Emerald Repatriation Society: Corona (Part22)
10 Feb 2024Vasil Vasilescu
(<--Part 21)Jack Vaughn put on a brave face, but just under the facade rippled a fear born of uncertainty.
Twenty-four hours ago, in the Cemiess system, I had the reporter detained by Emerald Dawn security for attempting to gain unescorted access to the carrier’s command deck. Now he found himself in a system under threat of Thargoid invasion where emergency powers had been enacted to repurpose law enforcement for system defense. That, in turn, allowed organizations to enforce their own laws, leaving Jack Vaughn at the mercy of ERS. Security told him he was being released, but he found it disquieting that his business suit had been replaced with an orange and blue work jumpsuit, and he was now being taken under armed escort to the hangars.
His trepidation showed in the way he walked from the lift and across the hangar with the two security escorts. Even in the low gravity his legs looked like they were on the verge of becoming rubber. No doubt he believed he was about to have an unfortunate accident.
Security brought him to the primary cargo hold of the Long Road where I was overseeing the loading of supplies “Mr Vaughn,” I said, shouting to be heard over the heavy machinery loading and arranging cargo in the hold of the Type 9. “Glad you could make it!”
Vaughn, barely breathing, started to say something but suddenly clenched his eyes when one of the loaders slammed a cargo brace into place. The sound reverberated through the cargo hold like a gunshot.
Sgt Lydko slid a data pad free from his belt and presented it to me. “If you’ll sign here acknowledging transfer of the detainee.”
I signed the transfer. “Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll take care of Mr. Vaughn.” Even though the armed escort was leaving, I could tell the words did not offer Vaughn any reassurances of safety. I motioned Vaughn toward a heavy bulkhead door. “Let’s talk somewhere quieter.”
Once out of the cargo hold, I closed the bulkhead door behind us. The deep the sepulchral thoom of mag locks securing the vault-like door was too much for Vaughn. “Someone will eventually figure out what happened to me.” He blurted out, trying to sound confident, but I heard a slight tremolo in his voice.
“Relax. You are not here to disappear,” I assured him. “You are here so that we can talk.”
Vaughn looked down at the jumpsuit he’d been given. “And I needed to be dressed like dock worker for that?”
“I thought they’d give you a flight suit, but that’s fine, I have spares on board. Follow me and we’ll get you one.” I started down the cramped corridor but Vaughn did not follow.
“Why would I need a flight suit?”
I stopped, turned back to him. “Because now that we are in system and have started operations I don’t have time to sit around on the Emerald Dawn talking to you. Instead, you’ll be coming with me on 3-R missions for the next few days. So, if you enjoy having your guts squirt out of your ass if we lose pressure, by all means, keep wearing the cargo onesie they gave you.”
“That... That does not really happen,” he said, though he did not sound completely convinced.
I shrugged and continued down the passage. “Suit yourself.”
Vaughn followed me through the tight passages and stairwells between the lower cargo holds until we arrived at one of the equipment lockers spread throughout the ship. He did not offer any resistance when I handed him a flight suit, or waste much time putting it on when I showed him to the crew stateroom he’d be using while on board. I had the COVAS register him with passenger access and went to the cockpit to make ready for departure.
Vaughn came onto the command deck just as the Long Road was being lifted into position for takeoff. He paused at the door, surprised at the number of ships around the Emerald Dawn and the amount of radio chatter. “How long have we been here,” he asked.
“Only about two hours,” I said. “Most of the ships are ERS rescue and resupply contractors that hitched a ride and are heading out on missions. A few are bringing in supplies and Imperial slaves for us to distribute.”
“It is illegal to trade Imperial slaves outside of Imperial space.”
I knew what he was hinting at. ERS was breaking the law if we were trading Imperial Slaves in a non- Imperial system, and if we were within Imperial jurisdiction, after 24 hours of holding him on the Emerald Dawn we had to either let him go or turn him over to local authorities. “We are in Vogulu and it is Imperial-aligned. However, it is under imminent threat from the Thargoids. Local authorities have more important things to worry about than you being our guest.”
“Prisoner,” he said.
“Guest,” I corrected. “You are free to go, but no one here will stop operations in order to help you leave, and off-ship communication is locked down to only emergency or mission-required transmissions so there is no calling for a ride home. I suggest you enjoy ERS hospitality until we can arrange to transport you back to Emerald.”
Flight control gave the authorization for departure. I disengaged the landing skid electromagnets and eased the Long Road into the departure path being fed to me from flight control.
As the ship neared the end of the flight path where ships were winking out of realspace in silent, bright flashes, Vaughn asked, “Where are we going?”
“Hip 29596,” I said, starting to ease the Type 9 toward the system. “We have a request from de Kamp Vision for three hundred tons of food and medicine and to extract citizens fleeing the Thargoids. Assuming the Thargoids let us get there.”
“Hmph,” grunted Vaughn, “So that talk about you rescuing refugees was not a line of BS after all.”
“You should strap in,” I said. “Things will get very uncomfortable very fast if we are interdicted by the Thargoids. I doubt even that flight suit will stop you shitting out your intestines.” I engaged the FSD.
* * *
I avoided the known Thargoid hot spots, took an indirect route from the arrival point to De Kamp Vision. The starport was 2200ls from the arrival point but the route I took was 4000. Although it was the only large, orbital starport in the system, De Kamp Vision was not under attack. Instead, the Thargoids concentrated on a small station at the edge of the system and one of the two terrestrial ports on 2C.
No one knew why the Thargoids sometimes attacked targets of little value and did not bother with an obvious strategic asset. They had a strategy we could not understand and it was working for them. It was never superior tactics that drove off the Thargoids, but the brute force of numbers. Wherever we lacked the numbers, systems fell easily to them.
Most everyone fleeing the system had made their way to De Kamp, making it both the system’s largest source of refugees and a logistical nightmare. Even before the Emerald Dawn arrived in Vogulu, I was seeing reports of rioting due to the scarce resources. Our ERS reps were so overwhelmed with requests for aid that they often had to make difficult choices as to who received priority assistance.
We offloaded the food and medicine and started taking on passengers. Considering the short trip back to the Emerald Dawn, just 13ly, we took on fifty percent more passengers than intended. None of them complained about the economy-like shuttle seating, or the fact they were in the cargo hold rather than cabins. They just wanted out of the system.
Just before the jump back to Vogulu, Vaughn came onto the command deck and began buckling himself in. He’d been talking to passengers and I could tell by his look that the reporter in him was about to start asking questions, leading up to a final ‘gotcha’ question. “I’m curious, how do you vet the citizens you bring on board?”
“The ERS representatives we send to stations are mainly the ones verifying citizenship. Mostly through public records. Then they are prioritized according to need. That is why you might have noticed there are mostly families on board. It will be that way for the first few trips.” I aligned the ship for the jump to Vogulu and began charging the FSD.
“I noticed, also, that they are all working-class.”
“Your point being?”
“They are more likely to become indebted to ERS. Maybe even slaves. Is that why ERS is a member of the Imperial Slaver’s Association?”
“We are a charity. No one is ever expected to pay back what we spend to assist them. The ISA membership is necessary in order to broker large scale slave labor contracts for starports in need of repair. I know that conspiracies make for good news stories, but you are grasping at air.”
The COVAS counted down the jump. Immediately after the FSD fired, warning lights flooded the cockpit in red light. The ship lurched and I watched the hyperspace conduit start to fold in on itself. “Interdiction! Bastard was waiting for us to jump! Vaughn, Ops panel!”
Vaughn looked around, confused. I toggled the Ops panel for his station and it folded into place in front of him just as we were pulled, tumbling, into realspace. The lateral thrusters glowed white as they attempted to stabilize the ship. We’d been pulled by a basilisk. Worse, we stopped our tumble facing it.
The Long Road could not have outrun or outmaneuvered the basilisk in the best of circumstances. Starting out facing it meant holding out long enough to jump away. I briefly shunted max power to engines, and put the Type 9 into a lumbering, max boosted roll to point us away from the Thargoid.
“Oh shit,” whispered Vaughn as the basilisk’s swarm started to bloom.
“Vaughn,” I barked “Ready on the shield cells! The mains won’t last long.”
Facing away from the Thargoid, I pushed max power to systems and drained the remainging boost energy. The ship rolled, what little dodging it could do effective only against a few of the non-tracking shots from the Thargoids.
The shield collapsed, then the cell bank almost immediately after. They had bought us a little time. The hull started shuddering under the assault. System damage levels rose into the yellow on the damage control display. The COVAS began warning of hull breaches. Vaugh was shouting, “What do I do!”
“Chaff,” I snapped. I knew it would do nothing except act as a plecebo for Vaughn and get him concentrating again. “And give me FSD cooldown time!”
“Uh... ten seconds, I think!”
“Count it down from five!”
The targeting array picked up another Thargoid manifesting nearby. “Incomming missiles,” announced the COVAS, as calm as if it was announcing afternoon tea. All power to engines and full boost. The overthrusters growled. Warning claxons blared. Maybe I could stay ahead of the missiles long enough to jump.
Vaughn started the five second cooldown count. I nosed the Long Road toward Vogulu and engaged when he reached zero, We were aligned when the COVAS countdown reached two. Caustic missiles slammed into Long Road just as the FSD engaged.
The COVAS very politely reminded of us that engines were at 18% efficiency, we were taking caustic damage, and hull integrity was below 20%.
“Oh shit, we need to eject,” said Vaughn, starting to unbuckle his harness.
“Okay, but you go to tell the passengers there are not enough pods for everyone.”
Vaughn stopped, suddenly sobered by the thought. “Then what do we do?”
“Hull integrity seventeen percent,” said the COVAS.
Even if we ran silent and at full boost as soon as we exited witch space, the damaged engines would not generate heat fast enough to get rid of the corrosives. “Stand by on a heat sink. I’m going to burn off this bug snot with a coronal dive.”
“But...”
The ship dropped into Vogulu with 15 %hull integrity. I killed the shields throttled up and headed straight for the star. The heat indicator shot above 100%. Hull continued dropping to 13%. The cockpit filled with painful, intense light. “Full polarization,” I told the COVAS and the canopy went black. This close to the star, I’d have to rely on flight instruments that were sparking and starting to fail from the heat.
The Long Road dove deeper into the corona. With a loud pop and the stench of burned electronics, my telemetry feed went black. I now had no idea how close we were to the photophere. I think Vaughn may have been praying. I am sure the passengers were.
At 187% heat and 9% hull intgrity, the caustics finally burned away. “Launch sink,” I yelled to Vaughn. I ended silent running and pulled the ship up but parts of the hull continued sloughing away like glowing hot leper skin. “Keep launching sinks as soon as they’re ready!” the heat finally dissipated enough that it stopped melting the hull at 6% integrity.
I quickly unbuckled my harness and started shutting down non-essential systems. The last thing we needed were internal fires. “Arthur,” I said to the COVAS, “Engage AFM, set priority to life support and climate control. Start emergency venting, Send mayday, all channels. Include damage status and request emergency passenger evac.”
The COVAS acknowledged the command but the reply was garbled. The 1MC was damaged, meaning no internal ship comm or announcements. I switched the COVAS to display mode and told Vaughn, “Go check on the passengers. Make sure everyone is okay and let them know help is on the way.”
Vaughn slowly removed his flight harness. “You could have ejected,” he said. “No one would have blamed you.”
Vaughn sounded like a man ashamed and seeking validation for his initial instinct to abandoned ship. I did not offer him the validation he wanted, or bother looking to him. “Go on, see to the passengers. We are not out of this yet.”
I waited until Vaughn left before slumping in the pilot’s seat, closing my eyes, overcome by that strange nausea when all of the adrenaline dumped into you suddenly dissipates. The comm started beeping. Messages scrolled on the display from nearby vessels responding to the mayday.
(Part 23-->)