Favors Part 6
03 Jun 2024Vasil Vasilescu
Following System SchlockThe Anansi and the Jester stood toe-to-toe, trading blows. Like bloodied, exhausted boxers, they’d abandoned footwork and finesses in favor of heavy, leaden-armed blows in the desperate hope that the next punch would send the opponent to the mat.
A close quarters torpedo strike from the Anansi dazed the Jester with an unexpected body-blow. The gut punch rippled through the Jester and staggered the old ship. On the bridge, Red Jade kept shouting encouragement to her crew, like a trainer in the corner urging her boxer to keep punching, to not let up, that they were winning the fight, but Jade’s chief mate “Bully” Bill Baines knew better.
Neither carrier was in any condition to land a knockout punch on the other, all they could do was throw ever-weakening punches at one another, bleeding out until nothing was left but debris for the scavengers. And now, with the arrival of the Ophois to occupy the Löwe, the Jester was on its own.
Bill looked to the damage control monitors. Their red glow flooded the bridge in a deep sanguine light. He had been against closing with the Anansi, thinking it would have been better to stay at distance and pick the Anansi apart with superior numbers and firepower. From a distance, the Jester and Löwe could have supported one another, but now was not an ‘I told you so,’ moment.
“Captain,” he yelled over the warning claxons. “We have to consider disengaging!”
Red Jade snapped her gaze to Bill. “What! No! We almost have them. They are about to surrender, I know it!”
“We can’t counter another torpedo attack at this range and we have none of our own. With distance, some of the fighters could provide ECM and close defense against torps and missiles. We’ve drifted so close to the Anansi that even if the Löwe could support us—”
The Bridge went dark and Bill felt the nauseating rise and fall in his stomach whenever a massive ship suddenly lost the momentum from its maneuvering thrust.
Emergency lights flickered on. “Engineering! Damage report,” demanded Red Jade.
“EM burst has knocked out the main and aux power bus to the bridge. Cascading power surges are overloading the relays.”
“Helm unresponsive,” shouted the helmsman. “We’ve lost all control!”
The Jester rolled and continued drifting toward the Anansi like a dazed boxer slumping in slow motion against his opponent. The starboard side of the Anansi loomed closer, threating to crash against the Jester’s bridge. Even if full control was restored there would not be enough time to avoid the collision.
“Captain, we have to abandon the bridge,” Bill told Jade. could give the order, but with the captain still on the bridge that was nearly the same as relieving her of command.
Red Jade said nothing, just as dazed and slow to respond as her carrier. This is not what was supposed to happen. No encouraging words could change the fact that she’d brought the Jester close to destruction. How many of her crew had already died, sucked into space through jagged hull ruptures? How many more would die today?
“Marcella!” snapped Bill.
Red Jade looked to Bill and nodded her head. “Sound collision,” she ordered with as much strength as she could summon. “Evacuate the bridge! Transfer control to CIC.”
* * *
Circling at fifteen kilometers from the fighting with his clipper and four imperial eagle escorts, IISS Major Anton Stiles reassessed the situation. Never before had he seen four carriers fighting in such close proximity to one another. The spectacle of power and brutality both mesmerized and concerned him.
Whether it was luck, skill, insanity, or combination of the three, the Ophois’ sudden appearance at the center of the fight had thrown everything into disarray. Inserting themselves between the Löwe and the Anansi, the Ophois effectively eliminated the advantage of concentrated firepower on the Anansi by the Jester and Löwe.
And now, Stiles watched the Jester, unable to maneuver, crash against the Anansi. The Jester’s bridge hooked into the Anansi, ripping a long, ragged arc along the starboard side and throwing into space huge chunks of twisted super structure and tiny man-shaped bits of flotsam. What remained of the Jester’s command tower as it tore free of the Anansi dangled like a nearly severed head lolling on scraps of skin and shattered bone.
“Leftenant, any word from the Jester?” Stiles calmly asked his co-pilot.
“Last communication was that the captain transferred control to their Combat Information Center. No word on if she managed to escape the bridge before impact.”
The Anansi and Jester drifted slowly apart, trading sporadic laser and rail gun shots though the growing cloud of debris billowing between them. The uncoordinated fire indicated a breakdown in command and control, with gunners continuing to execute their last order, or to fire randomly in the absence of any new firing solutions.
“Major,” said one of the eagle pilots, “the Löwe is recalling its fighter wings for close defense and is shutting down its interdictor arrays. I think it is preparing to jump.”
Major Stiles snorted derisively. “Not surprising. Those types always look out for themselves.”
Unlike Red Jade, the Löwe’s captain saw no reason to allow his ship to be further damaged. Outnumbering and pounding the Anansi was one thing, but with a fresh carrier and its accompanying fighters entering the battle, the Löwe’s captain saw no profit endangering his ship or crew by engaging in an even fight.
“Do we go back in and help the Jester,” asked the Leftenant.
Stiles considered the situation and shook his head. “No. The Anansi is crippled. The Jester has served its purpose. Tell the Patreus Sentinels they are free to engage; Priority target is the Anansi. Also, issue immediate Class I Imperial Bounties on all enemy transponders and set elevated payout progression.”
Stiles knew from experience that the lucrative bounties would lure in-system hunters looking for quick credits. They’d be drawn like sharks to blood with high-paying bounties acting as the chum. At worst there would be more fodder arriving to further confuse the fighting, giving the IISS and the Sentinels a better chance at taking out the Anansi. At best the battle would devolve into a feeding frenzy with the pirates as dinner.
“What about us, Major?”
“We’ll pick off any stragglers trying to limp out of the combat zone. We can’t legally attack that neutral scavenger, the Long Road, or stop it from recovering escape pods, but we can sure as hell make sure no enemy craft ask it for emergency repairs.”
* * *
The Jester shuddered so violently the magnetic soles on Jade’s and Bill’s boots lost contact with the floor, throwing them against the walls. The collision with the Anansi reverberated through the ship like the tolling of a doom-laden bell, its sonorous and dire tone echoing destruction through the metal corridors.
Jade, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and disbelief, tumbled down the corridor and through the chaos following in the wake of the tolling bell. The corridor plunged into darkness only to be lit by disorienting showers of sparks from ruptured panels and conduit. Bill grabbed her by the wrist, planted his feet on the wall and pulled her to a stop. Her feet touched the wall, the clunk of her magnetic soles a welcomed assurance of stability.
"We lost the bridge, Bill! I... ," Jade stammered, her voice a wavering whisper lost among cacophony of alarms and explosions.
"No time for that, Marcella. We have to get to CIC," Bill said, his tone a blend of stern resolve and paternal concern. Bill toggled the comm unit attached to his belt. “CIC, this is the First. The captain is with me. Situation report!”
“Situation goddamn shitty! CHENG reports only 35% power capacity. Helm responsive but limited. The Anansi is not much better, though. More enemy ships arriving. Assault boats inbound. Löwe is disengaging and has started jump calculations."
“What!” Jade’s eyes filled with the pain of betrayal. “They can’t do that! They Promised!”
Bill looked to Red Jade. He saw not the captain, but his adopted niece, little Marcella, frightened and confused. He’d made a promise to her father to look after her and he intended to keep it. “We are on our way to CIC. Begin jump calculations,” he said.
They pushed through the cluttered, darkened corridors toward CIC at the heart of the ship, using zero gravity in the inoperable lift tubes to move between decks, and floating through wreckage like wraiths across a battlefield. Fires burned in isolated pockets, casting an eerie, flickering glow on the twisted metal and floating debris. Fragments of machinery, broken beams, and the occasional dead crew member drifted past.
Jade's heart clenched with each unblinking and accusational stare drifting past her. She’d done this to them. Maybe they could forgive her, but she doubted she could ever forgive herself.
"We're almost there," Bill grunted, his muscles straining as he pushed a large piece of hull plating aside to clear their final path to the Combat Information Center. A sudden explosion sent a concussion wave up the corridor, knocking Bill off his feet and against the wall, the sound and rumble more felt than heard in the confined space.
Marcella hurried to check on Bill. “I’m okay,” he said shaking the cobwebs from his head. “Just give me a second.”
Alarms blared. "Boarders breaching CIC," shouted someone over the radio on Bills’s belt. Marcella looked down the corridor. The ship’s Chief Force Protection Officer, Regina Wood, stumbled from a cross corridor that led to CIC. Dazed, Reggie turned drunkenly and raised her TK only to catch a hail of laser and kinetic fire that left her a corpse standing in zero-G, anchored to the deck by her mag boots.
Marcella shook Bill, as if that would help his mind clear faster. “Bill,” she said, her voice trembling from the enormity of their predicament crashing down upon her. “Come on! We have to go. Now!”
Marcella helped Bill shuffle away, disappearing deeper into the twisted wreckage. Behind them, arc cutters popped and sparked as the electromagnetic locks to CIC were being cut away, and a swaying Reggie, illuminated by the blue flashes of the cutters, waved her goodbyes.