This Corner of the Universe (24 page)

Twenty
seconds later, the optic swept over
Blackheart’s
last known position and
an expanding debris field filled the picture.  “Is that her?” Heskan asked.

Truesworth
continued searching for the schooner but finally reset the view to the
wreckage.  “I think so.  The size and composition of the wreckage could have
come from an exploding schooner-sized vessel.”  The tactical plot illuminated a
bright flashing blip near the edge of the debris field.  “Wait a second…”
Truesworth said.  “Yup, that’s
Blackheart’s
ELTI.  She’s definitely been
destroyed, Captain.”

Heskan
exhaled, “Very nice shooting, WEPS.”  Smiling with relief he continued, “Jack,
give me a full sweep and then refocus on that last ketch.”

“Aye,
aye, sir.”

Heskan
stared at the tactical plot.  With
Blackheart
out of the way, things
became much simpler.  He had a little over twenty-five minutes before he
crossed paths with the last pirate ketch and he was not in any rush.  The power
plant would probably be running soon but he had no idea about the condition of
Anelace’s
drives or her inertial compensators’ capabilities.  For now, his ship was
little more than an unguided dart pointed at the pirates.

Spaceman
Gables jumped in alarm when the door to the hallway chimed and Chief Brown’s
voice came through the intercom.  “Denise, get your ass into the bathroom an’
seal the door.”

She sprang
up and punched the intercom button.  “Give me a few seconds, Chief,” she replied
and bounded for the bathroom.  Once safely inside, she heard the rush of air
escaping into the hallway.  She backed up and sat on top of the closed toilet
lid wondering what she was supposed to do now.  A minute later, the bathroom
door slid open.  Chief Brown looked at her quizzically from the threshold.  “Let
me know when you’re done sittin’ on the throne an’ we can get back to work, Spaceman.” 
He held out a fresh replacement helmet in his right hand and a comm booster
unit in the other.

Smiling
as she stood, Gables took the helmet.  “I hope you put Rowe and his roommates
on report, Chief.  Their room is a mess.”

On
the bridge, Heskan monitored Engineering’s progress toward getting
Anelace’s
heart beating again.  Jackamore had trimmed the start-up procedure down to the bare
minimum and the Kanata Split power plant begrudgingly came to life.  They now
had twenty minutes until
Anelace
would intercept the pirate ketch unless
one of the ships changed course.

“I
need propulsion, Brandon.  What’s the status on our drives?” Heskan questioned
as he watched the distance between the two ships shrink on the tactical plot.

“Well,
Drives One and Six are gone for sure.  Four and Five were operating but with
severe vibrations in their mounts and that was before the last hit.  If I had
to guess, I’d say we’ll have Two and Three operational in ten minutes and maybe
Four and Five much later.”

Just
two undamaged topside engines
,
Heskan thought. 
We’re down to a third of our propulsion
.

Behind
Heskan, the bridge doors opened and Chief Brown strode through.  “Capt’n, Damage
Controlman Gables is pickin’ her way up to the starboard laser stations.”

Vernay
immediately tapped commands into her communications console and said, “Denise,
this is Vernay.  I need to know what condition the lines are in as you go
forward.  Will we have to drop new cable to connect with the turrets?”

Heskan
spoke into his helmet’s mic, “Work fast, Brandon.”  He broke off his connection
before turning to the chief.  “How bad is it on lower deck?” he asked.  The
ship’s status display indicated
Anelace’s
condition in a clean, cold
format; he wanted the eyes-on assessment.

The
chief took off his helmet and placed it on top of his station console.  “She’s
a wreck, Capt’n.  I don’t know how she’s stayed together this long.”  The old
chief sighed.  “I had to go through Aux Con to get Gables, an’ I think that hit
near Auxiliary Control broke Ana’s back.  Dependin’ on her bow, sir, I’m not
sure a shipyard would even wanna try to fix her.”  He looked down and shook his
head.  In his nearly thirty-year career, Brown had had to abandon ship twice
before, both of them less damaged than
Anelace
was now.

Heskan’s
heart sunk. 
My first command and it was shot out from under me
. 
Still,
the old girl isn’t quite dead yet and that’s a good thing since we’re still headed
into harm’s way.

“Boats,
Jackamore is bringing the engines online.  I need you to work with Lieutenant
Vernay and make sure we have something stronger than harsh language to throw at
that last ketch.  We have less than twenty minutes before our first pass and
I’m not sure if I can change that.  I’m afraid to order any radical changes in
speed or course without knowing the state of our inertial compensators.  Ensign
Selvaggio is working on maneuverability… hopefully, when the engines and
weapons come up, we’ll actually be able to maneuver,” he finished and looked
over at Diane.  She nodded as an acknowledgment but continued to work feverishly
in silence.

Chief
Brown looked around the bridge.  “Okay, Capt’n, unless you need me, I’m gonna
go help Gables out.”  He started out but then stopped and gestured at Riedel’s body. 
“Beggin’ your pardon but could you give me a hand, Capt’n?”

The
two men carried the fallen officer out of the bridge and laid him on the bed
inside his quarters less than a dozen meters down the hall.  Riedel’s and
Heskan’s were the only two officer quarters that had not received significant
battle damage.  The task completed, the chief excused himself and left the room. 
Alone, Heskan looked at his friend.  “I’m sorry, Mike.  I don’t know what else
to say right now, we’ve got so much happening and we’re not out of the woods
yet by a long shot.”  He paused and thought about the past two and a half
months.  Riedel had always backed him up; he had been the perfect first
officer.  “I wish I was better at finding the right words…” Heskan trailed off
and then a thought came to him that made him chuckle.  “I guess you’d be
telling me to get my ass back to the bridge instead of sitting here talking to
a dead man.”  Heskan walked toward the door but stopped short and turned to
face his friend.  Coming to attention, he rendered a precise salute.  “Thanks
for everything, my friend.  Keep watch over us a little longer.”

When
Heskan arrived back at the bridge, he was greeted with two requests.  Both
Vernay and Selvaggio wanted permission to leave the bridge to help with repairs. 
He agreed on the condition that they stayed in constant contact with the bridge
and could return to their stations in less than two minutes.  He disliked allowing
his bridge officers to leave their posts in the middle of an engagement but the
manpower situation on
Anelace
was critical.  There was literally no one
else who could do the work that was not already busy or out of the fight. 
Besides
,
he thought
, it’s not like we’re actually in combat right now, and, if I let
them help with repairs, it improves our chances that we’ll be combat-capable
when it does come time to fight.

After
they left, Heskan looked around.  It was just he and Ensign Truesworth.

“Bridge
seems roomier now, sir,” Truesworth quipped.

The
time seemed to crawl and yet fly by at the same time.  The distance between
Anelace
and Ketch-One dropped precipitously while the repairs to
Anelace’s
vitals lagged behind.  Heskan once again found himself in the position where
everyone had a job but himself.  He monitored the progress of each repair and
tried to think of a combat strategy that would keep his ship safe while
eliminating the last pirate ship.

Ketch-One
was a laser boat.  Like the pirate ketch,
Raptor
, she had been outfitted
with two B-pack lasers, one mounted to each of her sides.  Even after all of
the damage
Anelace
had taken, Heskan still held out hope that she would
have her two starboard GPs available for the final fight.  In terms of tonnage,
Anelace
was the favorite in this battle.  She was twice as large as the
ketch and a military grade ship.  However,
Anelace
was now a dying shell
of her former self.  With her inertial compensators already compromised, he questioned
just how much more punishment she could take before she finally broke apart.  They
had been lucky so far in that her power core had remained undamaged but it
seemed only a matter of time before uncaring statistics mandated a strike through
Anelace’s
heart.

Her closing
speed on the ketch was only .06
c
.  Since the GP laser’s range was 5
ls
,
the ships would be in firing range for one hundred sixty-five seconds before
Anelace
overtook the ketch and passed her by.  With the fast recycle times of the GP
and B-pack lasers, it amounted to an estimated eighty-three shots per laser
during the entire pass.  Neither ship could withstand anything remotely near
that much fire.  This would truly be a fight to the finish.  Heskan knew he
could try to skirt by the ketch to limit the time inside weapons range but also
knew that, given his ship’s brittle condition, he would have to start the
maneuvers so far ahead of time that the captain of the ketch would easily be
able to respond to them.  For the first time in the battle, Heskan was more
concerned about what his opponents would do to him than what he would do to
them.

They have the advantage because
they can shape the engagement however they want
, he thought. 
If I try to get
cute and slip by them to one side, there’s a real chance they’ll counter-maneuver
on a bearing that puts them outside our laser firing arcs.  
He shook his
head.
 It’s too big a gamble to take the risk that I guess the correct facing
and direction in the hope that we can fight this battle without taking any
return fire.  After all Ana’s been through, it’s not right to leave this up to chance.

*  *  *

Lieutenant
Vernay reached the containment field separating most of the officer quarters
and the AIPS control room.  The fields could resist any force exerting less
than thirty-five pounds per square inch.  She checked her shocksuit to ensure
it was functioning properly and then pushed her way through the field.  The
inside of the AIPS room was unrecognizable to her.  Vernay had been through
this room thousands of times before but the landscape of the room had changed
radically.  Entire instrument panels had been ripped from their wall mountings
and tossed about the compartment.  The actual control station was missing
entirely and wreckage littered the room to form an ad hoc obstacle course.  The
overhead bulkhead was crushed inward, down to the deck in many areas and
cleaved in half, offering a spectacular view of space.  Her heart pounded in
her chest as she realized that Brian Deveraux was in here at the time of
calamity.  She forced herself to hold her breath out of the fear that she was
hyperventilating as she carefully made her way through the rubble, scared that
around the next crumpled console or smashed panel she would see the horribly
mangled form that had been her friend thirty minutes ago.

She
was spared any such sight as she crawled under an enormous support frame and into
Damage Control Station One.  The smaller compartment was as heavily damaged as
AIPS but more of the wreckage had exited
Anelace
through the large gouge
in her hull.  Vernay rose from her hands and knees to a crouch and duck-walked
through the containment field at the portal between DC-One and the hallway
leading to the turret control rooms.  The hallway had partially collapsed as
well but about a meter of clearance near the floor existed that allowed her to
continue. 
Is it my imagination or is the hallway actually sloping up,
she asked herself.  After several minutes of hard work crawling through the
collapsed hallway, she came to Starboard Turret-One.  The door was clearly off
its track and had been pried open.  A containment field was operational and she
saw movement through the opaque energy field.  She took a deep breath to brace
herself for the worst and pushed herself through the field.

To Vernay’s
great relief, the tiny room, while damaged, was not destroyed.  Most of the
supporting structure of the room was intact and the turret controls were still
where they should be.  Most importantly, Vernay saw that Tyler Pruette, still
strapped into his gunner’s chair, was alive and being attended to by Spaceman Gables. 
Vernay stood up and stepped the meter and a half to stand beside the others.

Pruette’s
body had taken a severe beating but bore no obvious signs of a life-threatening
injury.  “What’s the word, Gabes?” she asked hopefully.

Gables
was busy administering a splint to Pruette’s right leg.  By the way she was
holding it, Vernay was sure the leg had been broken.  “Transverse fractures in
the right tibia, fibula and femur,” she said as she finished fitting a red and
white flexible splint over his lower leg and then folded the edges over each
other.  “Up higher, he’s got broken ribs, I think the third, fourth and fifth and
the others around them are certainly bruised.”  The patch was now fully around
his leg and the edges had bonded to each other to form a tube.  Gables then
pressed a “stiff-stick” to the splint and the splint became rigid.  She knocked
lightly on the now sturdy splint as she turned toward Vernay.  “His wrist has
seen better days too but he still can articulate his fingers so that’s a good
sign.”

Vernay
looked at Pruette.  “Tyler, I knew you’d find an excuse to stop attending our
fitness program.”

The gunner’s
mate second class turned his glassy eyes to Vernay.  “Sorry, ma’am.  I think we
let one through.”

Vernay
put her hand on his shoulder.  “We’re still alive, Tyler, and the bad guys are
dead.”

“Yes,
ma’am, but there’s still some work to do.”  Pruette was groggy but still aware
of the third pirate ship.

Vernay
nodded and looked at the turret control panel.  The power was on but the
computer seemed stuck in a diagnostics loop.  She cleared the commands and then
reordered a self-diagnostic.  Even without catastrophic damage, the Lyle fire
control systems could be a little balky.  As she waited for the routine to run,
she asked, “Denise, have you been down to S-Two yet?”

Gables
was digging through her medical kit but answered, “Yes, ma’am.  Thomas is alive
but in as bad a shape as Gunner’s Mate Pruette.  They’re both pretty messed up.”