“Yes sir.”
“All right, Chief Vercelli, what are your plans? I’m hoping that you’ll stay aboard, we’ll need someone in the hangars.”
“Aye, I’m staying with the ship, Commander. I didn’t help get her in shape to see her get taken.”
“Understood, thank you Chief. Just get most of your deck crews into ships and stand ready to launch with the evacuees. Those fighters will need ground support. Everyone should have their personal kit and trade tools. Understand?'
'Aye. Are you sure we've gotten to that point?' Deck Chief Angelo Vercelli asked. Through the blur of the privacy field and the semi-transparent floor of the bridge Oz could see the greying Chief looking up at him.
'Not yet. Just be ready. I'm sending you encrypted coordinates, pass them on to your most trustworthy FTL ticketed pilots.'
'Aye.”
'Where are you sending Paula?'
'She won’t go with the evacuees. With the look she’s giving me, we’d have to sedate her if we wanted to pack her off.'
'We might need her spirit. Let's hope none of this is necessary.'
Jason deactivated the scrambling field surrounding the command seating, assuming instant communication to all bridge stations was going to be essential.
Oz nodded at him and stood. 'All right, everyone who just got a notification on your command units telling you the ghost ship tactic is in play should know what to do. If you have an order to report to the botanical section, report to Junior Lieutenant Kameri. Everyone else should have orders to bring emergency evacuation via the launch deck. Do not use escape shuttles. Make sure you take a survival kit on the way to the hangar for yourself and do not take side trips to your quarters or storage areas. You won’t have time to pick up personal possessions. Go now.'
Half of the thirty-one officers on the bridge stepped away from their stations and took a moment to say goodbye to the people sitting beside them before leaving the bridge. They knew there wasn't much time.
Oz ignored the questioning glances and looks of uncertainty that came his way as people departed.
'Commander, the battlecruiser is sending probes into the cluster,' Agameg announced as he made haste to his tactical station.
Jason stood and strode to the field control station. Laura glanced up and was shaking her head before he was half way there. “I saw the order, but I’m not leaving.”
“You’re on that list for a reason, the abandoning crew need a certain number of officers and you’re part of that pool.”
“I’m not leaving you Jason,” Oz could barely hear her say. The two were in a deadlock, and he couldn’t afford to have a couple’s spat on the bridge, no matter how serious it was.
“We don’t have a choice,” Jason said.
“Why do you think I came here? We’re here because we weren’t happy in the lives we had, we couldn’t make the choices we wanted to,” she shouted, locking her station and getting to her feet. “This isn’t Freeground, you’re not in Fleet Intelligence, and we don’t have to do anything but survive!”
“You know that you’re not needed in the ghost ship strategy, not as an energy field specialist, not aboard the Triton. We need you to help control the evacuees, and I need to know you’re safe. Especially with what you know is coming. With what you know we’ll have to do to survive here.”
“I need you on the Samson, Laura. I’m putting you in command of the Evacuees,” Oz interjected.
“Stay out of this!” Laura burst.
Jason took Laura by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You know this isn’t some chauvinistic or sentimentally driven thing. We need you out there.”
Laura was close to tears and red faced, but nodded. “I’m sorry, I know. I wish I didn’t, and I could just argue until it was too late.” She shook her head and took a breath. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
He kissed her briefly and said something Oz didn’t need to hear. She was off the bridge by the time Jason rejoined him at his side.
'Frost, tear that ship to pieces,' Oz ordered. The reaction time was so fast it was as if he had pulled the trigger himself. All the able railguns across the top of the ship fired at once, hurling thousands of rounds at the enemy ship just outside the cluster of drifting rock. The blue tracers trailing behind the rounds told Oz that the first load were sink rounds, designed to absorb incredible amounts of energy. That old gunner's planning on taking out her shields before digging in. I'm starting to see why Jake kept him aboard. Oz mused.
Engineering Chief Grady's holographic representation appeared in the command seat behind him. 'All my people are out of the new thrusters.'
'All right, send anyone you don’t need to the main hangar so they can evacuate.” Oz turned towards the helm, “Get us out of here Panloo. When we're clear of the asteroids take us right past that battlecruiser.'
The nafalli pilot fired up the four main thrusters, favouring the new replacement pods and in a surprising display of skill guided the Triton out of the crater she'd called home for only a few hours. The route she was taking would guide the ship through the thinnest of the debris tailing the asteroids and keep the gunnery deck pointed towards the enemy battlecruiser.
'All torpedo, beam and missile rooms, load for high penetration, close range,' Oz ordered. 'How are our shields?'
'We're up and fully charged, we even have reserve power. Somehow Chief Grady got all our power plants back online and the temporary emitters installed,' Laura reported with a nod at Chief Grady's hologram.
'So I noticed. Focus most of our shielding on the core sections of the ship and gunnery deck. Now if he could get the cloaking systems back up and running I might recommend he gets a week off,' Oz remarked.
'That's not going to happen while we've got a through and through hole big enough for a fighter, sorry Commander,' the Chief replied.
'Just wishful thinking.' Oz watched as the Triton neared the edge of the comet like trails left behind by the asteroids and planetoids they'd used for cover. The enemy ship's shields were reading no power, and Frost had switched to ripper slugs, ammunition that was heavy and sturdy enough to cut through the thick nebula material without going off course before tearing into the enemy's hull.
The battlecruiser changed course, turning towards them. It was completely against what he expected. If Oz were in command of the enemy ship, he would have used the nearby asteroid cluster as cover, or rotated the ship so they could recharge their shields one bank at a time.
'Oz, this pattern suggests-' Jason started.
'All torpedo and missile batteries, fire,' Oz ordered calmly.
'Hold!' Jason countered. It was too late. The torpedo ports lining the edges of the Triton’s hull lit up momentarily as the entire ship fired a volley. 'Oz, this pattern tells me that ship has backup, and they’re nearby. It’s trying to get close so it can block a line of fire while on another group while it closes in.'
Oz looked at the tactical display in the middle of the bridge again. 'I thought the same for a minute but I don't see anything. No electromagnetic signals, nothing on thermal scan.'
The Triton continued to close the distance between it and the battlecruiser. It was doing its best to counter the impressive attack, firing its beam weapons in sweeping arcs to counter the incoming rush of torpedoes and missiles.
As the ships closed to within five hundred kilometres the torpedoes struck, the intensified fire of the gunnery deck ripped into the vessel and the few missiles that made it past the ship's defence impacted soundly in the middle of the bulky cruiser. Explosive decompressions and sudden implosions followed directly after the impacts, leaving the starboard side of the vessel an erupting ruin.
'There they are!' Agameg announced, highlighting the outlines of several vessels on a second, broader tactical display he initiated on the bridge. 'They were hiding just in front of the cluster, putting a planetoid between us and them.'
Oz's heart sank. He hadn't even considered that they would position their ships right in front of the largest planetoid, using the heat and the mass of the body to remain perfectly hidden while their decoy scanned for them and drew them out. 'Panloo, get us out of here! Head for the nearest edge of the nebula. Don't spare the thrusters.'
