'I don't think we'll have much time in that nebula. I need you to code a message for the Captain. Make sure he knows there's nothing he can do to help and he has to find another solution.'
'You're thinking those three battlecruisers will have friends before long.'
Oz nodded slowly. 'If I were running that battle group I'd call reinforcements.'
Jason watched him. Oz had become a tactical thinker and a great commander over the years. He was still easy to read up close, however, it was one of his minor flaws as a Captain. 'What's on your mind Oz?'
'I keep getting the feeling that we should turn and brawl this out. Running… well it’s just not sitting right.'
'We've got holes and old damage from the city ship we ran across at Ossimi. They'd know where to hit us.'
'This is a close combat carrier. If they manage to track us in the nebula this will turn into a siege and we're not in any kind of shape to shield up or fight at range.'
'So you're taking the safe route, getting us in shape to run. Makes sense.'
Oz paused for a moment, staring at the navigational hologram in the centre of the bridge. They were moving fast, but he knew the enemy would be on top of them if they tried to run in a straight line or if they extended their course past the nebula. 'Chief Grady.'
'Yes Commander?'
'I don't care what you have to do, get those main thrusters installed as soon as we're in a stable position. Until then get our reactors back online and prep any teams who won't be working on the engines to get emergency shield emitters in place. We're going to need them.'
'Yes sir,' Chief Grady's holographic avatar flickered out.
'Preparing for the worst?' Jason asked.
'Always.'
Chapter 4
Buster was followed by Hood and Hatter as she walked down the gangway to their waiting Ariel fighters. 'So, if we're only going to meet the Captain, why have they set us up with enough fusion rounds to wipe out a small fleet?' asked Hatter, a bug eyed, tall fellow. He'd been named after his tendency to completely lose his temper during simulations. His tantrums had become legendary in the pilot's lounge, and when someone called him 'mad as a hatter,' it stuck.
'Were you watching the live brief before we were hit?'
'No, I was busy.'
'He was busy crushing on Pisser,' Hood said with a crooked grin.
'We were having an enlightened conversation, I'll have you know.'
'Really? What could have been so important that you missed the most exciting thing on this ship?'
'Uh, well. Don't remember, it'll come to me.'
'You tell me when it does.' Buster shook her head and checked her fighter over. The machine was hanging so it pointed down towards the lower hull and the punter launch system. It would be her second trip out in the same fighter, without her SIO this time. They had retooled the systems to run with one pilot. The fighter also had a much longer range, especially with the addition of a wormhole generator. They had repaired the scorch damage to her number three engine so well she couldn't tell if they had regenerated it or replaced the pod entirely.
As they focused on preparing for their upcoming mission the other fighters were being rotated towards the sides of the launch bay. The tracks moved the ships to the left and right where they were drawn up into the hangar for servicing or reconfiguration. Buster only assumed they were being loaded with fusion rounds and other heavy armaments, preparing for something dire.
'What was I talking about?' Hatter asked as he began his inspection.
'Armaments.'
'Yeah. Why so heavy?'
'If I were to guess, I've got an encoded message for the Captain so we're not really meant to know the details.'
'But, we were in a wormhole, then we weren't? What's with that?' Hatter asked.
'Man, I'm surprised you were focused enough to get your certs. You think like a roulette wheel,' Hood chuckled.
'The live brief said it was some kind of energy pulse. Dissipates practically anything, I’ve heard of pirates super charging junk in transport lanes to do the same thing. In this case they managed to find our wormhole, plot a course along side and knock us off our rails.'
'So we’re getting torn apart by pirates?'
'No, we’re getting nailed by some corp who wants to collect on a bounty or some kind of repo.'
'That’s one big repo. Wonder what the pay’s like.
“Let’s just say big.”
“So, um,” Hatter started as he inspected his fighter.
“Yeah?” Buster prompted. She hated when he started a thought and just left it hanging for seconds or minutes at a time.
“So this disruption pulse, the one they used to kill our wormhole, if it can burst a bubble that big, with that much directional force, could they like put out a sun?”
“Nope, that’s way off scale.”
“Off scale?”
Buster shook her head and replied; 'Okay, disrupting a wormhole is like blowing out a candle. Disrupting a sun is like putting out a fusion reaction bare handed.'
'Ah, gotcha. Okay so how did they find something moving through a wormhole? I mean, I could do the math, but there's always the curve, you know? A chance that your target isn't moving in a straight line or the space you're targeting is so different on the inside that you can't predict what'll happen if you try to pop it.'
'Wormholes don't move.'
'Yeah, I know. Triton’s wormholes are created ahead and behind, compressing space between and the ship moves through, blah, blah. But how did they find us? I mean, Ash's pretty good at the stick and everything.'
'They found us because we're moving very slowly with only half our main thrusters and because they probably have a micro wormhole generator that was able to extend their scanning range,' Buster replied as she started climbing into her cockpit.
'Sounds expensive.'
'Yup, it's expensive. I don't know if Triton has that kind of tech.'
'But we just got a hyper transmitter, same thing, right?'
Hood dropped into his cockpit seat and sighed. 'It's in how you use it. If I set you up with a hyper transmitter that could pop a thousand micro wormholes a second would you know how to pair it with the sensors so you could take that many pictures?'
'No, but I bet Finn would. Guy's some kind of genius.'
'I've met him, he's a hard working tech with a good head on his shoulders. Chief Grady says; 'go crawl down that deep, dark shaft.' and he says; 'yessir. Can I bring my bed roll, sir?' You've got to respect his dedication. I don't think he sleeps either, just lives on stims and meal bars.'
'Sounds like he made an impression,' Hood teased. 'Planning a trip to the techie berths?'
All three of them were silent as they started their pre-flight diagnostics and their cockpit canopies sealed.
Buster couldn't help but feel strange being all alone in the two seat Uriel fighter. 'You know I don't fraternize. Just because Captain seems to think giving in to our hormones aboard ship will help us relax doesn't mean I have to follow suit.'
