“Are the pods standard Federation escape pods?” I asked.
“Yes, Sir,” he said suspiciously.
“Very well. Order the crew to the pods, First Officer.”
“Aye, Sir,” he said, “but—”
“I’m not accustomed to explaining my orders, First Officer,” I growled, allowing my frustration to rise to the surface, “but at least one of us needs to make it back to the Federation. Someone needs to tell our people about hyperspace—about what the Xeno can do here.” I thrust a finger at the main viewscreen for emphasis. “Otherwise, we lose a huge tactical advantage.
“I will pilot the Revenge myself. I will make an example of our enemy and take out as many of the bastards as I can.”
A wave of pressure washed over me and caused me to snap my eyes toward the main viewscreen. The data displayed there said the ships were still too far away to have hit us with any of their bug-ordnance. The tactical officer didn’t seem concerned, so I waved it off as the stress of the situation.
“I understand, Sir,” Zadair said under his breath. “But I’m not sure the rest of the crew will agree. We’re Martians, Sir. We aren’t afraid to die.”
“Then, understand this,” I explained, “if you repeat my order, the crew will obey. If you don’t, the enemy will maintain their advantage and their secret, and we will lose this war.”
He stood his ground for another second before turning to the rest of the crew. “Set all systems to automatic! Order abandon ship! Everyone into their escape pods! On the double! Move!”
Instead of the silent thrummer, the klaxons blared. There was no need to talk when it was time to abandon ship. Each man and woman had their last-second job to do before jumping into their assigned pod.
Some would be securing hatches. Others would be running through apartments looking for anyone who might have been left behind. If we had any injured personnel, the medics would load them into escape pods before boarding one themselves. Everyone had their job to do, and I had mine.
My duty was to scuttle the ship. We didn’t have hatches we could open and expect water from the surrounding sea to pour in and send the Revenge to the bottom. Opening all the hatches would only result in preserving everything nice and neat for the Xeno to inspect and learn from later. Instead, scuttling meant using the computers to remove the safeties from the fusion powerplants.
With the safeties removed, the reactions would grow. Hydrogen would be poured into the reaction chambers. The magnetic field generators would compress the hydrogen as it poured in, and the tiny stars of the reactions would heat up even more. The increased power would provide the containment generators with the ability to force even more hydrogen into the reaction chamber.
Eventually, the generators would reach their limits, and the tiny stars would escape their bonds. If I could hold it until the very end—if I could survive long enough to get the Xeno vessels in close—I could vaporize all of us in a single blast of a white-hot supernova.
It would be glorious.
After the tactical officer leaped to his feet, I stopped his chair from spinning and sat in it. I tapped a few icons, entered my own private security code, and locked in the critical systems I would need to complete my mission.
There were at least two crew members whose responsibility it was to force the computers to wipe all their data. I couldn't allow that to happen—not yet. I’d need the computers to fly the Revenge right up our enemies asses. I also took direct control of the weapons and point-defense systems. I’d need both to get close enough.
I paused as yet another uncomfortable sensation passed over me. What was that? A gravity wave? Do the Xeno have gravity tech?
I tapped an icon to split the board’s screen into three: weapons on the left, scanners in the middle, and the ship’s status on the right. There wasn’t much information on the right third of the screen, though. All I could see were the human systems our engineers added. One was the crew-tracking system. There were still several crew members running around as they prepared to abandon ship. We were still out of firing range, so there was time for them to finish their duties.
My eyes danced across the tactical display. Sixteen Type-3 Excalibur x-ray cannons, two Type-1s, four missile tubes, each with a four-missile magazine, and four rapid-fire Helfstein point-defense cannons.
I let out a slow whistle and admired the specs. The bugs had originally built the Revenge for war. Buw now, it also had the best tech mankind had come up with drilled into her hull. It was a sight to behold. I was so pleased, I didn’t even mind how ugly the ship was.
I didn’t know if the Xeno had been here waiting for us, or if they were just sitting here, like ants sometimes do outside of a nest. Either way, they knew we were here now. And they knew we weren’t friendly.
A new alert on the tactical display indicated that they’d launched their own missiles—heavily armored bugs whose job it was to crash into enemy ships. Those who survived would crawl across the hull, chewing, ripping, and grinding, until the whole ship came apart. Six of them, one from each ship, were headed my way.
I stabbed my finger at an icon and launched my missiles. While theirs were bugs, mine were merely delivery systems for one-ton, pointed, tungsten rods. At an acceleration of several hundred gravities, they’d hit with enough force to penetrate clear through their target, causing shockwaves throughout their vessels.
I stabbed the button over and over again until all my missiles were on the way, and ground my teeth when I saw they’d done the same.
I checked my display again and noted that all my crew members were in their escape pods. But none of the pods had ejected. Was there a problem with their ejection systems? All
