New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Second boarding party accounted for,” Pirra said over her system.

It hadn’t gone as smoothly as the last, with Squad Two being caught in their pincer as the Hev had pulled back.  The fight had gotten messy, and the boarders scattered.

But none had escaped.

The Hev were in their territory, and even more than their technological edge, this was their biggest advantage.  The ship tracked everything; even if somehow they could avoid sensors, the ship would know if a door was opened or hell – even detect the movements of air where it didn’t think there were beings.

The Craton was a smart ship.

Pirra felt a swell of pride at that thought, and her mind jumped for a moment to Alexander – who she checked again and confirmed was safe deeper in the ship, in one of her many bunkers.  Short of a direct hit by a relativistic projectile, he’d be safe in there . . .

But she couldn’t spend more time on him now.  Not only because of the more important work, but because she couldn’t let her guard down.

“We have two down,” Kiseleva told her.  “Lal is injured, and Suarez is KIA.”

Pirra took a deep breath.  “Is Mwanajuma looking at Lal?”

“Yes,” Kiseleva said flatly.

“And how about you?” Pirra asked, noticing the human woman’s limp.

“I am fine.  There is no blood, is just minor sprain,” she replied.

Pirra was not convinced, and checking the woman’s vital signs, she saw that the woman’s suit was administering some decently strong painkillers to keep her going.  But nothing seemed broken or bleeding, so that was good.

“Go to Squad Three.  Send Zivai and Guoming to reinforce squad two.  Come back with Hesson.  If you still think you can fight then, you can stay.”

Kiseleva frowned severely, but nodded.

She looked to the rest of her squad.  “Najafi, LaMarr, you’re with me.  We’ve got another Hev boarding team on the scopes, and-“

A boom shook the ship.

“What the hell was that?!” LaMarr asked.

Pirra’s system flooded with new data.  “Looks like a Hev boarding pod just detonated.  On the Equator Ring . . . damn, it’s done a number on the local systems.”  She shook her head.  “We can’t account for the whole group.  We need to go check it out – make sure none of the boarders are still alive.”

They were currently holding a crossroads from the outer parts of the ship to the inner, where they’d ambushed the last Hev group.  Pirra made a chopping motion down the hall.  “Open this blast door, we can meet-“

The door began to open, too quickly, she thought.

Even before it was open more than a crack, her drones began to fire.  She hadn’t even registered what she was seeing, when a muzzle flash blinded her.

Stumbling back, she had caught only a glimpse of the Hev’s weapon as it lifted – and suddenly she was thrown back.

Shots were going off above her, and she heard voices calling out over the radio, drones whizzing by above her.

Above her?  She realized she was on her back, and moving – someone was pulling her.

Tilting her head back, she saw that it was Kiseleva, dragging her away.  Others rushed past on the flanks, firing.  Second and third squads had arrived to reinforce them.

The firefight was intense, but brief.  In only a handful of seconds, the fire stopped, and she looked back towards the now-open blast doors, seeing an entire unit of Hev on the ground.  All of her team was still standing.

“I’m all right!” she said, before she was even sure she was.  If her armor hadn’t held, she’d be dead.

Her faceplate was cracked, she could see it now.

Kiseleva stopped and looked down at her face.  “You look in one piece.”

“I think I’m fine,” she said.  “Thank the sky for armor . . .  Is anyone else hurt?”

“No,” she heard Jack Lal call.  He had bandages on his upper arm, but seemed all right.  “The one that shot you was the only one who got a shot off.  I think something was distracting them.”

“You were very lucky,” Kiseleva said to her.  “The officer only had a pistol.  If he’d had a rifle . . .”

“It was just a pistol?  It looked . . . a lot bigger than that,” Pirra said.

“I imagine so, when you’re staring down it.”

Pirra got to her feet, a little shaky, but forcing herself not to show it.  She could have nightmares later.  Right now she needed to focus.

“We didn’t know about this squad,” she realized.

Hesson leaned out of a room.  “They were using cutting frames to go through the walls and avoid chokepoints,” he said.  “Still, the ship’s systems should have known about them and been tracking them . . .”

Pirra’s stomach twisted.  She turned on her radio.  “Commander Pirra to all commands; some Hev are evading the ship’s tracking through means we’re not yet sure of.  Have everyone keep their eyes open.”

Kai Yong Fan’s voice came back to her.  “We read you, Commander.  Be advised that Hev bodies may be rigged with biological or chemical weapons that activate on death.”

Her eyes widened.  “Everyone back out of the corridor!” she called.  “The Hev-“

“Shit, I’m getting the warning!” someone called.  “Some kind of poison cocktail.  Shouldn’t be an issue unless your suit is compromised, though-“

Pirra snapped her gaze to Lal.  His eyes had gone wide.

Then hers fixed onto the cracks in her own helmet.

“Move!” she barked.

They moved, and she ran a diagnostic over herself.  Her vitals were elevated, and her system began to figure out what the hell the chemical compound was.

“Jack, are you okay?” she asked.

The man coughed.  “I think I got a whiff of something, Commander, but-”  He lurched, and began to spasm.

“We need a med unit down here,” she barked.  “Anti-tox team!”

Kiseleva put a hand on her shoulder.

“It won’t affect you,” she said calmly.  “It’s designed for humans.”

Pirra’s eyes went back to Lal, who was foaming at the mouth.  Med drones were hovering around him, and two heavier ones lifted him.

His vitals were dropping fast.

A drone was checking her, and she saw the confirmation of what Kiseleva was saying appear.  The compound had been identified, and while it was toxic to her kind in large doses, in small amounts like she’d gotten her body would detoxify it in a few hours.

Pirra watched for only a moment before tearing her eyes away.

“We have a job to do still,” she said, her voice hoarse.  “Spread out the drones to search for stealth Hev teams.  I don’t want a single one of them getting past us.  And get me a replacement helmet.”

---

< Ep 6 Part 44 | Ep 6 Part 46 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Logus felt like his neck still wasn’t quite right.

He was lucky, really, that he got to be in one of the many safety bunkers on the ship, rather than having to be out there.  And lucky that Dr. Y had given him something for the pain, after telling him to avoid strenuous neck activity and to try and sit.  But he hadn’t told him the nature of his injury, and that concerned him.

Kell had saved his life, and he wasn’t going to complain about that, but the acceleration he’d experienced when the being grabbed and pulled him had been comparable to a low-altitude flying accident.  He was, if he was being honest, lucky it hadn’t killed him.

He wondered if Kell had known that.  He felt very confident that the being had killed enough over its long life to know just the amount of force it could apply without killing a man.

But he hadn’t helped Decinus.  Perhaps he’d calculated he couldn’t have pulled him over without killing him.  Or perhaps he just hadn’t cared.

Because it certainly seemed Kell had cared very little about the man’s life.  So perhaps, he reasoned, the Shoggoth simply had something of an attachment to him and Brooks – and the latter more strongly, given that Kell mostly avoided him.

Maybe their psychologies were understandable, with enough observation, he thought.  It was a naive thought, he knew, even as he had it – but this was how he dealt with stress.

The sounds of another impact made some of the other people sheltering in the bunker scream.  For a ship the size of a Craton, to feel such an impact meant it had to be close – or very, very large.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Zeela Cann said loudly.  “Just a thump – if it were something bad the bunker would get ejected, and that certainly hasn’t happened.”

Her words seemed to have some effect, with a few people nodding, seeing the logic in them.

Logus was glad that he was not the only person of rank in here.  Every bunker on the ship had several designated Morale Officers, working to keep hope up and panic down.  He would have been one, but a backup had had to take his spot in another bunker, since this was the closest one to him when the alarm went out.  And there was no way in hell anyone wanted to be caught outside if something serious happened to the ship – or a firefight got near.

He shuddered, thinking of the injuries he’d seen in medical school of people caught in espatier fights.  Shredded was the word he’d use – the tiny, flying pieces of shattered bullets could be stopped by good armor, but against clothing and skin?  It wasn’t pretty.

He shuddered, and another pain wracked him.  It was good he wasn’t being morale officer, he didn’t think he could possibly have been convincing right now . . .

He wished his neck would stop hurting.

The dull ache in it felt unlike any injury he’d had before.  On some level, he had a feeling it was serious.

He’d never been seriously injured before.  Never even had surgery, beyond the basic implants and such that everyone got.

Next to him, Elliot, Iago Caraval’s son, huddled closer.  No one in here was fully panicked yet, and he certainly hoped it didn’t happen.  These bunkers were fully capable of tranquilizing them all if emotions got out of hand . . .

It helped, though, that they had one of the Space Hounds in here.  The dog was moving between individuals who seemed most frightened, and would sit stoically beside them.  People hugged or petted it, and it helped.  And the Station Terrier, Angel, was snuggled in Elliot’s arms.

“Do you think my dad is okay?” Elliot asked him, petting the dog, who seemed almost to be falling asleep.

“I think he is,” he told the boy.  “He’s not supposed to be anywhere near the action, you know.  And he’s got a lot of experience.  I’m sure he’s out there saving lives right now.”

The boy nodded, and then clammed up, just looking down at Angel.

Elliot had said very little.  He was the only child in this bunker – or on the ship right now.

He shouldn’t be here.  Iago should have left him in the Sol System, and the question of just why he hadn’t was burning in his mind.

Something was wrong there.

The ship shuddered again, and he looked up.  Elliot looked up with him, but there was a peculiar lack of fear in him that was disturbing.  Like the boy was already past that.  Even his earlier question had been . . . monotone.

“Dr. Logus,” he heard Zeela Cann call.

He looked up, and saw the woman was beckoning him over.

“I’ll be right back,” he told Elliot.

The boy nodded flatly.

“What is it?” he asked Cann as he got closer.  The Space Hound also came over, listening.

“Apollonia Nor is missing,” she told him without preamble.  “She was a volunteer, but never showed up to her assigned team.  She still hasn’t reported in to them, and left her tablet in a bunker, but hasn’t been located in any other since, or at a medical center.  Without her having her tablet on her, we cannot track her.”
That was serious, and his mind raced to find a proper response.

“Is anyone else unaccounted for?” he asked.

Cann pursed her lips.  “Ambassador Kell disappeared not long after Apollonia did.”

Another one, just as important, if not more so.  Had someone else been dispatched to find him?  Though if the Shoggoth did not want to be found, he had a feeling that no one would ever find him.  They would have to focus on who they potentially could locate.

“Try dispatching drones to some of the likely places she would go,” Logus suggested.

“I tried that,” Zeela replied.  “But right now, I’m not exactly swimming in resources, and she’s been here such a short time, with no system history, that nothing panned out.  Literally just stabs in the dark.”

“Help search?” the Space Hound, Apollo, asked.

“No, you had best stay here, you sweet boy,” Zeela told the hound, forcing a smile.  The dog cocked its head to the side, surprised.  “Unless you know her scent?” she asked.

“No,” the hound replied.

Logus wracked his mind.  “The ship should still be able to track her by doors opening, or air movement-“

“In a battle, Dr. Logus, those systems are not reliable,” Zeela said, her words alarmingly calm and knowing.  “All I can tell you for sure is that it does not seem that any of the movement out there is her.  If she is out there, she is in an area that is blacked out, outside a bunker.  Or . . . she is not moving.”

He realized just what Zeela was getting at.

And he should have realized it sooner.

This bunker had two officers in it, and they needed to find Apollonia.  She was more important than the two of them combined.  And he – at least theoretically – might have better odds of figuring out where she might have gone, if she was hiding.

Zeela didn’t want to have to give him the order, Logus thought.  And he wouldn’t make her.

“I’ll go search for her,” he said.

He saw the regret etched onto her face, how much she hated putting him into this position.

“And I’ll sit with Elliot,” she said gently.

Taking a deep breath, Logus moved to the door, overriding it.

“Don’t worry everyone,” he said, as eyes went upon him.  “Just going for a bit of a stroll.”

---

< Ep 6 Part 42 | Ep 6 Part 44 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“HOSTILE BOARDING PARTIES DETECTED!”

The words were louder even than the blaring sirens, as Iago rushed towards the armory.

His team was not meant for combat, he knew.  But they could fight – and the breaching pod had smashed into the ship near their area of operation.

Two of his people had been killed.

As soon as word had come that pods were inbound, he’d given orders to pull his team out.  But Conrad and Pavlov had been too slow, dragging between them an injured crewman.

It had been brave to try and save him.  But it had cost them their lives.

And now he was seeing red.

They had no weapons, but an armory was near, and as he reached it, he saw it was locked.  He sent his command codes – and the door did not open.

He looked at his system – the room was empty.  There was no Armorer.

“Blast your eyes!” he yelled.  “Who the hell abandons their post!?”  He pounded on the door, all his confusion, anxiety, and fear pouring into his words.

“I’m here!” he heard a rumbling voice, and turned back to see a large Abmon trundling as fast as it could.  “I’m sorry, I was helping another team-“

“Just open the fiscing doors!” Iago screamed at him.  “We have enemy espatiers boarding!”

The Abmon got the doors open, and Iago rushed in.  He tried his codes, but found that they’d been shut down, and had to wait as the Abmon unlocked the weapons safes.

Kessissiin was right behind him, and Iago tossed him a rifle.  “Pass these out to the rest of the team!”

His comm blasted in his ear.

“We have contact with enemy boarders,” the voice said.  It was Pirra.

---

Her breathing was so loud in her ears.

She was only aware of it in moments when she was not yelling orders or the fire was not so loud, but there was never a moment of silence.

Chemicals pumped through her veins, putting her in a state more heightened than even adrenaline in a human.  Her heart rate per minute was almost 250, high for her kind but not so high she was in danger.

It was to be expected in combat.

And she could think icily clearly.

All ordinary thoughts were gone; as alien to her as any being from another planet.

She just commanded, because that was her job.

“Fire team two left!” she barked, her throat hurting from the shouting – not even necessary through helmets connected by radio, but it was automatic.

The Hev were driving straight for Reactor Five, counting on speed to succeed.  But their moves were obvious, the goal predictable, and both her own mind and the tactical simulators did not see any significant likelihood of them altering that.

Her Fire Team One would block them.  Fire Team Two would come around from behind them.

Pincer, destroy, move on.  Fire Team Three was in reserve.

Alarms rose from her drone cloud ahead of her; contact.

It was not even combat yet, at the smallest level their drone squad were essentially just floating sensors, no intelligence or ability to fight.  They encountered the Hev advance drones seconds later.

Technologically, the P’G’Maig were so far behind them.  The had simple and crude firearms, their drones large and clunky in comparison.

But at close range a bullet could still hit a lucky spot and kill any one of them.

The firing drone lines engaged; hers fired first, quicker to get target lock.  Their drones firing back.  This was their assault wave, ready to burst through a defensive line and clear a path.  For each shot of her drones, they fired seven.  Yet hers outnumbered theirs.

They still managed to force the first wave, but it cost them valuable ammo.  Her side had more, and if they could bring it to bear, then the Hev would lose.

At least with this wave.  If there was a second, a twentieth, a two hundredth, then eventually they’d fire every single bullet on the Craton, every potential bullet would have been made, and they’d lose.

No time to think on that, and she shoved the thought aside.

“Contact!” Kiseleva yelled.  The Hev had come around a corner, firing.

Bullets were intercepted by guardian drones, their own shots intercepting those that would have killed her.  A veritable wall of fire from each side met, grinding against each other.

Small bits of shrapnel from shattered bullets pinged off her armor.  A dusting of it began to cover the walls and floor.

No one needed the order to fire.  They already were.

Her rifle was in her shoulder without a thought and she was aiming, firing.  Where the Hev drones were focused on offense, their Guardian drones were few in number.  After her first couple bursts were intercepted, she saw her next punch through the armor of the opposing squad leader, and he slumped to the floor without drama.

She took fresh aim and fired.  Another Hev, this one recklessly charging, took it and fell forward.  The third took several bursts to stop.  Others fell.

She heard “I’m hit!” from her team, but she was the point of the lance of battle and the medic drones were already indicating they were moving in.

She kept firing.  A round somehow got through her guardian fire and pinged her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.

More Hev fell.  Fire Team Two was taking them out from behind, as planned.

In a few moments her sensors were blaring an all-clear.

“Hold fire!” she ordered, raising a hand.

Her breathing was so loud in her helmet.

“Confirmed Hev vanguard down in Layer 1, Section 5,” she signalled to command.  It was acknowledged, and she received further orders.

“Regroup,” she said.  “Fire Team Two, advance to Hev breaching pod to disable and disarm.”

It was expected that when the drop pod detected all its soldiers as being down it would detonate.  It was what she would expect, at least.  Not only was it some consolation, but would rip a larger gash into the hull that further waves of boarders could exploit.

Right now she knew the Craton’s powerful computer system had probably breached their security and was mimicking that their espatiers were still alive.

Fire Team Two acknowledged and moved closer.  She gathered her fire team and moved forward, sending Team Three instructions of where to go for support.

---

< Ep 6 Part 41 | Ep 6 Part 43 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Apollonia stumbled down the hall, trying to shake off the effects of blacking out.

She hadn’t been the only one; most people in the room apparently had gone unconscious during the maneuver.

She had come to with the doors open and the speakers blaring out for all Response personnel to report to their action stations.

And that’s where she was going.  But she still felt dizzy, unable to even quite understand what was going on.  A drone had scanned her and told her she had no aneurysms or other health issues, that she was fit to report for duty.  That she’d be okay in a few moments.

She didn’t feel okay.

“Good luck!” the woman, Ann, who had been next to her said as she left.

Only after the door had sealed had she realized she’d left her tablet in there.

“All crew!” Brooks’s voice came through the speakers in the halls.  “Brace for impacts!”

An emergency seat popped out of the wall, and she threw herself into it, the webbing lashing itself around her-

Almost not in time.  The ship shook and she was thrown forward in her webbing.  Everything rattled – then it rattled again.  She lost count of how many impacts there were – though she couldn’t count very well in her present state.

“Hull breaches detected,” the words came.  “All civilians remain in safety bunkers.  All Response personnel, report to assigned stations and await further commands.”

She was going to need full vac gear.

Other alerts played, as the webbing released her.

They phrased things in that official sort of way, but the gist was clear, even to her.

Be prepared for dead or dying people.

Be ready to die.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she knew she had to finish putting on her vac suit.  Even if just for her own safety; if something punched through the ship, it was always better to have yourself covered.

Though maybe getting blasted out alive into the dark was worse than a quick death.

Her knees felt weak.

She slapped the door open panel on a room and ducked inside.  Putting her back to the wall, she slid to the floor and couldn’t make herself stand up.

She couldn’t do it.

---

“All but three accounted for!” the call came.

Across the ship, the Response Volunteers had gone to where they’d been assigned.  There were two reported injuries – nothing seriously, thank the stars – and one no-show.

Vakulinchuk squinted at the list to see who the no-show was, adrenaline making it hard to focus on fine details.

Apollonia Nor.

He flicked the notification away, and looked to the teams assembled before him, his image going out to every Volunteer.

“Your assignments are issued, get those breaches sealed, watch for rooms that may still have pressure and therefore people inside!  Move!”

The teams reacted, moving – if not skillfully, then at least determinedly.  One short that they should be.  But now was not the time to worry about that.  Things happened.  He just hoped she wasn’t hurt out there and no one knew.

He heard a clunking, and saw a hatch open, with the new Abmon officer who had transferred aboard.

“Sir,” he said, through his rocky grumbling.  “My post is not far from a breach, but is intact.  I’m quite strong and naturally resist vacuum.  Permission to help?”

His system came up with the relevant information; even if his last tests had been awhile ago, He That Squats on Yellow Sand was qualified for non-combat duty, without a doubt.

A short-handed team could sure use the strength of an Abmon . . .

“Accepted,” he barked, sending to the Armorer his orders.  “Get down to your assigned team and help them, they’ll be expecting you.”

Squants on Sand saluted, and began to amble away at what was – for an Abmon – rather fast.  “I will not let you down, sir!” he said sincerely.

---

Pirra saw the notification come up.

The fire in front of her demanded more of her attention, but her team were veterans of more than a few burning oxygen leaks.  The flames sputtered, then died.

“That’s the last one!” Kiseleva said through the comm.  Pirra could see her mouth moving, but only hear her through the radio.

To her right was open space, where the missile had torn a breach through the outer hull, leaving a ten-meter gap.  The edges were being closed rapidly by heavy drones, crawling along the inner hull, carrying small plates they fused together.  In a matter of minutes they’d have it fully sealed, even if it wouldn’t stand up to most weapons.

“All team, back to rendezvous,” she ordered.  “And good work.”

She trotted out with the others.  No one wanted to be in an open area if they got hit again, though for at least a few more seconds they were expecting silence.

She looked at her alarm again.

He That Squats on Yellow Sand had joined one of the short-handed Volunteer Response teams.

Annoyance flashed through her that the Abmon had gone around her orders, but at least it was a non-combat unit . . .

He was rated for that, at least.

She sent a priority message, to both he and Vakulinchuk, who had signed off on his joining.

“Once he helps his team with their immediate vital issues, Squats on Sand is to report back to his post without delay,” she said sharply.

She grabbed a handhold and got another warning of a high-G maneuver.  The ship was about to go into a spin.

Her team moved quickly and were strapped in.  The main computer monitored everyone it could, to determine when it could safely begin the maneuver, but it would only wait so long.

She checked the monitoring systems, saw that Alexander and Elliot were safe, in a bunker deep in the ship.  Then Iago; he, too, was reaching safety, somewhere near the equator ring.  He pinged as he strapped in, and she felt as content as she could.

“Hold on,” she said calmly to her unit.  No one looked alarmed, even as the entire ship began to spin.

Then the ‘G-SHOCK IMMINENT’ alarm went off.  The ship’s massive coilguns were warming up . . . about to fire.

Oh, they were in the shit now, she thought.

---

< Ep 6 Part 39 | Ep 6 Part 41 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Initializing zerodrive systems . . .”  Urle said.

Warning lights covered the boards, telling them that they lacked sufficient energy needed to create a rift between realities.  Brooks had already input his override codes, and gave a final confirmation.

“Fusion reactors are stable, beginning the distortion field . . . gravity fields increasing . . . tenkionic attraction increasing . . .”

Urle’s voice was calm, but a note of alarm came into it.

“Aperture is trying to open – Fisc, I hope it doesn’t actually open . . .  No, the aperture is not stabilizing.  Repeat, it’s trying, but we are not getting an opening.”

He looked up at Brooks.  “We are accelerating towards it.”

Brooks leaned forward in his seat, crossing his hands in front of his face.  They felt nothing yet.  The pseudo-gravity of the aperture was pulling on them all equally.  Even the ship – the tenkionic matter that made up much of her hull and internal solid areas distributed the force in some way, sparing it the stress of tidal forces.

“Activating standard drive to pull us off-kilter . . .  Now we’ll feel a bump.”

Brooks leaned back, letting his chair secure him.

“System ready for switch to automatic,” Cutter said in his clipped voice.  “In case we all pass out.”

“Ah,” Kell said.  “That again.  Your kind seem to do it often.”

Brooks looked up at the ambassador, who was still standing.  “I suppose you’re not going to sit this time, either.  The forces will be different.”

He was starting to feel them already, pulling him towards the side as his body’s momentum wanted to keep moving in a straight line – but the ship began to curve its path.

“G-forces increasing, it’s gonna get worse from here,” Urle said, his voice louder.

“I do not need to sit,” Kell said, amused.  “It would not truly support me, anyway.”

Brooks felt his head now wanting to tilt, and he saw the officers each doing the same.

Urle resisted the longest, his biomechanical muscles eventually straining until even he had to let his head rest against the side of his seat.

The pressure built and he had to breathe harder.

“Five Gs . . .” Urle said.

It was pressing down on them all, enough that their chairs automatically rotated to keep the pull in the optimum direction for humans to resist it.  Despite how nearly every member of the crew had the genetic enhancements and augments that had stacked with hundreds of years of space exploration, despite their technology that was twisting and violating physics to keep the forces from being so great that it crushed them, they felt it.

They were all breathing hard, tensing, fighting the gravity.  One couldn’t just take such pressure.  They’d black out in a heartbeat if not prepared.

He and the others were fighting hard.

“Ten Gs . . .” Urle said.  His voice sounded strained.  “Countering . . . 427 Gs . . .  The ship is showing the strain . . .”

They felt it before they heard it.  The ship itself was groaning.  A deep hum, as she vibrated so intensely that each oscillation couldn’t be told from the last.

“Cenz, you holding up okay?” Brooks asked.  Such things were particularly unpleasant to him.

“I’ll survive,” the being said, his voice much calmer than his vitals suggested.  Perhaps he had set his system not to try and impart his emotional state into his words.

“Divert power from non-essential systems as necessary to spare the important ones,” Brooks ordered.  If the garden pumps had to break, they could fix them later.  “And make sure the infirmary is most protected . . .”

“Done,” Urle bit out.  “Path . . . on-screen . . .”

Brooks was nearly whited out, but he could see the path of the ship.  They were running close to the outer edge of the rift they had nearly-opened.  Too close.

“Are we going to clear it?” he managed to say.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Urle said.

Brooks saw in his alerts that 62% of the crew had blacked out.

More alarms were starting to go off.

“Outer pod broke off!  Nothing important, just some science equipment . . .”

“Turn off the zerodrive,” Brooks ordered.  “Let the aperture fade, so we don’t clip it!”

He couldn’t see now.  All was white, and he was gasping for breath.  Only a few more seconds . . .  Once they could get back into a straight path, stop trying to skirt the massive gravity of the aperture, they would stop feeling it . . .

“It’s off – aperture isn’t dissipating!  Oh shit, did we . . .  It’s shrinking, but I’m not sure . . .  This is going to be close, Captain!”

Something was rattling loudly, then he heard a crash as something broke loose and flew down the hall, banging against the bulkheads.  His ears were ringing.

Then he blacked out.

“We’re past!” he awoke to.  His vision had returned, and Kell was standing in front of him, looking him in the face from only a few inches away.

He smiled slightly.  “It is interesting to watch, no matter how often I see it,” he said.

Brooks said nothing, but looked past him.

“Report!”

“We made it past Captain!” Urle said, turning to look at him.  “Nearly skimmed the aperture, but we made it!  We’re on course for the Hev moving at . . . Fisc, .09c!”

“How long until we reach the Hev?”

“Two minutes – our velocity is dropping . . . our pseudo-momentum is fading,” Cenz said.

It violated physics for a thing to lose energy for no reason, but that was just how zerospace operated.  At least it kept the energy in the universe from actually changing . . .

“And their missiles?”

“They’re trying to correct, but we’re going to miss them,” Urle said.  “Their velocities are too high – I don’t even think they have enough reaction mass left to catch us.”

Jaya turned to look at him.  Her expression was that of a hunter closing in on prey.

“Missile racks ready, PDCs are loaded and hot.”

“Good,” Brooks said.  “Warm up the coilguns.  We’re going to give them everything we’ve got.”

“Captain!” Cenz said sharply.  “They’re launching another volley of missiles.  Not as many as the last, but a sizable amount, still counting!”

Brooks saw it appearing on the vast screen before them – boxes appearing around a horde of missiles, freshly-launched.

“They reloaded a hell of a lot faster than I expected,” Urle bit out, his hands flying over the controls.  Even with his mind directly hooked into the system, his hands worked, adding what little they could to the speed of thought.

“They’re going to be close together – launch and fire counter-missiles, everything we have!  We just have to survive this one round, and then we’ll be in among them!”

If their anti-missile weapons could take out more than one at a time, they just might make it through . . .

“Missiles incoming, less than ten seconds,” Jaya said.  “All PDCs locked and firing, but sir-“

“All crew,” Brooks said, his message resounding through the ship.  “Brace for impacts!”

---

< Ep 6 Part 38 | Ep 6 Part 40 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“ALL HANDS, TO EMERGENCY SHELTERS.  PREPARE FOR HIGH-G MANEUVERS.”

The voice, calm but very insistent, could not be missed; it was in every room, every corridor, every device.

Apollonia’s system was also broadcasting the alert, and she found herself barely aware of her own actions.

She didn’t remember going into the bunker, but she found herself fumbling with the straps on her seat.

She needn’t have bothered; they moved by themselves, slipping from her numb hands and locking about her.

There were a dozen others in the bunker with her, though there were also a lot of empty seats.  She hoped that didn’t mean some people were getting trapped outside.  Or maybe the Craton had a lot more of these than actual crew?  She didn’t know.  Maybe she should know that?

Her heart was beating as the door to the room closed.  A moment later the wall didn’t even look like it had a seam, it was so tightly sealed.

Apple turned, surveying the room again, and found that an older-looking woman was next to her.  She recognized her face as working at one of the restaurants she had gone to a few times.

The woman smiled at her nervously.

Apollonia smiled back, hers feeling weak.

“You’re a Volunteer?” the woman asked.

What was her name?  Apollonia wracked her brain but couldn’t remember.  It might have been Ann.

“Uh, yeah,” she said.  She had put on the jumpsuit, preparing to suit up.  They had said to expect hull breaches.  She started to reach for her tablet again to look at it, but a drone beeped at her.

“No loose objects during high-g maneuvers,” it told her.  It was not the floating kind, but built into the ceiling, almost flush with it.  She reckoned that it was secure enough that they’d all be paste before it busted loose and started flying around.  She wasn’t sure if that thought was consolation or not.

She put her tablet into a drawer that sealed shut, regretting it instantly.  Unlike everyone else, whose system was fully integrated into their bodies and clothes, she was entirely cut off from the augmented reality systems.

“It’s so brave of you,” the woman said, startling Apollonia.

“It is?” she asked, the question just slipping out.

“Oh, yes.  It’s dangerous work – I just wasn’t brave enough,” the woman said.

“BRACE,” the system said.  Apollonia felt the restraint straps tighten, and she tensed in her seat.

She didn’t feel brave.

---

< Ep 6 Part 37 | Ep 6 Part 39 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Brooks strode onto the bridge.  Decinus had been swept away to a medical bay for emergency surgery, but Dr. Zyzus had given him and Logus a brief treatment that had largely fixed their hearing.  Things still sounded odd, but he could have his eardrums repaired properly later.

“Status,” he asked, striding to his seat.

“We’ve got over two hundred missiles still trying to follow your ship,” Urle said.  He had not sat in Brooks’s seat, but stood next to it.

Brooks took the chair, and surveyed the command center.

He knew he still looked a mess; his uniform was damaged, with blood splatters still on it – both his, from some minor cuts, and Decinus’s.

Kell appeared, Brooks feeling his presence before seeing him.

“We’ve launched some counter-missiles to theirs,” Urle told Brooks.  “Should we launch more?”

“Belay that,” Brooks said.  “They’re just going to launch more at the Craton now.”

Cenz turned around.  “Wouldn’t they have done that already, Captain?  They had to have seen that we had picked you up already.  It would make no sense to wait-“

“Launch too soon after their last wave, and their new wave of missiles will risk hitting our defensive measures.  It will also give them time to load more missiles and launch a strike that actually threatens us.  What is our likely intercept rate for the three hundred?”

“Given that they are in three waves, we have a 99.7% chance of intercepting all missiles, with a 0.3% chance of missing one to three-“

The threat board lit up.

“We have multiple launches!” Jaya said, her voice bordering on frenetic.

Which was understandable.  Brooks could see the screen lighting up; one after another, from nearly every Hev ship in Ks’Kull’s armada.

“Counting – 11,274 is the initial number, but we may have missed some,” Cenz said, his voice taking on a tone of alarm that was novel for the being.

“How many can we intercept?” Brooks demanded.

“Predictions suggest a 58.7% interception rate – oh my, that will let through far too many through . . .”

Urle looked at Brooks.  “We take even a fraction that many hits and we’ll be lucky not to break up.”

Brooks was looking at the plotted paths.  The missiles were swinging wide in all directions, to come at the Craton from every side.  It would mean they could bring more defenses to bear in total, but that hardly mattered with this many simultaneous launches.

“Revising numbers – 11,954 missiles.  A lot were visually lost in the blasts of others . . .  revised interception prediction rate at 56.2% . . .” Cenz said, his voice a pale shadow of its normal self.

“They have to have emptied their magazines,” Urle said.  “This is a hell of a commitment.”

“They’ll be reloading, but slowly,” Brooks said.  “As far as they believe, they have us.  How long until the missiles reach us?”

“Twenty-eight minutes, thirty-one seconds,” Cenz replied.  “Plus or minus five seconds.”

“How much power do we have in the jump coils?”

“Our jump in was brief, which saved a miniscule amount of power – we are currently at 38% of charge necessary for opening a zerospace portal,” Cutter said.  Despite the situation, the Beetle-Slug sounded calm.  This was, to him, merely another problem to be solved, Brooks thought.

And that was the truth of it.

“We require at least one hour and thirty-five minutes to make up the rest of the charge,” Cenz said.

“Do you have any thoughts, Captain?” Urle said.

“They may launch another wave of just as many in a few minutes,” Brooks said.  “Ks’Kull would love to take this ship intact, but clearly he wants bloodshed.  And even the Craton’s scrap would be invaluable in trade.”

“To the Fesha,” Urle said, disgusted.  “Do you think they pushed him to attack?”

“Possibly.  Where is their ship now?”

“It has left orbit of the seventh planet and is moving closer,” Cenz told him.

“Come to watch the fight,” Urle commented.  “Are they within strike range?”

“Only by long-range missiles, sir.  It would take even those several months to reach them.”

“They want to see what the Craton can do,” Brooks commented.

Jaya turned around to look at him.  “And with respects, sir, what do you plan to do?”

Brooks was silent a long moment.

“Prepare for a zerospace jump,” he said.

“But sir,” Cenz said.  “We do not have enough energy-“

“To make a successful jump, that’s right.  But we’re not going to make a successful jump.  We’re going to slingshot.”

Silence met his words, and it was Urle who broke them.  “Sir, you mean get the gravitational pull to get a burst of acceleration?  It won’t help us escape the missiles, it will only give us pseudo-momentum that will rapidly decay and we’ll be-“

“We’re not moving away from the missiles,” Brooks said.  “We’ll move towards them.”

He stood, reaching and bringing up a three-dimensional visual of the situation.  “Right now the Hev missiles are spreading out away from their fleet – this is normal, so that we can’t destroy hundreds with a single nuclear blast, and to keep our counterfire from coming straight at their fleet.”

He pointed to the path directly between them and the Hev.  “That means there is a gap here where there will be no missiles.  And the pseudo-momentum we can gain from a failed jump will move us fast enough – I believe – that the missiles will not be able to correct in time.”

He looked to Cutter, then Cenz.  “Do my numbers check out?”

“Yes,” Cutter replied.

“In theory!” Cenz cried.  “But there are still so many other issues!  We cannot go through a partially-opened portal aperture, or the ship will spaghettify-“

“Yes, so we’ll have to sling ourselves just around it.”

“The angular momentum might tear the ship apart!” Urle said, standing up.

“The Craton will hold together,” Brooks replied.

“And if she does, we will then be in the midst of the Hev fleet,” Cenz said.  “Captain, this . . .  I do not understand what we are hoping to achieve with this maneuver.”

“There are still so many other problems with this plan,” Urle added.  “Calculations that we’ll have to do on the fly – we’ve never even simulated this.  There’s a reason it’s not an accepted maneuver in any fleet book!  We might spaghettify, we might all be crushed by the g-forces, we might ram into a hundred missiles at a fraction of c, we might-“

“When outnumbered and trapped, we attack,” Brooks said, interrupting him.  “That is the only way to win against impossible odds.”

Jaya nodded, her face calm but eyes flaring.  “I am with you, Captain,” she said.

Urle took a long and deep breath.  “Just give the word, Captain.”

He nodded slowly, looking across the whole of his crew.  Perhaps some of them thought he was mad, perhaps a screw had been knocked loose in the explosion in the diplomatic station.

Perhaps it had.

But if Ks’Kull wanted blood, then he was going to drown in it.

---

< Ep 6 Part 36 | Ep 6 Part 38 >