ShipCore

Book 2: Chapter 69: And All the King’s Men (4)

USD: During Battle over Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Orbit, PF-131, SMS Grazhdanin

Once weapons had filtered through the massed Solarians across the ship, the horrendous casualty rate dropped to something less horrific. They were still getting a raw deal.

The Corpos had trained marines in power armor and the sailors only had their uniforms, but it was better than the human waves that had been bleeding and dying for the precious time they had needed to secure the armory.

Lavigne had no way of telling just how bad it was. He wasnt sure he wanted to know. If anyone had been able to tell them the body count, the sailors morale might have shattered. If there had been anywhere to escape to. As it was, every one of the Solarians fighting knew that the Corpos were going to space them.

Lavigne repeated to himself that it was better to go down fighting than hiding in a corner, waiting for the air to run out. Saying it enough times in his head made it almost possible to ignore all the bodies.

Now armed, they had used their numbers to secure all the armories and were in the process of sieging main engineering and the bridge.

Lavigne had led the group moving to the latter because that was where Captain Walker was. It was also where he needed to be to regain control of the ship if when they broke through.

He was hunkered one intersection from the front line when a man with explosives passed by, tossing a brace of throwables to Morrison, who was directing the men.

Not for the first time Lavigne felt like the older NCO should have been in charge. Even if he was the highest-ranking commissioned officer still alive on the ship, he knew just enough to know he was not qualified to be in full command of anything other than an engineering section or bridge watch.

Beside him, a whimpering sound grabbed his attention over all the gunfire and explosions racking the corridor.

A sailor had slid down the wall to sit on the gore covered floor, hugging a rifle and crying. He wasnt wounded as far as Lavigne could tell, although it was difficult because nothing wasnt coated in viscera or gore. A dozen bodies of Corpo marines and sailors filled the hallway.

Lavigne swallowed; he didnt blame the man. All he could think was that he felt the same way.

A ringing in his ears was the first sign Lavigne noticed that something had changed. He reached up to tap his hearing protector to see if it had started spitting out noise when he realized the gunfire and explosions had stopped.

Lavigne went to the corner and looked around it to see what was happening. Morrison was at the intersection and waved him and the few men with Lavigne over.

Sir, weve taken the bridge and need you.

Lavigne nodded and followed the NCO past a line of corpses. When he reached an intersection, he almost gagged. There was a pile of bodies, the cause being a single corridor that had been covered by an HMG set up in front of the bridges bulkhead.

The heavy steel door had been cut through by a large heavy laser that took two men to carry, and he could see the edges of the new entry still glowed red from the cut.

Stepping over an armored form, Lavigne entered the bridge, being careful not to burn himself on the hot threshold.

Several dead Corpos littered the room but were being quickly carried out by sailors. Captain walker and a half dozen still living men held their hands over their heads while being held at gunpoint by another half dozen sailors with rifles.

Suddenly, Lavigne knew what he needed to do. He cleared his voice and stepped forward, causing Captain Walker to look at him.

Captain Rolks Walker, as per Solarian Federation Navy Article 37-B, I relieve you as unfit for command. Furthermore, as per Article 66-A, I accuse you of treason against the Federation and place you under arrest.

There was no safe place to put the man to have him escorted off the bridge to and Lavignes mind raced for a solution.

Walker spoke first, Always by the book, eh Lavigne? I admit I did not think youd have the balls to attempt a mutiny.

Its not a mutiny. Youre not fit to wear that uniform.

I am a duly sworn officer of the Solarian Federation. Well see how your tale spins at the court-martial. I found that bit of evidence Terrance hid away. Youll learn just how worthless that uniform you're wearing is if we return to Xi Bootis.

Lavigne wasnt sure the evidence the former XO had provided was even still needed. It was obvious the Captain was a traitor. But if the Captain had been supported by important men from high above, and theyd rather the issue disappear quietly so as to not affect their reputation

Captain Walkers sneer and a sudden fear had him clenching a fist as dread and anger warred inside him.

Well, Lieutenant, take me away so I can stand trial some day. Im sure you still have some men left, despite all the corpses in the hall.

Lavigne felt his rage boil over and he ripped his sidearm off his belt and leveled it at the Captain.

A hint of fear appeared on the Captains face but he continued to talk, Youd hang rather than me for shooting a superior officer, accused of treason or not. Your threats are emp

A crack silenced Walker as Lavigne put a single round between his eyes.

Lavignes heart pounded in his chest as the implications of what hed done clawed at him. But one thing he knew in his core was that he couldnt have let the man have a chance of escape, not after the horrors he had caused in the Grazhdanins corridors.

Too many men had died because of him for him to escape, the inner thought repeated as the internal conflict stabbed at him.

A sudden salvo of bullets rang out, shocking Lavigne out of his stupor as the Solarian sailors on the bridge gunned down the remaining Corpo bridge crew.

Lavigne blinked in shock at the action. Morrison stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

Sir, Im sorry to report that the Captain and the entire bridge crew were caught up in the firefight and killed while retaking command. It was impossible to take any prisoners.

Lavignes throat tightened, and then he nodded. Get these corpses out of here and I need men to man these consoles.

Aye aye, Captain.

USD: During Battle over Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Orbit, Heeler's Command Pod, en route to CSS Tremissis

Heeler growled in frustration as the hateful lasers cut into more of his flock of missiles. The battle cruiser had a massive assortment of defense weapons, and the ground lasers that were supposed to have forced it to cloak itself had been mostly destroyed. Only a few installations continued to fire, and they were busy fighting to protect mother in her own desperate battle.

A whole quarter of his attack wave was destroyed, and they had not entered the enemys close-range defenses.

More rockets died as lasers struck them down by the dozen. Heeler tensed a clitter as a near hit lanced his pod with a grazing blow, causing a red line to glow on its flank.

Others were not so lucky.

Then the largest enemy warship began to fire, but not on his nestlings.

The Solarian bulk turned its bombardment railguns toward the Tremissis and flung metal at the Corpo battlecruiser, the sudden change in target catching the other ship unawares and in the flank. Massive plumes of fire jetted out the side of the battlecruiser, but it was quick to react and move out of the way of the rest of the poorly aimed projectiles.

The ships were in near proximity to each other having kept a tight formation, and immediately hundreds of lasers and kinetic point defense cannons flashed with fury between them.

Lances of light pierced both ships' outer skins, punching devastating lines of energy through each ship.

Tens of thousands of low caliber rounds smashed into both ships at nearly the same time, a cloud of iron hail that punched through weak points in plating as much as it bounced and ricocheted off their outer armor. The torrential wall of metal quickly destroyed surface mounted equipment and turrets.

The Tremissis was the first to blast out heavy canisters of chaff to block the laser fire. With its much heavier kinetic armaments, it was the ideal move, but the seconds of unimpeded laser fire had cost the Corpo warship already, causing it to lose its maneuvering thrusters and turrets.

Heeler growled in victory, the coup that his mother had predicted had occurred and for a moment the battle cruiser ignored the star childrens missiles as they arced through the air and crossed its defense line.

There was a long delay before its weapons swapped targets back to the missiles. A delay long enough to spare many of them as the heavy projectiles slammed into the battlecruisers upper section.

Hundreds more of the missiles died in that last rush, but Heelers pod survived as it impacted near the center of the ship.

He let out a triumphant roar as the pods drill cut into the ships hull, thruster pushing it inward through failing bulkheads.

Now he would give battle to the enemy himself! As the pod came to a stop, the front end of the capsule pulled back, opening for him.

The vacuum of space bit into his carapace, but he had ample reserves of internal oxygen and his shell was dense enough to prevent damage from the lack of atmosphere for some time.

He used his clitters to pull himself forward through the wreckage of the enemy ship and the A-Field suddenly gripped him and pulled him down into the corridor.

The sudden shift of orientation threatened to topple him, but he righted himself in time to stare a tentacle eye at a terrified, weaponless human.

A barbed tentacle shot forth and he impaled the man before it could react. A quick flick sent the corpse flinging out into space.

Screams from behind erupted and he started to turn toward them, but a sudden trio of nestlings burst into the corridor to chase after the sounds.

That was good. He would focus on hunting the leaders while the nestlings played with the prey of lesser importance.

His MainComputer fed him new schematics as it raided the ships information net. He turned and headed toward the bridge. Two elite hunters that had been equipped with metal armor met him and fell in behind him as he called to them with his mind thoughts.

It was not time to defend; it was time to hunt.

USD: During Battle over Dedia Prime

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Orbit, SRS Tears of Fire

The atmosphere had long been purged, but Alexs suit worked overtime to cool it from the heat that was saturating every element inside the ship despite the insulators that should have kept the rapidly climbing heat at bay.

Her engineering monitor had frozen up at some point as it lost telemetry, but the screen still showed a litany of red, orange, and black zones across multiple decks of the ship.

A railgun round from a destroyer had punched through the center of the Shrike and passed through the corridor right beside the CIC, spewing hot plasma through the interior of the ship.

Hundreds of laser holes had drilled into the ship at multiple points, and dozens of scars and penetrations had marred the inner hulls lighter armor. Every so often, a cloud of small kinetic projectiles would slam into the ship, small waves of the bullets clearing the holes already in the armor and ricocheting inside the ship damaging delicate equipment.

The damage was not all one sided, though. The pounding match between the ships had continued as the battle raged, their overall movement taking them back towards the Corpo battlecruiser as the smaller ships did their best to herd the Shrike toward it.

Ground fire from the planetary lasers had ceased completely at some point, leaving the ship to fend for itself. The Shrikes upgraded railguns and speed meant it had been more accurate, leaving all four remaining Corpo frigates destroyed wrecks as heavy rounds detonated their reactors or left them dead hulks hurling through space away from the planet.

Damage to the ships maneuvering thrusters had begun to cost them more and more, and Nameless reported that they had lost half their reaction mass when a puncture had carved one of their two main propellant tanks off the inner hull. It had then crashed into the rear hull of the ship, punching through a weakened outer armor section and then detonating.

The blast had disabled one of the ships main Linear drives, but the ship was redundant to the extreme and Nameless had only added to the ships durability during his tenure as its NAI.

Another railgun round punched through the ship, severing the main control line to the ships railguns, and she lost control of the weapons.

Alex punched a comm channel open. Beeper! Priority repair to railgun control line at junction 36! Get the guns back on fast!

Nameless clawed the ship out of the path of a railgun volley just in time to spin it around a cloud of smaller projectiles, but then a laser slashed the ship down the side, sending plasma ejecting outward from the cut.

[Warning: EWCLS storage is running low on chaff cannisters, deployment rate reduced by 50%.]

Alex clenched her teeth. There were so many hostile lasers in play that if they were focused on by them, they were going to be destroyed, but she didnt have any way to produce more chaff anytime soon! She needed to finish off the last enemy combatants, fast.

Focus fire on the destroyer, ignore the cruiser.

Nameless blasted the ship sideways, the NAI doing its best to maneuver the ship despite the damage. If the ship had not had so many redundant thrusters across the hull, it would have already suffered a mobility kill.

[Warning: Bow ammunition storage containment compromised.]

Alex held back a curse. Eject HTLS system!

Explosive bolts exploded, ejecting a square on the bow of the ship from the hull, but a damaged armor plate snagged it, forcing Nameless to spin the ship in an attempt to free the dangerous payload. Steel bent and tore as the local A-Grav field was flipped off and the weapons flew off on a ballistic course.

Before the enemy could analyze what the debris was, the Tears booked it away from the dangerous anti-matter filled devices.

She could have tried to fire them at the enemy, but there was every chance that they would have been destroyed by PDC fire much too close to the Tears. The torpedoes simply carried too much anti-matter for the system to contain when damaged.

Beeper, I need those railguns working again, fast!

Drone #3132 pried broken metal bars out of its way as it dug through a broken channel that had been drilled through the ship. Melted metal stuck to its chassis as it continued, but it paid it no mind despite the incidental damage.

Blue had asked it to make repairs to the ships weapon control system, and the ship was currently experiencing severe degradation because of increasing system malfunctions from damage.

That meant Drone #3132 needed to work harder. Its primary purpose was to maintain the ships functionality.

It had appreciated the computational upgrade the ships main computer had provided it, though. It had allowed a greater degree of flexibility in approaching repairs and system upgrades.

And Blue required it to make lots of system upgrades to the ship.

When it reached the control junction that had been severed, its emotion core pulsed with sadness.

The wound had dug through the ship and severed the large cable completely. A quick projection of the damage showed that the control conduit was hopelessly welded into a power conduit, meaning that a quick fix was impossible. If it tried to bridge the connection with a repair wire, the energy surge would vaporize it immediately.

As Drone #3132 considered different methods to repair the breach by splicing lines upward of the melted conduit ends, Blue called franticly.

Beeper, I need those railguns working again, fast!

It had over time, learned the sounds of Blues emotions. She was most happy when in her charging room with Red. She was often angry when non-ship units sent her messages. When they worked hard, she was quick to praise it and #3133.

So, it could discern the tension in the message. Blue needed weapon systems repaired immediately, likely because the ship would incur more damage or be destroyed shortly if she could not use them.

Drone #3132 felt a moment of despair, as it could not help fast enough. A failure that resulted in the destruction of the ship was something it had fretted over many times in the past, although not so much recently. The situation felt like its old nightmare had become a reality.

Then it had a realization. A wire bridging the connection would melt rapidly because of the power surge. But Drone #3132 had one thing that was strong enough, at least for a while, to maintain the connection between the large, severed cable.

It pushed itself closer to the cable and then used its new leg modules to clamp onto both sides of the wound tunnel. It accessed the comm channel and sent a beep to alert Blue that it had found a way to make the repair.

Then it used its arms to grab both ends of the cables and gripped them tightly as a surge of energy churned through its chassis.

Control data for the railguns echoed through its AI controllers and Beepers last thought as the delicate circuitry melted was that it had not failed; it had defeated its deepest fear.

Beep!

Alex glanced down at a readout and noted that the Railguns telemetry had come back online. The high bandwidth connection between the turrets and Nameless had been restored. She noted that a full quarter of maneuvering thrusters on the bow section of the ship had been restored as well.

Thanks, Beeper!

She reached up to poke the last damaged Destroyer she had been dueling with for the last few minutes that had dragged to feel like eternity. A sudden volley of shells from the remaining operational guns plunked into the wounded ship, sending plumes of debris hurtling out the opposite side.

The ship lurched suddenly as another rail round from the cruiser smashed into the Shrikes rapidly deteriorating outer hull. Hundreds of holes of varying sizes now dotted the ship, and the inner hull had acquired its own scars as munitions and lasers found entry through the breached outer armor.

Taking a breath, she checked the status of H32s missile salvo. She let out a sigh of relief as she noted Heeler had arrived on the Tremissis. The battlecruiser had entered range moments earlier, but it had ignored them as it continued a massive slugging match with the outgunned Grazhdanin.

Both ships were tearing into each other, but the massive array of railguns on the battlecruiser was tearing the larger Solarian hulk to shreds.

Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw numerous red icons flying straight toward them. Nameless, what are those!?

[Warning: Incoming boarding pods detected. Insufficient maneuverability to avoid impact.]

Three dozen black pods slammed into the ships hull, almost half of them breaching through towards the inner hull. Several crashed hard and veered off into space, but most thumped into the ship and clung to it like ticks. Then rotary cutting lasers spun as they drilled into the ship to deliver their payloads.

Why didnt you say anything!?

[Notice: Hostile boarding pods were en route to SMS Grazhdanin. A mid course correction brought them into short range of the Tears and their high acceleration curves and mounting damage prevented avoidance.]

We should have been shooting them!

[Informative: 85% of boarding pods have been destroyed by SMS Grazhdanin, recommend focus fire on remaining Corporate Cruiser while combat drones repel boarders.]

Elis!