Blood War 1: Last Stand of the Legion: Rift (16 page)

LYTEN SYSTEM

RIFT

FLEET ANCHORAGE

BATTLESHIP ROW

BATTLESHIP PHOENIX

BRIDGE/DAMAGE CONTROL

Akule Chen was still trying to build a situational awareness of the ships condition on his display when another
breach alarm sounded. He glanced up and saw it was the bridge. A torpedo had struck just aft of the bridge in Flag country but the explosion had breached the bridge. Chen saw there was four people down but still alive. Suddenly he did not need to begin to assemble a list of priorities; without the bridge coordinating the fight, the ship had little chance of survival.

All of the repair and rescue
teams had positioning locators. Team 16 was two decks below the bridge. Team 3 was three compartments aft.

"Repair Team 16 and 3
, this is DCC."

"Go DCC
," Team 16 said.

"This is three
," Team 3 said.

"Urgent. Repeat urgent. The bridge has been
breached. I repeat the bridge has been breached. Respond and control. Repeat, respond to the bridge and control the breach."

"Roger
," Team 16 said.

"Roger
," Team 3 said.

Chen watched as the teams began to move toward the bridge. But the bridge's color code turned from yellow to red as more oxygen leaked into space. He was not sure they would reach them in time. More alarms were going off and Akule turned back to trying to save the ship.

Lieutenant Hiroshi was dying. He could feel the air being sucked out of
his lungs as the atmosphere on the bridge was being pulled out of the hull breach with the force of a tornado. He was as angry as he had ever been in his life. To die like this without a chance to fight back - it just could not be. He had trained his whole life for this moment and now it was being pulled from him like the air in his lungs. The room around him began to turn black as the lack of oxygen started to kill him. With a strength he never felt in his life he pulled the evacuation suits’ locker door off the hinges. This was something that no human was supposed to be able to do, and he threw it aside in frustration. Gasping, he collapsed to the floor.

The locker door was immediately pulled up and across the bridge to the
breach in the hull. Instead of being pulled through the hole it was pulled into the hole where it bent and then held, plugging the opening. The hurricane of air suddenly stopped. Hiroshi and the two sailors stared at one another in amazement. None of them had thought of trying to plug the hole, much less with a locker door. The three were on all fours, gasping for breath when the hatch to the bridge burst open and a repair party in full emergency suits rushed onto the bridge.

Two immediately went to
the breach and began putting a real patch over the locker door and securing it from further leaks. The other two rushed to Hiroshi and the two sailors with spare masks that hung from their suits. Hiroshi grabbed the mask and breathed deeply, letting the oxygen fill his lungs. Slowly he regained full consciousness. The other repairman was on the comm to the engine room. He reported that the hull breach had been repaired and the pressure in the bridge could be increased to normal levels.

Hiroshi sat on the deck for a few more seconds before he was able to stand. Then after another minute he took the mask off and tried the atmosphere in the bridge. It was back to normal.

"It's good. We have it now," he said.

"Right
, sir. They need us in other compartments. We're gone."

Before Hiroshi could say thanks
, the five sailors of the repair party were off to what had to be a litany of urgent calls. When Hiroshi turned to the seaman he found them back at their stations fighting to reroute power to the needed systems.

Hiroshi looked at the systems readouts. There were still too many life support and defensive systems in the red. He needed more power. He saw that the engine room was giving him as much power as it could. He stood there watching parts of the giant battleship die. Then looking out the "window" he saw the Von Fleet repair platform sitting only a few hundred yards to the port side of the ship
, with cable after cable stretched across to the Phoenix to provide power for the construction crews. He reached down and punched the comm button.

"Von Fleet 22
, this is the Phoenix."

"Phoenix
, this is Von Fleet 22. I saw the bridge take a hit. I thought you guys were gone."

"Negative. It was close but we are still here. I need you to reroute all the power you can to the Phoenix
. We need it for life support and defensive systems immediately."

"Check Phoenix, will do. I need you to patch me through to your engine room to coordinate."

Hiroshi turned and looked over his shoulder at the nearest seaman. Without saying a word he nodded that he had heard the request and was already on it. Two more sailors took up their duty stations on the bridge.

"Von Fleet
, be advised that my communications is already on it and the patch will be ready as soon as we sign off."

"Roger
, Phoenix. Good luck sir."

"Good luck to you
, Von Fleet."

"CIC to bridge
, we are manned and ready."

"Roger
, Combat Information Center. As soon as you can, give me a sit rep on the ship and the battle space."

"Aye, aye sir."

Hiroshi looked at the window and saw another wave of fighters firing at Battleship Row.

The hatch to the Damage Control Center opened. Akule was relieved, now he could hand over the seat to a more qualified shipmate and return to his station at the back of the room. Instead, he saw an civilian technician who actually looked old, so there was no telling his real age. He was overweight and balding, something nobody let happen unless you had been rejuvenated for the last time, and even it was wearing off.

"Hey, Tor
Padcreswki here. Thought you might need some help."

Akule could only stammer something unintelligible. He wanted to give up the
seat he had never even sat in the seat during simulations.

"But..."

"Just call me Ski."

The civilian technician sat down in the Lieutenant
’s seat and stared at the board, familiarizing himself with the situation.

"Looks like we got ourselves a shit load of problems. Who are you?"

"Petty Officer Akule Chen. I'm a systems engineer. I'm waiting for someone qualified to sit in the seat so I can take my position."

"Well Chen
, right now it looks like you’re it. Your ship and shipmates are depending on you."

"But..."

"No buts Chen. I served on the Phoenix for almost twenty years. I know her from stem to stern. My job was in Damage Control. I served during the Breed Wars and the Unification Wars. So I'm qualified but I’m not in, I'm retired. I can help but you've got the seat."

Ski turned back to the board and Akule could see him examining the ship and the repair assignments he had made.

"Nice job kid. Your assignments are good – you’ve got them working on the right jobs. What do you want to do next?"

Here was someone obviously much older and experienced than he was
, yet he was deferring to him to make the decisions.

"Look
, you've done this for real. Why don't you take over?"

Ski looked at him for a long moment.

"Petty Officer, this is your ship now and those are your shipmates. They are dying outside this room. There is no one else now you've got the seat. What do we do next?"

Akule
, like several generations of his family, had joined the Navy to do one or two tours and gain the right certifications that would land him a good job with one of the big corporations. He never thought of himself as a shipmate to the men and women he worked with. For the whole of his tour it had been more like a civilian job. He had never understood when some of the other sailors talked about the ship as their home and the other people on board as shipmates. While he was on a ship, he just got up every morning and reported for duty, not unlike a civilian job. Sure, they traveled around the Confederation but you did that with a good civilian job.

Another torpedo struck the ship.
Breach alarms were going off again. He saw that they had been hit near the liquid oxygen storage. There was a fire alarm two compartments over from that same oxygen storage. If the fire reached that storage compartment it would blow the ship in half. That is when he changed. He knew what that would mean. He had seen it in his old berthing quarters. All his friends - all his shipmates had died horrible deaths. Now, unless he did something quickly, he would not just lose more shipmates, but also the ship. It was his home. It was his ship and nobody was going to destroy it. In that instant he became a sailor. A spaceman. A shipmate.

Without thinking about it
, his fingers flew over the systems controls. He dumped the atmosphere in the liquid oxygen compartment to prevent the fire from spreading into it, and then assigned the nearest firefighting team to the fire.

"We could re-route power to the fire pumps in that area to give them more pressure
," Ski said.

"No, it's too soon. There will be more hits and I don't want
to use too much of our power until we know more."

Ski looked at him with a new respect and said
,

"Right you are. Repair 6 just reported they are available."

"Good. Assign them to that new breach, that way we'll have a team on the fire as well as the breach. We might be able to get that portion of the ship back on line."

"Aye, aye Petty Officer."

"The name’s Chen, Ski I work for a living."

The ship was rocked by another explosion and they both turned back to the situation panel.

FLEET ANCHORAGE

ANCHORAGE CHANNEL

DESTROYER CAPELLA

BRIDGE

Captain Ririsa Grogen stood beside her command chair
; from the bridge at the stern of Capella, she could actually see the battle as easily as watching system display systems. The fighters continued to swarm the Capella, firing missiles and torpedoes. The mini rails silver streams of rounds were finding and destroying some of the incoming weapons. The scrams were firing along the port and starboard sides - their gold blasts lighting up the ship. The big five inch turrets on the main deck below Ririsa were firing faster than in any training drill. In all her years in space she had never seen a ship with all its weapons firing at once. It was quite a show, she would never have thought that anything could get through that defensive fire, but the Capella was taking hit after hit in spite of the defenses. Ririsa Grogen was having a hard time convincing herself that this was the best way to get into the fight. A few more hit in the right places and the Capella would be dead in space.

"Captain!"

It was her Combat Information Center officer Lieutenant Negassi Isaias. He had over thirty people coordinating all of the ships sensors and weapons systems. It was the heart of the Capella in a fight. All the training and simulations would now be put to the ultimate test. This was one for a hundred. They had one chance to get it right or the ship would be destroyed. Even if they got it right they still might be destroyed.

"Yes Isaias."

The Capella shook as shrapnel from torpedo peppered the side of the destroyer, as a mini rail gun was able to explode another torpedo just before it struck the ship.

"Ma'am
, take a look at this target that just came on my screen. We have designated it 3271."

Ririsa looked down at the weapons screen. She immediately saw 3271
- you could not miss it. It was simply the biggest target she had ever seen in real life or in any simulation training that she had ever experienced. It dwarfed the battleships and cruiser- sized vessels that were screening it.

"Holy shit. Now that is a big fat juicy target. Are we in range?" Ririsa said.

"Barely, Captain."

"Commence electronic counter measures and prepare for torpedo attack."

"Should we launch the Legionnaries?"

Ririsa Grogen glanced at her combat information screen floating to her left. The Legionnaires were almost ready for launch. She could launch close to eighty percent of them. No she would wait. She would need them more
, at a later time.

"Negative. Hold off until after the torpedo run."

"Aye, aye ma'am."

Long seconds went by before the Weapons Officer said
,

"All electronic counter measures on line and torpedoes tubes loaded and ready."

"Very well. Fire as we come to bear."

"Ma'am."

Ririsa watched as torpedo after torpedo left their tubes. Their engines glowed an almost impossible white as they oriented themselves and turned toward their target. Once they were locked on to their target, they increased their speed so quickly they appeared to vanish into the blackness of space. The Long Lances were large enough to have their own electronic counter measures. They were not fast but they were stealthy and very long range if accurate target data could be loaded. Ririsa could only hope at least one would get through. Nothing the Capella carried was large enough to destroy a target that size but she could at least hurt them a little. It felt very good to be fighting back. Fuck these bastards; the Capella would not go down without a fight.

"Capella
, this is the Bernards."

Ririsa glanced down at her screen
. The Bernards was behind them just coming out of the channel at full speed with bone in her teeth. An Lung was almost as good a destroyer commander as she was. They were sister ships in the Task Force. She should have known Lung would get under way too.

"Go ahead Bernards."

"Ririsa, have you got a target?"

"Roger."

"Network your targeting computers with ours. The Long Lances have the range but we don't have anything on our screens yet."

"Check."

"Mr. Isaias, did you copy Bernard’s request?"

"Already on it Captain. I just sent it 3271's course, distance, bearing and speed as well as the screening vessels."

"Bernards, this is Capella. Your computers should have the solution by now."

"Roger. We are firing now. We are right behind you Capella.
You’re in the lead."

"Check Bernards
, it is nice to have some company out here."

Ririsa glanced down to see the torpedoes leave the Bernards on her combat screen. There would be two waves of
long-range torpedoes that had their own electronic counter measures. With luck, some would make it through the screening vessels and counter measures. The two small destroyers continued full speed ahead into the largest fleet of warships any human had ever seen.

"We are about to earn our fucking pay this month helmsman."

The young sailor looked at the Captain in her chair and said with a smile,

"You ain't said shit Captain."

Then realizing what he had said he blushed and said,

"Sorry ma'am."

"No need to apologize. I couldn't have said it better myself.”

The helmsman smiled again but Ririsa could see that he was holding onto the helm so tight his knuckles were white. No matter how scared he was he was at his duty station getting the job done. She could not have been more proud of her crew of young sailors and old hands at that moment. Another torpedo exploded close to Capella shaking it and setting off damage alarms.

Twenty decks below the bridge Petty Officer Jakob Petrussen was thrown to the deck by the explosion. He was the gunner on the Port Scram Gun Mount 13. Jakob was still in his skivvies. He had been sound asleep when General Quarters had been sounded and had not stopped to change into his uniform. Jakob was at his battle station console when the explosion threw him to the deck.

Jakob lay on the deck a moment, trying to orient himself. It was almost too much to take in, in the fifteen minutes since General Quarters, he had found himself fighting for his and the ships’ life. He had been in the middle of a dream about a girl he had met on Rift. Now he was not sure if he would ever see her again.

"Petrussen
, are you all right?"

"Yeah Chief."

"Then get back on your gun. We got another wave coming in."

Jakob hopped up and got back to his console and locked on to one of the inbound fighters.

"Loaded," The sailor responsible for placing the darts in the breach said.

"Temperature is still in the red
, Chief," Petty Officer Nicole D'Avis the assistant gunner said. "The cooling system is not keeping up with the firing rate."

"Understood
, but we have got no choice. Petrussen, you got a lock on?"

"Aye Chief."

"Fire."

The Scram fired. Jakob watched his screen closely and the incoming fighter exploded as the eight pound depleted uranium dart struck it at more that 10,000
feet per second. The energy of the dart was instantly transferred to the fighter completely destroying it in a flash of light and debris.

"Got him!" Jakob yelled.

"Fuck yeah."

"Chief
, I'm having a harder and harder time getting a lock. There is so much debris now the computer is having a hard time locking onto the fighters," Jakob said.             

"Change your
sensitivity scale to a larger setting. It will filter out the debris." 

"Chief
, if we don't let the cooling system catch up we are going to lose the barrel. It is going to warp," D'Avis said.

The Chief stepped over to the D'Avis console. Her job was to make sure the cannon's systems were properly working and to fix them if they weren't. He looked down at her readouts. The barrel temperature was pegged. She was right. The cooling systems were not keeping up with the rapid fire necessary to keep the fighters at bay. The Chief was going to give that contractor hell if he ever had the chance. They had assured him the new cooling systems could stand up to anything.

"Standby. Load but wait to fire the next round."

"Loaded."

"Mount thirteen to CIC."

"CIC go."

"Be advised the cooling systems are not keeping up with our firing. We are down temporarily until we can get back in the green."

"Roger, thirteen. We are getting the same reports from all of the scram mounts. Advise when you are back on line."

"Roger CIC," the Chief said.

Jakob looked at his screen
- another wave of fighters were inbound. Several had already fired. This spread was headed almost directly at their mount.

"Torpedo inbound Chief
, our section. Everyone brace."

Jakob grabbed a handhold on the bulkhead. He could hear the Mini Rails firing. They were the last defense resort
and were automatically triggered when an inbound torpedo breached their defense envelope.

"Three, two, one."

This time Jakob was not just thrown to the deck; he was thrown completely out of the gun mount through its open hatch. He felt a searing pain in his legs before everything went black as he passed out. He regained consciousness as someone was shaking him. It was so nice being unconscious - nothing hurt and everything was soft and warm.

"Jakob. Jakob
, are you all right?"

The face of Nicole D'Avis
, the assistant gunner slowly came into focus. Jakob sat up and his back hurt, he moved his legs and that hurt. He looked down and both his legs were covered with blood but he could move everything. With Nicole's help he slowly stood. Nicole's face was covered with blood and she too was having a hard time standing.

"What about the others?"

"They are all dead. What do we do?"

"Is the Scram still in operation?"

"Yeah, in fact we are back in the green."

"We get back in the fucking fight
," Jakob said.

Nicole smiled. They helped each other back to their stations. Jakob looked at his screen.  The Scram was tracking a target.

"Firing."

"Check
," Nicole said.

The Scram fired and Jakob watched as the target disappeared. He stood unsteadily and moved to the back of the Scram. He reached down and took the earphone out of the Chief's ear and put it in his. Then he and Nicole reached down and together were able to put another dart in the chamber.

"Scram Gun Mount 13 back in service."

"Check Gun Mount 13. Nice to have you back. After that last torpedo we thought we had lost you
," The Combat Information Center replied.

"We have three Code 7's but we are in service. If you can find some help we could get off a lot more rounds."

"Understood but most of our mounts are in the same condition."             

"Aye, aye."

Jakob looked over at Nicole.

"It's just us
," Jakob said.

Through the blood that covered her face Nicole looked at him and said
,

"The Chief trained us well. We got this."

"Damn straight."

Jakob sat down at his console and Nicole sat at her station.

"Temperature?"

"In the green."

"Targeting."

"Firing."

Destroyer Capella's bridge was a confusion of voices as the battle staff around Ririsa communicated with the crew, other ships and each other. Yet there was no panic or shouting
; everyone was performing as if they were veterans.

"Captain
?" Lieutenant Tmesgen said.

"Yes."

"We got 13 back. They reported the rest of the crew was dead but continue to fire."

"How many does that make with partial crews?"

"Uh, I haven't counted Captain."

Ririsa turned to face
Tmesgen. Since his original stumble he had risen to the occasion the way the rest of the crew had; he too was making her proud of her ship.

"That is quite all right Mr.
Tmesgen. I was just curious. I know it is the majority of the mounts by now."

Captain Ririsa Grogen glanced down at the timer for the torpedoes. If any got through there should be an indication by now. One after another torpedo simply disappeared off her screen telling her they had been destroyed before reaching their target.
There were only five left. One reported a strike, then another, and another. The remaining five had found their targets. There was yelling and screaming in her ear from the Combat Information Center as they saw the torpedoes strike their target. She wished she had the luxury of celebrating.