Aurora: CV-01 (16 page)

As the Aurora continued to accelerate, she could tell that she was getting closer to the hull as her body weight on the line resulted in a lazy arc towards the ship. By her best guess, she was going to hit about fifty meters aft of the landing apron. But the apron itself was at least ten meters higher than the hull behind her, and it was an overhang to which there was no way up. Even if she did survive the impact, how was she going to get back into the ship? Even with the inertial dampeners, she doubted she could climb around on the outside of the ship during full acceleration.

As she spun around again, she was able to see something near the spot she thought she was going to land. Something round.
A hatch!

“Aurora, Nash! Is that a hatch I see just aft of the landing apron?”

“Affirmative! We’re on it!”

Within seconds, the spec ops master chief was running through the corridors of the Aurora, on his way to the airlock just aft of the landing apron.

“Time to overload?” the captain asked.

“Unknown,” the commander said. “Based on the lieutenant’s original report, it should’ve already happened.”

“I guess whatever he’s doing is working,”

“Captain, we’re starting to show them our hind quarters. Without shields, if we take too many hits on the stern we might lose main propulsion,” the commander warned.

“Helm come slowly to starboard, try not to show them our ass too much.”

“Yes Sir.”

The ship started to roll to starboard slightly, as she started a slow right turn. Jessica’s descent arc started to slide to port slightly, which by her estimates would make her land even closer to the airlock hatch.
Damn, Nathan. I underestimated you.

Inside the ship, the spec ops master chief arrived at the airlock and began depressurizing the chamber.

“Three meters!”
Jessica called out over comms.

Without being ordered, Nathan pitched the tail of the ship down slightly to reduce Jessica’s rate of closure thereby lessening her impact velocity. It wasn’t much, but he desperately hoped it would help.

Jessica’s eyes widened as she rapidly fell towards the ship. But then, suddenly, her rate of closure changed, slowing considerably. She realized the ship was pitching her tail down, and she knew that Nathan was trying as best he could to give her a soft landing.

But it could’ve been softer, for she hit hard, knocking the air out of her lungs. She rebounded from the deck, floating back up slightly, but the ships acceleration forced her back down, striking a second time. As she rolled over onto her side, the hatch, located not more than a meter away, suddenly opened.
I may have to give you another quickie, Nathan,
she thought, as she struggled to get through the airlock hatch.

“Bridge! Airlock fourteen! Nash is in!”

“All ahead full!” the captain ordered.

Nathan immediately brought the mains up to full power, feeling the acceleration as it pushed him back into his chair.
Those dampeners are pretty damned good,
he thought.

“How long until we get clear?” the captain asked again.

“Five minutes, Sir,” Cameron responded.

Nathan wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a touch of fear in her voice.
Perhaps she’s human after all?

The rail gun fire continued to rock the ship, diminishing as their distance from the enemy increased. The captain’s mind was racing furiously, searching for options. If he put a torpedo into her, it might stop the overload. But it might also kill the brave lieutenant that was sacrificing himself to buy them some time. And it also might trigger the overload even sooner. If he had his FTL fields, he could probably accelerate past light speed and get clear, but all the emitters were being used by the special projects team. That’s when the idea struck him.

“Doctor Karlsen!” the captain said, spinning around. “Can we make another jump?”

“You cannot simply snap your fingers and
jump
as you say,” he argued. “It takes time to recharge the energy banks…”

“…How much time?”

“At least one hour for every light year traveled,” the Doctor explained. “But there are other considerations…”

“There
is
enough energy currently in the banks for a transition back to Earth, Captain,” Doctor Sorenson interrupted. Public speaking was not her father’s strength, nor was seeing the big picture quickly. For all his brilliance in physics, he tended to have tunnel vision in such matters. “But it takes time to calculate a transition sequence…”

“…How long?”

“Too long, I’m afraid,” she admitted.

“What about Earth? Didn’t you already have a sequence programmed to return to Earth?”

“Yes, but we’re not even headed in the right direction. And we’re already a considerable distance from our original departure point. I would have to recalculate…”

The captain was getting tired of all the details. He just wanted to know if he could use the Jump Drive to get away. “Ensign, how long would it take to get back to our original arrival point?”

“Maybe three minutes,” Cameron estimated. “But that’s only if we take a direct route, which would take us back into their weapons range.”

“Doctor, what would happen if we jumped using the sequence calculated for a return to Earth on our present course?”

Doctor Karlsen was flabbergasted, and began babbling in Danish at his daughter. His daughter just ignored him, focusing her attention on the captain, as she knew he was just trying to get them out of an impossible situation.

“Honestly, I do not know,” she admitted. “The safety protocols may not even accept the execute command, since the ship’s heading does not match the…”

“…Can you override the safety protocols?”

“Yes, but…”

“…Do it!” he commanded.

“Captain, this is not a good idea,” Doctor Karlsen protested.

Doctor Sorenson spoke to her father in Danish, trying to calm him down as she frantically tried to override the safety protocols.

“Captain!” the sensor operator exclaimed. “Their reactor’s about to go!”

“Doctor?” the captain urged. “We’re running outta time!”

“There she goes!” the sensor operator cried out.

“Now Doctor! JUMP!”

Doctor Sorenson tapped a few more keys before hitting the execute button.

“Initiating Transition Sequence!” she announced.

The ship was struck hard by the shock wave of the antimatter explosion as it disappeared in a bright flash of blue-white light.

“Transition complete!” Doctor Sorenson announced, obvious relief in her voice.

Nathan lowered his hand from his eyes. This time, he had shielded his face from the bright flash of the jump as it was carried into the bridge by the forward view screen. As he looked over to Cameron, he could see that she had done the same. He looked to his right and saw the sensor operator picking himself up off the floor.

“Status!” the captain bellowed.

Nathan looked over his console, checking that everything was in order. He looked over at Cameron, who nodded that her systems were fine as well.

“Helm is oper…”

“…Contacts!” the sensor operator yelled out. “Multiple contacts, all around us! Transferring tracks to tactical!”

“What the hell? Where are we?” the captain asked.

The ship suddenly began taking fire, with massive explosions rocking the ship violently. The force of the ordnance was far more severe than what they had experienced earlier with the two Jung patrol ships.

There was the smell of something burning, like an electrical fire, and Nathan could hear the sound of short circuits coming from behind him.

“Return fire, all batteries!” the captain ordered.

“Which ship do we shoot at, sir?” the commander asked.

“Target the biggest one that’s shooting at us!” the captain ordered. “At least until we figure out who the hell we’re fighting!”

“All the fire is coming from the biggest contact, sir!”

“Then that’s your target, Commander.”

“She’s huge, Captain,” the commander exclaimed. “Gotta be twice the size of our Defender class ships!”

“What? The Jung don’t have anything that big!”

“We’ll never take her out with rail guns, sir. Suggest we give her a full spread of torpedoes!”

“Helm! Hard to starboard! Bring us to bear on the biggest ship!”

Nathan quickly turned the ship hard to starboard until the biggest enemy ship came into the middle of his screen. They were coming in on the enemy ship’s port side, and would have a perfect shot with their torpedoes.

“Get a solution, tubes one through four, and prepare to fire!” the captain ordered.

“Sir, those smaller ships, the multi-colored ones,” Nathan said. “They’re fighting the big one just like us!”

“What the hell did we jump into?” the captain muttered.

Seeing the Aurora turn into her, the larger ship immediately trained all her guns on her new attacker, ignoring the smaller vessels.

“She’s trying to stop us short!” the commander yelled as the ship shook even more from the intense barrage of enemy rounds.

All about the bridge, circuits were shorting out, pieces were falling off the walls and panels, even a beam fell across the port exit, killing one of the Marine guards that had still been standing his post. Nathan found himself flinching repeatedly as rounds streaked towards them on the view screen, barely missing the cameras before striking nearby.

“Firing solution locked!” the XO announced.

“Fire all forward tubes!”

On either side of the Aurora’s leading upper edge of the main propulsion section, doors again slid open to reveal the torpedo launch tubes. Nearly simultaneously, four torpedoes shot out, their thrust plumes burning brightly behind them as they streaked towards their targets.

“One through four away!” the XO announced. “At this range, those nukes are gonna shake us good, Captain.”

“I know,” the captain mumbled.

“Missiles!” the sensor operator called out. “Eight inbound, transferring tracks to tactical!”

“Damn!” the captain swore to himself. “Are we jamming!” he barked, angry at himself for not giving the command earlier.

“I started jamming the moment the new contacts were announced, sir!” the ECO answered, proud of himself for having taken the initiative when he knew his captain had been too busy to remember.

“Good boy!”

“Switching rail guns to point defense mode,” the commander announced from tactical.

There were only eight rail gun batteries left, as three more had been taken out by enemy fire since they had arrived in this unknown region of space. They stopped firing for a moment, while they switched ammo feeds and began firing point defense rounds instead of the standard explosive penetration rounds they usually fired.

“It’s not going to be enough, Sir,” the commander warned.

“Time to impact?”

“Twenty seconds.”

“How long before our torpedoes hit?”

“Ten seconds.”

The captain spun around to face the forward screen, just in time to see the first torpedo detonate, blowing a hole in the massive ship, the image of which by now nearly filled their entire screen. A split second later, there were two more explosions, just aft of the first one, causing multiple secondary explosions.

“Yes!” the captain exclaimed.

“Incoming ordnance!” the commander exclaimed.

Five of the eight missiles made it past the Aurora’s point defense fire. The first one struck the nose at an oblique angle and bounced off without exploding, sending it right up towards the view screen camera causing everyone on the bridge to duck instinctively. The second missile impacted the starboard side of the bow, blowing away a portion of their primary hull. The third and fourth missiles both struck on the underside of the bow, which was more heavily reinforced. And the fifth missile struck the starboard side, just below the shield generation compartment.

Nathan wasn’t sure which, but between the detonations of the missiles and the shock wave from the nuclear detonations of their own torpedoes, they had gotten the living hell knocked out of them.

“The enemy ship is no longer maneuvering sir! But she can still shoot!”

“Pull us up, Lieutenant!” the captain ordered. “Show them our belly as we pass! It’s the strongest part of the hull!”

Nathan pulled the control yoke back, but the ship wasn’t changing course. He quickly double checked his console, only to find that he had lost all control. “Captain! The helm’s not responding!”

“Doctor! Can we jump again?” the captain asked, desperately.

“Not possible! The system is offline!” Doctor Sorenson reported.

“Emergency braking thrusters!” the captain ordered. “Sound Collision Alert!”

Nathan fired the emergency braking thrusters, relief pouring over him that at least they still worked.

On the sides of the bow, emergency braking thrusters fired, burning at full power as they tried to slow the ship. But she was traveling way too fast for them to have much of an effect, as they were designed to be used in docking emergencies, and not at combat velocities.

Throughout the ship, the collision alarm sounded, followed by the computerized voice,
“Collision Alert, Collision Alert.”

“Evacuate the forward Sections!” the captain ordered.

Nathan’s eyes ran wildly across his console, looking for something that worked, anything that he could use to steer the ship and avoid a head first dive into the enemy ship’s port side. But there was nothing. The only other functioning system was the docking thrusters, which would not generate enough thrust to turn away in time.

He looked up at the main view screen. The image of the burning enemy ship filled the entire screen now. She had stopped firing, as they were now so close that most of her batteries couldn’t get a decent angle to continue pounding them. There were three holes in her side. One, where the first torpedo detonated, and a second, larger one just aft of the first, probably where the second and third torpedoes had done their damage. The third hole was much smaller, and was back towards the aft end of the ship. It looked like a penetration of some sort.