Firework

Sola’s main gun struck out like a lance, destruction slamming through the containment units for both reactors. The instant the weapon discharged, Sammie threw the craft into an end-over-end roll, engines thrumming as she pushed everything she could into sending them back the way they’d come.

In engineering, Rye’s hands flew across the controls, shuffling every scrap of power she thought the systems could take into the rear shields. With a foot, she kicked an emergency lever she’d mounted weeks ago without telling Dustin what it was for - the subtle hiss of life support from the vents fading as power was rerouted from those systems to give both shields and engines a few more ounces of juice.

Sammie felt the extra kick as Sola sped up - she wasn’t sure what Rye had done, but she was grateful as she navigated back through twisted metal and rising Fractal drone-swarms. Sola spun and skidded like an ice-skater as the dark-skinned woman’s brow beaded with sweat. Off to one side, Yril’k’s arms were a blur as she reactively targeted the thickest clumps of enemies ahead of them in response to Sammie’s erratic flight.

“Reactor containment fully gone, blast wave incoming!” Meli shouted over the din of detonating plasma and the whine of engines under duress. Rye’s voice came through the speakers. “Manually re-balancing the shields, don’t touch a fucking thing nerd!”

Dustin felt the moment the titanic explosion hit those shields; Sola’s entire deck lifted as if they were cresting some vast wave, the existing blur of Fractal matter turning into a red haze of explosions as Yril’k abandoned all attempts at targeting individual threats and opted for just pushing the lasers and plasma weaponry into a drill in front of them, hoping against hope that it’d be enough to keep anything too large from hitting the weakened front shields.

Sparks flew from a console as Sola’s systems started to overload, her side scanners cracking under the strain of acceleration. Dustin’s knuckles were white as he gripped onto his seat - had he gotten his lovers, his crew, his children killed in his haste to strike a blow against their enemies? The main screen distorted with a wave of static, Sola’s systems struggling to keep track of their path - until, with a final explosive blast they rocketed out of the Fractal hangar like a firework, the planet-sized node detonating behind them with the flames of the reactor collapse burning outward from expanding cracks on it’s surface.

The rest of the fleet turned and moved as one as humanity fled that outgoing wave of destruction. Dustin was thankful he’d ordered the other vessels to retreat and that they’d obeyed - even at the distance the fleet had reached while Sola was inside the node, several of the smaller vessels were tossed about as the scientific craft rode out the blast.

When the dust finally settled, the crew exchanged glances. Dustin gradually prized his fingers free from where he had gripped the arms of his chair hard enough to dent the covering, and took a deep breath. “Rye… status?” he said hoarsely, his immediate concern being for the engineer. “Dirty, sweaty, and ya owe about half the crew new pants Dusty. But alive, and so are most of Sola’s systems looking at these readouts. Gonna be a couple of hours to patch up the damage enough for me to be happy with ya taking us into the weave thought. How’s it looking up there?” came the reply, the communicator crackly with the aftermath of the explosion.

Dustin shot a glance over at Emely who nodded. “Similar situation with the fleet sir.” She said, half-listening to the comms chatter as Meli flicked the main screen over to show the cloud of debris spreading out from the burning hulk that was all that remained of the Fractal control node. “Think they’ll be able to rebuild it?”

All eyes turned to Defia at that question. The rogue Fractal tilted her head to one side, considering the cloud of shattered technology drifting in space before replying. “Statement. It is unlikely they will repair this node. Our attack, when investigated, will mean this system is not safe. They will reroute communications and establish a new node. This will take some time; in the meantime, units for this cluster tendril will be in disarray.”

That earned a shaky cheer from the crew. “Mission looks like it’s accomplished then.” Dustin said with a grin of relief, before signally to Emely to put him through to the entire fleet. “All hands, we appear to have completed our mission. Get your ships patched up, and we’ll get out of here before the enemy realises what’s happened. Liaise with my comms officer to report your weave-readiness. Dustin out.”

It took almost half a day more before the last of the repairs were done. Even so, several of the ships had sustained enough damage in the firefight that it was agreed some of their crew should transfer to Sola to reduce the strain on their generators during the weave transit. The fact that most of the ships were running at least a twin-reactor setup to power their shields helped immensely; having a second power supply they could use meant a lot of the lengthier repairs could be delayed in favour of just putting in appropriate power bridges to allow the weave drives to share the shield’s power if needed.

Dustin remained on the bridge for the entire time the crews were working; he was responsible for the fleet after all, and while the risk of a counter attack remained low, he didn’t want to be delayed in giving orders if one were to occur. When Sola finally spun up the weave drive to retrace Sammie’s steps back to safe space, he sagged in his chair. Leaving the AI to navigate for once, the pilot climbed wearily out of her own seat and staggered over to him. “You don’t need to tell me to rest, captain. I’ll be in my bunk if you need anything.”

For a minute or two after the pilot had left, Dustin debated the merits of just falling asleep in his chair versus returning to his own bunk. He was so tired - the stress and adrenaline of the battle having long since faded. Meli seemed to sense his mood, as did Emely, the two women appearing at either side of him and helping him to stand. “Bed for all of us I think. Sola can handle things from here for a few hours at least, husband.” The Velca mused as she and the Feliax woman steered him towards the door and sleep.

When Sola dropped out of the weave a week and a half later to fly slowly towards the Velca space station in orbit around one of the scientific species’ colony worlds, it was with immense relief for everyone on board. They’d found a route that sidestepped much of the distance into the unknown that Sola had travelled, allowing them to make only three hops to go from the Fractal node back into regularly charted space. Ahead of them, spacedocks that would allow the battered and bruised human fleet to repair and resupply before returning to their regular mission of exploration.

As the vessels drifted into the hangars and the crew that had hitched a ride on Sola prepared to return to their own vessels, Dustin smiled to himself. “Mission accomplished, and everyone safely home” he mused under his breath as long metal docking arms reached out to clamp onto Sola’s hull. “Guess we should report in to Axworth.” Standing, he nodded at Meli who’d just arrived on the bridge. “You have command, love. I’m gonna head to the ready room.”

On entering his chambers, Dustin smiled to see Bleu reading in one of the chairs around the big table. Nodding at the medic, he got himself a drink before sinking into his usual seat with a sigh. “Going to give Earth a bell, let them know how things went.” He said, leaning over to give the slime woman a kiss on the cheek before putting the call through.

“Dustin? About time you got in touch!” Axworth’s voice was as blustery as usual. “How did the err… the observation trip go?” Dustin grimaced - this was a secure line, if Axworth still felt the need to discuss the attack on the Fractal node in euphemisms and code then it didn’t bode well. Doing his best to sound relaxed, he replied. “A little more impressive than we’d expected, but we got some good data and are relaying it to our Velca friends now.”

The code was simple enough - impressive meant it had been a larger fight than planned, good data meant they’d won, and relaying it to the Velca meant they were repairing in the Velca shipyards. Axworth gave a snort of delight, before his tone turned serious once again. “Good show, ambassador, but we’ve got a bit of a situation here. I’m afraid your further forays into uncharted space are going to have to halt for the time being.”

Dustin blinked - that hadn’t been code, but a statement of fact that he shouldn’t keep exploring beyond the known galactic routes. “Sir?” he asked, confused as to what Axworth could be thinking. The old man sighed, the sound crackling as it came over the audio-only call. “While you were having fun, we got a call from the galactic council. Apparently, they are unhappy about a lot of things…” - Dustin interpreted that as their enemies on the council being unhappy about things - “…and have told us to order our ambassador to make all possible haste to the galactic council chambers to explain our activities. In person. As soon as you’ve finished sharing your data with the Velca, we need you to fire up your engines and go speak to the bureaucrats I’m afraid, Dustin.”