Space battle

A week and a half out from Tealioss station, the next jump was supposed to be completely dull; a young star with little special about it and most of the planets in orbit barely beyond the molten ball of gas and rock stage - vaguely interesting to xeno-science, but not in any more than a cursory “run the scanners over it on the way through” way. The plan had been to use the system’s jump points as a short-cut to skip past a set of worlds that had originally been on the plan but had since resolved their issues during the time that had been lost repairing at Tealioss. The shorter flight time would go a long way to making up for the detours to meet Rye’s family and aid the crashed ships; while they were still in no serious rush, the whole crew wanted to get moving again.

Despite the low interest of the trip, the entire crew happened to be on the bridge during the jump in - Meli had wanted to monitor the scanners just in case there was anything that the reports had missed, Rye and Emely were in the middle of reviewing the communications console to try and fine tune it to the Feliax’s personal preferences, and Dustin had ended up there because everyone else was - albeit sitting with his legs kicked over the side of his chair, reading a book on his tablet as Sola counted down the return to normal space.

The instant they dropped out of the weave, Sola’s sirens kicked in. Dustin swung his legs around even as Meli’s hands blurred on the sensor controls. “What’s Sola spotted?” He asked. Before the Velca could reply the AI’s tones cut in through the red alert. “Multiple ships detected in active combat, captain. Displaying on screen now.” The viewscreens flickered to show the blackness of space lit by the lights of distant weapon impacts for a moment before Sola’s sensors ramped up the zoom. “Four vessels, captain. Three appear to be attacking the fourth; sensors show significant hull damage and atmo breaches although it looks like someone’s still alive as their point defence is still firing.” Meli’s report was terse, and followed rapidly by Rye’s assessment. “Those three aren’t any design I know about, but given their firepower and size they look to be cruisers; we’re seriously outclassed by three, even with all the defence guns you humans strapped to this thing. Their target’s taken a beating - looks like the only things still working are point defence and their reactor; flight engines are down, and from the residue it looks like their jump drive got knocked out pretty early on.”

Dustin hesitated - should they get out of there or should they try to help, and if they went to help which side would they aid? As he deliberated, Emely’s voice cut across the din. “No response on comms from the attackers, distress signal on all channels from the damaged vessel. Captain - it’s a Vex’ess hive ship, requesting aid under council directives.” That changed things; a hive ship was halfway between a colony vessel and an ambassadorial one. With a grimace, Dustin gestured forward. “We can’t ignore a direct request for help. Rye, shields up. Sola, take us in.” The Rabyth woman threw him a worried look, but her hands were already moving. “Really wish you’d let me talk you into flying us through an asteroid belt to test this before we went into actual combat Dusty!” she called as the viewscreen rippled with the shields deploying. The glow of the distant fight grew rapidly closer as the Solar Ascent burned hard to close the gap.

As soon as they were in range, Dustin thumbed the firing button and Sola’s rail cannon spat fire towards the three hostiles. No sooner had the rounds been fired than the three ships began to turn; their attention pulled away from the stricken vessel and completely and concerningly focused on Dustin and his crew. “Incoming” Meli said, gripping her console to brace for impact as the alien’s weapons lit up. Suddenly, the viewscreen flashed green; the emerald tint rippled for a moment before Rye gave a triumphant fist punch into the air. “Full stop on energy weapons, point defence wouldn’t have touched those! And minimal stress on the generators. Looks like…” she scanned the screen in front of her for a second before adding “…reactor one and shuttle bay four are unharmed. Worrying that they locked target onto a reactor that quickly if that was a deliberate shot though.”

Their own fire had glanced off the hulls of the enemy vessels. Dustin had hoped it’d at least cause some damage but the readings showed little more than surface abrasions. “Well, we’re immune to their fire as long as they don’t step up their attack speed, but we can’t do anything to them. Orders, Captain?” Meli said; as she finished Emely piped up once more. “I’ve got a hail on the Vex’ess ship. Life support is down, almost all of the crew are dead and they’re going to have to power down their reactor soon because the coolant tanks have been turned into a sieve. The queen is alive - but I’m only picking up one more life sign, from whoever’s manning comms and weapons. We need to hurry, captain.”

Dustin winced as more impacts rippled the shield. “Shit, they’ve sped up their fire rate” Rye’s hands blurred for a second. “Generators are holding but looking stressed.” Then she stood and ran to the door. “I’m heading to the generators; if one and two blow I can maybe buy us another volley and a half by manually realigning the rear systems forward.” With that, she was gone. Dustin grimaced as fire blossomed on the hostile ships from a direct hit by Sola’s cannon. “Negligible damage, captain” Meli’s voice sounded worried now; their shields were weakening and their own weapons were failing to inflict any damage on what were clearly warships.

“Fuck, I was hoping this wouldn’t be needed. Sola, authorization Terra-one-one.” Dustin spat the command before thumbing the ship wide communicator. “Rye, direct order - if you’ve not passed engineering to the shield controls by now do not enter. I repeat, do not enter engineering.” The Rabyth woman’s response crackled through a moment later - she’d skidded to a halt outside engineering, but was pretty pissed by the unexplained command. Her grumbles were cut short a moment later by a string of curse-words. “Why have the blast doors to engineering just locked, Dusty?” For his part, Dustin was too busy to answer. As soon as he’d had confirmation Rye was safe, he’d already been snapping orders to the others. “Meli, get us moved so we have them directly ahead of us. Emely, hail the Vex’ess and tell them to brace, this is going to get bumpy.” As the other two reported their readiness, Sola’s voice chimed. “Systems engaged. Main gun online. Charging at 75 percent. 80 percent. 85 percent…”

The other two looked at Dustin; Meli’s eyes were wide - she’d already seen just how heavy Sola’s armaments were and was more than a little shocked that what she’d seen so far wasn’t even the main weapon. Not saying anything, the captain held his hand over the fire controls, wincing each time their shields flashed before Sola’s voice came through clear and calm. “Main gun fully charged. Firing solution locked. Ready to fire.” Dustin’s hand slapped down, and the viewscreen fuzzed grey-white with distortion.

As the monitors returned to stability, Emely gasped. The nearest of the warships had a hole cored straight through from stem to stern. As they watched the fading heat of the blast was suddenly joined by the blossoming glow of a fusion detonation as a reactor blew, tearing the vessel apart. The instant their companion exploded space around the other two vessels began to ripple and twist, the light of distant stars seeming to bend around them. When the shimmering distortion had faded, Sola and her crew were alone in space, save for the expanding debris cloud of the destroyed ship and the remains of the damaged Vex’ess vessel. The AI’s voice chimed once more. “One vessel destroyed by impact of primary weapon and secondary blast originating in reactor containment failure. Two vessels fled after performing emergency weave-jump, destination unknown. All hostiles destroyed or departed. No life-signs detected on hostile vessel debris.”