Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever, owned Battletech or MechWarrior.
All copyrights and trademarks are retained by whichever company owns FASA
at this particular second. I am simply telling a story set in their world.
Editor's note: This first chapter may change in the future, not the content, but the headings and authors notes may need to be changed if I find I have a problem I am not seeing right now or if I decide to try to put character info to introduce everyone to the main protagonists of this affair.
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Year: 3057 - Orbit of Planet Dustball - Transport Ship Brookings
"Why the hell are we here," said the captain. The ship was due to drop from its jump at Arc Royal, but for some reason they were now orbiting Dustball, the most worthless inhabitable planet in the Inner Sphere.
"Maybe because you didn't check your destination entry," replied the lieutenant that was occupying the co-pilots seat. He punched a few buttons on the display and brought up the flight plan. The destination said only 05181980.
"Damn computer should know what I mean, not just go where I enter," yelled the captain, with more than a little laugh in his voice. He had learned in his 40 years of space travel that if you make a mistake, don't just blame the system, that leads to millions of credits wasted testing the system only to have it make you look like a fool. Just accept it, laugh it off, and move on. He was the captain, and captain's discretion superceded all company policies. He could say he thought it was safer, or he could just by the president a drink and call it good. Just one of the perks of having gone to school with half of the corporate board.
"Well, lets get the jump engines back up and try again. If we're quick enough our passengers might not even notice."
* * *
Gryph was moving his Hatchetman in for the kill. His sensors told him that his prey was badly damaged, and that its weapons systems were offline. It would be easy to just shoot it from the distance between them now, but Gryph liked to be sure; and he liked to rub it in. His Mech closed the distance, coming around to the front of the smoking hunk of slag. As he approached, he disarmed the missiles in his Mech and reprogrammed the computer to arm the cannons only. Gryph was old fashioned; killing with anything but a good old bullet was to be avoided, if at all possible. His target twitched and wobbled as it futilely tried to stand, and in the end fell on its back.
'Good,' thought Gryph, 'A nice, easy shot for the cockpit now.'
"Open wide!" Gryph shouted to his opponent as he raised his cannons on target.
Suddenly, just as Gryph was about to fire, the downed Mech raised its massive rifle.
"Too cocky," said a voice over the channel just as the Gauss Rifle fired directly into the torso of Gryph's Mech. Ogre watched as the Mech's torso melted in the heat of a baby star, and inside the cockpit the world went dark for Gryph.
* * *
Gucch walked in to the simulator's control room wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. It was still early in the morning for them all, and they'd have to readjust to the new time when they got to Kell anyway, so had been stealing a few winks on the couch in the living quarters. He found Truman sitting in the programmers' chair, watching what was no doubt Ogre and Gryph trying to get in one more battle before they arrived on Arc Royal.
"Who won," asked Gucch as he sat down next to Truman?
"Best of five; Gryph two Ogre two, but Gryph should've won it last round. Got too cocky and walked into a gauss round. Have we jumped already?"
"I think so. Felt like it anyway, but I haven't heard any announcement from the captain. Well if they're in there I'm goin' back to bed. Gonna go get under my blanket, it's cold in here. Come grab when they're done if you wanna get your butt kicked" Gucch said as he got up and walked back out the door.
Truman just sighed at the comment and turned back to the monitors. "You guys ready for round five?" he asked.
"Yeah, load it up." replied Ogre.
"Damn piss cock monkey whore yeah fine." came from Gryph's channel.
"All right, round five coming up. Hope you both enjoy." said Truman as he typed the run command into the simulator.
Immediately the screens changed, the Mech's were back to full configuration, and both Gryph and Ogre heard the computer voice the words that make all MechWarriors' hearts jump just a little: "Engines online, sensors online, weapons online, all systems nominal." And for the fifth time that morning Gryph and Ogre began their dance. For minutes they battled. Missiles streaked and lasers gleamed across the desert sand. Both were fairly evenly matched, but in the end Gryph was too much and took the victory. As Ogre's Mech crashed to the ground, Ogre felt his cockpit shudder, much harder than it should have.
"What's the feedback set to on these things?" he asked as his chair lurched beneath him.
* * *
"Captain, we've almost got the engines charged back up, but there's something I think you should look at." said the engineer as he played with the computer before him. "Something's going on out there."
"Where," asked the captain as he got up from his chair and walked to the engineer's console. "And more importantly what?"
"The sensors are picking up odd gravimetric readings directly ahead and to out port side. I've never seen readings like this, have you sir?"
As the captain looked, he realized that he had seen the same thing before, 3 years prior. It was the stuff of nightmares, and something he had tried to forget for a long time. It was a Clan jump signature, and it was too close.
Years before, the captain had been a lieutenant assigned to a frigate and witnessed firsthand how cruel and cunning the Clanners could be. They had adopted the tactic of dropping their warships out of a jump almost directly on top of smaller enemy ships, using the massive gravity wake of their jump engines to rip apart any smaller ship caught in the torrent. The trick was to bring in the warships close enough to each other to create a 'net' of gravity, and then simply let their enemies be torn asunder by it. It was a massive weapon, used with great precision and skill, and made the role of the Battle Mech even more pivotal in the wars between the Clans and the Inner Sphere.
This appeared to be a similar attack, but for one glaring error: the two warships were going to catch each other in their own gravity wells. All three ships were going to be pulled towards each other; and all three were going to collide.
* * *
Both Gryph and Truman tried to respond, but were cut off by the ships alarms and automated computer warning system.
"Proximity alert. Unscheduled jumpship re-entry. Gravimetric distortions exceeding acceptable parameters. KF drive shield integrity down to 82 percent and falling. Hull breach level 4. Hull breach level 5. Hull breach level . . . " continued the computer's voice as the captain's voice shouted over the machines.
"Emergency teams to level 7! All hands prepare to abandon ship." cried out the captain.
At once everyone in the ship started evacuation procedures. Gryph, Ogre, Gucch, Truman and several other crew members ran for the drop ship. Others ran for the escape pods in the upper part of the ship. As they were running, Truman looked out one of the windows and caught a glimpse of what had caused the problem. There in orbit along with the Brookings were two battle cruisers carrying the markings of the Ghost Bear. Both looked badly damaged. 'Clanners, running from a fight?' thought Truman to himself. He studied them for a second and then realized how much danger they were in.
"They're out of control, and they're gonna hit us," he said while running down the hall. "We've got to launch, and quick."
"Holy shit! What the hell are they doing here!" exclaimed Gryph.
"Running into us, what does it look like," replied Gucch.
The group headed down the stairs and turned the corner into a hallway. They were close to the drop ship, and thought they'd make it in plenty of time, but there was a problem. Halfway down the corridor a security door barred their way. They looked outside and saw their drop ship drifting towards the warships. The forces of the warships' jump had ripped it from its docking clamps, sending it careening into the gravity well.
"Damnit, I had my guitar in there still!" exclaimed Gucch.
"Well now where?" asked Truman.
"Docking bay, there's a shuttle there if it hasn't already left." replied Ogre.
Again the group started to dash through the corridors. They passed through the bowels of the ship and arrived at the docking bay intact. As they entered, they were greeted by confusion and hysteria. One of the shuttles had been damaged by falling metal supports, another had been crushed by a platform that had collapsed, and a third was missing its right wing. The fourth, and largest, looked to be undamaged. People were scrambling around the bay; some were trying to get people out of the wreckage, while others were ambling to the functional shuttle. Gucch ran into the room looking for someone who might be in charge. He found none.
"Where's the pilot? And why isn't that ship powered up yet!?" yelled Gucch.
"The pilot's dead as far as we can tell. He was on level 5 and we can't hail him," cried a young woman near the shuttle.
"Truman, get the ship powered up! You're a pilot!" shouted Ogre.
"Yeah, a fighter pilot. I'll see what I can do." Truman called back as he headed for the ship.
Gucch, Ogre, and Gryph started carrying the injured to the shuttle. As they did the ship continued to shutter and reel. After a minute, they listened to the last message they would hear onboard the Brookings. It was the XO, and there was panic in his voice.
"All hands abandon ship. All hands abandon ship. Ignore the escape pods, they'll do you no good. Commander, launch the shuttles in 30 seconds, regardless of who's on board, that's an order!"
Every living soul onboard the Brookings scrambled towards the last shuttle, but only a precious few would actually make it. Five seconds after the XO's announcement the alarms died out, the lights flickered in the docking bay, and everything fell quiet. For what seemed like an eternity an eerie silence lingered all throughout the Brookings, and then was shattered by the sound of ripping metal and muffled screams. The ship was being torn apart at the seams; there was no more time to wait.
"I'm closing it up and starting launch procedures." Truman yelled back into the craft that he now controlled. With the push of a button the doors closed and sealed. Truman started up the engines and began launch check when he noticed three people stagger into the cargo hold. They stammered across the floor, at times lunging at the dropship, but it was too late. The doors to the rest of the ship sealed behind them and the decompression routine was already underway. They lurched desperately one more time towards the dropship, but already they realized their fate. One of them looked up at the cockpit and met Truman's gaze. Truman mouthed the words "I'm sorry," and entered the command to open the docking bay doors. Decompression happened almost immediately, and the force of the escaping air hurtled the three crew members into open space. The dropship's engines fired and it too leapt out into open space. Once out, the passengers of the dropship realized exactly how bad things were. Their transport was already broken in two, and was being ripped apart as they watched. The now three Clan warships were all converging to the same point in space, and the remains of the transport were being pulled there too. All four ships were caught in the gravity well formed by the jump engines, and as the scene started getting bigger in the windows of the dropship, some of passengers realized that they too were being pulled in.
"We're caught too, aren't we?" Leah said as she took a seat in the copilot's chair. At 22 she was one of the younger pilots on the transport, but she was good at what she did, and at this moment any help Truman could get trying to fly this thing was appreciated. That, and she was cute. Long brown hair that fell lightly over one side of her face, pale green eyes, a gorgeous smile, and a very fit body; she was everyone's definition of beautiful.
"Yep," Truman replied deadpan while he looked around the cockpit. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know where the thruster controls on this thing are, would you?"
"I think they're here." Leah responded, pointing to one of the numerous buttons on the control panel.
"Wanna do the honors?"
"How sweet of you," she said as she pushed the control. Both of them braced for the shock that the thrusters would provide, but to their dismay there was no such shock, and the dropship continued on its vector back into gravity well.
"Umm, nothing happened."
"Yeah . . . ."
"Got any other guesses?"
"Lemme work on that," Leah said as she started to search the panel once more.
As they searched the panel for the thruster controls, Gryph stepped into the cabin and walked up to captain's chair. "We've got a problem. We're going the wrong way."
'No shit?' Truman thought to himself. "Yeah, we know. We're workin on that now. Get everyone strapped to something back there. This might get a little rough."
"I found it!" exclaimed Leah, pointing to a set of controls.
"Twenty seconds to get everyone strapped down, then we gotta punch it." Truman said as he entered some settings into the computer. He was starting to get a sense for the shuttles controls, and was starting to get a little more confident about their chance of survival. 'We might just live through this,' he thought to himself.
Gryph turned to go back and relay the message to the rest of the passengers when suddenly a flash of light outside of the ship caught his attention. He looked up at the source and discovered with horror that one of the warship's had lost containment of its engine reactor. All of the energy combined to start a chain reaction of explosions. In seconds the remaining two warships' engines would go critical, causing an explosion massive enough to destroy them all. "No time. Hit it now, their all popping!" he screamed into the cockpit. The second the words left his lips a large piece of debris sailed past the dropship, narrowly missing the cabin area.
"Proximity alert. Objects too close to ship. Make necessary maneuvers to navigate ship to safe distance." said the computer.
"Grab hold, we're goin!" Truman yelled to Gryph as he pounded the thruster control. Immediately the dropship lunged away from the swirling blue vortex of energy that was the remnants of now four engine reactor cores. It was a beautiful sight; pulses of energy radiating out from the center, wisps of plasma jetting out and being pulled back into the white pulsing core in a cosmic ballet. It was wonderfully deadly, and it was doing all it could to pull them in.
Gryph grabbed onto the copilot's chair to steady himself, then slid himself into the navigator's seat and strapped in. He looked up and saw the swirling mass of energy and debris begin to pulse more frequently until the entire ball seemed to glow a bright white. A second later it erupted in a shower of light and metal. The explosion threw the shuttle away from the vortex and out into space. Pieces of the sundered ships raced towards them, some hitting the hull, making various pings resonate through the passenger decks. Several more, louder impacts made their presence felt, and then with a loud crunch part of their own transport slammed into the aft of the ship, causing it to yaw violently to the right.
"Impact alert. Several systems affected. Aft hull weakened." warned the computer.
"We're gonna get pelted. I just hope this little thing can hold up, 'cause we just lost controls on that last hit." Truman said as he futilely turned the control yoke. "Leah, let's try to find the diagnostics tool in here. We'll need it if we survive the next three minutes."
"Shouldn't we maybe put on space suits or something?" asked Gryph, flinching and shuddering as another piece or metal bounced off of the shuttle's skin.
"Well, if the hull breaches, everyone without a suit will die of asphyxia almost instantly," replied Leah. "And everyone with one on will last an extra 2 hours, after which they-"
"-will die of asphyxia. Yeah, I'd rather not think about it for that long either."
Seconds went by, and gradually turned into minutes. More debris impacted the shuttle, each resonating a different tone through the cabin and deck. Truman and Leah busied themselves trying to find a way to repair the controls, while Gryph headed back into the passenger cabin to help tend to the injured and to see exactly how many people had gotten to the shuttle. In all 27 people had made it to the shuttle, and of them 26 were alive. After everyone was settled and strapped in, Gryph, Ogre, and Gucch sequestered themselves in one corner of the cabin. Each of them looked over the people in their little lifeboat, then looked at each other. Instinctively, each of them started to compile a list of their resources. They knew the shuttle had little food and water, enough for 2 weeks at most, and that the oxygen would last roughly that long as well, but as long as the ship didn't break apart that should be enough. No doubt observers on Kell had seen what had happened. They would send out rescue ships immediately and they would all be fine, just as long as the ship held together. 'So what if we're out of control and drifting," Gryph thought to himself, 'as long as we stay in one piece, they should be able to get here in under 10 days.'
As they all sat waited for their fates to be revealed, no one said a word. They all just waited and listened. Slowly the impacts grew further and further apart, until after 15 minutes they seemed to stop almost completely. Slowly, a couple of people started to whisper, then a few more started to stir. Motion from the front of the ship caught Gryph's eye. He turned his head and watch Truman and Leah walk into the passenger area. Both of their faces seemed grim. Their eyes slowly panned across the seats, each drinking in everything and everyone in the cabin. Finally, Truman spoke.
"We have a very large problem," he said, cracking his knuckles while not letting his eyes focus on anyone directly, "we are not in the Kell system."
"What do you mean? I felt us jump." yelled someone from the back.
"Yes, we did jump, but not to Kell. As far as we can tell," Truman stated as he nodded to Leah, "we are somewhere in the Arc-Royal Defense Cordon, but we are definitely not in the Kell system."
"How wonderful," Ogre said sarcastically.
"It gets better," replied Leah as she chewed on her lower lip. "We're out of control and drifting out into deep space."
At this news the passengers erupted in voices of fear. Leah and Truman looked around the room, each trying to get a sense of what they should say next. Truman started to speak, but fumbled his words and quickly closed his mouth. Instead he looked around the room again, and after finding Gucch, Ogre, and Gryph, let his facial expression hint at the helplessness he was feeling. Seeing this, Gucch took to his feet and began to yell.
"HEY! People! Everybody just calm down," he billowed. 'There aren't many here,' he thought to himself, 'but if panic sets in to even one of 'em, it's just gone spread.' "Now standing up and getting all hysterical isn't gonna do one damn bit of good. You, pilot girl, why are we outta control?"
"Well, mudbug," Leah snipped back, "because one of those chunks that hit us took out the aft thruster controls, and the diagnostic can't tell us exactly what's damaged back there because its sensors were damaged too."
"Okay, first things first then, we need to figure out what we have and what we don't; if we have what we might need to fix this, and if we have what we need to get out there to look. I want every able-bodied person to start gathering everything you can find. We'll pile it in here, catalog it, and then stow it. MOVE!"
For the next hour every person on the ship searched out every piece of usable anything they could find. In the end, they had several spare circuit boards, food, water, pillows, medical supplies, radios, two space suits, random other junk, and one katana that had somehow become lodged a closet in the cockpit. All of the items were piled in the passenger cabin, sorted, inventoried, and re-stored. In the end, according to the estimates of several people, they had enough food to feed everyone for 6 days, if everyone ate in moderation. The water onboard would last about the same.
With everything cataloged and stored, everyone once again began to gather on the passenger deck. Gryph, Ogre, Leah, and Truman found themselves gathered outside the cockpit door. They looked at each other, then at the crowd that was gathering again.
"They're running out of things to do, and once they're finished, they're just gonna start talking about the worst possible outcome again." Ogre said, concern starting to creep into his facade. "Gucch bought a little time with this, but they're just gonna start panicking again, unless he's got another trick up his sleeve."
"I'm willing to bet he does. He was a marine, remember; a sergeant. So he knows how to handle people who are scared," Truman said quietly so that only the group would hear. "In fact I'm all in favor of just appointing him de-facto captain for now. He's got them under control and has their minds off of problems they can't fix, and that's something I know I couldn't have done."
"He's certainly got the arrogance to lead . . . . pilot girl!" snapped Leah.
"That's just his way. He pushed everyone when he meets 'em," Gryph said. "It's how he bonds with people. He expects you to push back, to see how far you'll go and how much he can get away with."
"Oh I'll push back," Leah sneered, glaring at Gucch as he entered the cabin. 'I'll push all right.' she thought to herself as she looked down at her feet and then over to Truman. "And what do you have that thing tied to your belt for?" she said as she pointed to the katana now affixed at Truman's side.
"I found it, I keep it," Truman responded resolutely. "Besides, I always wanted a sword."
As those four kept talking quietly, the rest of the passengers gathered and began to gossip once again, but before anyone could spark a panic, Gucch stepped forward. "Alright, we've gots us a list of stuff on the ship, and luckily we have two space suits. Now we need someone to go out there and see what's broke. Cammy, where are you?" Gucch said as he looked around the cabin for the one person he knew for sure had mechanical background.
"He's back here, and he's in no condition to go anywhere," replied a female voice from the back of the compartment. Jesicah was one of two medical personnel that had made it onboard, and was the one who was looking after Cameron. "He was brought on injured from one of the shuttles that was damaged. He's still bleeding, and he's unconscious. He'll be okay I think, but he's not going anywhere now."
"Okay, well then does anyone else have any experience with engines and shuttles?"
"I do," said a man from the in the crowd, and as he did he stood up and started to walk to where Gucch was standing.
"What's your name?"
"Mike, Mike Carboneau." the man responded.
"Okay Mike, suit up, your going out there in 10 minutes to look, and after that we'll decide what's next."
Editor's note: This first chapter may change in the future, not the content, but the headings and authors notes may need to be changed if I find I have a problem I am not seeing right now or if I decide to try to put character info to introduce everyone to the main protagonists of this affair.
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Year: 3057 - Orbit of Planet Dustball - Transport Ship Brookings
"Why the hell are we here," said the captain. The ship was due to drop from its jump at Arc Royal, but for some reason they were now orbiting Dustball, the most worthless inhabitable planet in the Inner Sphere.
"Maybe because you didn't check your destination entry," replied the lieutenant that was occupying the co-pilots seat. He punched a few buttons on the display and brought up the flight plan. The destination said only 05181980.
"Damn computer should know what I mean, not just go where I enter," yelled the captain, with more than a little laugh in his voice. He had learned in his 40 years of space travel that if you make a mistake, don't just blame the system, that leads to millions of credits wasted testing the system only to have it make you look like a fool. Just accept it, laugh it off, and move on. He was the captain, and captain's discretion superceded all company policies. He could say he thought it was safer, or he could just by the president a drink and call it good. Just one of the perks of having gone to school with half of the corporate board.
"Well, lets get the jump engines back up and try again. If we're quick enough our passengers might not even notice."
* * *
Gryph was moving his Hatchetman in for the kill. His sensors told him that his prey was badly damaged, and that its weapons systems were offline. It would be easy to just shoot it from the distance between them now, but Gryph liked to be sure; and he liked to rub it in. His Mech closed the distance, coming around to the front of the smoking hunk of slag. As he approached, he disarmed the missiles in his Mech and reprogrammed the computer to arm the cannons only. Gryph was old fashioned; killing with anything but a good old bullet was to be avoided, if at all possible. His target twitched and wobbled as it futilely tried to stand, and in the end fell on its back.
'Good,' thought Gryph, 'A nice, easy shot for the cockpit now.'
"Open wide!" Gryph shouted to his opponent as he raised his cannons on target.
Suddenly, just as Gryph was about to fire, the downed Mech raised its massive rifle.
"Too cocky," said a voice over the channel just as the Gauss Rifle fired directly into the torso of Gryph's Mech. Ogre watched as the Mech's torso melted in the heat of a baby star, and inside the cockpit the world went dark for Gryph.
* * *
Gucch walked in to the simulator's control room wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. It was still early in the morning for them all, and they'd have to readjust to the new time when they got to Kell anyway, so had been stealing a few winks on the couch in the living quarters. He found Truman sitting in the programmers' chair, watching what was no doubt Ogre and Gryph trying to get in one more battle before they arrived on Arc Royal.
"Who won," asked Gucch as he sat down next to Truman?
"Best of five; Gryph two Ogre two, but Gryph should've won it last round. Got too cocky and walked into a gauss round. Have we jumped already?"
"I think so. Felt like it anyway, but I haven't heard any announcement from the captain. Well if they're in there I'm goin' back to bed. Gonna go get under my blanket, it's cold in here. Come grab when they're done if you wanna get your butt kicked" Gucch said as he got up and walked back out the door.
Truman just sighed at the comment and turned back to the monitors. "You guys ready for round five?" he asked.
"Yeah, load it up." replied Ogre.
"Damn piss cock monkey whore yeah fine." came from Gryph's channel.
"All right, round five coming up. Hope you both enjoy." said Truman as he typed the run command into the simulator.
Immediately the screens changed, the Mech's were back to full configuration, and both Gryph and Ogre heard the computer voice the words that make all MechWarriors' hearts jump just a little: "Engines online, sensors online, weapons online, all systems nominal." And for the fifth time that morning Gryph and Ogre began their dance. For minutes they battled. Missiles streaked and lasers gleamed across the desert sand. Both were fairly evenly matched, but in the end Gryph was too much and took the victory. As Ogre's Mech crashed to the ground, Ogre felt his cockpit shudder, much harder than it should have.
"What's the feedback set to on these things?" he asked as his chair lurched beneath him.
* * *
"Captain, we've almost got the engines charged back up, but there's something I think you should look at." said the engineer as he played with the computer before him. "Something's going on out there."
"Where," asked the captain as he got up from his chair and walked to the engineer's console. "And more importantly what?"
"The sensors are picking up odd gravimetric readings directly ahead and to out port side. I've never seen readings like this, have you sir?"
As the captain looked, he realized that he had seen the same thing before, 3 years prior. It was the stuff of nightmares, and something he had tried to forget for a long time. It was a Clan jump signature, and it was too close.
Years before, the captain had been a lieutenant assigned to a frigate and witnessed firsthand how cruel and cunning the Clanners could be. They had adopted the tactic of dropping their warships out of a jump almost directly on top of smaller enemy ships, using the massive gravity wake of their jump engines to rip apart any smaller ship caught in the torrent. The trick was to bring in the warships close enough to each other to create a 'net' of gravity, and then simply let their enemies be torn asunder by it. It was a massive weapon, used with great precision and skill, and made the role of the Battle Mech even more pivotal in the wars between the Clans and the Inner Sphere.
This appeared to be a similar attack, but for one glaring error: the two warships were going to catch each other in their own gravity wells. All three ships were going to be pulled towards each other; and all three were going to collide.
* * *
Both Gryph and Truman tried to respond, but were cut off by the ships alarms and automated computer warning system.
"Proximity alert. Unscheduled jumpship re-entry. Gravimetric distortions exceeding acceptable parameters. KF drive shield integrity down to 82 percent and falling. Hull breach level 4. Hull breach level 5. Hull breach level . . . " continued the computer's voice as the captain's voice shouted over the machines.
"Emergency teams to level 7! All hands prepare to abandon ship." cried out the captain.
At once everyone in the ship started evacuation procedures. Gryph, Ogre, Gucch, Truman and several other crew members ran for the drop ship. Others ran for the escape pods in the upper part of the ship. As they were running, Truman looked out one of the windows and caught a glimpse of what had caused the problem. There in orbit along with the Brookings were two battle cruisers carrying the markings of the Ghost Bear. Both looked badly damaged. 'Clanners, running from a fight?' thought Truman to himself. He studied them for a second and then realized how much danger they were in.
"They're out of control, and they're gonna hit us," he said while running down the hall. "We've got to launch, and quick."
"Holy shit! What the hell are they doing here!" exclaimed Gryph.
"Running into us, what does it look like," replied Gucch.
The group headed down the stairs and turned the corner into a hallway. They were close to the drop ship, and thought they'd make it in plenty of time, but there was a problem. Halfway down the corridor a security door barred their way. They looked outside and saw their drop ship drifting towards the warships. The forces of the warships' jump had ripped it from its docking clamps, sending it careening into the gravity well.
"Damnit, I had my guitar in there still!" exclaimed Gucch.
"Well now where?" asked Truman.
"Docking bay, there's a shuttle there if it hasn't already left." replied Ogre.
Again the group started to dash through the corridors. They passed through the bowels of the ship and arrived at the docking bay intact. As they entered, they were greeted by confusion and hysteria. One of the shuttles had been damaged by falling metal supports, another had been crushed by a platform that had collapsed, and a third was missing its right wing. The fourth, and largest, looked to be undamaged. People were scrambling around the bay; some were trying to get people out of the wreckage, while others were ambling to the functional shuttle. Gucch ran into the room looking for someone who might be in charge. He found none.
"Where's the pilot? And why isn't that ship powered up yet!?" yelled Gucch.
"The pilot's dead as far as we can tell. He was on level 5 and we can't hail him," cried a young woman near the shuttle.
"Truman, get the ship powered up! You're a pilot!" shouted Ogre.
"Yeah, a fighter pilot. I'll see what I can do." Truman called back as he headed for the ship.
Gucch, Ogre, and Gryph started carrying the injured to the shuttle. As they did the ship continued to shutter and reel. After a minute, they listened to the last message they would hear onboard the Brookings. It was the XO, and there was panic in his voice.
"All hands abandon ship. All hands abandon ship. Ignore the escape pods, they'll do you no good. Commander, launch the shuttles in 30 seconds, regardless of who's on board, that's an order!"
Every living soul onboard the Brookings scrambled towards the last shuttle, but only a precious few would actually make it. Five seconds after the XO's announcement the alarms died out, the lights flickered in the docking bay, and everything fell quiet. For what seemed like an eternity an eerie silence lingered all throughout the Brookings, and then was shattered by the sound of ripping metal and muffled screams. The ship was being torn apart at the seams; there was no more time to wait.
"I'm closing it up and starting launch procedures." Truman yelled back into the craft that he now controlled. With the push of a button the doors closed and sealed. Truman started up the engines and began launch check when he noticed three people stagger into the cargo hold. They stammered across the floor, at times lunging at the dropship, but it was too late. The doors to the rest of the ship sealed behind them and the decompression routine was already underway. They lurched desperately one more time towards the dropship, but already they realized their fate. One of them looked up at the cockpit and met Truman's gaze. Truman mouthed the words "I'm sorry," and entered the command to open the docking bay doors. Decompression happened almost immediately, and the force of the escaping air hurtled the three crew members into open space. The dropship's engines fired and it too leapt out into open space. Once out, the passengers of the dropship realized exactly how bad things were. Their transport was already broken in two, and was being ripped apart as they watched. The now three Clan warships were all converging to the same point in space, and the remains of the transport were being pulled there too. All four ships were caught in the gravity well formed by the jump engines, and as the scene started getting bigger in the windows of the dropship, some of passengers realized that they too were being pulled in.
"We're caught too, aren't we?" Leah said as she took a seat in the copilot's chair. At 22 she was one of the younger pilots on the transport, but she was good at what she did, and at this moment any help Truman could get trying to fly this thing was appreciated. That, and she was cute. Long brown hair that fell lightly over one side of her face, pale green eyes, a gorgeous smile, and a very fit body; she was everyone's definition of beautiful.
"Yep," Truman replied deadpan while he looked around the cockpit. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know where the thruster controls on this thing are, would you?"
"I think they're here." Leah responded, pointing to one of the numerous buttons on the control panel.
"Wanna do the honors?"
"How sweet of you," she said as she pushed the control. Both of them braced for the shock that the thrusters would provide, but to their dismay there was no such shock, and the dropship continued on its vector back into gravity well.
"Umm, nothing happened."
"Yeah . . . ."
"Got any other guesses?"
"Lemme work on that," Leah said as she started to search the panel once more.
As they searched the panel for the thruster controls, Gryph stepped into the cabin and walked up to captain's chair. "We've got a problem. We're going the wrong way."
'No shit?' Truman thought to himself. "Yeah, we know. We're workin on that now. Get everyone strapped to something back there. This might get a little rough."
"I found it!" exclaimed Leah, pointing to a set of controls.
"Twenty seconds to get everyone strapped down, then we gotta punch it." Truman said as he entered some settings into the computer. He was starting to get a sense for the shuttles controls, and was starting to get a little more confident about their chance of survival. 'We might just live through this,' he thought to himself.
Gryph turned to go back and relay the message to the rest of the passengers when suddenly a flash of light outside of the ship caught his attention. He looked up at the source and discovered with horror that one of the warship's had lost containment of its engine reactor. All of the energy combined to start a chain reaction of explosions. In seconds the remaining two warships' engines would go critical, causing an explosion massive enough to destroy them all. "No time. Hit it now, their all popping!" he screamed into the cockpit. The second the words left his lips a large piece of debris sailed past the dropship, narrowly missing the cabin area.
"Proximity alert. Objects too close to ship. Make necessary maneuvers to navigate ship to safe distance." said the computer.
"Grab hold, we're goin!" Truman yelled to Gryph as he pounded the thruster control. Immediately the dropship lunged away from the swirling blue vortex of energy that was the remnants of now four engine reactor cores. It was a beautiful sight; pulses of energy radiating out from the center, wisps of plasma jetting out and being pulled back into the white pulsing core in a cosmic ballet. It was wonderfully deadly, and it was doing all it could to pull them in.
Gryph grabbed onto the copilot's chair to steady himself, then slid himself into the navigator's seat and strapped in. He looked up and saw the swirling mass of energy and debris begin to pulse more frequently until the entire ball seemed to glow a bright white. A second later it erupted in a shower of light and metal. The explosion threw the shuttle away from the vortex and out into space. Pieces of the sundered ships raced towards them, some hitting the hull, making various pings resonate through the passenger decks. Several more, louder impacts made their presence felt, and then with a loud crunch part of their own transport slammed into the aft of the ship, causing it to yaw violently to the right.
"Impact alert. Several systems affected. Aft hull weakened." warned the computer.
"We're gonna get pelted. I just hope this little thing can hold up, 'cause we just lost controls on that last hit." Truman said as he futilely turned the control yoke. "Leah, let's try to find the diagnostics tool in here. We'll need it if we survive the next three minutes."
"Shouldn't we maybe put on space suits or something?" asked Gryph, flinching and shuddering as another piece or metal bounced off of the shuttle's skin.
"Well, if the hull breaches, everyone without a suit will die of asphyxia almost instantly," replied Leah. "And everyone with one on will last an extra 2 hours, after which they-"
"-will die of asphyxia. Yeah, I'd rather not think about it for that long either."
Seconds went by, and gradually turned into minutes. More debris impacted the shuttle, each resonating a different tone through the cabin and deck. Truman and Leah busied themselves trying to find a way to repair the controls, while Gryph headed back into the passenger cabin to help tend to the injured and to see exactly how many people had gotten to the shuttle. In all 27 people had made it to the shuttle, and of them 26 were alive. After everyone was settled and strapped in, Gryph, Ogre, and Gucch sequestered themselves in one corner of the cabin. Each of them looked over the people in their little lifeboat, then looked at each other. Instinctively, each of them started to compile a list of their resources. They knew the shuttle had little food and water, enough for 2 weeks at most, and that the oxygen would last roughly that long as well, but as long as the ship didn't break apart that should be enough. No doubt observers on Kell had seen what had happened. They would send out rescue ships immediately and they would all be fine, just as long as the ship held together. 'So what if we're out of control and drifting," Gryph thought to himself, 'as long as we stay in one piece, they should be able to get here in under 10 days.'
As they all sat waited for their fates to be revealed, no one said a word. They all just waited and listened. Slowly the impacts grew further and further apart, until after 15 minutes they seemed to stop almost completely. Slowly, a couple of people started to whisper, then a few more started to stir. Motion from the front of the ship caught Gryph's eye. He turned his head and watch Truman and Leah walk into the passenger area. Both of their faces seemed grim. Their eyes slowly panned across the seats, each drinking in everything and everyone in the cabin. Finally, Truman spoke.
"We have a very large problem," he said, cracking his knuckles while not letting his eyes focus on anyone directly, "we are not in the Kell system."
"What do you mean? I felt us jump." yelled someone from the back.
"Yes, we did jump, but not to Kell. As far as we can tell," Truman stated as he nodded to Leah, "we are somewhere in the Arc-Royal Defense Cordon, but we are definitely not in the Kell system."
"How wonderful," Ogre said sarcastically.
"It gets better," replied Leah as she chewed on her lower lip. "We're out of control and drifting out into deep space."
At this news the passengers erupted in voices of fear. Leah and Truman looked around the room, each trying to get a sense of what they should say next. Truman started to speak, but fumbled his words and quickly closed his mouth. Instead he looked around the room again, and after finding Gucch, Ogre, and Gryph, let his facial expression hint at the helplessness he was feeling. Seeing this, Gucch took to his feet and began to yell.
"HEY! People! Everybody just calm down," he billowed. 'There aren't many here,' he thought to himself, 'but if panic sets in to even one of 'em, it's just gone spread.' "Now standing up and getting all hysterical isn't gonna do one damn bit of good. You, pilot girl, why are we outta control?"
"Well, mudbug," Leah snipped back, "because one of those chunks that hit us took out the aft thruster controls, and the diagnostic can't tell us exactly what's damaged back there because its sensors were damaged too."
"Okay, first things first then, we need to figure out what we have and what we don't; if we have what we might need to fix this, and if we have what we need to get out there to look. I want every able-bodied person to start gathering everything you can find. We'll pile it in here, catalog it, and then stow it. MOVE!"
For the next hour every person on the ship searched out every piece of usable anything they could find. In the end, they had several spare circuit boards, food, water, pillows, medical supplies, radios, two space suits, random other junk, and one katana that had somehow become lodged a closet in the cockpit. All of the items were piled in the passenger cabin, sorted, inventoried, and re-stored. In the end, according to the estimates of several people, they had enough food to feed everyone for 6 days, if everyone ate in moderation. The water onboard would last about the same.
With everything cataloged and stored, everyone once again began to gather on the passenger deck. Gryph, Ogre, Leah, and Truman found themselves gathered outside the cockpit door. They looked at each other, then at the crowd that was gathering again.
"They're running out of things to do, and once they're finished, they're just gonna start talking about the worst possible outcome again." Ogre said, concern starting to creep into his facade. "Gucch bought a little time with this, but they're just gonna start panicking again, unless he's got another trick up his sleeve."
"I'm willing to bet he does. He was a marine, remember; a sergeant. So he knows how to handle people who are scared," Truman said quietly so that only the group would hear. "In fact I'm all in favor of just appointing him de-facto captain for now. He's got them under control and has their minds off of problems they can't fix, and that's something I know I couldn't have done."
"He's certainly got the arrogance to lead . . . . pilot girl!" snapped Leah.
"That's just his way. He pushed everyone when he meets 'em," Gryph said. "It's how he bonds with people. He expects you to push back, to see how far you'll go and how much he can get away with."
"Oh I'll push back," Leah sneered, glaring at Gucch as he entered the cabin. 'I'll push all right.' she thought to herself as she looked down at her feet and then over to Truman. "And what do you have that thing tied to your belt for?" she said as she pointed to the katana now affixed at Truman's side.
"I found it, I keep it," Truman responded resolutely. "Besides, I always wanted a sword."
As those four kept talking quietly, the rest of the passengers gathered and began to gossip once again, but before anyone could spark a panic, Gucch stepped forward. "Alright, we've gots us a list of stuff on the ship, and luckily we have two space suits. Now we need someone to go out there and see what's broke. Cammy, where are you?" Gucch said as he looked around the cabin for the one person he knew for sure had mechanical background.
"He's back here, and he's in no condition to go anywhere," replied a female voice from the back of the compartment. Jesicah was one of two medical personnel that had made it onboard, and was the one who was looking after Cameron. "He was brought on injured from one of the shuttles that was damaged. He's still bleeding, and he's unconscious. He'll be okay I think, but he's not going anywhere now."
"Okay, well then does anyone else have any experience with engines and shuttles?"
"I do," said a man from the in the crowd, and as he did he stood up and started to walk to where Gucch was standing.
"What's your name?"
"Mike, Mike Carboneau." the man responded.
"Okay Mike, suit up, your going out there in 10 minutes to look, and after that we'll decide what's next."