Chapter 4
"Aaaggggghhhhh" Jesus Christ that hurt. No wonder it woke you up. I rubbed my wrist and heard everyone around me complaining from my sudden scream. I put my watch back on, after tapping it on the metal railing to release any charge still on it. My shoes were under the bunk and I slipped them on before, checking the time. Time was taken from a woman who wore a watch on one of the sleeper ships, the only one still running. Eleven hundred years later, they still hadn't improved the watches much, apart from added extras. The electric shock being one of them.
I walked to the door and passed through it, turned up to the hanger and made it just in time to see the last part on the ship being mounted.
"Excellent timing Mr Miller, you ship is just about ready. Have you eaten in the past few days?
"Yes, I ate before I got some kip" I lied, I didn't like this guy.
"Oh, doesn't matter, we can meet up some other time. Would you like to test this before you leave?"
"Where?"
"Out there on some live opponents."
"You mean the SAR ships?"
"Precisely." The thought of killing my old friends was dreadful. It still haunted me, especially now that Robin had just 'appeared out of the blue'.
"Have you uploaded the co ordinates?"
"Yes. They will take you to a jump hole, stay nearby it, under the cover of your cloaking field, then, when one appears. Pounce!" I didn't like this one bit, but I didn't want to show I was scared.
I climbed up the side and clambered into the cockpit. They had everything done up perfectly. On my left hand side, there was a computer panel, with several 'levers' which adjusted the amount of power for each gun; the ones that were on the top side of the curler were reddened out, with enable written on the red bars. Wow. This was good. More than good, it was a bloody good job, and I liked it. On my right was the enable/disable system, so I could deactivate some weapons to give more power, as well as energy to the others. A gun needed power to run it, and energy to run the ammo. The more power, the better the range would be. But strangely enough, the capacitor unit produced all this. I never did like engineering. I disabled all the guns, and transferred power to the thrusters, on a different panel, above my head. As soon as I fired up the engines, the HoloHUD 2nd edition came online. Nice! And I got all this for free! I hope.
"This is Ship 3 x 5 1, I am clear of the gate and have a heading of 059° magnetic."
"Roger Ship 3 x 5 1. Enable cloaking field and continue course. Good luck" I don't know why people called it a 'magnetic' bearing, as there was no magnetic field around you, unless you were on a planet. Anyhow, I suppose all nav maps are pointing in the same direction, so it just stuck. North is up, south is down.
When I was clear of the Hispania, I engaged the cruise engines, gutting all power from guns and lighting. The shield was changed to anti – collision protection; it was given different particles to the normal molecular style.
Five minutes into the journey, I came across the asteroid field, and had my hand on the joystick. Just in case. It was starting to bug me now why I hadn't seen any nomads yet. Were they going to send me to a nomad base? I doubted it. For now anyway. I concentrated on the asteroid field. The Jump hole was just ahead now; I could see it, tucked behind an asteroid about the size of my ship. That would be my hiding place. I turned off the auto pilot, and deactivated the cruise engines. Then, I glided round behind the asteroid and waited there, with all systems shut down apart from my HUD and my cloaking field.
I waited there for about ten minutes, before one of them came out of the Jump hole and stalled from the sudden deceleration. Then another. Then another. Jesus, how many are there? Then a battleship. Oh crap. Battleships could detect ships behind a cloaking field, with their infra red sensors, detecting heat. For a few seconds it sailed on, before stopping in its tracks. Its escorts spread out, into combat manoeuvres, like the way I had seen in combat training. I had been spotted. I decided to wait it out, maybe they might think it was a hot asteroid.. I slowly drifted around the back of the asteroid, using as little energy as possible, to prevent any excess heat.
The battleship fired a shot at the asteroid which exploded into tiny fragments. He knew my position. I had one choice. The Jump hole. A quick dock would give me time, as the battleship would take ages to turn around…especially in an asteroid field! The guns were aiming at me. One false move and I was dead. I waited a bit longer. I saw a fighter break free, and start shooting at me. But the lasers were passing way over my head. Was it a warning? Then another one did the same thing. I looked the other way, towards the direction of the laser fire. And I saw a wing of fighters. Strange they weren't on my nav map. They came closer, and the SAR still hadn't destroyed even one! They were drones! Hologramic versions of a ship. But who was projecting it? I realised that someone knew I was there, and I made a break for it. I powered the thrusters, and the battleship immediately noticed the heat from its infra red sensors. I boosted towards the jump hole, using only my thrusters. It was firing at me. Come on. Come on! I was metres away from the jump hole. I hit the green button on the right hand screen.
""Dock in use. Entering queue""
"Oh no" that is clever. One of the fighters was in a holding dock. Unable to shoot, but reverse thrusting, so that he didn't dock. If I could take him out the-
""Shields failed!"" oh god, I transferred the power to the shields, and blasted some of the bats into the shield. Phew. No hull damage. That was lucky. I won't be lucky again. My cloaking shield deactivated, and the fighters started shooting at me.
"Get out of there man!"
"Robin! The dock is in use, I can't get out!"
"You have to fight. I'm 5 k away, I'll help you out. Get the battleship's defence weapons, then its life support systems." I enabled the two long beams, and a small loading bar came up. 5 seconds remaining. Now is not the time to be waiting around! Those five seconds seemed to last forever, as I was dodging like mad, keeping one eye on the loading bar. Finally. I heard the click of the guns connecting to the main energy supply. Back on the weapons screen, the two guardians had turned red
Outside, it was chaos. Lasers here and there. I was waiting for Robin to appear, as when I made my run for the battleship, I would be vulnerable whilst travelling in a straight line.
"Where the hell are you?" I screamed through the headset
"Only 3 k away, I am already in scanner range." He was in scanner range, but he was also almost impossible to read from all of the other ships around me.
"Okay, I'll start to shoot, attract attention. When the fighters start to lay off you, target the life support systems." shrieked Robin. That was clever. Once the life support systems were down, all the human operated turrets would automatically deactivate, and save energy for oxygen. That would be about a third of the guns deactivated.
I corkscrewed behind an asteroid, which exploded, throwing fragments all over my ship. Then dummied to go up, but banked away from the battleship. Once it was directly behind me, I did a half loop-screw; my favourite move. It was half a loop, in which you complete three and a half spins of a corkscrew. You always came out of it the same way up as you entered it. If you did it right.
Now the battleship was directly in front of me, and I turned my nav map into 'wire frame' mode, enabling to see the vital parts of each ship around you, disturbingly showing your own as well. Its life support was underneath the ship, in front of the docking bay doors. A hard target. I would have to get a curl from a novaslayer to finish it off. The nav map targeted the life support systems. Whilst I was dodging, I flicked the nose up, and then back down again. At the peak of my decent I launched the torpedo. It curled up, and turrets started to shoot it. Dammed. They got it. Ill have to take out the auto turrets first
"Robin, what's your status?"
"I am at half shield strength and haven't sustained any major hull damage yet. How about you?" I flicked my eyes at the status screen.
"I have about the same as you. How do I take out the auto turrets?"
"Have you taken out the life support?"
"I need to take out the auto turrets to get to the life support."
"Ahh, crap. Come at it from the side, and then hit it about 40 from the nose, dead in the centre. If you are lucky, it may trigger a chain reaction, so don't hang around!"
"Gotcha!"
I swung the ship around and banked to my left. The ship rattled a few time, as I took a few hits, but the shield did its job, and absorbed the shock. I plugged a few bats into the shield, and gave it a bit more life. Then I banked behind another asteroid, expecting it to explode, so I kept my distance. When I came back out of the bank, the battleship was starting to begin evasive manoeuvres. This was my chance. It turned so that its broadside became exposed to me. Bad move!
I moved the power levels slightly off the shields onto the guns, and on the other panel, I upped the energy of the long beams and the PYRACTICs. Automatically, the unchanged levers went down, to avoid a power overload. I pounded the area directed to me, and hoped that something would happen. I was getting too close. The guns were about to overheat, when a huge fireball erupted out of the side of the battleship, immediately extinguished by lack of fuel. Debris was pouring out of the giant hole, as well as bodies. I banked and passed centimetres away from it, targeting the Life support system as I went, when the whole this blew. I disappeared into a mass of fire and debris, as the battleship split into two unequal halves.
I spun my head around to see what had happened, and I saw that the nose of the come away from the rest of the ship. I banked around to finish it off, when another huge fireball erupted out of the middle sections – the engine room. Then the bridge exploded, and broken glass was floating everywhere. I was so amazed at the display in front of me; I was totally unaware that I was only a few metres away from hitting some asteroids. For the finale, a mass of fire and broken debris, parts of ships, equipment and escape pods in the shape of a sitting humans, blasted out of the hanger door underneath the remains of the ship, splitting the remaining part into another two parts.
"Woohooo! We showed them alright. I love a bit of fun in the morning, what about you?" Cheered Robin
"I don't know what I feel. I mean, they were us. How can you cheer like that?"
"Sorry man, I got a bit carried away, I know what you mean. C'mon. Let's get back. I suppose there will be a reception waiting for us." Hmm. I wasn't too sure. I mean how can two fighters kill three fighters and a battleship, with virtually no damage at all? Maybe they were underpowered, and had just got back from a major battle. Something wasn't right. Me getting all the best equipment for nothing. I also felt bad about how I had killed over fifty innocent men.
"Wait, Robin, shouldn't we rake up the important stuff?"
"We haven't got enough cargo space between us."
"We can dragnet it back!"
"Whilst in cover of our cloaking shields?
"Good point." We carried on in silence, reflecting on what had just happened. I hoped that it would never happen again. When we reached the Hispania, I let him dock first. I saw the docking bay door close, and a couple of minutes later, it opened again, to let me through. I docked, and got out of my ship. Robin's ship was over in bay 2, but there was no sign of him. I decided to get a drink instead of some kip. Then I went to bed. This time, with my alarm on instead of the shock.