83 ships. That was all the Commonwealth could spare. 83 ships much smaller and weaker than herself. Andromeda almost couldn't believe it. She had fought battles with far more ships and less intimidating villains and barely survived. How many of these ships could handle a single shot from a Point Singularity Weapon? How many could withstand hundreds of Magog swarm ships cracking their hulls like eggs to get to the crews inside? 85% of the ships weren't even alive, and many were crewed with graduates fresh from the training grounds on Tarazed. In fact, every member of the crew she'd on-boarded a few hours before were recent graduates, completely uninitiated in battle.
Yet, this was all they could spare after the last fight with the Magog and the Nietzschean battle they had just completed, the last of their resources damaged and used up exterminating ants when a pack of angry, hungry wolves was lurking nearby. If the Magog were allowed to reach the known worlds they would overtake the Triangulum Galaxies in a matter of years, multiplying exponentially with each world they pillaged; feasting, breeding, and taking slaves. They could not let it happen, yet she could not see how they were to stop it.
"Andromeda, is everyone in formation?" Dylan asked, his voice powerful and calm, as a captain's voice should be. The crewmembers in Command stood a little straighter. They were all so young, not a single person over thirty. Only Dylan, and to some extent Doyle, had ever faced something like this before. Yet, despite increased heartrate and respiration in every young person, they stood tall and still, awaiting orders. She hoped they were able to maintain their composure once the battle began. She extended her consciousness out to the fleet.
"All ships are in formation and awaiting orders," she reported. With one thought out of thousands running simultaneously, she sent her hologram to Harper in the slipstream core. A new crewmember manned his normal station in Command so he could physically focus on keeping key systems up and running during the fight. His explanation to Dylan had been that he didn't trust the others to know her systems, and Andromeda had to agree. No one understood her the way he did. Though she would never outright tell him, his genius could not be denied.
She found the young man bouncing from control panel to control panel at a frenzied pace that would put most children to shame. She had never met another fully grown human being with as much energy as Harper, and was certain she never would. His energetic movements and intense focus did not belie his fears. She could see the tension in his shoulders, detect the speed at which his heart was beating, see the way he trembled ever so slightly. She was impressed at how much he had grown. The first time they had met with the Magog, he had been frozen with fear. Now he was knowingly walking into battle with his worst nightmare and facing it head on.
He noticed her presence and stopped working for a moment, reaching for a Sparky Cola. After four years in Seefra without access to it, he appeared to be trying to make up for lost time, having imbibed frightening amounts of it since waking up five hours ago. She wasn't even certain why a case of it had been included in the supplies sent with the new recruits earlier, but it was here and Harper was properly wired. What was it that Beka called that vile substance? Right, 'Harper Fuel'.
"Is everything in order down here?" she asked.
"You betcha darlin'. You're as ready as you are ever gonna be," he said. How could a human being talk so quickly? "I just have one teeny tiny little favor to ask you."
She feigned an exasperated sigh and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"What is it Harper?" The young man looked up at her hologram with a playful expression that didn't reach his eyes.
"Try not to get hit, or let any Magog onboard?" She smiled softly, almost wishing she could reach out and touch him, to offer some small amount of comfort.
"I will do my best. I just wanted to let you know we will stream shortly," she said, before popping away and leaving him to his very important work.
She quickly scanned Med Deck. Trance was safely ensconced in a stasis chamber. Andromeda double checked the back ups and the back ups to the back ups. Given the young woman's current condition and the potential for catastrophic equipment failure, putting her in stasis was less than ideal, but she was safer inside than out, where she would be an easy and tempting target for Magog intruders and well meaning medics who didn't understand her alien physiology. Had it been anyone else, she would have insisted the patient be evacuated to Tarazed, but she and Dylan both agreed it was not an option to send Trance away where she would be exposed to even more pathogens and doctors who knew even less about her physiology than Andromeda did. If she failed this mission, Trance would be dead either way. It was a simple case of probabilities. She was determined not to fail.
Two medics, a pretty blonde woman with steely blue eyes and a tall, dark skinned, dark eyed, man with close cropped black curls stood by with lances strapped to their hips, ready to take care of injured crewmates and defend them if necessary. They stood tall in their high guard uniforms, matching looks of grim determination on their faces. She deployed battlebots to defend all entrances to Med Deck, making every last effort possible to preserve the lives of her crew.
Andromeda sent her hologram down to the slipfighter hangar where Beka, Rhade, and three dozen young crewmembers were suiting up. There was no chatter as they, a mixture humans and Nietzscheans, pulled on flight suits, gloves, and headsets. Those who were finished already had turned to check their partners. They would fly together, watching each other's backs. These were the best of the best. They were those from Rhade's crew that were in fighting condition after the Nietzschean battle and the Academy's top pilots. Andromeda hoped their achievements were not an exaggeration.
Beka noticed her and looked up from buckling a boot. Her black leather flight suit, zipped up to the neck, reflected the hangar bay's lights. Her expression was hard. Her presence commanding. Andromeda mused, not for the first time, that Beka would have made a powerful Warship. She and Rhade would be working together to command the slipfighters, each taking a wing to focus on a different portion of the Worldship, picking off swarm ships before they ever reached the fleet. They would be joined by four more wings from the Commonwealth fleet.
"Is everyone ready down here?" Andromeda asked.
"Ready?" Beka asked, putting her hands on her hips, with a look of disbelief on her face.. "How can anyone be ready for something like this? We have 83 ships and a handful of fighters. They have 20 worlds, a sun, and billions of hungry Magog. No one can ever be ready for that."
"True," she replied, "But, the world ship might be easier to defeat now that The Abyss is gone."
"Might be, but not will be," Rhade added, "It does no good to cling to false hope." He stood tall in his flight suit, almost a different person than he had been in Seefra.
"Right. Let's do this," Beka said, and then shouted, "Red team. Everyone, double check yourself and your partner and load it up. Keep tabs on your partner, keep your eyes sharp and we just might all come home."
"Blue team, same! It's gonna get ugly out there, but if your head's on straight you'll make it," followed Rhade's voice. Andromeda, satisfied that they were ready to go, nodded to the two pilots and winked out.
At the same time, she delved into the minds of her avatars, both on Command. Rommie, who was as much a part of herself as the slipstream core, was standing at the weapons console, a tan skinned Lieutenant with her hair tightly bound in a bun next to her. In Rommie's mind she saw fear. The Magog had hurt her badly both times she'd faced them. But Rommie was was also steadfast and eager to destroy the creatures who threatened those she loved. Doyle, who had been allowing Andromeda to use her as an avatar when onboard stood at Trance's normal station, watching over the environmental and artificial gravity systems. She, too, was not alone. A pale red headed man with a freckled nose had Harper's normal console beside her. Doyle was terrified, and understandably so, everything she had ever known was at risk, but Andromeda could see she was fiercely protective of her friends, and ready to fight.
She put her AI on screen, careful to keep her expression emotionless and strong. A warship must not show fear in the face of battle, even one with such seemingly insurmountable odds.
"Captain, we are ready to enter slipstream at your command," she reported.
"Then Rommie, let's bring it." Andromeda fought down a bout of excitement, tempered slightly by fear, as Doyle said,
"Signaling the fleet to begin streaming." This was what she was built for. This was where she shone.
"Transitioning to slipstream now," The brown-haired Nietzschean woman at the navigation console announced. Andromeda announced it ship-wide for those not on command and the crew braced themselves for the jump. The ship rocked as they exited the stream. She scanned her systems quickly. Everything was still working as planned.
"All ships following in formation," Rommie reported, "Ready for the next jump." The crew's stress responses increased across the ship. This jump would take them to straight to the enemy. She felt her fear well up as well. She was three to zero against the worldship, and if the world ship was functioning at even a quarter of its previous ability, simulations showed that they would lose this battle as well. Those were not good odds, and she felt Trance's absence acutely. Were it not for her, the entire crew would have perished a second time. The only time she escaped with her crew intact without what amounted to divine intervention, they'd had a nova bomb. Something else she was missing.
The ship rocked again and they transitioned into slipstream. They exited slip stream and the Worldship loomed in front of them. Twenty planets dull brown planets linked together with giant wires and a dim sun in the center. The damage Trance had done when she sacrificed herself was clearly visible. Many of the planets appeared cracked and burned. But, it was also clear that reports had not been exaggerated. The ship was merely crippled, not destroyed.
The young red-headed engineer gasped, forgetting his training for a moment. There was a pause, a moment of silence where those on command seemed to hold their breaths. Andromeda sensed the fleet moving into position around her.
"All ships are accounted for," she announced.
"There are swarm ships approaching," Rommie said. Dylan straightened up.
"Ship-wide," he commanded.
"Aye," said Rommie. A two-toned buzz announced to the crew that they were being addressed by the captain.
"We are about to engage the enemy. I will not lie to you. We have fought the Magog Worldship before and barely survived. Most of you are new to this. Keep calm, follow orders, and do everything like we planned, and we stand a better chance of getting out of this alive. We have no choice. If this ship reaches the known worlds, life as we know it will end. Think about your families and your homes, you are doing this for then. Now, let's bring it. Code black."
Andromeda cut the transmission and sounded the code black klaxon. It began just as the first wave of swarm ships attached themselves to her hull and began attempting to punch through.
"Swarm ships have attached themselves to my hull," Rommie said. Dylan hit a button on the panel in front of him.
"Beka, Rhade, you know what to do."
"You betcha, those swarm ships won't know what hit them," Beka's voice rang through. Andromeda opened the hangar bay doors at Beka and Rhade's commands, and armed her weapons at Dylan's. The battle had begun. In Dylan Hunt we trust, she thought as she began to fire.
"Rommie, darling, the most beautiful ship in the known galaxies, can you at least try to avoid the PSWs?" Harper asked as he ducked out of the way of yet another exploding console, skin stinging as sparks rained down around him. The scent of burning ozone was practically unbearable. The amount of capital they spent on consoles… His foot hit something as he stepped forward, working his way to another console that had, hopefully, been spared and was in working order. His brain told him not to look down just as his eyes, on auto-pilot, did. He felt his heart skip when he saw the corpse of a Magog raider brushing up against his boot; one of those lucky enough, or unlucky enough, depending on your point-of-view, to make it aboard the Andromeda. His body instinctively recoiled. "Uuuuugh."
"I am doing the best I can. My hands are a bit full at the moment," she replied, voice a bit terse. Not that he could blame her. He was feeling a little testy himself right about now. With a grimace, he climbed over his dead companion and reached the next console. It was still on. That was a good sign.
"I know you are, babe. It's just frustrating. We've been at this for hours and I don't know how much longer I can keep you together."
He pulled out his dataport cord and attached it to the console and then took the other end and placed it into his port. It sparked and he gritted his teeth at the shock, but persisted. His eyes closed and he was in the mainframe, numbers and glyphs swirling around him, tracking a problem with the communications system. The datastream flickered and he felt another shock as he assumed the ship was hit again, but he didn't pull himself out. There, a blown relay! With a single thought he rerouted communications and pulled himself out of Andromeda's systems, preferring to be unconscious as little as possible with the ever constant threat of becoming Magog food. He didn't fancy an accurate and painful reenactment of his capture the first time they met up with this thing.
He hit the comm button on the console and said, "Dylan, communications are back up."
"Good, at least something is going right," the Captain answered, sarcasm and exasperation coloring his tone. "Now, can you do something about the weapons. Some of them are down." Harper rolled his eyes and looked to the ceiling the way he used to look to the sky on Earth, as if the answers to his problem were written somewhere up there. A panel exploded off the wall a few feet away with a cacophony of crashes and bangs as it hit and skittered across the metal deck plates. The ship lurched and Harper barely managed to grab onto the console in front of him to steady himself.
"I'll see what I can do, boss, but my best guess is that they are gone, vamoose, probably blown to bits at the rate things are exploding around here."
"Just get me something!" Dylan signed off and Harper exited the control room he'd been working in, heading towards the main Weapons Control Room. He could check them out from anywhere on the ship, but he was banking on Weapons Control being free from Magog, live or dead, and he would need to be in there to exact repairs more efficiently. Just being around the monsters and smelling their blood matted fur made his skin crawl.
"Hey you, get in there and make sure communications stay up," he ordered one of the new crewmembers he'd been assigned. It was nice to have minions. The sandy-haired ensign, probably around twenty-three if he had to guess, jumped up and ran to the control room.
"Aye, sir," he said as he went. Excitable, Harper thought. The poor kid was bleeding from a nasty cut on his forehead and looked as if he were about to collapse from fatigue, but he was functioning, so there would be no rest for him until either he was incapacitated, or this was over.
"Rommie, what does it look like out there?" Harper asked as he reached the first ladder he needed to navigate. So far he had resisted the urge to ask, burying himself in his work- which there was plenty of- but he felt the sudden urge to know. He knew Andromeda well enough to know that they were near the end, regardless of the outcome. The crew was still alive. That was an improvement over their last encounter with the Magog. They'd managed to fight off multiple waves of intruders, but things could not go on like this much longer.
"We have lost twenty-three ships, but have taken out fifteen of the Magog's worlds. Without the Abyss to guide them, their actions are uncoordinated and erratic," the AI replied. For a brief moment, Harper's hopes sank. Five worlds left. Still a few billion Magog, and their candle was quickly burning down to a stub.
"Unfortunately, they are still Magog and tough sons of…"
"That is correct," Andromeda said, cutting off his curse. He jumped off the ladder a few rungs from the bottom to speed things up, but felt his ankle twist painfully as he landed at the exact moment the ship dove and lurched to the side. He hit the ground, hard. He took a beat to catch his breath and pulled himself up. Great, he was already cut up, bruised, and burned enough. Now he had a limp on top of it.
"I am starting to get really pissed off," he muttered as he limped into the weapons control center. It was a mess. Wires hung from the bulkheads, consoles were burned out, and one was actually still on fire, its acrid smoke filling the room. Not good. Not good at all. He quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher, spraying the flames. They dissipated. To keep his mind busy as he tried to sort through this chaos and find somewhere to work, he kept talking to Andromeda.
"Is Trance all right?" he asked. Worry for his friend, helpless on Med Deck, had been lurking just below the surface since the battle began. He promised himself to never take her presence for granted again if both of them could just pull through this with their lives intact. If something is important enough, and you try really hard at it, perhaps it can become something even better, Trance had told him so long ago. He was going to try, really try, this time.
"The stasis pods have, thankfully, not been damaged, and no Magog have broken through my defenses around Med Deck. Trance and the other injured crewmembers are safe for now."
"Thank God for small favors," he muttered as he finally cleared a path to the main control panel. It almost couldn't be considered a console anymore. "Not good, not good, not good." He took a few steps and pulled a panel off the wall, finding a link-up that was undamaged. He plugged in. Miraculously, it didn't shock him this time. He whistled as he realized exactly how much damage had been done. What exactly was Dylan throwing at the Worldship? The silverware?
"My internal sensors are acting up, what is the problem Harper?" Andromeda asked. Harper raised his eyebrows as he scanned the glyphs in front of him.
"What isn't the problem? When Dylan said some of the weapons weren't working, what he really meant to say is that we only have point defense lasers and there are no easy fixes. Everything is down and I don't know what to repair first. Rommie, if we don't get out of here, we're toast. We're fighting with sticks, and not very big ones."
Rommie's AI persona appeared in front of him, text and data swirling around her. Confusion and concern showed on her face.
"Something is happening. Harper, brace yourself for shock waves," she ordered. He felt himself forced from the mainframe.
"Shockwaves?" he asked as he opened his eyes, confused, but heeding her warning. He grabbed the nearest console and hugged it with all his strength just as the ship pitched to one side, then the other, and rolled. He felt himself lift as the AG fields weakened before stabilizing again seconds later. Andromeda jumped to slipstream immediately and Harper felt what little food and drink he'd managed to consume throughout the day shift uncomfortably in his stomach.
The instant the ship was back in regular space he jumped to his feet and, ignoring his twisted ankle and other multiple and varied discomforts, rushed towards command. He flew up ladders, barreled down hallways, sometimes nearly tripping over fallen crewmembers and dead Magog, until he barged through the Command doors, sweaty, and out-of-breath.
"What… the hell… was that?" he asked between gasps of breath.
"Well hello Mr. Harper," Dylan said dryly. He looked worn. Everyone on Command did, even, to Harper's surprise, Rommie and Doyle.
"Captain, only fifteen ships made it back," Rommie reported somberly. Dylan rubbed his temples.
"The slipfighters?" Dylan asked. The door to Command hissed open, releasing Beka and Rhade. The former, lacking generations Nietzschean bio-engineering, sweating and out of breath, presumably from a mad dash from the hangar bay to command. Rommie nodded to the two slip captains.
"All but four fighters from Andromeda made it back. The fleet's wings sustained heavier casualties." Relief at the sight of Beka's face filled Harper. He hadn't realized how concerned he had been. His buddy. His big sister. His co-conspirator. The one who had taken him in, given him a chance, when no one else would. She was safe.
"Harper, damage report," Dylan ordered. He wrinkled his brow and frowned.
"You don't wanna know," he said, "What happened there at the end, anyway? One moment I was trying desperately to figure out if I could get any of the weapons online and seriously considering making peace with the divine for added insurance, and next thing I know, we're in slipstream."
"I wish I could tell you, Harper. It's as if their sun went supernova, this time taking everything with it."
"How?" he asked, trying to puzzle through the enigma.
"If it hadn't happened, we would all be dead. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Rhade said. Harper shot him a dirty look.
"I normally like gift horses, but we survived because of some sort of deus ex what the hell. No one in the fleet had a nova bomb and the only person who would go supernova out of the goodness of her heart is no longer capable of doing so. So forgive me, but I am definitely looking this gift horse in the mouth before it turns around and kicks us in the behind."
"Harper's right," Dylan said, "But we will look into it more later. It's been a long, hard, day and we all need to get some rest. Everyone is dismissed. Rommie, let the surviving crewmembers know. Get your bots to man critical stations and begin caring for the dead and injured."
One by one the crew began to leave their consoles. Some, ghostlike, made their way out of command. Others kneeled down to tend to the fallen. Blank faced androids walked through the command doors and began taking over stations. Harper stood, watching the scene before him, feeling a little lost.
"Harper," Rommie said, "You need to get to medical. Your ankle needs to be looked at and you are bleeding in several places." Doyle crossed the deck to stand beside him.
"I'll go with you. Trance needs to come out of stasis as soon as possible, and the medics could use a hand down there. We have a lot of injuries to tend to." The adrenaline started to wear off and suddenly the pain and exhaustion of hours of being thrown to the bulkheads and flung against walls washed over him overwhelming him faster than a sneaker wave while surfing. He took a tentative step forward, his ankle throbbing and swollen. He winced and nearly lost his balance. "Come along, tough guy." Doyle said, wrapping her arm around his back for support. He leaned into her, and together they left Command, Harper feeling thankful that, even though the means were suspect, they had won and everyone he loved was alive for now.
