“Can’t we move any faster?” he shouted.
“We’re at full reverse thrust!” Cameron defended. “It’s just not enough! This ship wasn’t designed to go fast backwards!” Another red light on her console turned green. “Wait! The orbital maneuvering systems just came back on! Maybe if I end over…”
“…Not exactly by the book, Ensign!” Nathan interrupted, already liking the idea.
“Yeah, I wonder where I picked up that bad habit?” she said.
“You’re not waiting for me to give you permission, are you?” Nathan asked. The inertial dampeners were still off line, and Nathan could feel himself getting heavy as she pitched their nose up hard.
“Not a chance,” she smiled.
About ten seconds later, Nathan went from feeling abnormally heavy on his feet to feeling abnormally light as Cameron ended their end-over flip in abrupt fashion. He grabbed hold of the console in front of him just in time to keep himself standing as she fired the orbital maneuvering system at full burn.
“OMS are burning!” She watched her flight display as their velocity steadily increased. The orbital maneuvering system was only designed to increase their orbital velocity to increase an orbital altitude. If they only had the main propulsion working, they could get out of there in seconds instead of agonizingly long minutes.
“Engineering! Bridge!” Nathan called over the comm.
“Yes! Nathan!” It still sounded like all hell was breaking loose in the background.
“Vlad! We’re gettin’ pounded! Can you give me any weapons?”
“I am sorry, Nathan! But we only have one reactor online, and only running at fifty percent! I could maybe connect rail guns to same reactor, but it might be too much for one, I don’t know.”
“What about torpedoes? Can you give me torpedoes?”
“Torpedoes should work. If crew can load the tubes, torpedoes have their own power source. Just push button and they go. But Nathan, you should know this.”
“Why would I know this? I’m a pilot!”
Cameron held her hand up in the air, without turning around.
“Oh, and I suppose you did?” he asked her. She offered no verbal confirmation, just a self-righteous smile that Nathan couldn’t see from behind her.
“Is there anything else I can do for you Nathan? I am very busy right now.” Something exploded in the background, and Vladimir shouted some more directions at someone.
“No thanks. Do what you can, bridge out.”
Nathan looked at the torpedo bay status display. There were no torpedoes loaded in the forward tubes, and the aft tubes were not yet completely installed.
“Torpedo Room! Bridge!” he called over the comm. “Torpedo Room! Do you copy!” No one answered. “Damn!” He looked at the status display again, when he noticed something. One of the torpedoes that the captain had launched at the enemy warship had not detonated, and it was still active.
“Kaylah!” he shouted. “Scan that warship! One of our torpedoes didn’t detonate! Can you tell me where it is? Is it still stuck in them?”
Kaylah worked her console for a few moments before responding, as more of the enemy rounds exploded against the hull, continually bouncing the ship.
“I’ve got it! It’s stuck just aft of amidships!” She spun her head to look at Nathan. “Right in front of their reactor plant!”
“What kind of reactor?” he asked. They were still awfully close to that ship, and if they were using antimatter, he doubted they would be far enough away to survive the blast.
“Scanning!” Another shell struck, sending sparks flying as the panel above the ECO console shorted out.
“Kaylah!” Nathan begged, not knowing if they could take another hit. “What kind of reactor!”
“Fusion!” she answered. “They’re using simple fusion reactors! Six of them!”
“Nathan! What are you going…” She wasn’t able to finish her sentence, as Nathan wasn’t gonna waste time debating this one with her.
“All hands, brace for shock wave!” he called out ship-wide, as he detonated the last torpedo’s warhead.
Outside, in the silent black void of space, the aft end of the crippled warship suddenly broke apart in a blinding flash, shredding her mid section until the entire back half simply broke free from her. Moments later, her six fusion reactors started exploding in rapid succession, causing her tail to burst into pieces, and most of her forward section to break apart into smaller pieces.
Seconds later the shock wave hit the Aurora. It hit hard, so hard that it forced her tail down by thirty degrees in the blink of an eye. Without the inertial dampeners, any of her crew that were in the back half of the ship suddenly found themselves tossed up head first into the ceiling, before falling back to the floor again. But that wasn’t the end of it. Six more smaller shock waves from the warship’s exploding fusion reactors also hit them, albeit with far less force.
Nathan shook his head, shaking the debris off. He was on the floor yet again, behind the tactical station, facing Doctor Sorenson. She had been holding her dead father the entire time, up until the last shock wave tossed her and her father’s body into the corner on top of the body of the dead marine by the starboard exit. Other than her initial screams of shock and the subsequent cries of grief, he had not heard a peep from her during the entire battle. He wondered if she was in some kind of shock. Of course, she had every right to be, they all did.
He looked at her, seeing the look of abject fear in her eyes. “Are you alright?” he asked. After a moment, she looked at him. “Doctor Sorenson? Are you alright?” he repeated. She stared in his eyes for a moment, finally nodding slightly. “Don’t worry,” he promised her, “We’re going to be alright.” He didn’t really believe it, at least not completely. But he felt she needed some hope in order to hold it together.
Nathan struggled back to his feet. He could see that Cameron had somehow managed to stay in her seat at the helm the entire time, and was busy trying to see what was still working. He made his way over to Kaylah to see that she too was unharmed. She looked even more shaken, with a small gash on the side of her head from flying debris, but she was conscious and already trying to get back into her chair.
“I need to know what other ships are out there, Kaylah,” he told her as he helped her into her chair. “Without the main view screen, you’re the only eyes we’ve got.”
“Yes Sir.”
It was still pretty dark in the room, and there were fewer systems offering information to him through the tactical console than before. “Damn!” he swore. “Now just about everything is down!” He looked towards Cameron at the helm in front of him. “How’s the helm?”
“I got nothing. Everything is down. No propulsion, no maneuvering. Even the OMS are down now. And we’re still only running on emergency power.” She turned around to face him. “We’re dead in the water, Nathan,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.
For a moment, Nathan felt like she was accusing him of something. He had not given her a chance to disagree with his plan to detonate the last torpedo. There simply hadn’t been time for discussion, not if they were going to survive.
“Sensors are down too, Sir. Well, not completely down. But they keep flashing in and out. It’s hard to get a decent image to build.”
“Keep trying,” Nathan instructed, most of the determination having left his voice.
“Engineering, Bridge.” Nathan looked at the comm controls, they appeared to be dead as well. “Great. No comms.”
“What do we do now?” Cameron asked.
Nathan looked around the room, hoping another bright idea would pop into his head. But nothing did. He had been lucky so far, and he knew it. He might have made one or two good decisions along the way, but the fact that they were still breathing was due to dumb luck. He just wondered how much longer his luck would hold out.