“Thank you sir. I'll do my best.”
“Captain, we have a problem. Five Regent Galactic ships have arrived at the system outer limits,” Frost reported over the comm. “And I'm still the only one manning tactical.”
Captain Valance walked onto the bridge and took the command chair with Stephanie close behind.
Price was already on his way to helping Frost at the tactical and security stations. “At least I had half an hour to go through the general tutorial,” he said to himself. “It seems simple enough at a glance.”
“Wait 'till you start looking a little deeper an' try doing somethin' that's worth doin' right. Then we'll see those eyes go as round as saucers.”
“You'd think you'd be rooting for me.”
“You've got a point there,” Frost said with a nod as he brought up their missile and torpedo inventory.
“Liam, how are my reactors?” Captain Valance asked through the intercom. He waited a minute, looking at the tactical screen. “Liam?”
“Aye, here sir. We could bring them online, I'd rather have another twenty minutes though.”
“With hostiles in the area we don't have the time. How about our cloaking systems?”
“They've been reset. Any misalignment or other problems have been corrected, theoretically.”
“Good. Give us some power.”
“All three reactors will be online in about two minutes. It won't be as clean as I'd like, but that can come later. Liam out.”
“Pardon me Captain, but unless I'm mistaken we won't be able to enter hyperspace, use shields or effectively cloak as long as we're docked with that transport,” Agameg Price said, pointing to the main holographic display.
“God dammit, have we been able to communicate with them at all?”
“No sir. I've been trying everything, even the hard line through the mooring point,” Cynthia reported.
“How many souls aboard?”
“One hundred seventy one sir,” Frost reported.
“Fine, take care of it Steph, we should have done something about that an hour ago.”
Stephanie was out of her seat and on her way off the bridge, opening communications to Jane and taking a pulse rifle from one of the four bridge guards. “Chief Eccleston, send two squads of armed units to the port mooring hatch. I'll assume direct command once I get there.”
Captain Valance took a closer look at the tactical display then brought it up on the main holoprojector. “There's a gravity shadow there, but the sensors aren't picking up anything else.” He adjusted the scanners to focus in on a space right behind the five destroyers and switched between different sets of readings.
The silhouette of a three tiered octagonal ship with long girders extending from each corner appeared. “That's new,” he said to himself. The holodisplay marked the main body as nine kilometres wide, each extended arm was an additional twelve kilometres.
It appeared to all spectrums of light, on all scanning systems with a sudden burst of light and the holoprojector showed the outline of a magnetic field over twenty five hundred kilometres across extending from it in all directions.
“I think we're a little out gunned sir,” Frost said quietly.
“That field, it must be how it collects power,” Price added. “It's rotating so it's facing the star.”
“Wouldn't that endanger the ships around it?” Asked Ashley.
“It's not much different from the magnetic field the Samson and most other ships generate. Only instead of redirecting small particles around the ship it collects them along with solar radiation, this ship has a similar, but much smaller magnetic scoop system,” Captain Valance replied. “With those arms it could probably project an even bigger field if it had to.”
The reactors powered up and on the secondary holographic display systems across the ship started turning yellow and green. “Ashley, pilot us towards the nearest moon. I want it between us and that ship as soon as possible.”
“Aye sir,” Ashley acknowledged with a smile.
“Are you sure you're ready to fly the Triton under full power?” Asked her copilot in a hushed, nervous tone.
“Yup, I just got certified.”
“How long ago?”
“Tuesday, I think.”
“You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding.”
“Shut up and watch for surprises,” Ashley said as she began accelerating, rotating the ship towards Vallestra, a nearby rocky moon.
“Incoming system wide communication from the command ship,” Cynthia reported.
“Put it on the tertiary display.”
The holoprojector on the left side of the bridge switched from its extended tactical view to the familiar image of a Regent Galactic representative complete with perfectly pressed suit and neat haircut. “This is the Regent Galactic Vessel Kraken. We received news of the tragedy that has befallen you and made haste to this system. Our search and rescue ships are deploying now, please remain where you are and wait for our teams to make contact. You will not be charged for our services, though we ask that you have your insurance information ready. If you are in immediate danger, please contact us as soon as you are able.” The hologram started repeating the same message and Cynthia muted it.
“This isn't exactly what I'd call ideal,” Captain Valance said to himself. “They might think Wheeler is still in command. So if they don't make contact in the next few minutes we might be all right if we can get into hyperspace.”
The massive ship's three layers began to separate, growing in height. Smooth, white, five segmented ships began emerging. Each one scanned as one hundred ninety meters in length with several turrets and docking interfaces. Other, more utilitarian vessels began to launch from the three eight sided hangars, heading out in all directions.
The Triton was almost behind the cover of Vallestra, its rocky blue and grey surface was looming larger on the smaller rear view projection under the taller image coming from the main holoprojector. “Stephanie, how are you doing with that transit vessel?” Asked Captain Valance.
“Just popping it open now Captain, stand by.” She replied into her communicator as the meter and a half wide airlock doors opened. Unlike the mooring port in the gunnery deck this one had a broad hallway leading to it. Stephanie felt much better with a hallway around her and eighteen armed soldiers behind.
A sweating, exhausted looking wiry woman stumbled through the hatch. “Thank God! What's wrong with you people? We docked in an emergency and your system didn't even lock onto us. We had to jam the mechanism so you couldn't shake us off!”
Stephanie levelled her rifle at the woman, it was set on high stun. There were several irate passengers behind her. “We aren't equipped for search and rescue and our power was out. We would have informed you but we were unable to communicate with you.”
“Our comms were down.”
“We tried the hard line. All you had to do was turn the intercom on.”
“Oh, well none of us did that! No one told us! Can you help us or not?”
Stephanie lowered her rifle and signalled the soldiers behind her to do the same. “Yes, but follow our orders or we'll confine you. Do you understand?”
“Nice, fine, whatever.”
“Leave any weapons with these guards here,” Stephanie directed towards Liz and a much larger male soldier. “Then follow our directions to our upper berth. It isn't much but you'll be able to get food and water out of the materializers and you'll have somewhere to rest until we can make port.”
The passengers started coming through the airlock and Stephanie helped direct them out of the transit ship. It was a flimsy vessel with a lot of transparent metal. The seats and floor looked old and misused, the passengers looked tired and wilted.
The haggard woman stood beside Stephanie as she made sure that the passengers didn't rush through the airlock. She didn't lift a finger to help, just stood by watching the disembarkation. “What was your destination?” Stephanie asked as the last of the passengers came through.