Semo's not entirely clear what the plan is, but he doesn't argue. Digging into a locker, he hands a suit to Angel, then pulls one out for himself. Holding it up, he eyes it critically, trying to spot an obvious opening to climb in through.
The vacuum suits are baggy coverall-type jumpsuits organized roughly by size. Semo, Angel, and Arketta shed their load-bearing vests, web belts, and body armor, then clamber into the suits. Angel hops around a bit trying to wedge his legs in.
They fit loosely until Arketta thumbs two safety catches simultaneously. Hidden "ribs" tighten across your limbs and torso, creating a pressure-wrap to counteract the rigors of space. An emergency belt harness provides a few hours of air, an attachment point for a safety line, and rudimentary thrusters. The helmet is a dome of what looks like black glass and settles over the suit's neck seal like some insectoid B-movie horror. A sharp whine fills your ears and the helmet pressurizes. The suits have their own voxlinks and are supple enough that you could slide your Earth gear back on top if needed.
*click* "Forty-five seconds!" Arketta voxes. "Get to the primary airlock!" She's toting two AT-4s and hands each off to Semo and Angel before grabbing two more from the stowage.
---
"Jang-xur's code..." Swims signs to Max. He taps out a series of glyphs on the viewscreen similar to the Gateway glyphs on the personal-scale portals. "Pulse it no less than t-*cough* two seconds from entry, lest... two seconds.... lest you over... overshoot the portal. Too early, they will man-manually abort.... or follow us through."
---
Luis can see the assault ship on optical scopes now. It's roughly submarine-shaped, roughly Akamu's size, and is rippling its way through the void, surfing an uphill artificial gravity well courtesy of its impellers in order to match speed.
Fifteen seconds. The assault ship pirouettes to match z-axes and its grav-wake gently buffets Akamu.
Below decks, Arketta waves Semo and Angel into the airlock before stepping in behind them. She palms the primary EVA glyph and red lamps illuminate the small chamber in a hellish glow. Whatever ambient sound you weren't paying attention to quickly makes itself noticeable by its absence. Akamu's gentle hum is all that remains, felt more than heard through the material of the suit. Arketta locks each of the Delta boys into the safety catches lining the airlock wall.
Semo and Angel ready their weaponry. The assault ship is visible now through the small viewport in the outer hatch. It's a mass of chrome, a silver-hulled tank of a spacecraft. It's maybe two hundred yards away - in space, that's as point-blank as you can get.
---
The assault ship broadcasts on all local vox and laser tightbeams. *Stand by for grapplers, prepare to be boarded. We will remotely key your lock and emergency personnel will come aboard.*
Two side-saddle pods, fore and aft, dilate on the assault ship. They eject a small drone connected to the assault ship by a sturdy umbilical or cable. The drones beeline for Akamu.
"Jang-xur's code..." Swims signs to Max. He taps out a series of glyphs on the viewscreen similar to the Gateway glyphs on the personal-scale portals. "Pulse it no less than t-*cough* two seconds from entry, lest... two seconds.... lest you over... overshoot the portal. Too early, they will man-manually abort.... or follow us through."
Max carefully keys in the sequence, preparing himself for the manual countdown.
"They couldn't make this thing...I don't know, a little less problematic, could they?" says Max to no one in particular.
Semo is a little confused about being herded into the airlock. However, when Arketta hands him the AT-4, he's suddenly confronted by the unknown. Semo opperates on chain of command, and suddenly he has no orders and a weapon in his hand.
"Sir, orders?" he says over the internal vox. "What's the plan here?"
"Aim for the rear, then if they grapple us, cut the lines," Arketta advises. "If not, hit 'em in the aft again." Arketta hefts the two extra AT-4s in emphasis. "Then we must run back to the crashers."
Arketta keys the outer door and Akamu silently opens to space. The assault ship's engines are easy enough to spot - while it's using its impellers for this precision maneuver, the stablizers and maneuvering vanes ringing the ship's cruise engines mark it like a metal bullseye.
Not wanting haste to waste any of their precious AT-4s, Semo and Angel brace themselves and take aim. The grappler drones hit Akamu's flank, latching on with magnetics and then sealing themselves to the hull. The lines start to tighten.
Before the grapplers can spoil their shots, Semo and Angel drop the hammer on their AT-4s. Arketta reflexively shields herself as the saltwater charges quench the firey backblast, which was already muted by the lack of oxygen. The salty spray freezes near-instantly, covering the airlock with a frosty fog of ice crystals.
The rockets streak at what seems like a snail's pace. The assault ship can't evade - its own grapplers prevent any escape. Both rockets hit the rear cruise engines. One of the petal-like stablizers is flung away from its joint. Blue fire spews forth from the assault ship's aft, a blue fire that grows to burn like a sun. Two more stablizers melt away, floating into the void like falling leaves. Someone shuts down something inside the assault ship, snuffing out the breach, but the Imperial vessel's engine pods are glowing red-hot with castoff heat.
The grapplers snap taut now, tossing Semo, Angel, and Arketta around the airlock. The spent launchers fly out the airlock and for a split-second you think you just lost your reloads, but Arketta's curled into a fetal position around the two remaining AT-4s. The shuddering subsides as the assault ship starts reeling Akamu in. Angel and Semo take the AT-4s and flip off the safeties, ready to fire on the grapplers this time.
---
Max watches the azure engine failure from Akamu's CIC. The vox channel thunders to life:
*Cease fire or be destroyed! You are hereby bound by Imperial authority! This is your only warning!*
---
An ice cloud puffs out of the airlock as Semo and Angel fire two more AT-4s. The antitank shaped charges vaporize the grappling drones, freeing Akamu with another shudder.
"Get to the crashers!" Arketta shouts. She palms the airlock door shut as Semo and Angel toss the spent launchers. The inner door gets overridden, opening as soon as the outer door seals. A hurricane blast staggers you as the interior atmosphere rushes in to fill the airlock, but you're up and running soon after, clambering up the steps in booted feet, throwing yourselves into the inertial restraints, and clamping down the shoulder harnesses.
---
The assault ship's antipersonnel weapons spin up - their ship-to-ship weapons would be too dangerous to use this close. Pulsing streams of fire lance into the airlock door, cratering it with white-hot explosions. near-invisible particle beams strike the sensors array, burning out the port thermal sensors.
*We're clear!* Arketta shouts over the intraship vox.
Swims-the-Black nods to Luis, and the Delta operator yanks back on the yokes. The starfield blurs as Akamu spins round to face the Gate. The assault ship can't land enough concentrated fire during the spin to cause any more damage. The all-too familiar growl of Akamu's cruise engines builds to a crescendo.
Luis, for lack of a better phrase, peels out. Akamu's rear becomes a miniature sun. Everyone flattens against their crashers. The ship's a bucking bronco, but Luis does his best to wrestle the controls and manages to keep his course.
The bridge readouts flash a 60 second ETA to the Gate. Max grits his teeth, sits forward, and keys up the decoy drones. There's multiple whumps as the drones eject. On scopes, each one flares like its own star and heads erratically for the Gateway.
Across the cabin, Swims grunts in pain as G-forces rip his field dressings. Blood starts trickling anew from his abdominal wounds.
One of the drones winks off the display within seconds, a victim of the assault ship's killdrones. The two interceptors, previously content with a 5-minute intercept, have opened their throttles and are gaining on you. Luis jinks as best he can - each maneuver more violent than the last. A second killdrone fusillade fails to find its mark. Akamu and its drones easily outdistance the crippled vessel's optimum range.
"They... want... us... alive!" Swims groans out the words. "The Needleship... hasn't.... even... f-fired...."
Warning glyphs scream across the display. The interceptors are within weapons range. Sleek golden craft, the Imperial fighters' cruise engines are on short pylons, like a pontoon boat. And that's pretty much ALL they are - engines and weapons. Turret fire streaks around Akamu and its drones, finally destroying a second decoy. A second wail causes Luis some concern - the interceptors have weapons lock. Whether by chance or not, they're targeting Akamu itself. The closest drone reacts automatically, boosting into the line of fire and absorbing the beam turret's lethal shots.
Luis can see the Gateway now. It looks no bigger than a Cheerio, and the ship is bouncing around like an insane waterskier. He's got to put THIS ship through THAT?
The Gate's getting bigger too fast. Luis instinctively throttles down just to regain control and watches beams lance past where he would've been. The interceptors are gaining and the light-lag gap between where Akamu really is and where the interceptors see it is shrinking by the second.
Max punches his macro in, and Akamu comm-pulses its escape clause to the 500-foot diameter Gateway.
One thousand one... Glyphs, hundreds of glyphs, light the Gateway up like Christmas.
You're less than half a mile away. The last drone sacrifices itself as the interceptors fire again.
One thousand two... The Gateflash fills Akamu's viewscreen milliseconds before Luis shunts Akamu through. It's no bullseye, but you're through! Max taps out the abort code with flawless timing and the portal winks out.
With no apparent pursuit and a heady buildup of inertia, Luis starts bleeding off speed with the impellers while everyone takes stock of their situation. Outside, a white dwarf burns through blue and teal gas - you're in a nebula. Streamers, clouds, and trails of interstellar dust obscure the distant starfields. Inside, Swims-the-Black has passed out - and he's the one who knows where the shadowport is...
Back in engineering, Davis keys down on the internal vox. "I assume we made it?" he says, still a little hoarse from his close encounter of the high voltage kind.
"Port thermal sensors are toast, but other than that I think we faired pretty well...all things considered." replies Max to Hugh, making it a point to figure out their coordinates and if there are any other ships in their vacinity.
As Luis throws switches to start slowing the ship down, he turns to Hugh, who took a position in one of the bridge crash couches. "Captain, I'm thinking we go silent, passive detectors only, and shut down all unecesary systems to allow for repairs. Also, he," Luis nods at Swims-the-Black, "needs immediate attention, and a few others could use some too. We stop, I can get to work."
Max finds that finding their coordinates is rather difficult. He can't pick up any other ships, but given the sorry state Akamu's sensors are in, that's no surprise. The consoles took bullet wounds, had raw engine current piped through them, and then the sensor array itself got blasted from the outside.
The Gateway is orbiting at a solid 40 light-minutes from the dwarf star, about the distance from Jupiter to Sol. That gives Max some semblance of a reference point for the ecliptic. The nebula masks any sign of the shadowport Swims mentioned, however.
Two solid shots away, and Semo dashes to the couches with the others. His stomach still leaps about like a mexican jumping bean, but no real damage is done.
"Sgt Putupu here, Captain. Heard a lot of return fire in the vicinity of the airlock, but not sure of the damage."
Max finds that finding their coordinates is rather difficult. He can't pick up any other ships, but given the sorry state Akamu's sensors are in, that's no surprise. The consoles took bullet wounds, had raw engine current piped through them, and then the sensor array itself got blasted from the outside.
The Gateway is orbiting at a solid 40 light-minutes from the dwarf star, about the distance from Jupiter to Sol. That gives Max some semblance of a reference point for the ecliptic. The nebula masks any sign of the shadowport Swims mentioned, however.
"Captain, we're flying blind...not to mention the Ship's Master is currently in some state of unconsciousness. I recommend we steer this bucket to a quiet corner of the System while we try to get sensors back online and Swims-in-Fur here doctored up." says Max, flipping every back-up toggle (or what he thinks is a toggle) on the sensor panel in front of him.
"I hear ya," Hugh replies to Max's assessment. "Doc, get that ship under control. Angel, check out the ship's nooks and crannies for leaks - if I remember my Das Boot right, leaks are bad. Stanhill, you help me carry the skipper to the crew lounge. We're gonna have to establish a triage and get our scratches sorted out."
Before he walks out, he bows his head down next to Max's.
"When we're back in the saddle, you and me are gonna have a talk."
While it's not like dusting crops, Max finds Akamu's helm to be fairly intuitive. It also helps that he's a genius. Max clumsily lumbers the ship into a fast, angled orbit past the Gateway and gets back to the sensors, which are pretty fried. The thermals are out on the port side and Max figures it's because they've been blown off Akamu completely. The rest of the intermittent sensor gaps appear to be due to some blown wiring, or what passes for wiring. Max doesn't have "spare alien spaghetti cabling" in his gear, although it may be possible to strip replacements from other systems, like the shipchef or those agro-drones in the cargo bay.
fanchergw
Admiral Duck Sauce
Dieter
Gatac
punkey
