Deep Space - Chapter 13
Imported from SF2 with no description.
Spark waited for Rick by the door, keying the hatch open at his signal. A small man stood on the other side, holding a large cylinder which he held up as the door opened. “Forgive the late welcome, I am Terrison and I have your order of drive fuel. I was waylaid on your arrival and unable to meet with you before now, for that I apologize. Your other payment, less the agreed upon price for this delivery should already be in your account.” He again raised up the heavy looking cylinder towards Rick, who reached out and with some effort managed to take possession of the package. “Now then, on behalf of everyone on the planet we thank you for your aid in this matter, and you timely response to our request. At this time, we are unable to allow anyone to transport down to the surface but when you visit us again, we hope to be able to share our hospitality with you. Your fuel ship should arrive soon, sometime within this cycle to provide you with what you will require to return to Earth and complete your other mission. Again, I offer you our apologies and wish you a safe trip back home.”
The small man, Terrison gave a deep bow, then turned on his heel and departed back towards a shuttle parked on the other side of the depot. Rick watched the man leave, carefully setting down the fuel pod and rubbing his shoulders. “Wow, that thing is heavier than it looks. I’m going to go grab the small sled and get this emptied into the storage tank. Think you can monitor from your control room and give the system a full diagnostic while you are there? Shouldn’t take me more than half an hour to transfer the fuel and the diagnostic should run for a good hour and a half if you are thorough. Afterwards I’ll cook breakfast and we can discuss what we will do once we are able to start back towards Earth.”
Spark nodded before scampering off towards her console. She had already run a full system scan but once the fuel was loaded, she wanted to get another one done of that system to insure no leaks. Keying up the first report from the day before she went over the numbers and saved them into a separate window to compare to the new figures once Rick had filled the tank. That task completed she then began a test of the inertial dampeners and the deep space drive that would allow them to reach Earth once they had the fuel to get there. Tests begun, she hopped down and went to go assist Rick with the loading of the fuel.
It took them longer than Rick had anticipated but finally they had the fuel loaded and Spark began the comparative test on the system. Later that day sometime just before dinner the gunship contacted them to let Rick know that the fuel ship was arriving and the flight plan for the trip back. After the fueling was completed Rick set the course for Earth and at a signal from the gunship both ships began the week-long flight back to Earth. On the trip back, Spark focused on her studies, spending long hours at the terminal and taking breaks only for meals, her daily exercise routine, sleep, and to use the facilities. Rick spent most of his time in the cockpit running simulations or catching up on galactic news. It was three days into the trip, Spark was working on her console and Rick was deep in a simulation when disaster struck.
Spark’s only warning was when her console suddenly flashed red warning lights, her school program closing into the background as alerts and warnings began going off all over her console. Her first action was to key on the shields to full as Rick had taught her, then she keyed off the engines. The first warning had alerted her to an over exertion in the drive system and the second was a proximity alarm. Moments later an impact shook the ship just as Rick ripped the simulator helmet off and pulled his main display into a more accessible position. A second then a third impact rocked the ship, and Spark noticed that the shields had dropped to 96% on the port side. She keyed up the dormant two generators, dedicating one to the secondary shields while sending power to the primary, the shields rising back up to 98% as a fourth impact rocked the ship.
Rick watched as the shields recovered from the assault, knowing that Spark was probably already manning their output and when the secondary shield formed behind the primary on the port side, he relaxed a bit. He sent a hail to the gunship, turning his sensors to check their status. From his console he was able to determine what had happened, a disruption field was spread over the area which would cause interruptions in the protective bubble that allowed them to sustain high velocity flight. When the bubble was disrupted, the system automatically dropped them back into normal space to prevent catastrophic failure of the inertial dampeners as the high stress of flying at such high speeds would tear a ship apart in moments without the protective bubble. His screens displayed an area nearly ½ a lightyear in diameter that was being affected by the disruption, jumping back to high velocity to escape wouldn’t be an option. Also, the four pirate vessels that were attacking them would also prevent an escape using the sub light engines. Three of the pirate vessels seemed to be focusing on the gunship, while the fourth had slipped around their transport and was using them as a shield to protect them from the gunship’s weapons which were already opening up on the other three pirate ships.
Already one of the pirate ships was turning to run, their forward and starboard shields well below the 50% mark as the gunship continued to rain down fire onto the retreating ship. One of the other pirate ships moved in to block the gunship’s line of fire, their shields also dropping from the assault of the heavy energy weapons but it seemed as though their shields were either stronger or more focused as the blasts only managed to drop them down to 86% with the first salvo. Now, all three ships that had attacked the gunship were moving to escape while the ship that had ducked behind the transport continued to rain fire heavily into the shields. Spark however was ready for this and as the shields fell to 80%, she cycled the secondary screen to the front raising them all the way back to 100% as the primary shield began to regenerate, protected by the added wall of defensive energy. Spark kept this up, rotating the shields at the 80% mark and was easily able to use the third generator to repower the weakened shield system back to full power with almost a minute to spare between swaps.
Rick watched Spark play with the shields, knowing just how frustrating that tactic had been when the two of them had done a sparring match to predict just this sort of scenario. He keyed up the comms and spoke to Spark. “Get ready for a roll and dump, going to give that gunship a good line on this elusive target.” Spark replied with a giggle and a bark of affirmation before returning to her task of raising the blood pressure of their opponent who had thought that a simple unarmed transport would make for an easy target. Rick used the thrusters to roll the ship so their upper shields were facing the attacking ship, Spark rolling the shields as well to provide protection while at the same time activating the magnetic locks on the sleds and loaders in the cargo bay as well as their one package that was currently sitting only a few meters away in the same cargo bay as Spark’s station. She watched as the large cargo bay doors began to open, a force shield similar to that which protected the doorway rising to separate her section from the rest of the cargo bay. Moments later the outer screens vanished, the atmosphere exploding out into space as the ship seemed to lurch upwards at an impossible speed and angle, another trick Spark had used on Rick during their time in the simulator.
Caught unawares, the pirate ship was unable to react in time as the transport suddenly seemed to explode away, the gunship now coming into clear view as they attempted to maneuver back into their previous position. The gunship, having been warned of the maneuver had positioned itself perfectly and as the pirate ship suddenly came into view all turrets fired in a deadly salvo. Instantly, the pirate ship’s forward shields dropped from full to 13%, the ship turning as the others had in an attempt to flee the sudden powerful onslaught. The second salvo caught the pirate ship along the starboard side, that shield dropping as well to below 20% in the first wave as the ship attempted to turn and flee, already running its sub light engines to get themselves back behind the transport and into a safer position. The pilot of the pirate ship was skilled, and the next blast caught the upper shield and the aft shield simultaneously, the ship rolling to protect their weakened screens and spreading the damage across multiple shield screens, both of which were in the 60’s after the first shot from the powerful gunship.
The pirates managed to maneuver their ship back into the protective screen of the transport before the next barrage, firing one last futile volley at the impenetrable screens of the transport as they engaged their engines to escape. Spark watched them go, the gunship taking aim at the field generator that had been left behind by the pirates. Two volleys later the field was gone and the two ships returned to their course, the gunship logging the incident and sending a report ahead to Earth to notify their command of the attack and that they were continuing on with no incident though the four attacking ships had fled when they realized that a gunship had been caught in their net along with the transport. The remainder of the trip was uneventful, though Rick and Spark took turns leaving their consoles, making sure that someone was always ready to activate the shields should the pirates try again to ambush their group.
Back at Earth the gunship signaled farewell and safe travels as Rick set a course for the orbital repair facility. They were directed to dock in the third space bay, the ship getting pulled into the facility by powerful tractor beams. Rick left Spark to oversee the repairs, taking their delivery and renting a small shuttle for the trip to the nearby station. The engineers were at first surprised by Spark, wanting to know who they were to report to but after a few minutes of talking they seemed willing enough to follow her directions. By the time Rick returned she had the engineers all working to replace the damaged hull plating, the novelty of her size and species had apparently worn off too as they fell into the rhythm of removing plates and applying new ones, stacking the damaged plating in cargo bay 1. Spark had donned her pressure suit and was out directing the work like a true engineer would, her sharp gaze taking in the entire activity as she called out directions.
Rick returned a few hours later, Spark still working hard directing the repairs. He sat down in his chair, keying up the comm frequency to listen in as he directed one of the lower cameras to watch the events as they unfolded. He enjoyed watching Spark work, especially now when she had competent helpers to move things along. The repairs were well underway though the replacement of the bulkheads would take the rest of the day and the application of the heat shielding would take another two. Still, he watched the scene unfold before him and again wondered how he had gotten so lucky to find her on that fateful day.