The Other Side

Obsidian Arrows

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Time of our Lord Creatos 1539, Sunday the 23rd of Novembar (Nov-em-bar)

The Other Side

Clarish was counting down, “Twelve.. Eleven….Nine.. Eight.. Seven .. Six. Brace for crossing. She commanded then continued the count down Two.. One!”

Everyone held their breath.  There was no sound, no movement.  Nothing. Time itself had stopped.  Then with a start it started again.  The forward shutter started opening and the thrusters were firing.  They were close to something and the thrusters and nave systems were trying to adjust course.

Clarish looked at her monitor, The Collision alarm went off. 

Sweets looked at the forward monitor and jerked the yaw controller starboard.  He rolled the ship to port.  “I can’t see anything yet, give me a vector!”  Looking out the forward ports all you saw was the deflector shields red and yellow hues as they tried to push away solid object that were trying to destroy us.  So many that the entire field of view was obstructed.

Everyone was scanning their monitors for information.  They just didn’t have much yet.

“Cline fire the forward cannons” Clarish commanded.

“At what.” Cline looked at the black that was his monitor.

“I don’t care, shoot it all. Just blow a hole in whatever it is!” Clarish shouted

There was a hit and then hissss.  The ship was struck.  The self-sealing jell in the hull started to fill the hole. Bang!  Another hole. Then another.  Cline just kept his fingers on the fire button, but with the banging, hissing and alarms he wasn’t sure if they were even firing.  

“I’m got something.” Yell Tarinnish.  “Stop the roll and pull up.” 

Clarish was looking at her monitors.  Probe one, which was launch automatically at entry, just went blank.  “I got nothing. Probe one is dead and probe two has nothing.”

“I had a visual between the strikes, it was just a flash, but I saw black to our starboard.

Bang, another strike.

“We won’t have much of a ship at this rate!” yell Sweets, still pulling on the yoke with one hand and firing the nose thrusters with this right hand.” Tarinnish was attempting to diverte the main dorsal thrusters upward so as to swing the aft end of the ship, thus increasing their pitch. 

The forward cannons were making headway on the number of strikes on the shields.  Enough that black spots started appearing and then disappearing.  It was progress, but the shields were still red hot with flecks of yellow, gold, blue and green.  It was a sight to behold. One could say it was beautiful if it weren’t so deadly.

Tarinnish turned down the inertial dampeners.  They would need the energy elsewhere and instantly you felt the weight of their course change.

“Keep turning. I.. Damn! Probe two gone.” Clarish said.

Tarinnish said, “Fire a dorsal probe, we can see black as we turn.

It took a second as Clarish wanted to give the probe permission to transmit as soon as it launched.  This way they could get something as soon as the sheath separated.  Then she launched it.  There was a swooshing sound as it left the ship.  

Cline just kept firing the cannons.  They would overheat soon and then, well they needed to be out of whatever this was. 

Sweets was yelling something incoherent. He was looking at the top of the forward ports.

Tarinnish pulled his attention from his viewer.  The monitor that the probe would be sending information to.  He saw it too.  Clear black.

“We’re almost there.” 

Then Bang!  A big one.  Lots of hissing and the ship stopped rolling.  The black was fading.  Tarinnish looked at his ship’s status monitor.  One main drive was in red.  The other yellow.  The fusion reactors were both in red.

Clarish yelled, “Shutting down one! Restarting in ten.” 

“Sweets, go to thruster.” Tarinnish said as he started enabling all the thruster.  He was just about done when Sweets gasped. 

Before he could say anything 

, Clarish announced, “Reactor two is dying.” Then ordered, ‘Cline stop firing.  We will need what energy we have for the shield. 

Bang, hissssss

Tarinnish saw what Sweets reacted to. The forward view port was cracking. Tarinnish initiated the viewport shield and their space went back.  Now they were only bathed in the illumination of their instruments.  

“I really need a vector.” Sweets said in the calmest voice Tarinnish had ever heard.  

“Vector two-two-zero point four-four. By six-six-six.” Clarish said.

“Roger that.” Sweets responded.

“Tarinnish looked at this monitor.  Telemetry was started to come in.  It gave their current heading and the one Clarish just gave them.  They were still more than eight seven degrees off.  They had to complete the roll and then get their mains online to get the hell out of here.  Having their view restricted by the solid shield actually help relieve some of their anxiety in the cockpit as they were no longer seeing all the objects that were trying to destroy them.  Now they watched their monitors and did their jobs.

Bang, this one was not so bad and was not followed by a hiss.  

          Cline spoke up next, “Shield are at eight one percent and declining.”

          Clarish announced, “Reactor two has recovered, start up in six minutes.” 

          Sweets turned to Tarinnish, “I hope we have six minutes.”

          Tarinnish didn’t look back, He kept his attention on the monitor.  They had made thirteen degrees of correction, but the ships direction was not correcting fast enough.  He typed in a few commands and brought up the starboard thrusters, they were turning yellow.  

Sweets saw it on his monitor and started tapping the buttons instead of holding them down.  This started a vibration throughout the ship.

Clarish asked, “How long.” 

Tarinnish responded, “Two, three minutes tops.” 

Cline yelled, “I can use the scouts.” 

“Negative.” Sweets yelled, “Too far aft.”

“Roll the ship.” Clarish said.

Sweets understood what she wanted, “Roger that.” Rolling Port.”

Tarinnish gave a running report, “Ten…. fifteen.”

Clarish looked at Cline, “that was a good idea, it just needed some help.” 

Bang! No hiss

“Get the scouts read for a thruster burn.” She commanded.

Cline did so.

“Twenty five percent.” 

Clarish looked at her monitor and went silent.  There was no getting past that.  It filled the whole monitor.

“Sixty five percent, Start slowing the roll.”

“Negative.” Clarish commanded.  “Cline as soon as we get to eighty, fire those thrusters.” Clairsh turned her attention back to the cockpit, “Keep rolling, don’t stop until we are at eighty-five.”

“Oh SHit!” Tarinnish now saw it.

“Now Cline, 100 percent.  burn it all!” Clarish yelled.

Bang! Hiss, bang, bang.

The bulkhead doors slid shut.  Now all the parts of the ship were isolated from the others.  Sweets and Tarinnish in the cockpit, Cline and Clarish in the commons.

Bang! More hissing.

Tarinnish thought that even if they made it, there wouldn’t be much of a ship left.

A large Bang! And a gash appeared just below his feet.  The self-sealing gel quickly made it smaller then closed the gap.  Tarinnish’s ears popped and popped again as the pressure return to normal. 

Sweets said in a calm voice, “We’re going to die here.”

Tarinnish thought it odd to say such a thing with no emotion.  But he didn’t feel that way.  They would make it through this.  But for what?  Their ship would be almost useless, and the scouts could not be faring much better.

Bang! Hisssss another strike in their compartment and more popping of the ears.  Just how much more this ship could handle was totally unknown.  They were tough, but this was crazy.

Tarinnish yelled, “seventy eight... seventy-nine... Eighty”  He looked at sweets, “Pull her back.” 

Sweets adjusted his hand on the thrusters, he had to arrest the roll, or they would just end up where they started or worse just keep spinning until they were all pinned to the outer hull.

The push from the scouts was barely felt at first, but it was turning the ship.  Tarinnish and Clarish kept their attention of the object in front of them.  It slowly started to move downward.  The scale changed and the object got smaller, however the crosshair was still on the object and was moving very slowly.  

They both saw how the crosshair was picking up speed as the details of the object became clearer. A representation of the details were all done by lines.  Each one representing fifty meters.  This chunk was big, not a planet or even a moon, but something like an asteroid. How big it was, was not the problem, it was way too close and as more telemetry came in it was clear that it was not alone.  Thousands of smaller objects were starting to dot their path.

“What the….” Sweets said as he scanned Tarinnish’s screen. “We are going to be dodging shit for alunars.”

“Just get us past that one first.” Tarinnish pointed at the big one in their path. “One point two million kilometers and closing fast.”

“I can see that.” Sweet said returning to his calm voice.

The crosshairs moved much faster now.  

“We need to continue the turn until we are a hundred and eighty degrees from when we started, or at least pointed into clear space.  I want us as far away from that as we can get.” Clarish said into the comm.

“Roger that.  One hundred and eighty degrees from hell.” Sweets said.

Tarinnish also responded, “We will keep the turn as long as we have thrusters.” 

“Reactor one, restart in one minute.”  Clarish said.

Everyone was glad to hear that; it meant more power to shields and the forward cannons could be employed to destroy the pea sized objects that kept getting through the shields. 

Bang! A shutter could be felt throughout the ship.

“What was that?” everyone said at once.

Cline, “Scout one is offline.” 

“Reactor two is losing power.” Clarish announced. “I’m shutting everything down to restart one.” 

There was a long silence as systems started shutting down.  Lights, air, and a host of other equipment started to shut down.  “Restarting one.” Claish announced again.

Bang!

“God damn it! Quit hitting my ship!” Clarish yelled to the universe.

Bang!...Bang..BANG! Then silence.

“Reactor one online!” Clarish yelled.

Equipment started to come back online.  The air started moving again.

Tarinnish’s monitor switched view again, it showed the crosshair at the edge of the object, but the details of the object showed that they were close, a few hundred thousand kilometers, maybe.  Then the telemetry started to fill in, six hundred and seventy-eight thousand kilometers and closing fast. Very fast.

Other objects, much smaller were now registering.  

“Oh. you have got to be kidding me.” Sweets said. As he looked over at Tarinnish’s monitor.  

Tarinnish typed in a few commands and a heads-up display appeared in front of Sweets.  I will do my best to give you coordinate, but you’re just going to have to wing this.”

Now there was sweat on Sweet’s forehead.  He had been so calm all this time, but looking at what they faced, he was starting to lose his swagger.  Then he said, “If we make it out of this, there will be no living with my ego.” 

“If we make it out of this, I’ll pin a medal on your ego.” Tarinnish shot back.

They both laughed.  There was no way out of this, they were going to have to go through and they only had one reactor and scout one was now non-responsive.  

Back in the commons, Clarish and Cline were looking over the damage and trying to re-establish communication with scout one.  It flickered back to life as they tested one port after another.  

“There!” Cline shouted even though his captain was right beside him.  

“I’ll see what I can do with reactor two.”  Clarish typed in a few commands. A schematic to reactor two appeared.  There was so much red she didn’t know where to start.  It had no pressure, no heat.  No pumps.  She stopped looking at what it didn’t have and started looking at what it did have.  Radiation.  Lots and lots of radiation and it was leaking into other compartments.  

“I need to eject reactor two.” She announced to the ship.

Cline responded, “Roger that, start ejection sequence of reactor two.” 

“The whole compartment, not just the reactor.” Clarish corrected.

“Entire compartment. Copy.” Cline said slowly and turned to type in the commands.

“Tarinnish, please type in your command codes.” Clarish said in a very sober voice. “Please copy.” 

“Roger that.” Tarinnish said to his microphone.  He then looked at his monitor and saw the prompt.  He Typed in his code.  They were crippling their ship.  But what choice did they have.  If they kept the reactor it would kill them.  But without the reactor they may never get out of here.  It would take them more than a cycle to get up to point four-five light.  They just wouldn’t have the power. Damn these small ships.

            End of Chapter 12

Next Chapter 13

This blog contains two books of the Remnant Series If you want to start at the beginning of Book 6, click the link below.

1st Chapter of Obsidian Arrows

If you want to read more about the Remnant Series see the links below.

            Book 1-3: Graham Heights available on Amazon.com

            Book 4: The Grey Abyss available on Amazon.com

            Bood 5: Chaos coming soon to Amazon.com

Book 6: Obsidian Arrows

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Thank-you
R. A. Legg

    
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