Chapter Ten (1/2)
The lights flickered red across the shattered bridge as the emergency systems came online, revealing that the forward half of the bridge was carbonized wreckage, seared by when the bridge atmosphere had been turned into a plasma cloud. There were seats holding parts of the crew that had been left when the short trip through jumpspace had torn them apart at a molecular level.
The ship tumbled, bleeding air and energy and debris. Two vac-suits, thankfully only worn by corpses, spun into the void.
”Ship computer cores are out. Completely fused, rotating backups from cold storage,” Chakuva panted, the meds in his system keeping him from going into shock despite having two of his arms ripped away in a haze of freed molecules being spread across light-years. ”Right before they fused out they reported that something was physically touching them, even though that is impossible.”
”It spoke,” Lektat moaned, taking his hands off his ears. ”That ship, it spoke.” He had blood on his palms from where he'd covered his ears.
Nakteti looked at her helmsman. ”What did it say?” she asked, remembering what she'd seen on the screen.
”It told me to run, run home,” Lektat said. He glanced at his computer as it came up. ”Jumpdrive is charged.”
Screens came up and Chakuva gagged as the ship suddenly swung away from the behemoth and accelerated.
”Secondary cores are fused, only one deep storage core remains. Liquid coolant is operating at only 30% of efficiency. There's some kind of resonance in the gel,” Chakuva gasped. ”I've never seen software, firmware, or hardware damage like this before.”
The ship suddenly went dark again as the sole remaining lobe died. Before it went, it screamed across the speaker ”ONLY ONE!” and imploded.
”All systems on local control,” Chakuva said. He coughed. ”Get us, get us into jumpspace.”
”Unidentified ship is closing,” Vekan said, raising his head and coughing. ”Most of my scanners are either destroyed or the software's crashed. What readings I am getting don't make sense. I'm having to rely off of optical measurements and estimates.”
”What do you mean?” Nakteti asked, feeling a rush of joy that her scan-tech was still alive.
”Putting it on your display,” Vekan said.
Nakteti looked at the screen and jerked back. According to the scanners what was coming straight at them was a burning skull of her own species, jaws stretched in a silent scream of agony, flames puffing from the jaws. Written over and over was ”THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE OF US” across the screen in twisted and writhing script.
”Lock down the ship, total EMCON, rig for silent running,” Nakteti found herself giving an order she had learned about in captain's school but never thought she would ever need.
Nobody but pirates and pirate hunters had used it in centuries.
”Rigging for silent running,” Chakuva said, taking over the communications station from his damage control panel. He looked back. ”To be honest, Captain, there isn't many systems that are still up. Any worse and we're going to have to go to the jump core and tell it directly what we want,” he gave a weak laugh.
”Unknown ship is still gaining,” Vekan said.
”That's impossible. It's too big to get that kind of acceleration,” Chakuva said, shaking his head. ”It's too big to even move with any known drives! It's the size of a moon!”
”Get out and tell it that,” Lektat said. He reached across his displays and typed an order, bringing close range passive scans onto one of his. His eyes widened and he suddenly yanked his joysticks, spinning the ship again on all three axis.
Nakteti was positive that Lektat was trying to create a fourth axis for the ship to move on.
”MANY INCOMING!” Lektat cried out. ”JUMPSPACE JUM...”
Nakteti expected him to hit the emergency jump button again. It would discharge the entire jumpcore, it was risky, but it would throw the ship into jumpsace for a few moments and drop the ship at the closest star.
It also damaged the jumpdrives and the jumpcore.
The ship moved again into jumpspace. Nakteti would be asked to describe the sensation of being exposed to jumpspace, explain the eye watering flow of color, the sense of mass moving past you, the feeling that time was stretched out.
All she could do was stare at it, watching vapors slowly spill from outside the ship, through the damaged bulkheads, and into the bridge.
”We can't stay here long,” Nakteti said. ”Turn us toward home.”
”NO!” Lektat shouted. Nakteti looked at him and he shook his head. ”No, we can't lead it back. If we lead it back, it will do to whichever world we bring it to what it did to our home.”
Nakteti felt like she crumpled up inside of herself.
YOU WILL BE CONSUMED HERE
Everyone on the bridge screamed as the shrieking voice made itself heard by vibrating the bones of their skulls. When the voice ended Vekan looked up, the fur around his eyes suddenly white with stress.