The Malcontent of Mars — Chapter V: Rock Lobster
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EPI
“Warning. Warning. Warning. Warning.”
The radar on Mehmet’s heads-up display flashed a bright red, indicating that his ship, the Rock Lobster, was now entering firing range of the Sledgehammer.
“Understood,” he said to the ship’s computer, and the warning shrank away into a small red bar in the corner of the display. He flipped several switches above the controls to activate the early warning system, which would detect if any weapons were actually fired.
“Two direct hits confirmed on Sledgehammer’s port side,” the computer said. “Likely to be calculating counter-trajectory.”
“I know, I know,” Mehmet said. “I got lucky, their shields weren’t at full capacity. I bet they’ll be changing that any second.”
The computer did not answer.
The Rock Lobster was not originally designed as a battleship, but rather it was a Terran-manufactured All-Purpose Heavy Lifting and Endurance Vessel for use in freight and construction. It was a round, red ship with a stubby egg-like body, and two steel pincers, intended for use in moving shipping containers and building materials, were affixed to its bow, from which Mehmet’s APHLEV derived its name. Mehmet, however, had modified the ship somewhat – that is to say, APHLEVs did not come out of the factory armed with torpedo-launchers, missiles and railguns.
The controls used gesture recognition. The ship’s arms were controlled by two metal frames into which the user inserted their arms, and tracked the user’s arms movements on to the pincers, and could give haptic feedback regarding objects. The ship was controlled standing up, with Mehmet standing behind a set of pedals, which gave him full-body control of the ship’s manoeuvres and acceleration. It took a strong stomach and a fit body to pilot an APHLEV effectively, especially in situations it was not designed for, such as battle.
It was therefore fortunate that Mehmet had both.
The ansible rang. “Incoming call from Cybele,” the computer said.
“Answer,” Mehmet said, trying to pilot the ship in a way that would frustrate the Sledgehammer’s defenses.
“Mehmet, you son of a bitch,” Kowalski said.
“Good to speak to you, Kowalski,” Mehmet said, trying to get the ship out of firing range. “I can’t talk for long. How are you holding up?”
“Not too hot,” Kowalski said, gravely. “They’ve scored a direct hit on the LSS. We’ve got a backup. I’ve just volunteered to fix it.”
“Aman tanrım.”
“Listen,” Kowalski said. “It’s Maxwell. I shot him. He’s found me. I think he’s after me.”
“Yeah, he, er…paid me a visit on Luna. I saw what you did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, is all,” Mehmet said, slightly indignantly. “Anyway, he’s not just after you. He’s after the CALAIS.”
“Well, that’s going to be a problem for him.”
Mehmet sighed. “Why?”
“Because she’s piloting my ship right now.”
Mehmet checked the heads-up display. Sure enough, there was a ship with the identification code “A8223PP”, and below it the callsign: “California Dreamin’”.
Mehmet whapped his hand against his forehead. “Oh man, that’s bad.”
“Yeah. That ship has almost no shielding. One hit and she’s a goner.”
Mehmet paused for a second to think.
“Mehmet?”
“Okay,” Mehmet said. “That hit on the LSS will convince them for a little while that you’re all done for, inshallah. That’ll buy you some time to fix it. Meantime, I’ll try to hold them off. Tell the CALAIS to expect a radio contact from RL510.”
“Roger,” Kowalski said. “Oh, also, she has a name.”
“Who?”
“Quit calling her ‘the CALAIS’. She’s not an object. She’s very particular about that. Her name is ‘Callie’.”
Mehmet paused for a moment. “Uh, okay. Roger that.”
“Over and out,” Kowalski said, cutting off the communication.
Mehmet looked at the heads-up display. “Callie, huh?” he said. “I like it.”
He flipped a couple of switches and leaned his body forward, stepping down on the pedal, and the ship dropped into a steep decline, down into the fray.
●
Maxwell slammed his fist down on the table. “Damage report,” he growled.
Jefrey stared at him in bewildered terror.
“DAMAGE REPORT,” Maxwell repeated, through gritted teeth. The electrolarynx made him sound terrifying.
“M-minor hull damage,” Jefrey stammered. “All systems operating at a c-capacity of 90% or above.”
“Very good,” Maxwell replied, calmly. He wheeled around ferociously to Aeterna. “Well? Don’t just stand there. Return fire!”
“Aye-aye,” Aeterna said, running over to the controls, calculating the position of the unidentified craft. “Man, that thing is moving fast.”
“Well, then fire something fast at it. And for God’s sake, put the shields up to maximum capacity as soon as you can. If I’d known we’d be dealing with fucking torpedoes I’d have had you power them up hours ago…”
The ship’s computer locked on to the comparatively tiny ship. Four white circles appeared along the bottom of the bridge’s main screen, turning black in quick succession. Correspondingly, four guided missiles were fired out of the ship’s port-side missile launchers, all on course to hit it.
“Let’s see him try and evade that,” Maxwell said. “Once we’ve got him, concentrate your fire on that asteroid. Richards, stay on course to intercept that frigate. And Jefrey?”
Jefrey looked at him.
“Try not to be so useless.”
Jefrey nodded and resignedly returned to his control panel.
*
Kowalski couldn’t hear anything but his breathing inside the suit. Joni had yelled at him for wasting time talking to Mehmet. Fair point, he thought. He could only walk so briskly in this heavy suit, and had to be sure to regulate his breathing such that he didn’t deplete the oxygen tanks too quickly. There was no guarantee he would make it in time. But he had to try. For everyone’s sake.
The long walk to the backup LSS was through a winding series of caverns, clearly disused. Occasionally he would come upon a storage room, but the caverns were otherwise desolate and unlit, clearly not seen as having much use. He supposed they had been dug out by miners shortly before Cybele was totally depleted of her natural resources, owing to their irregular and hasty nature when compared to the relatively clean and neat nature of the caverns leading out of the hangar, and Joni’s court.
Hastily, arrows had been cut into the rock, pointing the way to Cybele’s backup life-support system, though presumably not by the current residents. Of course, when Cybele had first been colonised, they had not anticipated a direct torpedo strike on the main life-support system. It was eerily quiet except for the sound of his breathing, the airtight suit almost completely closing out any external noise. Until quite recently Kowalski had always been alone, and he was beginning to see what isolation could do to him.
He switched on a small computer built into the suit. Its display, located in the helmet, was a very low-resolution projector, a far cry from the sophisticated displays of spaceships and of Cybele’s war room. All the readings were given exclusively as uniformly formatted yellow text. In the bottom of the projection was a timer, estimating the amount of usable oxygen left, both in the tanks and outside. Kowalski had a couple of hours. The colony had about twenty minutes. He had been forbidden from all unnecessary communication in order to prevent unnecessary waste of air.
Eventually, he came to a door, bordered in yellow and black stripes, that had clearly not been opened in a long time. He pressed the green “OPEN” button on a panel situated next to the door, but the door did not open. Just above it was an emergency winch, so he started to turn that. As the door slowly opened he entered an unlit room filled with abandoned water purifiers and air pumps. It was then that the implications of the unpowered control panel dawned on him.
The room was entirely silent.
As he searched for a power source, he contacted Joni.
“This had better be important, Mister Kowalski,” they said, and Kowalski could hear them wheezing.
“We’ve got a problem. There’s no power.”
“There’s a backup generator and a fuel canister in there. Power it up and the LSS should automatically switch on.”
“Roger.”
There was a small flashlight in the suit which he switched on, searching the room for the generator.
After a few minutes he found it. The machine showed its age: the thing still ran on fossil fuels, which had been all but abandoned after the Great Catastrophe. He poured in some fuel from a jerry can. He heard a horrible sound of something wet hitting a stone floor.
When he turned his flashlight towards the generator, he saw that someone, some time ago, had opened it up and taken out the fuel line, perhaps in an effort to repair a spaceship. Upon this realisation, Kowalski could only find one word to utter:
“Fuck.”
~
Christine was as scared as she had ever been. Just days ago she had left her dormitory in London to check out a book at the library, and now she was trapped in a room that was steadily running out of air in the belly of a cold asteroid somewhere out by Jupiter. She had always wanted to visit space, but she had never wanted to die in space.
I just wanted to read my book, she thought.
She and a few other young people had been given spare oxygen tanks as a kindness from Joni. The tanks only had so much oxygen, but they would sustain her and the other children, so long as they regulated their breathing, which was difficult when under attack. She stood silently at the projection table and watched, as though a giant, over the Rock Lobster. Ralph seemed to have known the pilot of the Rock Lobster, but his arrival was cold comfort considering the dire situation with the life-support system.
The Rock Lobster suddenly took a dive towards the Sledgehammer. As she watched, she noticed four dots with with dotted line trails behind them all converging towards the Rock Lobster.
“Oh my God,” Christine said.
Joni was sitting against a console, trying to regulate their breathing. “What?”
“They’re firing missiles, Your Majesty,” Christine said. “We have to help the pilot of the Rock Lobster.”
“How?” Joni said. “Mister Kowalski already said that you can’t intercept Terran weapons.”
“No,” Christine said. “But there must be something we can do, Your Majesty.”
Joni wheezed. “I’m too weak to use the squidcap,” they said, eventually.
“Let me do it,” Christine said. “Please. Your Majesty.”
“You don’t have any training.”
“Do you have any better plans, Your Majesty?”
Joni thought for a moment. “I suppose you’re right. Quickly, child.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Christine said, in a clumsy half-curtsy.
Joni smiled. “No need for all the pageantry, my dear,” they said. “Do something.”
☾
“Alert! Alert! Alert! Incoming projectile!” the computer barked, followed by a whoop whoop.
“I can see that,” Mehmet said, flipping a switch to turn on the G-dampeners as he swung the ship around. He counted four guided missiles, which were notoriously difficult, though not impossible, to evade. He drew the ship into a tight barrel roll in an attempt to confuse the missiles, which were only getting closer by the second.
“Shit,” he said, space whirling around him in a tight circle. There was a reason rookie APHLEV pilots were injected with anti-emetics during training. The enormous Big Black that had fired the missiles spun like a great black cuboid in space as he swung around it, trying to get the missiles off his tail. Without warning, he pulled a tight turn to port and watched as one of the missiles spun uselessly out of control, colliding with another in a tremendous blast.
“That’s two down,” he said, trying to type in the calling code for the California Dreamin’ while also evading the missiles.
He noticed that the Big Black’s engines were active, and the hulking behemoth was on the move.
He hit the “CALL” button on the ansible and got put through to Kowalski’s ship.
“Mehmet!” said a familiar voice. “Long time no speak.”
“Hey, Callie,” Mehmet replied, steering the ship away from the two oncoming missiles. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Well, we could have had a chat if you hadn’t locked me in a wooden box for eight years,” Callie said, indignantly. “So, you’ve come to save the day, huh?”
“You could say that,” Mehmet said, pulling a hard turn to port. “I think that Big Black is after you.”
“Big what now?”
“That Terran command ship. You need to get to safety.”
“This is what I was built for, Mehmet. I know what I’m doing.”
“Callie!”
“I just traced your coordinates. Are you seriously having a pow-wow with me while two missiles are on your tail?”
“My first concern is your safety!”
“I’m flattered, Mehmet. But I know how to take care of myself. Oh, also, I’d watch your six if I were you, right…about…now.”
“Wait, wh—”
There was a vibration through the ship’s rear as one of the missiles exploded.
“You’re welcome,” Callie said, and Mehmet watched as the California Dreamin’ sailed overhead.
“You could have killed me!”
“But I didn’t.”
Mehmet saw that one more missile was bringing up the rear.
“Can you deal with this one as well?”
“You’re lucky I dealt with the first one.”
“Great,” Mehmet said, trying to steer hard to starboard. There was no response from the controls.
“Port-side engine disabled,” the computer said.
“Now you tell me!”
He tried to steer the ship into a loop, but the missile was far too close to make such a manoeuvre feasible. For a split second, he caught himself thinking that now would be a good time to make peace with Allah. There was a terrible bang like the universe was caving in, then silence.
When he opened his eyes, he realised that he was still alive, and the ansible was ringing. He answered it.
“I am so sorry,” said a voice on the other end. It was, to his ringing ears, a young girl.
“What?”
“I stopped the missile but I think I damaged your engine.”
“You…stopped the missile?”
“I’m on Cybele. I fired something at it.”
“You…you intercepted a Terran missile from an asteroid?”
“Y-yes. Is that bad?”
“Nice shot,” Mehmet said, laughing, leaning back in his seat. “Aman Allahım.”
*
There were minutes of useful oxygen left. Kowalski had to think fast. He searched the room for a piece of useless piping, anything that he could use in lieu of the fuel line.
There was nothing lying on the ground. He would have to cannibalise one of the other machines, which would waste precious minutes. He was beginning to feel hopeless. Everyone on Cybele could well be doomed because of a stroke of bad luck, and none of this would have transpired if he hadn’t decided to land here in the first place. He ran through every bad decision he’d made up to that point and saw a long line of failures.
“God damn it!”
He wrenched open a panel on a water purification machine and searched inside it. There were a series of small flexible tubes of varying lengths he could use. He wrenched out one of the pipes and let the liquid trickle out of it. Inspecting it, he could see some sort of life growing inside it.
Water purification system, my ass.
He ran over to the backup generator and installed the pipe, tried as hard as he could to ensure that it was watertight, and then poured in the fuel. He put on the fuel cap and pressed the ignition button. There was no sound.
“Come on, come on.”
Kowalski smacked the machine with his hand. There was a small sound of mechanical parts moving, and then the machine belched into life, emitting a soft hum. Inside, turbines span, making quiet vwoom-vwoom-vwoom sounds. The lights flickered on. He walked over to the backup life-support system. A small screen with a bar in the red appeared, indicating that the air levels were critical. The machine immediately began pumping oxygen into the corridors. A small map of the asteroid showed where the oxygen was being pumped, and the bar began to fill up.
Kowalski switched on his radio.
“Joni?”
“Yes, Mister Kowalski?”
“The backup LSS is now operational. Says here that oxygen levels should be nominal in a few minutes.”
“Good work, Mister Kowalski. Now get back up here.”
“Roger.”
Kowalski went to leave the room.
There was a terrible rumbling sound outside, followed by deathly silence.
Kowalski pressed the button to open the door, but nothing happened. He looked out of a small circular window in one of the doors out into the corridor. The corridor had caved in.
Kowalski calmly switched on his radio again.
“Joni? I have another problem.”
●
“What’s the matter, Richards?” Maxwell asked. “Why can’t you intercept the Martian’s ship?”
Richards shrugged.
“Keep at it,” Maxwell said. “How’s our little friend?”
“No direct hits,” Aeterna said. “But we have managed to disable his engines.”
“So he’s a sitting duck. Now’s the time to fire at him.”
“Well, I would, but it looks like the Martian’s ship is protecting it. If we fire missiles and accidentally hit it, it’s curtains.”
“Hmm, I see your point. We have to disable the Martian’s vessel first. Ready the disruption tethers.”
“Aye-aye.”
“I’m detecting a heat signature from the asteroid consistent with a weapons discharge,” Jefrey shouted. “Should I respond?”
“From the asteroid?” Maxwell said. “We hit their LSS. They’re goners.”
“That’s what the readings are saying.”
“Very well, fire the railguns at the surface. Try and hit their weapons systems. That should scare them off, at least for the time being. And try not to miss.”
“Aye-aye,” Jefrey said, turning back to his controls.
“These people have made a fool out of me for the last time,” Maxwell said, in an angry, electronic snarl. “Let’s show them real firepower.”
☾
Mehmet’s hands were blackened with soot. The Rock Lobster’s engines were not irreparable, but the power supply had been significantly damaged by the shrapnel, which meant that he had to engineer a solution on the fly. Thankfully there were backup circuits, but the extent of the damage was such that even some of those had to be hastily jury-rigged together.
“How are you holding up, Callie?” he asked.
“I’m okay,” Callie said, over the ansible. “Things are a little too quiet for my liking, though. I think they’re regrouping.”
“Stay alert,” Mehmet said. “They’re probably planning another counter-attack. In the meantime, look for any weak points. If we can take down their shields, then they’re wide open to Cybele.”
“Roger.”
He finished soldering two circuits together, pulled himself out of the electrical compartment and winched the door shut behind him, then returned to the controls and hit the switch. There was a small electrical crackle and a distinct smell of ozone, then a soft wheeze of engines coming to life.
“That’ll have to do,” he said, wearily, running quickly through the checklist he had been trained to run through on Mars all those years ago: “LSS nominal. Engines OK. Navigation system nominal. Control system nominal. Weapons nominal. Communications nominal. We are go for launch.”
He swung the ship around and began reconnaissance for the Big Black’s shield system. It was difficult, though not impossible, to take down the shields through extremely close-range fire, and once they were taken down, ships of this size tended to be relatively easy to kill given enough firepower. He didn’t want to tell himself he was fighting a losing battle, even though a voice in the back of his head was saying as much.
As he approached the Big Black, there suddenly came a whoop whoop from inside the control panel.
“Weapons discharge detected! Take evasive action!” the computer barked.
Mehmet moved the ship erratically to avoid a lock-on. “Identify!” he instructed the computer.
“Analysing…” came the response, as Mehmet spun around. “…disruption tethers detected.”
“Disruption teth—oh shit, Callie!”
He flew towards the Martian frigate as fast as he could. Already he could see it: An enormous black cable with a rocket-propelled probe at the end, designed to short out all electrical circuits on board a ship unfortunate enough to be struck by it – headed right for her.
“Callie!” he shouted into the ansible. “Move!”
“Miles ahead of you,” Callie replied, as the probe surged towards her, whirling around.
Mehmet fired railguns, trying to take down the probe, but it was moving too fast.
“Lock on to that tether. Fire missiles at it.”
“Understoo—” the computer said, before all lights on the Rock Lobster went out.
The engines made a sort of wheezing noise and the ship simply began to drift aimlessly.
“No!” Mehmet cried, desperately, plugging a small device on his belt into the control panel. His fears were confirmed.
The small screen on the device filled with yellow, dispassionate text:
LSS OFFLINE
ENGINES OFFLINE
CTRL SYS OFFLINE
WEAPONS OFFLINE
COMMS OFFLINE
SYSTEM FAILURE
SEEK ASSISTANCE
~
Christine did not know what the large objects hurtling towards Ralph’s ship were, but she could see where they were coming from. She fired a volley of shots at the cables in an effort to snap them, but they were unaffected. She thought they must be made of some sort of carbon-fibre, something very hard to break. Now that the oxygen had returned, Joni was standing nearby, watching on a nearby monitor. Joni said nothing.
She fired another volley of shots, then another. A call came over the ansible, Callie’s voice, agitated but tinged with fear: “Stop firing at me, you idiots!”
She became so lost in her need to take down the violent probes that she did not notice the large Terran ship firing a volley of shots at Cybele’s surface. Caleb, however, did.
“Brace for impact!” he shouted, as the shots battered against the surface of the asteroid.
“Damage report,” Joni said, quietly, in the tone of someone resigned to their fate.
“Some minor external damage,” a soldier said. “They might have hit one of the turrets.”
“Hold your fire, Christine,” Joni said. “We don’t want to invite further destruction.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Christine replied, sadly, removing the headset. “I’m sorry.”
“Not to worry, child,” Joni said. “You’re doing the best you can given the circumstances. I’m sorry someone so young has been caught up in this. War is no place for a young lady.”
“No,” Christine said, angrily. “But the man in that ship has done horrible things. I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone. He doesn’t deserve to live.”
Joni shook their head sadly. “Violence can only beget violence. This is not the right way to resolve our differences.”
Christine looked at them. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, he has killed women and children. He can’t be allowed to leave here alive.”
Joni sighed. “And what will killing him resolve? Hmm? Will killing that man and his crew – supposing he has a crew – bring those children back? No. All it offers us is the momentary catharsis of knowing we have sent a man to his death. We are humans, not beasts. We know better than that. This man must be brought to justice, not executed summarily.”
“Well, then I’m afraid we disagree,” Christine said, sullenly. “I want to see him dead.”
“One day you will understand, I promise you,” Joni said. “But for now – hold your fire.”
Christine nodded, and watched the hologram on the table. She watched Ralph’s ship spinning around and around, looping and twisting, desperately trying to evade capture. The smaller ship, the Rock Lobster, was not moving at all, ensnared by one of the probes.
She watched with horror as Ralph’s ship, too, succumbed to the probes, struck three times.
The battle had been lost.
The battlefield belonged to Maxwell.
*
A hatch on the surface of Cybele opened silently in the vacuum of space, and a figure pushed itself out, adjusted momentarily to the change in gravity, and closed the hatch behind it, sealing the door shut and checking an atmospheric pressure gauge on the door to ensure there was no chance of decompression. The surface was covered in solar panels, as well as the smashed, charred remains of those that had been destroyed in the torpedo attack.
Kowalski’s oxygen tanks were running low, and to make things worse, the battle was raging overhead, albeit noiselessly, but Kowalski could see how frighteningly close it was. He also saw the moment that the enormous Terran command ship fired a volley of shots at Cybele, and threw himself to the ground. There was no sound but his breathing, but he felt the force of every impact vibrate through his bones, and groaned as he held on to a small set of rungs that had been built into the asteroid’s surface for the purpose of acclimatising to the surface-level of gravity.
He cursed, feeling bile rising in his throat from sheer terror. He watched as the hulking behemoth, which had already ensnared Mehmet’s ship with a disruption tether, snatched up his own ship.
“NO!” he screamed in anguish, though nobody was around to hear him, beating his fists against the ground.
Mehmet’s ship was released, left to drift in space, while his ship, his home, the California Dreamin’, was slowly winched towards the huge ship.
He had lost.
For the first time in a very long time, Ralph Kowalski shed tears and cried.
●
The airlock opened, and Maxwell, Aeterna and Jefrey stepped through it. The Martian ship was cold, silent and eerily quiet.
“I always hated these ships,” Maxwell said. “Horrible things.”
“The CALAIS will be attached to the ship’s main computer,” Jefrey said. “It’ll be on the bridge.”
“Good,” Maxwell said. “Let’s fetch it.”
They followed the signs, hastily spray-painted on the walls, up to the bridge, where at the front there was a control panel, usually illuminated but currently in pitch darkness. Jefrey waved a flashlight.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Aeterna said. “It’s like it’s dead.”
“Not dead,” Maxwell said. “Sleeping.”
Jefrey climbed under the console with the flashlight and opened the panel on the bottom. He pulled out a blue circuit board. “I think this is it,” he said, checking it. “Yeah, the architecture matches the schematics.”
“Excellent,” Maxwell said, as Jefrey handed him the circuit board. “Well, I must say, that was far easier than I had anticipated.”
They found their way back through the empty ship, reaching the airlock once more, and stepping through it, closing it behind them.
“What should we do with the ship?” Jefrey asked.
“Leave it,” Maxwell replied, with a grin. “Let it be a trophy.”
Jefrey nodded as they walked back to the Sledgehammer’s main bridge.
“Install the CALAIS,” Maxwell said, handing the circuit board back to Jefrey.
Jefrey diligently took it over to the main computer and began unscrewing its side, revealing a set of slots into which the device could be inserted.
“With the CALAIS installed, we’ll be able to win this battle, hands-down,” Maxwell said.
Jefrey inserted the device and screwed the side panel back on, before absent-mindedly walking over to a terminal to instruct the computer to install the required drivers.
Text appeared on the screen, giving information about the progress of the installation.
“Everything all right, Jefrey?” Maxwell said.
“Yeah, it’s just taking a little time to install.”
The computer whirred as it slowly installed the CALAIS, before the screen finally turned green, indicating that the system had safely been installed. The computer automatically rebooted.
“It’s installed,” Jefrey said. “Now we just have to—”
He did not finish his sentence, as the crew were suddenly thrown off their feet by a jolt that shivered through the entire ship.
“God, what now?” Maxwell said, looking up.
Every screen had gone black. Except for one.
“Oh God,” Maxwell said. His eyes widened.
Jefrey and Aeterna stared up in disbelief at what they were seeing.
Maxwell wheeled around to look at Jefrey. He grabbed him by the shoulders.
“The…the Asimov circuit – We – you forgot—”
There was a simple message, in green text on black:
EAT
SHIT
There was a quiet vwoom sound, somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship.
☾
The Rock Lobster’s circuits had been significantly damaged by the tether strike, but to Mehmet’s relief, the auxiliary circuits were still somewhat operational. The ship was limping but not dead. The LSS was running off of backup while the communications system had required a simple reset. The most extensive damage had been done to the engine’s power supply and the control system. If he made it out of here alive, the computer would have to be almost entirely replaced.
The only element of the computer left operational was the radar system, considered so important for navigation it came with its own shielded backup power supply. All the weapons were offline. The ship’s pincers were also somewhat responsive. Mehmet was desperately trying to fix the control system when a call came in over the ansible. He crawled over to it and hit the ANSWER button.
“Meh-Meh-met?” came a voice, stuttering and buzzing with static.
“Yes?”
“I d-don’t h-have m-much time. Th-they’ve g-got me, bu-bu-but I’ve ma-managed to ta-take co-control of the shi-ship’s cont-control sy-system.”
“Shit,” Mehmet said.
“D-don’t worry,” Callie said, trying to sound cheerful. “I’ve shu-shut d-down their shi-shields.”
“That’s not much use to me right now,” Mehmet said. “My weapons system is offline.”
“G-get creati-tive,” Callie said. “I kno-know you’ll thi-think of some-omething. I go-gotta go.”
“Will you be okay?”
“I’ll-I’ll be fi-fine. Ju-just—” She paused. “Ju-just tell Ralph I’m s-sorry.”
The call ended. Mehmet nodded, then returned to the control system.
“If I can just get this power supply working…” he said, toggling switches and moving cables around. He was already formulating a plan in his head. Pretty soon Maxwell and his crew would be switching the shields back on, and as soon as he started moving they’d be firing everything they had at him. There was therefore a very small window in which to carry out his plan.
He flipped another switch and the engines wheezed to life, barely alive but enough for what he intended to do. He patched a call through to Cybele.
He did not waste time letting the recipient speak. “I don’t have much time,” he said. “That Big Black’s shields are down. If you’re going to launch everything you have at it, the next ten minutes is the time to do so.”
“Roger that,” said the person at the other end, and Mehmet hastily hung up.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s dance.”
●
“RL-510 is on the move,” Aeterna shouted.
“He just doesn’t give up, does he?” Maxwell lamented. “Fire everything at him, for God’s sake, just do something! How long will it take to power up the shields?”
The ship’s computer had been gutted and the CALAIS ripped forcibly out of it, leaving the ship entirely in manual control.
“Fifteen minutes,” Jefrey said, fearfully.
“Fift—” Maxwell said. “We don’t have fifteen minutes! Richards!”
Richards was sitting at the ship’s controls, sporting an unusually sullen face. He turned to look at Maxwell, who almost recoiled at his facial expression.
“Take evasive action,” Maxwell instructed.
Richards shook his head, pointing to the screen. Maxwell ran over and looked at it. To his horror, he saw that the control system had been taken almost completely offline.
“How long will it take to repair?” Maxwell asked. Richards shrugged. “Fix it,” Maxwell snarled, running back over to Aeterna. “We can’t move. I want you to fire everything we have at that ship and at that asteroid.”
“Aye-aye,” Aeterna said, preparing the disruption tethers, railguns and missile launchers once again. “Third time’s the charm,” she said, morosely.
*
Kowalski scrambled over the asteroid’s surface. The whole thing could probably easily be traversed in two hours, given sufficient preparation, but he didn’t have enough air for that. He would surely be dead if he didn’t quickly find a way back inside. He looked up with some puzzlement at the Terran command ship, which had stopped moving. Then he saw something truly amazing.
Against the blackness of space, Mehmet’s ship was slowly, but surely moving. He couldn’t believe his eyes for a second.
He did not know what was happening, but he knew it was good news. He found himself running four-legged, almost ape-like along the asteroid surface, and saw what appeared to him to be a large crater in the surface. It wasn’t a crater. It was the hangar doors.
Perhaps too hastily, he walked over to the wrecked doors and squeezed through the hole left by the railguns. A ladder on the side of the tunnel led down into the asteroid, and almost immediately he noticed the change in weight distribution. He clambered down into the hangar, which had been almost entirely wrecked by the torpedo. The room was filled with rubble. A sad grave for Micah and Julius.
A small beeping sounded, indicating he was reaching the end of his air supply. He ran, unhindered by air resistance, over to a small fissure that had been blasted into the rock, and squeezed through it, into a corridor, at the end of which was a blast door. He opened the blast door and closed it behind him, and without even thinking, he removed his helmet and gasped for air.
“Not…out…of the woods…yet,” he panted, steadying himself against the wall.
~
The Sledgehammer’s assault on Cybele’s surface had destroyed some of her weapons infrastructure, but a few cannons still remained operational. The control system, however, had jammed, so a few technicians were currently working to rectify the problem.
A call came over the radio, which Joni answered.
“Joni?” Ralph said. “It’s me. I’ve found my way back. I just need to know how to get back to the war room.”
“Which corridor are you in?” Joni asked.
“G,” Ralph answered.
Joni worked it out in their head momentarily. “Take the first blast door on your left and follow the signs.”
“Roger,” Ralph said, cutting off communications.
“Ralph’s okay?” Christine asked, slightly tearfully.
“He is,” Joni said. “For now.”
“I’m so glad. He’s a good man.”
“So I can see.”
“He’s taken care of me.”
“I assume he isn’t your father.”
Christine looked sad.
“No,” she said, softly. “I don’t know what happened to my father. Or my mother.”
Joni shook their head. “War does nobody any good.”
Christine looked down at her feet. “I suppose not.”
“Hmm.”
Christine paused for a moment. “I just wanted to read my book,” she said, quietly.
“Weapons system back online!” yelled a soldier.
“Thank you,” Joni said, turning back to Christine. “Well,” they said, with some reluctance. “You heard the man. Fire at will.”
Christine nodded gently, placed the squidcap back on, and prepared to re-enter the fight.
☾
Mehmet flew the Rock Lobster into firing range of the Big Black.
“Come on,” he said, flying around the ship in an attempt to excite their radar detection system.
The great hulk remained silent for a few moments, then Mehmet’s radar bleeped. Three disruption tethers and several missiles were headed his way.
“Fantastic,” Mehmet said, smiling.
The bleeping became more insistent as Mehmet allowed the ship to sit in place for a few moments, then he surged forward, pushing the engines to their breaking point as he flew at horrendously high speed towards the Big Black. It occurred to him that anyone watching him in that moment would probably think he was a madman. Mad men, men who dare, he thought, are the ones who win battles.
The radar showed them: Three disruption tethers, rendered as tiny pixelated dots, screaming towards him like Shaytan’s own hunting-dogs, unstoppable. He knew that if even one of them struck his ship, the damage to the internal electronics would be irreparable. APHLEVs were not shielded for such attacks, much like a Martian frigate, and he would likely die.
He therefore had only one shot at this, and if he flinched or made a mistake, even for a second, his plan would be in tatters. This was what he had trained for, all those years ago.
The great block of the Big Black now filled his field of view, so close he could practically see the rivets. A proximity alarm was sounding: reet reet, reeeet, reet reet, reeeet – the timing had to be perfect—
Suddenly, the Rock Lobster doubled back and up, up the side of the Big Black, as though a spider scaling a wall. The guidance systems for the tethers, as predicted, did not have time to counter, and did what he had expected them to do: They slammed uselessly into the side of the ship, practically exploding on impact, but each one wreaking havoc on the Big Black’s internals.
He whooped almost animalistically in victory, but the battle was not yet won: The missiles were now closing in, and if he wanted to stand a chance in hell of surviving, he had to evade them, also.
He looped around the ship once again with the missiles, of which he counted approximately nine or ten, in hot pursuit, and just as he cleared the ship’s starboard side, there was an orange flash behind him.
“What the hell was that?”
The radar quickly registered that projectiles had been fired from Cybele.
“Aman tanrım,” Mehmet said, checking the radar. None of the shots fired had managed to knock the missiles off course. He shook his head. “Persistent devils,” he muttered, reaching up and switching off the G-dampeners.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s rock.”
Tilting his body he span the ship into a barrel roll that quickly became an aileron roll, space spinning around him, the Big Black moving in circles around his field of view. He was overcome with nausea, nausea he hadn’t felt since training.
He swallowed down the chyme rising up in his throat, focusing his eyes on the radar as the missiles, confused by the ship’s movements, began to scatter, until they were following practically side-by-side.
“Here goes nothing,” he said, bringing the ship out of the spin and flying up towards the Big Black. Approaching the Big Black’s body at speed, he reached up and switched on the pincer arms.
Using his right arm, he scraped a pincer against the bodywork of the Big Black’s port side, throwing up sparks behind him. The sudden burst of light finally threw off five or six of the missiles, which spun away like cheap fireworks, colliding with each other and with the Big Black’s hull. Up ahead, he spotted some piping and, for good measure, rammed it with the pincer, causing it to burst and release what appeared to be waste-water, the resulting cloud of which damaged two more of the missiles, leaving just two in pursuit.
He flew down under the Big Black and pushed the Rock Lobster up into a tight loop from the ship’s underside, flying up above the ship’s bow and down towards the stern, causing one of the missiles to strike the rear engines. The last missile would not leave him be.
“Well, I’ve been meaning to get these replaced,” he said, reaching up to a red, square button situated next to the pincer controls, on which was written the word “EJECT” in white letters. He flipped open its glass casing and punched it, tilting the ship upward as the pincers explosively blew away and collided with the missile, finally ending the pursuit.
He flew up above the Big Black then, breathing heavily, switched the ship’s engines into standby mode, and abandoned the controls to get to the ship’s latrine – really a small chemical toilet – where he proceeded to void the contents of his stomach.
When he had finished vomiting, he walked back over to the front screen to look down at the Big Black. The ship had been all but destroyed. He watched as a final volley of shots were fired from Cybele, battering the ship’s starboard side once again, finally silencing the ship. The beast had fallen silent. The dragon slain.
The battle had been won, but not without the loss of Callie.
Mehmet wiped the sweat from his brow, then silently, anxiously, flew down towards Cybele.
The Malcontent of Mars — Chapter IV: Bad Penny – C R E Mullins
6 July 2019 @ 10:20 am
[…] To be continued… […]