The Panoceanian Heavy Cruiser was ablaze already, fires spewing from multiple hull breaches but her guns were still firing. Its size made it the first target. Numerous Exrah fighters, and cruisers both heavy and light were blasting through the handful of defenders heading to the Faraway Jump Gate. A Yu Jing vessel, Dahlian, and the adh-Dhib were working in a close formation to try and keep boarding vessels from getting to each other. With both of their shields down though, it was a losing effort. Hyper Rapid Magnetic tracers blazed through the void, following enemy ships. Blooms of fire could be seen when these shots connected between the ion trails of space based missiles and torpedoes, twisting and winding through space towards their targets.
The HNS adh-Dhib shuddered and jerked, throwing the crew as an ensign spoke up from a weapons control station, his voice even but hoarse, “Turret B hit and disabled ‘Aqid. Debris has knocked out Turret A, we are dispatching engineers to try and revive it.”
“Keep Turret C firing at medium targets. I need status on HRMC-CIWS and Missiles.” Fayaz responded.
The ship shuddered as it received fire again, Engineering spoke up first, “‘Aqid, ablative armor is deteriorating and multiple shield emitters destroyed. We have atmosphere venting on Deck 23, engineers enroute.”
“‘Aqid, missiles are expended or launchers destroyed, CIWS at 20% ammo, 90% effective still.”
Fayaz nodded and responded, “Engineering, belay. Task that effort to the RTF forces, focus engineers on bringing our primary weapons back.”
“Aye ‘Aqid!”
Fayaz’ commlog pinged as he raised his sister, Maih, “Maih, we have venting on Deck 23. Investigate for borders and repair.”
—-------------------------------------------------
“We're on it.” Maih responded. The ship jerked again as it was hit, throwing her into the wall, and throwing Zyah who was following her to the ground with a thud. Bending down, she helped her friend back to her feet while speaking into her Commlog, “Fahim, and Caleb, were going to Deck 23 for a hull breach and possible borders, meet me there.”
It only took a couple minutes for the four to congregate at the bulkhead to 23 from 24. Doctor Zyah Palavi-Yachel was an olive skinned, black haired woman wearing her military medical uniform. Her rifle was slung across her chest as her implanted metallic wings swayed slightly on her back. While short, they were still noticeable as a distinguishing part of her rebuilt body. Having officially died during the events of a Combined Army attack on Novvy Bangkok, she submitted herself to a joint Praxis and Desert Winds Pharmaceutical Project called Project Mīkāl. Fahim Yachel was a large Khawarij, wielding an Askari Spitfire. His bulk dwarfed them all in the passageway, but the last member of the team, Caleb Sanford stood almost shoulder to shoulder in height. The large monstrucker was a middle aged, bald man with a big, grey beard and normally a jovial expression on his face. His magnetic boots stomped heavily on the deck as he shifted his equipment around. A backpack of tools, and an array of instruments on his thick belt belied his role as a veteran engineer. Making sure the team was ready, Maih turned and tapped the switch to open the bulkhead doors. All three had EXO helmets on, to ensure their air supply, as the bulkhead opened.
Atmosphere immediately began sucking into the deck, pulling on their clothing. They moved into the adjoining hallway quickly, the heavy doors shutting behind them with a clang. Fahim raised his weapon and moved forward, several dead crew members laying on the floor, their skin turning blue due to depleting oxygen. As they advanced, the lights flickered, growing dimmer while areas of the deck began losing their gravity panels. Finally they came to a gaping hole in the wall, about three feet across that opened to more than twelve feet as it reached the outside of the hull.
“‘Aqid Fayaz, we have reached the breach.” Maih reported, “Appears to be a weapons hit, not a boarding action. Caleb will begin sealing, Zyah will begin administering medical aid to the crew.”
The monstrucker pulled a torch from his belt, and with the flick of a button it blazed into life as he began cutting bent and jagged edges away. Zyah began checking the various crew bodies around them to determine if any are still alive and can be saved. The ship suddenly rocked again, knocking everyone except Caleb into the far wall of the corridor. The monstruckers magnetic boots held him steady. Rubbing her head and groaning, Maih collected her weapon and stood up.
The voice of Asil Tiki, her second in command, came through her ear piece, “Ra’id Aafah! We have a hull breach and boarding torpedo, deck 18!”
“Acknowledged, on our way!” She responded and turned to Fahim and Zyah, “Lets go, we got boarders Deck 18. Caleb, you got this?”
“Aye! Course I got this! It’s just some metal sheets! Go! I don't feel like joining the Combined Army today.”
Nodding, Maih led the three of them towards a ship elevator outside the bulkhead doors they came through. The ship shuddered again as smaller weapons fire raked the hull. Lights flickered as power fluctuated. Smashing the elevator call button, Fahim checked his spitfire and adjusted the sling.
“‘Aqid, we have the impact of a boarding torpedo, the atmosphere appears to be holding stable. Deck 18.”
Fayaz nodded and sent orders to Maih to ensure the boarding party was contained. Several Exrah fighters suddenly strafed fire along the underside of the ship, opening more of the vessel up to space. One of the fighters never survived long enough to celebrate though as it blossomed into fire and debris from a stream of HRMC rounds.
“How are we on Turret A, Engineering?” Fayaz yelled out, the power blinking and flickering along the bridge.
“We are almost functional, only a few more minutes.” The response was calm and collected.
“‘Aqid, Weapons reporting, CIWS ammunition deplet-”, the Weapons officer was cut off suddenly by Navigation screaming and slamming a button on her console.
“Incoming ship on impact course! Locking all bulkheads!”
An automated voice rang out over the ship's communications system “Brace!” Suddenly the entire ship lurched, and the sound of screeching steel could be heard throughout the entirety of the vessel. Those not strapped into their seats were thrown to the floor and walls with the force of the impact as everything went dark.
—----------------------------------------------
The elevator sped down to Deck 18 and as it opened, the bulkhead door in front of them suddenly blinked red as it locked, and the speaker by the elevator screamed, “Brace!” Fahim dropped the gun on his sling and spun around, grabbing both women with him and using his huge bulk, locked his arms around them just as the adh-Dhib reeled violently, throwing them around the hallway and dropping them into darkness with a loss of power.
Maih suddenly saw a bright light shining into her eye as she groaned, blinking. The light suddenly went away with a click as Zyah spoke up, “Maih, what is your birthday and ID number?”
“Ugh…” she grabbed her head and blinked a couple times. “ID is 430187, birthday is 03-11-50.”
“Good, you're well enough to function, now wake up.” The Doctor said, and suddenly Maih noticed she was floating.
Flailing around for a second, she caught herself on a wall, and adjusted her rifle and visor. Looking around, the small hallway was bathed in red emergency light, and the three of them floated there. Pinging her commlog, she noticed the quantronic network was down.
“If gravity is off, and lights are off, I can only assume life support may be damaged as well. Zyah, keep an eye on the O2 meter, let me know if it gets dangerous. Fahim, get to the manual crank on the bulkhead and check if it’s locked from atmosphere loss.”
Fahim nodded, and gently pushed himself off the elevator door he was using for stability. Floating gracefully to a small hatch by the steel bulkhead door, he opened it and tried turning the wheel. It moved smoothly which meant it wasn't locked from atmosphere loss on the other side of the bulkhead. Slowly but smoothly the doors opened enough for them to squeeze through. Maih pulled down her multispectral visors to help her see better through the red gloom. Fahim pulled his large scimitar free, and Zyah pulled out a pistol. Using hand grips along the walls, they pulled themselves through the door and along the hallway.
Opening another bulkhead a couple hundred yards further up, they heard the sounds of gunfire coming up the corridor beyond. Pushing themselves quickly through, they floated down the hallway swiftly, coming to a corner just as a bullet ricocheted off. A brief scream was heard as Maih pulled out her pistol and peaked around the corner. The corridor beyond had blood, bodies, and viscera floating around it, but was quiet until a yell could be heard, “Get the bodies down and secure them to the walls, reload and check ammo.”
The small, curly haired form of Asil could be seen directing other members of the task force. Her brown and tan soft armor could be seen covered in a green slime as Maih pulled herself down the hallway and announced her presence. Turning quickly, Asil tried to salute but quickly found out that such fast movement in zero-g was a bad idea as she kept spinning in place before grabbing the wall and stopping herself.
“Sorry Ra’id…I never took zero-g training…oh this is not sitting well with me.” The woman held her stomach briefly as she breathed in and out.
“I understand Tilki, give me a quick report.” Maih said, patting the smaller woman's shoulder.
“Yes ma’am. Small boarding party I believe to be Exrah. We have some wounded but no losses. They were pretty uncoordinated coming out of the boarding torpedo back there. Could have been worse, but Molazim Shadid took advantage of the darkness to quickly eliminate the enemy soldiers. Tegmen Sadik sealed the area around the torpedo with quick-crete to prevent atmosphere loss and stabilize it so we should be pretty set here.”
“Well done. Make sure everyone gets to the emergency EXO helmets. I believe with the full loss of power we have here, life support is likely down. Make sure everyone is prepared.”
“Yes ma’am.” Tilki saluted slowly this time.
Turning to Zyah, and Fahim, Maih said, “We are going to head for the bridge, and see what we can do to assist on the way.”
Fayaz shook his head to clear it as he pushed himself off a console on the bridge towards the engineering section. The bridge was bathed in red light, and all of the screens were black. Many of the crew were unconscious as he floated around trying to get power from any of the stations to get a report.
“Sorry ‘Aqid, our stations are down as well. My guess is that the Exrah craft hit us right in the belly, and into the generator space. I am attempting to use hard line communications to raise anyone I can. Manual power bypass to backups are not working. They hit us hard sir.”
Nodding, Fayaz let the Engineer get back to work, and began moving himself around the room, helping to get people woken up, and reoriented. The crew here had enough oxygen between what's in the space and dedicated emergency O2 tanks to last for 24 hours. That would be enough to give them time to determine if they need to abandon ship or not. The sounds of weapons fire against the hull was notably absent though so it must appear they are dead in the water to the enemy.
“‘Aqid! I raised engineering on Deck 5. Their initial report is that much of Deck 6 and 7 are voided; they cannot open the bulkhead doors there, Decks 1 through 5 are on Emergency O2, but Deck 5 is leaking. They are working on getting the backup power online, luckily the damage was minimal to the generators there and they expect it will be active within the hour.”
Sighing with relief that some good news came up, Fayaz floated back towards the captain's chair to wait. He reflexively tried a few of the controls on the arm, but none of them responded with anything. Clanking and pinging could be heard from the hull suddenly echoing through the ship, but luckily nothing appeared to come from it, and the craft remained stable. Minutes crawled by as the crew busied themselves cleaning and repairing their areas of work. A medic worked on bandaging wounds, and setting a broken arm. The bulkhead door behind Fayaz suddenly began sliding open, and the voice of Maih came through, “Maih here, all safe?”
“Aye sister-” He was suddenly cut off as the ship rumbled with life. Lights began flickering back on, and gravity slowly restored itself. Screens and modules came to life as some normality returned.
“I see I timed this well.” Maih said, entering the bridge and holstering her large pistol. The muscle bound Fahim followed her, sheathing his scimitar.
“‘Aqid Aafah, any injured here?” Zyah spoke up, the doctor already checking her medical pouch.
“No, Doctor Zyah. Our bridge medic tended to everyone already, thank you. Maih, have any reports?”
Maih nodded, “The boarding effort was successfully repelled with no casualties, and hull integrity was stabilized. What hit us?” “Exrah fighter craft rammed us in the belly at decks five and six. We’re running on our secondary generators so we're not back in the fight yet. Navigation, do you-” Fayaz cut himself off as he stared at the view screens.
The bridge went silent as they took in the carnage and wreckage around them and what remained of Faraway Jump Gate. Two behemoth hulks drifted around the remains of the wormhole facility, fire still visible in some areas. Wreckage of countless ships drifted lifelessly in the void around the remains of the Circulars. Half of the Panoceanian Heavy Cruiser drifted passed, metal and pieces trailing behind it as electrical fires smoldered in its corpse. Here and there could be seen the light of ionic engines flying between areas of wreckage, presumably rescue vessels.
“Aye, ‘Aqid. List of damaged and destroyed systems are still coming through. I can say engines are lost, power diverters are blown all over the ship. I think we can get primary power online in a few days if I am reading these errors correctly, but we have to get there first, and patch some holes. That's going to be a few more days. Good news though, life support is stable, only minor damage.” The Chief Engineer sighed and continued scrolling his screen before taking out an actual pen and notebook to better organize his thoughts.
“I like good news…Weapons?”
“We have Turret C, sir. That’s it. CIWS gone, Missiles gone, Turret B is floating somewhere off the port side of the ship ship, and Turret A is missing one of its two rails. Targeting directors are misaligned or unresponsive so shots have to be aimed manually. I would not classify us as a warship anymore ‘Aqid.”
Fayaz sighed and rubbed his temple, “Were dead in the void. We can breathe but we can't move or fight. Ops, how are the MSMC and Roc?”
Tapping her screen, the blonde haired woman manning the Ops station reviewed her reports, “Roc is fine. It was properly stowed before the fight. MSMC might have some hull damage, but very minimal.”
“Good, I want Chiefs of Ops, Engineering, Medical, and you Maih in Ward Room B in 30 minutes. Maih, I want Caleb with you as well. I have a plan, and I need input. Engineering, you know where you need your teams right now, so get to it.”
Fayaz looked around the bridge, nodding to Maih, and then straightened his coat, and belt, pulling himself up to his full six foot five inch height, “The HNS adh-Dhi’b still has work to do. Let’s get to it.”
“Aye sir!”
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