Out Of The Dark

Posted on Tue May 21st, 2024 @ 1:40pm by Commander Anastasia Aventnova

1,628 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Ethics, Morals & The Prime Directive.

They came out of the dark, no warning whatsoever until they began to impact Dreadnought. Armor plating shattered, roiling energy radiating back into space; One nacelle deformed under one impact, two, three, then plasma ignited and jetted into space before extinguishing when it ran out of fuel; One hanger bay dissolved into fire, vomiting flame, debris and bodies; the ship lurched to the side as impulse manifolds deformed, changing thrust vectors; A warp nacelle swung away from the hull as one hit severed several struts, the lurch of the ship torquing it away from the ship; stipples of kinetic fire up and down the hull, then point defense batteries began to spit fire, but only in a couple spots, shattering several... Things. Then there was another large flash, where there used to be a bridge.

********
An hour earlier
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They were everywhere; small satellites that had been placed in a very high orbit long before to keep the population in line, each carrying six long rods of tungsten, coated like the satellites in a coating that made them nearly invisible to sensors. Some were even hosting other functionalities: Monitoring weather patterns, communications, but each had another more dangerous purpose as well and with the Marines on the ground, it was time to deprive them of their support.

Eighty-three satellites turned simultaneously a7nd small explosive charges sent five hundred and four 7 by 1.25 meter pointed rods falling towards the planet, using gravity to accelerate as small thrusters on their rear flared to adjust their trajectories to utilize the planetary gravity to accelerate while remaining outside the atmosphere. Of course, not all of the orbital trajectories were equal and several dozen used their thrusters at specific moments to boost them out of orbit to be captured by one or another of the moons, 'falling' towards them and speeding up even further.

There was one thing that each of these rods had in common: their target. Once the tiny computer brains confirmed that their courses were accurate, the thrusters (which had fired only when they had to) completely shut down, making the inert metal impossible to see either visually or on sensors, from the matte black stealth coating. Then all they had to do was wait.

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Current
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Even though she'd now been there several times, Commander Anastasia Aventnova still was amazed at just how large it was. There were more than twenty people where even on a Galaxy-class ship, maybe eight people would be there, ten in a combat situation. Here, even with the Marines deployed and fighter operations ongoing, the bridge seemed nearly abandoned. "How are we looking on the shuttles?" She leaned over the Flight Control panel where a Lieutenant was monitoring the space immediately around and near the massive ship, while keeping one of the massive hangers as close to the corridor that was reserved for casualties returning from the surface.

"Five en route right now, apparently there was a surge in casualties arriving at the evacuation site ten minutes ago and they're making their way up." The sometimes shuttle pilot wished them luck, knowing what may be going on inside each of the small craft right now, "Medical teams are waiting for them in the hanger. Don't worry, ma'am, we've gamed this out a few times."

"I know, Lieutenant, first crisis nerves on my part." Anastasia patted the officer on the shoulder before stepping away to tour the rest of the stations. Sure, there was the center chair, but she was feeling restless, something just felt... Wrong. Almost as if she were missing something, but no, the ship was in geo-sync orbit roughly over the combat zone, only differing to give the incoming shuttles the least-time course to get back aboard.

She paced the bridge stations slowly, projecting confidence in her bridge crew as she made the mental note that the Captain would be taking over for her in just a couple of hours. If a true crisis happened, they'd both be on the bridge in a rush. "Lieutenant Shatterbee, did we track down that power problem to the port phaser array?" She'd arrived at the engineering station where Lieutenant (jg) Alisia Shatterbee was manning the station.

"Yes, ma'am, it was traced to junction C-C-14, a power converter that was on the fritz." The young woman was only on her second bridge shift ever and was clearly nervous, "DC Eight went ahead and replaced the converter and all diagnostics and tests show green. We'll have to test-fire the array to evaluate if it's fully resolved, but we cant do that right now."

"Good job, Alisia." Ana smiled at her, "Keep it up and I'm sure Commander Aries will want to commend you herself."

"Commander!" The voice from Communications near the back of the bridge called for her attention and she again patted the Lieutenant on the shoulder before striding towards where she was being flagged down, even as Flight Control called her to get her attention as well. When she didn't respond, one of the two officers at that station got up and started jogging back towards her.

"What do you have Jardais?" Ana asked the Comms officer as she got in range, her voice betraying her as the sense of wrongness intensified.

"Shuttle 9-25-86 was transmitting with an update on their casualties when they got cut off in mid-word." Gerald Jardais said quietly, so as not to panic anyone.

"Commander, that shuttle just went off the board." A red-uniformed Ensign came up next to them and had overheard the designator, "One moment it was there, three minutes out, the next it just blinked off."

"Do we have sensor data?" Ana looked over the console where the comms officer was already pulling up localized sensors,

"I'm seeing a debris field there, no idea what went wrong. Nothing larger than a few centimeters, consistent with an explosion."

"Accident? Maybe they lost containment?" Ana proposed, "Get with Operations, I want to know what happened. Ensign, you're the gobetween." The red uniform nodded as the deck felt like it shuddered.

"Impact, starboard side!" The engineer at her station called out, "Multiple impacts!"

"Damage report, shi-" Ana shook her head, they had shuttle traffic inbound and couldn't raise the ship's super-tough shields while there were wounded on approach vectors. She began to move towards the command chair, "What's attacking us?"

"Eighteen hits so far, superficial damage from kinetic weapons." The viewscreen spun suddenly before settling down again, "Impacts, stern, we've lost fourteen percent of impulse power... Twenty-three, forty-one percent! Impacts on the ventral, dorsal impacts!"

The bridge became a chatter of reports as it seemed like everyone started speaking, "Starboard aft hanger bay reports missile impact, heavy casualties in the hanger!"

..... "One of the nacelles has broken loose, structural damage reported on junctures Eighteen to Thirty-One on Nacelle Echo!"

..... "Warp Nacelle Bravo is venting to space, plasma containment is compromised!"

..... "Sensors have nothing, Commander, we're blind to whatever's out there!"

Anastasia grabbed onto the back of the command chair, "Point Defense to Automatic. Any unknown object to be fired upon." She snapped out, "Verify all craft IFF is on now!"

..... "Multiple impacts rear, Defiant Bay Bravo Hatch is jammed, not responding to commands."

Flickers of light exploded from outside the bridge viewscreen as the point defense batteries responsible for protecting the location opened up at empty space, or was it? Two rounds impacted something and there was a glint as whatever it was began to tumble.

"Brace for-" Ana screamed, but it was too late. The tungsten rod was moving at nine kilometers a second and even found at twenty-six kilometers out by a fluke, it gave point defense under three seconds to lock onto it and fire, but momentum was on its side and all the incoming fire did was cause it to hit at an angle.

The front screen of the bridge shattered as the rod impacted just short of the bridge, elsewise it would have immolated everyone there with the energy transfer of it's speed. Instead, the wave of fire only reached halfway across the space before it began to recede, the air on the bridge rushing out with it. One luckless officer was first flash-fried before her body flew out the viewscreen, followed by the fresh-faced ensign who'd been assigned to help coordinate the two departments, who bounced off the ceiling before exiting the new hole. The engineer held onto her console as the wind began to die down.

Ana exhaled immediately and began to count down as the heat and air fled the room. She began to crawl towards the door at the back of the bridge as she saw four others do the same. One of them hit the emergency open and another rush of wind hit them, but that cut off as an internal bulkhead slammed shut. One, two, three people made it through the door before Ana made it out and looked back, her lungs screaming for air that wasn't there. She reached out and grabbed the Comms officer and hauled him into the corridor and saw that no one else would make it in time. the engineer was still at her station, eyes wide in panic and fear, but Ana's count was already to fifty-two and she slapped the emergency close button. As soon as the door to the bridge was closed, air hissed into the corridor again and the five officers there took deep breaths as they lay there.

With one hand, Anastasia reached up, "Medical to the bridge corridor. Captain De Havilland to CNC, the bridge is compromised, we're under attack by kinetic weapons." She gasped in another breath, "Damage Control to the bridge." She dragged herself to one of the other officers and began to do what she could.

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