Chapter 201 – Maelstrom’s Edge (Pt. 1)

USD: One hour since the traversal wormhole for the 6th Fleet was created.

Location: Meltisar System, MNS Thea’s Hackjob, CIC

The smell of burnt plastic filled the bridge as lights flickered, intermittently illuminating Thea’s face, each burst revealing a mask of concentration and frustration. Her gaze was fixed on her console, which now displayed a chaotic dance of failing systems across the moonlet—interior and exterior failures ballooning in alarming numbers.

The aggressive outpouring of solar energy and gas would have been bad enough, the station’s D-field was almost capable of deflecting the energy entirely, at least at the current intensity, but elements of the Ertan fleet had quickly punched through the open wormhole that had expanded to a hundred times the desired diameter.

Ten thousand kilometers was not massive on the stellar scale of things, but when you added the sudden addition of mangled physics and gravity, all bets were off.

Sensor readings flickered confusion and complained about conditions that they were never designed to deal with. Occasional high energy spikes hinted that amongst the maelstrom the broken up elements of the 6th fleet were clashing with their Ertan adversaries in the disarray.

“Thea! Is the backup power still not up?” Elis hissed.

The marine’s power armor cast two bright beams in her face as the woman turned her head.

“Stop blinding me. Back-up systems are coming online. We’ve averted a core detonation failure and stabilized the wormhole from ripping any wider,” Thea said.

“Are you going to explain what happened now?” Elis shot back.

Lights on the CIC flickered back into a steady state of being, lighting up the room. Small trails of smoke wafted from unmanned consoles, and loose wiring hung from the ceiling where hull plates hadn’t ever been properly sealed. It was a scene that would be common across the entire installation.

“The wormhole drive had a malfunction. Somehow it opened a point between the sun, our destination point, and here. It’s some kind of three-way connection. I’ve adjusted the station’s field to deflect most of the solar energy, but I wouldn’t recommend taking a space walk on the outer hull.”

Elis stared at her. “What does that even mean?”

Thea shook her head. “I honestly have no idea. I didn’t know this was even possible. We probably should all be dead.”

[Warning: Heavy damage sustained to primary systems. Wormhole generator compromised. Immediate repairs required for continued D-Field operation.]

The warning from Engi was audible and Elis’ frown deepened. Thea shook her head and authorized the requested mobile robotic units for the efforts. That meant taking them from other areas—the Alacrity and the offensive systems were going to have to wait.

Her sub-cores were doing their best to stabilize the situation, but the damage was extensive.

The solar energy output dropped, and on the CIC’s now active main screen, a tactical view of the space around the moonlet began to clarify.

Ship-to-ship combat was ongoing all around them, sporadic and desperate. Meltisar destroyers darted between larger vessels, railguns firing in short, controlled bursts as the sudden appearance of cruisers and battleships took them by surprise. The heavier Ertan ships were caught off guard, but shrugged off the strikes and retaliated with lethal precision.

Lasers sliced through to carve deadly lines through the smaller ships.

Thea tensed up as she finally found the location of their allies. The 6th fleet’s line of battle had scattered and fallen back away from the wormhole, leaving them behind. A rapidly growing cloud of Ertan ships had begun to form up nearby.

None of them had attacked MNS Thea’s Hackjob directly, but it was only a matter of time. They probably believed that the station was disabled.

Well, they wouldn’t be wrong, really.

“Elis.”

“I’m not blind. We’re fucked,” Elis stated flatly.

“I need you to rally what remains of our security forces. Drones are ready to deploy. Internal point defense is online, but that’s about all we can manage right now,” Thea said.

“You think they won’t just blast us?” Elis asked, raising an eyebrow.

Thea nodded, her gaze briefly meeting Elis’. “They’ll want to investigate the station and learn what they can about the wormhole. We need to keep them away until we can bring it back online and close the rift properly.”

The skeptical look on Elis’ face mirrored how Thea felt herself. “Keep them away? You mean internally? Because I don’t see how we can stop a boarding if external systems are offline.”

Thea sighed. “That’s exactly what I mean. Most systems are buried deep in the rock. They’ll still need to work their way through the structure. That’ll give us time to bring everything online.”

The CIC shuddered again, a harsh reminder of their position. Thea glanced at the station’s hull integrity readouts, as well as the asteroid’s estimated cohesion. The massive bulk of rock was effective at shielding them from all the energy that the D-field didn’t actually block.

Weapon installations dotted the exterior, but all reported gray—offline status. Until the wormhole drive was stabilized and rebooted, and the D-field system was operating properly, bringing those online was nearly impossible.

“Can we open a connection to Captain Mackey on the Alacrity?” Elis asked.

Thea flipped the main screen to a visual of the primary hangar bay. The Alacrity was there, but a massive rent on its side spewed smoke and embers into the semi-pressurized bay. “No connection. Either their bridge was wiped out or all their comm devices were severed. I have some low-level connections to their exterior systems, but they are fire walled to prevent electronic onboarding.”

“You can’t override it?” Elis asked.

“There is a hard-break in the system, so no. It’s designed that way on purpose,” Thea replied.

Elis’ face settled into a grim line as she turned to assess the screen.

Thea continued her diagnostic algorithms at full speed, desperately seeking solutions that all clamored for the one resource they really didn’t have: time.

“I’m detecting small craft diverting towards our position, as well as some small warships. I believe it’s the boarding action,” Thea declared.

Elis grunted in acknowledgement and stood up and began to head out of the CIC.

“Where are you going? We can manage the defense units here as well,” Thea said.

Elis paused and looked back at her. “I’m not one for hands-off command. Our security isn’t just robots, Thea. We’ll give them a warm welcome.” She pulled her rifle to front-sling it before slapping in a fresh power cell that emitted an electric whine.

Thea stared at her for a second, then nodded. “I need more time. Time to repair and regain control over the wormhole system and boot up the rest of the inoperable systems. I’ll patch our internal defense controller over to you. We have about a thousand defense units to deploy.”

“Only a thousand?” Elis asked.

“Most are needed for engineering,” Thea replied.

“I’m kidding. It’s way more than I thought we’d have,” Elis said. She tapped the side of her helmet. “Keep me updated. I’m going to go brief people.”

“Don’t get killed,” Thea whispered.

A chuckle came through the power armor’s speakers. “Don’t blow us all up.”

***

Elis strode through the corridor with purpose, her power armor’s HUD lighting up with that status of the combat drones assigned to escort her. She could hear the whir of their servos and the soft hum of idle weaponry as she passed them, each one primed for the impending boarding.

She had already given assignments to the human security detachment under her command, but she had relegated them to a central defense point near the CIC. That would put them mostly out of harm’s way, almost unfair if you considered it would be placing all the danger on the defense drones, but…

Well, human lives couldn’t be replaced as easily as the drones.

A wisp of guilt from a memory tried to tell her that might not really be the case; Beeper and Booper had been…

Elis suppressed the thought. The humans weren’t in power armor and weren’t going to be effective, anyway. Better to keep them closer to Thea. Maybe the NAI would be capable of protecting them.

She reached up and tapped her helmet to open a comm link. “Lieutenant, you’re in charge of the last line of defense. If we lose contact or things go FUBAR, it’s up to you to hold the line. We give Thea the time she needs.”

A much-to-young sputter of, “Yes, Ma’am,” came back at her. She clicked the channel off. She really didn’t expect much of the Meltisar security detachment.

Pausing to examine the security map of the moonlet, she scanned over the primary defensive positions one last time. The largest entry point was the hangar, with three chokepoints leading from it deeper into the station—and directly towards the CIC.

The bulk of their forces were laid out in those choke points, along with a large amount of internal defense mechanisms in place. It was the obvious frontal attack point, and also the most heavily guarded.

Three other points were highly accessible, landing points on the moonlet’s surface that were impossible to cover without the external defense systems active. They had long corridors that led to a maze of auxiliary systems, storage, and the more vital systems such as the power plant, wormhole generator, and computronics modules.

They were poorly defended compared to the hangar, so she had delegated most of her robotic defense units to them instead.

Elis let out a sigh. She had done her part; the moonlet’s defense units were positions and primed for boarding action. They had already set up their mobile automated turrets, barricades, and miniature defense drones, all of which were ready to unleash their deadly potential.

The only thing left to do was a preventative venting to prevent atmospheric loss and damage from uncontrolled depressurization. Elis activated her comm. “Thea, depressurization ready. Let’s make things inhospitable for them.”

“Roger that. Sounding depressurization alarm. Two minutes,” Thea replied.

It was a long time, but they weren’t under attack, and Elis supposed it gave any of the personnel time to get a breather on if they didn’t already have their skinsuit secured.

The tactical screen showed a growing number of tiny craft maneuvering for them. Dozens had turned into hundreds, each probably carrying a squad or fireteam. Several larger cutters probably carried an entire boarding platoon. There were going to be plenty of hostile targets to shoot at.

A spark of confidence ignited within her. They were outnumbered, probably, but they had the home-field advantage. She and Thea would make them pay dearly for every inch of MNS Thea’s Hackjob they dared to traverse.

At least until they decided to blast them with battleship grade lasers or a few AMCNs.

Then it would all be over.

She just needed to trust that Thea would get the wormhole system back online and under control before that happened.