Seraph’s Gambit- Episode 56

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Ariana

“Contact!” Olivia cheered, relief evident in her exuberant voice.

“Good work,” Ariana said, feeling the same relief Olivia voiced. “Bring us into weapons range. Stand by to port our teams back.”

Ariana began running sensor scans of the LFD command ship. She was disappointed, but not surprised, to see that the ship’s shields had started to recover. They weren’t back to full strength, but they had evidently been able to repair some of the damage the Rokma boarding team had done. She hoped she still had time to do enough damage before the shields were fully restored, and she no longer had a hope of penetrating them.

To her extreme relief, no missiles started flying their way. That Rokma team had been more successful. She just hoped they were still alive.

Ariana switched her comm to the boarding parties network, “Team One. Team Three. This is Seraph. Please respond.”

A tense moment passed before Noah’s voice came over the comm, “Am I glad to hear you.”

“What’s the situation over there?”

“Well…Mitchell’s dead and the crew surrendered.”

“That’s good.”

“But the AI did that thing it does, and is no longer responding to commands. And it’s trying to kill us by venting all of the air. We’ve got a few minutes left, but I think the Rokma are just about out of air.”

“Mesu, port the Rokma back to the ship as soon as we are in range,” Ariana ordered. “We’ll bring you over next. What about escape pods?”

“Yeah, some of the crew already tried that.”

Ariana frowned, and glanced at her sensor display again. She was not picking up any other objects and no distress beacons. Then it clicked, “the AI shot them down?”

“Yeah. But on the bright side, the LFD scumbags who tried to screw us over by jettisoning without us, got what was coming to them.”

“Pressure suits?”

“Murderous death robots between us and the nearest locker.”

“Closing to weapons range!” Olivia announced, cutting Noah off.

Ariana put the conversation behind her and targeted Seraph’s weapons. She unloaded a quick shot from their dual cannon, waiting to see which way the command ship tried to dodge before firing the tri-cannon. Her shots landed, and the final blast managed to penetrate the weakened shields.

Her next set of shots missed as Olivia’s evasive maneuvers threw her timing off. She almost chastised her, but thought better of it. The command ship had resumed firing on them. Better for both to miss than for Seraph to get hit. They couldn’t take as much punishment.

“Noah, where are you?”

“On the bridge. But we have absolutely no control over anything.”

“Get clear. The AI central brain is not far from there. I’m going to try and knock it out. It’s our best chance at ending this fight before we’re toast.”

“Unfortunately, we kind of had to jury-rig a seal to keep as much air in here as possible. We’re stuck in here.”

Ariana tried shifting her fire to the command ship’s weapon systems, but they proved too heavily armored. She would need to get incredibly lucky to take them out. Luck had not been on her side much lately.

“We have reached teleporter range. The Rokma are back onboard. They are alive, but unconscious,” Mesu reported.

Olivia continued to dance Seraph around the command ship, and Ariana continued to take whatever shots of opportunity she could. But whatever damage she did, seemed minor compared to the damage that started to stack up on Seraph. She needed to end this fight soon.

“One of the Rokma is severely wounded. If we attempt to move him out of the teleporter chamber, he will die.” Mesu said.

“Do you have the other chamber clear?”

“Yes.”

“Start getting the rest out one at a time if you have too. Just hurry!”

“Shields down! Ion pulse has them disabled.” Vlasa said.

“Get down to shield control and get them back up.”

“I…I can’t.”

Ariana cursed to herself, remembering Vlasa’s amputated leg, “Right.”

“I have returned to the ship, Captain.”  Squee said, “I will see to the shields.”

“Captain, we’re almost out of air. But we’re also going to need another recall device.”

Ariana cursed. Porting one over would add an extra port cycle. “Get everyone we can back first. Then send over the device.”

A sharp report sounded, and she felt an intense vibration through her seat. The lights in the weapons control room flickered and went out. She was in darkness for only a few seconds before emergency lights kicked in. The weapon controls cycled, but came back as well on an emergency battery.

“I’ve lost primary weapon power!” Ariana announced, “Checking capacitor. Okay, it’s intact. I have enough juice for one more shot from the weapons. Vlasa, can you restore power?”

“Negative, Captain. It looks like the lines were severed. I would need to physically string new ones. In ideal conditions, I could do it in ten minutes. But these are not ideal conditions.”

“New ships detected!” Olivia shouted. “We’re surrounded by AI ships!”

Ariana confirmed Olivia’s report. The space around them had become cluttered with AI ships. The central AI must have recalled the fleet to protect itself. At the moment, the new ships were outside of weapons range, but they were closing fast.

“How long until next port?”

“Twenty seconds,” Mesu said.

Ariana set a quick timer and estimated the AI ships closing speed, “Noah, I only have time for one more port.”

“Don’t worry about it, Cap. Don’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

The timer ticked down. Five. Four. Three. Two. One,

“Huh, never thought I’d do that,” Noah said.

“Forgive me,” Ariana said, as she fired Seraph’s final salvo. The barrage of energy pulses flew through space. The first two pulses impacted on the command ship’s shields. The last three found no resistance as they slammed into the weakened hull around the bridge and central AI computer. The bridge melted, leaving a visible scar in their place.

Several tense seconds followed, while Ariana waited for them to all die. But nothing happened. The targeting scan remained focused, but no missiles fired. No further cannon or ion pulses were fired either. Around them, the AI fleet stopped accelerating. Some ships began to vanish with FTL jumps.

“Is it dead?” Olivia asked hesitantly.

“Yes, it is.” Ariana said, forcing herself to believe it, “Mesu, was that last port successful?”

“It was. We have retrieved Squee, Javi, and Serene.”

“Serene? What about Noah?”

“I do not know. Serene is nonresponsive to my inquiries. She appears physically intact, but she is just standing there, staring at the port chamber.”

Continue to Episode 57

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