Seraph’s Gambit- Episode 44
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Noah
Noah“AI alarm!” Vlasa
“From where? This system?” Noah asked. They had just been about to jump to a new system.
“Checking.”
Several tense moments went by while Noah waited for Vlasa to finish. He busied himself by making small movements with the maneuvering jets. He grinned when the ship didn’t go into an uncontrolled spin, unlike last time.
“Query signals are not coming from this system. They are originating
“Noah, adjust our next jump to avoid that system,” Ariana ordered.
“You know we’re running out of explored systems, right? This is the fourth time we’ve had to change course.” Noah grumbled.
“I know.” Ariana snapped.
Several minutes passed while Noah calculated their next jump. He knew Vlasa would do the same calculations down in the engine room. Even though he had
“Okay, all done. Jumping now.”
The world shifted with the jump, and then the quiet suddenly shattered with the blaring of a new alarm. He glanced at the status display, and he felt his stomach lurch at the same time Ariana shouted, “Noah! Evasive maneuver! We’re about to hit an asteroid!”
“Shit!” Noah yelled, before throwing the ship into a hard turn.
The proximity warning continued to flash for what seemed an eternity. Slowly, the distance to the asteroid started to grow again. Unfortunately, the alarm was almost immediately replaced by a new one.
“Goddamn it!” Noah cursed.
“What the hell, Noah? You flew us right into an asteroid field.”
“Yeah, yeah, yell at me later.”
Noah tried to avoid each new piece of rock. Slowly, and not without several minor collisions against the shields, he managed to pull the ship far enough away from the collection of rocks that they were no longer in any immediate danger. He let himself relax just a little.
“Where the hell did those come from?” Noah grumbled. “The data entry for this system doesn’t mention any dense asteroid fields. Just your usual widely spaced collection of rocks.”
“Are you sure we’re in the right system?” Vlasa asked.
“Yes, I’m sure. Mostly”
“What does the navigation record say?”
“Says we’re where we should be.”
“Vlasa…” Ariana started, but Vlasa was already ready with an answer.
“I’ve already double checked the hack. There is no way it could have interfered with our jump.”
“I wish I could say that made me feel better.”
“I can still remove it.”
“And if you had, we would have run into AI ships multiple times already. No, we leave it.”
Noah leaned back in his chair to try and get comfortable. Just as he found a nice position, Ariana asked, “Noah, you ever heard any stories about any pirate groups moving asteroids?”
“Moving? No. Why?
“Start another set of those calculations. I think we’re going to need to get out of here fast.”
“Why? Don’t we want to make sure we’re where we’re supposed to be before trying to jump again?”
“Those rocks were put there deliberately. We have company coming.”
As if on queue, the sensor alarm went off again.
Noah sighed, “I hate it when she’s right. Why can’t we have a captain that’s wrong more often?”
“The captain is wrong quite frequently,” Vlasa stated flatly.
“Hey now,” Ariana said.
“True, but not about this kind of thing. Two ships just appeared out of FTL, almost on top of us.” Noah said, “They have us pinned in. The only escape vector that doesn’t bring us closer to one of them, goes through that rock soup.”
“How long on the FTL?” Ariana asked.
“Several more minutes.”
“Um, I haven’t quite finished plotting a jump.” Noah admitted, “And before you say anything, I’ll point out how I saved us from being pulverized by some very big rocks just a few minutes ago.”
“Vlasa?” Ariana started.
“Already headed to the flight deck.”
“In the meantime, Noah, take us back into those rocks.”
“Wait, what? You want me to go back in there?”
“Our shields should hold up to some hits by the little ones. Better than they will from fire from two different ships.”
Noah kept his response to himself. Stretching his shoulders and flexing his fingers, he readied himself. Directing power into Seraph’s engines, he began accelerating the ship back into the dense field of rocks and away from the approaching pirates.
Almost immediately the proximity alert went off. Reacting, he fired the port thrusters to veer away from the approaching rock. Too late he realized, since he wanted to go to port, he should have fired the starboard thrusters. Instead of turning away from the rock, the ship turned toward it.
Cursing he tried to correct his mistake. They started turning in the proper direction this time, but it was too late. Glancing at the sensor data, he fired the retro thrusters to try and reduce the relative velocity between Seraph and the rock.
Noah squinted his eyes closed involuntarily at the final moment. A shudder vibrated throughout the ship at the impact. Opening his eyes hesitantly, he checked the status screen.
”Everything looks okay. Our shields held.” Noah said with relief.
As soon as the words had left his mouth, another impact rocked the ship. Warning sirens blared as a result. Reading the display, Noah’s heart almost stopped.
“Shields disabled! Those pirate bastards hit us while the shields were weak from the impact.”
“Vlasa, get to the shield controls. Mesu, meet him there and then get the FTL coordinates up to Noah,” Arian ordered. “Noah, keep going. I’ll try and clear us a path.”
Blaster bolts flashed out from the ship. Several mid-size rocks were deflected off their course or pulverized. Some of the shattered debris still struck them, but each piece’s mass was now small enough not to do serious damage to the hull.
Gritting his teeth and trying to focus on the job at hand, Noah watched the sensors for the biggest threats. He managed to avoid a few before another blast from the pursuing pirate ships hit them.
“Bloody pirates. I can’t avoid both them and all these damn rocks.”
“Focus on the rocks, Noah.” Ariana said, her voice reassuringly calm, “The field is getting thicker and harder for them to get a shot at us. Keep going, and we’ll leave them behind.”
Noah grunted and turned away from one of the largest pieces in the field. Suddenly, an idea came to him. Reversing his maneuver, he took the ship back on its course toward the large rock.
“Um, Noah. You do see that big one, right?”
“Yeah, I’m going in close. Put that thing between the pirates and us.”
There was a noticeable moment of silence on the comm channel before Ariana finally said, “All right. Remember to account for gravitational effects. It will be small, but that thing is still big enough to have some noticeable pull.”
Relieved to have Ariana’s support, Noah fired the thrusters a few times, attempting to match the rotation of the approaching rock. It wasn’t quite large enough to be called a small moon, but it still was at least ten times the size of Seraph. Once they were rotating in the same manner, avoiding running into the thing suddenly seemed plausible.
As they approached, Noah started to notice the gravitational effects Ariana had mentioned. The gravitational pull wasn’t strong enough to have any appreciable effect on Seraph’s course, but it was strong enough to play a role on the other smaller rocks. The field of debris moved noticeably faster as they were drawn toward the large rock and then, usually slingshotted away.
One particularly fast rock snuck up on him too late to make any attempt to avoid. Anticipating sucking vacuum, Noah was confused when no hull breach alarm sounded. Vlasa’s voice answered his unspoken question.
“I’ve got shields partially restored. It’s going to take me awhile to figure out how Squee had some of these capacitors configured before I can get them to full strength.”
“It’ll do for now.” Ariana replied, as she continued to fire on nearby rocks. “Mesu, how’s it coming?”
The medical drones voice echoed in Noah’s earpiece and through the small flight deck, “I have arrived to save the day.”
Not able to spare much attention, Noah did not turn toward the drone, “Good, now plug those numbers into the FTL.”
“And how would I do that?”
“On the keyboard. Just on my left.”
“Use a keyboard like some biological? Is there no interface port?” Mesu grumbled.
“On the FTL computer? Of course not.”
“Very well.”
Noah got pushed aside as Mesu attempted to reach the control panel in the tight space. As the drone worked, he also ran a device around Noah’s head using a different appendage. Not able to take his hands away from the controls to swat it away, he resorted to growling at it.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“My instruments indicate you have an elevated heart rate. High levels of stress can result in coronary failure in humans of your advanced age.”
“I’m thirty-seven.”
“Oh. Then you really should see a doctor more often.”
“Are you done yet?”
“Yes, I believe so. Do I just push this button?”
The rocks disappeared as the ship jumped.
Continue to Episode 45
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