Captain Crai

Captain Crai sat in her chair, with Commander Kestat beside her. The soft ping from engineering and the red lights from the engines lit her console.

Kestat gave her a long glance and sighed before tapping the accept. "Send it."

"I don't need to tell you, engine temperature is critical on both ships," Chief Valdez reported. "We've been full on burning eighteen hours straight. We're never pushed her this far before."

"And I hope we don't ever have to do it again," Captain Crai replied. Four days. They'd managed to cut what should have been a four-week journey with extremely controlled burns down to four days. They'd pushed their engines far beyond any safety protocol ever written and jumped at every location possible. This was travel across the stars which risked everything. But the thought that Peyton's crew could already be facing annihilation had her stomach cramping. It was the same helpless feeling she'd had watching Derek's ship disappear in her 'rear' viewer.

"How much longer can we maintain this burn?" she asked, though she already dreaded the answer.

"Six hours, maybe eight if we're lucky. After that..." Valdez shrugged helplessly. "Our engine cores will either shut down automatically, or they'll breach containment and take us all with them."

"Unacceptable." The words came out harsher than she'd intended. "Those people saved Derek's life. We're not stopping." She paused. "Give me options."

"Captain we—"

"No, we…. Options now."

"There may be one thing we can do," Valdez said. Though he looked worried still.

Through the viewport, she could see the other ship in their now two-man convoy blazing their way ahead.

"We tuck in closer to the lead ship. Use it as a safety net, and rotate them."

"Ditch the ship?"

"If it's the Retribution, then sadly, yes." Valdez said. "Markov's is clean, they never fought Ranger. We did, and we're suffering on all sides."

"How close? I've never heard anyone doing this before, why?"

"There's only been two Captain's try it, both didn't live to tell the story."

Captain Crai swallowed. "How close?"

"I'm talking meters," Valdez replied.

"Captain," Her helmswoman, Lt. Greenley said and was visibly shaking.

"The AI?"

"Too much of a risk," Valdez replied. "If we lose him…"

"Understood."

Crai looked at the young woman, she was too fresh, too green around the gills. Her eyes drifted to the only other person on this ship with the experience and the balls to pull it off. "Kestat," she whispered. "Take the helm."

"Yes, Captain."

Commander Kestat stood and relieved the young woman. "Take us in to the Pogue's slipstream, then…"

"We need to be precisely ten meters off their bow. Twenty below the engine burn."

"The hull?"

"Will still be too close," he said. "Pull everyone back."

"CIC?"

"You need to use the oft center."

Crai looked around the room. "You heard him, all personnel to the oft center. Now."

While the crew around her exited the CIC. Kestat brought the Retribution in line with Pogue's slip stream.

"Go," he said.

"I'm not leaving you," she said. "I—"

"Captain," he said. "Go. I've got this."

Crai stood, moved to his chair, and gently put a hand on his shoulder.

"Who for relief?" she asked.

"Sgt Carrol," he replied. "I'll hold out as long as I can."

"If you need me at all, I'll be here."

Kestat put his hand on hers and squeezed. "As always. Now, go before I fumble these last few meters."

Crai stood straight, and saluted. Kestat didn't take his hands off the controls.

Within minutes, Crai was standing in the oft center.

"Is there any word from Peyton's convoy?" she asked, though the silence from communications already told her the answer.

Communications Officer Cisek shook his head grimly. "Nothing Captain.

The chill that ran down Crai's spine was familiar. The same ice-cold certainty she'd felt during the worst engagements of her career. "Start cycling through emergency frequencies. If they're under attack, they might be using burst transmissions to avoid detection."

"Doctor?" Crai asked and pulled up her view of what was the extraction victim deck, now a manufacturing HUB against the tech instead. "Prepare a full nanite bath for Commander Kestat. If we pull him, I want the best care you—"

"Already on it," Sorrel replied. "As soon as his levels hit critical, we'll pull him."

Crai couldn't find any other words. "Feath," Sorrel almost whispered. "Trust me, Trust him."

Crai wiped her eyes. Her crew's faces echoed what she was feeling. No one needed to state the obvious. They just had to live through it.

"Time to intercept at current burn rate?" she finally managed.

"Twelve hours," Valdez replied.

Crai closed her eyes for a moment, running through the mathematics of survival. She'd faced this choice before. Risk everything to save a few, or preserve what you had and let others die. It didn't make it any easier, nothing ever did.

"Chief reroute all power from life support and artificial gravity."

"Captain—" Valdez's voice carried professional alarm.

Valdez consulted his engineering readouts, his expression grim. "That would reduce engine stress by approximately twenty percent. But crew efficiency would drop significantly, and if we suffer any environmental system failures during the run..."

"We'd be dead in space," Cisek added quietly.

"Better than being dead on arrival," Crai replied. "Do it. Emergency power conservation protocols. Minimal life support, thirty percent artificial gravity, every available joule to the engines."

As the orders went out, Crai felt the familiar shift in the ship's environment. The air seemed thinner, gravity noticeably reduced, and the familiar hum of life support systems dropped to a barely audible whisper.

The ship shuddered as the engine modifications took effect, the whine of overstressed systems filling the CIC again. Warning lights flickered across multiple consoles, but their speed increased noticeably.

"Engine temperature stabilizing at critical but manageable levels," Valdez reported. "Pogue's matching us, shutting down all systems. We've gained approximately fourteen percent speed increase, but we're operating with zero safety margin. Any system failure..."

"Then we don't have any system failures," Crai said with command finality. "Nyx, what's our new intercept time?"

"Ten hours, forty-one minutes at current burn rate. But Captain..." Nyx's replied. "I'm detecting quantum resonance instabilities in our engine cores. The Braker premium fuel is more volatile than standard Coalition mixtures. Continued operation at current levels will result in cascade failures."

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"How long before cascade failure becomes inevitable?"

"Ten hours, thirty-seven minutes."

The silence that followed spoke volumes. They were literally racing their own death, with a margin of error measured in minutes.

"Then we'd better hope our friends can hold out for four and a half hours," Crai said.

Peyton

The heat as I descended into engine hit me even worse, worse than any other place I'd been.

<<Lia, how long can we stand it down here?>>

<<You went in without a suit. How long do you think??>>

I made my way to engine one coolant lines. <<How long?>>

<<Minutes.>> she said. <<You'll overheat.>>

"What's the pressure?" I asked Las.

"Thirty-four PSI and dropping. Coolant system, eighteen percent." He replied. "If we lose primary flow to engines one and two..."

He didn't need to finish. We all knew what happened when quantum drives lost full containment, they went boom.

<<Peyton, you can't stay down there,>> Lia said. <<Please leave now.>>

<<Not happening. If we leave, we're all dead. Help me.>>

"Captain, I've got visual on the primary breach. It's worse than the readings showed." Pavel reported. "Can you get to me?"

"Negative, I have to stop engine one popping anything extra."

"How long were we running beyond maximum parameters?" Pavel asked.

"Five minutes, twenty-three seconds," I replied. "At a hundred and fifty-six percent."

The kid swore. "Fuck," then added. "Sorry, Captain."

"Don't sweat it, the numbers don't lie."

"Four more crew down." Dr. Martinez's voice echoed around us. "Neural mapping completion at seventy-nine percent."

"Lev, what's the status on engine two?"

"Holding at forty-two PSI. Stress fractures are starting in the secondary injection system." His voice also echoed from the access tunnel connecting the engine compartments. "If we don't get the thermal load distributed soon..."

The ship shuddered as Mac pushed the remaining engines harder. He was trying to keep the distance, it wasn't working.

"Turn off those fucking klaxons," I ordered. "Leave the reds going."

The silence as the annoying racket went off was almost bliss.

"Pavel, you need to bypass the primary coolant manifold."

"Already on it." He replied. "But the secondary system wasn't designed for this load."

Nothing was designed for this load. Nothing at all. But they had to. "Do it." I said. "Lev. What do you need on engine two?"

"One of the valves is stuck." I could hear metal scrape against metal.

<<Peyton,>> Lia sounded much more fragmented. <<They're adapting to our shield modifications. They're using our quantum drive signatures to enhance their targeting.>>

"What?"

<<The harder we push, the easier they can lock on.>>

"Mac," I called. "Lia says the engine output is making us easier targets."

"Understood. We're eight minutes from the asteroid field. If we reduce power now..."

"We won't make it," I finished.

"The primary bypass is complete," Pavel said. "But the coolant pressure is still dropping. I'm going to need to close off the breach manually."

I fully opened my valves here and watched as fluid sped through. Engine one's temperature started to fall.

"How manually?" I asked.

"They need to be sealed from the inside."

Inside the containment chamber? No way.

My mind was screaming at me, and I clicked off from the kid. "Radiation?" I asked Las.

"Level one." Las replied.

Fuck…. I couldn't… I just… but I flicked back to the channel, and my voice said the opposite. "Do it."

I just ordered a kid inside a death trap.

"Captain," Elena said, and my stomach flipped.

I slapped myself in the face. "Fuck!"

"No," Lev said, his voice sharp. "I'll do it."

"The hell you will," and I was about to move to go do it myself. "I'm on it."

<<I'll guide you,>> Lia offered.

"You're needed to coordinate repairs on both engines. I can follow Lia's instructions." I could see Lev was already out of engine twos lines and into the line of three. How someone with such bulk could move so fast belied belief.

I was about to argue.

"Captain. Engine two has just lost pressure." Pavel said. "We're a minute from catastrophic failure."

"Do it." I closed my eyes. Fingers over the hatch release. "But be as fucking fast as you can, Lev. If I have to tell Sorrel I swear to all the fucking gods in this world, I'll kill you myself."

"You'd have to get in line. You know she'd beat you." He paused and I could see him psyching himself up. "Ready, pull the hatch."

I hit the unlock and watched him scuttle inside.

"There's a manual release, crawl directly to the injection manifold. You'll see the fractures as bright lines in the metal..." Lia instructed.

<<Six minutes,>> she fed me. <<Neural mapping at eighty-four percent.>>

The Faulkner lurched violently as engine two's output fluctuated.

"Pavel—" My voice put my emotions on my sleeve. "How you doing?"

"Line secure." He replied, totally focused, the kid was astounding. "Rerouting coolant flow again."

"Las, if we reach the asteroid field—what's our time for repairs?"

"We can't. We'll never run at full capacity without a full refit. Sixty percent maximum output, and that's optimistic."

"Sixty percent?" We'd enough to reach the asteroid field…maybe enough to continue toward Sigma-Seven.

If the repairs held.

If Ranger didn't overwhelm everyone first.

If he didn't find a way through the asteroid field.

So many what fucking ifs…

<<Five minutes,>> Lia reported. <<Neural scanning at eighty-seven percent. I'm losing processing capability.>>

"Lev, status?"

"I can see the fractures. Sealing compound deploying now."

"Radiation exposure?"

"Thirteen seconds and counting."

I could see the quantum containment field fluctuating, sheets of blue-white energy dancing across the chamber walls.

"Pavel, engine two status?"

"Coolant pressure stabilized at fifty-one PSI. It's still below optimal, but manageable. Thermal stress is distributing better."

"Engine three?" Las asked.

"Seal is working. I'm seeing new stress fractures forming in the primary manifold. Moving to fix."

The Faulkner shuddered again, and I was almost rocked off my feet.

"Whatever you're doing down there, do it faster." Mac begged.

<<Extraction at ninety-one percent.>>

"Lev, get out of there. Now."

"Almost finished. I need thirty more seconds."

"You don't have thirty more seconds."

"I have exactly thirty seconds."

<<Four minutes to the asteroid field,>> Lia was barely coherent now and I struggled to even feel her inside my mind.

"Can you compensate for us if engine three fails, Pavel?"

"Negative."

"Twenty seconds," Lev reported. "Sealing compound over the new cracks. Wait out."

"Fifteen seconds," Pavel added. "Engine two pressure is stabilizing."

<<I'm losing... losing cohe...>> Lia's voice dissolved into static.

"Ten seconds," Lev reported. "Sealing complete."

"Get out of there!" He was already moving. "Come on. Come on."

Then he was out, and I sealed the hatch once more. It took several more seconds, but the reds faded to orange.

"Engines are stable," Pavel finally announced. "Pressure holding at sixty-two PSI."

"Thank the fucking gods." I exhaled. "Exit engine shaft now, decontamination protocol."

"We're not going to get full power," Las said. "But all three engines are fully operational."

"Doc, we're on our way." From my HUD I could see Lev, he was pale but alert.

"Radiation exposure?"

"One minute-seven seconds total."

<<Three minute, forty seconds,>> came Lia's fragmented voice. <<Neural... scanning... critical...>>

"Mac," I called. "Engine status is stable. How are we looking?"

"Manta-S made it into the outer asteroid field," Mac announced with relief. "Derek is reporting total crew loss except for essential bridge personnel."

"Status on the other ships?"

"Negative contact. Long-range sensors show debris fields at their last known positions."

"Stand by. New transmission," Torres interrupted. "Source—Iron Covenant."

"Iron Covenant to Faulkner Actual." Captain Keating reported. "Engaging six Braker vessels."

"Keating, break contact," I said. "That's six to one!"

"Ghost also engaging. Bandits bearing two-seven-zero. Multiple inbound."

"Silent Thunder. We are weapons free. Taking fire from pursuit vessel alpha."

"Slug," Lev said, his voice tight.

"Lev, hold your post." I snapped.

A different sound bled through. Heavy weapons fire.

Lev's eyes were pleading with me, I could only glare at him.

"You've got research that could save the Coalition." Slug replied between explosions. "We've got a few hundred souls, you do the math."

"Iron Covenant taking heavy fire, shields at thirty percent," Keating called. "Multiple hits on the enemy. They're taking damage, but so are we."

"Ghost, we're losing mains engines—" The line crackled to just static.

"Silent Thunder. Hull breach on deck seven. We're venting atmo—"

"Mac," I ordered. "Get us out of here."

Lev lurched for the comms station. "Ghost, do you copy? Silent Thunder, respond!"

"Chief." I cut him off, flat. "Man your station. Now."

He froze, hands hovering over the station.

"That's an order."

The last transmission crackled through as we hit the outer limits of the asteroid field. "Good hunting, Faulkner. Make it count."

Silence.

Lev stood one heart-beat longer at the comm before he returned to security, his face blank.

"Nothing at all?" he asked Torres.

"Unable to confirm," she replied.

"Outer asteroid field in ninety seconds," Mac said. "We're going to make it."

"Our crew status? "Twenty-three unconscious, fifteen more showing severe cognitive disruption."

Once at the top of the engine ladders, I could see Pavel and Las were already working on final calibrations, "Captain, coolant pressure is holding. Thermal stress is manageable."

"Las, your assessment?" I asked as I passed the central engine to reach Lev. I hooked an arm under his, offering support even if he was still standing up stronger than I was.

"We've bought time. We haven't solved the problem."

<<Two minutes ten seconds,>> Lia managed. <<Scanning... intensity... decreasing...>>

"Entering asteroid field now."

The relief was immediate and overwhelming. "Lia, status?"

<<Processing... stabilizing...>> Her voice became clearer. <<Neural scanning has dropped.>>

<<Lia make sure doc's ready for us.>> I ordered.

<<She's ready. Just get down there.>>

"Pavel, final engine assessment?"

"Fuel consumption is higher than optimal, but we have propulsion." He paused. "Captain..."

"What?"

"The sealing compound... it's temporary. Maybe six hours before it degrades. We're going to need a dry dock."

Six hours. Enough time to reach deeper into the asteroid field, maybe establish a defensive position. But not enough time to reach Sigma-Seven. Lev and I hit the elevator.

"Martinez," I asked. "Medical status?"

"Eighteen crew members are unconscious but stable. Neural activity patterns suggest they'll recover, but..."

We were without a crew and on fumes.

"Mac," I said. "We'll be in medical. Keep those reports coming."

The asteroid field stretched endlessly around us, chunks of rock and ice providing cover but also creating a maze with no clear exit. "Lia, how long can we stay hidden here?"

<<Mineral interference will mask our signatures from long-range sensors, but if pursuit forces conduct systematic sweeps, they could locate us within twelve to eighteen hours.>>

"Time frame for engine repairs to reach minimum operational status?"

<<With Pavel's modifications holding, we have perhaps four hours before the temporary seals fail completely. After that, we're looking at dead stick navigation.>>

"Will do. So far long-range sensors are limited but the extraction has stopped completely."

"Good. Pavel, Las, Lev, outstanding work."

We entered the medical lab, Elena and Katya were straight to us, helping Lev to a bed. "I'm okay," I said. "See to him."

Dr. Martinez moved to me. "We'll see to you both. We need you."

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