Blood Impulse

Part 22.4 - ODDS SEVEN-TO-ONE

Wilkerson Sector, Battleship Singularity

With a muted flash, the massive guns on the Singularity's back fired. The slugs left a wispy trail of propellant in their wake, and met their mark in concentrated silence. The cores of the ships began to glow, the hellish orange of embers so unnatural in machines. The light rose slowly into visible flames, expanding outward, the ships' fragile hulls cracking apart.

Final explosions riddled the structures: fuel and munitions detonating in the starry silence. The runaway reactions slowed and eventually stalled without oxygen, leaving the broken wrecks completely visible. Slowly, engines, hull armor and structure drifted away, the ships blown cleanly apart.

"Power signatures are failing," Galhino confirmed the sight. "UCSC-43, 61, sunk."

Zarrey watched the remains spread out through the camera feeds and breathed a sigh of relief. "Two down..."

"Seven to go," the Admiral finished. It wasn't nearly enough. They couldn't go toe-to-toe with seven battleships, and the projectile fire was still too dense to risk summoning the away team. They'd never make it through.

"Sir," Galhino called, "All ships are encroaching. They're closing the distance." Two of their comrades sunk, Command's ships were now tightening the sphere.

"Fuck." Zarrey cursed. "They're going to board." This was by the book, all of it was. They'd surrounded the Singularity, thus immobilizing her, and dealt enough damage to breach the armor and cause chaos on the internal comms. It was textbook boarding practice.

The Admiral nodded, "Prepare to repel boarders." It seems Manhattan really, really wanted him alive – a desire severe enough to try to seize the entire ship. "XO, head up defense." Zarrey could handle the ship's internal defense. He had to focus on the external battle. "The rest of you," he called, "eyes up. We are not finished."

They were scared to death. It was too easy to tell. If this battle came to personnel combat, they were outnumbered seven to one – worse even, since a good portion of the ship's crew: the engineers, yeomen and medics were barely trained in self-defense, let alone real combat. In CIC, charged with running the ship, these officers would have no real chance of defending themselves if hostile forces made it this far.

Galhino looked up only to meet Robinson's gaze. They shared a long moment, seeking desperate comfort. We'll be okay, Robinson's brown eyes seemed to say. Galhino wished she could believe that.

The shudder of incoming fire made itself known again, breaking the terrified silence of CIC. Power flickered again, the power grid beginning to destabilize. We need to move, and the Admiral knew it. The Singularity was a tough ship, the finest he'd ever seen, but she couldn't sustain this without consequences.

They had to break Command's formation, now. Find the weak point, he told himself, scouring the readouts of the encroaching fleet. Distantly, he could hear the thunder of the turrets and the occasional clap of one of the main battery guns. Gaffigan and the turreters were doing a fine job keeping them busy.

There, one of the ships was moving slower than the rest, leaking fluid, engine coolant most likely. Dead ahead, the Palindrome was limping. A perfect next victim. "Main forward battery, target the Palindrome's stern." You won't get away.

"Aye," Gaffigan and Jazmine said, coordinating between their stations to aim the fixed barrels by maneuvering the ship.

Now time to distract. He wouldn't make his target that obvious for Manhattan. "Main battery, concentrate fire on 62 and 45's engines." The Keeper-class ships adjacent to the Palindrome had names, certainly, but he wouldn't bother to learn them in mid-battle. Calling them by their ID number worked just fine, and truly, their names were meaningless to him anyway.