Character Perspective: Novarod

Dodge. Activate the slipstream and slide past the-

A barrage of lasers slammed into the side of our ship, rattling the controls slightly as I saw the shield indicator on my display flash briefly.

“Shields at 95%,” Plum called.

“Dammit Novarod, I thought you had a lot of sim time!” Curtis yelled.

I wanted to be offended, of course I did, but given the storm of things going wrong, I don’t think I could blame Curtis for being a bit on edge. With how this trial was going he was going to be the one to get the biggest earful at the end of it, win or lose. I pushed the accelerator and tried to whip us back around, a barrage of our own launching toward the enemy ship and glancing off the invisible barrier, leaving a static, hexagonal light grid in its place where it had hit.

“Comms are functional in the Lab once more!” Sera’s voice crackled over the intercom.

“Good job Spacefly, head down to Weapons, I think Ty is going to need all hands on deck down there,” Curtis called over the intercom.

I felt my body twitch as I yanked the controls to the side, rolling over and past a series of missiles that went barreling past us without harm.

“Nice dodge Nova,” Ty called over the patch intercom set into my station. “Now if Doc can get his accuracy up and land enough hits, we might actually be able to break through that shielding they have,” she said, and I could hear the exasperation in her voice.

“Ay Ay Ay! Not my fault that I wasn’t expecting this cockpit to be Zero-G!”

“Keep it together Doc,” Ty responded, “Just take a breath and keep firing, Laser’s got unlimited ammo and we just need a few consecutive shots to break that barrier.”

I hit the accelerator again as the Parasitum turned back inward toward us. Their pilot was good, simulation or not and I found that even with a high speed turn their shots seemed to predict where we were going, slamming into the side of our ship once more and shaking the bridge.

“Wait,” I muttered looking at the shielding indicator. “Captain, our shields aren’t recharging!”

“What?” Curtis asked and I looked over my shoulder just in time to see him almost out of his chair and looking over Plum’s shoulder.

“Total shipboard power seems to be down by 42% and is not recharging,” Plum reported. “Shields are currently sitting at 65% functional.”

“Spacefly, cancel my last. I need you to get to Engineering immediately. We are bleeding power and if we don’t make a correction, we are about to be dead in the water, Sullivan, if you’re done breaking shit in Labs, get over there and help her. Weapons, keep firing but make the shots count we can’t count on a recharge,” Curtis called, and the intercom clicked off.

“Should I let up on the gas Captain?” I asked.

“No, right now it’s your driving and the weapons keeping us alive, do not stop moving now,” Curtis sighed. “Do we have eyes on the DRAKE?”

“No Captain, we lost visuals when had to disable the Long Range and switched over to the Short Range,” Plum responded.

“Grounds, okay. Novarod, get Ty as many clean shots as you can, we are racing against the clock I think.”

“Aye Captain,” I responded, though this time I didn’t hit the accelerator quite as hard. The Parasitum sped itself up, slipping to the side and peppering our ship with more laser shots.

​

“Shields are at 47%” Plum rattled off.

Dog fighting in space was almost like a dance, and I quickly rolled the ship in an effort to get behind the Parasitum, but every move I made seemed to be almost immediately, annoyingly prepared for and the enemy ship never left us lined up with their engines for longer than a second top. Doc let off another barrage of lasers, these ones going wide as the ship swung back around on us, a series of lasers crashing into the ship and shaking the simulated bridge roughly.

“Hull breach in lower crew quarters,” the robotic voice of the Neutrino said over the intercom.

“Neutrino seal off Lower Quarters!” Plum called back immediately. “Captain I don’t know what the plan is here but if you got one, I would love to hear it.”

“Honestly I don’t know if there is much of one to go on,” he replied more calmly than I expected. “Whatever Sullivan did down there really screwed us over here, not that I can exactly be that angry at him… I did give the experiment the go ahead.”

“All the same, you were expecting something that he had a handle on,” Plum replied. “If this was like, a real experiment he did than we might need to talk to him about time and place of these things.”

“Captain the engines are stuck in a boot lock, I am overriding the internal computer, but power will continue to drain while it comes back up,” Sera called over the intercom.

“Do it, Weapons, do you have a shot?” Curtis yelled back.

“I am redirecting all weapons power into the Rail-Rifle and Torpedo Bay One, Captain,” Ty responded over the crackling intercom. “I’m loading a modified Hydrogen Bomb into Bay One, if we can eject it with enough force and Doc gets his shots lined up, we may just be able to get the bomb through the cracks and blow that ship out of space.”

“Heard Weapons, if you get the shot, you take it.”

I yanked the controls to the side again, trying to dodge away from another barrage of lasers that the enemy started to fire but everything seemed sluggish. I managed to pull the ship to the side just in time as several shots fired out from our ship, hitting along the side of the Parasitum ship’s shields until one of them made it past the seemingly invisible barrier and crashed directly into the engine block of the ship.

Our ship began to shake as well and I realized that with our shots, they must have gotten some through as well and I heard as a low magnetic hum died off from the consoles surrounding my seat.

“Captain, Flight control power is critical,” I called over my shoulder as a warning indicator flashed on my display. “We are drifting.”

“Shields are dead as well Captain, it looks like we are on our emergency power with Life Support and Comms still activated,” Plum reported.

“Engines are refiring,” the static of the intercom broke through the silence that had quickly fallen over the bridge.

“Direct immediate power to Weapons, Spacefly!” Curtis commanded, eyes locked on the screen ahead of us as he watched the Parasitum ship hiccupping. Whatever we had hit must have taken out their maneuverability. “Ty, you take that shot the moment you have power!”

I almost felt like I needed to hold my breath, my eyes turning from the Captain and locking onto the screens representing our enhanced window. The ship seemed to be swiveling slowly, ever so slowly, and I could see the gun cockpit on the bottom of the ship trying to turn to its break point in order to line up a shot.

“Power is at 15%, I am cycling everything from the stations here down to Weapons as well,” Plum said, the Parasitum let off another barrage and I held my breath.

“Bombs away!” Ty called over the ship’s intercom and I saw a large torpedo shaped object fire forward from our ship, holding true toward the Parasitum ship.

Then the lasers hit us, our ship began rattling violently as the lights across the bridge flashed dark and the emergency lights flickered on. Our window was the last to go dark as our ship continued to rattle and I instinctively found myself holding onto the sides of my seat. After almost a minute of this, the window buzzed back to life with red letters pasted across the screen. “TRIAL ENDED BY DESTRUCTION”.