1808/AC02-07EVENTLOG

Ω CHAPTER SEVEN: The Cost of Victory

“We are not alone… We are amazed… Why can’t they be too? Why do they have to kill us? What did we do wrong?” -KT, Nav Officer

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“Ancestors I implore you; Lift those whose lives are now over… Their time has come thusly and they have indeed departed us. Guide them forth from the afterlife into the Abyss to live eternally at your side.”

The mood had become haunting. A dark silence had filled the ship, betrayed only when the crew spoke in hushed tones. Their banter was hollow, as was their smiles. War was no longer a certainty, it was now ongoing. But how could they fight something, now definitely, alien? How could they win?

Not one of them had sat there and thought that the fate of so many was in their hands. No. Such thoughts would drive any one of them mad. They weren't the finest soldiers, or greatest of leaders. They weren’t trained for that burden. They comprehended it as simple orders; ‘Take this item to this station as fast as you can.’

Yet chance would have it they were the ones to carry it...

“May they themselves take your place as heralds to guide those next who pass into your arms. May they earn their place amongst you, and be rewarded with becoming a star of their own.”

Once again however, there were duties needed doing. They had all filtered off to perform them one after another. Some were an absolute requirement, such as French checking over their drives after a worrying power spike. Others, like Jax checking the ammunition hoists were more questionable. They all knew she needed certainty, knowing they could fight back was definitely it.

“May they watch us immortal and invulnerable from the heavens at your side, and give birth to worlds we may one day live amongst with their spirits giving birth to new life… Ancestors I implore you; Take them amongst you into the Abyss.”

The Phoenix charged forth still. Her bound was unbreaking, and infallible. She was almost knowing of the perils her crew faced. Her engines had surged unexpectedly, burning faster and hotter than they were rated for, regardless of whether they were left as burnt out husks. She would not fail them. She would do the absolute best for them. If they're mission depended on it, she would get them to the Eye.

“I am so sorry…” KT whispered leaning upon her console, her arms tight around her side. She could see the vessel fly past them. Yet another casualty, one of by far innumerable vessels. “There is nothing we can do… Take them amongst you… Please… for our failure...”

The Phoenix now rapidly began to catch up with the invaders, already close enough that they could spot the conflict on their guncams. The battle was immense, and they were losing. A great nebula of fire and dust loomed far ahead. It would ripple with the light of dying vessels. It would sing with the death rattles of their crew. Their enemy made no show of slowing down. As close as they had gotten in mere hours, they were still days upon days away…

As of that moment, nothing could stop them...

KT noticed an alert flash across her screen. She hoped and prayed it was a rally for war. Her heart sank, however as she read it aloud.

“Sector Communications Error? Are you kidding me!” She snapped at her console, she grabbed her headset and hoped the Phoenix was listening. “Stupid girl I know why theres a communications error! They just knocked them out is why!”

She hurled the headset at the viewport, silently hoping it would shatter and suck her from this new world she’d lived in. She could’ve sworn it had already happened. That this was their afterlife... That the Ancestors had damned them.

The fall of sector comms hadn't stopped local broadcasts, however.

“Chariot Gunboat, Chariot Gunboat! We’re off your port! Help us!” She caught sight of the next vessel hailing them. It was burning. Their hull was torn asunder. She watched as small belches of fire claimed the once shining viewports. It was dying…

“Ancestors… I implore you…” she began to cry again. Her prayer faded into gasps.

“I hope you bastards rot in hell for this!” The vessel called out one final time. It pushed her over that edge, the tears flowed freely. Their current actions went against everything she stood for…

Keeping oneself out of touch with the decimation was taxing, if not impossible for some. They had the capabilities to help, and likely they could indeed save many people. Yet they refused to stop. They refused to even acknowledge them. Those that saw them, either on their instruments or as their last glimpses all begged. Pleading for their very lives. It wasn't enough to save them. The crew had to damn people to a helpless fate in the void.

“You are going to tear yourself apart.” KT jumped, kneeing the console as she went. Skip walked over, slow and steady as she welcomed the pain through gritted teeth. “The best thing for you to do is…” He shut the comm systems down. “That.”

“No.” She stated, turning the system back on immediately, without hesitation. “These are people’s last moments, they shouldn’t be alone. Someone needs to make sure the abyss takes them.”

“Everyone dies alone KT. You can be surrounded by loved ones, but you will walk off stage alone.” He fumbled slightly with the analogy, but the message was clear. “You might think your helping them by listening but all your doing is stripping them of the last hopes they have.”

She whipped around, a deep scowl on her face. “What is it with you and death? If I died tomorrow would you-”

“Yes.” He snapped. The anger was sudden, it was a shock that immediately made the navigator shrink in her seat. “With any one of you... So much so I can’t imagine it. Nor would I want to...” The thought seamed to cause him physical pain. When his grimace settled he spoke again. She had watched him the whole time. “And I am sure that opinion is shared by everyone onboard. We are a crew. We fight together. We live together, and one day I am sure we will die together. But I will not imagine what that day will be like. There will be no plan… there will be no preparation for it… otherwise we’re all dead already.”

KT Looked down in shame. But that quickly faded as she gave him a nod. She knew better than to be ashamed, those days were over the moment she boarded the Phoenix. So her head swung back up, her hair withdrawing like curtains revealing a steely facade. Then the alarms began to blare.

Skip vaulted the engineering console just before their fellow crew members steamed onto the bridge. Within seconds the cause of the Phoenix’s panic became known.

“Collision alert. We have a vessel at our bow, they're moving to intercept.” KT announced. She worked the calculations in her head at lightspeed, regardless of if the Phoenix had completed those same ones already, only just out of sight. “Thirty seconds to contact.”

“They’re trying to force us to decelerate.” Jax announced, she could see the vessel through her guncams, completely covering their indicated course. The ship was huge, there was no way they’d be able to strafe around it in time.

“Unknown vessel this is DSPG Phoenix, clear our flightpath immediately or we will fire upon you.” His voice was firm. At a time the instruction would’ve been shocking. However the crew faced the approaching vessel with a combined steely gaze, brought upon only by years of numbness and the necessity of their mission.

They worked with automation. Jax armed all her batteries. The flanks of their viewport ignited with the light of French firing their reverse thrusters, whilst KT searched her databanks for the vessel’s class.

Yet the comms remained silent.

“Twenty seconds to contact!”

“Jax?” Skip had grown tired of waiting, in fact they all had. The warnings had been given, and yet the vessel now fully eclipsed their flightpath. If those they protected turned upon them, they were indiscernible from their enemies.

“All turrets have firing solutions...” She flicked open the triggers on her control sticks. A cool exhale escaped her lips. “Engaging.”

The rattle of her batteries firing sounded out shipwide. The cascade of bullets was torrential, leaping forth as golden bolts into the darkness. The flight to their target took seconds, seconds they could ill afford.

“Change your target lock point-eight degrees to the bow.” KT ordered, scanning the vessel’s design pattern. She spotted a large cargo area, it would be harder to chew through, yet the risk of harm to its crew was negligible.

The eruption of fire seemed pitiful from across the vast distances of space, yet in actual fact against such a weak target the effect was incredible. The rounds drew themselves across the hull, it’s skin rippled like waves as it was torn through and fragmented. The contained pipes and mechanisms spewed forth into a deadly cloud of debris. Their weapons had settled upon their target, and now with every hit from their barrage the Phoenix tore deeper into the vessel.

“Cease fire Phoenix! Cease fire! We only wan-” The channel was closed with a flick of the switch. There would be no mercy… That is what they were taught.

By the time KT alerted them of the final ten seconds, the phoenix’s torrent of hellfire began to sing into the darkness on the other side of the damned vessel.

“Clean through Skip. However there's still the problem of…” KT was cut off when she saw the viewport panning across the starscape. The white haze of their engine plume was plainly visible ahead. “...The debris.”

There was no doubt that the crew of the now wounded ship watched the mad dash of the gunboat towards them. They cursed the vessel. They damned them to darkness for their actions. They only wanted to survive, and now that had been thrown into doubt with a hole punched through their ship.

The glow on the Phoenix’s main engines spilled forth in a long jet of whitehot plasma fire. It stretched forward across the void, drowning out the darkness with a shaft of light that burned all in its way. Although it had dispersed and faded slightly by the time it touched their vessel, the heat it bore still scorched and melted the splintered hull. The lethal cloud of debris was made molten and further rendered into gas, streaming off alongside the Phoenix’s own drive plume.

She charged through the vessel in the throes of what should have been a show of relentless power, yet it was not the case. As effective their methods had been, it hadn’t been enough. The hulls of both vessels wrenched and buckled. Whilst the cargo ship's hull splintered and splayed outwards like an exit wound, the Phoenix had her wingtips shaven off. It had only been a comparatively small impact, yet at such speeds the effect was magnitudes more lethal. Her structural members whipped backwards like rope, settling akin to vapour trails, whilst the normally impervious armour whipped off in sheets skinning her now open wound. Sparks erupted forth, as with a small trail of debris. The true extent of the damage would remain unknown.

The atmosphere once again felt hot and humid, the sudden change marked by the sounds of rending and shattering. French jumped once more to eject a heat sink, his vision fading too and fro as the temperature ever climbed. The Phoenix was caught in a flat spin, one that ran the risk of melting her drive core and then afterwards, leaving her crew as cooked, stroked out corpses.

Jax leapt from her seat, struggling through the air as it broiled her. She could see Skip desperately arresting their momentum, yet he too was showing the strain. KT’s head lulled backwards, her eyes watched them try. There was nothing her skillset could help with. A cruel fate, to have it in the hands of others.

The air began to rush past them, turning from sticky hot to a whipping arctic wind. The LS fans worked overtime as the cooling system worked even faster to purge the vessel of the lethal heat. Jax didn't bother to push French’s now lax form out the way, barely remaining conscious herself, she scanned his console. Within moments she knew exactly which motors to fire.

The Phoenix spun a vortex of flame. The burning exhaust of her single burn motors flew off against her death spiral. They would burn and turn silent, within a few seconds the system reloaded and fired again. It was a never ending struggle, with every maneuvering system she had working together to bring her near fatal spin to an eventual heel.

When French awoke he quickly noticed the additional weight of his crewmate. He immediately cradled her in an almost parental hold. Noticing the once again still starscape beyond their viewport and the drive temperature in safe margins he was immediately proud. She had saved them. He should’ve, but she did.

“She going to be ok big man?” Skip was sweating himself, an unusual thing to see, it reminded his old friend of how close they’d come to booking it.

“Yeah boss.” French peeled back one of Jax’s eyelids. “She's conscious, I think she's just coolin’ down.”

French noticed Skip wasn’t at his console, rather checking on their other crewmate. “How’s blondie?”

“She’ll be back with us in a minute or two.” He then paused like an idea had sprung upon him. He darted back to his console, after a second of cursive remembering he found what he searched for. “I keep forgetting they gave us these.”

“What's that?” French asked as one of the objects arched towards him. He recognised the injector fairly quickly. “When did we get these? We didn’t ‘ave ‘em on our last patrol.”

“New regulations…” Skip began, being cut off by the hiss of the device. The fluid dispersed into his navigator, immediately stirring her. “All pilots must have adrenaline shots in arms reach of their flight controls.”

“But still no cup holders?” French asked after he’d injected their gunnery officer.

“Why can’t we have cup holders?” KT slurred, barely coming back from heat stroke. Her rather gentle awakening was far more graceful than her colleague’s.

“We clipped our wingtips!” Jax announced, jumping to her feet and stumbling. With a few missteps and a bit of overbalancing she collapsed back into her flightseat. She looked between the officers. “Why aren’t you guys doing anything? Is it sorted?”

“No.” French smirked, albeit with a concerned look. “We ain’t blown up yet, so while it’s bad, it ain’t mission endin’.” He pointed at Jax. “Check it with your guncams!”

Jax pawed at her controls, panning her turret across the evident damage. She could see only a little of the area on her cameras, however what was visible was rather alarming. “Give us a burn Skip, looks like we took thruster damage.”

The moment of tension was enough to burst blood vessels. However the relief was almost euphoric when the blue flames burst forth systemically in all directions. The air rapidly cooled, some semblance of normality had returned.

“They’re burnin’...” However when Jax looked towards French, his expression of concern was worrying. “But barely…”

“We have red lines through her port and starboard structural members… Looks like the exterior hull’s collapsed. Still keeping form though. We just gotta take her gently…” He looked across the displayed outline of their gunboat. “Damage to thruster four, and LS malfunctions, same as ever… I gotta go lads I got work to do.”

“I don't know if we’ll make it anymore…”

They were now indiscernible from their enemies...