Brynn Phytrelia Pt. 03

Idris nodded. "Perfect. I just need a flight suit then."

"What about me?" Brynn demanded. "What am I supposed to do?"

Idris turned to her, stone-faced, and huffed out a breath of air. "I would take you with me," he lied, "but there isn't room on the ship for you. I'm sorry." He looked to Commander Kitchiss. "Would it be permissible for her to wait here, in CIC, with your staff? I promise she won't cause any problems," he lied again. Idris was aware that if he left her here alone, she was more than likely to be a little troublesome, but he felt it was the only way he could convince all parties involved to acquiesce, with the smallest amount of resistance possible, for the given situation. If Brynn could at least stay and watch, she wouldn't fight him as hard.

"Leave me here?" Brynn said, threateningly. "You're going to leave me here? How many times are you going to leave me?" She was breathing hard, then realized how that sounded. "I-I can help." She stuttered.

Idris shook his head silently. "No, you can't. Not for this. It's just a fighter craft. There isn't even a seat for you to sit in. What would you do if you came with me?"

Brynn could see Commander Kitchiss, and some of his staff, shifting uneasily as the two of them argued openly in front of them. Maybe they were not accustomed to crew members openly contradicting the orders of their captain. But the question stopped her. It wasn't like she knew how to pilot, and she definitely didn't know any kind of weapon systems, and she...well, she really didn't know anything about ships.

"You...I..." She stopped, frustrated. "You're the Captain, then. Go without me." She said, her voice hollow. "I will wait...for you to come back."

Idris forced himself to look away from her, the burning in his chest growing intense and painful as he fought it down. He had to do this. It was his selfish desire to save Brynn that had put Avenger's entire crew into this mess in the first place. He turned to Commander Kitchiss. "A flight suit?"

He nodded and turned to Chief Warrence. "Can you please show Captain Chariton to the flight deck and have your people provide him with some gear?"

Warrence nodded, saluting. "Yes, Sir." He turned to Idris. "Captain Chariton, please come with me."

Idris turned to Commander Kitchiss and saluted him, much more formally than he had saluted Lieutenant Gartner. "I appreciate your assistance, Commander. Best of luck to you and your men."

The commander nodded back, and Idris followed Chief Warrence out of the room, leaving Brynn alone with over a dozen complete strangers. Strangers that he obviously trusted, but strangers nonetheless. Commander Kitchiss sighed and turned to regard Brynn. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid your Captain was in a little too much of a hurry to get out of here and he forgot to introduce us. I'm Commander Kitchiss. What is YOUR name, Miss?"

"I'm Brynn." Brynn's voice had lost its flair, false or otherwise, and sounded flat. "Untrained and unused, apparently."

He frowned, nodding. "I'm sorry that we cannot put your skills to better use. Can I offer you a seat? CIC is one of the safest sections of the ship..."

"I'm...sorry. It's not your fault." She muttered. "Will I be able to see everything from here?"

He nodded to her. "Of course. It's the best seat in the house." He smiled, reassuringly, and looked absolutely convincing about how happy he was to accommodate her, despite how uneasy he felt about her unfortunate circumstances.

"Great." She dropped into a chair and tried hard to look as if she weren't stewing in anger.

Commander Kitchiss turned back to the screen, watching as the enemy ship got closer, leaving Brynn to herself.

Idris followed Warrence to the flight deck. He'd already changed into his flight gear and was following Warrence to the ship set aside for him.

"Here is your ship, Captain. Good luck."

Idris saluted him and climbed in. The hatch closed down over him and he pulled his helmet on. As Warrence walked away, he turned to look back at the ship to see Idris give him the thumbs up, the engines of his vessel starting as Warrence made his way back towards CIC.

Idris hesitated for a long moment, just sitting in his ship, listening to the comm. frequency and waiting for clearance to take off.

"Unidentified ship entering missile range, Captain."

"Have they answered any of our hails?"

"No, Ma'am. And they are still closing on us."

"Very well. Arm all tubes. Fire when in range."

Brynn could hear the same exchange from her seat.

"Yes, Captain. We're sure that this is Astaria. I'm afraid we have not been able to get a very useful tactical analysis of her yet."

"Very well. Your orders stand. All missile tubes set to rapid fire. Destroy that ship before it gets close enough for it to get a good-"

"Missile contact! Multiple missile contacts! Make it...eleven hundred, Ma'am. Sensors read over eleven hundred contacts bearing down on us."

Brynn heard Avenger's captain swearing.

"Are we in range yet?!"

"No, Ma'am. Ten seconds to extreme missile range."

She swore again. "Evasive maneuvers, helm. Chief Warrence, you're people are about to get very busy."

"Yes, Ma'am." Brynn heard him off to the side, but was only slightly aware.

Brynn heard Captain Johansen's voice again. "Time to impact?"

"Thirty seconds...twenty-eight...twenty-six..."

"Give these monsters everything we have as soon as we're in range!"

Brynn watched the screen as the lines, which she assumed represented the missiles, came down on Avenger. She watched as the blue rim around the green ship icon got closer to the red dot, until finally it crossed inside of the line.

No one said anything as the lines on the screen moved away from their ship, tracking towards the red dot. Even Brynn was able to see the disparity between the speed of the attacker's missiles and their own.

"Twenty...eighteen..."

"We've got eight hundred icons in the water, Captain. That's as many as we can get in the first volley. Ten seconds to second volley," another voice said.

"Time to impact?" Captain Johansen asked.

"Make it about thirty seconds before the first of our birds hits them. Energy range will come about twenty seconds after that, at their current velocity."

"Pray that they don't get that close. If they do, I imagine their advantage on the missile front will be nothing compared to their advantage on the energy front."

Brynn watched as the green icon started to veer away from the red dot that was now curving to match their course change, still moving closer much faster than Avenger seemed able to try to get away.

"All hands...brace for impact." Captain Johansen's voice sounded confident, void of any feelings of defeat.

"Fourteen...twelve...ten..."

Commander Kitchiss looked over at Brynn. "Miss, I suggest you get your crash restraints on. This isn't going to be very pleasant."

Brynn obediently buckled herself in as she watched the screen. "Can we see which one is Idris?" She asked, her eyes glued to the moving colors.

"CIC is focused on the missile exchange. The fighter intelligence will come up once the missile exchange is over."

Brynn saw as the green icon launched another volley. Some of the lines coming off of Avenger were striking some of the incoming lines, neutralizing some of the armament that might otherwise destroy Avenger.

"E.W. Drones and Point Defense is working to reduce their numbers, Captain. But there's still too many of them. Estimate about a hundred of them are going to get through. They'll be left to missile defense."

The green and red icons on the screen got bigger as the distance closed between them. Avenger started to shake as the concussion of missiles detonated, far enough away to fail to do any damage, but still close enough for her crew to feel it. As Avenger got bigger on the screen, the lines of red got closer, their numbers dwindling as energy weapons worked to try to destroy the incoming weapons before they could get close enough to hurt Avenger.

"Five...four...three...BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

The lines on the screen moved closer until they contacted the green icon on the screen. Everyone had sat down or secured into some kind of crash restraints. Avenger lurched, hard, and alarms wailed throughout the CIC compartment. Brynn heard the sound of an electronic power surge behind her. The lights dimmed for a moment, flickering, and came back to life.

"Damage report!"

"We've lost...tubes ten...eighteen...and twenty-five, Ma'am. One of the bastards got lucky and punched through to BETA node three. And reactor two has been jettisoned."

"Casualty reports?"

"About a hundred, Ma'am. Weapons bay five, fourteen, and twenty are all dead. Tubes ten through fifteen, seventeen through twenty, and twenty-five through thirty are all unmanned. Energy weapons are still online."

"Time to energy range?"

"Ten seconds."

"Launch all fighters!"

The fleet of smaller, more agile fighters swarmed away from all three of Avenger's launch bays. They swarmed around the larger Avenger, then gathered to attack the opposing ship en masse. Brynn could see the icons of the fighter squads as they moved away from the ship. As if to answer, the red dot - which was now shaping into the same, nightmarish shape of the vessel that had attacked Brynn and Idris - was launching fighters of its own. As the two clouds came together, moving to swarm around the enemy ship, the activity became harder to track. The vacuum of space made ship to ship combat a terribly silent thing. The only sound was that of the pilots on the comms. Avenger started to lurch and shake as the two vessels entered energy range.

"Blue Twelve to Blue Five, cover me while I go in."

"Copy Blue Twelve; I'll stay back a little ways to make sure none of them sneak up behind you."

"What's the status of our weapons," Captain Johansen asked.

"Energy reserves at thirty-five percent and dwindling fast, Captain."

"Keep firing!"

Avenger continued to buck, the floor seeming to try to leap up at Brynn as she sat there, eyes glued to the screen. There were too many fighters for her to pick out which one was Idris' but she could see that the number of red icons, indicating the fighters, were getting smaller. Did that mean they were winning?

"Captain, the ship is...breaking away..."

"What?!" Even with Captain Johansen's control, she couldn't help but let the surprise into her voice.

"Yes, they're...they're RETREATING!"

"Keep firing! Don't let her escape. We can't let her get the jump on someone else."

"Blue leader to red leader, did you see that?"

"Blue leader, I did. They just...there were about two dozen of them! They're getting more!"

"Red leader, this is the Captain. What's going on?"

"They're stealing our ships, Ma'am! About three dozen of our fighters just...went dead, floating adrift, and the enemy ship much have tracted them in!"

Silence.

Brynn hardly dared breathe. "Is Idris coming back?" She asked in a small voice, unbuckling her harness. "Was he taken?"

Commander Kitchiss was just as glued to the screen, shock on his face as he just stared. Then he snapped out of it. "Get me a visual of the ship on that screen!"

The immense picture filled with the sight of the black nightmare. More and more fighters were being neutralizing and then abducted. Then once it seemed that all of the smaller ships had vanished, either by moving out of range of the attacking ship, or because they were gone, Brynn watched as the familiar green and blue streaks appeared around the ship as it disappeared into antispace.

"Where's Idris?" She said, louder. "Was he taken? Were they all taken?" She knew, she just didn't want to accept it. In her heart, though, she absolutely knew.

Commander Kitchiss looked at Brynn with a fleeting glance and then turned to the screen, which was still showing the visual where the ship had been. "All fighters...return to Avenger. Squadron leaders...get a head count of your men."

The comms went silent and Commander Kitchiss looked to Brynn. "We'll find out if Captain Chariton was one of the fighters that were taken, I promise."

"Commander, squads reporting in. Over sixty fighters and their ships are missing."

He nodded. "And...Captain Chariton?"

The man looked back at him, glancing at Brynn, and then back to Commander Kitchiss, unable to look at Brynn as he answered. "He's...he appears to be among the number abducted, Commander..." He glanced at Brynn again, but locked his eyes on Commander Kitchiss to avoid her eye contact.

Brynn stood up from her chair, her heart no longer pounding. In fact, it felt as if it would never beat again. Her lips parted, but it wasn't to draw air. She might never breathe again, to never feel again would be wonderful. Then perhaps the shattered pieces of her inside might not cut so deep. She didn't remember what happened next. Brynn stood and another Officer turned to look at her, thinking to reach out and maybe comfort her, but the thought fled his mind as soon as he took a breath. It was hot, so hot his lungs burned with pain from it, and he felt the world swim in front of his eyes. The others in the room were having similar problems, and while he couldn't smell anything burning, he could feel it.

"Restraints!" The sound came from Command Kitchiss. Two other men, who had been standing on the wall, moved in to grab Brynn. Their hands were cold, like ice, even though the heat from her limbs. One of the men carried her out of the room while the other worked to neutralize the heat that she had exuded into the room, chilling the consoles and electronics before the rising heat would do any more damage. The walls were coating with ice and many of the consoles were steaming. Everyone fled out of the door and the last man in CIC hurried out, closing the door behind them and activating the fire suppression systems. The gas, used to drain oxygen from the electronics room, filled the view behind the pane.

The second man was at Brynn's side. They were both so strong as they half dragged, half hauled her down the corridor. "Is she awake? Is she alright?" Someone asked with concern. It sounded like Lieutenant Gartner. Several people in the hall were looking rather murderously at Brynn, while others had pity in their eyes; not because it was obvious she had been affected by the misfortune, but because a Gifted who had such tenuous control over their powers were often a danger to themselves and others. Many on the ship knew firsthand how impossible it was to train with a difficult Gift, and how devastating it could be to lack such essential training.

Another voice now, but she couldn't tell whose. The light in the halls was dimming. "Miss, are you alright?" Commander Kitchiss knelt beside her. She nodded, mutely, looking scared and small. "You're not in any trouble. I just wish Captain Chariton had told us beforehand. It's lucky we have dedicated fire suppression in CIC."

"I've never..." Brynn started, but no one heard her. Her voice was really just a breath of air. She could barely feel her body as it moved, as someone pulled her to her feet and somehow, she found herself being shown into some living quarters and she simply dropped on the bed and sat with her hands in her lap. She would have said she felt numb, but that would mean she could acknowledge what wasn't there; instead, she simply felt blank, a space in the universe that was unoccupied. She hadn't even known him that well. It wasn't as if they had committed to anything, she was just a crew member. Not even a good one, since she should have been with him when he was taken. She was just...there. Doing nothing. Being nothing. She wondered if they'd shove her off. Somehow, she didn't care as much about it as she had hours ago. Or perhaps they'd keep her, seeing as she was clearly a danger. She didn't much care if that was the choice, either. Planets or ships, either way, it was all fire fodder...