Gliese Chronicles: Thin Margin

The glancing blow jolted Avenger, then threw her against the side of the large ship next to us. It threw most of the crew to the floor. I managed to remain in my chair as did Morgan. We had both been watching the monitors and saw it coming.

I punched the internal communications button and called for a damage report. It didn't take long before the bad news came in as comm reported on weapons and sensors status-- our cloaking system had been damaged and was inoperable. We were naked!

"Helm, bring us back to our position next to the alien ship," I was hoping to hide our profile, perhaps our color, which was similar to the alien ship's color, would camouflage us. My heart rate had bumped up. Now what?

"Comm, how long before we can expect cloaking to be restored?"

"Captain, I have the droids working on it. Once I have the diagnostics in hand I'll have an idea as to what's wrong and if it can be repaired."

The big 'if' had manifested itself. It wasn't good news as the one advantage we had was now out of commission. I looked at Morgan.

"I know. Not a good situation. We should be prepared to go to flank speed and head to our own fleet if we need to. We may have inflicted enough damage that if the whole fleet engages at one time we can prevail. I would prefer to take a few more of their ships out before we leave by shooting on the run if we need to."

I had noticed that the gaping hole in hangar bay of the vessel we were using as a shield was not being used. In fact, not a single small craft had come near the ship since we had fired on the hangar of the last warship.

"Helm, bring us up alongside the hole in the side of the alien ship. I want to see if there is activity taking place in their hangar bay."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

I watched the monitors as we moved slowly along and up the hull of the huge ship. Avenger moved outward a short distance to avoid a large piece of hull plating that was jutting out. Proof that our penetrator torpedo had probably gone clear through their vessel.

As we drew abreast of the hole it was dark, no sign of activity of the fusing of metal to metal as if repairs were underway. The floor of the hangar deck appeared to be intact, only the huge hangar door and a portion of the hull missing. I strained to look inside the hole, it was certainly more than large enough to admit Avenger.

"You're not thinking what I'm thinking are you?" I heard Morgan ask.

I looked at him with a frown. "Probably."

"It would be a good place to hide. Though it gives me the willies to think we could be trapped inside and it negates our speed advantage over short distances."

"Yeah. Inside a damaged, crewed alien vessel. Perfect," I said sarcastically.

"Not likely they would know with us being this close. Their sensors, at least any that would be in operation, would be focused at a distance, and with no atmosphere, it would not be inhabited unless they are in suits to protect them. Not likely in my opinion, as it would make more sense to work from the inside out to effect those repairs first."

"I agree. Let's just spend some time here and see if there are any lights inside indicating someone is there. You know we still don't have any idea as to what these beings are capable of surviving. I don't want to turn our sensors on to find out what their atmosphere is like inside. I would prefer to remain silent more than ever now that our cloaking system is down."

"How about sending a drone in to investigate? That would give us more information, and at this point, if they spot us what real difference does it make, we would have to get out of here fast anyway."

I considered Morgan's suggestion. It did make sense, it was low risk, offering an advantage over the short-term. If we could repair our cloaking system in relative safety it would be worth it. I just didn't want to get trapped inside their ship if discovered--they could bring attack craft in to guard the opening and we would have to fight our way out.

"Commander. Order the drone out to investigate."

Ten minutes later we were watching a video feed from the drone as it entered the hangar bay. It was a mess inside at about ninety meters, with wrecked spacecraft and what appeared to be a second set of doors that separated the huge hangar into two parts—one of these doors at an angle hanging from the ceiling of the hangar. Our weapons had certainly made a mess of things. The drone worked its way around the outside walls of the bay—when it approached the opening I could see Avenger in profile against the darkness of space. The drone was ordered back aboard and when stowed we reviewed its recordings again.

It was a gamble for sure. But it seemed a good one. I made orders to go stern first into the opening using our thrusters. I was pleased with how well the helmsman put us inside and held us in place until our magnetic landing skids met the floor of the bay. I watched the monitors as we entered and saw no evidence of activity. I could see the bridge crew were anxious—it was a confined space and not a friendly one if we were discovered.

"Comm, any evidence of communications from our friends inside?"

"Negative Captain. Same signals as before—machines communicating, though the traffic is less since we hit the bridge of the last warship."

It seemed strange our translator program had still not been able to detect another language aboard any of the alien vessels. Surely, they must use standard language to coordinate ship movements, something that the artificial intelligence algorithms would be able to detect.

After twenty minutes I reduced our condition to yellow and allowed the crew to leave the immediate area of their battle stations. The droids were busy trying to find and identify the reason for our stealth system to be down so I sent the helmsman to get us food and drink.

Morgan and I got out of our chairs and stood together looking at the screen showing the scene outside. We could see several of the smaller ships collecting debris again, what little there was. Why didn't they just elect to leave? We had inflicted quite a bit of damage now. What was it going to take to get them to change their minds? It didn't make sense to me. How much loss of life were they willing to suffer?

I looked at the clock on my console again. Four hours elapsed since we engaged with our first torpedo. Four hours of intermittent adrenaline rushes to my body. All of a sudden, I felt tired. I was sure the rest of the crew needed rest too. I surveyed the monitors one more time. Then looked to Morgan.

"What do you think if we go to another four hours off, half on duty while the others sleep?"

"I think we can all use it Captain, you look tired."

I put fifty percent of the crew at yellow alert, the remainder to rest, and took the first shift, leaving Morgan in command. I crawled into bed, wishing Morgan were with me. I wanted him to hold me for a while—just a kiss or two would be wonderful. The last thing I remembered before falling asleep was wondering why we hadn't been able to learn more about their language or civilization. It was strange, their ships didn't have numbers or other symbols that could be used to identify them visually for a distance. Could they be blind, at least to that portion of the light spectrum we as humans used?

I felt a nudge on my shoulder and slowly came awake. I opened my eyes and saw Morgan smiling at me.

"You know you look beautiful when you're sleeping, Captain."

I smiled back, brushing a few strands of hair from my eyes, "And you are a very handsome alarm clock."

Making sure the door to my quarters was closed I pulled him down onto the bed and gave him a hard kiss and pulled him close. We lay together for a few minutes.

"You should get some sleep," I admonished.

"I know, it would just be better with you next to me," he smiled, "If we get out of this mess we'll do more than just sleep next to one another."

"Commander Stanford, you can count on that," I said longingly.

We kissed one more time, then got up, and I watched as he left for his quarters. I sprayed some water onto my face and headed for the bridge. It was time to think about the next moves. We couldn't stay here much longer as the risk was growing by the hour. At some point, there was going to be activity that involved this part of the ship and I didn't want to be inside fighting for my life or that of my crew. Morgan hadn't told me the stealth system was operational so I knew it wasn't.

After reaching the bridge, I checked the monitors and saw nothing had changed. Being inside the hangar bay limited the view outside too much now that I wanted to see more. I decided I would move Avenger into position allowing for a better view outside. It was going to be time to inflict additional damage in the hope of weakening their ability to proceed to the Gliese colonies again—though I was conscious the enemy fleet had not moved in over a standard day now. That much we had managed to accomplish.

I was just about to order the move when a small craft appeared near the entrance, moving slowly past. My pulse quickened as I held my breath. Had the pilot noticed us inside? We were still running silent, sending out no sensor signals. It continued to pass slowly past the door. I waited, expecting the craft to reappear, even if it didn't, it may have reported seeing something inside that didn't look right.

Now, I had a decision to make. Call the crew to general quarters and prepare to leave our hiding place without being cloaked, or take a chance that we had not been seen, or wait to see if our cloaking system could be made operational again before conducting further operations.

"Comm, is there any word on our cloaking system?"

I watched as Parsons scanned the screens at her station. Then a smile appeared.

"Captain, the system is just beginning to energize. Once we run a series of diagnostics I'll be able to tell you when it will be fully operational."

"Thank you, Parsons. Lieutenant Evans, we'll be underway soon after it comes up. Come to station five hundred meters from the alien ship once are outside. I want to target a ship directly ahead of us as we come out."

"Aye, Captain, station at five hundred meters."

"Robb, please go to Commander Stanford's quarters and alert him we will be getting underway."

"Understood, Captain."

Morgan would have only gotten three hours of rest, but I felt uneasy, it would be good to have him to consult. We had now been inside the alien vessel for almost eight hours and there had been no sign of activity on board, at least in the hangar deck itself. Comm had indicated increased signal traffic starting soon after the small craft had disappeared after passing the hangar door. Something was up and I was afraid we had been found out. Without our being able to see, they might have landed troops from the opposite side of the enemy ship in an attempt to board us.

Morgan was in his seat less than five minutes later. I told him I wanted to initiate another series of attacks as our stealth system was now operational. Having been given the update just after Robb had left to get him. I also told him about my gut feeling something wasn't right.

"Captain, I'm wondering if we should make an attempt to communicate with them. Something just doesn't makes sense to me. Why should they sustain this much damage and not turn back?"

"I've been thinking the same thing. Perhaps we should make a run to our own fleet, talk with them, and make another overture while staying far enough away they can't destroy our ships. We can always cloak and come back in if we need to."

"Right now they aren't making any progress towards the colonies. We have an advantage, slim as it may be. I think we give them another chance to communicate with us before taking them on again."

"Sometimes you have to follow your instincts. We should send out the robot probe to take a look outside before we make a final decision. The drone is small enough that unless they are really close they won't notice it unless they are checking for signals. They would still have to spend some time figuring out what it was and what it meant, giving us some leeway."

I ordered the drone deployed with instructions for it to travel the length of the alien ship and then to retrace its route back to Avenger. We would watch a video feed from the drone on the monitors to obtain the intelligence it would provide in real-time. Five minutes later the drone left our small shuttle bay. I sounded general quarters at the same time—there was no reason not to be ready should we get bad news.

Morgan and I watched the monitors as the drone approached the opening of the hangar bay. It had no more than cleared the opening when the cameras revealed conditions outside. The only thing that came to mind as I watched the image on the monitor was an old Earth saying.

"Holy shit!"