Tales of the "Pink Mist" Ch. 06

"I'll let you know, ma'am. Thank you." She stepped back into line.

Quillan sidestepped and looked slightly downward at Amanda.

"Captain Wilkerson will need a communications specialist, you know," she said. "And that posting really should be occupied by someone who is at least a lieutenant. The reason being that, in the event of an emergency and since that person is already on the bridge, he or she needs to be able to take control and make swift decisions. Petty Officer Dinnington, do you know who that posting should go to?"

"I do, Captain," replied Amanda, in her own voice. She turned and pointed across the room at Lt. Klaksell, the one who had helped liberate the little Parrot from her slave masters. "Her."

More chuckles around the room, Quillan smirking and waving a hand for the room to settle down.

"But," Quillan reasoned to the girl, "if Charleen goes to the other ship and Lt. Klaksell goes with her, that means that you'd stay here to be my communications officer."

She paused to let it sink in. Amanda was brilliant and terrific at her job of communications, but when it came to subtle hints...sometimes she needed prodding.

"Amanda Dinnington, as captain of this vessel and commander of these troops," she intoned, "I hereby promote you to the rank of Lieutenant and transfer you from this ship onto the captured Mongan vessel which is now under the command of Captain Charleen Wilkerson. Such appointment to be effective immediately."

Amanda's brow furrowed, then a lightbulb went on in her head. She whirled and threw her arms around Charleen who caught her neatly and spun her around.

"Gunner's Mate Mansberg and Lieutenant Jeffers, I promote you both to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

"Mister Mansberg, in addition to your duties as drop officer and commander of the powered armor units, should you accept, you are the new First Officer. Commander Nine has already accepted the position of Executive Officer.

"Mister Jeffers, you are now in charge of coordinating flight schedules with Charleen's ship and will oversee the PM Flight as a whole. I caution you, Mister Jeffers, that Flight Commander Talbot knows a hell of a lot more than you do about fighter combat and advise you to listen closely to her suggestions. She refused the posting because she'd rather be airborne, but has agreed to school you in the areas of close fighter support and tactics.

"Do you both accept?"

The enormous human affectionately known as Muffin, actually giggled, sounding something akin to a twin-autocannon, vigorously nodding his head. Jeffers stiffened a little more and spoke, hiking a thumb at Muffin, "Captain Margoles, I speak for the Walking Wall as well as myself when I say that we are honored and humbled by these positions. We will not fail you."

Handshakes all around whereupon the room broke into a rousing chorus of the centuries old, "What Do You Do With A Drunken Spacer?"; the additions getting raunchier and raunchier as the crew got drunker and drunker.

----------------------------------------

FLASHPOINT BREAK BREAK BREAK

BEGIN ENCRYPT PROTOCOL THETA 1

CHECK SECURE

TO: CAPTAIN, PINK MIST

FROM: MILCOM ACTUAL

A Mongan supply depot under construction has been detected 250,000 km outside of Alliance territory. This is much too close for comfort.

Four fast frigates are on-station as light defense. One equipment barge is also present.

Make the problem disappear.

Coordinates to follow.

MESSAGE ENDS

FLASHPOINT CLEAR CLEAR CLEAR

----------------------------------------

The PINK MIST folded to the edge of Alliance territory, tucked neatly behind an airless planet. Jeffers maneuvered the dreadnaught so their sensor suites and cameras could barely see the target.

A rogue asteroid had been seized by the Mongans and construction begun. Maneuvering jets had been affixed to it in order to provide a certain amount of guidance or, in this case, hold it stationary.

"Mister Mansberg," Quillan addressed Muffin, "wanna play sniper with our torpedoes?"

"I can hit 'em, Captain," came the rumbling reply. "The problem is the distance. They'd detect the burn. I dunno what the hell they'd do, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't like it."

"PINK MIST to EXETER," the redheaded captain said in response. She was seated in her command chair in her customary posture of one leg folded beneath her. "We need a distraction. Alter your course to the coordinates I'm sending you. That'll put you on the far side of our target at a forty five degree angle to us, out of our line of fire. When you arrive, fire from extreme range to get their attention. I don't care if you hit anything or not. Send your estimated time of arrival to Muffin so he can coordinate his launch."

"Affirmative, PINK MIST," sounded Charleen's voice. "We're at lightspeed and have altered course accordingly. ETA is one minute, forty three seconds at...MARK!"

Muffin's fingers went into motion, starting his own timer and targeting the asteroid. He queued up two proton/hydrogen torpedoes, locking them on-target to detonate at equidistant points, his brain calculating their travel times. The resulting explosion would not only destroy the asteroid, but the debris would rip the fast frigates and the construction barge apart. He would need to launch several seconds before the arrival of the EXETER. If he launched too soon, the inbound destruction would be picked up by their sensors. If he launched too late, all four frigates would be out of range of the destructive blast. A straight shot was impossible, as the gravity of planet below them would merely suck the torpedoes down and they would only make new craters on the surface.

His timer counted down. At the estimated second, he triggered the torpedoes and watched them streak away from the ship, already starting to curve around the planet on their way to turn the asteroid into space dust. At the same instant, Charleen's voice sounded over the speakers.

"EXETER to PINK MIST. We've had a blow out in damper three. Had to drop from warp for a minute to fix it. ETA is now three minutes, fifteen seconds."

Muffin turned in his seat to look at Quillan.

"I can bring 'em back, Captain. They've got another twenty seconds before..." A flash of light appeared as a torpedo struck an unseen object. "...the hell?" He turned back to his own screen to check the status of the torpedoes. One was gone.

"Alice," asked Quillan, "what was that? Did the thing detonate prematurely?"

"No, Captain Quillan." Even with heightened intensity in her voice, Alice's voice stirred Quillan's emotions. "The torpedo struck a stealthed Mongan reconnaissance vessel. Backtracking the projected path of the ship, it appears to have simply blundered into the path of the torpedo. It wasn't intentional."

On the main viewscreen, one of the frigates had broken away from the asteroid and was approaching the area of the explosion.

"Captain," Lt. Klaksell said, looking up from the communications console, "they got a signal off to carrier/destroyer patrol."

"Holy shit," Quillan muttered under her breath. She unfolded her leg as she spoke and began punching buttons on her console, changing the configuration of her console as well as tying in to several other consoles. She reached beneath her seat and withdrew a set of virtual reality goggles, pulling them down over her eyes. "Mister Jeffers, move us away from this planet; give us some room to maneuver. Mister Klaksell, charge the shields, then inform the EXETER of our predicament and tell them to just 'get here.' Mister Mansberg, charge all weapons. Mister Nine, sound ship's combat alarm."

----------------------------------------

"GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT, YOU TRASHMATTER FUCKING SLAX-FIRE, GREEN-PUKING, ORANGE-FACED, VERMINISTIC, LITTLE COCKSUCKERS!" Muffin's basso voice bellowed into his headset as his fingers constantly targeted and fired at the onslaught of Mongan fighters. The space outside the ship was crisscrossed with multicolored laser and plasma beams of all sizes. "WHERE'S THE GODDAMN EXETER?!?!?"

Alice stood immobile on the bridge of the PINK MIST, eyes closed, her brow furrowed in deep concentration as she methodically worked the lasers which had been left vacant when half the ship's crew had been transferred to the EXETER a month ago. They hadn't had the chance to hire more crew yet.

"EXETER will be on-station in forty five seconds," Lt. Donella Lasiter spoke up from the communications console. Various voices issued from the comm speakers, the cacophony making Quillan wish she had kept Amanda aboard..

"Good shot, Lucky! You and Needles come get these fuckers behind me. Can't shake 'em."

"Harmless, Guido, Deskjockey, form up on the starboard side. They're coming around to try for the bridge."

"GET SOME, YA LITTLE ORANGE BASTARDS!" yelled Muffin, as two wing-to-wing Mongan fighters were torn apart by strafing fire from a triple-laser array. The debris continued toward the PINK MIST and bounced harmlessly off her forward shields.

"Mr. Jeffers," spoke Quillan in her unflappable conversational tone, "come left three-seven degrees, up-attitude six-four degrees, increase speed four points, please." As she spoke, Jeffers echoed her word for word in reply to confirm her orders. He pulled his joystick back toward his left thigh, at the same time nudging the thrust control forward a tiny bit. Quillan targeted a small bit of space rock in the appropriate area and used the tractor beam to jerk it toward the ship. "Mr Jeffers, I suggest you move us out of the way of that rock. It will hurt an awful lot should it hit us."

"Cloudy, watch him! Tricky little bastard!"

"Can Man! Come right! RIGHT! RIGHT! Your OTHER right!"

"FUCK! Seven of 'em after m----"

"Shit, they got Can Man. Book, Big Blue, form on me. It's revenge time."

Jeffers sideslipped the ship to the right as the tractor beam was shut off, the momentum of the fighter-sized space rock carrying it past at high speed. Quillan, her VR goggles tied to the ship's cameras, swiveled her view to observe the space behind the PINK MIST. As she watched the rock hurtle past the ship, she targeted the Mongan destroyer behind her and unleashed a barrage of hammerpoint pulse laser fire from every turret available to her.

Her intent wasn't to destroy the trailing ship, rather she wanted to weaken the shields enough to...

The port-forward shield collapsed as the rock struck directly behind the bridge of the offending vessel, slowed slightly, but not enough to avoid damage. The irregularly shaped rock slammed into the destroyer's hull and carried enough force to cause a major tear in the skin. Quillan was rewarded with the sight of several Mongan bodies being launched into space; evacuated by the internal pressure. The view of the craft flashed red in Quillan's goggles indicating that the shield was down. She swept the hammerpoints around the area as if stirring a cooking pot. After just a few seconds, a hole had opened completely through the ship. She triggered two torpedoes carrying the large towing cables.

"Powered suits, cable one. Lizards, cable two."

A fluorescent pink Mongan carrier winked into existence as it completed its lightspeed trek. It was four hundred miles from the PINK MIST, its laser cannon and augmented plasma arrays instantly opening up on the Mongan fighters.

"EXETER to PINK MIST," said a smiling Charleen. "We heard there was some fun going on over here. All fighters are cleared for launch."

"Hi, guys! Can we play?" A familiar voice from a fighter, the whine of an engine winding up being heard in the background.

"'Bout trashmatter time, Twinkie! Get your cute ass up here!" This from Krystine "Witchiepoo" Talbot.

The top of the massive carrier clamshelled open and, led by a bright pink Mongan fighter, spewed other one- and two-man bright pink fighters into space. Like heat-seeking missiles, they blasted toward the PINK MIST and doggedly started pursuing the Mongan fighters.

"Horrors and Saints on board. Lizards in motion. Sterilization commencing."

"Witchiepoo, ya need help?"

"Shit, four to one? They better get more guys. Kick over and help Cloudy."

The Mongans, now fighting on two fronts, turned their attention toward the EXETER, leaving the PINK MIST to begin a more stabilized approach to destruction.

"Captain," said Lt. Klaksell, monitoring shields as well as communications, "the rear shield is down to fourteen percent. Ventral shield is nineteen."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Detach the cables, please," replied Quillan, smoothly but quickly, "Mr. Jeffers, if you would, turn us with haste."

The huge dreadnaught heeled hard to the right, trying to present its top to the incoming fire from the damaged destroyer. On the other side of the destroyer sat the Mongan carrier MON-JALPON, its light pulse-laser arrays winking steadily as it added its firepower to that of the destroyer's. Before the PINK MIST could bring her dorsal shields to full bear, the ship was rocked by a massive explosion. The destroyer had been able to fire it's twin pulse plasma-proton artillery. The results were not pretty.

Alice's eyes flew wide.

The rear shield had failed completely. The balls of bastardized plasma and proton energy had ionized the metal they had hit, punching a pair of holes through the two-foot thick hull, directly into the fusion reactor chamber. The reactor's safety functions did their jobs and instantly shut down the reactor, thereby causing main propulsion to cease and all shields to drop. The automatic power nodes came on. The PINK MIST was now on battery power. At the current rate of power consumption, the guns would cease to operate in a little over half an hour. Subsequent systems would begin shutting down. The last thing in operation would be life support.

"Saints Actual to PINK MIST. Destroyer MON-DALANN has been neutralized. Sorry we weren't quicker." Major Specter's voice.

Quillan raised one eyebrow, curled her lip, and tapped a finger rapidly on the arm of her chair. This was an extreme annoying situation.

"All hands, this is the captain," she said, calmly. "These guys are pissing me off. Don your atmo-suits. All PM craft, break off and hunker down behind the EXETER. We are about to pinwheel. You have thirty seconds."

The heavy repairbots were already in motion, crawling along the exterior of the PINK MIST with enormous metal plates to repair the damage as best they could.

As the shields went down, the Mongan fighters broke off their attacks on the EXETER and headed straight back toward the PINK MIST unimpeded as the PM fighters were burning toward the far side of the EXETER. EXETER'S shields became an almost opaque blue as the power output to them was maximized.

The bright pink Mongan fighter broke away from the rest of the PM flight and arrowed over the crippled dreadnaught, on its way toward the inert destroyer. It flew into the hole in the ruptured ship, paused to pick up two powered-armor suits which attached themselves to its hull, then blasted out the other side at full throttle, arcing back as it headed for the carrier MON-JALPON. The entire way, it's refitted pulse-laser cannon targeted and fired precisely dead center on the main viewport, its aim never wavering as it danced and dodged the incoming enemy fire.

It punched through the weakened forward shields of the Mongan carrier, the shimmering and sparking of the collapsed shields winking off the shiny pink vessel. Mere feet from the command viewport, it stopped, turning the powered-armor hitchhikers into nine-foot tall bullets. Sheer momentum carried the suits through the transparent aluminum port.

Quillan keyed the sequence to initiate the pinwheel maneuver. A countdown appeared on the mainscreen, superimposed on the Mongans swarming around the PINK MIST. Her own guns were still firing and chopping holes in the fighters, but would soon be overwhelmed. Pinwheeling was the only option...and would use the rest of the power.

The last-ditch effort of the PINK MIST was glorious to witness, deadly to be around. The small maneuvering jets of the huge vessel all fired at once, those along its axes aligned in the same direction. As the dreadnaught began turning end over end, gaining momentum, the side jets began to roll it. An onlooker wouldn't be able to tell which direction the thing faced, as its attitude changed constantly. Suddenly, every laser, plasma array, and slug-thrower began slinging its own deadly cargo around, firing in all directions at once, not targeting anything specific.

The people inside the PINK MIST closed their eyes as their feet were suddenly where their heads used to be. More than a few people vomited. This was the ultimate rollercoaster ride. The repairbots on the hull used their own powerful electromagnets to hold them firmly in place.

The interior safety features, which had been developed on board, came on to provide a flowing internal shield. It followed each person's bouncing body, the computer determining trajectory, and sent a "cushion" in front of the person. Similar to the Earth-Actual balloon bounce rides; but much smoother and more deadly if it failed.

Somewhere during the pinwheeling, the entire complement aboard the PINK MIST lost consciousness.

----------------------------------------

"Commander Wilkerson," said a perky female voice, with youthful exuberance, "there are two-hundred-one bodies aboard the PINK MIST. I detect two-hundred-one life signals in various stages of consciousness. Seven are on the bridge and the independent life support for that area is functioning. The rest are clad in atmosuits and are in no immediate danger. All enemy craft are incapacitated or destroyed. I would suggest magnetic torpedoes placed at strategic points to stop the ship's spinning. Shall I deploy them now?"

"Yes, Salli. Do that immediately," replied Charleen, turning to Amanda. "Send half the remaining squadron over to retrieve the mercs and lizards from the destroyer; the other half is to shoot over to that damned carrier and kill that bastard. Quillan did a lot of damage to it, but I want to make sure nothing moves in, on, over, or around it."

Amanda's hands flew over her comm panel, relaying the instructions.

"Make sure nothing moves in, on, over, or around it," she mumbled in Charleen's voice.

Salli, the Strategic Algorithmic Logical Launch Intelligence, opened the forward torpedo bays and, at seemingly random intervals, emptied the torpedo tubes in the general direction of the PINK MIST. She had calculated the best places on the hull to affix the magnetic torpedoes in order to stop the dreadnaught's spin. Unfortunately, it meant the demise of a repairbot, as one of them was attached to the exact spot needed. The wink of a pulse laser and the bot was gone.

The torpedoes described varying arcs as their simple on-board computers homed in and attached themselves to the hull of the PINK MIST. They began firing short bursts at the proper instant, gradually slowing the dreadnaught's tumbling.

The panel situated in front of Charleen started a strident beeping. She glanced down, muttered an oath and opened the "All Personnel" channel.

"Now hear this," her tension-filled voice sounded through every speaker and in every headset around. "I want to be out of here in two and a half hours, because in THREE hours we're gonna be neck deep in Mongans. Inbound to our position are eight, I repeat, eight carriers. Each of those has four destroyers, two battleships, two cruisers, twenty fast frigates, and a shitload of pissed-off troops."

"Don't forget the partridge in the pair of trees!" chimed in a giggling Salli over the speakers.

"That's a 'pear tree,' Salli," shot back a slightly annoyed Charleen. "Check under 'fruit,' Stop with the jokes and do your job. Your sister and her friends are in trouble."