Star Wars: Achaicus

[The Doctor]

The cap'n thing is my bloody word processor's fault. It keeps replacing cap'n with cap̀n, for some reason. I thought I got them all, but I guess not.

 

Confession: I didn't proof this chapter myself. I just did a spelling/grammar check, then posted it. My bad.

 

EDIT: Should be all fixed now, Hall - including some stuff you didn't comment on.

 

Chapter six is in the works, but I've got a few job interviews lined up this week, so it might not be posted for a while - and if it is, it will be somewhat rushed.

[JasraLantill]

Aw, you're evil, Doc. Just when I was beginning to like Captain Graf, you implode the ship on her! (grrr....) Anyway, good chapter. Keep it up!

[The Doctor]

Chapter Six

 

Captain Tarn stood rooted to the spot as he watched his friend’s ship torn to pieces as another plasma mine exploded in the midst of the debris, further worsening the shock. He fell backwards into his chair, and opened a comm channel from his chair. “Tarn to-”

 

“It’s no good sir. Communications systems are down.”

 

He gritted his teeth. “Then find some other way to get Will and Klara up here, now!” he snapped. “I want a senior staff meeting in-”

 

The ship lurched again as another mine tore into them. Tarn was thrown from his chair again, cracking his head on the floor. He shook the blurriness from his vision and tried to stand, but the ship was rocked again by yet another explosion.

 

“Deactivate the particle emitter!” he barked. The ship lurched again. “Disable our gravity field!”

 

“Hull breach on C Deck! Emergency bulkheads in that section are down! Captain, we’re venting atmosphere!”

 

“Sir, we’ve lost manoeuvring thrusters - we’re being pulled into the anomaly.”

 

Tarn’s head snapped up to look at the view-screen. The anomaly was indeed looming closer. “How long until we pass the event horizon?” he asked.

 

“Approximately 40 minutes,” replied D’Nalli.

 

“I thought we were still an hour away?” blurted Tyrael.

 

D’Nalli shook his head. “Our mass is significantly less than the Stephanas’, Commander,” he said. “We’re moving faster than they were - almost double their speed.”

 

“What about the gravity field? That should still be reducing our velocity by a little, at least,” said Tash.

 

D’Nalli looked at her darkly. “It is, ma’am,” he said gravely. “If it weren’t for the gravity field, we’d be dead in ten minutes.”

 

“What about escape pods?” asked the captain. “Can we abandon ship?”

 

“No sir,” said D’Nalli. “The anomaly’s gravitational pull is too strong. The escape pods don’t have enough power to fight it.”

 

Tarn looked around the bridge. “Options?” he barked.

 

Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Tyrael stood and walked around his station, still staring out the view-screen to the anomaly. “Captain... there is a course of action we could take,” he said.

 

“What?” demanded Tarn, after he was silent for a moment.

 

Tyrael looked to the captain. “We do nothing.”

 

The bridge was dead quiet. Tash glared at him. “Are you insane?” she blurted. “Are you suggesting we just let this thing crush the ship and kill us?”

 

He looked at her, his face oddly and maddeningly calm. “Need I remind you, Lieutenant, that there is absolutely no evidence that the ship will indeed be destroyed?”

 

Tarn shook his head. “She’s right,” he said. “It’s completely irrational, Commander.”

 

“On the contrary sir,” he persisted. “It makes sense that once all logical courses of action have failed, the only reasonable response is inaction.”

 

Tarn looked at him for a moment, the turned to face the view-screen. “Ensign, how long until we pass through the event horizon?”

 

“Our gravity field is decaying faster than I predicted,” he explained. “I’d give us about twenty minutes.”

 

Tarn looked back at Tyrael.

 

Tash spoke again. “Captain, we have to do something! We can’t just sit here and let this thing tear us apart!”

 

The captain shook his head. “Tyrael’s right,” he said, surprising even himself. “Everything we’ve done so far to try to prevent either the Achaicus or ourselves from being pulled into th anomaly has only made things worse.”

 

“But Captain-”

 

“Enough, Lieutenant,” he barked. He turned away from her. “What about those mines? Are there any more of them out there?”

 

She shook her head. “But even if there were, we wouldn’t be able to detect them.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Their power signature is... odd - out of phase, somehow. The only reason we know what they are is because of the damage they’ve inflicted.”

 

Tarn sighed. “Keep scanning the area anyway,” he said.

 

She nodded grudgingly. “Aye sir.”

 

The ship jolted yet again, a coolant line in the ceiling cracking and leaking gaseous vapour into the room.

 

“Sir, we’ve got a hull breach on E Deck - the launch bay, sir.”

 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 

“Drayn to the bridge. Please respond.”

 

There was no answer. “The comm system must be down,” said Rosch.

 

“What about the door? Did you have any luck getting it open?”

 

“No,” she said. “This whole section must be running on minimal emergency power.”

 

Drayn sighed, deactivated the comm panel, and began pacing along the wall of the launch bay, glancing out the small window each time he passed it. The fourth time he passed it, something caught his attention: a small metallic object, glinting in the light from the nearby nebula. A small, flat, circular object, heading straight for them.

 

“Sir? Is something wrong?”

 

“Get down!” he yelled. He jumped away from the window, dragging her to the floor with him as he went. He was just in time to avoid the explosion - but there was no way to avoid the vacuum created when the plasma mine blew a hole in the hull.

 

Drayn grabbed on to the control panel with one hand, and barely managed to grab Rosch by the arm as she flew past him towards the anomaly. Her mouth was open in a scream that was swallowed up by either the vacuum, or the roaring created by the atmosphere from the ship escaping into the cold of space. The roaring began to fade into nothingness, and the room became deathly silent as the room’s atmosphere was completely ripped out of the ship.

 

Rosch climbed up his arm and grabbed onto the console herself, struggling against the gravitational pull of the anomaly. Drayn pulled himself around the console, struggling to stay conscious as the pressure on his lungs grew. He reached the emergency command interface, and tapped the controls.

 

An emergency bulkhead began to move into place, but stopped about two feet short of sealing the breach. Emergency bulkheads must be down as well... he thought. He grabbed the edge of the console, and pulled himself over it, launching himself towards the bulkhead. He flew over Rosch, who was near unconsciousness, and was barely able to stop himself from flying out the gaping wound in the ship. He grabbed the handle on the edge of the bulkhead, and pulled as hard as his oxygen starved muscles would allow. The bulkhead sealed, and a sharp hissing sound filled the room immediately. The pressure on his lungs began to ease up. He sucked in deep breaths, collapsing to the floor.

 

“Klara, you alright?” he asked after a moment, still breathing deeply.

 

He heard her gasping for breath herself, and was barely able to her her wheeze out a feeble “Yes sir.” After a moment, she spoke again, her voice much stronger this time, saying, “What happened, sir?”

 

“Plasma mines,” he answered. “They must be attracted to the ship by the gravity field we created.”

 

“The gravity field should have decayed by now,” she said. “They should stop... hitting...”

 

She trailed off into silence, her eyes wide with shock, staring out the force-field at the far end of the launch bay. Drayn turned to face it himself, and the blood froze in his veins.

 

They had passed through the anomaly. He felt a wave of nausea wash over him, and his vision blurred. The last thing he saw was the floor rushing towards his as his knees gave out, then everything went black.

[The Doctor]

Well, school's started, and I'm going into my final year of High School... Sufficed to say, the workload is fairly heavy. I have also recently become re-employed, so I won't have a lot of time to spend on writing. I'm still working on it, but... progress is slow.

[The Doctor]

Alright, I've had a few hours on my my hands to write, so I'm ready to post the next chapter. Enjoy.

 

Chapter Seven

 

Captain Tarn heard the alarms blaring. He heard the soft hiss of the coolant lines leaking gas onto the bridge. He heard the occasional snaps and cracks of damaged and sparking consoles. He heard it all.

 

He raised his head slowly, and felt a searing pain shoot through his forehead as he opened his eyes. Forcing it down, he struggled to his feet, and finally registered the attempts of the bridge crew to do the same.

 

“Report,” he heard himself croak.

 

There was a moment’s silence as Yamata worked the console. “We’ve passed through the anomaly, sir. We’re on the other side”

 

“On screen,” he ordered.

 

The view-screen flickered on. The anomaly shone innocently at them from behind.

 

“What’s our status?”

 

“Damage reports coming in,” she said. “We’ve lost hull plating. Grav plating on D Deck is offline, and main power is fluctuating. We’ve lost weapons and engines. Hull integrity is holding at 32 percent.”

 

“Casualties?”

 

She was silent for a moment. “Three dead, twelve injured - two critically.”

 

The helm station began beeping, and D’Nalli studied the readout. “Sir, I’m reading multiple ships on an intercept course.”

 

“How many?”

 

“I can't be sure, Captain,” he responded. “Sensor resolution is too low to get a clear reading.”

 

“Can you identify them?” asked Tarn.

 

D’Nalli stared at the data for a moment. “I don’t understand, sir...” he said. “According to these readings, their hull composition matches that of the Denelan satellites.”

 

“I thought they didn’t have space-fairing vessels!” exclaimed the captain, turning suddenly to face the ops station.

 

“I don’t understand it, sir. Scans indicated that they were a low level industrialised people. They shouldn’t have vessels out this far.”

 

“Well obviously, they do!” he snapped.

 

“I’m reading energy buildups. Looks like weapons systems!”

 

The ship rocked, and the situation room table exploded in a shower of sparks. “They've opened fire!” barked Tyrael.

 

“Hail them!” ordered Tarn, standing from his chair.

 

“I can’t sir... something’s odd about their communications system.”

 

“Open a channel, all spacial frequencies.”

 

She nodded. “Channel open, sir.”

 

He raised his voice slightly. “This is captain Valerius Tarn, of the Republic vessel Achaicus,” he said. “We’re on a peaceful mission of exploration. We mean you no harm.”

 

The bridge was silent for a moment. Tarn turned to Tash, who shook her head. “No response, sir.”

 

“Confirm that they received our transmission.”

 

The ship rocked again, and another console exploded.

 

“I’m guessing they did,” said Tyrael under his breath.

 

Tarn turned to him. “Can we get weapons back online?” he asked.

 

“No sir. The cannon relays are burnt out. We’d have to replace them.”

 

The ship lurched again, and a dark clunking resounded throughout the ship.

 

“Captain, they’ve docked with us.”

 

“Seal the airlock!” snapped Tarn.

 

A dark alarm echoed throughout the ship. “It’s too late sir. We’ve got intruders on B Deck.”

 

“Get security down there.”

 

Sir, they’ve targeted the launch bay with some kind of resonance pulse. It’s disrupting the atmospheric force-field - they’re boarding us through the launch bay, as well.”

 

Tarn turned to Tyrael and nodded. Tyrael stood from his chair, activating a comm signal as he went. “Security teams C and F report to the launch bay.”

 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 

Drayn groaned as he awoke, struggling to open his eyes. When he did, he found that it didn’t help much - the lighting systems were down, and the only light in the room came from the nebula in the vacuum beyond the force-field - which must be running on minimal emergency power, he thought suddenly. It could give out any minute. Their position told him that the ship hadn’t moved much since he had collapsed - they’d been unconscious for a little under half an hour, by his estimation.

 

“Klara, you alright?” he asked for the second time in an hour.

 

She groaned an affirmative, struggling to her feet and moving up beside him to stare out the force-field. “That thing could die on us any second, sir...” she said.

 

He nodded. “I know. We need to get out of here before it does - I don’t trust the emergency bulkheads to-”

 

He trailed off as the ship jolted yet again, and three ships flew by the docking bay. One of the ships slowed, and adjusted course, heading right for the docking bay.

 

Drayn looked around helplessly for a moment, then grabbed Rosch’s arm and dragged her towards a nearby shuttle hatch, which remained open from earlier maintenance.

 

“Who are they?” she whispered, crouching behind him as he peered around the hatch.

 

He shook his head. “Damned if I know...” he answered. “I don’t recognise the configuration, and sensors didn’t pick up any ships in the area an hour ago...”

 

The small craft fired some sort of energy beam at the field, which flashed a dark blue and fizzled out, the atmosphere in the bay being sucked into the vacuum. Drayn threw Klara to the ground, and pulled the shuttle hatch closed, locking in the pressure and atmosphere.

 

Panting slightly, he moved towards the front of the craft, and looked out the main viewing port. The ship had landed in the bay, and had lowered its docking ramp. Three men in environmental suits marched down the ramp, all three of them armed, all three of their faces hidden from view by the reflective face visors. They looked roughly the same size and build as the average human, though with the bulky environmental suits, it was difficult to tell.

 

“If internal sensors are offline, they won’t know on the bridge that we’ve been boarded,” muttered Drayn. “Are the shuttle’s communications systems online?” he asked suddenly.

 

Klara sat in the copilot’s seat, and nodded. “Yes sir. We should be able to transmit some kind of message up to the bridge.”

 

He nodded. “Let’s assume that the ship’s communications are offline, andwe won’t be able to hail them,” he said. “But we can send a text message right to the captain’s command console.”

 

She worked for a moment, then sighed. “It’s no good, sir,” she said. “We’re being blocked - looks like whoever it is who’s boarded us has put up some kind of jamming signal.”

 

He punched the console.

 

“That’s not the worst of it, sir...” she said darkly. “Another one of those ships has docked at airlock two. I’m reading armed boarding parties heading towards engineering and the bridge.”

 

He stared out the window for a moment. There was nothing else they could do. “Get us out of here, Lieutenant,” he said flatly. She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. “We can’t do anything for them right now, Klara,” he said. “The best we can do is save ourselves, and go find the Fortunas for help.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he added. We’ll come back for them.”

 

She nodded darkly, and began prepping the shuttle for launch.

[Hallucination]

Well, you have some punctuation issues here and there, and one spacing issue. What happened to you getting these things a once-over from me before you posted.

 

So, umm, yeah... good chapter, don't do drugs, blah blah blah.

[The Doctor]

What happened to you getting these things a once-over from me before you posted.

I forgot I had asked you to do that, that's what happened to it. I'll forward you the next chapter before posting it, then.

 

I've fixed what I could find - including some redundant lines throughout the chapter. Should be much better now.

[The Doctor]

Sorry for the wait here folks. I have a lot going on with school, and I haven't been able to find the headspace to write a great deal. I'm still working on it. Give me a few more days.

[The Doctor]

Alright, here's a short chapter. Sorry it's been so long. Think of this as an add-on to the last chapter, not a full chapter itself. I'm quite busy this week, so the next whole chapter might be a while. Sorry again...

 

Chapter Seven and a Half

 

The shuttle shot out of the launch bay at maximum speed, weaving in and out of the alien ships as it went. As they zoomed away from Achaicus, they got a better view of the battle. There were dozens of ships swarming the Republic ship, attaching themselves to her hull like trill flies on a rotten piece of fruit. Assuming each of those ships had a compliment similar to that of the ship that had entered the launch bay, then they were dealing with literally hundreds of troops marching through their corridors. And with the armoury cut off from the rest of the ship, the crew would have no way to defend themselves or the ship.

 

“Commander, I’m reading three Denelan vessels on an intercept course. They’re weapons are charged.”

 

Will’s mind raced, scenarios playing through his head a mile a minute. From what he could tell, they had two viable options. They could try to outrun the Denelans and escape the sector, or they could stay and fight their way past these three ships and escape after the battle. “Let’s get us out of here. Lay in a course out of the system.”

 

“At maximum impulse, it’ll be a two week trip.”

 

He cursed under his breath. “Alright, scratch that,” he said suddenly. “Can you set up a resonating ion pulse along the shield grid?”

 

“Yes sir...” she said, perplexed.

 

“Do it,” he snapped, sitting at the ops station as the ship shook again. He activated it, and examined the readings. “I’m feeding you the modulation now,” he said.

 

She nodded as the information was fed into her console, and she modified her equations accordingly.

 

“Prepare to kill the engines,” he said.

 

“Sir, we can’t-”

 

“Just trust me, Klara,” he said.

 

She sighed, and nodded. “The resonance burst is ready,” she reported, looking up at him.

 

“Understood,” he said. “Cut the engines on my mark.” He held his finger over the button to activate the burst. “Now!” he barked, punching the switch a second later.

 

The ship lurched as Klara killed the engines, and the ship came to a halt. There was a flash of blue light as the resonance burst wrapped itself around the ship and clung to the hull.

 

The Denelan ships flew past them, slowing to a halt a few kilometres ahead. Will smiled.

 

Klara looked at him, amazed. “You’ve cloaked us!” she said incredulously.

 

He nodded, still smiling. “For the moment, yes,” he said. “But it won’t hold for long. Get us out of here, Mask our ion trail so they can’t follow us.”

 

She nodded. “Heading?”

 

He examined the sensor readings for a moment. “There’s an asteroid ring a few million kilometres away. I’m feeding you the coordinates now.”

 

She nodded and lay in a course. “Course laid in.”

 

“Alright. Engage. We’ll set down for a while and figure out what the hell we’re going to do to rescue the Achaicus.”

[The Doctor]

Since my life has decided to take a massive **** all over me, I'm not going to be writing for a while. Maybe a long while, even. I'm not really sure. I promise I will finish this, but right now, I just don't give a rat's ass about writing. Personal stuff that I won't bring up here.