Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

“Weapons, bring the railguns online, arm the missiles. Opal take control of defensive fire.” Ship Master said to Opal, the ship’s Ai. “High Prime I want the tracks on those missiles immediately. Find out where they came from. Sensors, active scans on our surroundings, we are obviously not alone.”

After giving the orders Eric looked at the holo. Above, the time to impact was constantly dropping. Now showing thirty seconds. He hoped that the Ai would be able to take down the missiles. He wondered how they didn’t notice them before the missiles engaged their drives, their sensors should have detected them. There were 68 of them. The missiles tracks were shown from the moment their drives kicked in, the distance they had already passed was shown in a full red line, while the projected path in a dashed red line. Voyager’s drives were slowly kicking in, but Eric knew that they wouldn’t be fast enough. It took time for them to start.

At twenty seconds to impact Voyagers four top railguns opened fire. The rate of fire was amazing. But the missiles were too close, not even Opal, an Ai, could have destroyed them all in time. Out of 68 missiles, Voyager’s railguns took down 65. Three missiles continued on their projected path.

Eric keyed his ship wide comms. “Brace for impact!” He said.

Three explosions rocked Voyager in quick succession. Internal dampeners took care of the brunt of the hit, but they could still feel the ship rock.

“Damage report!”

“Railguns 1 and 4 are no longer operational. Deck 6 is open to space. Five missing, seven injured.” High Prime said.

“Navigation get us out of here, shortest route to the hyperspace barrier. Comms inform the Fleet of what has happened.” Eric said.

“New contact! Correction two! No! Three contacts on an intercept course!” Sensor Handler said.

New contacts immediately appeared on the holo.

“What are they? More missiles?”

“No Ship Master, they are ships. They are coming in fast. Intercept in twenty minutes.”

“Get us out of here, top speed.” Eric said to his Navigation Handler. And then turned back to his Sensor Handler. “How did they get so close without us seeing them?” He demanded.

“I don’t know Ship Master.”

Voyager started accelerating out of the planets orbit, and towards the hyperspace barrier. At their top speed they would be able to get there in an hour. Eric just hoped that they survive that long.

“Ship Master, the three ships are accelerating faster than us. We won’t make it.” High Prime said.

“Try to contact them, start sending greeting messages.” Eric said.

“They had already attacked us, I don’t think that they are peaceful.” High Prime said.

“No, but the messages might confuse them. Give us time to escape.” Eric said

His High prime nodded, and started working on his holoscreen. Five minutes later, the hostile ships were still coming fast.

“Anything?” Eric asked.

“Nothing.” High Prime said.

“Target the closest ship with missiles and fire as soon as you have a lock.” Eric said.

Ten seconds later, Voyagers launch tubes opened and fifty missiles left the ship. Voyagers missiles were faster and bigger than those that their warships used back in Sol. The missiles accelerated rapidly and closed the distance quickly. The lead ship tried to evade, but human missiles were all following adjusting their course. The timer was now on three minutes to impact. They were close enough to be able to track the missiles in near real time.

“We got the images of the ships, Ship Master.” Sensor Handler said. Eric looked up to see a part of the wall turn into a screen and he saw an image of the ship. The image showed a brownish colored hull, the ship was oddly shaped. The front was pointed, rocket like, with its middle being bulky and wider than Voyager by half. The end of the ship was spread out in 7 arcs bent backwards. The ship’s weapons could be seen mounted on its hull. The computer calculated the ship’s size and displayed it above the image. It was 130 meters from tip to end of the bent arcs. Not much bigger than Voyager.

When the timer dropped to two minutes, Voyager’s missiles started exploding.

“What is happening?” Ship Master asked.

“They have engaged point defense Ship Master. It looks like lasers.” Weapons Handler said. Missile computers recognized the danger and engaged evading protocols. But by then ten missiles were already shot down. In the next two minutes, thirty eight more were taken out. Only two missiles passed through their defenses. The enemy ship had turned its side when it tried to evade the missiles. The first missile hit the front of the ship, while the second hit towards the end. Two missiles exploded. A few seconds later they got the images of the ship. The front part of the ship showed little damage, save for a large scorch mark. The end on the other hand showed a hole some two meters in radius, the ship was leaking atmosphere.

There were cheers from those present on the bridge.

Eric quickly silenced them.

“Sensors?” He asked.

“The ship is no longer accelerating, but it is light damage. They are still coming.”

Eric nodded.

“The other ships?”

“They will—” Suddenly the ship computer started showing damage to the hull.

“What was that?” Eric asked.

“Damage report. We sustained light damage to the hull.” High Prime said.

“The second ship is firing laser weapons on us Ship Master.” Sensor Handler said.

“Evasive maneuvers. Opal can you predict their fire?”

“Not yet, I need a few more hits to be able to see a pattern.” Opal said.

“Comms send everything we are getting back to Fleet.”

The Voyager computer showed areas of the ship’s hull where temperature raised significantly, areas where the ship was hit by lasers. Three more laser beams struck the ship, one of them holding long enough to penetrate the outer hull. The third ship came into range and opened fire with its laser weapons. The lasers started raining fire down on Voyager. The hull was breached in several more places. A shot at the back of the ship disabled the Voyagers drives. And suddenly they were dead in space. Eric was thrown out of his chair by the force of the explosion, and everything went black.

Sometime later, Eric got up from the floor feeling lightheaded with a piercing pain in his stomach, he looked around the bridge. Half the stations were on fire, with several of his crew members dead. His High Prime was on the floor a gash on his head, Eric couldn’t see if he was still breathing. The holo was remarkably still operational. Eric could see that the hostile ships were close to them now. They didn’t destroy them, so it suggested that they wanted the Voyager. Eric stumbled to one of the stations, the Comm Handler was on the floor, dead. Her skull was split open. He found the damage report that was generated by Opal, most of the ship was open to space, he checked the internal sensors, and looked for any life signs on the ship, there were none. He then tried the comms, but no one answered him. He saw that the FTL comm was still operational. He keyed it open and sent all the ship logs of the battle back to Sanctuary, he looked down at his stomach, a metal rod had ripped through him, it was from the nearby railing, he had no idea how it managed to impale him. Then, he sent a message saying that he planned on destroying the ship. He went back to his station and somehow managed to get himself in the command chair.

“Opal are you still with me?” He asked.

“Yes Ship Master.”

“I need you to engage the self-destruct sequence.” He sure as hell wasn’t about to let the bodies of his crew be dissected by aliens.

“I will need your command codes Eric.”