Prologue

The battle for Coad Llai

Captain Killroy floated thru the bulkhead into the bridge, to the clamour of his crew. A proximity alarm was blaring, Holt was already swearing, that was never a good sign. The steel glass viewscreen swarmed with ships, jostling to reach their designated positions.

“What the fuck is this idiot doing!”, Lt Holt shouted, activating her mic, “GAFS 14321 Jorah, back the fuck off, we are on your 7 o-clock, below you, over”, reading the serial number on the side the ship, setting off their proximity warnings, “Are they even in our group?”.

Ensign Lotti, studied her screen, floating with thousands of blips, “This is a cluster fuck, no, they’re supposed to be over with the 14th group,” Activating her mic, whilst sending them telemetry, “Jorah, you’re supposed to be here”

“Sorry Vektor, moving away”, came over the comms, Killroy floated into his seat, spun, settling himself down, then strapping in. “Having fun boys and girls?” he said.

“Fucking losers, Captain’, Holt said. Lt Gemma Holt was plain looking woman, with short blond hair, she had a stocky build, from the city of Freemen, on Bangor, one of the first planets lost by Cahn in this war. She escaped with the refugees, joining the GA fleet as soon as she got the chance. Bangor was a desert planet, and she had the usual dark skin, green eyes, a hugely capable, intelligent, no nonsense woman, who took no shit, she was helmsman on the Vektor, a modern GAFS Frigate.

“Easy Holt, todays only going to get messier”, Killroy said, flicking a couple of switches, changing his console view. He was a black haired, black bearded, bull of a man with an easy manner, dark brown intelligent eyes, fiercely capable, should have been much higher rank by now, except for a drinking, and not knowing when to shut his mouth, problem. Born in Cahn city, on Cahn 4, the original home world for the Republic of Cahn. He was highly experienced, having served in the Cahn fleet for 10 years, prior to joining the Alliance fleet.

He had fought in the Altens campaign, or as he thought of it, the running away campaign. The Cahn fleet had assembled the 1st and 2nd Cahn fleets at Altens, to answer the growing threat, eight Carriers, more than four hundred and fifty warships. One thousand, six hundred light attack craft had attacked the Mejidi fleet. But the moment the Mejidi capital ship had opened fire, the Cahn fleet commanders had freaked, immediately withdrawing, fleeing back to Powis, abandoning Alten’s to its fate. Absolutely disgusted by his commanders cowardice, Killroy resigned his commission with the Cahn fleet as soon as they got back, joining the Alliance Fleet.

Killroy said “How much longer?”.

“This is a cluster fuck”, said Lt Commander Jebwei, the ships XO, as the proximity warnings went off again. Visash Jebwei, was from the famed city of Kwang’Gi, on Harsu, in Ni’Kendo, he had the coffee coloured skin, brown eyes and dark hair common to most Ni’kendians, with a slight build, young at only 22 for his rank. Killroy liked him enormously, along with the crew, he was quick witted, had a great sense of humour. “This is simple navigation Cap, get us out of here, these fuckwits are going to kill us”

“Holt, move us into clear space, until things settle down, is the rest of our squadron having this problem.”, Killroy said, seeing the sense in not staying in this position. He was captain of the GAFS 16745 Vektor, a reasonable new GA Frigate, two years out of the Coba shipyards. GA stood for Gavistad Alliance, an alliance of the 3 great house’s, Cahn, Ni’Kendo and Shosho’ne. GAFS stood for GA Fleet Ship, followed by it’s unique designation number and name. It was a good frigate, Arrowhead class, same as the rest in his squadron, they had one reliable E Class railgun, effective out to 300km, 3 missile tubes, 2 forward, 1 aft, good complement of torpedoes, lastly it had 2 point defence laser cannons for anything that got too close. It had seen 2 skirmishes with the Mejidi, only just escaped both times. From Kilroy’s experience, the Mejidi were not to be underestimated, they knew how to fight, had great equipment and knew how to use it, so far Cahn, and the GA Fleets had lost every encounter in this war.

All the great houses donated ships, funds and personnel to the GA fleet, which were supposed to be the peace keepers in the alliance. Ensuring another war, like the 1st and 2nd Great Aechon wars never happen again. The individual houses also maintained their own fleets to govern their own territories, but were supposed to be answerable to GA fleet command. The reality was the houses maintained their own massive fleets, much larger than the GA fleet, and pretty much ignored them most of the time. That’s was until the Mejidi arrived.

The Mejidi had invaded Cahn territory 7 years ago, starting with mining colonies far out on the edge of Cahn space, 5 years ago they had lost Bangor, then Altens, two old, long established Cahn colonies, deep in Cahn territory.  The Mejidi hadn’t hit anything big since, then three months ago reports had come in of large fleets, moving against Powis, Machdon, and Eryri simultaneously. Refugee ships had been flooding past Coad Llai, towards the McCray gate ever since, horrifying stories being told of the total loss of the planets, or in Machdon’s case, it was a moon, orbiting a gas giant. Nothing had been heard from those colonies since, and none of the Cahn fleet ships returned. Several weeks ago, Dyce shipyards had recently reported a large fleet heading their way, but then Coad Llai had also picked up a large fleet heading their way, Lord Cahn had ordered all ships defend the Coad Llai system, specifically Coad Llai 3, the Cahn Home world.

The Cahn fleet had been flooding in for days, the Coad Llai planetary defence force, of more than 400 light attack fighters and 80 frigates, had also risen from the planet for the defence. Problem was no one seemed to know what they were doing, especially the Cahn Fleet Admiral De’Gauche, he seemed to be ignoring most of the orders given by GA Fleet Admiral Maran, who was supposed to be in command of the combined forces. Kilroy’s telemetry screen was packed with ships moving to seemingly random locations, they had been lots of near misses and several major collisions, making it a dangerous place to be.

Killroy was in command of a squadron of fast attack Arrowhead frigates, in the 8th division, of the GAF 1st Battle group and he had to agree, it was cluster fuck of royal proportions. Ships were still arriving from the 1,2,3,5,6,7th Cahn Battle Groups, they were being directed into a vanguard position, against Admiral Marans orders. Maran ordered all ships to remain closer to the planet, where he hoped the gravity well would hinder their super capital ship, and the planets orbital defence platforms could assist with the defence, but they were only effective out to 500km. His plan was to stage the ships around the planet, make them come in close, swing around the flanks when possible. De’Gauche disagreed, wanted to take the fight to them, he had reluctantly been forced to accept Admiral Maran’s overall command by Lord Cahn, but now the Cahn fleet was 10 times the size of the GA fleet, Lord Cahn had left 3 days ago, and De’Gauche had a massive ego problem.

“Reports coming in from outer system scouts, looks to be several thousand ships, mostly destroyer and frigate class, 22 carriers, so that number will only get bigger, once they launch fighters”, said Ensign Verak, Comms and Sensors Officer. Will Verak was from Calos, the city of Butan, in Shosho’ne. He was a likeable, tall good looking young man with blue eyes and sandy hair, this was his first posting since completing his training.

“Looks like that traffic’s cleared, move us back into position Holt.” Killroy said, “ Lotti, signal our squadron, sound them off”. Holt moved the ship back to front of the squad.

Ensign Lusarah Lotti, Navigation Officer, was a refugee from Altens, born in Rousville, she escaped with her family to McCray, just before the Mejidi invasion. Joining up as soon as she turned 18. Lotti had short brown hair, cute pixie face with large hazel eyes and slim athletic figure. She switched to local channel, called the ships, they sounded off one by one, muted calls over the ship’s comms.

The chief engineer’s large frame, shadowed the bridge as he floated in, sealing the bulkhead blast doors behind him, making his way to his grav seat, strapping himself in. Lt Killain Ironsmith had big head of red hair, thick red beard, deep blue eyes, he was powerfully built, with a soothing deep voice, said, “Good to go captain, reactors at 100%, systems standing by”.

“Thanks chief, how long Jeb”, Killroy said to Jebwei.

Jebwei paused, checking his telemetry data, “I’d say 30 mins Cap”.

“Alright people, signal the squadron, lets dump our air, helmets on”, Killroy said, reaching down for his own helmet. Only the biggest ships had shields, frigates like the Vektor had some armour, but rail run projectiles would punch through it like it wasn’t there, plasma blasts and missiles could also punch holes in the ship. It was designed to survive some damage, but the biggest risk was depressurization. So, all ship’s crew prior to battle would done pressure suits, the ships would be depressurized, so that was at least that was one way you couldn’t die.

The crew donned their helmets, then sounded off when ready, Killroy lifted the protected cover on his console, flicked the switch, putting the frigate into battle mode. They could hear the hiss of the air being sucked out, soon followed by silence, as all sound died in the vacuum.

They looked out the viewscreen, the mostly green and brown world, studded with blue seas and swirling white clouds, was to their backs. Thousands of ships filled their view, Cahn light attack fighters started pouring out of the carriers, taking up positions ahead of the fleet.

Activating his comm, “Make sure your straps are tight, people”, Killroy said, tightening his own.

“That’s a shitload of ships”, Lotti said, as the fighters continued to pour from the carriers, “I’ve got just over seven thousand Cahn ships and two thousand alliance ships on the screen, systems struggling to keep up”.

“What the fuck are they doing?”, Lt Holt said.

They all watched with interest as the drives of the entire combined Cahn fleet blossomed into life, it was quite beautiful to watch, as thousands of multicoloured spots of light lit up.

Killroy flicked over to the Command channel, Admiral Maran wasshouting “De’Gauche, what in the seven hells are doing. Get back in position”!

De’Gauche scoffed, ”we outnumber them almost 3-1 Maran, do not be such a coward, I will destroy them for you, come if you want”

“You fool, you have seen that big ship’s gun in action, De’Gauche please…”, Admiral Maran pleaded.

“If there is anything left, you can clean it up Maran, I’ve had enough of these Mejidi, they dare threaten my home.” De’Gauche said, pompously. 

Killroy flicked over the Command and Control channel, CinC for short, keying his transmit button, “Vektor here sir, 8th Group, orders CinC, do we follow”, he was itching to get going, like all soldiers, he deplored waiting around.

“Negative, Vektor, all alliance ships hold position, hopefully the Cahn Fleet will survive this. Our orders are to protect the planet, standby”, The CinC controller said.

“Affirmative. over”, Kilroy said flicking his comm over to local,“Put the fleet data up on screen please Lotti, give me any vid feed from any lead Cahn ship”

Moments later the main viewscreen was overlayed with telemetry data showing the fleets moving towards each other. Two live feeds popped up, to one side showing footage from 2 different lead Cahn ships. They could hear the commands being given to the Cahn ship commanders; their replies were way too cocky.

 Killroy had a real bad feeling about this, “Stay alert people, this could turn real bad, real fast”.

The Cahn fleet was in tapered attacked formation, main cruisers in the middle surrounded by destroyers in frigates, led by the fast attack fighters. Kilroy would not have attacked like that, having seen the destructive power of it’s primary gun first hand.

“They have reaching maximum firing range”, Jeb said.

The telemetry screen froze for several seconds as tens of thousands of missiles were launched from both sides, the display jerked, as it tried to process it all, the missiles approached midway, then passed each other, approaching the opposing forces. Lattice works of tracer fire could be seen far off in the distance through the vid feeds, as the fighters and point defences opened up on the missiles. Both sides shot down 95% of the opening salvo, but that still meant many got through, decimating the front ranks of ships, they watched blips from both sides disappear, one of the vid feeds was lost, then a second salvo was launched from both sides, this time the closing distance was less. There was an almighty flash on the remaining vid feed before it was lost, they could see the bright flash thru the normal viewscreen, behind the 3d display. The centre line of Cahn ships on the screen dropped of the board. The blast shot past them, some way to port. Several GA vessels disappeared in the line of fire.

“Holy fuck, What the was that?”, Jeb said, other members of the crew exclaiming as well.

“That was their big gun, that is why Admiral Maran is being so cautious, we have had reports about those big ships, the primary weapon is devastating and I saw it briefly in action at Altens, what did we lose?” Killroy said.

“Cahn just lost 65 ships in that blast, 12 of them Cruisers, Di’Gauche is gone, the Cahn force are swinging away from the blast zone, looks like… yep, the Mejidi force are pouring into the gap at the centre”, Lotti said.

The Vektor crew watched in horror as the lead waves of Cahn ships, attempted to swing away from the huge blast, just as they reached the range of the Mejidi rail guns and heavy plasma weapons, they presented their broadside and the Mejidi nailed them. To their credit the Cahn vessels fought valiantly, as they tried desperately to move away from the direct path of the big ship, and that horrifying weapon, but their targets were smaller, harder to hit, the Mejidi almost couldn’t miss, Cahn lost 4, to every 1 Mejidi shot down. The blips on their screens started disappearing rapidly.

Kilroy watched the Mejidi move as one again on his telemetry display,  just out of the way in time as the weapon fired again, this time only just missing the Vektor, taking out 6 frigates in his squadron, plus another 2 dozen alliance and Cahn ships.

Without leadership, the Cahn fleet was disintegrating, De’Gauche had commanded all Cahn Fleet Admirals join him on his ship. They were all now dead, along with most of the high level command staff, who were on the Cahn cruisers, of which only one remained and it was now fleeing the battle as more Cahn ships were destroyed around it. The Cahn fleet was now in full rout, the Mejidi continued to decimate them, the huge gun fired again, another line of blips disappeared on the screen. This time the blast was well away from the Vektor. They watched 2 wings of Mejidi ships peel off in pursuit of the Cahn forces, the biggest group continued towards the planet.

The stupid thing was, the pursuing Mejidi forces were outnumbered 4 to 1, but the Cahn forces never thought to counterattack. Admiral Maran screamed himself hoarse at the Cahn forces, but most would not listen. A couple of dozen Cahn ships made it back to the planet, joined back up with the alliance fleet. The Mejidi hadn’t had it all their own way, De’Gauches attack had destroyed or disabled more than a third of main Mejidi attack fleet, more than half of their light attack craft were destroyed. But they were still coming at the planet with a force nearly as big as the defending alliance forces, and they still had that huge ship, which no one had an answer to.

Soon the Mejidi ships were entering the range of the GA fleet and Planetary defence platforms, “Ok people, this is it, let’s dance, Holt”, Killroy said. “Lotti, clear the screen, I can see the bastards now”.

“Roger”, Holt said, as she activated the dance program, as they liked to call it. The frigates in his squad, on his signal, started thrusting up, down, side to side, not violently, but enough to keep the ships constantly in motion, making them more difficult targets to hit with linear weapons, like rail guns. Meanwhile the ship allowed for the motion when targeting enemies.

Killroy read the crew the message he just received, “They have sent the evacuation order to the planet, we have to give them as much time as we can, then we will fight a staggered retreat”.

The Mejidi reached extreme range, opened up with another salvo of missiles, followed by their fighter squadrons, returned by the GA fleet. All around them blossomed with the lattice works of point defence guns, lasers and tracers, getting most of the missiles, another 30 alliance vessels went down, this time more than 120 Mejidi vessels went down, many had their point defences damaged in the first fight with the Cahn forces. They reached heavy weapons range, the space between exploded with heavy plasma and rail guns.

The planetary defence satellites open up as they the Mejidi came into range, waves of missiles were launched, along with Ion cannons. On Marons orders, the allaince fleet launched another wave of missiles as well, ignoring the close range. The Mejidi defended well, but many missiles got through, even the capital ship took several hits, although it appeared undamaged.

Jeb opened fire with the Vektor’s rail gun, along with what remained of his squadron, as the Mejidi started to score hits on the alliance forces as well. There was another blinding flash as the Mejidi capital opened fire again. The command channel went dead in Kilroy’s ear, he said, “Lotti, who did they just get”.

“That was the Valiant, Admiral Maran’s ship, plus the 2 carriers, among several others”, Lotto said after a moment.

“Shit… How’s the planet evacuation going?”.

Her answer was cut short as Ensign Verak jerked in his seat, warning alarms went off as they felt the ship, bang! like it had hit something. Blood started hosing out the holes, top and bottom of Verak’s helmet where a rail gun fragment had gone thru. The ship shuddered, then exploded behind them, vibrating violent through they’re seats, part of the bridge port side bulkhead disappeared, along with Lt Lusarah Lotti, and her console.

Kilroy watched it all in horror, then shaking his head to clear it, after the last violent explosion. There was a high pitched squeal in his ears, shaking his head to try relieving the pressure. It eased off a little, he looked around, besides the left side wall, most of the bridge was intact. Holt, Jeb and Killain were still strapped to their grav couches, so was Verak, but he was dead, flicking his suit comms over to local, he called out to them, but got no reply. He looked out the gaping hole, his stomach dropping further, remains of their ship was now tumbling over and over, towards the Mejidi forces, which were very close now. He could see the “puffs” discharges of rail guns, the multicoloured streaks of light of heavy plasma bolts, going off all around him, as the battle continued to rage.

The ship continued to roll forward, nothing to stop their forward momentum, dozens of Mejidi fighters streaked by firing rapidly, frigates and destroyers came past, guns firing in silence, so close you could touch them. Then the big ship shadowed all light as it went past, it took a while to pass, Killroy getting a good look as they tumbled by, stunned by the size and fire power of  it. Amazingly they weren’t hit by anything else, Kilroy’s ears slowly came back to life.

“Captain, can you hear me”, Jeb’s crackly voice broke thru the high pitched squeal.

“Jeb, yes I can, is everyone else OK, Verak and Lotti are gone”.

Holt and Killain said they were ok, yes, they saw what happened to them, both asked “What the hell are we going to do?”

Kilroy unstrapped himself, stood up, the rolling inertia making him move about awkwardly, but he got his magnetic boots down to the deck moving to bulkhead door, unsealing it. Slowly spinning space battle and expanding debris field greeted him. The entire rear of the ship was gone, including the life pods. Stunned they had survived, he moved over to the large hole in the port side, they were approaching the main Cahn Fleet debris field.

Kilroy looked down at his arm, with a few motions turned on his helmet telemetry, it started filling his view filled with, “unknowns” as it saw debris, that was why the view was normally off, it was so annoying, filling your view with crap, several ships looked intact. He scanned for life signs, came back negative, although the scanning range of the helmet was severely limited.

He scanned for hot reactors, one ship lit up, the CRFS 10880 Caerfan, an older Cahn destroyer. He focused his optics, it had a huge hole in the midships, looked to be a direct missile hit. He quickly did some calculations, geometry lines line’s appeared in his display as it calculated trajectory, relative to the off axle rotation of Kilroy, they had 2 minutes.

“People, we are about to jump, don’t ask questions, unstrap yourselves carefully, make your way to the huge hole, quickly you have about 60 seconds”, Killroy said. “Where about to pass a Cahn Destroyer with a hot reactor”, He stood at the hole, checked his wrist computer, said “20 seconds people, when I say jump, you all jump straight out, tethered together and holding hands, clear”. They nodded back, clipping each other together. “3.2.1 Now!”

They all jumped, holding each other’s hand, they tumbled with the rotating motion of their stricken ship, initially nothing was in front of them, Holt and Jeb were freaking out, voiced their concerns.

“Wait for it”, Killroy said, suddenly a large ship rolled into view, they were just about to crash into it, as they sailed through the huge hole in the side, “Brace for impact”, Killroy said, grunting as they skidded off a wall, bounced, hit the floor, several of them got a mag boot down, dragging them to a stop against a bulkhead.

“Sound off, Jeb”, Killroy said.

“Yeah, I think I’ll live, what the fuck Cap”, Jeb groaned

“Holt”. Killroy said.

“Yeah, but let’s not do that again”

“Chief”

“Yeah, what a ride.”

They took stock, they had about 5 hours air each, Killroy and holt headed to the bridge, Jeb and Chief to engineering. They opened the doors to the front compartments, there were bodies, some in pressure suits, floating amongst blood and gore and balls of various liquids.

They spent several minutes removing the bodies, then checked out the compartments, it was full of holes, the area hit by multiple rail gun shots, killing all the crew, they encountered at least 46 holes they would need to patch, and the control consoles were a mess, Killroy radioed Chief, “Chief, we got a lot of damage up front, looks repairable, what about you”

“You might have got it right for once Cap, reactor and drive, intact, Engineering bay is still pressurized, still has air”.

“Great news, Bring the hull repairs kits, get up here”.

“How many?”

“All of them”

An hour later they attempted to re-pressurize the front compartments, found 7 more holes they still had to patch, finally the pressure held, the crew took off their helmets, breathing deeply, the air smelled metallic, of blood and death, it was going to need a clean.

Killroy ran his hand through his sweaty hair, “We are still alive people”, he grinned, “That was quite a ride”.

Jeb and chief grinned back, Holt scowled, “We’re not out of this yet, what are smiling about? Look!” she pointed out the bridge window at the Mejidi forces harassing the last remaining alliance ships as they burnt hard out of the system, now in full retreat. The bulk of the Mejidi forces settling into high orbit around Coad LLai, now the orbital defence platforms had been destroyed, the planet was now at the mercy of the Mejidi.

“One thing at a time, Holt”, Killroy said, still grinning. “Can’t do anything if we’re dead, let’s have a look at these consoles”. The spent several minutes going over the consoles, they quickly got sensors and Weapons back online, although only one rail gun was functional, along with 2 defence lasers. They shut the systems down again immediately so as not to attract any unwanted attention. They had no helm control, only the front thrusters were still responding. They traced the fault to the large hole midship, it had severed the primary control systems, the back ups, had been damaged by several rail gun shots and were beyond repair. They discussed their options, it was impractical to replace the control services, they could if they had unlimited time and weren’t in danger of being discovered at any time. Killroy asked if there could drive the ship from engineering.

Chief donned his hood, “Never tried, I’ll go see”

“Cap”, Holt said, several minutes later.

“What?” Killroy said, head buried in navigation console.

“Cap, come here! Now!” Holt said, fear in her voice.

Killroy jumped up, moving to where holt looked out thru the main viewscreen. She pointed, said, voice quivering with fear, “What are they doing?”

They were deep in the debris field, it floated around them, occasionally banging into the ship, when it cleared enough, they could see Coad Llai, the Mejidi had opened fire on the planet, they were too far away to see what was happening clearly, but they could see the impacts, tiny at this distance, but devastating.

“Fuck, their firing on it”, said Killroy, “I wonder how many people are still there”.

“There were 2.7 Billion last census, if we assume 10% made it out, that still leaves more than 2 Billion”, Holt said quietly, “Now we know what happened to the people left behind on Bangor and Altens, there was more than a billion on Bangor, couple hundred million on Altens. I can’t watch”, she turned away, horrified.

Killroy watched for a while longer, shaking his head sadly, almost overwhelming feelings of horror threatened if he thought about, pushing his horror down and feeding of his anger for motivation, he went back to the Navigation console, they needed that working if they had any chance of getting out of here.

“Cap”, the chiefs scratchy voice came over the comm.

“I hear ya Chief”, Killroy replied.

“I have rear thruster control, drive control and FTL shield control back here, but no navigation, if you can point us in the right direction, I reckon I can get us moving, over”.

“OK, let’s see if we can make that work, I haven’t got the navigation back online yet, so head back here, give me a hand with it”

“Roger”

“Jeb, can you keep an eye on the Mejidi please, I’ve had enough surprises for one day, one of us watches them at all times, they will be back here soon enough, they can see this hot reactor just as well as we could”, Killroy said to Jeb,

Jeb clicked the console cover, back on the weapons station, said, “Sure”, made his way to front, peered out at the floating debris field, grimacing as some bodies floated by. Some of the ships were still mostly intact, but most weren’t, random pieces of superstructure, deck plates and bulkheads filled his view.

They worked on the Navigation for several hours, eventually ripping the now redundant engineering console apart to find the spare parts they needed to fix the navigation, both Killroy and the Chief were ex Cahn fleet, luckily knew the ship’s systems well.

“What’s that?” said Jeb, walking over, collecting and donning his helmet, walking back to the main screen, flicking on his telemetry view.

“What?”, Chief said, looking up from the mess of wires and circuit boards.

“Hold on”, Jeb said, as his screen filled with data, a large piece of debris obscured his vision momentarily as it floated by, finally it moved away, there it was, Mejidi frigates were scanning the debris field, still some way off, but moving their way. Jeb said “Cap, we got company”.

They all scrambled up to look, swearing, Killroy said, “Shut it all down, quick”, as they furiously ran around turning off all the systems, lights, everything that ran on power.

“In here”, Killroy motioned for them to move into the crew mess area, at the centre of the forward compartments, pulling the 4  large pull out doors closed around them, cracking the last so he could watch the approaching ships. “This area is shielded against extreme radiation, I’m hoping they can’t sense us in here”. He watched the ships get closer, slamming the door shut, sliding down the wall, heart in his throat waiting for it to pass.

“What’s the plan captain?”, Holt said quietly. The room was tense, waiting for them to be discovered.

“Assuming they still don’t know were here, as soon as we get the navigation fixed, we burn for McCray, hopefully the gate’s still there when we get there”,

There was a crunch, followed by a horrible grinding noise, then silence again, they looked at each other fearfully, but nothing happened.

Chief said unhelpfully, “Must have hit something”.

Killroy popped the door again, the ships had moved on, he walked quickly to the rear view panels, saw the frigates methodically making their way thru the debris field aft of them. He said, “OK people, let’s get that Navigation fixed and get the fuck out of here”.

It took several more hours before the Navigation computer finally booted up, the crew high fived each other, grinning as hope blossomed again. Jeb found them water packs from the mess, they all drank gratefully.

Holt was back on watch, “Guys, what’s that?” she said pointing.

They all moved forward, sucking the last of the water out of the paks, peering intently. It took a minute for them to see them, small utility mechs, they put their helmets on, turning on the optical magnification, there they were. Small mechs with 4 arms, sorting thru wreckage, cutting it up, moving into piles. There were hundreds of them. They had maybe a couple of hours before they reached them.

Killroy removed his helmet, “That’s it, times up, let’s get going, Holt, your steering, you only have front thrusters, all other control orders will have to be communicated to Chief, he will follow your instructions, clear” She nodded. “Chief, get to engineering, you control the ship, suits on people, Jeb, shoot anything that gets in our way, but don’t shoot unless you have too.”

They all nodded, donning their helmets, Killroy and Chief grasped forearms, “stay safe chief”, Killroy said. He watched his friend exit thru the rear bridge airlock, hoping it wasn’t the last time he would see them again. Holt and Jeb strapped themselves in, Killroy was programming the Nav computer for McCray, when it dinged, the ready light came on, he strapped himself in as well.

“Power up people, Jeb, i want full sensor sweeps, let’s gather as much data as we can, Holt try to get us out of here in one piece, when you’re ready, give the chief your instructions.”

Holt flicked her thrusters, turning the ship into a clearer area, “10% thrust chief”’

“10% Thrust” he repeated back to her. The ship started moving, slowly picking up speed, she was moving the ship thru all 3 axis’s, as she weaved a path through the debris, missing most bits, some were unavoidable, she closed her eyes as the hit, or scraped by several large pieces.

Jeb piped in, “I have 3 Mejidi ships on intercept course, one is nearly in weapons range, the others are at least 5 minutes out.

“How long to clear the debris field Holt”, Killroy said.

“Another minute or two”, she said concentrating hard.

“Take it out Jeb”.

Jeb acknowledged, targeted the approaching frigate, immediately opening fire once in range. The CFS destroyer had better range than the Mejidi frigate, several shots at it’s engineering sections and the Mejidi ship blew out the side, started drifting. But not before two missiles were launched.

“2 contacts, missiles, bearing 90.85, 15 secs” Jeb called out.

“That got their attention”, Killroy said, “Let’s go. Holt, were out of time, punch it”.

“110% thrust Chief” Holt said.

“110% thrust”, Chief repeated back. They were pushed back deeply into the grav couches as the Caerfan shot clear of the debris, accelerating away. Jeb was counting down the missiles, taking both down with point defence lasers. Once clear of the planet, he called to Holt, activated the Nav computer which gave them course headings, normally it would take over the helm, Killroy gave the bearings to Holt, directing them towards McCray. The chasing frigates followed for a little while, then turned back.

Jeb said, “We’re clear Cap, they’ve turned back”.

Holt said, “Ok Chief, throttle us back to 80%”

“80%, affirmative, I’ll be up there in a sec”.

“Jeb. Find us something to eat”, Kilroy said.

Luckily the Caerfan was well stocked for a crew of 24, so there was plenty of food and water for 4. He had hot food ready as Chief took of his helmet and sat down. Between mouthfuls of terrible looking stew, that smelt OK, he said, “so do you want the good news of the bad news”.

“Start with the good, we need some good news”, Holt said, drinking hot tea.

“The engine and reactor appear sweet, we should have to problem getting to McCray”

“That is good news, what’s the bad”, said Jeb.

“It’s going to take us 6 months to get there, we can’t get past five hundred times light”, Chief said to the dismayed faces, the normal journey should only take 2-3 weeks.

“Why?”, Killroy asked, dismayed.

“That big hole in the side, it’s screwing up shield modulation, I think one of the emitters is missing, I can’t get the harmonics right, I’ll work on it, but I think that’s the best we got until the ship is fully repaired. Also, someone has to man engineering 24/7, we won’t know till it’s too late, if something goes wrong unless someone’s in there, I suggest we set up sleeping arrangements in there, crew off duty can sleep in there, I’ll head back once I have something to eat, someone can relieve me in 8 hours”

They agreed, Jeb said he would take the next shift, Killroy sat there, watching the starfield slip by, 6 months, he thought, fuck that’s a long time, suppose at least they were alive.

The loss of Coad Llai was crippling to Cahn, devastating to the Alliance, they had put up a good fight, but it wasn’t enough. Hopefully McCray was still there when they got there.

After thinking for a while, he said, “Alright people, let’s search this ship, see what supplies we have, we’re going to be here for a while”.