For one terrible instant, time seemed to slow, to break apart and spread itself across the heavens on the wings of a fire so bright and violent that it scalded the eyes, burnt out the viewer and left every Operations officer reeling and disoriented. An instant later the shockwave hit, tossed the Von like a broken toy caught in the surging currents of a storm-wracked sea. In the space of a breath, Operations became a jarring freefall of bodies and fire, of darkness and an endless cascade of scorching sparks. Hilleboe woke up an instant later on the floor, blinking past the blurriness, the spots of blindness that swirled through his vision. One hand went to his head, to the crisply shaved military cut there, came away bloody. Halfway across Operations, his hat lay against the wall, abandoned. Johanson was the first to recover.
“Minimal damage.” She shook her head, smashed a fist against the sparking polyquid console. “Scratch that. We’re at seventy-eight percent for the hull– internal systems are shocked but recovering.”
“Weapons are toast.” Leighton stumbled away from her console, limped over to the crumpled shape of Abrams, checked his pulse.
“Is he?” Hilleboe tried to stand, collapsed again almost immediately as reality swept upward into a swirling current around him. Leighton was at his side almost immediately, catching him, helping him steady himself.
“Don’t move, Captain.” She said gently. “You’re hurt. David will be fine. He’s unconscious, but breathing.” She looked up, glanced in the direction of the Comm Officer. “Binford–”
“We have to...” Hilleboe stared blankly past her, stared into the darkness of the dead viewscreen. For an instant, a palpable sense of pure, irrational terror seized his heart, and he lurched backwards, away from Leighton and into a support. Confusion shot across the Tactical Officer’s features, and an instant later she was on her feet, following Hilleboe as he forced himself upright, fought the bendings, the swirlings of reality around him, and pushed himself into his chair. “Can you get a fix on the other Coralate ship?” He asked breathlessly. “Where are they!?”
“They’re already gone, sir.” Johanson glanced back at him. “They bent space right before the other ship detonated.”
“One less thing to worry about for the moment, then.” He shook his head, wiped blood out of his eye. Beside him, Leighton swallowed, stared, her eyes becoming alive and evasive only as the Captain fixed her with his steely gaze.
“I need you at your post, Lieutenant.” He said softly. Leighton nodded quickly in response, and a moment later, as she took her station, the Captain turned his eyes back to the dead viewscreen, stared into that impenetrable blackness. “Binford, raise medical. Tell them we’ve got wounded up here, but no priority cases.” He glanced at Johanson again, her sandy blond hair a tousle of feathery strands. “How long before we can get the viewscreen back online?”
“Working on it now, Captain.” Came Johanson’s quick response. “We’ve lost over eighty percent of our skin sensors– bypassing under these conditions is a tricky–” She bit her lip, leaned into the holographic data, sorted another sequence of data strings, tied working relay signatures into one another, ferreted out functional passages between huge clusters of burnt out systems. Looking up, she entered a quick series of commands, lips parting in hesitation. “That... okay.” She worked another quick sequence. “This should do it.”
At first there was only static, the digital snow of broken lines and stellar noise. Somewhere in the center of it all, there was a shape, light– a flash of clarity showed dark metal, an edge of debris, something spinning.
“Can you clean it up, Lieutenant?”
“I’m trying, sir.” Johanson shook her head. “I’m surprised we’re even getting a feed at all, it’s–”
And then, as if by some cruel or divine hand, the screen snapped into perfect clarity, showed the hazy yellow lines of plasmatic debris as they carved their way through the heavens in broken rings, skirting the glowing, charred chunks of metal that hung spinning among the stars. Hilleboe’s jaw dropped reflexively. There was no sign of the monstrous Wallace class Warship or the equally massive Coralate vessel that had been there only a moment ago– only a field of slag and broken, glowing artifice that mixed anonymously in the heavens like a sea of unrecognizable headstones.
“Jesus.” Hilleboe managed. There was nothing left of the Carl Sagan, nothing recognizable, nothing that could be recognized as even being part of the ship. He swallowed reflexively. Yuuki, jesus.“Johanson, what can you give me? Could anyone have survived that?”
“No sir.” The young Lieutenant shook her head, eyes wide, blind. “There’s no way...”
“What–” Hilleboe stumbled past the words, stumbled through the shock that had seized his heart. “What about our pilots? How many of them did we lose?”
“Jesus.” Came Johanson’s shocked, broken response. Eyes dropped to her console, hunted through data, but saw only isometric light, couldn’t make sense of the readings. “No, no, not good.” Tears pulled at her eyes, and in the next instant, she had her face in her hands, breaking down, sobbing into supportive palms. Hilleboe pulled in a steadying breath, shifted in his chair.
“Johanson!” He barked. “Dammit, this is hard on all of us. Pull it together! Report!”
“We–” She tried, but the sound came hesitant, broken. “Sir! Respectfully request to be dismissed from Operations until the completion–”
“Request denied.” He shot back. “I need you here. I–”
“Sir, with all due respect!” She shouted, cutting him off, face a wreck of pain and tears. “I had a brother aboard the Carl Sagan! I can’t even perform my duties right now and I– and I–”
“Lucy!” The Captain thundered, pushing himself upright, forcing himself into a standing position despite the buckling, the bending pressures that threatened to take him back down just as quickly. “You are an officer of the TCGND! Pull yourself together and act like it, soldier!”
For one long, stretching instant, it seemed as if Johanson’s face might buckle open at any moment, as if her earthy eyes might burst forth suddenly with a renewed flood of tears. Teeth clenched together against an unseen pain, fists balling at her sides, and then she pulled in a deep breath, nodded once, firmly, and managed a quick, strong-sounding “Sir.”
“Resume your post, Lieutenant.” Hilleboe nodded back, lowered himself slowly back into his chair as Johanson slipped back into her station and stared blankly at the isometric data again. Hilleboe set his jaw at an angle, looked back at the brutal swath of space that haunted the viewscreen. “Can someone tell me the status of our pilots, please?”
“Status is good.” Binford glanced back at the Captain suddenly, one finger switching reflexively between feed channels at a rate that was almost impossible to follow. The edge of a smile moved across his face as he added: “The warning went out in time. We didn’t lose a single rig!”
“And the others?” Hilleboe asked, leaning forward, gesturing. “The Constantine? The Feynman and the Ducornet?”
“All outside the blast radius, sir.” Johanson stared at the numbers, blinked, sniffed, closed her eyes on the exhale. “No damage.”
“Binford, advise the other ships to begin salvage and rescue procedures, giving priority to the Carl Sagan over the Hok.” He shook his head “Tell them we’ll catch up in a little bit. We still have a little cleanup to do here.”
“Roger that, sir.” Binford nodded quickly.
“And Johanson.” Hilleboe added, the edge of a smile pulling at his lips. “I think we can find someone to fill in for you if you’d still like to be dismissed.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir.” Johanson sniffed, looked up, eyes hardening as she stared into the isometric data milling across her console, blinked away the soft buds of bitter tears. “I’m an officer of the TCGND. My place is here.”
“Glad to hear it, Lieutenant.” Hilleboe nodded, smiling. “Glad to hear it.”
