Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 96

96 Chaos Theory, Pt The Admiral led her handful of frigates back towards the base at a nearly breakneck speed. Pirate fighters nipped at their heels and tapped at their armor with cannonfire, but only just scraped against the surface.

The panicked crewmembers on them were certainly thankful for the frigate’s thicker armor, but were still scared shitless from the constant barrage of fire. The drumming on the hull kept everyone inside on edge.

In contrast, the pirate frigates followed them lazily – Valos was clearly enjoying toying with the Federation. He was never impressed with them in the first place. They often counted too heavily on overwhelming firepower rather than effective tactics.

He and his officers couldn’t help but laugh as the Admiral fled before them.

“Why don’t we just polish ’em off and take all the shit inside?” asked Merlin. “I mean, Tartarus is kinda an open vault right now, yeah?”

Valos shook his head with a chuckle.

“You need to learn a lot about the Feds,” he replied. “All the good juicy intel’s under lock and key – only a few people have that, and we don’t wanna just blast our way through.”

“So what’s the point of all this, then?”

“Gotta shake ’em hard, or they won’t even come to the negotiating table, man. Disarm ’em, starve ’em, leave ’em in the dark. Enough time goes by, and they’ll be givin’ it all away.”

.....

“Hey man, we can’t just sit around and siege this asteroid for weeks. The Federation’s gonna notice and send some real firepower our way. I don’t really wanna stick around for that.”

Valos laughed at Merlin’s naivete. But it wasn’t his fault – it wasn’t like he knew how they did things at the Temple.

“Who said we’re gonna stick around here?”

~

The four frigates and a slew of the Federation fighters zoomed their way back into the hangar. Their retrothrusters were on full blast as they struggled to decelerate quickly enough – their velocities going in were far higher than normal.

Luckily, there were no collisions, however one of the frigates ended up scraping its hull along one of the inside walls. They were too panicked to control their speed.

“Seal the hangar doors on the double!” ordered the Admiral.

One of her officers on the base immediately responded to her.

“Ma’am, the power’s down all over the base!”

“Use your head!” the Admiral chided. “Doors are set to fall back on isolated power circuits. Same with the atmospheric shielding and life support – or didn’t you realize everyone inside’s still breathing? Make the switch and get it done. I want this rock sealed tight!”

The officer collected herself after being berated, and quickly redirected the nearby isolated circuit to power the door. It began to slowly seal itself, even as fighters were still flying through.

“Anyone who isn’t in by the time the door’s closed is fucked, so get your asses in here,” continued the Admiral. “Don’t bother landing – just find a spot out of the way. Go go go!”

Fighters continued to spill into the hangar, and they attempted to get out of everyone else’s way. At least, to the best of their abilities. The hangar started to feel a bit like a sardine can, now that more than half of its ships were simply floating in it.

The last of them slipped through just as the doors themselves shut. Huge gears turned, which caused gigantic mechanisms to clamp into each other securely. However, it did more than keep the pirates out.

Now the whole inside of the asteroid was completely bathed in absolute darkness. The only lights that the pilots could see were what were on their controls and MFDs.

Then, the Admiral’s frigate activated its outer lights, and washed the immediate area in a cool blue light. The others also activated their own lights, along with every fighter in the hangar.

Though there was light again, it was rather dim.

The Admiral’s voice was strained as she spoke. It was clear that she had been stressed to the max and was out of her element. She did her best to hide her fear, but everyone near her could tell that she was visibly trembling.

“Full status on energy systems,” she said.

Tartarus’ Chief Engineer appeared on her comms display. He looked determined, and was suited up for the field. His uniform was covered in smudges and all sorts of tools hung off it. Behind him were a number of his subordinates, and they were repairing one of the many blown transformers all over the base.

“Admiral. I got diagnostics still running, but what I got so far – you’re not gonna like it. Every single junction and transformer on the station is dead. Well, not dead dead, but dead enough. All of ’em got damaged from those surges. Some short-circuited, some blew their fuses. A couple blew apart altogether.”

“Can you fix them?”

“Most of ’em sure. But it’ll take a shitton of time.”

“Get me power to comms, at the very least. And do whatever it takes to keep the circuits running.”

The Admiral then turned to her three remaining test pilots, who were still connected directly to her comms. Concern was etched on her face. Prometheus was her absolute number one priority, and it showed.

“You three – doing alright? Seeing any issues? Feeling any combat stress?”

“I think we’re doing okay,” replied Eva. “But I gotta ask – who the hell are those pirates? They can’t possibly be normal pirates if they beat back a Federation Admiral.”

“Look,” snapped the Admiral. “I’m not some strategic genius – I’m a fucking scientist! But I should’ve known better and holed up in the first place. Out there’s the Temple of Discord, and as you saw – they’re a hell of a handful.”

“Temple of Discord?” asked Redstar. “So they aren’t pirates, then? Just religious zealots or something?”

“Oh, they’re pirates alright. Lawless fucking profiteers led by some insane woman. Calls herself Eris. Loves to stir up chaos with her fleet of golden apples.”

“Huh,” said Eva. “Sounds like the pirates who attacked the regen center Raijin and I woke up in.”

“Oh yes – same pirate crew. They started showing up not long after the first of you refugees did. Started attacking those stations at some point. Began small, but ended up a big operation within the space of a few cycles.”

“Lots of us assumed we were getting sold into slavery or something.”

The Admiral scoffed.

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Temple of Discord, huh? So their MO is to cause panic and chaos on the battlefield?”

Eva mused on the pirates, but she felt particularly immune to their brand of psychological warfare. She saw how everyone else had been greatly shaken up by their actions. It was understandable, of course. They were outnumbered and outgunned, and were millimeters away from getting wiped out.

She experienced the same things too, but all she felt was exhilaration. Maybe being a solo player meant she didn’t get so easily swayed by mass panic like everyone else.

“All these fucking hyenas care about is credit,” replied the Admiral.

“Alright, so what do we do about it? I mean, their tactics only work if we let it work, right? If we continue to let ’em dictate how this fight’s gonna flow, then we’ll never win, yeah?”

“And how do you propose we fight them off? We’re less than half their numbers.”

Eva opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She had no ideas.

“The only move we’ve got,” continued the Admiral, “is to return power to comms and emergency systems, and try to get a distress comm to Helios. We’ll ask for reinforcements, and they’ll take care of the barbarians at the gate. No problems after that.”

Eva’s brow furrowed.

“Wait. We’ve fallen for their traps over and over again. What if they’re expecting that distress beacon?”

“And do what with it? It’s just a comms line.”

“Okay, sure. But they can blast us again with... whatever they blasted us with and take it down again. Or maybe using that opportunity to hack in. That’s possible, right?”

“It is definitely possible,” chimed in Miko.

The exasperation in the Admiral had hit peak. She had been backed into a corner, had no way out, and had no options left.

“What do you want me to do?” she said. “The only tool I’ve got right now to help us is protocol, and it says I gotta call for help! If you got any better ideas, I’m all ears.”

“I-I dunno,” stammered Eva. “Put me in a fight, and I’m all over it. But this... I’m more than a little lost. Oh! How about maybe we at least shield our electronic systems or something? At least make it harder for ’em to disrupt everything again.”

“Honestly, my engineering chief is doing what he can. We must put a little trust in him.”

“That’s not exactly comforting, given where we’re at right now!”

“I might be able to help,” interjected Miko. “I have some training and knowledge.”

“What? No, absolutely not. I’m not letting a teenager get a hold of my power grid!”

“Are you kiddin’ me?!” yelled Eva. “Raijin’s probably the smartest person on this rock! Well, except for you. Probalby. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve seen her scores from basic. Tell me hers aren’t better than your chief guy!”

“How would you know what my scores are?” Miko asked Eva.

“Not the point!”

What Eva said gave the Admiral pause. She definitely read up on Miko and what she had done on Ganymede. Her scores were the highest, ever. And the rogue AI incident... she was instrumental in getting everything back under control.

The Admiral admitted to herself that she wasn’t as smart as Miko at her age. No-one in the Federation Navy was.

~

The Chief Engineer and his crews were all over the asteroid. Hovering drone lamps followed them everywhere, and illuminated them. They worked tirelessly to get many key systems back online.

Engineers had opened up the transformers and put them back together as best they could. Each one had at least an assistant drone help them with their tasks, from doing quick welds to performing routing checks.

As a group, they worked quickly and efficiently. Sweat gathered on their brows as some of the asteroid’s residents looked on in admiration.

The chief studied a map of the electrical grid on a datapad and made tweaks to the system as he scoured it for flaws. So far he had multiple systems being repaired at once, and all of them were on separate circuits.

The Admiral flashed on his comm panel on the pad.

“Chief,” she said. “I need you to give priority access to pilot Raijin here.”

He was immediately set aback when a thirteen year-old waved at him on his screen.

“No need,” said Miko. “Give me some time to read your schematics.”

Without even asking, and perhaps with marginally legal methods, she accessed the chief’s datapad, pulled all of its data into her Core’s databank, and displayed them on her MFDs. As the data came in and scrolled by, she pored over every detail that went past.

Since she was still technically in a Promethean Merge, she was also getting the data sent to her core’s databank as well as her physical brain. Because it spilled through into her conscious mind, she decided to allow the core’s operating intelligence to work in tandem with her own synapses.

She figured that would save her a little bit of time... couldn’t hurt, right?

.....

All the chief saw was that his screen had flashed off for a few brief moments. When his screen returned, his data was back as well. But with a great number of notes attached to them.

“Apologies that I took so long,” said Miko. ” I have made some suggestions to your design. I will leave it to you to implement.”

“Whad’ya mean ‘took so long’? You messing with me or something?”

He was about to scold her regarding childishness and pranks and wasting valuable adult time, but then read the first note she put down. Implementing it meant their energy output would increase by 12.45%, but signals would remain normal.

It was genius.

His eyes immediately went wide as he realized her intent with the rest of her suggestions. His jaw dropped wider and wider with each new note that he read. He just couldn’t believe how complex they were! He couldn’t believe her – she saw his data for all of three seconds!

He looked at her, then back at her suggestions. Then nodded his head vigorously in agreement.

“I’ll get these done right away! I’ll even do the critical ones myself! You can count on me!”