Episode 63

It had been roughly four hours since Dingo first reached Alpha. Tension rippled through the crew as Alan’s newly built ship finally caught sight of another fleet arriving in the far distance.

“That thing is massive... even from this far out, it’s lighting up the scanners like a Christmas tree.”

Paul stared at the blip on the Radar Screen with an expression of pure, unadulterated exhaustion.

“Well, yeah. And the most annoying part is that we’ve actually got to trade shots with it,” Alan replied. “Can you ID the class?”

“Yeah. Dingo only owns two Battleships, and they’re both Dove-class. I haven’t heard a peep about him commissioning anything new.”

“A Dove-class, huh? A high-speed Battleship... No wonder he’s so fond of mobile warfare.”

Alan cycled through a few of Dingo’s likely tactics based on the ship’s specs, landing on the one that would be the biggest pain in his ass.

“If it’s a high-speed ship, he won’t use it as a shield for a frontal charge. Sniping from long range is also out. His textbook play will be splitting his forces and harassing the Fortress from mid-range.”

Muttering to himself, Alan opened a channel to the Dry Plum, which had finally managed to scramble a connection moments ago.

“Teiro, I don’t care if you melt the damn engines—hurry up. These guys are going to be on top of us in less than an hour, tops.”

The line was heavily encrypted, but the reply came back instantly.

“’Roger that. We’re pushing full power, but is it really that bad?’”

“Yeah, it’s a nightmare. We’re looking at one Battleship, four Cruisers, eight destroyers, and thirty-two frigates. It’s a perfectly balanced, professional-grade fleet.”

“’Ugh, they brought the whole kitchen sink... Wait, a Battleship? There’s a real-life Battleship out there?’”

“A Dove-class, over a kilometer long. It’s likely Dingo’s main heavy hitter. Once we actually engage, we won’t last five minutes.”

“’Eeeek!! Please, just hang in there a little longer!!’”

Alan started to snap back that Taio was asking for the impossible, but he caught his breath and stopped. He knew Taio was already redlining it; badgering the kid wouldn’t make the ship move any faster.

“’Alan, movement on the enemy’s side.’”

Bella’s voice cut in with an emergency override. Alan killed the feed to Taio and snapped his attention to the display.

“The vanguard is moving. Here we go.”

With a short, grim command, Alan broadcast the battle-readiness order to the rest of the fleet.

---

“Oh man, oh man, this is bad. I gotta go faster!”

Taio’s brow was furrowed into deep canyons as he glared at the engine diagnostics. He knew staring at the readouts didn’t actually make the ship move faster, but his sheer panic didn't give him much of a choice.

“Hey, Teiro. I get the vibe, but you need to chill for a second.”

Marl appeared out of nowhere, holding out a drink. Taio grabbed it and sucked it down in a single, desperate gulp to soothe his parched throat.

“Gah—! AGH! MY MOUTH! IT’S LAVA! THE TEA IS LAVA!”

“Oh, what a delightful reaction, Mr. Teiro. You might have a future as a slapstick comedian,” Koume chirped.

“No, you’re supposed to notice it’s hot the second you touch the cup...” Marl muttered.

Ignoring Koume’s giggling, Taio took the refilled cup Marl offered—this time with extreme caution. The cool liquid slid down his throat, finally dousing the fire in his gullet.

“I seriously thought that was the end. Drinking hot tea through a straw is a suicide attempt... Wait.”

Still clutching his throat, Taio’s face suddenly snapped back into a serious mask. He held up a hand to stop Marl from asking if he was okay and looked down, lost in thought.

“The warehouse... We had Warp Boosters in the warehouse, right?”

“Yeah, just a bunch of unsold stock sitting there,” Marl replied.

“Hey, Koume. Quick question: If I daisy-chain every single stabilizer we have on board right now, can we pull off a Long-distance Jump?”

“...Theoretically? I suppose I should say yes, Mr. Teiro.”

“W-wait. You’re going to link all of them? How are you even going to manage that many... Oh, right. I forgot who I was talking to.”

Marl’s voice dropped an octave as the realization hit her. She whipped a mobile device from her pocket and began tapping away with blurring speed.

“We have thirty-two Warp Stabilizers. Twenty-four of them are the same model. I can bridge twenty-four of them, but... you’re going to have to ‘tweak’ every single one, you know?”

She emphasized the word “tweak” while staring directly at Taio. He knew exactly what she meant and nodded.

“It means they’re all going to be scrap metal afterward, right? Fine. Whatever. We can just make more Credits later.”

“Well, if you say so... Fine. Give me fifteen minutes—no, ten. I’ll have it rigged up.”

Marl returned to her seat and hunched over, burying her face in her hands as she dove into the system. Taio tried to peek over her shoulder, but he could see her progress clearly enough through BISHOP.

Whoa, that’s insane... She’s moving so fast I can’t even track the logic...

The control functions for the Warp Stabilizers were being rewritten at a terrifying pace. Thousands of tiny, scattered control nodes were being combined, duplicated, and branched out. Taio could do something similar if he really concentrated—he had managed it on the Ghost Ship, after all—but the sheer velocity of her work was on a completely different level.

“A loss of roughly ten million Credits for a few seconds of Overdrive. I can already see Miss Marl’s post-war depression setting in,” Koume remarked.

“Heh, probably. But it’ll be worth it.”

Taio crossed his arms and waited. About ten minutes later, he saw Marl flash him a thumb-up. He slapped his own cheeks hard to psych himself up.

“Alright!! My turn!!”

Taio practically dove into his seat and initiated twenty-four parallel operations simultaneously, forcing every single Warp Stabilizer to link in perfect synchronicity.

---

A flash of blue light erupted in the void, vanishing toward some distant coordinate.

“You suck! If you’re going to shoot at us, at least try to aim!”

Bella screamed at the distant enemy Battleship, focusing her mind on BISHOP to distract herself from the cold sweat trickling down her back.

[SQUADRON MANAGEMENT: COLUMN]

The command sent from Bella’s unit hit every HAD in the area. They snapped into a perfect line, facing the enemy. A heavy-armored HAD took the point, its shield sparking as it deflected several well-placed Beams.

“Fourteen frigates in range... three destroyers... Scatter!”

[SQUADRON MANAGEMENT: ROUTE 1-5: PLATOON A] [SQUADRON MANAGEMENT: ROUTE 6-10: PLATOON B]

Bella split the unit in a heartbeat, calculating optimal approach vectors for every pilot to hit the easiest targets. To a casual observer, the ten HADs looked like they were scattering in a panic, but they were actually weaving through the stars on precision-calculated murder-paths.

“Aim for the turrets and the engines! Ignore the bridge!”

As she roared the command, Bella kicked her own thrusters into high gear. Her HAD translated the BISHOP Functions flooding from her nervous system into raw thrust, accelerating at a G-force that pushed her to the absolute limit of human endurance.

Normally, running HAD-specific functions and standard combat functions in parallel would be impossible, but for someone with the Gift of Collective Control, it was just another Tuesday. In the tiny micro-seconds between her own maneuvers, she had more than enough time to micromanage the entire unit.

“’This is DR-04. Target A’s number one turret is history.’”

“’DR-02 here. Closing on Target B. I need backup!’”

“’DR-09 reporting. DR-03 took a hit. Requesting permission to RTB.’”

“’This is DR-06. Moving to cover DR-02.’”

Reports flooded the comms. Groaning under the strain of sudden stops and neck-snapping accelerations, Bella fired back a stream of instruction functions to keep them all alive.

“Blue Comet to Alan. How’s it looking over there? I’ve got so many targets over here I don’t even know where to start.”

“’This is Dry Plum. Same story here. And the enemy is as good as we feared—they’re dancing around the Fortress’s turrets like pros.’”

“What about the reinforcements you scraped together?”

“’They’re doing their best for a bunch of amateurs. But it’s only a matter of time.’”

Bella smirked. That was good enough for her. As long as it wasn’t a total slaughter, she’d take it.

While organizing Alpha’s defense, she had called for a Volunteer Force from the evacuating civilian ships. Since anyone with a basic scanner could see they were facing an armada, only a few lunatics had actually signed up. But it was more than she had expected. She’d been prepared for exactly zero volunteers, so the small turnout was a pleasant surprise.

“Even at a backwater station like this, there are still idiots willing to bleed for the cause... alongside the ones just looking to get rich, I guess.”

“’Haha, that’s just proof they like your leadership. As for the gold-diggers, you’ll find those under every rock in the galaxy.’”

Bella snorted at Alan’s comment, then tried to hide her blush. “By the way...”

“Yeah?”

“Is our ace here yet? It’s been a while.”

“’Schedule says less than an hour. He’s mid-drive, so I can’t reach him.’”

“An hour, huh... Hope we’re still here to see it.”

Between the reports, she could hear the screams and retreat orders of her allies. The enemy hadn’t even committed to a full-scale offensive yet, but the damage was already mounting. Friendly ships were venting atmosphere and bursting into flames across the sector; the defense line was in a full-blown retreat. Bella’s unit was unscathed for now, but she knew that wouldn't last.

“And even if the kid does show up... I don’t know if he can handle that monster.”

Bella watched the massive point of light making a wide, predatory detour toward the Fortress. She shook off the doubt and threw herself back into the command of her unit. It was a hell of a situation, but all she could do was play the hand she was dealt.