“Ramirez, Tosh. Where are we on that damage assessment?” Bowman asked, sitting forward in his chair, the closest his crew ever came to seeing their captain looking impatient.

  Tosh looked at Ramirez in the next station over. Their two stations were the eyes of the ship: Tosh manning Visuals and Ramirez running Sensors. It was their job to inform the captain what was going on outside the ship. Ramirez looked at his friend and gave a small shrug.

  “Sir, the damage … has been difficult to assess,” Tosh said. “The bomb went off just as they were entering the cluster. Between the blast itself and the electro-magnetics going off the charts in there … Well, sir, it’s hard to get a good read. We also aren’t familiar with this type of craft and don’t know what we’re looking at half the time. At best, we’ve got a few frames from the cameras to establish if any damage occurred.”

  Even to Tosh’s ears, that sounded like an excuse, and he hated it. He wasn’t afraid to admit defeat. He knew Carter Bowman was fair and wouldn’t blame his crew for things outside their control. Toshi had worked side by side with the man for years, and he just hated disappointing the captain.

  “Got a best guess for me, Tosh?” Bowman said, settling back into his chair as he realized his stress was showing.

  “That’s about all we’ve got, captain.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Aye, sir. As best we can determine, the bomb detonated where we intended. Just forward of their main starboard engine manifold. I don’t think we affected their engines, though. At best, I think we took out their rear thrusters. She seemed to skid through what looked like a high stress maneuver at the last moment. I checked with Lieutenant Nvellan, and he concurs that at the speed they were entering the cluster, it would have been the only option to make that first turn.”

  “Well, that should slow them down a bit. Hopefully. Anything else?”

  “The damage to their thrusters was a best guess. At most, sir. The rest would be conjecture, pure and simple. We noted one other thing, though. A small amount of debris separated from the ship before we lost visual contact; however, I couldn’t speculate what it was.”

  “I may have a thought about that, sir,” Master Chief Ramirez said. “My team and I think it may have been their antenna array.”

  “The reason being?”

  “We were monitoring a signal during the pursuit. We couldn’t decode it, but we could hear it. It stopped the same moment as the explosion, sir. I’d hazard a guess that we took out at least part of their communications tower.”

  “Sounds solid enough to me, gentleman.”

  “Sir,” Nvellan said. “We’re entering the I.O.C. ourselves. We’re getting good telemetry from the navigation buoys. Considering our size and mass, we’re being routed on a more conservative route, one that will eventually take us away from the enemy ship.”

  “Copy that, Helm,” Bowman said. “Any way you and Navigation can get us a tighter route through this? I want to be right on top of them the moment we exit on the other side.”

  “I’ll see what we can do, sir, but there isn’t much room for error.”

  “Understood. Do the best you can.” Bowman turned his chair to address the Drone station behind him. “Draskol. Did we collect all the drones before entering the cluster?”

  Draskol looked at his board to confirm his numbers before answering.

  “All but two, sir. We lost one to an electromagnetic spike as it was on approach to the hanger. The other is still tailing the enemy ship; it’s the one that teleported the bomb. We set it to follow/tracking mode as they entered the cluster. We figured there wasn’t time to recover it and so we may as try to put it to use. It’s in tight, a mere five hundred feet aft, in the ship’s wake. Flight thinks they shouldn’t detect it there. We’re also hoping that’s within their shields, so they’ll provide some protection for the drone as well.”

  Damn, but I like this kid.

  “Uh, sir? I can make use of the fact that Mr. Draskol was kind enough to leave his drone as a bread crumb for us to follow.” Nvellan said. He had paused in his deliberations with Varga as soon as he heard Draskol mention the surviving drone.

  “As long as it’s not destroyed, we can use its sensors to augment our own. Its tight beam should have enough punch to get through the soup out there. That’ll let us cut loose from the navigation buoys course suggestions and get in nice and tight. The buoys are there to tell us what’s ahead and to change course as needed. But if we’ve got a drone that can relay that information to us, we can use that instead. It’ll give us tighter tolerances than the navigation buoys.”

  Bowman nodded. Pleased with his crew.

  “Draskol, I want you to join Nvellan and Varga. The three of you are going to get us through this cluster in record time, right on top of that enemy craft. No sense trying to duke it out in the cluster; too many energy fields to throw off our weapons. I want to be breathing in their engine vapors when they get out on the other side.”

  “Aye, sir,” Draskol said, already on his feet, heading towards the two men.

  Bowman saw Tavu getting up to follow and was going to stop her. After a moment of consideration, he let it go. She was a Power after all, and so far, she was following his orders.

  He saw Toshi looking at him, asking if he should intercept her himself, but Bowman waved him off with a small shake of his head. Time enough to figure out how to deal with the two Powers he had on board when this was all over. For now, they were cooperating, Tavu a bit more reluctantly than Draskol, but that was good enough.

  For now.

  __________

  Yaziri stared at her captain for a long moment before replying to the crazy plan she had been told to implement. She was working through the forces that she needed to deal with, that the entire crew would face, and wondering if they’d survive this mission.

  “Yaziri.”

  Yaziri blinked and realized Zirenna had been waiting for her to answer. She also noticed that her boards were lighting up with warnings. The pilot, flustered by her captain's plan, had allowed her concentration to slip. Not a good thing in this chaotic environment. She took a moment to correct her course, as she had drifted off center by a few degrees. Thankfully, they were still on the outskirts of the cluster and had a bit of wiggle room. That would cease to be the case the further in they got. Once corrected, she set a tighter tolerance for her alarms and addressed Zirenna.

  “Technically, we can do what you’re asking. I’m not sure that the crew is going to like it; and the Oshakati is probably going to come out the worse for wear. Flying inverted normally wouldn’t be a problem, not in space, at least. But with the forces we’re going to be facing, it’ll put an abnormal strain on everything in the ship. Instead of equaling out the forces, spreading it across our shields and superstructure, we’re going to be hammering the same area over and over again.”

  Zirenna nodded. She knew what she was asking. Not only would the ship undergo immense strain for the duration of this transit, but the forces Yaziri was talking about would not act too kindly to her crew's anatomy. For her ship to maneuver at battle speeds, they had to release a lot of computer safeties. Strapped into their command chairs, the crew would endure the transit’s duration, with the chairs absorbing only some of the stress. It would not be a pleasant experience.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  They created battle maneuvers to distribute the immense gravitational forces equally across the ship’s infrastructure. This allowed the Oshakati and her crew to tolerate and operate far above the considered normal tolerances.

  Yaziri saw the determination in her captain’s eyes. They all knew how important this mission was.

  “We’ll get it done, Zirenna.”

  With that, Yaziri pulled her straps in a bit more tightly. She put all her focus and energy into coaxing every ounce of speed she could out of the Oshakati, bringing the ship back to three quarter impulse. Her controls vibrated at the strain, but she had piloted the ship for a long time, and knew how to make her dance. As her fingers flew over her control boards, the ship swayed through the harrowing space lane.

  “Oshakati. This is Zirenna. We’re going to be in Yaziri’s skilled hands for a while. We’ve lost our aft starboard thrusters, but we have a plan to keep us at flying fast. I won’t lie, it’s gonna suck. But it’s our best chance to get out of this godforsaken Cluster without the Rishi right on top of us. Engineering, unless it’s dire, and the ship is about to be split in two, I’m ordering you into your crash couches right now as well. This is going to be quite the ride.”

  Zirenna keyed off her mic and took her own advice, pulling her own straps tighter. She would not enjoy this one bit. But Corsair captains didn't get paid to enjoy the job, they got paid for results.

  “Ikora, assuming we maintain our current course and speed, how long until we transit the cluster?”

  Ikora took a moment to finish strapping herself in and then looked at her boards.

  “Another ten hours at least, Zirenna.”

  May our path not splinter.

  __________

  “What the fuck?”

  “What is it, Tanaka?” Bowman asked, overlooking the lieutenant commander’s colorful language.

  Tanaka had the grace to be embarrassed by his outburst.

  “Sorry, sir. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It looks like the Interloper craft is accelerating back to three quarter impulse. They’re getting into some narrow space lanes. Without those aft thrusters, I do not know…”

  Tanaka trailed off, and Bowman could see his eyes widen in surprise.

  “Well, fuck me sideways. That pilot has got a pair of balls on them.”

  Bowman had to cover his surprise at his officer’s second outburst. Tanaka was passionate, but knew to keep it bottled up on the bridge.

  “You were saying, Lieutenant?”

  Blushing, Tanaka cleared his throat.

  “Sorry, sir. Again. Their pilot just flipped inverted to get through the next set of curves. The ship is cork screwing its way through a complicated set of maneuvers. It looks like they keep inverting so that they can use the port thrusters to maintain battle speed maneuvers. It must be causing absolute chaos for their ship. All those forces keep getting focused on the same parts of the shields and superstructure repeatedly.”

  That impressed Bowman. Their pilot must be one heck of an ace. That, or the captain was crazy and was going to get their ship ripped apart.

  “Nvellan, how much harder is it going to be for us to catch up to them if they keep this up?”

  “If they keep this up the whole time and don’t miss a turn and simply get squished like a tin can? It’s going to be almost impossible for us to catch them, sir. Almost. We’re better shielded and have more brute strength in our engines. But, even with the drone feeding us more precise navpoints we just can’t match their speed. My little ad hoc team here is coming up with a plan, though. We’ll have to reconsider it, to account for the insanity that the captain is putting their crew through. But we may have something. Maybe. We just need a bit longer here. Draskol and Tavu are figuring out the logistics now.”

  “Understood. Keep us on track with the Interlopers while they sort it out. I don’t want to lose sight of them. Who knows what they’ll do if we give them a chance.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Five minutes later, the trio had clustered around his command chair, while Nvellan stayed at the helm. Bowman signaled Toshi and Tanaka to join them as well. He took a moment and considered moving this impromptu meeting to a conference room off the bridge, but there wasn’t time.

  “Let me have it.”

  “It’s pretty simple, sir,” Varga said. “Well, except for the math involved. We want to become a battering ram and make a hole for ourselves and forget the whole inconvenience of the Cluster itself.”

  Bowman didn’t know what he had expected they’d come up with, but that wasn’t it.

  “And how do we do that?”

  “It’s more like we make a battering ram and the Rishi flies in right behind it, sir. We want to use Tavu to place tactical nukes strategically in our path. Their detonation will temporarily dissipate the electromagnetic forces. This will allow us a relatively unfettered movement, as much as we can manage anyway, all the way through to the other side. We’ll be able to reach full sub-light once we have the technique sorted. We would still have to navigate around the moons as their orbits cross our path. But if we can just punch through the electromagnetic fields, we will have a relatively straight transit across the cluster.”

  Bowman just sat and looked at his staff for a moment.

  “What about being in the blast radius of the nukes?”

  “We’d adjust the blast pattern to blow out and away from the Rishi. Think of it sort of like an expanding umbrella in front of us, sir. We wouldn’t have been able to pull this off without Tavu. There’s no way we’d be able to launch a missile in the cluster. But electromagnetics won’t affect Tavu’s Power. It has to be precise timing, though. She’ll teleport a nuke to a predetermined distance in front of the ship, and just as it appears, it’ll detonate. The cluster will pull it apart if there's any delay in detonation.”

  “What about the radiation effects on the inhabitants of the system?”

  “Not a worry, sir,” Tanaka said, as he looked up from his data-pad where he had been studying the numbers for himself. “They want to use low yield devices. The radiation is low enough that the cluster's radiation would absorb it, dissipating with it naturally as the cluster ends.”

  “And you’re sure you can do this?” Bowman asked the group.

  “Yes, sir,” Varga answered for all of them, with the rest nodding along. Their confidence was obvious, and it allowed Bowman to get on board. If the Interloper captain was taking crazy chances to get away from him, he supposed he’d have to try just as crazy an idea to not let them get away.

  “Good,” Bowman said. “Nvellan, get over here. I want you running point on this. I’ll just get in the way. Take the con. I’ll take the helm as an auxiliary, to monitor and be of any help.”

  Nvellan sat still for a moment, flying the Rishi mostly by reflex.

  “Now, Nvellan. We don’t have time to waste. Having the con will give you better control overall.”

  Bowman stood up and gestured to his seat. Nvellan looked over his shoulder and saw the captain gesturing to his own chair. The pilot stood, clearly reticent. He glanced at his copilot, who nodded that she had the controls, anxiety, and determination blossoming on the young petty officer’s face. The lieutenant stepped over quickly and sat in empty command chair.

  Nvellan knew it was the best way to do this. The timing was too precise to go through the regular chain of command. Bowman reached over and keyed in his command code, releasing the ship to the lieutenant’s control and stepped over to the helm, taking Nvellan’s vacated seat.

  Nvellan, for his part, keyed in his own codes, changing the captain's board layout to one he was more familiar with. He didn’t trust his junior staff at the controls of the helm for this one, and so he ported helm control over to his new station. He glanced at his copilot and saw her shoulders slump in relief as the helm control left her station. It was probably not quite what the captain had intended, but he knew this was their only chance.

  The pilot glanced around the bridge.

  “Alright, let’s get to it. That first nuke needs to be set off sooner rather than later, people.”

  Everyone dispersed, returning to their respective stations to get to work. Except for Tavu and Draskol. They were already heading aft and exited the bridge, heading to the weapons deck to join Benjaan, the weapons lead, who had already left to prep the nukes, anticipating the captain.

  Nvellan keyed his mic, calling Benjaan and letting him know the plan was a go and that the Powers were on their way to him.

  Captain Bowman sat at the helm. He liked that Nvellan had maintained control of the helm. He had faith the young lieutenant could handle the additional pressure. Bowman changed his own terminal, allowing him to monitor the various readouts throughout the ship.

  This has got to be the craziest thing you’ve ever done, Carter. Well, except maybe for that one time.

  His crew could do this. It is what they trained for. Not this exactly, but to do the unexpected. He had every confidence that the Rishi would be there to pounce on the Interloper the minute they cleared the cluster.

  He looked over at the petty officer sitting beside him. She focused furiously on her own controls, trying to ignore the fact that the captain, THE CAPTAIN, was sitting right beside her.

  “Lera, you alright?”

  He knows my name?

  “S…si…sir?” the copilot said.

  “It’ll be alright. Nvellan knows his stuff. I’m just here to monitor things.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lera said, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice.

  “Lera?”

  “Sir?”

  “You know what to do if Nvellan can’t pilot the ship, right? I haven’t sat at the helm in a long time.”

  Fucccccccckkkkkk

  Bowman smiled to himself. Being a captain was so much fun sometimes.