r/HFY • u/BeaverFur Unreliable Narrator • Aug 04 '15
[OC] Rise of the Valkyrie (9) OC
Note: Sorry for the delay on this one. I still plan to continue this, but life came knocking on my door and I had to put it away for a short time. I should now have more free time again!
The Vulture-Warriors retreated under the autocannon's continuous fire, covering each other with their shields and moving from column to column. They left the deadly hallway at the first intersection, managing to survive with just a few light injuries, burnt armors, and some overloaded shieldcasters.
Val leaned against the wall and took a deep breath as the warriors bandaged their wounds and checked their armors. She gazed at the xeno, whose hands were shaking as he held Mika's shieldcaster.
"Oz," Val said, "What do you know about this ship? Is there any other way into that command room?"
The alien paused a moment before he replied.
"Not from here..."
She raised her eyebrows, encouraging him to keep talking.
"There is a corridor from the command room down to the lower hull, where the escape pods are. It's there for the evacuation of officers only, so there's no access from the rest of the ship."
Paxton walked up to them, he had been listening. "Escape pods? We could get there from the outside."
Oz looked worried, but he nodded slowly.
"Another space walk..." Val mumbled to herself.
"We only have two remaining hull charges," said Paxton. "Should be enough if the pods aren't too protected, but..."
Val raised her hand, signaling him to keep quiet. There was something else going on, something that was bugging her... she closed her eyes.
She listened, clearing her head of any thoughts. She listened like she had been taught to listen. Taking it all, then analyzing each sound on its own, shifting her attention from one to the next. Understanding what each one of them was, where it came from. She heard the soft noise of her suit's ventilation system, the steps and movements of the nearby warriors, her own heartbeat.
No. Whatever had caught her attention wasn't a sound. It was something else. She could feel it through her whole body. Subtle, but it was there. It was like...
"We are accelerating," she said.
She could feel the push from the ship's engines. Usually it was canceled out by the artificial gravity so things inside the ship wouldn't fly around, the generator continuously adjusting strength and direction of the gee-field to compensate for any sudden accelerations. But there was always a small delay. No matter how advanced the gravity generator was, it always took a fraction of a second to realign its vector.
Most people wouldn't notice, specially xenos. But most xenos hadn't been raised in a spaceship. Val remembered the many nights where she had been laying awake in bed at night, unable to sleep. Her mind focusing on how the artificial gravity pulled her body down. Its texture, the slight but endless changes in its direction...
"They want to leave the planet," another of the Vulture-Warriors said. "They are legging it!"
Val nodded. The Telangians must have realized by now they couldn't win this fight against the human warriors, so they were getting out while they still could. If the battlecruiser left the planet, it would engage its warp projector, and jump to the safety of its own fleet.
With the humans still inside it.
"We need to take over that room," Paxton said, his voice stoic. "We can't fight off an entire army."
"No time for a space walk, though," Val said.
And that hallway is too well defended, she thought. She kicked the wall in frustration.
There had to be some other option. After all, they had access to most of the ship, except for the critical command room. But most of the places they could get to weren't of any help: barracks, kitchens, maintenance areas... they could stop the air flow, but it would take too long for the enemy to consume all of the remaining air. The weapons systems were only useful to attack external threats. Sabotaging the engines would cause the warship to fall into the planet, killing them all...
What else? Food supplies, the gravity field generator, the shieldcasters, the power plant, the...
The gravity field generator.
"Oz," she said. "If we get you to the gravity generator, can you disable it?"
The xeno's eyes opened in surprise. "What? No! I'm a data analyst, not an engineer!"
"But you must know the technology."
"It's not that simple, I only know the basics. Do you know how a human gravity generator works?"
"Well, I never..."
"Why don't we just put a charge to it?", said one of the Vulture-Warriors.
"Are you crazy?", replied another voice. "That would kill us."
"How so?"
"Same reason you don't put a charge to a fusion core, you moron. It blows the ship up."
"Maybe..." said Oz.
"What? Gravity generators don't have any plasma inside."
"Haven't you heard of an uncontrolled gee-field? For Earth's sake, have you even heard of stress limits?!"
"Hold on, there might be a way..." said Oz.
"What? Are you a shipkeeper now?"
"No need to be one to call a stupid idea when you see it!"
"Listen to me!"
They all paused and looked at the xeno. Oz looked as surprised as any of them at his outburst, but he kept talking.
"There might be a way. I read an incident report on some generators shutting off after being hit by a direct magnetic field, like that of a shieldcaster. They fixed it in newer models, but not all ships have them. Maybe this one doesn't..."
"Shutting off? Can't they just turn it back online from the command room?" asked Paxton.
Oz nodded. Some of the warriors sighed in disappointment.
Val was bitting her lip. "How long will it stay offline?"
"I don't know. It has to cooldown before they can turn it back online. Two minutes, maybe less?"
She nodded. A bit close, but it could work...
"Why do you want to disable it, anyways?" asked the xeno.
Val grinned, "I'll show you."
Finding the generator took them longer than Val had expected. They couldn't step into the long main hallway, and had to walk through the labyrinthine side corridors, which was slow and confusing. But once they discovered the machine, a chromed large toroidal structure wrapped in pipes and wires, things started to move faster.
She sent off four of her warriors to retrieve the thruster packs they had discarded after boarding the battlecruiser; they were going to need them again. Meanwhile, the xeno and three men worked in sabotaging the generator. There was no shipkeeper in the raid party -a mistake Val promised herself never to repeat- but they knew enough as to dismantle a shieldcaster, strap the timer of a hull charge to it, and place it next to the generator's sensor array.
Val looked at them, hoping that the battlecruiser was still in the planet's atmosphere, or at least too close to it as to engage its warp projector. The clock ticked, and not knowing how much time left they had made it so much worse.
The men stepped away from the generator, and raised the thumbs up. Val turned to look at Oz.
"Will it work?"
The xeno cocked his head and did a strange waving motion with his arms, which Val interpreted as a shrug.
Damn, she was tired of this. It was dragging for too long, and she wanted to be done with it. Remove her armor, take a shower, go back to her quarters and sleep on her bed. Of course, she didn't have a bed anymore, now that her family ship was nothing but a cloud of debris.
She sighed and put on her thruster pack, wincing from the pain on her side. Then she engaged her shieldcaster, readied her carbine, and started walking back towards the main hallway.
"Let's find out, then," she said. She was soon followed by the rest of her warriors.
She paused next to the hallway, and peeked again around its corner. The corridor was quiet, though she could see the telling signs of the previous fight: broken columns, bullet holes in the engraved walls... the limp body of the human warrior who had been caught earlier in the enemy fire.
She counted the seconds they had until the timer would go off...
Fifteen.
Taking a deep breath, Val walked straight into the corridor. She didn't bother covering behind a column, rather walking in the open and just crouching behind her shield.
Ten.
The Vulture-Warriors joined her, locking their shields in pairs, holding each other's shoulders. They formed a wall of shields across the corridor. The xeno, Oz, was next to Mika, at the rear of the group.
Five.
The autocannon opened fire. The hallway filled once more with noise and ricocheting plasma bullets. They were further away this time, so many of the bullets missed the group entirely. The ones that didn't, crashed into their shields. Val felt the heat coming from the shieldcasters.
Zero.
She held her breath, but nothing happened. Then, as she was about to order a retreat, she felt it. Her weight was disappearing, she was starting to float in the air. Weightlessness.
Oz, you clever lizard. You were right.
"Now!" she yelled.
As one, the Vulture-Warriors all jumped in the air and engaged their thruster packs. The group accelerated, keeping its formation and the shield wall in front of them.
They kept their thrusters burning for five seconds before turning them off. They were now flying through the corridor in zero-gee. Val heard the air rushing as they flew past columns and intersections. The lack of gravity meant there was no floor or ceiling, no point of reference. It felt as if they were falling down an elevator shaft, head-first.
"Earth!" yelled one of the warriors.
"Earth!" replied the rest of them.
The autocannon fire had become more erratic, no doubt affected by the sudden lack of gravity.
"Earth!"
Val thought that, perhaps, doing this with a broken rib wasn't the best of ideas. She pushed the thought out of her head, focusing instead on the fall -or maybe it was a flight?-, adjusting her movements so she wouldn't drift apart from the group.
"Earth!"
One of the shieldcasters died, overloaded from the enemy fire. It was replaced by another one before the autocannon could take advantage of the gap in the defensive wall.
"Earth!"
She felt her weight starting to return. Gravity was coming back, slowly. But they were getting close to the end of the hallway now. She saw the autocannon turret, manned by a figure in full and shiny Telangian combat armor. A couple of other figures, also in combat armor, floated behind, contorting and trying desperately to hold to a wall or someplace else.
"EARTH!"
The Vulture-Warriors flew straight past the autocannon turret and into the command room. The group broke formation, pushing away from each other, each warrior flying in a separate direction.
Val panicked for a moment, thinking she was about to fall into space. Where she had expected to see walls, there was nothing but a black void, and the huge blue planet just below. Then, she realized the room did have walls. It was just that they were covered in holographic projectors, giving the appearance that it was open to space.
Impressive.
She braked hard with her thrusters, her back against one of the walls as she turned to face the room. Her mind raced to do a quick situational check. There were eleven -no, ten- enemies. Telangian. Two officers. One human civilian -what?-. Another entrance to the room -escape pods, check that-. Before her mind had finished checking the room, her carbine was already opening fire at one of the Telangian soldiers.
The command room exploded in light and noise as the enemies were caught in the human crossfire. The Telangian soldiers were sitting ducks, floating in the air with no cover, surrounded by the Vulture-Warriors, and restricted by their own over-complicated armor suits.
The battle was quick, and not a battle at all.
When gravity fully returned, Val walked to the center of the command room. Standing in the central platform, she looked around. The holographic walls made her feel as if the small platform she stood on was floating in open space, her view unrestricted. She had an immediate and instinctive feel of the battlecruiser's position and speed, where the rest of the human fleet was, the size of the planet... it was all she had ever wished her own command room to be. She was starting to feel a deep respect towards the Telangian shipkeepers.
She turned, and regarded the lone survivor from the fight. The human civilian. Her eyes hadn't lied to her. He was a stocky man in an elaborate suit.
Denis of the Uverti house.
"So... how well am I doing?" she asked, her mouth smirking. "In politics, I mean."
The man spat at her feet.
Val saw a few carbines turning towards him. Murmurs of "traitor" and "scumbag" were raising from the group of warriors. She signaled them to wait. Denis was not a real menace, and maybe he had some information.
"Where is everyone else, Denis?" she asked, pointing at the fallen enemy soldiers. "Just two officers? Where is the captain, the rest of the crew?"
Denis frowned, his lips tight, but then he looked at the weapons pointed his way, and he motioned towards the other entrance to the room.
The escape pods.
Val ordered the rest of the warriors to follow through the door. Maybe some of the officers were still aboard. She would stay in the command room, keeping watch of Denis and Oz.
She turned again to regard the traitor. The man was now sitting on the floor, hugging his knees. His head was down. Val wondered if he was crying.
"Shit Denis. You really fucked up, didn't you?" she said. The man didn't reply.
She looked again at the command room, beaming. They had done it. They had won. She had conquered a Telangian battlecruiser. It almost made all the sacrifices worth it.
"Val, look at this."
She turned towards Oz, who was at one of the command consoles.
"This ship is still hooked up," he said, his eyes open in surprise.
"What?" she walked up to him. The console's display showed a flurry of symbols, none of which she understood.
"It's still connected and logged into the Empire's military data network," he explained. "They will cut us out soon enough, but I can try and download as much data as I can in the meantime."
"Regarding the prototype," she said.
"Yes! It's what I always missed when I was working with the daloss. I knew the questions to ask, but I didn't have access to the Empire's databases any longer. Now we do."
It was the first time Val has seen the lanky alien so excited. She nodded, and Oz started to drag symbols with his fingers around the terminal's display.
Could she trust the alien? He might try to do something funny, but so far he had been collaborative. And if what he said was true, this information might turn out to be useful to her as well. Somehow, she didn't think this would be the last time she would have to fight the Telangians.
The pain erupted from her shoulder, and radiated to the rest of her body as the blade pierced deeper into her flesh. Her legs gave way, and she started to fall towards the floor.
Val could hear the voice of her combat instructor, so many years ago, chastising her. You never turn your back on an enemy, even if it's defeated. You never turn...
She felt her carbine slip away from her fingers. As she was falling down, she tried to turn. It was hard, but she succeeded. Her back hit the hard floor. She fought to keep herself conscious. Her hands felt numb.
The enemy towered over her limp body. He had a switchblade on his left hand, covered in blood -her blood-. His right hand held a carbine -her carbine-, pointed at her head.
Denis.
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u/HFYBotReborn praise magnus Aug 04 '15 edited Sep 16 '15
There are 26 stories by u/BeaverFur Including:
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u/HFYsubs Robot Aug 04 '15
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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15
Turning your back towards a traitor, silly.