End of the Beginning

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space,” or so they say. I mean, I guess that is technically true, but that assumes you are out in the void. I could hear the screams just fine from behind my console on the bridge of our destroyer. Many of the crew of the Bismarck were screaming in pain, in fear, and probably just because other people were screaming. We had just had a Demonic torpedo punch through the lower deck of our destroyer, and there was chaos on the bridge.

--

Maybe a bit of back story first? My name is Raafe Mansour, and I am a first lieutenant in the United Planetary Navy – the UPN. I serve as a junior weapons officer on the Bismarck, a dire wolf class destroyer. We have been at war for the last seventy-eight years with the Demons – or at least that is what we call them. They are not really demons; they are just an alien race; the first ones we met after leaving our solar system. We first encountered them in the Epsilon Eridani System, but despite trying to communicate with them in every way we could think of, there was no response. That was until about nine months later when we ran across another one of their ships. Their response at the second meeting was to immediately fire on our ship. That ship had been an explorer called the Titania – too close to the Titanic if you ask me.

The Titania was completely destroyed, all crew and civilians lost. The UPN started escorting ships at that point. The third encounter ended with the civilian ship limping back to UPN space with a story of two Demon ships closing ranks on the ship and her escort and, without warning, opening fire on both. Back then the UPN did not have many ships, but the ship guarding the civilian research ship - the Tempest - was one of the few purpose-built for war. She gave as good as she got, giving civilians enough of a head start to charge their FTL drive for a short jump. Before they jumped away, her crew saw that one of the Demon ships was cracked and venting atmosphere into space and tipping into a full spin. The second ship was firing mazers and torpedoes in a steady barrage into her side. At that point The United Planets Directorate government had to acknowledge that we were at war.

Over the next seventy or so years we learned a lot about our enemy. They are taller than us, with a large crown to their heads and a leathery, brown skin. Their ships are just as vulnerable as ours, and while our tech is a bit behind theirs, there seems to be fewer of them. Our scientists think that they both live longer and produce fewer children, explaining why there seems to be so few of them compared to us. They are oxygen breathers like us too, and their tech seems to be based on a similar developmental path to our own computing. The weapons systems they used were energy and chemical based. I say “were” because they quickly adapted our railgun systems to their own ships, much like we reverse engineered their mazers. Their ships are made of a metal composite like ours, but have an external sort of “grown” shell. It gives them a more organic look, like something out of Giger piece. We still do not know what they call themselves, and between the aggressiveness and look of their ships, the name “Demons” stuck. Who knows, maybe they are demons?

The war came to what you might call a “stalemate” for the next fifty years after that furious first ten years of fighting. But only use stalemate if you are willing to call losing over a thousand ships both sides in that time a stalemate. They are not native to the Epsilon Eridani but like us, they seemed to have designs on colonizing it. There was some very primitive native life on two of the planets, but nothing more complex than insect- and fish-like creatures. We found an abandoned Demon settlement on one of the planets. It seems that their housing uses a similar shell material to their ships. It is definitely organic, but what it is or how it works is still a complete mystery. That is most everything we know. We still do not know why they attack, we do not know why the never respond, or why we are even fighting. It led our leadership to abandon Epsilon Eridani in the hopes that 1) they might not find our home system, and 2) that we could close the door on the war. It did not work, obviously.

We had not run into them in Tau Ceti, and we had recently begun exploration of Sirius, so we thought we could put the Demons behind us. It took about fourteen years for the Demons to find our space stations at Sirius. Just like before, attacks without cause or explanation. Two years after that, they found a research facility on the exoplanet at Ross 614. They were clearly looking for us on the in-flow side of universe expansion. We decided to dig in at Sirius as a bulwark against their expansion. We also start making plans for expansion and rapid settlement on the out-flow side of the universe, away from where we had been running into them. One more change was deciding to start sending flotillas of ten to twelve warships hunting for their settled worlds. Call it aggressive if you want, but you did not experience the last seventy years. People are terrified they are going to find us, and that they will not let up once they do until every one of us are dead. Which brings me almost to today.

The Bismarck is a part of one of these flotillas, and we are on our second star system looking for signs the Demons are there. About two weeks after entering Kapteyn we arrived at Kapteyn B. It was uninhabited by the Demons, but there was an abundance of complex life on the surface. Commander Dover was trying to decide whether to spend time doing a more thorough investigation of Kapteyn B, or to press forward to the next system to keep hunting our Demonic foes. That was when a cluster of fourteen Demon ships jumped in system and immediately began racing towards our ships at Kapteyn B. As always, as soon as they were in weapons range, they begin firing. That was an hour ago.

Space combat is much slower than people think. The way they make it look at the cinema most of the time is ridiculous. Maybe if there were fighters from either of the ships and they were at super close range, maybe its fast then. But neither us, nor the Demons had gone in for a bunch of fighters on our ships. Ship to ship combat is a slow process of waiting on darts, pulses, or torpedoes to crawl their way though space to hit the other ship. Even mazers which effectively move at the speed of light, must travel vast distances at the beginning of a fight. Sometimes though, things get fast – when your enemy charges straight at you.

We were outnumbered from the beginning, but things got even worse from almost the start. A lucky railgun dart hit the Bismarck’s sister ship right at the central junction, punching through to hit a charged FTL drive. The resulting explosion destroyed that ship and cruiser traveling with it within ten just minutes of the Demon ships opening fire. Their ships had been accelerating towards the UPN ships the whole time and now had closed to distances that made the kinetic firefight almost frantic as weapons were firing at near point-blank range. A Demon ship passed between the Bismarck and the rest of the flotilla at what could not have been more than 1000 meters, firing broadside into our ship. That’s when a torpedo punched through an ablated section of armor and into the lower decks. Now we are back to the screaming part.

--

Captain Tommard was screaming over the impact alarms, screaming at me - asking why I was not firing into the enemy ship. “Sir, my console is dead sir.”

“Then check the aux console!” he roared.

“Yes sir!”

I climbed over rail rather than go around to try to get to the secondary console. I should not even be on the bridge I thought. I was the junior weapons officer, where was Major Lavigne? The contact alarm had been sounded over an hour ago. He should be on the bridge. But Lavigne is not here, and I am, so I will do my freaking job.

When I got to the console it was dead too.

“Dead stick sir” the pilot was shouting.

The Captain stood there with a look of frustration on his face. “Bismarck” he said to the ship’s computer.

“Yes Captain?” the ship responded in a bland male voice.

“Update on ship’s status.”

“It appears the main trunk line into the bridge’s consoles was severed from the last impact” Bismarck said.

The Captain let out a string of expletives then asked, “Can it be repaired?”

No response. Another round of choice words for the ships’ computer designers, and he said “Bismarck. Can the trunk line be repaired?”

“Likely Captain,” the computer responded this time when the Captain used the correct protocol for talking to the ship. “Majors Lavigne and Tully are attempting to bypass the severed section now.”

Well, now I know where Major Lavigne is at.

The ship was flying fast, moving away from the planet and away from the battle. All we could do was watch as ship after ship from both sides was destroyed. The Commander had pulled the flotilla into a stacked double wedge letting the Demon ships fly in between the wedges, taking shots from both sides. The speed of the enemy ships meant that they did not have a way to avoid the firing lines of the UPN ships. The maneuver succeeded in damaging another five of the enemy ships. It would not be enough. After that pass we had five ships, including the Bismarck; the Demons still had seven in the fight. History told us we really needed about 10-20% more ships than the Demons to be able to win. We started short on ships in this fight, and we were still short now.

The Commander’s ship was still in the fight, he obviously had no intention of giving up. As the enemy ships were making a wide turn to come around on the four remaining ships of the UPN the Commander had clearly seen what I was seeing as I watch his battle play out on the main display; the Demons were sending one ship to jump away.

They did this sometimes if the numbers got too tight on their side. After the battle they would send ships back to police their dead and make sure that all the human ships were destroyed. The Commander was not going to let that happen. The Casper was breaking off from the UPN formation and giving chase. The Commander was probably thinking about the Clarion, which was drifting like the Bismarck, not wanting to give the Demons the chance to come back and destroy these two ships if the UPN survived somehow.

The Clarion looked like it might be caught in the gravity well of the planet. One of the Demon ships was in a similar situation. It was pointed at the planet when it had come through the Commander’s wedge, and it just kept traveling in a straight line towards Kapteyn B. “I hope that the Clarion is better shape than we are, if they don’t pull up soon, they are going to find themselves on the surface of that planet.” The Captain was about to say more when the aux console blinked back to life.

“Captain!” I shouted. “We are back up.”

“Finally. Okay. Weps, do you have fire control back?” the Captain asked.

“I do sir,” I said.

“What’s still operational?”

“All three railguns on the port side, two on the starboard. We have two working mazers, both on the top of the ship, and it looks like the forward torpedo bays are clear. I have both explosive and fragmentation torpedoes in tubes sir. Aft torpedo launch tube could be clear too, but I can’t tell for sure”

“Yes!” he said and went silent as he thought. We were only down the lower mazers, one railgun, and maybe the aft torpedo launcher. We were still in this fight. “Pilot, use thrusters to push the aft end of the ship around so we are broadside on that fleeing ship. Just use the thrusters, I want to clip that ship’s engines, but I do not want the rest of their ships to know we are active again. Weps, be ready with the mazers. I want you to line up a shot through their contrail and into their exhaust. It should disable them enough so the Casper can catch them.”

Over the next few minutes, the pilot slowly lined up the ship for me to make my shot. I could not miss, I had one chance to get it right, or the enemy ship would start evading making the next shot impossible. The Captain had not acknowledged even for second that I was not technically “Weps” – the weapons officer, but I was there, and the Captain expected me to step into the role and do my job. And I would.

As the ship came into the envelope to fire, I decided to use a targeting method I had tried only at the Academy. When we were in position for me to make my shot, I programed the mazers to fire in unison, track forward on the ship leading it, then fire a second double barreled shot. I would aim both sets of shots at the same exhaust port. Normally I would have four mazers, and so being down to two meant that I could probably damage the exhaust, but it might not incapacitate the enemy ship. Typically, I would point each pair of mazers at two separate exhaust ports nearly guaranteeing one would be out of commission. With just the two mazer shots, I needed to ensure that at least one exhaust would be completely screwed – so I would try the double-tap method.

With an anticlimactic tap on my console the ship fired the first pair of shots. The mazers had an advised cool down between shots of 90 seconds. I was afraid that would be too long, that the enemy ship would begin evading if the first rounds did not hit something critical – so I pushed it down to the minimum, running the risk of melting the housing around the focal lenses. Thirty-five seconds later, still thirty seconds or so before the first blasts impacted, the second double round fired out. Immediately I got a warning from one of the mazers that aiming was now off between 25 and 38 degrees. Fu.. “Lt. Mansour!”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Those shots were awfully close together,” he said.

“Yes Captain.” I quickly explained why I had fired that way. The whole bridge crew turned back to the view screen as the first bolts were striking the ship. Exactly as I was concerned about, we could see that the exhaust flow changed, but it still seemed mostly to be flowing in a normal pattern. The first volley would not have been enough. Thirty-five seconds later the second pair of bolts impacted in nearly the same spot as the first – and something exploded sending the enemy ship into a tailspin that promptly ripped the ship in two.

“What did it cost us Weps?”

“One mazer is out of commission for now sir. It is just the mount for the lens, but it will take someone going out on the hull to repair it.”

“Good work Weps, it was worth the trade. Pilot, get me back into this fight. Now. Navigation, show me the battlefield with directional tracks.” We were too far for the cameras to give us a good view of the engagement. Within a few seconds a large 2D version of the sector of space where the battle was still underway popped up on the main viewscreen. IFF tags popped up on all the ships, and glowing tracers showed up behind each ship giving a sense of direction. “Alright pilot, how long until we can get back into this?”

“We will need about twelve minutes sir.” The Captain dropped his head on his chest for just a second and then looked back up at the screen. The picture was a dire one. The Commander’s ship was just gone, clearly having exploded. There were one UPN ship firing at close range at two Demon ships, and one more coming around behind a third Demon ship. The Commander had given them hell. We were outnumbered from the start and lost two ships in the first exchange, but he had whittled them down to just three ships. The Clarion was still drifting and had clearly been caught in the planet’s gravity.

When we were still about six minutes out, the ship that had been facing down the two Demon ships accelerated directly into one of the two ships. Clearly the captain of that ship had decided her best option was to take one with her. That left two, but the Demon ship being pursued had apparently dropped mines out behind them as they flew, and the Heracles – the UPN ship – had its whole nose lighting up with a series of small explosions. They would be dead too as soon as the Demon ship got turned around.

Two minutes out. The Demon ship had almost completed its turn and was already firing mazers at the Heracles. “Pilot, Weps, I want you two to coordinate timing so that we tip the port side of the ship broadside right as we come into range, then ripple fire all three railguns into that ship. Make it so that all three rounds hit the same spot. Weps, what’s the flight time on those rounds at this distance?”

“Should be about 90 seconds sir,” I said.

“And the mazers will be in range in what, 30 seconds?”

“42, Yes sir.”

“Hold fire with those. I want the first thing they hear from us be those three rounds striking their flank.”

“Understood sir,” I said.

Six minutes drug out forever as we watched the Demon ship and the Heracles trading fire at close range. Thunk, thunk, thunk – the railgun darts were away. The enemy ship did not react to our firing. The darts landed in rapid succession with the third round punching clear through the Demon ship… and in a one-in-a-million bad luck moment, the liquified round and ablated armor flew into the Heracles causing an explosion at midships. The resulting series of explosions destroyed both ships. “oh God,” I said aloud.

“WEPS!” The Captain was shouting. I slowly looked over at him. His hard eyes were staring right at me. “Weps,” he said in a quiet voice. “That one is on me, you did exactly what I wanted. Good work son. But I need your head back in the game. There is another Demon ship closing on us.” And it was. Seconds later we felt the first mazer bolts impacting the Bismarck.

That’s when the screaming started again. Torpedoes followed the mazers, punching through the ablated armor from the mazers. There were sparks flying from the ceiling on the bridge. The comms officer was stumbling around like she was drunk, and the pilot had half a girder impaled through his back. The navigation officer had gone over to the pilot’s station and was working around his body to get a status update. “Captain, both engines are down. We have a radiation leak and engine two is headed into meltdown!”

“Then eject them!” he roared.

“Ejecting both now sir.” The navigation officer said.

“Mansour, anything left in the tank from weapons?” the Captain asked.

“Sir the only thing operation is the aft torpedo tube, but I don’t have targeting” I said. “Sir… we are a sitting duck. Their ship is nearly undamaged.”

“Lt. Marks?”

“Yes Captain?” the navigation officer asked. If you fire all the starboard thrusters, could you get us moving at least? Towards the planet? It might, might, throw off their aim if we can get inside the gravity well.”

“Yes sir,” she said.

“Do it.”

A new light on my console caught my attention. I had never been so happy to see a yellow blip on my screen in my whole life. It was the Casper. I had completely forgotten that she was out there. She had been further away from the battle than us as she chased the Demon ship that had been trying to escape. Now she was roaring back into the battle space, all her guns firing.

The main display was dead again, so I was the only one who knew what was happening. “Captain!” I said.

“Yes Weps?”

“The Casper is still in the fight; she is going toe to toe with that last Demon ship.” He climbed over the rail and up to my station.

“Good girl,” he said. We could not see what was happening really. Long range sensors were down, so we could just see the two ships IFF tags moving around the space.

Ten minutes later the bridge went crypt silent. “Lt. Marks?” the Captain asked.

“We must have a fuel leak sir; the thrusters have stopped firing. They are out of fuel.” Without a word he turned back to my console just as the Casper’s light went out. He let out a long breath and stood up straight.

“Bismarck crew,” he said. He had the attention of all four people still alive on the bridge. “It has been an honor serving with you. We gave them hell today. Thank you. They will be coming for us now.” The Captain was never one for big speeches, but we felt his respect for us. There was no way to sugar coat what was about to happen. The Demons never left survivors. They would even hunt down anyone who survived the Clarion’s crashlanding on the planet’s surface – if it ever got that far.

The red light of the Demon ship winked out on my display. “Sir, the Demon ship is gone.”

“Gone? Did it jump away?”

“I don’t know sir. Its just not there anymore.”

Over the next ten minutes we ran back the logs and saw that it had barely moved after the Casper’s light went out. Over the next four hours after that, we got the long-range sensors running enough to see the Demon ship in three large pieces.

“The Casper must have gotten in a critical shot near the end that took a minute to disable them sir,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Now what sir?” I asked.

Thank you for reading the beginning of my novella. The story continues as our little band of survivors has to figure out how to first control the slow creep of the ship towards the planet’s atmosphere, and then their fight to survive on an alien planet.