[CYA] Chapter 178: Rescue Mission (Patreon)

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/106nI6OV_vBy_JtNql0ukcuxHTwXoRmBUti0tUgaXAPE/edit?usp=sharing

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<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Duty Station>

The Innominate zippered across the star system at warp—as fast as Alex dared go within an inner star system—crossing tens of millions of miles in a blink.

The pirate’s anti-warping defenses were focused on the other Imperium ship, but they still managed to spin and force Alex to drop to normal speeds before he was quite as close as he’d have preferred.

Still, they were now close enough to begin interfering.

As to the setting of the battle? It was in high orbit around a planet. Thankfully, the Innominate had come into the fray at an angle tangential to the surface, meaning no fire either at them or that they sent at the enemy would hit the surface.

There were six heavy fighters on the pirates’ side of things, each with three-man crews by the designs in the databanks and each capable of both warping and jumping on their own at need.

There was a seventh ship, a shield frigate that was clearly the cargo-hauler of the little outlaw fleet as well as a fall-back point and defensive platform against anything bigger.

That ship classically had a crew of only four despite its massive size. If it was even just base-line standard, it would have nearly a dozen layers of shielding, each equivalent to the Innominate’s primary defenses. These vessels were meant to tie up planetary batteries or the equivalent. Unfortunately, they would also standardly have far superior systems, specifically designed to prevent the usual means of hostile boarding.

As to the other side of the clash?

The Imperium ship was a near mirror to the Innominate, though differently colored and clearly having received different, less extensive modification.

The vessel’s shields were taking a pounding, and it was from that ship that the distress signal was originating.

Alex took all this in even as Pilar went to work.

They’d taken a host of aspect-beam weaponry from the last pirate system, integrating many of them into the Innominate, and she’d had lots of fun with them.

As such, two laser-like beams lanced out toward each heavy fighter, one carrying a flame aspect close to Pilar’s, which was apparently hotter than standard, and the other bore the standard baseline gravitation variant aspect, designed specifically to disrupt any attempts at warping or similar maneuvering.

Alex had wanted to get in close before announcing themselves, but they’d at least managed to enter medium range, which in space combat meant that there was a chance of dodging light-speed weaponry, given the instant informational acquisition potential of magic.

It wasn’t easy to do, but it was possible. It was made harder by Alex going full-power—now without warp—toward the fray to close the distance as quickly as possible.

These opening attacks weren’t powerful, however, so even the fighters that didn’t dodge simply had their shield flare to life, their options locked down a bit as they gained a timer to get out of line-of-sight before too long, or they’d be in real trouble.

The true interesting event of the opening salvo could be seen with the shield frigate, however.

Along with a single, warp-disrupting beam, Pilar turned their singular beam weapon carrying the devouring flame aspect on that vessel and there was quite the result.

The outer shield flared to life, but rather than simply looking like something from a ‘90s sci-fi, the frigate’s bubble seemed to catch fire in the void of space, the very energy that made it up immolating under the direct application of the devouring flame.

Pilar laughed. “Oh, I love that. Expect a minute before we breach the first shield.”

Alex had a moment of confusion at that, but then he remembered a couple of key factors. First, this was a long range weapon, meant to impart an aspect more than direct damage, and it was acting against a shield frigate, a vessel intended to take sustained fire from planetary based weaponry.

Yeah… that was quite impressive. The fact that it had taken more than three hundred of the gems to aspect the weapon even this much was painful, but it definitely seemed to have been worth it.

He was glad that he’d been able to have a hundred granted to him for later experimentation, and he suspected that he’d be asking for more…

They’d barely been in the fight for thirty seconds when a message came in from the limping Imperium ship.

Surprised, one of the other Initiates accepted the hail. As it hadn’t been Alex, he only got a view of it in something like a picture-in-picture format, which moved out of his way whenever he tried to focus on his surroundings where it had been hovering.

The Innominate was now the target of some return fire, but not much, making Alex’s job easy enough that he could afford the minor distraction.

“Haha! From the Imperium too? That’s amazing!” It was a younger man, close to Grant’s age, and he was sitting in what was obviously a captain’s chair. He looked over his shoulder at some of his crew while he laughed in delight. “See? I knew that the distress call wasn’t a waste.”

An unamused woman who was barely in frame replied evenly, clearly repeating something that she’d said many times before. “We only sent out the signal less than half an hour ago… sir. There is little chance that they came simply because of our message.”

“But it could have tipped the scales. You have to admit that.”

Her expression somehow became just a bit more blank. “Possibly.”

John cleared his throat, and Alex realized that he really did make the most sense to be the one chatting with the other ship, given he’d likely be the least active at the moment. “Did you call us to argue with each other?”

The captain turned back, looking a bit embarrassed. “No, no. My apologies. I’m just relieved. I thought that this… first outing might end in disaster, but you’re here now.”

“Yes, we’re here to help. Do you need anything specific, or should we simply kill the bad-guys?”

“Right! Yes! Jessica is on the frigate, so… please don’t blow it up?”

Lenka snorted, muttering to herself but loudly enough for everyone to hear. “They better not. I want a look at those defensive arrays and shield emitters.”

Juba added in good-naturedly. “Not to mention the sheer value of such a ship if taken reasonably intact.”

Pilar cut across them. “I won’t burn it all down… just their defenses.”

John sighed, his voice sounding forcibly polite and affirming. “We’ll treat it as carrying imprisoned friendlies. Does that meet your needs?”

The captain hesitated, then nodded. “It does, thank you.” He seemed about to sign off, even while his crew was clearly working frantically in the background as the battle continued, but then he paused and smacked himself in the forehead. “I’m Pike, captain of the Imperium Ship Impresa. Thank you for the assist.”

And with that, the communication cut. John started grumbling. “What was he… twenty-two? I guess the Imperium really does let anyone buy and crew these ships.” The older man was clearly a bit flummoxed. “Glad we can keep them alive, I suppose.”

Alex nodded in agreement, at least with the last sentiment, but didn’t say anything.

Juba stood. “I’ll prepare to board the frigate when the defenses are breached. We don’t want a true hostage situation coming into being.”

That got vague acknowledgment as the Innominate was closing and the focus required for combat was increasing.

Juba vanished as he moved from his duty station to the assault launch bay in preparation.

Below them, the planet was not evidently settled, even though Alex knew that it was from the brief.

More frustrating still, they had to be careful of the planet as, without a worldspirit instantiated as of yet, it was far more vulnerable to attacks of all kinds.

They wouldn’t be able to wipe it clean even with concerted efforts, but the planet would still be harmed by any stray shots that made it to the surface.

As such, Pilar was already performing calculations and adjusting settings to help avoid sending any attacks that way.

They didn’t have hope that the pirates would be so kind. As such, Alex’s goal was to prevent both the pirates from being between them and the planet and from passing between the pirates and the planet themselves.

He wouldn’t be able to perfectly succeed, but mitigation should be sufficient.

“Close fighting range in two minutes.” Alex was already priming the mana balancers that Kaylee had acquired with her various skills and talents before John enhanced them further.

That man was a wonder, as he slowly expanded his ‘gunsmith’ class to give benefits to anything that he understood well enough to disassemble and modify.

They all suspected that his class would shift enough to have a name change at the next evolution, but that was still a ways off.

Regardless, the balancers would both allow for faster maneuvering and help reinforce the superstructure of the ship as needed, moving Alex’s redline by nearly ten percent.

That might not seem like a lot, but it changed every ‘pushing-it’ maneuver of their last fight into one that was positively conservative. By the sacred bagglers, the things he’d done that had been over the redline would now be nothing special from that perspective. In that light, Alex was genuinely looking forward to this clash.

It was a bit funny. When learning to spar in martial arts all those years ago, his instructor had been forced to explain to some of the more gung-ho participants that jumping or leaping was a really poor idea in almost every circumstance, as it made changing direction or otherwise reacting nigh impossible.

Alex had heard that it was different in aerial combat to a degree, given they could gain thrust from any location. Whether or not that was true, the advice had absolutely no bearing on space combat at all.

The Innominate came in like… well… Alex rolled his eyes a bit for the metaphor that came to mind, no matter how true it was.

A funny point of note crossed Alex’s mind as the last few seconds before close engagement flashed by. The Innominate shields were much stronger than those of the fighters. What that meant in practice was that suicide runs by the fighters were essentially useless.

It also meant that if Alex could do the equivalent of throwing a dart to pin a wasp to the wall, it would have a positive result.

As it turned out, Alex was now capable of such a feat.

…That was his story, and he was absolutely sticking to it. He hadn’t been aiming for a gap only for a fighter to dart in front of them at the last minute.

Nope.

Not at all…

Regardless, the Innominate’s shields treated the fighter like a singular, heavy missile—many of which were often shielded to counter point defenses. Mainly, the shields briefly flared into visibility and gave the crew a pretty fire-ring to wash over the bubble as they blew through the coordinates of contact.

Alex didn’t think about the crew on that ship.

After all, they were fake people… who he’d killed to save other fake people… He groaned, even as he flipped the Innominate around, letting Pilar’s main weapons come to bear once more.

This is just like a really realistic video game, Alex. You’ve killed pirates and bandits in those for good causes and never had an issue. Here, if you fail you actually die, not just respawn. By your mother’s milk, you're pro death-penalty for truly heinous acts. This shouldn’t be an issue.

Something was making him feel like real lives were on the line, and it wasn’t anything close to a concern about his own safety or that of his companions.

Regardless, he shook off the sensation and tried to settle into the harmonious interplay with the two weapon-wielding-women currently helping him finish this mission.

The Innominate flipped like a fighter… a big, cumbersome fighter but a fighter all the same.

The agility of the bigger ship clearly surprised the pirates flying actual fighters—the five of them that were left—and that was reflected in just how many shots went far aft after Alex had whipped around and come full bore back at the relatively stationary Impressa.

In all fairness, the Impressa was moving faster than was easy to comprehend, and not just relative to the planet as it clearly wished to remain in orbit.

No, it was maneuvering at thousands of miles per hour, but that simply wasn’t as quick as fighters could react and give chase, and as such, relative velocities were actually fairly tame in comparison.

The Innominate was a new factor in that milieu, and when taken with the Impressa as an inertial frame of reference, the fighters were buzzing around like insects, and the Innominate was an overly excited child swinging a fly swatter… that fired off magical weapons with startling accuracy.

The shield frigate was not maneuverable, and as such was effectively just staying close enough to pressure the Impressa with heavier guns and draw fire to its all but impregnable shields.

Shields that weren’t melting per se, but they were beginning to show wear, which again was an absolute testament to the terror that devouring flame could be in the right—or the wrong—hands.

As the fight continued, the end was already in sight, but the pirates couldn’t even respond to the writing on the wall, given the constant, pin-point tracing of anti-warp aspect beams keeping them from withdrawing at appreciable speeds.

The only real question was exactly how the prisoner would come into play.

As if on cue, a hail request came in from the shield frigate.

Alex momentarily shifted to Bridge mode and snapped out. “Don’t answer it. They can’t threaten a hostage if we don’t answer the call.”

He shifted back to Flight mode so quickly that he didn’t see every pair of eyes on the bridge swivel to him containing a mixture of horror and dawning curiosity.

Could… could it really be that easy?

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