run a landline out to the observatory. Jesse only had his imagination to guide him, and at the moment, it was freaking him out. He went outside with a pair of binoculars, but he could not make out the base. Either Commander Hammac had ordered the power to be shut off or the bombardment had taken out the power, but everything was dark. The observatory had its own power, but it didn’t have external lighting for fear of polluting the picture quality of the telescope.
Jesse was standing outside when he heard the first faint whine of an air breathing engine. He hit the ground and slithered over to a rocky outcrop and put the binoculars back to his eyes. A troop transport was coming towards him, and the base didn’t have any. Jesse checked the action on his rifle and prepared himself. The transport quickly approached and set down in the clearing next to the truck. He had the sights set on the rear hatch of the transport when it opened and Mr. Fix-it popped his head out.
“You out here, Jesse? Get in; we are getting out of here.”
Relief swept across Jesse’s body, as he put the rifle back on safe and started towards the craft. Dr. Mojave was standing in the door of his observatory.
“Are you coming doctor?”
“No, I will stay here”
“We will come back when we’re done.”
“Hopefully”
Jesse ran the rest of the way to the transport and hopped in. Scanning around the interior, he saw Commander Hammac, Mr. Fix-it, and some troopers.
“Is this everyone?”
“The pilots are in the Falcons, ready on our signal. There are a few people with them right now. We got hit in the bombardment and lost more trying to take the transport. But we’re going to take the fight to them now.”
The transport lifted off, back towards the Penelope. The pilot entered a text message to the ship telling them that they were bringing wounded aboard and the ship had been damaged in the firefight. A crewmember from the Penelope responded saying that they had already moved on and started bombarding the nearest corporate mining operation. The ascent was nerve racking, the Hermitage ship could blow them out of the sky at any moment, but it didn’t. Less than five minutes after picking Jesse up from the observatory, the transport docked inside the Penelope. A medical team was waiting for them and was very surprised to find able bodied New Order troopers pouring out of the craft.
Jesse had been teamed up with Mr. Fix-it and a couple troopers, including the one that had made fun of Jesse. There was no animosity now, as both of them were on their first combat mission since boot camp. Jesse could see fear on the trooper’s face, but he held his nerves together. Their team had been tasked with heading to the engine room and disabling it so that the Penelope couldn’t leave the system. If that was successful, then they were to shut down the cannons that were crippling the mining operations below.
As a cruiser, the Penelope did not have a large crew. The Captain had sent most of his men to the surface to sweep up survivors, but had overestimated the damage caused by his orbital bombardment. He had been relying on stealth the whole time and did not realize that he had been discovered days before. The result was a skeleton crew left to resist the New Order troopers. Commander Hammac made it to the bridge before any alarms went off and captured it with only a single casualty and a couple wounds. Jesse’s team didn’t have any issue taking the engine and gun controls off-line. The Hermitage Corporation personnel were escorted to the brig and locked in, leaving the few troopers, Arron, and Jesse to man the ship.
The whole operation from takeoff to complete control of the Penelope took twenty minutes. Jesse was stationed on the bridge because he had the most experience being in space, even though he had none as a pilot. Looking over the displays, he saw a pictogram of an antennae dish with a big red X over it. Jesse leaned over and touched the picture, which prompted the button to turn green.
“Commander Hammac, please come in. There is another ship that just dropped out of hyperspace right next to you; I think it’s a Confederate Destroyer! Commander Hammac, please come in!”
Dr. Mojave’s words were no sooner out of the speaker when the Confederate ship hailed them.
“Penelope, this is the CS Renegade. Have you completed your mission?”
Jesse looked over his shoulder at Commander Hammac, who was standing with his arms at his side, a blank expression on his face. With a snap, he came to life and rushed over to Jesse and pressed a dial on the panel.
“We have a few more mining operations to demolish, but that should be completed in a few hours.”
“Who is this? You do not sound like Captain Berks.”
“I am Lieutenant Hanks, the Captain is not on the bridge at the moment.”
Hammac took his finger off the button and scrambled to a different frequency.
“I need every Falcon to rendezvous with the Penelope, we have company.”
The front screen came on, with a large man wearing a Confederate uniform.
“You’re not Hermitage Corp, you’re New Order! Surrender or be destroyed.”
“Turn that display off.” The Confederate Captain’s image disappeared and was replaced again by a screen showing the space around the Penelope.
“It looks like we’re going to have to fight our way out of this one. The CS Renegade knows we are enemies and is prepared to destroy this ship and us on it. I need every gun back online now, shields to full, and get us as close to the Renegade as possible, maybe we can use her size against her and only be in view of a few of her guns. The Falcons will harass her as best they can. Move people!”
Within moments, the only people on the bridge were Jesse monitoring the ship systems, the pilot that flew the transport up to the Penelope, and Commander Hammac. Mr. Fix-it was in the engine room and the rest of the troopers were manning the cannons and making ready to fire and reload. A call tone entered the room, and Hammac answered.
“Are you surrendering?”
“We have taken the Penelope crew alive, if you destroy us, then you will be killing them too.”
“They were tasked with destroying a tiny New Order outpost and got themselves captured. Their deaths will be their punishment for their ineptitude. I take it you won’t surrender.”
“You know that I can’t surrender a New Order base to the Confederacy of Traders.”
“I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.”
The conversation was cut off. Moments later, the ship started trembling as the Penelope’s shield took the first salvo from the Renegade. The ship continued to tremble as the Penelope returned fire. The pilot positioned the Penelope underneath the Renegade, but turned on its side. This allowed them to use their full broadside against only the underbelly turrets of the Renegade. For the moment, they had the Confederate ship outgunned. The result of their maneuver and the counter-maneuver from the Renegade had the two ships moving in a tight corkscrew fashion, but the Renegade had better maneuvering thrusters and would soon be able to hit them with their broadside guns. The Renegade also had better shields and armor.
After five minutes of combat, gun batteries started reporting depleted rounds for the rail cannons. Commander Hammac made a quick decision and told them to run to the cannons of the other side of the ship. Then he ordered the pilot to rotate the ship while also orbiting the Renegade as best he could. The good news was that the Falcons had made it up to the battle; the bad news was that their armament could not pierce the Renegades shields or armor. That is when the Renegade finally out maneuvered the Penelope and delivered a devastation salvo. The blast rocked the entire ship, hitting it along its spine as the Penelope was rotating around. Jesse and the pilot were fine, but Commander Hammac had been standing and was thrown forward in the explosion.
“Pilot, get Commander Hammac to the troop transport.”
Jesse hit the ship wide communication and issued an emergency alert telling everyone to get to the troop transport. Once that was done and the Commander had been taken away, Jesse was on the bridge alone. System
s were shutting down all over the ship. The Renegade would simply cut the troop transport down if it tried to leave, Jesse had to think.
He wasn’t a pilot by any stretch of the imagination, but he had seen the pilot flying the Penelope and got the gist of it. The ships path was bringing it back under the Renegade. Jesse rerouted all system power to the engines, bypassing several safety protocols. Then he pulled the joystick up, diverting the Penelope’s course to intersect the Renegade. That would give them something to think about instead of shooting down the transport. Jesse hit the comms button to talk to the Falcons and the transport.
“I’m ramming the Renegade with the Penelope. Get clear of the collision. Falcons, form up around the transport, Commander Hammac is aboard but wounded. Escort him back to Aridia Good Luck.”
Jesse never got a reply, so he didn’t know if they heard him. But he had to focus on the task at hand. Ramming the Renegade would cause confusion and chaos. Overloading the Penelope to explode after ramming would cripple or destroy the Renegade. The path was already set, so Jesse rushed out of the bridge to the engine room. He could still feel the Penelope taking fire from the Renegade, but they had move outside the main firing arc and could only be engaged by the much smaller turret weapons. The Penelope had ceased to fire back since he had rerouted all power to the engines.
Once in the