15:25 Bridge

The shifts changed without issue on the bridge. John appreciated how punctual his bridge crew was. The only one that was late for a shift was himself, a fact that he snickered quietly to himself. Though there was a good reason for that since it wasn’t technically his fault that he was late.

John was antsy, as were many other members of the crew, because of their discovery the previous day. He felt something different though, the rest of the crew was unsettled by seeing a destroyed ship. John was being unsettled not by the ship but rather by what caused it. The offender was still out there, and they were close when they rolled onto the scene.

“Wei, picking up any leads in the scans?” John asked.

“Just crumbs sir.”

“Put it on screen,” John paused and watched the main screen, and all sensor hits get marked on the map, “When is the cavalry going to arrive?”

“The First Fleet dispatched an electronic-war cruiser along with several frigates and destroyers. Their arrival is ten hours,” Lacy answered.

“Wei, can you replot the sensor hits by the time when they happened, and their estimated course, replay our course too.”

John watched the dots get replotted; he was not the only one that picked up on the trend. He told Caleb that he had the bridge and told the bridge crew he’d be in engineering. John walked with a swift stride and got to engineering a couple of minutes later.

“Sato, good evening. Need someone with an engineering background to assist me in something.”

“Captain, sure thing.”

John walked to a workstation on the wall near the entrance to engineering and pulled up the map. He played back the time analysis and Sato picked up on their plight immediately.

“So, you see the pattern too. What kind of drive system would one of these ships have that would intermittently give us this tracking?”

Sato paused, cocked his head, and looked deep in thought, “They must have a drive system within their ship.”

“We’re getting scans of their exhaust before they do a course correction right?”

“Yup. Safe bet that the ship has armor that’s stealth-coated. I doubt her core is big enough to support an active stealth field.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The engine signature, it’s really small. I’m sure it’s being reduced by some baffles of some sort and probably some recycling of energy but there’s too little of it there to be a big ship. Probably talking a big skiff, definitely smaller than a corvette.”

“So how do we get eyes on her?”

“We’d want to use a series of probes. Basically, we’d want the probes to be behind her, so we’d be able to get a good scan.”

“Would work fine until they run out of fuel, and they aren’t nearly as quick as us if we’re sending it.”

“Would only work if we’re actively engaged. I’ll get the guys here working on a scanning pattern that we can load onto the probes.”

“Do that. Good work.”

John left and headed back to the bridge. He hated being in the position he was in. He preferred to be the hunter, not the hunted. He wasn’t confident that the Folly of Icarus was a small ship. The one upside though was that on the exterior the Marcinko was known to punch well above her weight class. Despite her being a destroyer, the vessel was equipped with cruiser-like armor and frigate-like arms.

He stopped by the aft weapons rooms and asked the enlisted member to coordinate with the forward weapons room to get a torpedo that would track the drive signature. They said they’d get working on it immediately.

16:00 Bridge

“Wei, any new sensor hits?”

“Yes sir, displaying on the screen now,” Wei was typing into her workstation.

“It’s still following us, but it’s not closing in on us,” John said but he was interrupted by Lacey.

“Incoming message from the CNS Busendorf.”

“On screen.”

“Cadet Lief, this is the Busendorf, I’m Lieutenant Commander Larson of the Icarus task force.”

“Commander, we’re sending you our sensor logs. We believe the Icarus is tracking us,” John nodded at Wei.

“We see that it hasn’t taken any hostile actions against you, have they?”

“Aside from shadowing us no. We believe the Icarus killed a mining vessel though.”

“That’s her standard MO, come in out of sight, hit a target, then creep back into the void. We’re nine hours out from your location.”

“We’re working on a surprise for the Icarus, I’ll share more when it’s completed.”

01:00 Forward Weapons Room

“Before you ask why I’m here, Andern was snoring like a fucking freight train,” Kevin shook his head in disgust as he was working at his workstation.

“Petty Officer Zuhn, check to see if Andern is still snoring. If he is, wake his dumb ass up and direct him to medical,” John smirked as he made the order, “I need everyone on their toes, can’t have them sleep-deprived.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, do we have a torpedo that can track the engine signature?”

“We do,” Kevin smiled, “both of these torpedoes have the tracking system. They will only arm and track one target.”

Kevin motioned John over to the torpedo and opened a service panel. He showed the science package they installed and gave John a general explanation of how it worked. John appreciated the work and told Kevin to get this information sent over to the task force.

John walked over to the wall and pressed the communications button, he selected the bridge as the destination, “Lacey, get the Busendorf online please, and send the coms down here.”

“Roger, give me a moment.”

Kevin and John looked at the screen. It switched from the default Marcinko screen to an accepting communication splash screen. Eventually, Commander Larson was on screen.

“We’ve got two torpedoes that are designed to track our mystery ship. We’re going to ‘drop’ them while their tracking computers are online and change course and speed. Basically, trying to get our target to come to us.”

“Helm, all ahead flank. Coms, let the rest of the task force know. Good work cadet.”

The com-link was cut. John told Kevin good work and get back to sleep. The petty officer came back and was trying not to laugh. John and Kevin shared a laugh with the guy. He told the petty officer to get the two torpedoes ready to fire and to work with engineering to get more engineering packages for more torpedoes ready.

02:00 Bridge

John hated looking at the viewscreen. Every minute to minute and a half a new dot was added to the map. He really didn’t like being in that position, but at least know the hunted were getting ready to fight back.

John stood up from his chair, “Eject the torpedoes, when they are clear of the ship activate their targeting computers.”

“Torpedoes are away,” Wei said.

“Caleb, all ahead flank,” John said.

“Roger, spooling her up.”

More power was directed to the engines propelling the ship forward faster than the cadets had been thus far. The crew had gently eased the Marcinko to her traveling speed. Right now though, they had effectively floored it and were peeling off into the void.

“Passing seventy-five hundred kilometers per second,” Caleb counted out.

“Wei, any response?”

“Yes sir, we can infer a course and speed transition here and here. They are closing in on the torpedoes. Should make contact in fifteen minutes.”

“Caleb, set speed to ten thousand KPS.”

“Roger sir.”

“Now we wait and see if our science experiment worked,” John paused and stood up, “Ok, listen up. If those torpedoes activate, I want a rapid course correction back toward them, angle us off by ten degrees or so. When that happens, I want red alert and weapons to be hot. If that ship gets into weapons range, we’re lighting her up.”

“Understood,” the bridge crew said in unison.

“Lacey, coordinate with the task force, and see if their long-range scanners have picked up the signature, they should be able to see it clearly now since they're downstream of them.”

“Doing that now will also feed that information to Wei for our tracking algorithm.”

John walked to each station on the bridge. He tried to reassure anyone that was worried or showed any sense of anxiety. The weapons rooms and engineering were also contacted to ensure they were ready for battle stations. Time felt like it stood still. But then it happened.

“Captain, torpedoes are active.”

“Red alert, come about and punch it. Weapons hot”

Caleb entered orders into his workstation. The ship’s engines cut out and then it rolled over to face the direction it formerly was steaming away from. The engine noise died down, then once power was reestablished to the engines it roared to life again.

It was a clumsy move, one that John realized only too late that he should have ordered a circular turn around. They had to shed off all that speed in the former direction, only when that was completed would they begin closing on their target.

“Target acquired,” Wei said.

Lieutenant Page entered the bridge and stood at a station behind the captain’s chair.

“Distance to weapons range?”

“Four hundred thousand to optimal, four hundred twenty-five thousand kilometers until maximum effective range,” Caleb said.

“Status of torpedoes?”

“Tracking and closing, no countermeasures have been used yet,” Wei was furiously typing away at her workstation.

“Time to weapons range,” John ordered.

“Twenty-five seconds, forward momentum killed, we’re finally moving toward our target.”

“Captain, if my readings are right the Icarus is a small skiff.”

“Status of the torpedoes?”

“Still tracking and closing.”

“Ten seconds to weapons range,” Caleb said as he placed the weapons ranges onscreen.

“Hold fire till we’re closer, Wei kill the torpedoes when I say so.”

The Marcinko was barreling towards its target. But what was the target? John needed the ship mostly intact, but he had his hunch what was happening. The distance between the ships was closing rapidly. John punched in some figures, they had fifteen seconds until they were in optimal firing range and would have two volleys but no more before they’d pass the ship.

“First volley is going to plasma lances, second volley ion lances. If that disables the ship, kill the torps. If it fails, order them to kill the ship.”

“Understood.”

“Engage in ten… nine… eight… seven….,” John continued the countdown.

Bright blue balls of condensed plasma fired off into the void. Moments later a sickly green light of ion blasts was discharged. Three of the four plasma lances missed their mark, but one struck the aft portion of the ship, deep scaring the armor. The ion lances hit their mark. Only one of the six shots missed. The engines of the enemy ship cut off and it began a slow roll.

“Killing the torpedoes,” Wei said as she entered the kill commands.

“Launch a worm and shut down everything except life support,” John ordered.

“Firing worm,” Wei said.

“The taskforce requesting status update sir,” Lacey said.

“Pirate skiff is disabled, mothership’s location unknown. Going to conduct a boarding operation,” John waited for Lacey to finish relaying the information to the taskforce, “Have Kristin report to the bridge. I want the Senior Chief and two others to suit up for the boarding operation. I will be leading it.”

02:35 Main Hangar

“Chief, you got our six, you two cover our sides. Helmets on,” John pointed at the men in power armor.

“Can’t help but noticed your power armor is a bit different from the Mark 6 suits we have,” Senior Chief Stroll lightly hit John’s left pauldron, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that’s a whole new kit with some interesting updates.”

“It was developed because of a rather bullshit set of circumstances I got rolled up in. Marines love her, bean counters are only giving the green light to spec ops for now. We can chat more about this later, lets focus on the task at hand.”

The men responded and complied with the order. They walked over to the airlock. The Senior Chief followed the three and locked the hangar door behind them. The light flashed red as the atmosphere was sucked out of the room. It changed to green, the exterior door opened.

In front of them was a small, angular ship. It was painted a dark grey but shimmered black when you looked at certain angles. There didn’t seem to be any weapons though. It was far too big to be a probe, so it must be a scout vessel.

John took two steps forward and pushed off towards the skiff. They were only a few hundred meters away. When he was clear of the room his zero-g harness fired its jets to keep him on target. One of the petty officers was reading down the distance to the hull of the skiff. Twenty seconds later they were mag-locked onto the hull.

“Bridge, open sesame.”

“Aye aye, opening the door,” Jessica responded to the order.

“Weapons hot, any resistance and we’re putting them down. If they surrender, then quarter will be given.”

The door opened, but when it did everyone looked confused. There wasn’t an airlock. John held his hand up in a fist.

“Hold, bridge, any life signs?”

“Negative, there was no detected atmosphere inside.”

“Shut the engine core down and jettison it.”

“I’ll need five minutes,” Jessica said.

“Understood, back to the ship, this whole damned thing smells like a trap.”

The men nodded and flew back through the expanse between the ships. The outer airlock door opened, and the men magnetized their boots to the floor. The outer door closed behind them. John ordered them to stay in the room in the suits.

“Core is ejected.”

“Have the worm copy the core, then send a drone over. When is the cavalry arriving?”

Nathan answered, “Thirty-five minutes.”

“Pressurize the airlock, we’ll hold until reinforcements arrive.”

04:00 Bridge

“We’re lucky the core was decrypted,” Kevin said.

“Are we though?” John asked, “Why would you send an autonomous skiff without an encrypted core?”

“This is the first time we’ve captured anything from the Icarus,” Commander Larson said.

“Sir, I am positive that skiff will be useful to us. But I think the core is useless. Outside of some navigational data, I bet there was an onboard VI that would remove what they don’t want us to see. Remote activation’s, details of the mothership, locations they’ve been and more.”

“Baby steps cadet. Another thing it confirmed though, the mothership was the third ship you discovered.”

“Point taken but were I in charge of that ship I’d be heading out into the void between systems and chill out for a while. I’d also be in the engine room messing with its settings so the reading would appear different.”

“There’s a limit to what they could do absent a core replacement. I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell your crew about the excellent job your crew accomplished today. You can take the Marcinko and push off to continue your assigned mission. We’ll be in touch,” Larson smiled as he signed off.

“Happy hunting,” John said before the link was shut down, “Fucking Christ, I have homicidal psychic twins trying to kill or hump me and now we walked ass-backward into a legendary pirate hunt. What more can fucking happen.”

“Never a dull day with you sir,” Kristin laughed.

“Stand down from red alert, the bridge is yours. I’m gonna go get some chow,” John said as he walked toward the exit.

06:10 Captain’s Ready Room

John was mentally exhausted. He received a warning that he had ninety seconds of water remaining. He hated that their showers onboard the ship had timers. Obviously, they needed to conserve water, but he really needed a long shower today. He finished cleaning and rinsing himself off and began drying himself off.

He walked over to the makeshift dresser and found a clean pair of shorts and underwear. After putting them on he sat down at his desk and began writing his after-action report on the day’s events. His mind was still racing a million miles an hour so he may as well get this done.

In general, he gave high marks to the crew. There weren’t really any items that John could legitimately criticize. On his own actions though he could think of two things that he’d do over again. The reversal movement was horribly inefficient and slow. Couple that with them being in the open void made that decision horribly uninformed.

The other issue was sending over a manned boarding crew without further inspections of the hostile vessel. Now strictly speaking they weren’t in violation of any regulations. What they did was not only allowed but encouraged. But John thought that sending the drone over for inspections first would’ve been the wiser action.

Thirty minutes later the report was largely written. He ran it through a grammar checker four times. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. He rubbed his eyes and pressed the blinking red light on his terminal. A screen popped up; Alice was contacting him from the medical room.

“Slow night honey?”

“It’s dead ass quiet and the last scheduled therapy session of my shift just finished. Technically I know I’m not supposed to do this but since the captain is a member of this crew too, I figure I’d check up on him,” Alice copied John’s signature smart-ass smirk.

“I believe you have a conflict of interest here, don’t you?” John smirked then leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling and exhaled, “Good lord that was a busy shift.”

“You don’t seem worse for the wear though.”

“Just finished my after-action report. But just before you called, I could feel the adrenaline finally purged from my system. Going to turn in for some much-needed shut-eye.”

“Good work today. Love you,” Alice kissed two fingers and showed them to the camera.

“Love you to Alice,” John waved to the camera before cutting the connection.

John switched the application the terminal was using and sent the report to Lieutenant Page. He clicked the sleep button and pushed his chair back. John did a bit of stretching to work out any kinds in his frame before calling it an evening. When he felt he had done enough he crawled into bed for some much-needed rest.