War Fleet: Resistance, стр. 32

36

In school, Chang had seen the value in learning Morse code. Few others had, but Chang believed in collecting curious things, and a language where one could communicate without moving the tongue or the lips intrigued him.

He’d only told Olsen once that he knew the language, but the captain had been so pleased about it that Chang knew he wouldn’t forget. So when Chang heard the loud tapping from his wristwatch, he immediately recognized the ‘dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash dot-dot-dot’ of an S.O.S. So he tapped out an O.K. on his wristwatch. He then waited for the rest of the message. And it came, spelled out short and sweet. “WARP ASAP. THROW GRENADE CIC.”

The rest of it, he’d heard on the open channel: Aarsh demanding a surrender and later, after Olsen had sent the message, accepting the surrender. But Chang surmised he might be the only person on the ship to know that Olsen in fact had other plans.

Chang had already programmed the ship to warp to the Ripley sector. He could hardly breathe now — the malfunctioning warp engine was also sucking out oxygen from the room. And with all the gunfire, he thought he would eventually suffocate in here rather than have to face the Arstans. An easy way out.

But now, he had to find the energy to get up and fight.

He flicked through the display on his wristwatch to find the barcode he needed to scan for the lock, and he opened the door. As soon as he did, he took a breath of stale air. He’d heard the grenades, and so the flavor of smoke did not surprise him.

Chang stumbled down the corridor, a little short of breath from the lack of oxygen before. He moved away from the CIC towards the armory and lunged through the doors. There were all kinds of different explosives here, but Chang had already decided not to take anything incendiary. To destroy their ship’s systems before they got to the Ripley sector would be suicide. They might enter without engines, but they would still need shields, weapons, oxygen regulators, and magnetic floors.

Instead, he found the box labeled ‘EMP’ and took one of the spherical bombs out of it. These grenades didn’t explode as such, but let out a pulse of energy so strong it disoriented living creatures and temporarily disabled machines.

Chang knew speed was of the essence, but he also didn’t want to alert any Arstans to his existence. So before he left the armory, he applied some oil to his boots. Then, he moved with as much haste as possible down the corridors, keeping his mag-boots at a low enough setting that he could skate along without making much sound. The corridors were eerily silent. The red lights had stopped pulsing, and Chang couldn’t hear a single beep of machinery.

He reached the CIC within two minutes and saw the Arstans clustered around the doorway. They had their rifles pointed towards Olsen and the crew, who had formed two neat lines.

Chang took the pin out of the grenade, counted to three, and threw it. It landed on the floor, in the center of the Arstans. They turned to it and shouted out, but Chang had timed it perfectly. The EMP blew, sending the Arstans to the floor.

What happened next was a blur. Kota and Riley dove for pistols on the floor while Turgin and the new commander, Novak, kicked two of the nearest Arstans back out of the CIC, smashing them headlong into their fellow warriors. Two more still in the CIC were dispatched by Kota and Riley with headshots at close range.

The others began to untangle and crawl to their feet. One saw Chang and pointed at him. There was more fire from within the CIC. Another Arstan fell, but at least one of them was rushing down the corridor toward Chang.

Then the corridor shifted and everything seemed to stretch out before him. He lost his balance, but his mag-boots held him firmly in place.

Just as he started to black out, he saw the back of the Artisan’s head explode, then the creature stumble and fall. He got a glimpse of Kota’s hard features framed around the pistol in her hand. She was shouting something, but he couldn’t understand it.

All Chang could understand, as his vision narrowed and the walls around him kept shifting unnaturally, was that the ship had finally entered FTL-warp.

37

When they emerged from FTL-warp, Olsen’s head was against the hard steel floor. Usually he’d ramp up the magnetism before they jumped, presuming they didn’t have time to harness themselves in. But he hadn’t had time, and from the way the lights were flashing blue, it appeared that a lot of systems had gone down. From where he lay, he could see the head of a downed Arstan, green blood flowing from its thick-skinned temple.

Chang had thrown the EMP grenade as he’d asked, and the plan had worked. Olsen turned his head to see Novak standing over him, offering him her hand. He took it, and she pulled him up with a surprising strength, given her slight frame.

“Thank you, Commander,” he said. He turned to see Chang approaching him on unsteady feet. His eyes were wide and a bit unfocused. “Well done, Ensign. Once this is over, I’ll recommend you for a medal.”

The young engineer rubbed the back of his neck in a daze. It seemed to take him a second to register Olsen’s words. “Sir, there’s something you should know.”

“Spit it out.”

“Activating the warp engine had consequences. I had to fry the engine room, meaning this ship can’t go anywhere