War Fleet: Resistance, стр. 39
In front of Redrock, Kota had spun around and stared at him with concern.
Redrock tried to shake off the pain. Part of it was just surprise. He’d never felt sustained energy shock like that before.
“Damn. I’m sorry, sir. It appears to be some kind of electrocution.”
“What the hell?” Olsen demanded. “Are the controls malfunctioning?”
“Sir, I didn’t predict this, but I’ve just dug out the instructions for the emergency override controls. Those joysticks distribute pain to punish any Arstans whose ships get destroyed while using it.”
“To discourage them from doing it,” Olsen said, shaking his head. “Sounds like a very Arstan thing.” He glanced at Redrock. “I’m guessing you powered up the warp module?”
Redrock nodded. “And pointed it vaguely in the direction of that sun. It didn’t go over well.” He shook his wrists, trying to get feeling back in them.
“To fire at that warhead will mean aiming at that star,” Olsen said flatly. “Which means the FTL-warp module, a very valuable module, will be destroyed.”
“Exactly, sir,” Chang said. “It’s working as intended, I suppose.”
“Sir,” Rob said. “The warhead is entering the coronal mass ejection field around the star. We don’t have much time.”
And, Redrock thought, there was almost no chance the module wouldn’t go careening into the star at this range, whether he was successful in ramming the warhead or not. “Can I survive the shock?” he said pointedly to Chang.
“At current levels, yes. But the shock level if their modules get destroyed registers at thousands of volts. It might only hurt an Arstan, but for a human…”
Olsen finished his thought. “It might be fatal.”
Chang shook his head. “More than likely.”
“See if you can find an override, Chang. I just can’t believe there isn’t one.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the meantime, can we just start the module in the right direction, then release the controls?”
Redrock knew the answer to that one. This required precision control. This was a galactic version of billiards. He needed to hit the warhead just exactly right to nudge it off its trajectory with the sun. It was far too reinforced with metrinium to be able to be destroyed by the warp modules, even if they wanted to try that. But that shielding did mean that the warhead absolutely had to make it deep into the star to be effective, which meant that the right shot could work. As crazy as it seemed, it really could work.
But only with control until the last second.
In theory, the moment after impact, the pilot could release the controls. But at that point, the module would almost surely be on a collision course with the sun. And by then, he suspected his muscles would clench and make it impossible to let go. Then he’d be cooked. Literally.
“Sir,” Rob said again.
“I know, dammit,” Olsen snapped.
Redrock could read the desperation in his face even as he refused to look him in the eye. Redrock could see on his own console where the warhead was located. He needed to do this quickly. It was now or never. He quietly began adjusting the controls, careful to avoid the yoke, just fine-tuning what he had on his screen. The actual firing of module would happen in moments, and it would be over just as fast. Whatever happened.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Kota looking at him. She knew exactly what he was doing. If she was in his position, she’d do the exact same thing.
“Sir, those weapons modules are showing energy signatures,” Santiago said. “They’re going to fire.”
Olsen spun around and began coordinating the movements of the shield and weapons modules. All the others turned to their own stations – even Kota, however reluctantly — grabbing their yokes and probably hoping they didn’t get themselves fried if their modules were destroyed.
Redrock made his decision in that moment. He slid his hands into the yoke ports and immediately angled the module to face the target he’d laid into the control board in front of him.
Intense pain seared through him. His muscles tensed under the voltage, and he felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.
The sound of the rest of the Arstan CIC fell away. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears. The muffled sound of someone yelling at him. Olsen, maybe? He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter.
He launched his warp module, feeling it leap forward in space through a subtle feedback on the yoke in his hand.
The pain made his teeth chatter, but he clamped down on the yoke with a vice-like grip. He stared at the controls, feeling the moment of impact, willing his hit to be true.
Something sparked in the controls in front of him, blinding him. Sound washed over him like electrical systems going haywire. Intense light flickered around him and then, just as suddenly, everything went dark.
Redrock was sure he was dead.
44
Chang saw Redrock slam his hands into the yoke in front of him, and swore under his breath. He’d run out of time.
He knew that Redrock was in pain, and he was responsible. But he couldn’t let himself think about that now.
Because he’d found a way to save him—and maybe all of them.
He’d not just studied Morse code at university, but also the KASDL programming language, developed by the Foorint civilization and stolen by the humans and Arstans, because it was much more powerful than anything they’d ever known.
Moments ago, as the others had leapt to their own controls, he’d scanned green symbols streaming down his black computer screen, looking for patterns.
He didn’t see a wall of alien symbols, like most common observers would. Instead, he saw a collection of abstract objects that someone had programmed into the system’s architecture. They represented not only each module’s essential systems, but constructs like mathematical operators, data structures, and primitive ideas that only programmers would understand.
And underneath it all, in one of the simplest of objects, he saw a