Digital Galaxies

Another day, another retro TV show marathon. It’d been a week since Roger decided we’d go and get a job that wasn’t just flying shit from point A to point B, and my goodness were the pickings thin out here.

See, much like out in the real world, when you lived in a stable region, there wasn’t a whole lot that a bunch of gamers would consider interesting employment.

So here we were, making a beeline for stormy waters in our wedge-shaped nugget of a ship. Well, stormy was a bit of an overstatement. The region of space we were headed to was like, the place before the frontier. Still a bit lawless, but safe enough for us to not get immediately blown up.

Cerri and I were happily bundled up together on the couch, a blanket shared between us while we watched a really old show about some superhero or other. I knew it was old because it was set in the United States, which didn’t exist anymore.

Jason and Gloria were at the computers having a duel of sorts. I think the game they were playing was a real time strategy? I don’t know, I was only just able to pay attention to the show we were watching, because… you know, cuddles.

I had no idea what to think of the whole, platonic physical intimacy thing that Cerri and I had going on, other than that I really liked it. She made me feel good in about a dozen different ways.

Gloria gave a whoop of exhilaration and leapt out of her chair while I was lost in thought, startling me and sending me cuddling closer to Cerri.

Arm pulling protectively around me, she gave the excited pilot a glare. “Do you have to jump around like that?”

“Yes, because I finally beat Jason,” Gloria grinned, standing there unashamed with a hand on her hip. As she took us in, her eyes softened and her lips quirked. “We’ve noticed how comfortable you two have gotten, by the way.”

Cerri is warm, I sent shyly, shifting my tail to block her from sight. I didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea, we were just friends. I didn’t even know what being in love felt like, so it couldn’t be more than just platonic.

“Some of us can cuddle without getting needlessly sexual,” Cerri commented blithely, leaning the side of her head against the top of mine.

Gloria opened her mouth to reply, but was sent tumbling through the air when the ship lurched violently, gravity plates failing a moment later. Random crap flew towards the bow of the ship, along with our recently cocky pilot.

Cerri kept us in place with a set of very deadly looking claws that had appeared out of nowhere on her fingers, digging into the couch and tearing holes in it. Jason managed to hold onto the computer desk, saving himself from Gloria’s acrobatic fate.

Not that she died or anything, gravity slammed back down half a second later, turning what would have been a face first impact with the forward bulkhead into a sliding thump across the floor.

Roger’s voice blared over the shipwide intercom, urgent but in control, “Crew to stations, we’ve been pulled out of aetherspace. Two unknown vessels approaching.”

My first thought wasn’t on the ships bearing down on us, as worrying as that was. Leaping out of Cerri’s arms, I rushed over to Gloria and helped her to stand.

Cerri was there shortly after, asking, “You okay?”

“For the most part,” the pilot said with a half hearted grin. “Well enough to fly this bucket anyway, so let’s go.”

As though it had only been a light bump, she powered past us and made for the door. Cerri and I shared a look before following behind her. Damn, Gloria was tough! I’d never have… hold on. The space vampire thing! She was probably durable as all hell!

“We’ve been target locked, they’re demanding we jettison our cargo,” Roger said via the ship intercom. “It’s pirates.”

We stormed into the bridge, carried by our urgency. Strapping into my chair with as much speed as I could manage, I sent a request to Bundit to come up and wait at the ready outside. Never knew when I’d need to suddenly run off and deal with some critical issue.

“We going to hand the cargo over, boss?” Gloria asked from the pilot’s seat as she studied the situation.

“No,” he said with a derisive snort in the direction of the pirates. “Folk like these are exactly the reason I shelled out for extra features on this ship.”

“They’re counting down, we have thirty seconds to agree,” Warren called from his chair.

Since a lot of the crew mained non-combat roles, we’d also chosen combat roles for when it was needed. Warren was on communications, Cerri was on digital weapons, and I was obviously on damage control.

“Everyone in position?” Roger asked into his mic, voice being relayed through to our headsets.

A chorus of affirmation came back as we all sounded off. The guys were all off in the weapons stations within the barracks, already in combat space suits and ready to grab guns and repel boarders if needed.

“Alia, prepare to decompress,” Roger ordered.

I pinged acknowledgement via my ocula and got to work on evacuating the air from each compartment on the ship, except the bridge. No sense venting precious air into space if we got a hole in the ship.

The bridge was now an island of habitability, and thanks to the incredible durability of the glass, also the most resilient place on the ship. If I needed to leave though, I’d have to cram myself into the small airlock that led back into the ship and shove myself either into Bundit or a spacesuit.

“Okay… they got bored, five seconds on the clock and they’re launching missiles,” Warren told us in an almost bored tone. “They’re really eager, aren’t they?”

Checking the battle map, I could see six blinking red icons denoting the enemy’s attempts to blow us up. They were still a hell of a long way out though, almost two hundred thousand kilometers away.

“Could be players,” Roger mused, tapping on the arm of the captain’s chair in thought. “Recklessness due to their immortality?”

“Well, whoever they are, they don’t have a very good science officer,” Cerri noted with a cute, cocky little grin. “Because their missiles are mine now.”

Wait, what? I checked the sensors and sure enough, they were tagged as friendly now and in the process of reversing course.

“Nice!” Gloria whooped from the front, a fist visible over the back of her chair as she pumped it.

“Kinda wish we’d gone for missiles now,” Simon muttered over coms, and I found myself agreeing with him. What sort of fun stuff could I do with a bunch of missiles? I wonder what would happen if you put a gravity plate in the warhead?

“I’m focusing them on one of the ships,” Cerri informed us, hands flying over the controls. “They’re trying to take them back, converging as well to overlap their PDC networks. Ah, lost one…”

Five missiles were still on the field though, and the distances were closing. Nevermind, another one exploded, taking a second with it. Down to three. Cerri should have spaced them out a little better, but she had a lot on her plate right now.

“I read two impacts,” Warren said, leaning forward, a glint of excitement in his eye as he watched the screen. “I see shields failing over there…”

Roger joined Warren in leaning forward, blurting, “Gloria, hit them!”

“Firing off the main cannon,” Gloria said calmly, and I felt the ship shudder slightly as our spinal mounted gravity powered mass driver got to work. Gloria had access to that weapon because it had no way of aiming it other than physically rotating the ship, while the boys downstairs had control of the turrets and point defence cannons.

“We have a hit, the third missile exploded just off their port side, looks like it was a burst missile, their side is covered in damage, look,” Warren said, bouncing excitedly in his seat. Was the guy even strapped in properly?

He forwarded an image to our displays, a digitally zoomed and grainy image of the enemy ship. All along its flank were rents and gashes, smashed armour and even some visible components near the center of the blast. I saw one of their PDCs hanging by a thread of what appeared to be cabling… no that was the ammo feed.

Several seconds passed as we waited for Gloria’s shots to cross the intervening gap, and we all groaned in collective exasperation when maneuvering thrusters lit up, spinning and shifting the enemy ship out of the way.

“Looks like they saw us fire,” Roger sighed. “Guess we’re doing this the dirty way. Take us in there Gloria.”

“My pleasure,” she purred, and the ship moved under her gentle touch. Faintly, I heard her whisper, “Come on Turshen, let’s do this, huh babe? You and me… well, and the others.”

A quiet alert drew my attention away from our pilot and her flirting with the ship, and over to the battle map again. More missiles, along with the unscathed ship moving to intercept us. It looked like the damaged one would be doing some long ranged support while the other got close and personal.

“I have two of their missiles, but they’ve figured out how I’m getting in, I won’t be stealing any more,” Cerri said quickly, already diverting her newly acquired friends into the path of their comrades.

Five of their missiles went up in a ball of violent fury, but there were many more following behind. To my relief, I felt the gentle vibration of the PDCs going to work, their fire scything out into the dark as lazy trails of bright orange. It was pretty, really… reminding me of old movies, back when militaries still used visible tracers and stuff.

The relative peace of the PDCs was shattered when the boys got to work with the big turrets, their energy based projectiles causing a hissing, serrated sound. There was very little feedback through the ship as they fired, since they produced very little recoil, and that made it all the more eerie when blazing white bolts of fire ripped past the windows of the bridge and out towards our rather unfortunate enemies.

Poor idiots had probably thought they were dealing with the base model of our ship, not the military version. Ah well, their own fault for pulling us out of aetherspace.