Digital Galaxies

Our first salvo missed entirely, but that was to be expected. Space was big and the ships that traversed it were fast, nothing was going to connect at this range.

Still, couldn’t hurt to try and hit them, right?

Wait it actually might, hold on! I rushed to the power readout screen and took a look at what was going on. Power was getting to the guns alright… sensors reported everything was chill… wait! Something fucky was going on with the supply of power to Jason’s turret!

He probably hadn’t noticed it yet, but his turret wasn’t operating up to its normal levels of performance. Sluggish, was the word.

“Jason,” I said urgently, already getting up out of my chair. “Something is up with your turret, you need to stop firing, I’m going to go look.”

“What do you mean?” he asked excitedly, sounds of gleeful weapon’s fire coming through his audio. Dude was clearly enjoying himself.

“Just do as she says,” Roger said, chiming in for me. I gave him a grateful smile as I rushed into the airlock. I pretty much had to talk during combat, and I absolutely hated it.

Bundit was ready and waiting for me, front hatch already open. Diving inside, I punched the button to seal up and sent a command to the airlock to begin cycling.

I had a bad feeling that Jason’s turret had something melting down inside it, and I’d managed to catch it before it went terribly wrong.

Because of the whole imminent threat of destruction thing, I punched the speed on Bundit and dropped to all fours. Her magnetic pads activating and deactivating with every step sounded like a machine gun firing as we raced down the central hallway and cut to the side down towards Jason's turret.

Jason wasn't actually in the turret, the ship was big enough to have the gunnery chairs down in the barracks.

I came screeching to a halt at the access hatch to the turret just as the lights flickered and my gyro readouts spiked. Something had just shaken the ship, causing Bundit to auto correct to keep me in place.

"What just happened?" I asked worriedly on the main comms channel.

Roger's voice was clipped and distracted as he replied, "We ate a missle. Shields absorbed the hit but they aren't happy about it. Get that gun running."

Got it, working the problem now, I sent back via text, choosing not to distract them all further. I had work to do.

Operating Bundit's hands with my mind-machine interface, I got the panel off at a speed that would have been impossible using my own fleshy appendages.

Unable to see any immediate problems from there, I stuck one of my robotic hands into the guts of the turret and activated the camera I'd stuck on the end.

The problem became readily apparent as I panned around. "Fucking cheapskate corporate cost cutting bastards," I swore angrily, pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration.

Power reached the turrets by way of a ceramic superconductor, but since ceramic wasn't the most flexible of materials, it was then distributed throughout the turret itself via more mundane cabling.

The corporate bastards in question had gone and used shitty cheap stuff there, and now half of the wiring had melted the first time we used the damned thing in combat.

Opening a channel to the ship AI, I spoke my urgent request, "Turshen, can you get one of the little recon drones to grab a roll of I-grade shielded wire?"

"Absolutely!" came the happy, carefree voice of our reclusive ship AI. "One roll of A-grade shielded wire coming right up!"

"No no, I-grade shielded wire,” I repeated, frowning suspiciously at where I knew the mic was inside bundit.

“Yes… A-grade shielded wire?” she repeated again, sounding unsure of herself now. “That is what you asked for, is it not?”

“Nooo,” I grumbled, trying to keep my calm. “I-grade.”

There was a long pause, as though our ship was mulling over my words like they were a deep and mysterious mystery. “I can find no A-grade wiring within the ship, nor do the ship manifests record such an item being brought on board. Are you sure you do not mean I-grade shielded wiring?”

I gave a quiet whimper of frustration and understanding, followed by a long and deeply weary sigh. “Yes, sorry, I meant that.”

“Understood!” she chirped happily. “I-grade shielded wiring on its way!”

Of all the things that had apparently made it into this fictional universe’s AI programming, it had to be an american-centric voice recognition system. What was so hard about programming for the australian accent? Seriously?! There were well over sixty million of us!

I did my best to calm down as the ship’s power systems diverted energy to the shields once again, causing the lights to flicker slightly. Honestly, I thought that particular process was a waste of time, the power going to the lights had to be negligible. I guess every drop counted or whatever. Wait, what was taking the drone so long to get here?

When the drone finally came into view carrying the wire, I just about had an aneurysm. “Turshen, you realise that you sent me the wire via an atmospheric drone, right?”

“Indeed, it seemed like the fastest way to get the wire to you was by flying it to you!” she told me proudly, a simulated smile present in her voice.

The sigh I let out was one of amusement and a deep weariness, all rolled into one. “Turshie, my girl… we vented all the atmosphere. Your drone is using its damned rotor blades as wheels.”

“O-oh…” she squeaked, sounding simultaneously very embarrassed and very sentient. “Uh, my bad…”

I blinked at the change in tone, opening my mouth to say something. She beat me to it though, saying, “I mean… I am sorry for the miscalculation. I did not, uh… compute this through very well.”

A smile broke out on my face as I realised our ship AI had just accidentally broken character for a second. “No problem Turshie, please note down that we’re going to need a replacement set of rotor blades.”

“Absolutely!” she said with her more customary cheeriness. “Good luck with the repairs, mechanic!”

I just rolled my eyes and got back to work, taking the proffered wiring and measuring it out to replace the cheap stuff. Should have known to check for this crap. I’d have to crawl through the ship later and make sure all the other wiring was up to snuff, because having to do this shit while we were in the middle of another dogfight would suck.

Working with Bundit’s inhuman speed and precision, I was able to get the repairs done in less than two minutes, and called in that Jason could begin to fire again. I also said I’d be staying in Bundit in case more shit broke, to save time.

Cheering broke out on the main ship’s comm channel as I waited, and quickly flicking to the combat map showed that we’d just crippled one of the pirates, shooting their engines out and most likely damaging their reactor in the process.

Curiously, I replayed what had happened since I left the bridge, and watched with growing awe as our ship danced and spun across the black of space. Each time something came close to hitting us, it missed due to a seemingly random rotation or turn done by Gloria. Clearly it hadn’t been random though, because she was threading needles with her flying. No wonder she was a test pilot out in the real world.

The missile that had hit us was the unluckiest thing I’d ever seen, its tiny little computerised mind deciding to jink in just such a way that it dodged the combined efforts of two point defence cannons. No amount of skill or finesse on our pilot’s part would have been able to save us from that hit.

Taking out the pirate’s engines had been another feat of piloting prowess, as our two main turrets shepherded our prey into a close and personal encounter with a round fired from our spinally mounted mass driver.

The hit punched straight through their shields and taking them at an angle from above and behind and driving down through its engine, probably making a mess of their machine shop in the process. Assuming their internal layout was something close to ours, that is.

From what the Turshen’s sensors were telling me, it had definitely appeared like we’d done something to one of their reactors too. Judging by the sudden spike in heat near the area affected and the subsequent drop in both heat and power output, I reckoned we’d hit their cooling mechanism.

“Alia, problems with the starboard side shields! I think we have a fire!” Warren blurted at me over a private channel, snapping my attention back to the present.

On it, I replied quickly, getting into gear once more and hauling ass for the location he sent me.

When I got there, it was an absolute mess, and after extinguishing the fire, I found myself scratching my head in confusion. The emitter has toast, literally. Blackened and charred, it looked like what happened when I tried to make authentic french toast that one time. The greater mystery though, was where the hell had the fire found the oxygen to feed itself?

“Turshie, are there any oxygen lines that go past this shield emitter? I can’t see any, but there was a fire, so clearly I’m wrong,” I asked of our ship AI, hoping to god that she understood me this time.

“Yes, it is above you,” she replied in the same calm, happy voice as ever.

Looking up, my eyebrows quirked in surprise when I saw what had happened. Glancing between the shield emitter and the little pipe, I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. When that shield emitter had taken a hit, a chunk of its mechanism had been ejected at speed, shearing through the pipe, causing a leak.

Glancing back at the mic, I asked, “Turshie, can you cut that line off from the network? I’d rather not have it spewing oxygen all over the place.”

Turned back to check up on the emitter, I groaned quietly as I got a better look at it. While the pipe would be an easy fix, that blown out hunk of slag that had once been part of our shield network was going to be a complete replacement job.

Well, time to inform our resident systems tech of the bad news. Warren, the emitter is munted. We’re going to need a new one, sorry.

“No problem, starboard side shields will be thinner than I’d like, but it wasn’t a crucial one. I can spread the others out to compensate,” he replied calmly, breathing not even that fast for someone who was managing our shields while they were under fire. Dude was way better in a fight than I’d expected him to be.

Another burst of triumphant cheering exploded across the comms, and he gave a quiet laugh, “Nevermind, looks like the fight is over. Second enemy ship is an expanding cloud of scrap. Thanks for the quick work, Alia.”