บท 136: Retribution
I felt a sharp pain in my chest, but it wasn't entirely caused by the immense amount of electric current passing through my body. Professor Yamamari had punched me in the chest to push me away from the fuse box, also getting his share of electric current by doing so. I fell down face first, unable to soften my fall with my temporarily disabled limbs.
The professor was a bit luckier than me - he had only suffered some pain with no visible damage. He crawled on the deck floor and came to my side to roll me over. When I finally looked up, I saw that the lights and computer consoles had power again.
As the bridge restored full power, lots of damage control alarms started wailing, accompanied by flashing red lights; indicating serious damage to multiple critical systems.
"Commander, are you okay?" the professor asked. Mei left her navigation console to take a look at my situation. I was still in a trauma though, so I could barely guess what people were saying.
"Mei..." I said. "T-t-take us... to the asteroid!"
"Commander, you are-"
"Take the weapons, prof! I will get to the sensors!"
"Sir, I don't have any experience on weapons."
"Neither did I." I replied. "I'm just not in a good situation right now, as you can see..."
Just then, I experienced the horrible smell of burnt meat. It was from my own body... I didn't want to even guess how ugly I was looking with all the black scars.
"Prof, help me up!" I said. Professor Yamamari lifted me.
"Sensors... quick!"
He brought me to the sensors console and went to take over the weapons console. Mei was already back to her navigation console.
Before I could even take a look at the enemy vessels' positions, we heard small caliber projectiles striking the ship's armor. Luckily, most of them simply bounced off.
"The first batch of drones are here, but the main swarm is yet to attack." I said. "Professor, don't bother shooting at the drones, rip the largest asteroid chunks to pieces and create us a big field filled with space rocks."
"Yes, sir!" he said.
For a moment, I glimpsed towards the damage control post. From what I could tell, we had leaking propellant and coolant pipes; as well as some disabled sensor packs. On top of that, we had a giant hole on our armor plating and our structural integrity was compromised. Any excessively ambitious combat maneuver could rip the ship apart.
"Mei, protect that hole from attackers. Don't present an easy target to the enemy." I said.
"I'm on it." she said.
"Professor, unload flak missiles from two of the tubes and load anti-ship missiles instead." I ordered.
"Yes, sir!" he said, followed by a question. "How?"
"See the four green lights on the right side of the targeting screen? Those show the loading state of the missiles. Below them are the loading controls. Just take the flaks out first, and the light will go yellow during the operation. Once the light is red, load the anti-ship missiles. It will go yellow again, and once it becomes green, we will be ready to fire."
"Yes, sir!"
"Drones coming in for another attack run! Prof, perhaps it is time to activate our miserable close-in weapons. Power up the rapid-fire railguns!"
On the next attack run, we were partially successful on repelling the AI drones, but not without getting hit.
"Decompression on port-front crew quarters!" I said. "Mei, keep this orientation."
"Copy that, sir!" she said. "And sir, we are almost in the asteroid field."
"Good." I said. "With all the sensor interference and dangerous rocks around, the AI's drone control will not be as effective. This should give us a chance to strike the mothership."
Lodos moved through a large field of asteroid fragments, as the drone swarm tried to follow. I routed full power to ECM systems to increase the effect.
"The mothership is getting closer to us. Prof, are the anti-ships ready?" I asked.
"One ready, one still yellow." he said.
"Oh, come on..." I said. "Mei, get ready to make a combat turn."
"Yes, sir!"
"Sir, both anti-ships ready!" reported the professor.
"Good." I said. "We will wait until the drones and the mothership is in a good position. Target the mothership's center of mass and be ready to fire on my mark. Fire two missiles with a 0.6 second delay in between. Use a spread pattern so the missiles strike the enemy from different angles. This should give us the highest chance of a successful impact."
"Sir, I don't think I know how exactly I can do that." said the professor.
"Then come over and carry me to the console." I said. Professor Yamamari left the console and helped my weak body get to the weapons console. Although I had difficulty using my hands, I managed to create the targeting pattern I wanted.
"Mei, get ready to make a fast turn to port. 120 degrees."
"I'm ready whenever you wish." she said.
"Now!"
Lodos started making a rapid turn to port. Mei and I were seated, but the professor was not. Since the bridge was sufficiently ahead of the ship's center of mass, the maneuver sent him flying towards the right-side wall of the bridge.
I waited for the right moment, and when it came, I pressed the missile launch button. Two missiles left Lodos' missile silos and made their way out of the rock field we were in. Then, they spread apart to follow different approach paths towards the target, in an attempt to overwhelm the mothership's missile protection systems.
Only a couple of seconds after the missile launch, something very bad happened. Lodos' hull started making loud, hellish sounds.
"Mei, quickly reduce our rotation rate and-"
Before I could give the next order, the ship's weakened hull lost the fight against the laws of physics. Lodos broke apart into two pieces, one large and one small. We had lost the entire starboard section of the ship's bow; but luckily, not before destroying the enemy mothership.
"Good impact!" I said. "The mothership is no more!"
"That's right, thank god..." said the professor, making his way to the sensors console, now relaxed. "The drones have ceased firing."
"Great." said Mei. "Only if we could pull this off without almost killing ourselves... Speaking of which, commander, we should get you some medical help."
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