Chapter 26: The Battle for the Argulan

February 16^th, 2279

Basil had, eventually, found a theoretical excuse to leave the bridge, but decided to suffer a bit longer. On the viewscreen, the marines were little dots making steady progress through the hangar bay. Their feed was fuzzy, breaking up often, freezing intermittently with some flashlight pointed at some box or squashed equipment. There was a strange conversation about charging shuttles between Mender and Mellir no one understood without the visual explanation, but their voices were calm so everyone else on the Rubicon was, too. Perlas was trying to understand why their connection was now much worse than it had been with the first drone, unable to filter out the interference, whilst Nocks was trying to keep a firm line to her drone D2, very worried about losing both her projects in a single day and looking highly incompetent in front of everyone. Some time later, the bridge crew could hear the marines debate some movement, the flashlights on the feed converging on the old shuttles. Nocks let out a laugh.

- Nocks to marines. I just pulled the dolphini out behind the ship. Just making sure it’s out of reach for unwelcome guests, also checking a small malfunction.

- Affirmative. But I don’t appreciate changes like this without prior warning.

- Apologies. Nocks out.

Basil looked at Perlas who looked at Basil. Apparently, Nocks was slightly shaken by the constant problems with her drones and looking to avoid further conflict. A muffled sound came from the helm pit as even Ka’al had noticed that. As Basil and his crew watched the blinking dots traverse the huge diagram on screen, Basil thought it looked like one of the games he had played as a child, in which he had to manipulate a holo maze to get some bubbles to their destination. He had eventually given up and deleted the game from his console, telling his friends it was boring.

The little dots kept moving now for quite some time, the only sounds on the bridge being Perlas’ constant tapping on his controls and regular pings from the humming systems around them. Basil again considered retiring to his quarters, wondering if anyone would dare speak up. Soon, he got up and paced around, looking over Nocks’ shoulder, who quickly switched her interface to another type of symbols she herself had developed as she heard him coming, not wanting the captain to see the two dozen scripts looking for errors in her programming of D2. Basil watched for a while and then decided to lift his spirits by talking to Perlas, as the other people on the bridge were Korolev and the tactical officer, who both seemed very busy ‒ and Ka’al, still enclosed in his capsule, enjoying the warmth and peace.

- Perlas, have you figured out the comms issues?

- I am afraid I have not, captain. It’s like gravity pulling on our signals.

- Elaborate.

- See, usually we have a direct link at such short distances. But our signals to the Argulan behave like long-range signals, curving with spacetime.

Contrary to his plans of uplifting his spirits, Basil now wanted to get out of this conversation, as he had inadvertently walked into a scientific topic he hadn’t really dealt with in a long time, leaving details to his subordinates ever since becoming Lieutenant-Commander.

- I see.

- I can’t stress enough how unusual this is, everything seems to bend towards the forward center of the ship.

- You mean where the bridge is? And the stasis pods we sent the marines to?

- Exactly, sir.

- Hm.

Basil considered pulling the marines out and just contacting command to send a real science vessel to deal with this mess, but also didn’t want to be reprimanded by the brass. In the corner of his eyes, he saw Nocks turning into a statue, stopping to type suddenly.

- Sir?

- Nocks, what is...

- I lost contact to D2.

- What?

- It’s gone dark, Sir. I don’t...

- Basil to Marines. We’ve lost contact to D2. Do you have it in sight?

- Affirmative. Further ahead.

- Good. Basil out.

The connection was bad, as had just been explained by Perlas, so Basil didn’t want to get into repeating his orders on comms discipline, as whichever male marine that had just replied to him hadn’t led with his name. Nocks also wondered about that, but firstly, both Basil and her didn’t know the Marines well besides Mender yet and secondly, Nocks had absolutely no idea anymore why all of her preparation and precautions were suddenly worthless and was distressed, a sensation she usually avoided by being in control of everything around her. Basil noticed some slight reflections starting in her pale skin.

- Relax, Nocks. All our comms are on the fritz. Thing has programing, right?

- Yeah, it’ll take orders from Mender and be their scout.

Korolev hadn’t really given her surroundings much attention, as she had been trying to match the scans with the blueprints, the computer failing and failing again to give a realistic image of the bowels of the Argulan, which was neatly illustrated by the little dots on the viewscreen moving through walls in the diagram. She had been trying to keep up by matching the visual feed to what she had prepared as the most likely layout, but was constantly set back by unexpected walls or bends in the ship’s corridors, even whole sections that should not be where the feed showed them to be. But she had finally made some progress, albeit hard to explain to the captain. For a while, she considered not saying anything, as she knew what kind of conversation would be the result, but eventually, she had to speak.

- Captain?

Basil was happy about the distraction, swiftly walking over to the tiny Korolev now switching her display off the privacy mode.

- What do you have?

- Sir ... As we established, there never was a ship called Argulan. And you said we know where all Misettrels ended up, yes?

- Erm, yes?

- Okay, so ... I think we might be looking not at the Argulan.

Basil looked at her like he had just discovered a huge pimple on her forehead.

- I mean this might be the SFMV Pentter. She was indeed lost a few sectors over in the Grel war.

- Yeah, but we found her? I remember...

Korolev took some pleasure in cutting her captain off by rising her index finger.

- I’ve just looked at the mission report of the H’zeg and the Ferren ‒ the two ships sent to assist the Pentter. They rescued everyone still alive and then retreated, rigging the ship to blow as it was beyond repair.

- Soooo?

- I am saying the fleet left a wreck. The ship didn’t fully blow up, just the front section. And looking at the shuttle bay ... Some of the modifications made to the ship we see here were made to the Pentter.

- Why is it called Argulan now?

- It’s just a theory ... But I think someone attempted to repair the ship.

- Someone rebuilt a whole front section for a century-old vessel?

- That would explain ... some of what we are seeing.

- You mean apart from the name and reg, the spacetime distortions, the location, the 100 years that have passed...

- Yes, I know.

- Hm.

Korolev was still looking at the captain, expecting an opinion, but he simply didn’t have one and turned back to the viewscreen. The little marine dots kept moving, albeit slowly and through the largest and longest section of the vessel, having to traverse almost the whole length of the ship, which was not only twice the size of the Rubicon, but unlike the warship also not entirely made of armor, so it had plenty of deck space. Now, Basil thought he had seen enough and started to leave the bridge.

- I’ll be putting together a preliminary report for now...

- Sir!

- Nocks?

- Incoming! Three ships bearing 263-203-996.

- On screen.

The viewscreen quickly forgot about the marine dots and switched to three little dots crushing the waves of the nebula, closing in at high speed. All three ships were of a different design, but it was clear that the largest ship in the lead of the formation called the shots. It was largely triangular in shape, with a flat bow widening into a thick hull before straightening out into long engine plates. The two smaller vessels were apparently made from the same compound, but built around their engine plates, having a more industrial, improvised look. Their designs all sat comfortably in-between the smooth, advanced hull of the Rubicon and the horrid mishmash of components the pirate vessels had been a few days earlier, one of them now looking much-improved after the explosion. The three dots became blobs as they got closer.

- Fuck. Those are syndicate ships.

Perlas turned, but had no time to ask the obvious question.

- Same material and tech as the shuttle. They’ve come to look for whoever left their shuttle.

- Incoming!

- We know, Nocks.

- No! Two more contacts, further behind. All converging on us.

Now, Basil knew he was in trouble. The Rubicon was strong, but taking on five ships for her first fight would be tricky. And he had little hope of resolving the situation peacefully.

- Battle stations. Deploy shields. Open gunports but keep us cloaked. Nocks, hail them.

The alarm went off shipwide, their endosuits activating the magnetic boots to keep everyone well-grounded in case of impacts to the hull. Everyone received an automated message where to find their helmet, but since they all felt safe withing the armored cruiser, nobody went to get their helmet, preferring the better vision and awareness. The Rubicon shuddered several times as the large bulkheads between the outer hull and the citadel started closing one after another, as the crew sprinted to their stations. It shook again as the massive plates covering the torpedo launchers locked into position in the overhang.

- Hailing...

The viewscreen changed once more, now showing the fleet’s sigil until the signal connected. The slippery alien that appeared on-screen immediately portrayed several levels of preparedness above the pirates ‒ who, further back, were at the same time looking at each other in silence as Salim locked down the brig and security. Basil’s opponent wore a modern combat or space suit, intricately embroidered with gold wire, which made Basil think of a CPU board and smile. The alien took some time to look around his own screen, taking stock of the Rubicon’s bridge crew, since the conversation between Nocks and Basil where the latter instructed the former to cut all video feeds only onto his face for security reasons had only happened in Basil’s brain with the captain forgetting to actually think of it when Nocks was around. Perlas had actually approached Nocks to create a League-like fake bridge for comms, showing a smaller and older vessel, but had been rebuked several times, until even the Axxi decided to let it rest a while and ask the captain, who was not available at that time.

- This is the SFC Rubicon. Explain your intercept course.

- Greetings! And who might I be speaking to?

- Captain Basil.

- Delighted to make your acquaintance, Captain Basil. I am Surim Huld, Chairman of the Geteri Conglomerate.

Although he was trying to order his face to stop smiling, the fact that a syndicate warlord dressed in computer parts had given himself a civilian, business-like title greatly amused Basil, quickly deciding to keep a friendly tone to hide his grin in pleasantness.

- Chairman Huld, may I ask why you are coming our way?

- Ah, captain, we didn’t know we were coming your way. We just recently realized there is a cloaked vessel near our salvage.

- This ship is your salvage?

- Indeed. Legitimate salvage.

During the conversation, the three foremost syndicate vessels started arriving, now slowing down a few clicks away from the Rubicon, getting into weapons range, ever so slightly drifting apart. Perlas stood ready to scan the vessels whilst Ka’al put six gigantic markers on the lead ship.

- When did you find this ship?

- Ah, just a few days ago. My associates sent a shuttle to investigate and now we are here to claim legitimate salvage.

Yes, I know lEgiTImatE sALVage. Vultures, all of them.

- Hm. How did you find this ship?

- It’s sending out a distress signal, as you surely know, captain.

Basil realized his game with the pirates had likely delayed their arrival enough to involve the syndicate, which would surely make some admiral give him a speech about priorities, the opposite of the effect he had hoped to achieve with the pirate hunt.

- It’s one of our ships, chairman.

- Oh, sure, it is. But the statute of limitations your fleet put out is 30 years, isn’t it?

- It is ... Listen. We’re investigating what happened on this ship as we speak. But I do accept your claim, there is no denying that. Leave this wreck to us and the fleet will compensate you.

- Oh, I am afraid that won’t be possible.

- And why is that, chairman?

- We’ve been through that before with your fleet. Would you believe it, last time they valued the wreck we claimed at around 20% of what we valued it.

- Yeah, see. This ship’s around 100 years old. There aren’t many materials aboard that are valuable today. I am not even sure it’s worth your trip.

- Oh, you can let us be the judge of that. Can we take the ship into tow now?

- Oh, I am afraid that won’t be possible.

- And why is that, captain?

- We’ve got a team of marines over at that ship, we need to pull them out before that.

- I see. They must have run into my men by now.

- You still have people on this ship?

- Not only people, my own son of honor is guarding our find.

Fuck. I hope the marines didn’t blow his head off.

- Thanks for the info, let me contact my team.

- You know where to find me, captain Basil.

The viewscreen changed back to the frontal view, now, the other two syndicate vessels were arriving, all five of them continuing to slowly drift apart from each other in a crescent formation. They weren’t scanning the shadow of the Rubicon yet, but clearly ready to swarm the larger vessel from all sides.

Basil was considering his tactical situation. It was favorable in the sense that the syndicate had no idea what they were dealing with until they scanned the Rubicon from close range. It was also good that they would not realize how tough the shell of the Rubicon was until the first few salvos had been exchanged, but then it would turn sour for Basil, as it would not take the syndicate vessels long to realize they could simply fire their beams at the Rubicon’s systems ‒ the weak spots ‒ effectively disabling his ship after penetrating her not-so-great shields. They were also likely wondering if they could take a much larger prize, scheming to take out his ship quickly. There was also the issue of movement, as the Rubicon was almost at a full stop, just drifting in the same speed and direction as the Argulan, needing a lot of force to get moving, not to mention battle speeds. Then, there were the numbers. The Rubicon had 36 of her gigantic torpedoes ready before starting the slow synthesizing process and had to get this number of shots at five targets unwilling to stay in front of the Rubicon for too long. His ship’s beams were numerous, but would take some time to smash the enemy shields. Basil also had to consider energy usage, as using the cloak, shields, beams, torps, and engines at the same time was sure to result in a slow firing rate after less than a minute. Ultimately, it all came down to two factors, how would he move his ship and how well-armed were his opponents?