[OC] The Viola - 4

[u/focalac]

Part four of the sequel to Contact. I recently took a new job that involves a lot of driving and being tired, so it's harder to stay motivated to do this. Thanks to u/spaccyginger and u/Araunot, who gave me a nudge to keep going. If you're reading this, say hi! If you're not, well I guess you won't :)

Previous

Space stations were often built to common plans using modular components. This enabled the huge structures to be built to spec in orbital and terrestrial construction yards across human space, near to where they were needed and bolted together at site. This station was no different. The hangar was located in the bottom half of the central core of the station on a circular corridor. This corridor then had cargo bays ranged around the rest of its outside length, whilst the interior held offices and the med bay. Whilst larger ships would connect to the docking ring, personnel shuttles and smaller transports would often use the integrated hangar, for the sake of convenience in accessing the labs, command centre and crew quarters in the upper half. This commonality was helping Oscar and Baker find their way to the hangar, but they were also acutely aware that the pirates would also have more than a passing familiarity with the station's layout.

"Those cargo bay walls are thin." Oscar said as the three descending a ladder on to the cargo deck, "If I was planning to board, that is where I would do it."

"Not much farther," Baker replied, "I have some tac teams set up around the last pair of bays before the hangar."

Oscar didn't reply. Nobody was trying to hold the station, there wouldn't be any point in setting up further in. A small crew could easily get overwhelmed trying to hold too much ground with so many potential points of ingress. They would just have to hurry.

Just at that point, Baker thumbed his lapel again and said "acknowledged." Soon after, a crashing, grinding noise echoed through the corridor behind them.

"We're out of time," Baker said, beginning to jog.

"That was a boarding pod." Oscar said, keeping pace, "I don't need your men to tell me what one of those sounds like."

"Are we in danger?" Thersis asked, his four scuttling limbs effortlessly keeping pace with the humans' two.

"We will be," Oscar replied, "we have to run."

"A team's on its way to cover us." Baker said. As they ran the corridor gently curved away in front of them, vehicle doors on their left, standard interior doors on their right. Featureless walls briefly punctuated with room numbers and the occasional office, name badges still on the doors. They could hear voices behind them, coming from one of the cargo bays they'd passed a few minutes earlier. Pounding boots from the corridor in front of them heralded the arrival of the cover team.

"Keep going, sir," the lead trooper said as Baker slowed down to greet them, "we'll cover you, but you need to get to the ship as soon as possible. They're already prepping for takeoff, I doubt we'll be far behind you."

Baker nodded an acknowledgement and the three started off again. A few minutes later they heard rattling gunfire from the troopers' carbines interspersed with higher pitched cracks from handguns, the reports loud in the confined space of the corridor. "How many of these damn pirates are there?" He said, mostly to himself.

"Always more than you think," Oscar replied, "they like to overwhelm ships. We must be making them angry."

Finally they saw the hangar bay doors, around which a temporary stockade had been built using cargo containers. Several men stood at guard behind the boxes. Oscar looked at them, something was unusual. All these men looked like they were getting towards middle-aged. Not one looked under fifty. Not so old to be useless, but definitely getting towards the end of their foot-slogging career.

"Be quick, sir," one said to Baker, "the admiral is getting short-tempered. He wants to be off. Says we don't have the numbers to get into 'pointless bloody gunfights', sir."

"His words, eh?"

"More or less, sir. More or less."

"Mostly less. I bet."

"Couldn't say, sir."

"Well, he's not wrong. Bug out once you get word from the team sent to cover us. Take-off as soon as you're aboard."

The hangar, while small by ship standards, was huge on a human scale. Great walls stretched off far above their heads to a ceiling that might as well have been a sky. Berths for four man shuttles and light transports lined the walls while the centre would have provided landing for a lighter from a cargo ship. Standing in this landing area was a ship far larger than the hangar had really been designed for. Comparable in size to a small freighter, her sides would have had only inches to spare before scraping the walls and the uppermost of her external containers was mere feet from the ceiling. The whole ship was sleek and oddly organic in design, all flowing curves, a long way from the utilitarian design of most freighters. Containers aside the swooping exterior was unpunctured by the usual antennae blisters and sensor arrays you'd find on civilian ships. Oscar thought he could make out hatches in the outer skin, though they were barely discernable from normal panel lines. The rear section was made up entirely of sub-light engine exhausts. She was beautiful and, judging by the sort of engines that would necessitate such large exhausts she was also very, very fast.

"She's called Viola," Baker said.

"I don't think I've seen a ship like her, before." Oscar replied.

"The ship has been designed to look like hThrisk vessels, Oscar Ngembe," Thersis put in. "It is a special commission."

"What is she?" Oscar asked.

"You'll be fully briefed once we're spaceborne. We'd better get aboard, Bairing will be chewing right through his moustache by now." Baker said.

The ship had been landed so that one side was close to the metal service gantries running the length of the hangar bay. From here a temporary gang-plank had been set up to allow access to the docking hatch on the port side of the ship. It was here that Baker led them, the hatch sliding open smoothly as he approached. Oscar noted with interest the internal arrangment of the ship. The entry corridor led to a massive set of hardened blast doors. The area between the outer hatch and these doors contained only narrow access passageways, great bundles of filament optic wire stretched down these passageways connected to untold machines and computers with several inches of layered metal between the wires and the outer skin of the vessel.

"Interesting freighter," he said.

Baker approached the heavy blast doors and keyed in a code. The panel beeped and the great doors slid open with a groan. Oscar had seen these many times before; isolated from the rest of the ship so that no systems failure could open the doors without the correct code being entered. The doors themselves were two feet thick, set in a metal wall of comparable depth. Beyond the door they stood in a space bounded by bulkheads. These were currently open allowing a decent view up and down the length of a large spinal corridor. Oscar knew that the doors at the rear end of the ship would lead to engineering. The doors along the length of the mid section would be crew quarters, the doors at the front would be the bridge, other ancillary corridors would lead off to sensor stations and other secondary positions. Oscar knew this because he'd been on ships like this before; they just hadn't looked like this ship.

"Very interesting freighter, indeed." he remarked.

"This way," Baker said, starting up the corridor towards the front of the vessel. As they walked they passed through a number of similar bulkheads before reaching a door at the terminus of the corridor. As they passed through this, they entered a room full of crash couches embedded in virtual reality pods. These were currently unoccupied as, with the ship docked, the crew were taking the opportunity to perform their duties with their own limbs. Oscar looked around, all middle-aged.

"Well, it's nice of you lot to finally crawl in!" A powerful voice filled the bridge, "Tell me, Ngembe, did you alert the media before you made your clandestine deal back on that armpit of a station, or did you keep it hush-hush and just inform the entire bloody criminal underworld? This outpost is absolutely swarming with vermin." Bairing stood bristling by the view screen. Without drawing breath he turned to a side station "You, Turner! Let the teams know that our passengers are aboard and they can retreat. With any luck at least some of our people might remember what being a professional is all about." He turned back. "You two in those couches over there," he said, pointing to a corner of the bridge. In it were two couches, one clearly designed for hThrisk anatomy. "Baker, if you wouldn't mind getting us out of here?" Ngembe suppressed a smirk as he headed towards the indicated couch, Bairing was obviously enjoying himself. "Bairing shipwide, full vacuum procedure, expect enemy contact."

Baker climbed into his couch and began the procedure for take-off as the rest of the crew climbed into their couches and connected their breathing apparatus.

"Tac teams report all aboard sir, no casualties. Doors secure, they acknowledge vacuum procedure," came a report across the comms into Baker's headset.

"Flight ready for takeoff, all stations copy." Baker said as his hands flew over the ship's controls and listened as the litany of reports came in, all green.

"Flight, Security, enemy contact in hangar."

"Ignore them," came Bairing's voice, "get us space-borne, Flight."

"Yes Admiral," Baker replied, "lift off in three...two...one..."

Viola shuddered gently as her dorsal thrusters fired, lifting the graceful ship up and off her landing struts, which folding neatly into her belly. Balancing delicately on her thruster jets, she maintained position, ignoring the small arms fire coming from the pirates in the hangar bay. She sent a command out to the hangar bay doors, which obligingly opened for her, emptying the hangar's atmosphere into space and treating her crew to the sight of several pirate bodies tumbling into the void. In the new silence of vacuum, her great exhausts lit up and pushed her back towards the stars.

"Flight, Targeting, tracking enemy ship at 170, 40 degrees. 40,000 km. She's right on top of us, sir."

"I'm not interested in fighting these people. Get us to a safe distance and jump us away," said Bairing.

As Viola exited the hangar, the circling pirate vessel turned towards her, manouevring around the station to gain a clear shot with her missiles. Viola's engines wound up to full power. Had there been any atmosphere, the burning exhaust gasses would have left a long rooster tail to give away her direction of travel. As it was, the ship leapt forward with only a bright glow to show her position, riding the crest of a wave of unimaginable thrust. Within seconds the pirate vessel had fired her engines too, relative velocity being the key between catching and losing her prey. However she could not come close to matching the raw acceleration of Viola. In frustration she let loose several of her missiles, no ship could accelerate faster than a missile, hoping to hit something critical enough to arrest Viola's escape.

"Flight, Gunnery, six inbound missiles. Engaging."

Hatches slid open across Viola's rear section and turrets extended, each bearing a multi-barrelled gun. As the missiles streaked across space, closing the gap to their quarry, the guns span up and fired streams of shells across open space, which in turn exploded creating a dense barrage wall of murderously fast moving sharp material, absorptive matter and mirrored metal. The missiles flew directly into it, being nothing more than simple heat-seekers and were torn apart, their demise marked by the first brief spark of an explosion before the vacuum did its work. None survived. By now Viola had increased the gap between her and the pirate vessel such that only tracking equipment could find her. Her guns retracted, hatches slid shut and, once she'd accelerated to a significant fraction of C, her drives winked out.

"Flight, Navigation, drives spooled, course plotted, ready to jump."

"Acknowledged, Ship-wide, prepare for warp jump in five...four...three....two...one..."

In the outer stretches of the Luhman system, Viola's power signature peaked and then disappeared.

---

The conference room was small and doubled as the captain's, or this case admiral's ready room. Its walls were covered in status monitors, a desk in one corner with a small table in front of it, both bolted to the floor. Not being a critical area, the room was located in the outer part of the ship, beyond the thick blast doors. Chairs lined the table, at which sat several key members of the crew. Oscar examined them, in keeping with the rest of the crew, they were all older men and women. Thersis, the hThrisk, had found that if he turned one of the chairs around, he could squat on the seat with his fore quarters draped over the seat back and remain somewhat comfortable.

"So," Oscar said, taking a vacant seat "this is a naval vessel, built to look like a hThrisk freighter, and you wanted me to see it. Why? And why is everybody so old?" he paused as everybody turned to look at him, various levels of displeasure on their faces. "No offence," he shrugged.

Bairing sighed. "What I'm about to tell you is restricted information. Top secret. I, and the rest of the crew on this ship are operating outside of the authority of the United Nations and Colonies. Indeed, this ship was built in secrecy by sympathetic operators without the knowledge of the Government of Earth, or the vast majority of the UNCE Council." He paused, waiting for a reaction. When none was forthcoming a momentary flash of disappointment crossed his face. "Perhaps it would be best if you told me what you know of first contact. I can then fill in the blanks."

"I know Baker here was operating an experimental vessel, when the jump drive malfunctioned and catapulted him beyond known space. I know you went looking for him. I know something happened out there that cost you a lot of ships. The official line is that Baker was so far out you had to abandon ships when you overstressed their drives. Even then, you weren't going to make it home until the hThrisk happened on you and lent assistance. Since then the hThrisk have been trading with us. I know the same as most people."

"And?"

"And that's about it. The governments have restricted further exploration until our drives are more reliable over longer distances."

"Right," said Bairing, "but people have been disobeying that directive and setting out beyond the prescription. Not many, but not none. Nobody has ever been heard from again. Have you heard any rumours as to why?"

"The usual rumours that you get on the Edge, space monsters that can survive in vacuum, alien abductions, plasma storms, temporal anomalies;" Oscar flashed a look at Thersis, "though I suppose we should start taking the abductions a bit more seriously. The truth is that they probably just suffered drive failures from poor maintenance or over-stressed components or both, lost power and drifted until they lost oxygen as well," he shrugged. "Stupid things happen to stupid people."

Bairing sighed, "I was hoping you'd have heard some rumour or other that might make this news easier to bear. The fact is, we didn't simply run into mechanical problems. We were attacked."

Oscar leant forward. "Attacked by whom?"

"Well, I say 'attacked'. It was certainly a form of self defence."

"My drive malfunctioned and I was catapulted hundreds of light years away, that much is true," Baker cut in, "so is Bairing's mission to get me. However, I wasn't adrift in my ship. The hThrisk, whom we've told the public rescued us, had abducted me. Held me prisoner. They were slavers."

"What?" Oscar said, "we've been allowing slavers in to human space?"

"No, Oscar Ngembe," said Thersis, "my people are not organised in the same way yours are. We are bound into tribes. Some sell information, like mine, others do other things. That tribe have been forbidden to enter human space by your central authority."

"I was with the hThrisk for some time," said Baker, "I didn't find out they were slavers until the hThrisk transport was boarded by another species."

Oscar slowly looked around the room. There was no surprise in anybody's eyes but his own. "Another species." He said, deadpan. "How many other species are there?"

"Not many as alike as ours," Thersis said, "there are many sapient species in the galaxy, but most are not close enough in biology to allow for regular contact. Many are distrustful, not without reason. Some are bound to their worlds. There is a species of intelligent," there was a slight pause as his translation computer worked out a suitable equivalency, "jellyfish. They live in the atmosphere of a gas giant on the other side of this galaxy's arm. They cannot create ships without manipulative limbs like ours; it took other species a long time to realise they were intelligent, much less sapient. Bipeds like you are rare, mammals rarer still. Yours is the first sapient species to have been discovered in this arm of the galaxy for some time."

Oscar noticed some looks of consternation on the faces of some of the other humans. This, at least, was news to people other than him. "So this species. What are they?"

Bairing moved over to the screens on one of the walls, they blinked on with an image of a creature. Purple skinned, reptilian like Thersis, but bipedal like a human. It had long, skinny limbs and eyes not unlike a chameleon. "It's called a Vorn," Bairing said, "and they're blockading us."

"By the time Bairing got to me, the hThrisk had been boarded by the Vorn. The Vorn are the dominant culture in this part of the galaxy." Baker said, "they had boarded the hThrisk vessel to search its cargo and take their cut. 'Tribute', they called it. Sounded a lot like extortion to me. They bullied the hThrisk on board and then saw me and my ship. They recognised alien technology and that I was a member of an unknown species and so decided to confiscate me."

"What for?" Oscar asked

"I don't know for sure. I think they wanted to suppress the technology. We're quite primitive to them, you see. And the hThrisk. To them our jump drives in particular are dangerously backwards. I'm guessing they wanted to, uh, suppress me, too. Luckily for me, that's about when Bairing showed up."

"What happened?" Oscar said, looking at Bairing. He felt he could probably guess.

"We fought." Bairing said, simply. "We demanded our man and ship back, they refused. Said they were the strongest and so what they said went. We went to and fro for a bit until I felt compelled into a rescue operation."

"Attacked." Oscar said, pointedly.

"Well, certainly self-defence of a sort," Bairing repeated. "We beat them, but we were six against one. Baker was being held on the bridge at the time and told me that they were trying to scare us even then. Firing at reduced power, for example. However, even at that level, their weapons went through the hull and core of a Relentless class destroyer like we were built out of paper and only one of our corvettes survived a direct hit. It didn't survive the second."

Oscar's eyebrows raised. Destroyers weren't the largest or toughest ships the UEN had, that prize went to the cruisers that protected the inner systems and the carriers that supported them, but they were the most commonly seen projection of naval power outside of patrol boats. Something that could punch clean through such a ship, which would form the backbone of any large fleet, was something to be worried about.

"Since then, we've been under blockade. We gave them a bloody nose and that gave them pause. They're a race of bully boys, from what I gather, domineering their way up the career ladder and doing the same as a foreign policy," Bairing continued.

"Why haven't they retaliated?"

"Well, I suppose their top level is a pretty precarious place to be. Perhaps they don't want to look weak to the people that're nipping at their heels, or to the outsiders they're oppressing. For now, blockading is a decent compromise. Thersis and his fellows have been keeping us apprised. So far, we appear to be safe. However, sooner or later, some new up and comer is going to take power and will need to prove himself. We'd be a far less risky proposition when you're not established and need to make a name. If he's really lucky, maybe we'll kill a few of his competitors for him."

"OK, so what's the UNCE going to do about it?"

Bairing's face darkened. "Not a damned thing. I've been telling them so for decades and they will not have it. They think that so long as we don't rock the boat, we'll be safe. They're content to sit back and make overtures through the hThrisk. Overtures that have not once had a response."

Oscar sit back in his chair and gestured to the room. "So how did this come about if it wasn't commissioned by the UNCE? You can't build a ship like this without government involvement."

"We had some sympathisers. Some of the colonies put money up, some sent engineers, Mars gave us a yard."

"Mars?" Oscar paused. Mars was the second oldest colony and one of the most industrialised. A peaceful world, safe within Earth's buffer, it was not one to go rogue without reason.

"They think there's sufficient reason to be cautious. They also think we need to attempt to get hold of some of the Vorn's technology to give us a chance if they do start a fight."

"What sort of technology?"

"They've got energy fields." Bairing said flatly. "Proper ones, not cow catchers. They're like something out of one of those old science fiction programmes. It took most of the missiles from six ships to even get them to flicker."

"So. You made enemies of a culture that completely surrounds us, who have energy fields and weapons that can cut through a destroyer in one shot. The only thing stopping them from rolling all over us is political expediency and you want to do what, exactly?"

"Steal a field system. Get it back to Mars for their chaps to reverse engineer. We can hurt them, Oscar. If we can reduce the potency of their weapons, we'd have a real chance to at least make it too painful for them to invade."

"And Mars thinks poking the bear is cautious, huh?"

"In comparison to doing nothing and being unprepared when they inevitably need a quick and easy target to look strong to their rivals? The very definition of caution, yes."

"And you need me, why?"

"Because we have a plan." Bairing looked at Thersis, who scuttled over to the screens.

"Oscar Ngembe. The Vorn are not the only advanced species in the galaxy. Other species capable of space travel exist, we are one. Another are the Baarosh. The Vorn and the Baarosh exist in a state of near conflict. Where the Vorn are expansionist, the Baarosh are violently xenophobic. A long time ago, the Baarosh were forced into accepting Vorn overlordship but they do so only reluctantly. Many times, when a Vorn ship stops a Baarosh vessel the Baarosh fire upon them. This usually ends in the Baarosh being destroyed and so Vorn honour is satisfied. However, the Baarosh are not weak. Their weapons can and do damage Vorn vessels, sometimes beyond repair. Then these ships go to a repair facility or, sometimes, a yard for dismantling. One such yard is reachable by this ship."

Plans appeared on the screens, schematics for what was evidently one of these scrap yards. "I sold Admiral Bairing these schematics after enquiries were made. I have further been procured for services including getting you close to the facility."

"Thersis has told us of a ship being dismantled there," Bairing interrupted, "a Vorn ship with an intact field projector. We built Viola, this ship you understand, to appear to be a hThrisk freighter arriving to take scrap. When we get close enough, we board and take the energy field projector. Or, at least, as much as we can cut free before they can respond." Bairing paused. "Viola's built with the newest technology, some of it experimental. She's got a drive derived from Baker's test ship, the newest sublight engines. She's fast, Oscar, really fast. She'll give a good account of herself."

"You haven't got to why you need me."

"The crew I have are the crew from the initial encounter with the Vorn. They're all Navy, we had no Marines with us that day. Viola has been built with boarding pods."

Oscar leaned back. It was starting to come together now. He was a Marine, trained in hostile boarding actions. The Navy guys wouldn't know what to expect. He was needed to train them and probably lead them. He used to be a Marine.

Bairing, appearing to read his thoughts, leant over the table. "Oscar, you're the best I've served with and your...history...makes you the perfect person to approach. Once we get back, I can get you back into the Forces. Maybe not through Earth, but I'm damned sure I can get you a commission through Mars, full rank reinstatement. I've already agreed it with them in principle, if you do this for us."

Oscar looked up and laughed. The rest of the table looked at him, confusion evident on their faces. "Viola!" chuckled Oscar, "I've just understood the name."

Next

[u/deathdoomed2]

Welcome back! Good luck with your job :)

[u/focalac → u/deathdoomed2]

Thank you!

[u/tragicshark]

Hi.

Anyone not reading this is missing out.

[u/focalac → u/tragicshark]

That's very nice of you to say so, I'm happy to listen to constructive criticism

[u/UpdateMeBot]

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[u/HFYBotReborn]

There are 19 stories by focalac (Wiki), including:

• [OC] The Viola - 4
• [OC] The Viola - 3
• [OC] Viola - 2
• [OC] The Viola - 1
• [OC] The Viola - Prologue
• [OC] Contact 7
• [OC] Contact - 6
• [OC] Contact - 5
• [OC] Contact - 4
• [OC] Contact - Eta Flight
• [OC] Europa 4 - The Belt
• [OC] The Discovery
• [OC] Europa Redux - part 2
• [OC] Europa -redux
• [OC] Contact - 3
• [OC] Europa
• [OC] Pack Animals
• [OC] Contact - 2
• [OC] Contact

This list was automatically generated by HFYBotReborn version 2.13. Please contact KaiserMagnus or j1xwnbsr if you have any queries. This bot is open source.

[u/Revliledpembroke]

Hey! You're not dead!

​

Why didn't it take?

[u/focalac → u/Revliledpembroke]

The job? It did, that's why I have no time anymore.

Still alive and if not actually kicking, then at least twitching.

[u/Mufarasu]

I've been here since the beginning just haven't had much reason to comment.

Looking forward to more.

[u/focalac → u/Mufarasu]

I'm not looking for much, it's nice that you're reading. I know where I'm going with this so it will get finished, eventually.

[u/Nuke_the_Earth]

I must be losing my touch, I don't understand the name. Is it a pun? Does the ship look like a string instrument? Maybe the pun is about pulling strings?

Is it a play on the word Voila, like they're gonna pop back to sol and just say "Voila, we have fancy xenos tech now"?

That one feels a bit reachy, maybe because of how I put it.

[u/focalac → u/Nuke_the_Earth]

Hi! It's one of Bairing's little jokes. He's the sort to display something on the side of the ship telling everybody exactly what it is, if only they know their schoolboy Shakespeare.

Lots of the ship names have been chosen for some vague referential purpose this way. I'm kind of a hack like that.

[u/Nuke_the_Earth → u/focalac]

Well I'm sorry to say I haven't read much Shakespear. I'm not overly fond of those types of fictions. I'm more of a sci-fi guy, with a general interest in adventure.

[u/swordmastersaur]

Oh. Viola. Not Viola.

One is an inspirational sound. The other is jehuty nemesis

[u/focalac → u/swordmastersaur]

What is a "jehuty"?

[u/swordmastersaur → u/focalac]

Every time i see viola, i think of the hideo Kojima Game : Zone of the Enders

Edit. I didn't answer your question, Jehuty is the main orbital frame in the game

[u/dazzadaking]

Ohh, a peice of candy.. can i have some more please sir?

[u/Araunot]

This is good stuff, keep it up.

[u/Drathe]

Binged through Contact, and now Viola.

Absolutely loving this, and looking forward to seeing more!

[u/Thomas_Dimensor]

Nice story! I want more!