The ship was a beauty. Surely if anyone of them had a chance, it was the Surill. All that was needed was to make it through the pass. They just had to make it back to the outpost, to the floodgate. Then they could jump and make it back to warn someone. There were only four of them left.
The clunky hunter frigate was in the rear, spurring fumes out of its exhaust ports. Old world analog motor pushing it along at subspeeds. It was large and bulky, filled with cargo and an extensive human crew. Next there were two civilian ships. They were both small and modern, with domed viewports and sleek curved edges. They flew side by side, almost two thirds faster than the frigate, with ion lines trailing behind. Up front was the Surill.
It was odd for a ship to be community property, but the Surill wasn't ordinary. The crew had banded together, after their team had been laid off of a large research vessel. Their combined savings was just enough to scrape together a bid, and much to their joy, they had won. The crew had decided to pay it forward, and use the Surill to help civilians whenever they could. The ship wasn't much to look at in the beginning, luckily the crew was stocked with high calibre builders. Today it was heavily reinforced, engines capable of matching blackmarket race speeds, sustainable solar power generators, the works.
Earlier in the week they had joined a scouting party, sixty ships in total. They were investigating the disappearance of numerous vessels around the rings of Saturn. Mostly merchant ships, but some naval forces as well. As the group of ships approached the debris from the latest battle, the radar system on the Surill began to screech. From behind the rocks, hurtling in orbit around the large planet, thousands of small ships began to pour toward them. Half of the scouting party were cut down in minutes, before the official retreat could be sounded. A small line of them made an escape. A streak against the darkness of space, as their engines whined, struggling to keep them away from the buzzing enemy fleet behind them. The dark ships slowly chewed through their numbers, moving up through the line.
The floodgate was their only chance, and the Surrill was approaching it now. The red swirl from the ring of tech components, linked together with coiled wire, captivated the eye. By all calculations they would reach the jump before their ship was overtaken. The three behind them, however, wouldn't be so lucky.
And so it was put to a vote, and true to form of the crew of the Surill, they voted unanimously. Small grins poked the corners of gritted teeth as the ship swung forward, spinning a half circle with dead engines before firing directly back the way it had came. With an expert hand the Surill weaved narrowly between the two civilian ships. Gaining speed, it ripped toward the frigate, whose tail now just a few feet from the mass of eager black ships gnawing behind. At the last moment the Surill tipped up, flicking its nose, scratching a long scrape down the front of the frigate as its engines barely managed to clear. Once the frigate had passed, the Surill spun to its broadside, and unloaded a salvo of explosives. It hardly made a speck against the incoming horde. The self destruct system had already been activated, and it detonated soon after. The following explosion was much larger than the missiles had been. The shockwave of dust and debris from the Surill blasted outwards in a circle. It had a twofold effect, scattering the horde backward, and bumping the frigate. The old world ship picked up speed in the cloud of dust, tilting and swaying against the strain of high speeds. It shot forward until it was just behind the civilian vessels and the three surviving scouts plunged through the red floodgate together, before it flickered off into cold darkness.
The folks from the civilian ships, legend has it, became entrepreneurs and philanthropists, making great contributions in the coming wars. In the years that followed the frigate kept to the front lines, helping to provide relief whenever possible. The frigate would wear the scrapes left by the Surill as a badge of honour. The marks of a selfless act that saved them all, a debt that could never be repaid.
Comments (0)
See all