In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 28: The Clock Runs Out

Captain Meyer was on the radio the second White Onyx Devastator reverted from FTL. "Unknown corvette, you are engaged in an attach against a Teton Sector vessel. Stand down immediately or you will be fired upon." He was not wasting any time.

Missiles had stopped flying toward Garden Variety Animal. Whether that was because the pirates had run out or because of the warship's appearance, Tyrone didn't know. He didn't really care that much either, except that it would be better if they had run out. Joseph had done a fine job of shooting them down, but now he hoped they could relax and let the warship do the fighting.

"Impressive-looking, isn't she?" Joseph added an image of the new arrival to their collection of items displayed on the windshield.

Tyrone nodded. "You'd have to be a fool to disagree." That sentiment was partly the result of the precarious place they were in until her arrival, but it was true anyway. White Onyx Devastator had the arrowhead shape characteristic of Teton Sector assault ships. The configuration was favored for that purpose because it allowed most of a vessel's weapons to be aimed at a single target, while making the propulsion systems housed at the rear difficult to attack.

The exact shapes used to implement that design varied widely, and the Devastator was a classic, elegant variation. Four smooth, flat triangular planes formed the bulk of the hull, with sharp edges at the intersections. Tyrone spotted the bridge, placed in the ship's nose just like Garden Variety Animal's cockpit. Of course, the bridge was substantially larger. Many gun emplacements, the only breaks in the smooth hull, stood out to him as well. The warship boasted more in one of the four hull planes than the corvette had in its entirety.

"They really did come out as close as they could," Joseph said. "I knew they were, but that's not the same as seeing it. I hope they didn't miscalculate, or they could knock the corvette into the Comet."

Many possible reasons for that decision occurred to Tyrone, only two of them being particularly good. It left the possibility of ramming the corvette if it attacked immediately, and at such close quarters the pirates couldn't use missiles without the detonations hurting themselves. Hopefully Captain Meyer was correct in thinking they weren't willing to do that. The warship could weather such an attack, but the Comet would be blown away.

The corvette didn't attack immediately, the pirates apparently frozen with indecision. Indecision was not what the Devastator had requested. Captain Meyer was not going to accept anything less than surrender. As the warship approached the pair of damaged spacecraft, the crew made good on their initial threat.

Shells from the multitude of guns announced their presence by exploding against the rear section of the corvette. The pirates at least had the sense to bring their shields back online, but they wouldn't protect them for long. After a few seconds of shelling the pirates returned fire.

The Devastator's radio officer spoke again, using the encoded link to Garden Variety Animal instead of the captain's general hail. "The captain recommends you take shelter behind us until the pirates are neutralized," she said. "If you approach the fight the pirates might try to destroy you out of spite, and you've been shot at enough for one day. If you're able to stick around we could use your help cleaning up."

"Alright, we'll be happy to lend a hand." Tyrone was already changing course. He didn't need any additional prompting to stay out of the line of fire.

"Nice of them to offer us somewhere to hide," Joseph said once the microphone was muted again.

"We've needed that for at least three hours now," Tyrone agreed.

"We could have stayed behind the dwarf planet. That just wouldn't have helped the Comet or the Devastator. If it were only us, that's probably what we would've done."