One Word Prompts 2020

Rocket - The Starship Luminary

"Shield status!" Captain Stella Momota of Starship Luminary shouted as her ship shook under the impact of the enemy's rocket barrage. She held tight to the arms of her chair as the spaceship lurched hard right.

"I don't think we can take another hit, captain," Tubman, the engineer on deck monitoring the engine room's update feed, replied. He was a Bairgian, with coarse black fur and a hulking form. But despite his intimidating appearance, he was the best engineer in all of Starfleet. He regularly pulled off the impossible, fixing, replacing, or wholesale constructing a miracle for the Starship Luminary and her crew. He'd gotten her out of more than one dire scrape and—assuming they survived this particular adventure—likely would come to her rescue again.

But, if he said the ship couldn't take another hit, she had better believe the ship couldn't take another.

"How long until we have thrusters?" she asked. If they had no shields she needed to start considering fleeing. She didn't like it. Running left a bad taste in her mouth. "And how far out is the convoy?"

It had begun—as a great number of the Luminary's missions did—as a fairly simple mission: Escort a merchant ship from the Danpa system to Rom-gan. It had been smooth sailing, the Luminary's solar sails catching excellent solar waves, preserving a great deal of her rocket fuel.

However, they hadn't expected to get jumped by raiders as they left the Epsilon-3 quadrant. It had been a nonstop firefight since with the Luminary covering the merchant convoy's escape as best as she could.

"The convoy just initiated stage 3 of in preparation for emergency warp, captain," Hissess, the science officer, a reptilian Serpex lady with red scales and yellow eyes, answered from her console behind the captain. "They are a little over 100 paces out. The pre-warp acceleration should have them at 450 from our current position when they make the jump."

"Thrusters ready, captain," Mee-Aows, the pilot, a younger feline Falbrin, added. "But the Luminary isn't agile enough even with them to do anything too fancy. I don't know if I can dodge a full salvo."

"And our rockets?" the captain asked.

"Haven't made even a blip on their shields, captain," Kars, the weapons specialist, a long-eared Rapit woman, answered gravely.

The captain scowled, thinking fast. They needed to buy another couple minutes for the merchant ship to finish its warp. If they jumped away now, their Starfleet engines would warp them away long before the convoy could get out and the raiders would have no trouble picking off the slower merchant. Her crew would be safe, but the merchant ship would undoubtedly perish.

She cursed under her breath, this was no time to be messing around. Her back might be up against the wall, but it was too early to be even considering leaving her charge behind.

But what else could she do? In their exchange of blows, only the Luminary was taking damage. Another exchange, no matter how valiant, and it would be not only the merchant ship left adrift out here.

There had to be something. A convenient field of asteroids to dodge through. A gas cloud to ignite. A black hole to use as a slingshot for extra speed.

Last-minute reinforcements?

No. It was only the Luminary out here. The space was empty, and even had there been something to dodge behind, the raiders would just ignore the Luminary for the less maneuverable merchant ship anyway.

"Captain, what—" Tubman asked, the despair in his voice rising.

She cut him off, a flash of inspiration breaking like the dawn. "How many rockets are in the enemy's salvos, Kars?"

She frowned, flipping through the logs. "The maximum size from what we've seen is twelve, ma'am."

"And our salvo size?"

"Captain!" Kars exclaimed. "You aren't suggesting!"

"But I am, Kars, do you think you can do it?"

"But we can only fire ten at a time, even if I had the skill to intercept the enemy's missiles with our own, that still leaves two!"

"Well, Mee-Aows? Does that sound like a number our Luminary can maneuver around?"

The Falbin winced. "I don't know captain. That's still not a lot of room for error."

She didn't answer that concern directly, instead turning to her oldest friend on deck. "Well, Tubman. When you said the shields wouldn't take one more, how serious is it? One more and we go boom? Or one more and the shields go down permanently?"

The old engineer frowned, looking through the logs on his console. "I'd expect damage, Stell. I can't recommend letting us get hit. But, if it was just one, we'd probably still be able to warp out of here."

"Well, Mee-Aows?" Stella asked her pilot. "Assuming you just need to dodge one?"

The Falbin scowled. "Yeah, I could probably do it, assuming Kars succeeds in shooting down the rest, but—"

Stella shook her head. "This is the Starship Luminary. We don't run and leave civilians behind to die."

Mee-Aows sighed, looking away from their captain with a mix of shame and pride in their dark eyes. "Of course, captain."

"Then, everyone ready," Stella called, her eyes going to the big monitor displaying the space around the ship. "As soon as you see their next salvo, Kars—"

"Eye, eye, captain," she said, already calculating launch angles for as many potential scenarios she could think of on the console before her.

She watched as the enemy ship crept closer, reducing the distance to maximize the damage dealt with this next attack, no doubt.

She watched—

"Stella!" a woman's voice dispelled the spaceship back to its component cardboard.

Stella Momota spun around to stick her head out the back folds of the cardboard box that made up the majority of the "Starship Luminary", knocking into Hissess, the stuffed snake plush, from her "science officer" stool.

"Mom!" Stella yelled, "We were just about to win!"

"I'm sorry, sweetie," her mother said, looking down at the six-year-old Stella and her small crew of stuffed friends. "But, it's time for bed. Grab Mr. Tubs and the others. You can pick up your adventure tomorrow."

Stella pouted, but Stella Momota, Captain of Starship Luminary, knew when she'd met an opponent she couldn't beat. So, with a slew of dejected glances her mother's way, she collected up her stuffed snake Hissess, her rabbit Carrots, her kitty Meows, and her oldest friend, a teddy bear named Mr. Tubs.

She sighed as her mother tucked her into her comforters, tucking Mr. Tubs in right next to her.

It was fine, she decided as she stared up at the glow-in-the-dark planets and stars taped to the ceiling above her bed. Because, of course, Kars succeeded in shooting down ten of the enemy's rockets. And, of course, Mee-Aows's fast reflexes pulled the ship out of the way of one of the remaining two rockets.

But, what no one expected was the last one, the one that snuck through all the Luminary's countermeasures, hit the ship just wrong. It hit the warp drive, destabilizing it just wrong.

None of them, not even Tubman, detected the damage. They thought they'd successfully bought the minute the merchant needed to warp out. Watched as the merchant jumped to safety.

They spun up their own drive.

It engaged, just like it should have.

Yet, the warp fractured around the ship as it entered the jump. Where did the Luminary get sent?

Captain Stella and Chief Engineer Tubman could only guess, as they stood alone on the surface of a strange planet under strange stars.

Could only guess where tonight's adventure would take the two of them.