Twinks in Space: Destination Unknown - Part One - 16. Chapter 16 - Attack

“What type of ship is this?” Lyoth asked Fonith.

She smiled at him. “One of my own design, the Cometskipper is part cruiser, part cargo ship, part pleasure vessel, part battleship, and everything I need!” Fonith patted the inner bulkhead affectionately.

Her ship raced through the void toward the empty space where they thought the starship Ulaa-Lah might be headed, and the secret base in the dark system nearby. Before leaving the oasis planet, they had informed the others who were remaining in Boullia Bay of their plans. Lyoth and Phentrom also packed up all the clothing everyone at Her Majesty’s Hole donated.

They had been traveling at 11.6 light speed for almost three hours when an alarm suddenly blared to life.

Fonith leapt into action. “We’ve picked up a gravitational mine!”

“But those things are illegal!” Phentrom yelled.

“Stawren, turn off that racket,” Fonith ordered, and she pointed. “Behind that panel, it’ll be blinking; just hit the button.”

Stawren obeyed and the ship became quiet again.

“What can I do?” Lyoth asked.

“Nothing,” Fonith replied through her teeth, “not if we get hit while traveling through hyperspace, but if I can drop us out and activate the rear energy shield at max, we should be okay.” She feverishly entered data into her terminal and ordered her computer, “Initiate!”

The explosion behind them detonated as the Cometskipper reentered normal-space, and it rocked the ship. Fonith was the only one seated, and the other three fell to the floor. A separate alarm began beeping.

“Godsdammit,” Fonith spat, turning off the warning noise, “asteroid marauders are closing in from two directions. How bad are you three hurt?” Without awaiting their replies, she commanded, “Stawren and Lyoth, you need to operate the cannons from the upper deck. Take the ladder,” and she nodded toward it.

They jumped to their feet and ascended as quickly as they could.

“Is there something I can do?” Phentrom asked Fonith.

“Yes, get on that secondary terminal and read off everything that’s malfunctioning.”

He obeyed. “Cavitation engine is failing; its meter is dropping. Also, it looks like the rear shields did activate in time, but the mine took them down to 12.83%.”

“What else?”

“It says that gravitation is on the fritz in the cargo bay, and it looks like the CO2 scrubbers aren’t working down there.”

Fonith punched more information into her primary console. She leaned back and yelled towards the ladder, “Stawren, those ships will be in range in less than two minutes!”

Phentrom gasped. “This says all your weapon systems are off-line!” He turned to Fonith with wide eyes. “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing’s working!” Stawren shouted down.

“I know; I’m working on it!” Fonith hollered back. “Come on, come on!” The second beeping alarm started ringing again.

“Not another! There’s a third ship,” Fonith shouted. She looked at Phentrom. “The shield won’t withstand any more damage from the back, so I’ve rerouted its remaining power to the side shields, but there’s another ship approaching from directly in front of us.”

“Are our forward shields working?”

Fonith did not reply.

The ships on either side had started firing and the massive blaster bolts began bursting against the energy shields on the Cometskipper’s port and starboard sides.

A green light blinked to life in front of Phentrom.

“Do I need to do something with this?”

Fonith did not look up, but she replied, “No, one of the three ships is trying to hail us, and I’ll be honest, I don’t really want to talk to them.” She was furiously inputting information into her computer.

The light continued to blink.

“Maybe if we answer, we can negotiate a ceasefire,” Phentrom said.

Fonith did not respond.

“Now,” she whispered to herself, and she screamed, “open fire!”

Both cannons from her upper deck launched pulse energy at the ships on either side. As the blasts traveled farther through space, they expanded to massive webs of electrons, each of which collided with a ship and dismantled its power systems.

The two drained vessels floated silent in the blackness of space.

“What were those?” Phentrom asked.

“Power siphons.” In the stillness and quiet, with explosions no longer rocking the Cometskipper, Fonith took a deep breath. “I often use them when bringing in a bounty. It allows me to deal with whoever’s on a ship at my leisure. Now that both of them are incapacitated indefinitely, we can focus on the one headed straight for us. Go ahead and hit that green button.”

Phentrom obeyed, and a rather startled-looking man appeared on the screen. Before he could speak, Fonith addressed him.

“Asteroid marauder, I am the bounty hunter Yxolium Bhanshu Fonith. You don’t know it yet, but all of you are already dead.” Her voice was like ice.

“M-madame Fonith,” the man stuttered, but she did not let him speak.

“You made a grave mistake, targeting me, and your days of praying upon the weak are ended. Your two companion ships have lost complete control, and everyone onboard will die in the cold void as the thermodynamics of the universe seep the life from the vessels. You, unlucky sir, will be utterly forgotten.”

“Madame Fonith, we didn’t know it was you, ma’am!”

“Your lack of prior knowledge won’t save you,” she continued coldly, “and do not speak to me as if we’re in any way comparable. You are the villainy I hunt, and I don’t mind a little pro bono work once in a while.”

Fonith turned to another console and hit a button that fired a cannon bolt from the nose of the Cometskipper. It blazed through space and penetrated the opposing ship with a tremendous but silent explosion. A fireball spread through zero gravity with the fluidity of water, but the lack of oxygen instantly extinguished the flames, and the ruined debris floated in the void. Fonith launched two more blasts at the slowly freezing ships off the Cometskipper’s port and starboard sides. They were obliterated, and all the scanners were clear.