Chapter 5: Sa'Alment

"Dear Roger," the letter Wilhelm was writing into his data pad read, "We are doing well, and hope you are too. We've managed to sink two Sa'arm scouts so far, using six torpedoes and without being detected once, which leaves us with another 42 shots. We are now heading for a star which has a known Sa'arm infestation. We won't be clearing it out — we don't have the arms for that — but we can at least make them regret the day they chose this system. Please look after your sister as best you can, and give Freida all our love. Your mother misses both of you terribly, but it will be only a little while longer. I doubt if we will be on station too much longer at the rate we're expending our supply of missiles. Please make sure Freida has found herself a nice boy to father her first child."

He looked over at the other table, where a spirited game of acey-deucy was underway. The traditional navy game was played by all hands on board Archerfish without regard to rank or status, and right now Chief Radioman's Mate Chuck Hurst was battling it out against Operations Specialist Ken Wach's concubine Francesca for the honour of ship's champion. And losing quite badly, it should be noted.

The feminine voice of Charlie, the ship's AI, interrupted Wilhelm's thoughts. 'Captain Koenig, you wanted to be informed when we were one hour away from scheduled arrival at Sa'Alment. We are now one hour away.'

'Yes, thank you.' He closed the letter with a flourish of his signature and headed up to the CIC to relieve Sam.

In the CIC, Sam was somewhat bored. At supraluminal speed, there just wasn't anything that routinely happened. Mind you, he had no desire to be at supraluminal speed if anything non-routine happened. It had a distressing tendency to just ruin your whole day.

He acknowledged the arrival of his Captain with the pronouncement, "All systems nominal, Skipper." He vacated the command chair.

"Very good. Charlie, broadcast to all compartments."

"Ready, Captain."

"All hands, we are now fifty-five minutes from arrival time at Sa'Alment. Sound General Quarters. All hands to battle stations. Don battle armour, all compartments set Condition One." With that, the urgent BONG-BONG-BONG of the general quarters klaxon echoed through the ship.

Forward of the CIC, Gunner's Mate Sheila Smith and her concubine Charles quickly donned their battle suits and took their stations at the launch and reload workstations. After plugging themselves in and strapping themselves into the acceleration chairs, Sheila activated the weapons, warming them up in case instant firing was needed. Charles confirmed that the tubes were drained of atmosphere and the outer doors were ready to open. On both panels, all six tubes showed red.

In the CIC, Ensign Greene, as green as his name, took over the steering controls and began his checklist.

Finally, every sensor quivering and every external light off, the tiny black ship re-entered normal space.

Yes, they'd found Sa'arm.

"Captain, Navigator. Encroachment, dead ahead! Very large!" Ensign Greene's voice held a note of panic.

"I see it!" roared a startled Koenig, as the second-largest known class of Sa'arm ship filled the CIC's forward bulkhead screen. "Weapons!"

"Confirmed as a Sa'arm hive ship! Volumna Class! Distance point blank!"

"Opening outer tube doors." Charles didn't wait for the order. The doors snapped open, and six telltales glowed green on Sheila's board.

"Ready to fire all tubes!"

"Jesus H. Christ, FIRE! All tubes! Greene, as soon as the fish are away, get us the hell out of here."

"Firing all tubes!"

As the rumble of the missiles leaving the launch tubes reverberated through the ship, Greene searched for someplace to be. Any place. Behind that space rock to the right, up 20?

"That should work for now," the Captain concurred. "Ready to engage the second the last fish leaves its tube."

"All missiles away!" reported Sheila.

"Reload all tubes. Mr. Greene, NOW would not be too soon."

Archerfish banked to starboard, rising 20 degrees from the ecliptic to hide behind the blessed safety of a large asteroid. At that moment, the first of six missiles entered the reaction chamber of one of the Volumna Class hive ship's main engines. The first missile punched its way through the forward end of the chamber, causing a sudden and dramatic fall in acceleration as part of the force being generated in the reaction chamber began pressing forward into various compartments of the ship instead of being channelled aft.

The internal effect, unseen and unseeable by Archerfish's sensors, was as if a giant blowtorch was loosed on board. The flame cut rapidly through to the compartment immediately in front of the combustion chamber: fuel storage. Subsequent missiles slammed through the shattered combustion chamber and into other vital parts of the hive ship, but the first one did the necessary damage. The hive ship exploded in a silent inferno that put a dozen Fourth of July celebrations to shame. If Archerfish did nothing else in her career, she had now justified the expenditure of every resource the Confederacy had spent on her existence.