The Ghost of the William Clark Part 1: The Death of the William Clark
All Hands, All Hands, Abandon Ship. Life Pod Auto Ejection will occur when structural integrity scans are below 20% Viable. All Hands, repeating.
Klaxons, buzzers, and bells emphasized the inflamed red letters glowing upon the various wrist and eyewear devices of every crew member of the CSV William Clark. The hull cracked and hissed as hyper-accelerated rounds of tungsten tore through. The ship's onboard systems took over the task of evasive maneuvers and every other still-functioning system critical to the survival of the remaining crew. The control bridge was cleared, and the last of the crew were near or in life pods. Operations Chief Timothy Vest, the pseudo-captain of this science vessel, was alone and still operating the Engineering Control Board, keeping the passages clear and venting smoke from areas the crew had to cross. Through death's valley to safety into the great darkness. The oddity of the thought, the calm in the calamity, was jarring given the context. The first thud of a completed ejection sequence gave him hope; maybe some of them would survive.
The two corvette-class ships, retrofitted and ill-fitted gunships, had been hiding among the belt of asteroids and unique silicate sand after having likely gotten word from an earlier supply and fuel depot that the William Clark had been en route to survey this region. They had departed the company of the CSV-10 Bound For North Freighter group three days prior, stopping only once at the required checkpoint before entering the belt. Aptly named the Mirrored Ban, this space, with its asteroids and floating waves of sand, reflected light with such luminosity that it looked like waves of light upon the white-capped river. The particles and larger objects all silently moving in a uniform flow in orbit around the dim terrestrial orb, roughly the size of Sol's Mars, where it is beautiful at any distance in its sparkling refraction and reflection.
But they also reflected and scattered LiDAR, Radar, and all other modern sensing equipment. Projecting images of objects, ships, just like a mirror. And it was this unique feature that made it worth studying and marked it deadly like the bands of a venomous snake. Sensors could not be trusted, so when the reflections in the mirror fired the first volley, the William Clark was doomed. If Mark Barnes had not been a capable pilot, a short hauler experienced in flying by sight, they'd have all been dead. He'd seen the blue glare among the river of white from the pirate cannons and performed a course override; the first round pierced the hull only a foot from the ship's reactor core. A little to the left, and they'd pierced the heart of William Clark. Barnes only bought them time. Time enough to launch a signal flare, time enough for a distress beacon, and time enough to initiate the evacuation orders when the weapon systems failed to find their marks and the second volley of pirate cannons ripped and gouged the thinly armored hull. The critical systems control board began to whistle a trilling warning of cascading failures.
“Vest, this is Barnes.” The remarkable calm of Barnes’ voice blistered through the in-ear radio, and, surprised by the calm in his own voice, he responded. “Go for Vest.”
“Our orientation is wrong. If we eject now, we will be on a direct course to an asteroid. We didn’t get a good scan on the hardness of these things.”
“Copy, I’ll rotate 40 degrees; how's that look?”
Barnes could be heard counting, doing the math vocally: “yeah, yeah that’ll do it. I think, I can’t see if the damn thing is moving or if we are running parallel. No time, and might not matter. Vest, that rotation.” he struggled for a moment “it puts you reactor up to the assholes putting holes in the ship.”
“I know.”
“Good luck and get out soon,” Barnes signaled with a sigh, and the radio returned to silence; in that moment, he could hear the anxiety, the fear, rising in Barnes' voice. “Good luck to you too, and fate be as it is” Vest said to the air in his suit, as near on a prayer as a statement. He scrambled to the navigation console and triggered the rotational thrusts. At 33 degrees, a counter-rotation kicked in to stabilize orientation. At 40 degrees, like an actor hitting the stage cue, the thud of a completed ejection sequence marked escape and the potential to hope for survival of his friends and crewmates. Vest smiled, potential for hope.
The William Clark shook and shuddered in its death rattle. The Pirates, seeing the opportunity and being the opportunistic predators they were, fired a fourth volley. They, too, must be without computerized firing; the arc of the tungsten rod collided with a brilliantly reflecting asteroid, dissolving it into a glistening glitter of diamonds that scattered 99% of the photons that struck them. Laws of motion carried the rod ever forward, now with an entourage of the brilliant light before striking the ship. The lights dimmed, the console darkened, reawakened, gasped, and dimmed. The output on his wrist device sputtered and struggled. A three-toned bell sounded at the Engineering Control Board—radiological warnings. Gravity was failing, pushing from the navigation console, he drifted, half-scrambled, to the Control Board. Lights and console gasping for life, the reactor had been hit. Not directly. A glancing blow, not enough to outright kill the William Clark, but effectively it was now bleeding out, seeping its life energy into the internal structure as its ability to maintain fusion slowly failed.
User should evacuate.
A warning protocol? The wrist device flashed each word with a buzz, something from the ship's internal protocols, maybe a primitive code set?
Life Pod Three, ready. Integral scans at 22.3%.
Vest oriented himself to the corridor leading to the life pod, a short five-step skip. With the gasping, gravity came and went in varying degrees; in one exceptional moment, Vest was brought face-first to the floor and mistakenly braced himself with his hand. The pain and popping sound from his wrist were excruciating and brief. Immediately, the gravity failed back to a low and off state, with the ship's automated systems continuing to attempt to be as difficult a target as possible, and he, being untethered, was left stationary as the ship moved in an orientation that was down to him. The thud of his back striking the ceiling and its numerous tubes and protruding accents left a dull ache. What should have been five steps away became a painful, slow, and careful drift. Half walking, half drifting, nursing his broken wrist, Vest made his way to the life pod in the flickering dim as the scittering hiss sound of the beautifully reflective sand and tungsten collided with the ship.
Integral scans 20.8%. Auto ejection imminent. Move to any available life pod immediately.