Komi steered her shuttle into the large hangar of the station, which had been a flourishing trading center some time ago, now a shadow of it’s former self. The engines were working at full speed when she docked at the cold bridge, exceeding the speed limit for regular docking operations.
The rusty hatch of the shuttle opened and against the backdrop of many people hurriedly loading ships, 4 officers stood out and orderly ran towards the shuttle.
“What luck, finally someone to clean up the mess” The young officer, about her age with a few stars on his shoulder greeted Komi respectfully. “You’ve been briefed on the situation?”
She nodded, suddenly aware that she was not informed at all. The only thing she knew was that a whole fleet of pirates had taken the station under fire and the shields were already getting dangerously low. It had been no problem to lurk around the other side of the station and bypass the fleet with her shuttle, but the problems were yet to come.
“Come with us, please.”
The four officers and their delicate accompaniment made their way through the hangar without regard for the civilians who were now and then forcibly driven away.
After a few minutes, they reached the station’s control center.
“How fortunate that DammFam sent someone like you. We’ve been waiting a long time for some commander to be assigned to the station.”
The sergant handed her a headset, which she inserted into her ear at the same time. A clear command sounded through the cold rush of the plug. The “voice” of the fleet commander capsuleer -or whatever translated his thoughts into the audiowaves- sounded clear and muffled like straight out of a recording studio.
“Hey Komi, Please send us all the data we need and try to buy the response fleet more time.”
“Yes, but…”
“No time. You know what to do. Use the station’s defense systems. We’re counting on you.”
She suddenly felt a great tension in the pit of her stomach. This was too much responsibility and too fast. She looked at the faces of the crew, awaiting an order, a commander. Her military training flushed before her eyes.
As a new council member of her alliance, she was now high up in the command structure, and she knew that these people would follow her every order. And she also knew that she could not get out of this situation and that she had to act.
We are not only responsible for what we do, but also for what we do not do.
After she had composed herself to some extent, and the crew of the control room had looked at her worriedly long enough, she gave the first orders:
Immediately, the relieved crew set about blindly carrying out her orders, for now they could do what they did best with robotic efficiency.
“Please put a tactical overview on my screen. Send everything we know to the fleet.”
The red dots were seemingly everywhere like a flowering vine that wrapped around the entire station. They couldn’t possibly all be ships. No, after looking at the data, she knew exactly what they were.
“Sergeant, please ignore the pirate ships and lock on to all these small targets. We will destroy their drones to gain some time. Get the interceptors ready to support our fleet when they get here.”
to be continued…