Nebula of the Fallen

Nothing was on the viewscreen but the blackness of space. Science fiction simulations made us think that space was filled with vast, colorful skies and perhaps when our space warping technology becomes sophisticated enough, that will be true. Today, on our bridge, there was nothing but the stars and a seemingly infinite darkness in which our foe lurked.

We on the island of our starship were lucky, not much of the damage from the initial torpedo barrage had impacted us. Some of our holographic displays were down and our lighting flickered, but our analog displays and AR systems were still up. Other parts of the ship weren't as lucky. You could see atmosphere venting from the hull when our viewer would catch sight of the ship. Some of the breaches had finally exhausted while others still burned as damage control teams tried to recover as much materiel and personnel from the struck areas as they could.

“Fighter squadrons are still reporting no signs of the attackers,” the CAG reported to our captain. You could hear her anxiety in delivering that report but it wasn't unexpected. LIDAR hadn't detected anything out there. And yet...

“They have to be coming from somewhere. Bombers and torpedoes don't just come out of nowhere. I don't care what newfangled technology the Republicans are throwing at us, they still have to be working off some strategy. That will be their weakness,” our captain said. Captain Simon was one of the most brilliant tactical officers in the Navy. She was a veteran of the war between the Solar Alliance and the Ares Republic. When Republican forces began to attack Alliance worlds, she was the obvious choice to command the Vigilant fleet.

Our operations specialist, unlike our captain, seemed trumped, “But there are no radio signals or anything of the sort that we can detect. How are they directing the torpedoes at us?”

“They have to be doing something because they are tracking our ships as they move and tearing our fleet apart!” Captain Simon quickly replied. She gave a sigh as she tried to regain her cool.

Frustration was beginning to set in on the bridge and hang over us like a dark cloud. I resorted to my tactic when the pressure was getting too great for me. I looked out into the stars. Even two years in space, the stars were still amazing to me. Seemingly timeless giants from my prospective. Twenty light years from Sol and you could still recognize some of the cosmic structures that had shaped our history. Constellations like Orion and Ursa Major, which guided ancient travelers who sailed the sea, could still be seen from our ship.

My breath was caught as the synapses in my brain seemed to all fire at once, “Celestial navigation...”

Apparently my words had caught our captain's attention as she leaned from her chair towards my navigation station, “What was that, Ensign?”

I looked to her and tried to steady myself and organize the thoughts racing through my mind, “So let's imagine that the Republicans have created some sort of perfect stealth for both their ships and their weapons and need to use a passive method to calculate attacks. The stars would be the best method to do so. They are using stellar cartography to plot weapon trajectories to the best of their ability!”

Our operations officer nodded his head, rubbing his bearded chin, “That would explain the accuracy. They wouldn't have a good range or depth perception with just standard visual acuity.”

“And they aren't attacking our fighters or recon units because they would be too fast and maneuverable for fire and forget weapons,” Captain Simon said, looking over to our chief engineer, “Do you think you could create a smoke screen of sorts for our ships?”

“Captain!” Our CAG reported, “The Yamanote has been hit and looks to be sunk. Their captain has ordered the abandon ship. Bismark has been hit by a volley, damage control teams are trying to get the situation under control.”

“Get rescue crews out there now!” Captain Simon ordered, turning back to our engineer, “CHENG, you got something for us? We're being eaten alive out here!”

“Yes Ma'am,” he said, looking up from his console, “It's gonna burn up our ion drives and I'd recommend the fleet close their bussards, but we can certainly smoke out the missiles. I can give you a 1 kilometer dispersal, Cap!”

“Do it,” she ordered, turning to our operations officer, “Get on the horn with the fleet. Single line formation with a 500 meter spacing in a random algorithm.”

“On it, Captain!” our operations officer said, drawing up the fleet formation on his computer and starting to send the signal out to our ships.

“Mister Hampton,” Captain Simon began, “When Hicks has our engines spewing, I want you to lead the fleet for about 10 klicks, then reverse engines and push us back into our smoke screen.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” I said as I waited for Mr. Hick's signal. I plotted the course as our fleet began to move in together to form a column. As the fleet gathered, our engineer reported that systems were go and that the ion engines were properly venting. I pushed our ship out from the gathered fleet, creating a long trail of inert gasses that created a beautiful spectrum of color. A small smile crossed my lips. We may not have made it to one of the large nebulae in our galaxy yet, but here we created one to save our lives. After creating the cloud of gasses, I inverted our course and pushed us back into it quietly.

“Just like the old movies,” Captain Simon said. I wasn't certain what she was referring to but I kept my eyes on the monitor as our sensors worked harder to track the particles in our smoke screen.

“At this distance, our CWIS will likely still create shock impact if they manage to hit the torpedoes,” our OPS warned the captain and crew.

“But we'll be one step closer to seeing the bastards,” she simply replied.

And we certainly saw the torpedoes, moving through the cloud, on blind-guessed trajectories. Captain Simon called out, “Track and measure them and open fire. We turn the tide of this battle now!”

Our smoke screen lit up like a thunderstorm as laser and projectile turrets struck out and destroyed the torpedoes, creating brilliant explosions of light and pushing the gasses out into an irregular bubble.

“Damage reports?” Captain Simon asked our OPS.

“Light hull damage and structural shock on some of our cruisers, nothing major reported yet,” OPS responded, “Monitoring reports are coming as right now. Torpedoes seem to be moving at .1 kps. Yield is .4MT.”

Now a smile was cracking on our captain's lips as she stood up, opening up an AR icon for her crew to see either through cyber-eyes or AR-enabled lens or glasses. The fleet was in the center of an orb in which she pulled out similar spheres from our ships and began to touch them at various points around each sphere, “At that speed, even if they are plotting course corrections, they will be within 20 kilometers of us. OPS, I want anti-materiel torpedoes fire at these points, wide-dispersal.”

“Ma'am, at wide-dispersal, the nanites won't be able to do much hull damage.”

She chuckled, “I just want to scratch their paint job.”

Mr. Hicks clapped his hands together, “Ah! Break whatever shielding they have.”

“If anything,” Captain Simon said, “The nanite burnout would give us an idea of where they could be.”

Our OPS officer pointed at the AR, giving himself a copy of it, and forwarded it to our fire control teams. Within half a second, he looked back from his console, “Targeting aquired, Captain.”

There was a fire in her eyes as Captain Simon said her next words, “For our fallen.... FIRE!”