Chapter 68: Over Light 2
"You are struggling to keep up with the changes in pattern as it stands. I would not recommend further stress to your person."
"I wouldn't recommend it either, but I would rather sleep for a week than see what happens when those lights make contact. Once that meth wears off, I'm probably gonna black out. We need to figure out a - that was close." The beam didn't come close physically, but Don was just about to head into its line of travel. "We need to figure out how to cut out as much time as possible, and I have an idea how."
"If I deem that this idea will increase the chance of failure by a significant margin I will not assist you. I take it you understand why?"
"Can't care at the moment. Instead of showing me danger zones for beams that are really close, can you show the ones that we are at risk of hitting at our maximum current velocity? Does that make sense? Like, just showing the ones I have no chance of outrunning?"
"That is something I would be able to do, but I fail to see how this helps."
"We need to go fast, ARC, and there is only so much information I can react to. If the beam is going to pass safely behind me I don't give a shit about it. Max acceleration and deceleration all the way."
It was a feasible idea. Much to ARC's frustration it actually had a better chance of success than their current method of attack. ARC summed up Donovan's sudden genius idea to something it lacked, instincts.
"Fine, but I will be regulating your maximum throttle if I see signs of passing out from excessive force. I have reason to believe you are experiencing internal bleeding and a concussion. I believe there to be a chance of skull fracture. Exhibit caution."
Some of the medical surveillance equipment had been repaired at this point. Not enough to perform a comprehensive scan with something like an x-ray, especially while Don was in the cockpit. ARC had to make do with cues from both the internal scanners and sensors, as well as changes in Donovan's behavior.
ARC was in the process of tanking the cockpit's temperature in order to help alleviate the internal bleeding and had toned down the brightness of the displays so as to not agitate his eyes.
As per protocol, ARC was doing absolutely everything in its power to keep Donovan 'combat capable'. The definition of that depended heavily on the situation, but the priority order remained the same as it had for ships in the age of sail - Float, Flee, Flight.
'Float' just meant that Don had to stay alive, the Noah was extremely unlikely to suffer a hull breach or extreme internal deformation, but Donovan himself was extremely vulnerable to concussive forces. Humans had this unfortunate tendency to be less sturdy than metal.
'Flee' meant the Noah had to be capable of movement. This had the implication that Donovan had to be kept in a condition where he could make rational decisions when it came to when to flee as well as actually have the mental capacity to pilot the Noah.
'Fight' meant the Noah's weapons systems had to be kept online, especially the external sensors. ARC was not allowed to pull the trigger, so that meant that Don had to be in a condition to make the call.
A ship had to float to be able to flee, and had to be able to flee in order to fight.
Currently, Don was only capable of fleeing, and barely at that.
Slowly, 'useless' danger fields were removed from the screen, and the Noah's engines started pushing hard.
- - - - - - - - - -
The captain had come into this fight expecting it to run a similar course to the many combats with stars he had experienced before, if a degree more difficult.
It would not be an exaggeration to say his expectations had been shattered. The difference between the extremely rare and equivalently powerful Azure Dot Star and the Purple Star he and his crew were currently facing was enough to make the two incomparable.
In his lifetime, he had only ever fought an Azure Dot twice, both resulting in a costly bout of damage. Those two experiences were in vessels other than the Oberlux, far smaller and monumentally more delicate.
The Oberlux was built for the express purpose of subduing stars, capable of easily dealing with Azure Dots, and it was struggling to stave off the current threat.
However the fact that it WAS staving off the attacks meant that their victory was all but guaranteed, the natural resistance of the structure capable of absorbing the entirety of those brightly colored lights.
"Captain, are you certain that they will be able to find their way here?" It was the young helmsman, busy at work moving into zones of less concentrated fire. He had experience with moving around smaller ships, many times more maneuverable than the hulk he found himself in control of now, and he was not at all confident in his ability to navigate the minefield that lay outside
"It is not that I am certain, but that we do not know which way to go. If we head in a direction opposite of their current location, it will only serve to increase the chance that they perish."
"But they're over there." The young man pointed in a seemingly random direction. "There is a red light over there. Its faint, sure, but it flits about behind the rays. You can even see it the silhouette when a ray passes behind it, look!"
The captain took hold of his telescope and focused it in the general direction the helmsman had pointed at. It took a few minutes of sweeping the sky, but sure enough it was there. A small red dot on a black backdrop, a stark black spot when a ray passed behind it.
"That's the Noah alright. How did you find them in the first place?"
"I, uh, just looked at where the rays were being concentrated the most and, uh, figured they would be there? I know I can see better than most of you, but did nobody else realize?"
His inquiry was met with a smattering of shaking heads and spoken negatives.
"Set a course in their general direction. Well done kid."
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