Chapter 21

Wandering around deep space was interesting.  You could travel into asteroid fields, through nebulae, peruse giant ice fields, and explore planets that haven’t developed sentient life yet.  It was intriguing, fascinating, enlightening, and after a month completely and utterly boring!  God damn it sucked having nothing exciting to do!  With the materials she collected from every place she visited she could craft everything she needed but now it just takes time.  A lot of time.  Time spent alone out in deep space doing nothing in particular besides waiting for the drones to finish demolition and construction on the ship and fighting Vey’Ral ships she happens upon.  Though the one thing she did do for a few hours at a time was learning to read and write the Ren’Indral language.  It was the only complete language in the ships banks so it was a good start for learning since she could only write English. 

The tunnels were the first change.  Sam needed to be able to travel the ship easier and having to walk everywhere when she had wings was annoying.  The main tunnel would run the length of the ship with branches off to other main departments.  The last thing she would do was the weapons.  She didn’t want to be left defenseless out here in case someone showed up to attack her.  She knew there were long range scanners and such that could pinpoint where someone was if they just had an idea of where to look.  That was the only dangerous part of traveling the stars.  You really couldn’t stay in one spot for long.

Well, technically Sam could do whatever she wanted but she really didn’t need anyone coming after her, like a fleet of Vey’Ral or something of the like.  She did steal one of their strongholds and kill a general.  She imagined they wouldn’t take too kindly to that under any circumstance.  Whether that warranted a hunt for her or not was the question.  Maybe she would have to do more to warrant a hunt or they didn’t know she would be able to take their ship and only went to the last known location to try to grab her.  Who knows.  Either way, she was now far from wherever she was before.

Time dragged on and on.  Sam had no real way of keeping track of it aside from watching her cub grow.  Sam learned a few things while her cub had tripled in size since they joined up.  Namely she was going to live a very long time with Sam’s blood.  She also ate a lot like Sam did while changing.  Unfortunately Sam knew they were running low on organic material for food but her weapons would still be disconnected for another day until the capacitors were upgraded.  To speed up the process, Sam had volunteered to aid with some muscle, wearing an oxygen mask to go into the capacitor room and help place and connect everything.  Mostly just placement since connection was critical and extremely dangerous.  Even with the AI’s help, crossing two wires would set off a chain reaction that would blow up half the ship.  So it was left to the drones.

At last Sam placed the last of her weapons capacitors and left the room.  She was happy to take the oxygen mask back off and breath normal again now that she was in breathable air.  She expanded her capacitor banks by fifty percent and increased her canon count from 201 to 302.  She didn’t do much about her shield but with heavier weapons power she could decimate the enemy faster and not have to worry about them.  She did, however, reinforce her bow to be able to ram smaller craft without taking damage or to push larger craft out of the way if she hit them at slower speeds.  This addition was seen as skeptical from the AI but Sam saw the possibilities.  Particularly since most craft were not built to take a hit from a large blunt object.  Protection from small projectiles, sure, but bullet proof armor didn’t stop a battering ram.

Her little Corran cub was getting pretty big now, too.  She jumped into Sam’s arms, almost knocking the two on the ground, and cuddled into Sam’s neck now that she was out of the hazardous section of the ship.  The cub had still insisted on not getting a name either until she was fully grown so for now they just stayed side by side on the ship.    Sam just walked down to one of the tunnels she installed in her ship next to her Corran and chatted.  They sat on the steps that led into the tunnel for those that didn’t fly, wondering what to do next when Sam was notified of a distress signal. Then a second one.  The first one was a ship nearby and the other was a planet signal.  Sam immediately warmed up her hyperdrive and flew up to the command bridge.  Here she could see in more detail the information about the distress signals and where they were coming from rather than trying to interpret them through the neural link.  The ship was in more immediate danger so she planned to head there first.  She had to wait until the capacitors were officially connected and the room cleared out before flying out into battle though.

Sam sat and waited for the all clear message from her AI then warped in close to the distress signal in time to see Vey’Ral ships attacking an Ally flagship.  With a wicked grin, Sam cracked her knuckles, charged her weapons, and kept her hyperdrive warmed up for quickly moving to the next destination.  All but one cannon deployed, including her new Titan canon she had just completed, and she swung around to aim as many as she could at the advancing ships.  Because of where she warped in, she was right on top of them, and opened fire from 500 yards away.  Her wake alone from popping in had pushed the closest advancing Vey’Ral ship off course but now they were being pummeled by heavy cannon fire.  All of the small ships succumbed quickly and all remaining ships in the large ones were deployed before Sam’s Titan destroyer shot the first blast.  The first of four flagships split in half as their power core melted down from a direct hit from the massive energy blaster.

Sam was bouncing in her command room.  She loved playing with new toys and this one was proving to be a fabulous upgrade!  She continued directing all of her cannons with her mind and reveling in the chaos.  The Vey’Ral has not been ready for this at all since they had tried to overwhelm the one ship with four of their own.  Sam could take on ten flagships without breaking a sweat anyways so she was going for speed.  Then the second flagship split in thirds from another blast and the small ships started regrouping as the final two tried to escape.  They knew they were outgunned.  The targeted flagship focused all of their fire on one of the remaining two ships and Sam popped the third in half with another shot from her Titan.  The fourth lost power from damage and started floating aimlessly into space.  If Sam hadn’t been in a hurry she would have started collecting materials from the ships to use on her own ship but time was of the essence.  So much wasted material.

Sam opened a channel with the ship to see where they were headed. It took a moment but they finally responded, “we were headed to Cordon 3.  We got word that a Vey’Ral fleet was headed there but we were intercepted.  We need to hurry!”

“I believe that was where I was headed next.  Meet me there.  I will take care of this fleet.  If you can call ahead and tell them to pull back once I get there.  I will have a hard time avoiding casualties if they get in the way.”

“What can you do we cannot?”

Sam said nothing, she just warped out towards Cordon 3 where the distress signal had come from.  Last time she was here was to drop off the ship damaged when she initially acquired this ship.  That was a while ago and she had stayed quite far from the planet.  This time she warped in close to save time.  Screw their rules about warships.  They needed help.

She looked around and saw she was actually only a little ways off from where the fighting was.  With a push from her main engines, she launched off towards the fighting.  There were a few disabled ships floating in space but Sam didn’t know the difference between them since they all had similar designs and no markings.  Something about hyperspace travel.  Sam’s was only different because it was Ren’Indral design.  

Sam opened a channel with the planet this time in hopes she could get through to them as she charged her capacitors.  They answered but they weren’t happy about it, “what do you want?! Don’t you see we’re a little busy!”

“Pull your ships back!  Give me some room and let me clear this away.  I don’t want to hit your ships on accident!”

“We are in a fight for our lives and you want us to retreat?  Are you insane?”

“Not insane. Just here to finish this fight for you!  Just get your ships out of the way!”

“No way!  We will not die with our tails… what is that?  What is that!?  That thing is huge!  Pull back!  Everyone pull back!”

The giant 500 foot long gun on the top of Sam’s ship sure got his attention.  Dreadnought, planet killer, it has plenty of names.  Only the Ren’Indral ever made them and this was the only ship left in service with one on it.  Technically Sam had two now since she made a second smaller one.  She called that one her Titan destroyer.

Once she saw some of the ships moving out of the way she saw her opening.  Five of the ships were lined up and had lots of Vey’Ral signatures on them.  Her Dreadnought was a slow gun but once they passed into its line of sight she fired, the blast ripped a hole 500 feet across through all of them.  Sam holstered that weapon and released her battle drone ships, 300 of them, as well as barreled straight into the middle of things with all 301 of her other guns out and charged.  

Ten ships remained plus all of the smaller fighting and landing craft.  Sam fired her engines and barreled straight into the mess.  She flew her ship right into the gap between all of the ships to set off every proximity alarm they had and make them use evasive maneuvers.  Several of the smaller craft broke up across the bow of Sam’s ship that she had reinforced specifically for this reason as she engaged her Titan destroyer into the fight.

The first of the large carriers popped open as their power core exploded from Sam’s first blast.  Those on the planet watched in shock and awe as Sam literally plowed her way through the invasion force, destroying the carriers while her smaller guns and drones took care of everything else.  The large ships fell at every charge of Sam’s Titan which took 15 seconds to charge.  The sensors on her ship were sensitive enough to detect where the energy signature for the power core was and blast it directly.  That and the gun had enough power to go through any shields and armor without a problem causing the power cores to detonate from being pierced by such a large blast of heated energy.

The last few ships noticed the carnage behind Sam and tried to pull back.  They no longer had the ego boost of watching the planet defenses retreating and instead saw doom approaching.  It didn’t help that Sam’s ship was easily five times larger than any of the ships they had come in with and massively weaponized.  The last ship popped right as their hyperdrive had just fully wound up and the ship rocked and disintegrated more than the others as the drive broke up.  Sam counted the tally as she brought her ship around and slowed down.  Twenty two carriers, fifteen at her own hands, ninety cruisers, and an immeasurable amount of small fighter craft.  

Just to check things, Sam did a scan of ships to see if she missed anything.  Nothing was left operational in the area but she just caught a ship leaving her scan range and heading down to the surface.  She refocused her scanners and saw three cruisers heading for the surface.  That wasn’t good.  Sam couldn’t just open fire on the ships because they might fall on a city below and cause massive damage.  These were large ships that were a thousand feet long.  Looks like it was time to test her drones in an atmosphere.

Leaving her control room, Sam flew down her ship to the hangar bay to get into the shuttle the Vey’Ral kindly left behind for her.  She needed to get down to the surface and stop these ships from unloading into the population.  At the very least she needed to minimize the impact.  500 Vey’Ral getting loose on the planet wasn’t going to be as bad as the whole invasion but it would still cause havoc.  It was time to test out her other new toy she had worked on while doing repairs on her ship.  This one used the same tech as the dreadnought weapons but reconfigured into a handheld weapon.  Handheld was relative as the thing weighed 500 pounds but Sam could carry it around.  It could also fire a spread beam of energy that was effective at up to 200 yards and a thirty five degree arc.  Not quite so effective close up but deadly to droves at ranges of 100 yards.  She could clear lines in seconds with this thing.  It was too heavy to fly with though so she was limited to ground travel with it.

She followed the large craft down to the surface and landed a half mile away from them.  They landed all three right on the edge of a large city and started to unload.  Sam needed to hurry.  Unfortunately she met some resistance on her way to the Vey’Ral ships as Ally troops were setting up in her way.  They saw her and a couple opened fire on her.  Thankfully their aim sucked but a few shots did hit their target and Sam was not happy about it.  She kept up her run, leapt over the line with some effort thanks to the heavy gun she was carrying, and kept running towards the Vey’Ral ships.  She heard a few of them from the line shouting to stop the scout so she glanced back.  There was a contingent of troops getting on vehicles of some sort to chase her.  Sam just shook her head and continued on her run.  She was getting close now and wanted to get close enough to surprise the Vey’Ral and take most of them out without them scattering.  That would prove disastrous.

The first ship came into view and Sam could see about a hundred Vey’Rals milling about underneath it, preparing themselves to scatter into the city.  Sam got to about a hundred fifty yards out when she was finally noticed since they were all looking out towards the city.  She slid to a stop, charged her canon, and unloaded.  The first blast was nauseating.  The spread didn’t go very far vertically but horizontally it spread far enough to encompass the whole group.  It wiped out two thirds of them before the energy petered out too much to do more than mildly burn.  Sam had to hit them with a second blast to take out the remainders.  Sam didn’t like it.  Watching the flesh instantly boil and burn from the intense heat was almost traumatizing.  Disgusting certainly.  It was times like this she wished her vision wasn’t quite as good as it was.

She adjusted the arc on the weapon to be more focused instead of wide beam and aimed it up into the ship, taking another shot.  By this point the Ally troops had caught up and were slowing down as they saw the carnage, also shocked as they watched Sam punch a hole into the belly of the craft with her canon.  Sam adjusted slightly and fired again like she just did.  This time it hit the core of the ship, setting it off to overheat and melt down.  She immediately started running off towards the next ship as the first started to shake and rumble from the core self destructing.  The Ally troops immediately moved out of the way and headed back the way they came to get away from the blast.  The third of the Vey’Ral ships was not affected by the blast but they certainly saw it.  They hadn’t unloaded their “cargo” yet and decided to fly off to somewhere safer if they were being assaulted already.  That was when Sam’s drones caught it in mid flight and took it out of the sky with a vicious assault.  Thirty of her largest drones opened fire to blast the ship to pieces in seconds, dropping it from the sky and putting it back on the ground.

The middle of the three ships was damaged from the blast but was already unloading Vey’Ral onto the ground at this point.  They finished unloading but the Vey’Ral were wary this time of attackers and started heading to the city quickly.  Sam came up behind them and kept the canon at a more focused beam to hit for farther distances, firing into the line.  The smell of smoking flesh and bone saturated the air as they scattered and started spreading into the city.  The ship she had just left behind was just taken out by her drones so any left were no longer coming after her but now she had fifty Vey’Ral running around the city getting ready to cause havoc.  She set her canon down and took off running after the closest of them, leaping on his back and bending his head back too far to snap his neck.  Effective and fast but she couldn’t keep that up for all of them.