Mortal Protection Services Chapter 30: VIII.IS: Ingamar's Ship

Read chapter 30 of Mortal Protection Services by B.T.Skull on NovelPedia.

VIII.IS: Ingamar's Ship Ingama Ma-ana Aboard the vessel under Ingamar's command. No-man's space "It's faint, but I've isolated it. Playing now." The sound played over the bridge comms. Beep-Beep-Beep. Boop... Boop... Boop... Beep-Beep-Beep. Beep-Beep-Beep. Boop... Boop... Boop... Beep-Beep-Beep. "It's a distress signal alright, captain. Similar to the one Jim sent out on all subspace bands so we could pick him up, back when you were still a robot, sir." My Comms officer, Ensign Yoto, reported. "And its coming from the edge of Scourge space?" I asked. "Just across the no-man's land." He said, pinging the location to the holomap we had displayed in the bridge. "Seems to be coming from a pluto-sized object that's in the interstellar medium. Looks like it was ejected a long time ago. Rogue dwarf planet." "Is it me, or is the time between boops a touch too long." Tactical Officer, Lt. Commander Berlin, was always cautious. That's why I recruited her. "Maybe it's a trap." "A trap, set by who?" My pilot, Ensign Astley, laughed, "The Scourge? That'd be a new one. I think it's a person, or people, that crashed here and have been quietly surviving. That is until they realized that the Scourge is on the defensive now. I bet they're hoping some sort of help can actually come scoop them up. You know the rules, and so do I. We can't just give up on them, or let them down. Never!" Beep-Beep-Beep. Boop... Boop... Boop... Beep-Beep-Beep. Beep-Beep-Beep. Boop... Boop... Boop... Beep-Beep-Beep. "Kill the audio please, Yoto." He pushed a button on his console and the audio muted. It still flashed in the hologram every time we received the subspace SOS. We all stared at it for a few more cycles of beeps and boops. "Well, Captain?" Commander Wolf, my first officer asked, "Are we gonna go check it out?" "Yeah Wolf, I'm afraid we are." I took a seat in the captain's chair - my chair - and killed the holo display with a button press. "Lt. London, plot us a course around as much of the known Scourge minefield as we can. I want to get there in four hours, can we do that?" "No problemo, captain. I'll plot us four legs and we can avoid most of it. We gonna run some drills on the way, sir?" Lt. London understood me well. He was Admiral Davis' step-grandson, sharp, smart as a whip. The kid was just entering the academy as I was entering the universe in a robot body. Good spaceman, and an excellent astronavigator. "Yoto, call captain Jimsonson, tell her what we're up to... but don't put her on screen. I don't actually want to talk to her face to face. I do want her to follow us, and least until the last leg of our route." "Ugh, do I have to? I don't want to talk to her either... she's gonna try to seduce me again. She's your sister..." Yoto noticed I was not, in fact, asking. "Ahem. I'll let Captain Jimsonson know your plans, sir." We ran the combat drills, then we ran them again, and again and then... we had cake product from a tube. A little precombat sugar/morale boost for all my turret gunners and crew before we actually got into the shit. One hundred and sixty eight of the smartest, dumbest, bravest humans I could scrounge up were manning the ship. They were trusting me with their lives on this mission. It wasn't meant to be a suicide mission, but an exploration mission... To explore a few holes into the scourge line, and see what it was up to, up close on the planets on the edge of human space. My ship was not a massive battle carrier, like my sister's was, but a sleek, well tuned killing machine. A purpose built Frigate, designed for triggering and clearing Scourge fleshmine fields and obliterating any other Scourge flesh it might happen across in space. My ship has thirty six manned turrets and another hundred twenty smaller, point-defense guns. The little ones are run mostly by computers. They're guided by the tactical officer, firing algorithms adjusted on the fly. All the guns are equipped with inverse-warp collapsar rounds. Basically, every one o