Rigel Rising

Stage 14- Watery Grave

"Direct collision with imperial ships in less than a minute! Distance: 300!" Mariana screamed as Drew looked over his shoulder accusingly.

"We can still use the Clowders in reverse to stop our momentum, captain!"

I quickly shook my head and slammed my right hand on my armchair, "Negative! Keep going! Maximum combat speed!"

"But, why?!"

I was about to open my mouth in anger, but it's Cailee who spoke for me, "When a soldier is ordered by his superior to jump, he asks how high, not why."

"Unless you wanted to be court-martialled or tried for high treason, you will stop questioning our captain's orders and put that damn pedal to the metal!" Candice ordered as she focused all our armaments on covering our port and starboard, "You better have some spare modular armor hidden there, Trey. The imperials are targetting our engines, and the Oncilla launchers are getting pounded to kingdom come. If we lose that, we won't have any weapons to cover our flanks!"

Our maintenance officer swore loudly as we heard a massive explosion at the back of our ship, and he began to frantically divert some of his reserve modular armors to repair the damage, "If this keeps up, we will burn through our tungsten materials!"

"That is if we don't burn before we can reach the atmosphere!" Mariana snapped as she looked at me, "Twenty seconds and counting until we collide with the imperial ships!"

I didn't answer and just closed my eyes calmly.

Let's see what you've got.

"Eleven, ten, nine..."

Even Candice, who is usually very severe and composed, screamed on top of her lungs when the ships blockading our path exploded in a blinding conflagration. At the same time, Drew roared in unison as we collided not with the imperial vessels but with the debris and explosion itself that temporarily blinded us for a few seconds until Mariana reported on our situation.

"We are on the clear! No more imperial ships dead ahead!" she then screamed in delight as we saw the Ballsgrasper heading straight for our waiting launch bay after blasting the imperial ships singlehandedly looking terribly damaged but nonetheless intact, "We have recovered the Ballsgrasper, er, I mean the Kirov successfully! Closing the launch bay door!"

I nodded and quickly turned to our helmsman, "Begin phase one of atmospheric entry!"

"Roger! Beginning phase one of atmospheric entry! Powering down gravitational perpetual motion reactor, switching to auxiliary thrusters. Adjusting trajectory, coordinates..."

I gave Drew a reassuring nod as it dawns upon him that we will not be landing anywhere near the Kingdom of Regeinland at all.

With the Rufus blocking our entry point, the best thing we can do is make an attempt for an atmospheric entry as fast as we can, "You know what to do, Drew."

"Aye, aye, captain! Adjusting trajectory, coordinates set to freefall! Transferring main controls to the maintenance officer."

Trey began preparing for the next step when Mariana reported what Candice, Cailee, and I have been waiting for all along, "Imperial fleet breaking away! They are no longer pursuing us!"

"They will be really dumb if they did. As far as I know, no spaceship in their arsenal is transatmospheric like ours," my second in command said confidently as she ordered the weapons of the Rigel be retracted to shield it from the heat of the atmosphere.

Her younger sister nodded in agreement, "We have already entered Gearth's gravitational pull. If they try to follow us, they will be pulled down and burn like space debris with their ashes not even surviving to reach the skies."

Trey finally finished his preparations and gave me a knowing look, "We are prepared for the next step, captain."

"Begin phase two of the atmospheric entry!"

"Yes, sir! Beginning phase two of atmospheric entry! Exchanging modular tungsten armor with ceramic ablator modular armor! Closing all airtight compartments and vents. We're all in the green!" Trey affirmed as he passed the controls to Mariana, who nodded at me meaningfully.

"I have control, captain. Your orders?"

I took a deep breath as Candice and Cailee reported that all weapons are safely retracted inside our ship, "Begin the third and final phase of atmospheric entry!"

"Beginning the third phase of atmospheric entry. All hands to your stations. Please fasten your seatbelts and don't leave your seats until you are told to do so. We are now beginning to enter Gearth's lower atmosphere. Please be guided accordingly," the communications officer warned smoothly over her headset as I gave the final orders for us to breach the skies.

"Rigel, begin planetfall!"

"Rigel beginning planetfall! Remain vigilant for any hostile forces gearthbound! As soon as we deactivated the artificial gravity, we will begin to move at maximum cruising speed! Steady now..."

We all waited in bated breath as the Rigel began to vibrate loudly, and the temperature rises despite our air conditioning in the bridge while we slowly descend from space.

The cloud is thick, so we can't see if we will make planetfall in land or water as our sensor arrays are still being jammed for some odd reason.

Wait a minute...

My jaw dropped as I saw the sheer horror in Cailee's face. She alone in the bridge has come to the same terrible conclusion as I have.

We have been so focused on making it to Gearth, it will be our undoing.

"Jamming systems only work in space, unless..."

She didn't manage to finish her sentence when I screamed my orders at Drew, "Abort automatic navigation! Divert all powers to the engine! Decrease descend speed by ninety percent! Port to starboard thirty! Evade!"

Our helmsman didn't bother asking why for once and harshly turned the steering gear to our right, and soon enough, several beams of massive green beams rained down upon us, and we are not lucky enough this time around.

We managed to avoid the worst-case scenario, but...

"Main engines hit! We are losing thrust!" Drew reported as Trey slammed his hands on his panel.

"Blocks four to twelve breached! Damn, they hit us when we just switched to ceramics modular armor! I can't get the tungsten ones back quickly!" the maintenance officer reported as Mariana gasped while looking at her radar.

"It's the Rufus! Distance, south forty! It made a planetfall as well!"

Candice was in so much disbelief she can't even speak.

I kicked the back of her seat, which snapped her out of her stupor, "This is not the time to be awestruck! Help me guide this ship to safety!"

"Ye-yes, of course!" she quickly regained her composure and communicated with Mariana quickly, "Where are we landing, Mariana?! Land or water?"

"Water! Right in the middle of an ocean! I just can't pinpoint exactly where! My navigation charts are not functioning!"

My executive officer cursed as she began tapping at her screen, "Rigel can theoretically operate in water, but it is never tested."

"Crash it down then," I ordered, but Candice is about to protest, "Not now, please! We have launched this ship without testing, and we have gotten this far and lasted this long! I refuse to let it all end in a watery grave!"

Thankfully she nodded and begin the preparation for our escape, "I can agree completely. Seal all watertight bulkheads! Drew, dive in head first!"

"Roger! Rigel submerging!"

"No! Another salvo incoming in three two one," Mariana didn't manage to finish what she is saying because what she was expecting hit us with so much force we are almost thrown out of our seats.

This time we saw with our own eyes how the massive green beams tear through our ships like hot knives cutting through butter just as we are preparing to sink beneath the waters.

"Direct hit! Seventy-eight percent of the armors are critically damaged! Tungsten modular armor not responding!" Trey quickly turns around and looks at me, "Captain, one more hit, and it's over!"

I nodded and screamed my orders, "Dive, dive dive!"

And the Rigel finally sank beneath the waves, but it seemed that the Rufus also had railguns in its sleeves, to our horror.

Several artillery barraged followed us underneath, and I decided that there is only one thing left to do.

"Detach the Clowder Boosters, Cailee!"

The weapon's officer just looked at me as if I am not making any sense.

"Now!"

"Detaching the Clowder Boosters! Please standby!" she quickly said as her fingers fly in her keyboard as we watch our four gigantic boosters left the main body of Rigel and began floating upwards, "Detachment complete!"

I quickly activated the artificial intelligence of the ship in my control panel, "Computer, activate Clowder Boosters Self-Destruct System. Code: Dust to Dust. Captain Caerus Finis."

"Code confirmed, voice and biometric scans confirmed. Beginning Clowder Boosters Self-Destruct System in five, four, three, two..."

We all screamed in surprise as the ship rocked dangerously when the boosters finally exploded in a cataclysmic blast that blew our ship even further beneath the ocean...

-0-

"How's the Rigel?"

I shook my head slowly, "Not good. We can't even move at all now that the main engines are hit. The damage is more severe than we have estimated. Nineteen out of the thirty-six watertight compartments are flooded. Automated repairs are prolonged because of the water pressure. That and we lost the Clowder boosters."

"Well, all we can do is wait for Trey to patch things up," Justice answered as he winced while the nurse treated his still gaping wounds on his right arm, "We can't do much about the boosters. It's either you destroy it yourself to save us, or we will be destroyed together with it. The real problem is the engines. I know we can stay at the bottom of the ocean indefinitely, but we really need to get going. If my guess is correct, we are off the coast northwest of Baldur's territorial waters."

I heaved a heavy sigh and leaned on the door helplessly, "What do you suggest we do? We really missed our target when we made planetfall. Baldurians are known to shoot anyone and anything that moves above and under its borders, not coming from their country. Might as well head for Veralia since we will more or less receive the same welcome anyways."

"Well, I can't deny that Baldurians are trigger-happy assholes, but unlike the Veralians, they can be reasoned with. Unless you prefer to surrender this ship to the empire?"

I quickly shook my head, "Never. If that's my plan, then I would've stayed in my cell back in the Argonaut Base."

"Good. Glad to hear it. Anyways, this is a rather odd question, but after learning the betrayal of Rear Admiral Smith, do you still want to go to the mainland kingdom, Caerus?"

"Of course! That's the plan all along, right?"

The cosmo armor pilot exchanged a knowing look with the nurse as he returned his gaze on me, "It is the plan. But did you consider that not even Regeinland is safe anymore?"

"What do you mean?"

"Think, Caerus! Smith sits on top of the military food chain of the kingdom! If someone as high ranking as he turns out to be an imperial double agent, would you tell me that I am insane if I told you that he might not be the only one?"

I was left speechless by Justice's words.

Painful to hear, but it loudly rings the truth all the same.

"Still, it is my duty, no, our duty as loyal soldiers of the kingdom to put ourselves under the command of our main military headquarters," I said convincingly, but in truth, I am trying to convince myself, "I don't care if there are traitors there. A soldier's orders and loyalty are his pillars of life. We will bring Rigel back to the mainland kingdom."

Justice just looked at me quietly for a few seconds before smiling finally, "Whatever you say. After all, you are the boss. Where you go, I follow. But for now, we are not capable of reaching Regeinland in the state we are in. As your superior, might I suggest we head for Baldur first? The Grand Princess is a very reasonable and levelheaded leader. I am sure she will not risk the wrath of the kingdom by blasting us to smithereens. I hope..."