War Fleet: Resistance

doors, and got to work.
Never, in his studies at the Malmö Institute of Space Education, had they given him the work of an electrician. Mostly they’d expected him to do computer-based work — as most engineers did aboard the largest warships in the fleet. Typically, graduates from MISE got assigned to those kinds of ships.
But Chang knew he had little chance to excel amongst the best in such competitive positions. Instead, when he’d seen a posting for a mining ship in the far reaches of space, he’d applied on the first opportunity. Here, despite being the lowest-ranking and youngest officer on the ship, people saw him as a genius, and he had access to plenty of raw materials, smelted from mined ore in the Tapper’s furnace bay.
Now, the pressure of saving the whole mining vessel fell on his shoulders. If he got it wrong, his name wouldn’t go down in history, like he’d daydreamed about so many times in Professor Argwal’s advanced propulsion courses. Instead, he’d be just another dead man on a backwater vessel in the middle of nowhere.
But he shouldn’t be thinking of that now. He had work to do, and he’d already wasted precious time for what? Neuroticism?
Chang just had to pull out the right energy gates and reroute the systems. He put on some gloves and opened the hatch on the first of the coilguns. This room didn’t actually house the bulk of the gun, which ran across the length of the ship. It just held the electricals that provided the thing with the power it needed.
He opened the hatch for the second gun, then took hold of a long strip of spare power cabling and reconfigured the interior gates in a way only he knew. As he worked, he glanced up at a comically oversized red switch that connected to a makeshift shield battery he’d devised months ago. He’d fashioned it from spare parts and mounted it on the bulkhead. Not pretty, but it did the job. The captain would thank him for it later.
After he completed his work, Chang slinked down against the bulkhead and, once again, wiped the sweat from his brow. If he died today, at least he would die knowing he’d done everything he could.
He wished he was back on the bridge to see what was happening, but he knew better than to move without orders. Instead he hunkered down, comms channel open, and waited.

4
The forwardmost incoming ship unleashed a volley of laser fire at the Tapper, the beams cutting through the mining vessel’s shields and searing the hull. Olsen had seen some old science fiction movies where lasers would streak across the screen, like heated bullets traveling really slowly. But that wasn’t how lasers worked — the beams turned on, seared whatever surface they were aimed at or sapped energy from a shield, and then turned off again.
The ship rocked, and the ceiling glowed red for a moment. Olsen looked up at it. “They’re attacking the bridge, dammit. Rob, damage report?”
“The shields are down completely and in need of repair, and the warp engine has shorted, but we should be able to return power to it in ten minutes. Otherwise, all systems are functional.”
“So I guess we’re not jumping out of here anytime soon,” Olsen said.
On the viewscreen, the other three ships were coming into weapons range. Without working shields, they’d sear the roof off the CIC, sucking out all the crew in the room. After that, they’d board to grab the cargo, and have to deal with the Marines. But the Tapper only had a single five-man squad, and who knew how many they had on those ships?
“Sir,” Schmidt said. “The lasers are ready to fire.”
“Good,” Olsen said. “How about the coilguns?”
“They’ll be charged in just under three minutes.”
“Subtract fifteen seconds for the left one,” Chang said over the intercom. “And an extra ten seconds for the right. I managed to reroute some of the power.”
“Okay,” Olsen said. “Target each ship with one laser cannon.”
“Aye, sir. Which ship shall I target with the coilguns?”
“None of them yet. Actually”—a thought hit him like a punch in the gut. Highly explosive, Olsen remembered. He really didn’t have much time—“target the asteroid with the left coil cannon.”
“Yes, uh,” Schmidt faltered. “Yes, sir.”
“Sir, if I may interject,” Rob said, shifting to focus his blue eyes on Olsen. “We have no way of knowing the volatility of the explosive inside the asteroid. It might cause no explosion, or it might be massive enough to annihilate all ships in the vicinity.”
“We’re better hardened against any blast than those rickety incoming ships,” Schmidt interjected.
“Assuming there is an explosion,” Rob insisted.
Under normal circumstances, Olsen would have been happy to debate the merits of this decision, but time was short. They couldn’t jump away, and only good fortune would have them disable all four incoming ships before they took lethal damage.
“If there’s no blast, then we’re right back where we started,” Olsen said. “It’s time to gamble, Rob.”
Before Rob could reply—no doubt to note that they’d be back where they started without a charged coilgun—Olsen turned away. “Schmidt, are the targets set?”
“Yes, sir,” Schmidt said.
“Hit it.”
No sooner had he spoken than the lasers came to life. Green and yellow streaks of energy shot through space, and they hit their targets true. A pulse of blue shot out of the impact points in the distant shield barriers, and then the lasers broke through to the ships’ hulls before the cannons ran out of juice.
“Enemy shields breached,” Schmidt said. “Not sure if they’re completely down, but they’re severely weakened.”
Olsen nodded. He’d been right to assume these ships had invested heavily in weaponry, but not shields. They relied on surprise attacks, taking down their prey before they had time to respond.
On the other hand, the Tapper would now have to charge weapons again, and the ships probably felt emboldened that they’d survived the initial attack. It was their move in this slow-motion game of chess, and their ion cannons would