"Helm hundred percent, right stern thruster... NOW!" I ordered as we passed the Xenon P. The helm'sman complied pushing the tail of the ship hard away from the P and in effect bringing the Bow quickly around and the P back into our firing arc.I looked over to Jones who was currently manning the tactical consule "Jones, fire!" I shouldn't have wasted my breath as he was already burning hell into the shields of the Xenon corvette. We were in the Sector called "The Wall" doing a patrol through the muck that was called space here. We had been searching for xenon for hours now and in this Muck we had nearly run head long into a P! The Dragons were making short work of the fighters that accompanied it but they were leaving the P to us. In fact I had left strict orders that they were not to interfer unless things started to go down hill.
The P was trying hard to outmanuver us but with the speed and manuverability of the Centuar the Helmsman was easily keeping on it's tail. "Ops! Give me a status report" I still hadn't learned the names of the crewmen, not even the bridge crew.
"Aye sir. Shields at 90%, hull integrity uncomprimised. Energy reserves at 70% and falling. Enemy shields at 50% and falling." All of a sudden I was thrown forward against the harness of the command chair. The Xenon P had come to a complete halt all of a sudden to try an force us to ram it, but the helmsman had seen it just in time and had thrown the engines into reverse to keep us from hitting. All the while Jones was firing round after round into it's side.
"Come on burn, baby burn!" He said unleashing another volley from the IPGs. The P tried to use it's position thrusters to come about and face us from a stand still, but with a little manuevering we circled around keeping it in our's and us out of it's. 40%...30%...20..10... The Xenons shields fell Jones poured more fire into it, it's hull falling rapidy. 80%...50%...30%....and then.....BOOM! The Xenon disapeared in a flash of nuclear energy as a missile from a Sec Def ship impacted the side of it.
"Yeah!!" "WhoooHooo!" "We did it!" The bridge errupted in cheers. It's suprising how much noise three people can make in a small room. I just smiled shaking my head slightly. They were excited about the victory but the mercenary in me just watched sec def steal over 50k in reward money in a flash of light. I mentally sighed and then stood up to congratulate the crew. They deserved as much. Opening up the ship-wide intercomm I started,
"This is the captain. Stand down to condition two." I took a deep breath in and out before continueing, "Good work, everyone. You can all now notch a mark on your belts for a Xenon P."
Short and sweet right? I was never good with talking. Turning off the PA I looked to Jones. "Anything left on the Sat feed?"
"Negitave, captain. This sector is clear."
"Helm, set a course for the northern gate to Antigone Memorial. Full ahead. XO you have the bridge, I'll be in my ready room if something come up, and please get me when we are on final approach to the gate." I said as I stood up and started to the door to the ready room.
"Aye captain."
Closing the door to the ready room behind me I moved to the table and poured myself a shoot. I was mad. This wasn't the first time Sec Def had waited unitl the very end of a battle and then swooped in to steal the kill.... and my reward money to boot! True we would still get paid for the Patrol but 50 grand was a lot of money to lose. There had to be a way to work around this in the future.
"Gizmo, I need you to analize our last engagement. I want a way to increase our chances of landing the last blow, but without wasting money."
"Sure thing boss, give.. me... just.... a...... second... Ok, I think I have a way, but you may to sit down while I explain it though.
----------
It was such a relief to be able to see again. The diffrence between the soup that was called space in the wall and the clearness of Antigone Memorial was just intoxicating. Though the bliss didn't last long as alarms soon rang.
"Sir Xenon ships just warped in. The're right on top of us! Xenon P and assorted fighter less then 2km away!" Jones shouted.
"Understood. Go to red alert." I replied. Red lights breifly flashed as Jones sounded general quarters. The ship shuttered slightly as Beams from the Xenon P lashed out to kiss us.
"Helm hard over, bring us around to fire." The ship slowly turned to face the Xenon at the helmsman's touch. "Jones give them our favorite dose of medication."
"Aye, Aye." He replied with a grin, firing the main cannons into the P. Looking to the gavidar I could see the dragons breaking off to engage the enemy fighters, while in the distance a group of sec def ships sat idle watching as we went to work on the Xenons.
Just like them, let us do all the hard work and then swoop in for the kill. Not today fellas.
The P was quickly getting bigger on the screen as we headed straight on towards it both of us exchanging cannon fire. But we were giving better then we were getting.
1km... Our shields were at 80%, it's shields were at 70%.
"Ops, reconfigure the shields to profile Gizmo-3-7-1."
"Sir?"
"Just do it!" I shouted
"Aye, captain." He replied as he reconfigured the shields to a setting Gizmo had devised. It completely refocused the shields away from the rest of the ship and into a wedged shape in front of the bowfacing away from the ship.
"Sir, this leaves our back side completely exposed!" Jones said as he noticed the changes. I ignored him as I pressed a button transfering controls from the Helm to my seat.
"Helmsman, I have control." I pushed the trottle in completely bring us to full speed as we headed straight at the toaster.
500 meters... Us - 60%. Toasters - 43%
The P kept growing bigger and bigger as I dared the P to a game of chicken.But that's the ting about computers, no balls.
200 meters... Us - 54%. Them 40%
The P turned to the left, having had enough of this game. But it was too late, it was too slow.
100 meters...
"Captain! Change course or were going to hit!" Jones cried out
"That's the point." I said as I continued to bear down on the P. 100... 50...
It had taken Gizmo hour to convince me of this plan. Shield apparently used some sort of energy that gizmo had a horrendously long name for. I called it dark matter. Anywho, the way dark matter works is that when it comes into contact with any other form of energy it cancels it out. Gizmo tried to explain the physics of it to me. It didn't work, my mind just does not work like that. But in short by canceling the other energy for out the dark matter was depleted but so was what ever it came into contact with, be it a laserbeam, a bolt plasma or other darkmatter (Mass driver work differently, something about the alloy that they are made out of is uneffected by the dark matter). By focusing all of our shields to a wedge at the front of the ship we had effectivly made a sword out of dark matter. A sword that I intended to use. It had taken Gizmo a full five minutes to do that math to calculate how to correctly excecute the sword, and he said that meant it would take a full team of math experts several years to come up with the same results.
25 meters...
<COLLISION ALERT, COLLISION ALERT>
I ignored the computer as the edge of my dark matter sword started to impact the shield of the P. Everything seem so sureal in that moment. Joned viably cringed as he braced for the impact he KNEW was coming. The helmsman was staring transfixed on the view screen praying that this was only a dream. The Ops-man threw himself to the floor in an attempt to save himself. And I just grinned.
It was over in a flash. The instant the dark matter shields of both ship contacted they fought, each molecule canceling an opposing molecule out. But the P's shield were already low and they just didn't have enough dark matter left. It soon(as in less then a millisecond) ran out of shields and then my darkmatter impacted the Ps Hull. It cut through it like a hot knife through butter. The P was torn in half as my centaur charged though. Explosions ripped across our hull as the Xenons core went critical. But of course Gizmo had forseen this. As soon as the sword had cleared the P the shield remodulated itself back to it's normal shape to withstand the blast from the explosion. The bridge shook as the force of the explosion overpowered our inertal dameners. And then it was over. Looking out the veiw port nothing but empty space greeted us except the two halfs of the Xenon floated behind us. A quick glance at the now abandoned ops station showed our shields were down to 13%, with no scratchs on the hull. The bridge crew turned towards me with stunned looks on their faces. I smiled. I cheesed it.
"And that gentlemen is the Sword of Vengeance."
----------
"That was dangerous. That was irresponsible. That was... That was..."
"Effective?" I offered "Amazing? Revolutionary?" Me and Jones were in the ready room... talking... I was seated behind the table eating on a bowl of strawberry icecream I had had synthesised, with my feet propped up on the confrence table. Jones was pacing back and forth ranting about my ramming of the Xenon P.
"You could have killed not only yourself but the entire crew! And why? Why? To TEST a THEORY? You had NO idea if that was going to work."
"I had it from a good source that it was likely to work."
"Likely!?!" I winced at my bad choice of words there, "Likely! So you admit you didn't even know that it would work!"
"Well it sounded correct, and as it turns out it is. What more is there to talk about? I made a decision, my decision worked, no one got hurt, everyone got paid. End of story." Jones just turned away from me obviously trying to contain his anger.
"You could have killed us all."
"But I didn't. And now we know for the furture that it will work. We now have a method for preventing sec def from stealing kills from us, some of the time."
"From now on, SIR, I request to be kept informed about all decisions such as this."
"Granted. Now.." Gizmo intrupted me before i could finish my sentence.
"Boss, Boss, Boss, We got a problem!"
"What is it Gizmo?"
"Our Sat array in Red Light just got shot down. I checked the sensor log from before it was destroyed and there is another Nova fleet headed this way!" Me and Jones both looked at each other.
"What are we dealing with Gizmo?"
"A Morrigu plus one M3, two M4s and four M5s" I looked jones dead in the eye.
"You ready for this?"
"Are we going to ram it too?"
"No... We are going to capture it."
----------(1)
A few hours later we were ready. in that time the Nova fleet had crossed through Home of light and were now headed north in President's End. We had assembled in Cloudbase Southeast. Kar'l and Frankie had their men ready. Kult had his men ready. And Jones had my men ready. it was time to go.
"Helm, jump the ship to PE."
We emerged from the east gate trailing the Nova fleet.
"Helm set pursuit course. Jones fire a standard missile barrage at all light fighters." The ship turned to chase the Morrigu while jones fired misile swarm after missile swarm at the enemy. We were running low on supplies with on 27 Wasps and 4 Silkworms left. So we had decided on a "standard barrage" of 2 wasps per scout, 3 wasps per light fighter, and then once we were closer we would fire the remainning silkworms and a wasp swarm to cover them at the heavy fighter.
It was beautiful watching the wasp swarms decimate the enemy fleet and when all was said and done only the morrigu and the heavy fighter remainned.
The Morrigu had come about to face us and we were now quickly closing with it, while the heavy fighter was some 7 km further behind it. My fighters were still on there way from CBSE since they did not have the jumpdrive needed to follow me directly. The Morrigu was just barely out of range but with it headed right at us....
"Fire the forward cannons." I said and watched as the cannon fire soared towards the enemy. It had technecially been out of range but since the morrigu was moving closer to us the cannon fire hit it dead-on. The cannons impacted the morrigu reducing it's shields to 93%. Enraged it returned fire. Closer and closer we came as we lobbed bolts of death at each other. Jones looked at me questioning weather I inteded to repeat my earlier manuever. I shook my head. Closer we came and closer. Finally with just a little over 1km seperating us the Morrigu dropped it's nose down in an attempt to pass us.
"Helm, stay the course, let them pass us. Jones target the heavy fighter and take it out." I watched as Jones fired another volley into the Morrigu before it left our firing arch and passed underneath us, bringing the heavy fighter that had been behind it into out view. Jones quicky let out the five silkworms as well as a swarm of wasps to confuse the pilot.
"Resume the attack on the morrigu." A quick glance to ops showed our shields at 86% and it's shields were at 79%. The helmsman turn the ship right as the fighter behind us fireballed. The captain of the morrigu, now without an escort and facing a superior ship and with numerous fighters inbound, decided to make a run for it and started to make for the north gate to escape. That just made it to easy me. I slid in behind the morrigu and ordered Jones to pounded it with the main cannons until its shields were dry. By this time the dragons had finally caught up and started to use their lighter weapons to keep the Morrigu's shields down. However Jones had been overzealous and had done a little more damage then I meant to, and now the wounded ship had only 52% hull left. Kult and his boys were quickly coming up from the rear and were about ready to deploy...
"Helm full stop. The rest is up to the DeathJumpers."
----------
"Alright ladies!" Kult yelled to the other Deathjumpers. "It's go time!"
Kult was in the launch bay of the Marine Lander with the other 7 marines who were about to jump out and try to capture the enemy Morrigu. Five of them had been with him when they had taken the Centuar. One of them was one of the new guys, and the only one that Kult thought was ANY where near ready for boarding ops. And the last member of their party was Nina Nu. Kult still thought it was odd that eight out of the twenty marines he had under his command were boron, had they forgot that they were suppose to be peace-loving? But where that was weird, Nina Nu was different. Nina Nu crept Kult out. NOONE should be able to waltz into a room with 7 guards waiting with automatic rifles and then walk out alive, but for that person to be Boron!?!
The ready light switched from green to yellow.
"FIVE SECONDS LADIES!"
The light turned from yellow to red. Kult held his breath as he steadied himself for the bay door to swing open and for the Void to pull them out. Something brushed against Kult's arm as the doors started to pull open. It felt like time slowed down as he turned to see a Boron sized space suit rushing past his, then jumping with tenticals spread wide. Kult just stared as he watched Nina Nu being sucked out, through the doors that were only barely open enough to let him through, like a bullet. Never had Kult seen anyone run and JUMP to get out of the launch bay before.
Crazy fraking Boron! Was Kult's last thought be for him and the rest of the marines were sucked out into open space where all of his attention went to controling his suit.
---
Lazy marines. Why stand around waiting to be hopelessly pulled out of the airlock, when with a little effort you are in control? Nina Nu thought as he SHOT straight to the morrigu where his suits built in system brought him safely to latch onto the side of the ship. Now where to get in?
---
Kult watched as Nina Nu gracefully landed on the side of the Morrigu while the rest of the team was some 150 meters way from it.
Damn it, if that is not effective. Crazy fraking Boron! Seconds later his own suit brought him down on the surface of the morrigu. Glancing over to where the boron was some 200 yards further up the ships hull then them, he called out. "Nina Nu over here!" Then he powered up his Photon cutter and started to hack away at the hull. That when the explosion went off.
---
Argon were such odd folk. Didn't they realise that windows were weak? Nina Nu thought as he finished placing the charges on the window. Smiling inwardly he backed away from the window and pushed the trigger.
---
Kult looked up from where he had dived for cover when he had head the explosion, his marine instincts kicking in. Looking around he saw debris floating by, coming from where Nina Nu had been standing only moments before. Standing up he rushed over as fast as his spacesuit would let him to find a perfectly round hole blasted away from the side of the morrigu just big enough to fit through. But no Nina Nu.
"Come on boys I guess that crazy ass squid made us a way in."
---
Corporal Johnson had been friends with Private Marton ever since they both joined with Nova Corp. They had always taken the same assignments, and they had both agreed that this one was to good to pass up. 5 millions credits for everyone if they managed to kill one guy!?! To good to be true they had joked. Now Johnson was not so sure that it wasn't to good to be true after all. From what the captain had broadcast over the intercome their fighter escort had already been blown away in a hellstorm of missiles, and in their attempt to get away they had been shelled and shelled and shelled. Now with their ship limping, the automated system had activated to anounce that they had enemy boarders. Johnson and Marton they were patroling down on othe the level two corridors when they turned a corner to find a boron in a spacesuit halfway down the hall. Johnson glanced at Marton who had a confused look on his face, and then shrugged. Johnson walked over to the spacesuit and nugged it with his toe. It felt hallow. Johnson felt his neck twist suddenly to look at Morson. His last thought before darkness overtook him was how strange Morson looked with his head cocked at that angle... And why was there a tenticale wrapped around his neck?
---
Kult rounded the cornor to see an odd sight. The was Nina Nu laying on the floor with two argons heaped over him.
Ah frak, he got him self killed Kult thought. But he wanted to make sure that the Boron was dead be for he left him so he walked over and pulled the two marines off of him, their head rolling oddly to the side as he pushed them to the side.
well at least he was able to break the necks of two of these bastards before they got him. Kult turned to inspect Nina Nu but for the life of him he couldn't find anything wrong with his space suit. Kult pressed the open button on the suit. The facemask slide open to reveal an empty suit.
"Motherfraking Crazy-ass INSANE BORON!"
---
The rest of the trip to the bridge was uneventfull. Kult and the rest of the marines moved slowly clearing each and everyroom. Several time their position was broadcast by the ships computer to warn the crew where they were. Oddly though the enemy never once tried to ambuse them. Kult stared down the corridor at the doors to the bridge. By his count there should be at least 6 marines on the other side of it just waiting on them.
Where the frak is that Boron? he thought as they started inching their way up. Suddenly Nina Nu dropped down from a vent in the ceiling.
"I wouldn't go any further if I was you."
"Why the FRAK not?" Kult shot back. But Nina Nu just shrugged and then sat down in the middle of the hallway. He pulled something out of his pocket and proceded to light it up. He puffed on it and then smiled.
"How the hell can you be smoking a fraking blut in the middle of a boarding op!?!" But the Boron just puffed on his cigar and smiled.
Frak it we have a job to finish. Kult thought as he stepped forward.
BOOM! The door to the bridge blew out of it's frame as fire rushed towards them, and rocked the ship. The explosion knocked Kult off his feet and onto his back. Once it was over Kult groaned as he sat up to find a grinning Boron in front of him.
"I told you." Ninu Na said taking another puff
CRAZY FRAKING BORON!
------------------
(1) Here is a
Video of the battle. I change a few detail to make for better reading. I think I was holding my baby durring this battle because I normally don't frak it up so bad. I mean at one point i CIRCLED the morrigu instead of launching marines??? And I normally use my mouse when i am fighting, unless I am holding my baby then I only use the keyboard. I am luck I didn't bite the dust when I accendentally rammed the morrigu