Dark Haven - Chapter 16

[crunn]

Chapter 01 (Fate of the Armadeaus)
Chapter 02 (Portents)
Chapter 03 (Passing of a Fantasy)
Chapter 04 (Fissures in the Dark)
Chapter 05 (Reminiscence)
Chapter 06 (Things that go Bump...)
Chapter 07 (The Rocky Road)
Chapter 08 (Escape Plan)
Chapter 09 (Becoming)
Chapter 10 (And it Begins Again)
Chapter 11 (Flight)
Chapter 12 (Cut-off)
Chapter 13 (Spicy Noodles Under a Blood Coloured Moon)
Chapter 14 (The Dreaming)
Chapter 15 (Room With A View)

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DARK HAVEN

Chapter 16 (Clearing the Way)


Teladi Way

Argon Titan (General Kaar)


The huge Argon battle ship enters the sector.
The few transport pilots going quietly about their business immediately notice its presence.


"Looks like we're first here.
No sign of the Jubilee.
First thing's first, not all the ships are jump-capable, we will need to clear a path through the asteroid field so we can get to the gate.
I'm sure you can manage that Commander, I'll be in my office."


The General leaves the bridge.
The Commander stands and walks to the large 3D sector image in the centre of the room.
He brings up the path which the Armadeaus already cleared.


'Too narrow for a capital ship, but it is a start.'

"Lieutenant, set course for these co-ordinates at the edge of the asteroid field.
Arm the Hornet missiles."

'I don't like using up so many of our Hornets even before we enter battle.
Well, we are carrying far more than our usual compliment and the other ships will have theirs too, but still.'


The Titan reaches the edge of the field and comes to a stop.


"I've targeted the first three we need to take out.
Open the launch tubes and fire."


Three of the large red missiles streaked out from the front of the Titan and quickly met with their targets.
The impacts destroyed the three asteroids, small fragments of rock exploding outward.


"Move us forward three kilometres and prepare to fire again."


This time the Commander selects two asteroids. A moment later they too are gone.

...


Discoverer


'Mmmm, they don't taste too bad, well, I mean I have tasted worse.
The texture is a little soggy for my taste, but the spices are just about perfect.
I'll try adding less water next time.
I might as well take a seat to enjoy these, put my feet up.'

*chuckle*
'Sitting here, feet up, eating noodles with thousands of enemy ships after me and the Jubilee in battle with the pirates.
What would the Captain think, well, what she doesn't know...'

*Beep*Beep*
The comms panel in the cockpit chimes.

"Lieutenant Pierson, this is the Jubilee..."

Pierson almost falls backwards off his chair as he tries to jump to his feet.

"Ahh, I swear that woman must be psychic.
Owwwch, Ahhhhaaaa.
Spilt noodles.
All down me.
Hot.
Ahhh, they burn."

"Lieutenant Pierson, this is the Jubilee, please respond."

Pierson, now in some considerable discomfort, reaches the cockpit and taps the button.

"Yes, ouch, hello, ahhh, Pierson here."

"Pierson, are you ok?" The Captains voice came back this time.

"Yes Captain, it's nothing, what can I do you for?"

"Start towards the gate, we are only a few mizuras away now."

"Yes Captain."


The channel closed.


'Speed... four-ninety to four-eleven.
Hmmm, still ok.
Adjust heading... back to the gate... ok.'

'Now to clean up this mess'

...


Pegasus


'One jump from Teladi Way.
I'll cloak the ship now.
It does use a huge amount of power, and in a ship this small it means turning almost everything else off.'

"Shields offline.
Weapons offline.
Life-support to cockpit only.
Unnecessary lights and consoles off.
Engines full stop.
Engage cloak."


The Pegasus glows briefly as, what looks like a shield, forms all around. Then the ship and glowing sphere disappear together.


'Ok, the cloak is working perfectly.
I still have full sensors and communications.
Unfortunately I can only get a top speed of two hundred and sixty three meters per sezura without compromising the cloak.'

'Now, on to Teladi Way.
Nearing the gate, but I don't want to go through just yet. If anyone is monitoring gate activity they will find it suspicious when nothing comes through, and might come looking for me.
The cloaking device is good but not perfect. A short-range invasive scan can pick up a faint energy reading and if close enough even the pilots life-signs. Fortunately people don't tend to fly around doing invasive scans on empty space.
I'll wait for another ship going through and follow.'

'I see two transports heading in this direction, one is certainly heading for the gate the other may be. The first is six mizuras away.

...

'Hmmm, a Boron shark, an old one, has just entered the system, heading this way. I'm sure it's here because of this new race too.'

'Teladi Vulture now approaching the gate.
I'll pull along side and fly through with it.
Jumping.'

'An Argon Titan.
It's blowing away asteroids. A brutish show of force no doubt, never would I have dreamed that such an arrogant race could have advanced so far, someone should have killed them off long ago, ah well, too late for that now. Besides, all these Hornets they go through make us a fortune in profit.
Ironically our entire covert operations division is funded by the Argon Military, if they ever found out... I'd like to see the look on their faces.'

'I will just park near the asteroid field and watch for now.
When they jump into the unnamed sector I'll follow them.'

...


Jubilee


"The Lieutenant Commander is through the gate, we are only a few sezuras behind now.
Pierson is still a few mizuras away."

"Jumping.
Now entering sector Teladi Way."

"Lieutenant, retract the line most of the way, we don't want the Commander swinging around back there crashing into asteroids.
And contact the Titan."

"Yes sir, Titan on."

"General Kaar, nice to see you."

"And you Captain Hall, we weren't sure you'd make it out.
Have you taken any damage?"

"No General, but the Commanders Elite has, disabled."

"When the Argon One arrives it can take him onboard.
The rest of the fleet will be arriving within the hour.
The Boron and Teladi will also be joining us."

"If the enemy ships follow us into Teladi Way they will be around ten mizuras away. I don't know how effective they might be at taking on a capital ship like the Titan, I just hope the rest of the fleet get here soon."

"Very well Captain, we will move to high alert.
You get out of the asteroid field for now and behind us.
Kaar out."


"Captain, the Titan has stopped firing on the field to let us pass."

...


Pegasus


'An Argon M6 Corvette, very nice.
I saw the blueprints for these over two jazuras ago, never seen one in person until now.'

'Picking up a transmission from it...
Decoding...'

'Interesting, Boron and Teladi, this might be quite an impressive battle.'

...


Discoverer


'That's that cleaned up, uniform still a bit of a mess though.
Back to the cockpit.'

'Good the Jubilee and the Elites are out now, just me left... oh, and a few pirates survived, running towards the station.
Maybe I should warn them... Maybe not.'

'Speed... four-ninety to five-seventeen.
Oh dear. They are catching up now.
Still a good distance away and I'm less than ten mizuras from the gate, should be fine.'

...

'Now three mizuras from the gate.
Speed... four-ninety to five-forty eight.
No problem, they are still over thirty kilometres away.'

'I'm detecting an energy spike from one of the ships.
Nothing on sensors.
Rear camera, zoom...
There...
An object travelling fast...
A tiny sphere...
Sensors don't see it.
I see another... and two more.
Coming right at me.
They must be travelling far more than a thousand meters per sezura.
Missiles perhaps? Like nothing I've ever seen, but so are their ships.
The first is almost on me.
Evasive manoeuvres.
It has gone past.'


The first of the tiny spheres passes the Discoverer and a moment later it explodes.
An ever increasing sphere of white light expands outward from the centre of detonation.
The Discoverer is swallowed up by the outer edge.
The sphere of light then dissipates.


'Ahhh, what the hell was that!!
The shock-wave seemed to pass through the ship, through me, without any physical impact or damage.
We seem unaffected.'

"Weapons offline."

'What?
Rebooting weapon systems.
Nothing.
The actual weapons are still there, sensors show them to be undamaged. They just don't respond.
Two mizuras to the gate.'


Another of the tiny sphere weapons detonates, a little behind the M5 this time catching only the rear half of the ship.
Then another, this one too far above and misses.


"Docking computer offline."

'These things seem to be disabling the ships systems but not causing any actual damage.'


Four more hits.


"Trading system extension offline."
"Shields offline."
"Life support offline."
"Boosters offline."


'This is not good.
Twenty sezuras to the gate...'

[KiwiNZ]

Excellent chapter! Interesting missiles too. Obviously dumb-fire and do random damage on electronic devices, sounds like kind of EMP. Cool idea! Well, 20 sezura from the gate, even if everything else fails, he should be able to just drift through it. Yet, that leaves him stranded at the other side.

Looking forward to the next chapter.

[Mercenary]

Go with Kiwi on this.

The alien ships don't seem to want to kill them just yet. Looking forward to see if / how they're going to escape..

[crunn]

Thanks guys

[Moss]

So it was the noodles causing the pain , and I was just joking, I actualy thought Peirson was being attacked by Monroe. Will the small alien ships follow him through the gate tho or will the interesting EMP weapon stop him?

This sentance looks a little confusing :-

"If the enemy ships are going to follow us into Teladi Way they will be around than ten mizuras away. I don't know how effective they might be at taking on a capital ship like the Titan, I just hope the rest of the fleet get here soon." the "than" doesn't seem to belong here.

[crunn]

So it was the noodles causing the pain , and I was just joking.

Indeed. *chuckle*
Joking or not, this isn't the first time you've guessed things right.
I wonder if you've guessed how the story ends yet?

I'll need to see about making things less obvious, putting in red herrings, twists and tangents.

This sentence looks a little confusing :- ...

You're right, messy, confusing, too many words.
Fixed/shortened, thanks.