Part Seven
The Helian Storm Cloud jumped into the Pariah system with a flash of dimensions that rattled space-time. Strange, unknown sources of energy played around it, twisting its trajectory in incalculable ways. The starlight reflected off the sleek black cockpit, and the blue thunderbolt design crudely etched into its hull with a plasma welder. Under its wings, menacing packets of needle missiles were attached, and the small guns mounted on its nose were painted a glaring red.
Inside, the young pilot recently hired by Kraine sat at the controls. He was busily scanning the system, and recording the readouts. A pile of data disks sat next to him, and as he copied the sensor data onto each one in turn, he ejected them and threw them onto the floor. His hands moved at lightning speed, for already three pirate vessels were moving towards him from the planet.
A message scrolled down on his comm. terminal.
...Stan Corren, this is Kraine. Report status. Several ships are standing by if you are in need of assistance...
...Acknowledged, Kraine. Status is normal. Scanning system, three approaching hostiles, but no need of assistance at the moment... Stan replied, and continued his scanning. Several newly attached sensor arrays stood out prominently from the Storm Cloud's hull, and they were focused towards the planet Pariah itself.
A small alarm on the instrument board began blinking. In the smooth feminine purr that he had set it to, the computer reported, "Needle missiles incoming. Impact time ninety-four seconds. Missile lock detected."
Cutting loose with a colorful curse, Stan turned his vessel around and sped out towards the rim of the system. He smacked a button and the sensor arrays retracted seamlessly into the hull. His computer reported that he was at least 3 minutes from the nearest hyperspace jump point.
He shouted in anger as a missile impacted his rear shields and shook his ship. Quickly he sent a message to Kraine:
...Corren to Kraine. Hostiles are engaging. Attempting to flee. Sensor sweep incomplete. Reinforcements not necessary...
Immediately an answer scrolled across the screen.
...Negative, Corren. Sending reinforcements. Do not engage, but stay in system. Completion of the scan is crucial...
Cursing again, Stan turned his ship and fired a salvo of his own missiles at the nearest enemy ship, a Helian much like his own. The enemy ship returned fire, and volleys of missiles streaked across vacuum.
His long-range scanners beeped. Two turncoats were launching from Pariah, and their Kraits were coming closer at a breathtaking speed. Stan knew his ship couldn't stand to 6 of the little fighters, so he sped away from them with his afterburners blazing.
They were closing anyway, and Stan had turned again and begun to fire missiles at them when the Star Lance jumped in. Immediately it set course towards the enemy turncoats, and rockets flared from its nose.
Two pirate freight-couriers jumped in directly behind Stan, and opened fire with their blaze turrets. His shields absorbed the impact, but the Storm Cloud shook jarringly under the impact. A ceiling plate fell down on him, showering him with insulation.
Screaming death threats, he passed onto the tail of the first vessel, and depressed the triggers. Missiles and blaze particles fired towards it in a meandering line of death, and explosions rocked the enemy vessel. He was berserk with anger, and only after he had reduced the freight-courier to a floating mess of metal did he relent his assault and glance at his instruments. His shields were out, and his hull was breached in several places. He had no missiles left, and his blaze guns were edging dangerously towards overheating. Looking around wildly, he saw three Kraits in tight formation pull onto his tail.
Stan yelled a cry for help into the comm. system and threw his vessel into erratic evasive maneuvers. The next few minutes always remained a hazy blur in his memory, as he instinctively threw his ship from side to side in desperate dives to escape the seeking blaze fire from his enemies. Smoke began to fill his cockpit from a fried circuit board, and the overhead sprinklers switched on automatically. Through the rising vapor, he swiped fitfully at the water congealing on the inside of his windshield and tugged on the slippery controls with his other hand.
He became aware of a ringing in his ears. Slowly he returned to reality, and he realized that his klaxons had stopped screaming. The alarms on his instrument panel were off. Everything was quiet in the smoky cockpit.
Breathing heavily, Stan lifted himself from his drenched seat and staggered to an auxiliary terminal. His main sensors were blown, but he could still utilize the ones built onto his vessel specifically for this recon mission. The neon green glow of the letters displayed on the terminal reflected off the thousands of water droplets crawling down his face. His eyes moved quickly, and his fingers quicker. Two minutes later he had accessed the secondary power core and was slowly urging the sensors out of his hull.
A small beep informed him that the scan was completed. He looked eagerly down at the statistics.
The system was empty.
Part Eight
Kraine sat on the bridge of the Star Lance, barking orders to all the different sections of his vessel. A slight impact jarred the ship, and he glanced again towards the overhead radar. Both Turncoats had been destroyed, but in the process their Kraits, several Helians, and a Freight-Courier had severely damaged his destroyer. His shields were down to 13%, and structural instabilities were likely under the constant punishment.
The Star Lance's turrets swept across the starry vacuum, eventually concentrating on the last Krait and sending it into a dead spin that ended in a fireball. The Helians had already been taking care of, but the Freight-Courier was sitting just out of the Star Lance's range and pounding it with a seemingly never-ending supply of missiles.
"Get me Missile Command, now!" Kraine demanded.
A brief hiss of static resolved into the flickering image of an exhausted engineer, covered in grease and sweat, with his uniform torn open in several spots.
"Johann here," he said.
"What's our missile status?"
"Only hunters left, sir."
"Fire at will. Target the Frieght-Courier."
"Acknowledged!" shouted Johann and whirled around. Heaving a missile into its tube, he screamed "FIRE!" and pulled the release lever. Immediately he was already loading the next.
Kraine turned his attention to the diagnostics readouts. The Star Lance shook and several viewscreens winked out. Among them was the status of the target vessel.
"GET ME THOSE READOUTS NOW!" roared Kraine. He knew the worst thing that could happen during battle was a lack of information. The lights in the ship flickered, then dimmed, but the screen remained out.
"Sir! Preliminary reports show severe damage to the main electronics systems! Power shorts are reported!"
"Where are our shields?"
"It seems like they shorted too, sir. However, hull damage is not severe."
"Johann! Are your target diagnostics still online?"
"No. Only emergency lights are on in here." The last part of his sentence was drowned out by the hissing roar of a launching missile. "I'm aiming by eye now!"
Kraine ordered a man into the observatory. Immediately the report came back: "Enemy ship is intact, sir, but there are significant scars on its hull. She's maneuvering away from our missile launchers, sir. Soon we wont be able to track her!"
"Helm! Open direct comm. link with Missile Command. Follow his instructions precisely!"
Slowly the destroyer turned, and a missile streaked out.
The man in the observatory shouted, "The missile seems to have locked! Enemy is turning to flee! Hit! I see hull breakup, and gas leakage!"
Kraine sat back in his seat with a resounding sigh. "Helm, get us out of here fast. Are the hyperdrives intact?"
"Yes, sir. All engine systems are responding normally."
"Good. We'll have to assume that the Storm Cloud made it out safely, because our sensors can't find a planet in this state. Set course to Omm."
As his destroyer jerkingly accelerated, he breathed heavily, and made his way down towards missile command to show some heartfelt gratitude.
Part Nine
Hamilton lay in his cramped hiding space, in a fitful world between dream and reality. A trickle of drool traveled down his unshaven chin, and dripped onto a wire that wove around his head. Grunting slightly, he waved a hand vaguely and his eyelids sank shut again. Slowly he turned over in his restless sleep, and woke with a curse as his head hit a protruding pipe.
He felt at his temple gingerly, and noticed the swelling with concern. As his eyes opened fully, he tried to wriggle himself into a more comfortable position. His tongue flitted across his cracked lips. Slowly he extended his arms, carefully maneuvering them past several broken wires that were sparking.
His stomach rumbled again, and he knew he had to venture out and search for food and water. Groaning painfully, he heaved his cramped body out towards the main crawlspace.
He left his machine gun behind, taking only his pistol. After an eternity of crawling through the hot, dim passage, he finally found the maintenance hatch he had entered through.
But it was closed.
His fingers scratched fitfully, searching for a handle. Some idiot had designed these to be lockable from the outside. He rattle at it in a near-delirium, and smashed his fist against the hatch.
The resounding gong sent shivers through his mind and brought him back to senses. In sudden panic, he rushed back to his hiding place, praying that nobody had heard him. Scarcely daring to breath, he listened raptly, but the only sound was his heart pounding in his ears and the crackle of disrupted circuitry.
Slowly he drifted into an unsatisfying sleep again. Sleep was only a temporary reprieve from the world, but it freed him from the constant pain in his temple, the dryness of his mouth, the emptiness of his stomach, and the cramped claustrophobia in his limbs. The panic in his brain remained, though.
He woke up later, thinking that he had heard a sound. After straining his ears, he perceived nothing, so he slowly made his way up to the hatch to search for a way to open it.
His groping hand came across something alien in his cramped prison. A small package was lying in the crawlspace entrance, right next to the hatch. The person who had helped him escape had found him! He opened it feverishly, and found that it contained a kevlar vest, pistol ammunition, a small satellite communicator, and most importantly a bottle of water, some ration bars, and a medpack.
He gulped down the water heedlessly, stopping himself only when he had already drunken a third of it. After devouring four of the fifty dry ration bars, he turned to the medpack and gingerly applied antibiotic lotion to his temple before covering it with a small self-sealing bandage.
He examined the communicator. When he flipped it open, he saw a number flash across its screen as it turned on. He memorized it quickly before tensely dialing it in.
After ten rings, just as he was about to give up, a seductive female voice answered.
-----
Stan sat in front of the terminal under a blanket, shivering. The secondary power core had barely enough energy to cycle the oxygen and carbon dioxide, so his ship was virtually unheated. He typed away miserably, exploring the extent of the damage and trying to salvage what he could.
He learned that the inertia caused by the many missile impacts had sent his ship floating off into space, and if he was not rescued within three days, he would be hopelessly far away from any normal routes of travel. His sensors showed an increased pirate activity in the system, so he refrained from hailing them, preferring death in space over death in a torture chamber. His only hope now lay in Kraine returning with a rescue fleet.
Suddenly his eyes lit up. One of the batteries from the primary power core was still responding. Immediately he began to let off bursts from his microthrusters, orienting himself straight towards Pariah. Satisfied, he channeled all the remaining power into his main thrusters. His hand poised over the escape key to cancel the action.
He watched his speed report with rapt attention as it sank to 0000234, and then lower. On instinct he smacked the escape key, and the speed froze at -0000013. He sighed in relief, for now he was nearly motionless, suspended on the fringes of the system.
To his disappointment the battery was empty, and he tried unsuccessfully to find another intact one. It seemed that a missile had detonated directly in his primary power core. Most of his systems were shorted, and he was lucky to have life support.
Stan shivered again and walked achingly back to his cabin. He huddled under his layer of blankets, and tried to catch some much-needed rest.
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 05-20-2002).)
(This message has been edited by llegolas (edited 05-23-2002).)
(This message has been edited by llegolas (edited 05-23-2002).)
I know what you mean here, but find a substitute for 'mad' to prevent redundancy.
