Come The Thunder, Come The Lighting

Posted on Sat Apr 27th, 2019 @ 12:24am by Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra & Captain Remas McDonald
Edited on on Thu May 23rd, 2019 @ 8:21am

1,507 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: S1:4: A Murder Of Crows
Location: Bridge, Deck 1
Timeline: MD63 12.45PM

The bridge was organised chaos.

At the side, a pair of medics plied their trade on some wounded crewmen. One cradled a broken arm, whilst the other was being treated for a grave burn across his chest. The greying parlour of his skin spoke volumes of the devastating attack, as did the bridge itself. The captain's chair had a hole burned through it, and before it sprawled the headless form of a Reka. Pale purple ichor oozed from the cleanly severed neck, staining the carpet.

"Captain," an Operations tech in a gold shirt said with a heavy note of relief in her voice. "We're picking up movement from the surface of the asteroid fragment. And what appears to be the reactor bloom of a starship powering up on the far side."

Remas nodded, slipping past the Reka he'd decapitated in retaliation for attempting the same, and slipped into the helm station.

"Shadi, I want you on weapons. Your Op's login will assign control to you," Remas commanded as his fingers flew over the controls with the fluences of a savant.

"Oh Goddess, oh Goddess, oh Goddess..." Bridge duty never was Shadi's strong suit. Though she'd put some experience under her belt, she was far more at home inside a Jeffery's tube than manning a bridge console. At least she had Clee'san configured to help her with the tricky stuff.

Upon entering her command code, the tactical screen lit up with information of the ship's systems and armaments. All the phaser arrays were warming up, torpedo launchers were priming, but only one of the bow cannon's was operational. But what was more striking was log in code at the bottom of the screen.

Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra.

"Captain Remas, the computer thinks there's another Shadi Zatra on board," she said, "or Clee'san is having glitches. Remind me to run a diagnossstic once this is all over."

"Not an error Shadi. I was going to announce it at the reception last night, but with what happened when you saw Ari there wasn't a good time. Apart from now, that is." Remas grinned, "I'm going to move us closer to the asteroid, try to keep it between us and the reactor source."

His hands moved over the controls, and in return, the Traveller answered promptly. Full reverse shoved the Ronin class cruiser backwards, and with a careful twitch of her RCS thrusters, she pitched down at the aft and began a slide closer to the shard of interplanetary debris.

The view screen lit up with tactical overlays, and brackets began to snap onto a handful of jet black contacts that had just raced around the curve of the asteroid. Zoomed in on the tactical display the small ships were shuttle sized but rakish and sharp looking. From an angular and narrow framed coarse, sprouting of shard-like fins and blades studded the aft giving it the look of a weapon fit for maiming.

The nearest two, jockeying for the lead, began to open fire with a mad spray of charged particles.

"Forward phasers are locked," Shadi said. "Commencing fire... I think."

The console lit up as the phaser array registered a loss of charge. Then the tactical sensors showed impact. "Direct hit! I hit them, Captain!"

"Great Shadi, don't get cocky," Remas said. The two Reka fighter's spiralled around each other for a moment, debris and plasma burning from their wounded flanks, before their courses intersected in a flash of annihilation. More of the fighters began to edge into range, and the light hail of weapons fire became a deluge.

"Warning, proximity alert. Obstruction approaching, aft, 300 meters. Obstruction approaching aft, 250 meters." The computer chimed. And it wasn't wrong, through calling an asteroid the size of Australia a mere obstruction seemed a little obscene. With a deft hand on the controls, the Traveller halted its approach, but retained its momentum, sliding back along the flank of the rocky mass.

"Shadi in a moment I'm going to flip the ship over and go to full burn, be ready with the rear phasers," he advised.

"Yesssssir, aft phasers charged!" Shadi squealed. "But I can't get them on target yet!"

"Just about to put the turn signal on," Remas said, eyes glued to the controls and read outs.

"Oh, right..." Shadi said sheepishly. "Ready to fire on your order."

"Hang on!" he hit the bow thrusters, kicking the thousands of tons of starship up on her tail. The proximity alarm went to a constantly panicked yell as the very tip of the nacelle's passed above the asteroids service by twenty metres. The impulse wash of her engines scattered dust and rocks from the surface, burrowing two glowing pits into the rock as the Traveller went to full power.

The rock behind them began to drop away like it was falling, the surface scarred by their exit as more of the Reka fighter's swarmed in and up like a torrent. Targeting pip's flicked onto them all in turn.

"Hit it."

"Firing now!" Shadi tapped the ignition sequence so hard and fast it left a minor divot in the console. "I'M FIRING!!!"

A score of Reka fighters peeled away from the glowing mass of fast moving debris, firing a few shots more powerful in intent than accuracy. But from the far side of the asteroid crept a larger vessel on par with the Ronin class heavy cruiser. Similar in profile to the parasite fighters that were not docking into its wickedly bladed wings, it looked like a flying shard of glass. Glossy and dark, reflecting the glow of Beacon's dust-shrouded star like a distant fire. A Shard craft, Remas mused at the image.

"Can you get a torpedo lock on the asteroid surface directly bellow that big'n?" Remas asked, watching as the Shard craft began to turn towards them, its mass slowing its acceleration. "Detonate them just above the surface, and that rock will come apart like a fountain of rubble from underneath them."

"Um..." The targeting computer didn't seem to have that in its base program. Shadi would have to manually target with the onscreen reticle. "I'll try."

Shadi activated manual targeting and trailed her talons across the haptic screen. The reticle hovered all over the asteroid, the ships, and empty space. "Famine! It won't lock."

This was impossible! Shadi never trained for this. There was no way she could she possibly manage to hit an exact spot. So she used the Ragolar principle of overwhelming force in the face of an unyielding obstacle.

"FIRING ALL TORPEDOES!!!"

Not one or even two, but four full spread volleys fired from the Traveller's massive armaments, one after another, each impacting various chunks of debris, unfortunate smaller fighters, and even the port bow of the larger Shard carrier. While ubiquitous, the shotgun blast was less than effective.

But one of them struck the underside of the asteroid. "Oh, right!" Shadi smashed the Detonate All command, then turned her eyes to the viewscreen.

Nearly a score of torpedoes, arranged in their volleys to form a zigzagged chain of light, erupted in a fanfare of pulsating light and fountains of photon particles. It was glorious enough to bring a tear to Shadi's eyes. If only Saurians had tear ducts. Instead, her reptilian jaw quivered in emotional ecstasy. "Did we get 'em?"

The flash of the torpedo detonation faded, revealing the now glowing face of the asteroid shard that minute before had been the Travellers safe harbour. A great deal of debris was radiating out from it, and the Reka carrier craft first looked undamaged. Then it slewed to one side, revealing the jagged charred remains of one of its engine clusters. But instead of the pilot cutting thrust to the other engine, the ship continued it's thrusting.

In slow motion, the carrier kept turning, and before long rammed back into the asteroid. Its nose came apart in a sudden puff of rapid detonations and escaping atmosphere, the momentum of the massive ship driving it harder into the rock before something delicate and powerful broke within.

A blinding white light swallowed the Reka ship, and then it was gone and the asteroid itself was cleaved in two.

Shadi gasped at the viewscreen and hopped back and forth on either foot, hands held high. "We did it! We did it!"

"Celebrate once we're clear," Remas said. "I'm plotting a course into a denser part of the dust cloud. Should hide us well enough, but we'll not be as able to see them coming as before. But that was some damn fine work Commander Zatra"

Commander Zatra. A gal could get used to that. Shadi hissed with glee. "Don't worry, Captain. Anymore of those bird ships come near, I'll send them to starvation in a clawbasket!"

Remas was honestly intrigued by what a claw basket could be. Was it just a basket for the claws to grip. or a basket full of claws? With a Saurian it could be yes to both.

 

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