The
Corvette carried much more armour so the Pulsar Lasers wouldn’t be as effective
even with concentrated fire and knowing the Tornado had a rear facing Plasma
Cannon they were never going attack from behind so there was no surprise on the
flight deck when the Corvette turned onto an attack vector that would bring
them nose to nose.
As
the distance between them shortened both vessels opened fire and every shot
from the Corvette hit home hard, but the concentrated fire from the twin Pulsar
Lasers seemed to have little or no effect
“This
doesn’t look good” Merri said as the Taipan Corvette bore down on them
maintaining their steady pattern of firing.
“She’s
a touch old ship” Lyris said as another cannon blast hit home and smoke began
to emanate from one of the wall panel.
Asti
moved quickly to deal with the fire so missed the moment that the Corvette
shuddered and appeared to move sideways, seconds before it exploded into atoms.
“Help
has arrived” Ferro Scanner said proudly
“Thank
God” Merri said “But we still have work to do, Mal you take the left seat, Lyris
and Zerrad check for damage”
“On
our way” Lyris said
“Asti,
right seat, do a roll call make sure no one is hurt”
“Consider
it done” Asti retorted
“What
do you want me to do?” Ferro asked
“You’d
better standby for when our saviors make contact” Merri replied and almost the
moment she finished speaking Malena said
“We’re
being hailed”
“Right
on cue” Merri said, “put it on speaker!”
“Tornado,
this is Captain Monat of the Andraxian Dreadnaught Hyperion”
“Hello
Hyperion, Captain Strong of the Tornado responding, Thank you for the
assistance”
“I’m
only sorry we cut it so close, is your vessel sound?”
“It
appears to be so, yes, we’re still checking the damage though”
“Let
me know if the situation changes and in the meantime follow astern of us and
we’ll escort you to the rendezvous
“Thank you, Captain,” Merri said
Once they had fallen in line behind the Hyperion Merri left the flight
deck and went down to the sickbay.
“Everything alright down here? Is Ambor ready to be transferred to the
Frigate?” Merri asked
“Well she’s stable but I’m not comfortable with her travelling long
spells in Hyperspace, I don’t think she’s strong enough” Terrell explained
“Then we’ll take her to Montrose where she can recover safely”
Merri suggested
“I’d be much happier with that” Terrell said
“You could go with her Ferro”
“I can’t, I have to go with Dwyn to Andraxis”
“In that case you need to tell her how you feel before you go” Terrell
said
“What do you mean?” Ferro said
“He means tell Ambor that you love her before you go” Merri said “You’ll
regret it if you don’t”
“How did you two know?”
“It’s wasn’t difficult, you haven’t let her out of your sight since she
was shot” Merri explained
When
they reached the rendezvous point Malena brought the Tornado to a halt above
the Frigate she reported to Merri and the Captain immediately called a crew
meeting in the mess room.
“As you all know” she began
“Ambor isn’t well enough to travel back to Andraxis, so she will be
convalescing with the good people of Montrose and shortly Dwyn and Ferro are
transferring to the Frigate, but what most of you don’t know is that I’m going
too”
“What?” they all chorused
with the exception of Parse, Malena and Shiyne who she had already told.
“I’ll only be gone for six
months and Malena will be acting Captain in my absence” she said
After all the goodbyes were
said Lyris brought the engines
online and with him piloting and his brother Zerrad in the co-pilot seat, he
used the Tornado’s four vertical take-off jumper engines to maneuver the
Tornado towards the Frigate.
There
were two docking rings on the Tornado to facilitate transfers to and from the
freighter while in space, one in the belly below the loading bay and the other
was amidships above the cargo bays which was also the mooring point for
shuttles or ancillary craft, such as the Tornados Spider Hawk.
He
killed the engines and was using the thrusters to hold the ship steady and
maneuvered into position then he landed softly and docked with the Frigate
using the ships belly docking ring.
Once the docking was
complete and sealed, Merri, Dwyn and Ferro climbed through the docking ring
into the ship below.
After
watching the Andraxian Frigate burn its main thruster and head into the
distance Malena sighed and then took her place in the pilot’s chair and Shiyne
said from the copilot’s seat
“Good
to go Captain”
“Ok,
set a course for Eirkos number one” Mal said
“Oh,
I like the sound of that” Shiyne said
“Don’t
get too used to it I’ll want my job back when Merri returns” Mal said
“I
can live with that” she replied “Course locked in Captain”
So,
with Malena in the left seat and co-pilot Shiyne monitoring the instruments the
Tornado’s 4 Plasma Turbine Pyroclast Engines were engaged and the Tempest Class
freighter headed for Eirkos as their Captain and friend headed in the opposite
direction.
When
they got back in the Eikon Cluster proper, the Skeet Brothers took off in the
Spider Hawk from the upper docking ring bound for Eikon Major where they would
collect all their personal belongings from their rooms and settle their
accounts while the Tornado headed for Eirkos to be reunited with their other
crewmates who had spent their holiday at the agrarian settlement of Montrose,
and although they were looking forward to seeing them again, they were dreading
revealing the extent of the damage the Tornado had sustained to their engineers
Pulsat and Vanzyl.
After
engaging the Tornado’s four vertical take-off jumper engines the Tempest class
freighter landed softly on the apron at Cranack and when the freighters ramp
lowered the Tornado’s APMTV, (All Purpose Multi Terrain Vehicle), nicknamed the
“Stroller”, followed on foot by Asti,
The
name Stroller was an ironic one because when Shiyne or Merri were behind the
wheel it did anything but stroll, the moment it came to a halt Asti paused
before remotely closing the ramp and then climbed aboard, and as the Stroller
pulled away
Malena
looked long and hard at the blackened scars on the Tornado and said
“Let’s
go and give Pulsat and Vanzyl the bad news”
No comments:
Post a Comment