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”
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