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 manoeuvre 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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