Crystal
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[b]Crystal.[/b]
The subdued lines of the [i]Slick[/i] spacefighter barely reflected the light of the sun. All in all, sixty of these sleek death machines were aligning themselves into formation along with half a dozen cruisers and more troop carriers than had been seen in a decade. It was unusual for a fleet commander to be commanding from the cockpit of a fighter but Angs Mihradine was not a usual officer. Harsh, unforgiving and ruthless had all been used to describe Mihradine, but not regularly to his face. Flying a high speed attack craft while co-ordinating an orbital attack and ground assault was a strain on his concentration, but only just.
Satisfied all was in order and his subordinates were capable of following his orders, Angs Mihradine tipped his port wing and dipped towards the ill defended planet.
*****
The first indication that anything was amiss were the plumes of smoke rising from the town. Large fires were not unheard of in this rural area but only at predetermined times and under strict supervision. Argonis looked back to the controls of the harvester he was operating and shut it down. He clambered out of the chair and onto the top of the control pod. Pulling out a pair of binoculars he zoomed to the limit of the ‘nocs range and immediately dropped back into his chair and urgently thumbed the intercom live.
“Dad ! Dad, what the hell is going on back in town ?”
After 5 seconds of silence, Argonis tried again but with the same result. A dead line. He raised the boom arm of the harvester, gunned the engine and wheeled the lumbering beast around, back to the equipment shed. Cursing the lack of speed all the way, he decided to take a shortcut across the old landing strips. Decades ago, this whole area had been a starport catering to small to medium freighters carrying an assortment of goods from Asus Prime to many destinations throughout this cluster.
Bumping over the broken hardcrete was not doing the shocks any good and he would have to pay for this later. But what greeted Argonis’ eyes as he rounded a hanger was more of a surprise that the repairers bill would ever be. The steady columns of dense smoke has resolved themselves into seven individual fingers of black, greasy smoke stabbing their way skyward from the charred ruins of Mihvale. The small town that had been home for twenty-three years to Argonis was in worse shape than the age old runways and less likely to see repair.
Suddenly remembering his father, Argonis again tried the intercom and again failed to raise him. Growing worried, he popped his head out of the cabin and scanned the horizon. Two things chilled him to the marrow of his bones and prompted him to leap out of the harvester and sprint towards one of the abandoned hangers. One of Argonis’ close friends Romex (one ALWAYS in trouble it seemed) had regaled him with stories of an old [i]Harrmen Series II[/i] medium fighter that he had stolen, or appropriated if you listened to Ro’, and had been spending a lot of time and ill gained credits on restoring. Argonis had only seen a still of the craft but the care that had been put into the restoration was obvious, if surprising from one with such apparant flighty tendicies.
Romex had been very secretive about the location of the ship and after a while, Argonis had grown bored with the cloak and dagger games and had forgotten about the craft entirely. Suddenly sporting a huge grin, Argonis spotted an empty case of the local beer and knew he had his friend pegged and had found the crafts hiding spot.
The grin quickly faded on remembering the reasons for his mad dash. The first hammer blow to his heart had been the vision of another harvester. Or rather what remained of it after an obvious straffing run. He had been confused at the time, thinking why take the time and ammunition to destroy a harvester ? The second chilling sight resumed its run of destruction. A wing of jet black [i]Sleek[/i] fighters had made short work of his own harvester and it was then that Argonis clutched the medallion around his neck by reflex. A gift from his father when his mother had died three years previous.
Pushing the memory away Argonis ducked around the side of the building and smashed a window with a chunk of hardcrete and leapt through. Landing with a thud, he came to a stop next to the landing strut of a [i]Harrmen Series II[/i] and breathed a sigh of relief, he could try to find help. With that relief came the realisation that the medallion was the only thing left of his family. Deciding he could wait no longer, not knowing if Romex had even survived the assult on Mihvale, Argonis climbed up the side of the craft and went to open the hatch.
The electronic eqivalent of a rasperry was the only response and Argonis quickly realised his friends strange sense of humour would have insisted on a voice activated securitry system. Argonis’ subconscious came to the rescue and after pealing out a massive belch, the hatch dutifully opened and Argonis again thanked the maker for inventing beer.
Argonis jumped down and began wheeling open the hanger door. Once open enough to squeeze the fighter out he raced back to the ship and began the preflight check. Again shaking his head at the surprises his friend was serving up, he noticed how well restored this old ship was and quickly got it up to launch status and fired some energy into the antigrav coils. Hovering at about a metre off the ground, Argonis shunted some power into the main drives and shot out of the hanger door.
The scanners immediately leapt into life and started providing data on the five fighters currently heading away from his position. He switched the scanner to long range and was amazed to see the huge range the scanners had. He decided not to think too hard about where such high grade equipment came from and instead decided to thanks the stars for such luck. Of course this was balanced by what was reported by said scanners. Troop carriers landing as far as he could see and three cruisers in orbit as far as he could tell. This was no place to remain.
Quickly plotting a course for the nearest freindly starport for future use, Argonis gave the main drives all they could take and headed for deep space.
Warning lights went off as the scanners showed three of the five [i]Sleek[/i] fighters peeled off formation and took a heading towards the [i]Harrmen[/i]. Knowing he only had about three minutes before the fighters got in range, Argonis started bleeding charge from the drives to the shield generators. While he lost a small amount of speed, the shields would keep him alive longer that sheer speed would against such a lightning quick opponent.
Deciding now would be a good time to check what weapons, if any, were available, Argonis was again surprised to see one plasma shock cannon and a goodly supply of countermeasures. While offensively the cannon was not the most powerful weapon available, it still packs a considerable punch and is not usually outfitted on such a craft. The countermeasures, in addition to the shields gave Argonis some hope that he could escape. Romex had obviously made some good deals as the indicators also showed two swarm missiles attached under each wing, a real bonus. Especially since he had just left the atmosphere and the swarm would do its best job in vacuum.
Redirecting some shield power to the front fields, Argonis decided attack was the best form of defense. Waiting until the lead craft was well withing range and wondered why it had not already opened fire, Argonis set the first missile to dumb fire and cut all forward speed. Turning his craft 180 degrees he let loose with one swarm and then thumbed his afterburners and fed charge back in to the main drives.
Surprise was with Argonis on his first attack and seven of the eight submunitions hit their target and the lead [i]Sleek[/i] erupted into a brief ball of incandescant light. The two remaining fighters split up and Argonis switch to image recognition lock and spun to track the second [i]Sleek[/i]. He quickly programmed in the craft shape and was able to obtain lock with relative ease. Silently acknowleging his friend for his great purchases he fired off two of the three remaining swarm missiles and was rewarded with a massive explosion as the remaining tail section of the fighter cartwheeled through space.
A feral grin was soon replaced by a furrowed brow as the remaining [i]Sleek[/i] tore great holes in the Harrmens shields. Equalising the shields to all areas Argonis was dissappointed to find them down to 48%. Pulling left and hitting right rudder gave his enough deviation to avoid the next barrage of fire. This was going to be tough. The remaining pilot was good and there no surprise anymore. The Harrmen was simply no match for the [i]Sleek[/i] in a dogfight and all Argonis had to pray for was that the shock cannon would also surprise his enemy and maybe give him enough time or space to escape.
Throwing his craft into a series of turns and course changes gave Argonis a few seconds to shunt engine power into the cannon and he felt a little better about the situation. That was until his scanners screamed that there was a missile after him and it had image lock.
Cursing furiously, Argonis slammed on the afterburners and jinked. At the same time he released 3 of the countermeasures installed in the ship and a second later killed all speed, threw all available energy into the shields and spun the craft to face the incoming attacker.
The missile slammed into the fake ship signature provided by the countermeasures and Argonis let rip with the plamsa shock cannon and scored several great hits on the [i]Sleek[/i]. It veered away as Argonis brought up the engines again and closed in for the kill. Loosing the last missle he again opened fire on the last fighter and slammed the side of the cockpit in joy as the last barrier to his escape turned into a molten shard of metal and electronics.
Gathering all the data he could from his scanners, Argonis aimed the craft towards his eventual destination and waited until he had achieved enough speed to use the Jumpdrive. The countdown slowly descended and when ready, Argonis had a last look at his homeplanet and launched his craft into the dangerous and strange world of jumpspace.
……….to be continued………..
[ 21-02-2002: Message edited by: theVodkaCircle ]
[img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] looking forward to more of this story [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
Excellent story VC. Gripping stuff! I particularly loved the free-flowing style of writing – can’t wait to see the next installment! [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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