CHIANA GASPED AT THE DARK BILLOWING STAIN on the planet below and checked the ship's sensors, gave D'Argo a grim look as he circled the Earth. Behind them, Talyn came into view, after Crais had agreed to a run on the Carrier.
"They have fired on the planet." Crais told them unnecessarily.
"How bad?" He asked, not really wanting to know.
"Bad." Chiana checked again. "Really bad."
D'Argo arced away from the planet, pointed Lo'lhaa at the Carrier. Talyn followed.
"Whatever happened," D'Argo told them. "The whole Carrier is dark now. Reading barely any emissions at all."
"Talyn reads active power sources, Ka' D'Argo, but he says something is blocking access to them."
"Whatever it is, it's the perfect chance to hit this thing." Chiana rejoined. "For all we know it's some onboard thing. We should hit them now."
"Talyn states he believes that he would be better served attacking ground forces and aiding the humans."
"I'm not disagreeing with you." D'Argo said. "But you might just make it worse." He jabbed a thumb between his eyes, rubbed hard for a microt. "We'll never get a better chance to hit this Carrier." He primed the forward gun, asked Crais. "How many motivators does that say one of those Cannon has, anyway?"
He bore down on the Carrier, wanted to unleash Lo'lhaa's considerable firepower on the thing, knowing he couldn't. Not yet. Talyn dropped gracefully beside them.
"Four per Cannon." Crais sent telemetry. The image pulsed in a few spots. "That one, and another one on the other end of the track. We should only have to destroy one to lock them down, at least. There's the main power trunks to the Cannon, but those are too well-shielded – unless we can blow the motivators."
"Prowlers are still active," He pointed out. Pinpricks of light on his tracking sensors showed them darting about. The Carrier may be down but the Prowlers kept on their patrols. He knew that he'd have to drop his Shroud to shoot anything, hoped he could take a few Prowlers out along the way. The last thing he needed was to get swarmed by fifty of them. This may have been a Research Carrier with more techs than soldiers but it was still a formidable beast.
"Time to get fancy," Chiana chimed, as if reading his thoughts. Initially it had been an impulse but they'd never get a better chance to actually inflict real damage. Now it was a mission of revenge. She was tired of being passive and not helping when they could. She saw D'Argo nod and Lo'lhaa banked, accelerated at the Carrier. Talyn arced over the Carrier, heading to the other side, counting on his speed over lack of a Shroud.
The first shot from Lo'lhaa's forward cannon sliced through the housing holding the fusion plants that powered the fifteen-story motivator assembly that actually pushed a huge Frag Cannon along on its track. The fusion plants blew with a series of explosions that D'Argo barely managed to avoid.
"Okay – that's significant!" D'Argo grunted as he pulled his ship in a sharp arc over the nuclear fury below him. A smaller chain of explosions began and a large chunk of the track blew apart with a silent fury.
"Very!" Chiana added, holding on. Lo'lhaa raced toward the other motivator and it blew in the same way. He speared the next motivator fusion plant and watched it vanish. As he peeled away from the carrier, he dropped a couple of mines, hopefully to catch some of the Prowlers starting to swarm the explosions – he pondered it.
"Crais, you were right - the Carrier looks dead but the power sources are all still active."
"Indeed. Talyn has crippled our targets, but secondaries were larger than they should have been were it a complete power failure."
"What the frell happened in there?"
"I'd bet real money it's something Crichton did." Chiana stated with confidence. Her eyes narrowed as proximity and weapon lock sensors started chiming.
Behind them, a dozen Prowlers dropped onto his tail. A couple hit his mines and vanished. A few actually managed to hit Lo'lhaa and send her shuddering. He wondered just what Crichton could have done to knock out an entire Carrier but had to put it aside as Lo'lhaa took another hit aft and his attention was justifiably diverted to more immediate concerns.
"Talyn is coming under fire from Prowler pickets. We are disengaging." Talyn roared overhead and dove back for Earth. Time to leave, definitely. "I see no reason not to aid the humans, now, Ka'D'Argo. I am proceeding with Talyn's recommendation in that regard."
"Just target carefully, Crais."
"Of course." Talyn dove into the atmosphere and disappeared.
Behind them, another chain of explosions began to ignite along the track and Chiana whooped as explosions began to climb the side of the Carrier. They petered out after a few microts.
From what they could see, Scorpius' fangs had been drawn. D'Argo felt a ferocious grin spread across his face.
"I would say you had definite instincts on that, Chiana," D'Argo turned his grin to her, dropping an evasion canister before activating the Shroud.
"I'm not just a pretty face," she smiled back, watching the canister fragment and catch a Prowler, blowing it apart. "Although I am a very pretty face."
The canister fragmenting dumped enough phased radiation to blind the Prowlers' sensors long enough for Lo'lhaa to vanish.