Freespace: Rebellionbr
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Prologuebr
iLocation: Altair system, high orbit around Altair 4/ibr
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"Aridus, you are ordered to power down your engines and return to base."
A PVF Horus class fighter streaked at high speed across the star-speckled,
black backdrop of space. Three kilometres behind it, the black and purple
coloring of 2 PVF Thoth class fighters could barely be made out by Aridus,
the Horus' Vasudan pilot.br
"No thanks, Kinoth, I'd rather not," Aridus squaked over the ship-to-ship
communication system, and then clicked it off. iOnly 4 more kilometres
to the jump node, and then they'll never catch me,/i he thought to
himself.br
As he finished the thought, he heard the familliar click signalling that
the afterburners on his fighter were once again fully charged, and he hit
it. The whole ship felt as though it was going to shake itself apart, but
his speed doubled. The Thoths would never catch him, and once he was out
of Altair, he'd be able to find a Vasudan or Terran patrol, and, if all
went well and they didn't blow him out of the sky, he would be able to
defect with little trouble.br
Transfering more power from his weapons to his engines, Aridus waited
patiently for his afterburner to recharge again. He didn't know what he
was going to do once he arrived at the other end of the node, other than
flying away from it as fast as possible.br
i2 klicks left./i He thought. iI'm going to make it./i He heard
a click, and hit the afterburner. When the charge died out again, he saw 3
blue circles of in the harsh black of space. Something was exiting
subspace. He turned on the targeting scanner, and discovered that the
Hammer of Light was trying to cut him off. Three long, flat, nearly
rectangular Vasudan fighters were on an intercept course with him, and they
were going to get to him.br
Increasing the power to his shields and weapons, Aridus could slightly
sense the deceleration of his fighter. He turned his ship to face the
enemy wing, his sensors automatically began to attempt to aquire a target
lock. After a few seconds, he came into maximum gun range. However, he
didn't fire. When he had a lock, he still didn't fire. When the ships
opened fire, he increased power to his forward shields, but still did not
fire. At 200 metres away, he let loose 2 terran built phoenix V missiles,
and opened fire.br
The energy weapon lowered his target's forward shields, and the missiles
slammed into the cockpit, instantly killing the pilot. The ship spun out
of control, flying towards one of its wingmen. The damaged vessel's
reactor went critical a few seconds later, and the explosion took the
ship's wingman with it. The other wingman, however, got away in time.
Aridus had used his afterburner to escape the blast, but he took some
damage. His engine was only operating at 80 percent.
iThis is bnot/b going well.../i he thought to himself as he brought
his ship around to take on the surviving enemy fighter. Aridus targeted
the ship, turned so that the lead indicator was in the center of his heads-
up-display, and began to pump high-energy cannon fire into the opposing
ship's rear shielding. A few moments later, the ship's hull was critical,
and the engines tore themselves out of the chassis of the Seth heavy
fighter, rendering the craft useless. br
Aridus turned his ship back towards the jump node, and punched the
afterburner. The disabled enemy craft fired a few shots at him, but he was
soon outside its range. Seconds later, the Thoths were there. Aridus
maximized power to his engines again, and hurtled himself towards the area
of space highlighted by his ship's heads-up-display. 1 kilometer left. 10
seconds later, he was at the node. Activating the subspace drive of his
vessel, he relaxed. He was going to make it. The defector's escape took
only 3 minutes.
