Rendezvous
The Pegasus, Phoenix and Griffin exited the nebula and now flew side by side with a Romulan scout and an elegantly painted shuttle carrying the Avian ambassador.
The Romulan and an Avian vessels banked slowly to their left and engaged their engines. Talisa immediatly calculated the necessary course correction and forwarded the information to Stryker's console. In turn, Stryker opened a com-link, "Pegasus to Griffin and Phoenix. Set a new course. Heading 113.8 mark 87. Prepare to go to warp when they do."
"Acknowledged. New course laid in and ready." Perl reported.
"Ready to engage on your mark sir." Ray said.
Talisa nodded to Stryker. "Stay frosty." Stryker said.
Everyone gave him confused glances. "That is his way of saying engage." Wiuen explained to the others. Lucida rolled her eyes.
"You want stay frosty, lizard breath ? Open a window." Mouse retorted.
"Cadet, why do you call him by that name ?" Talisa inquired.
"Because I like to." Mouse cheerfully answered.
A characteristic scowl formed on Stryker's face as he looked at Mouse on the mini-viewscreen, "You do know how much I hate that nickname, right ?"
"Of course," she smirked. "Why do you think that is the one I like the most ?"
He sighed in exasperation. "Damn feral."
Mouse laughed as the comlink was cut off. The three tiny ships banked to come to a new heading and leapt to warp.
Griffin
"ETA ?" Talisa asked.
"Two hours, thirty one minutes, five seconds." Stryker reported.
"Cut engines. Signal the others to do the same." she ordered. He let out a small yawn.
"You are tired cadet." Talisa noted. He shook his head.
Talisa was not fooled by his stubborn lie. "I will take the helm. Rest up for an hour or two, eat or drink something."
Stryker was going to protest, but he decided it be best to obey his commanding officer.
Pegasus
Alice glaced at Oratrei and smiled, "Perl's not the only necessity around here."
Lady Oratrei laughed. "Right. I'm the other one."
"True." Perl agreed. From behind, Alice slapped Perl on the arm and pretended to be insulted.
"That girl will be the death of me," Ensign Perl said with a wry smile as her gaze fell back on her readouts.
"If I don't beat her to it." Oratrei joked.
The three women shared a chuckle and went back to work.
Flight of the Phoenix
The five vessels approached DMD 416 at one third impulse. Their destination was only now visible on long range sensors. Onboard the Phoenix, Wiuen, Mouse and Ray rode out rough turbulence from a low density ion storm that was passing through.
"Rrrr, there be rough seas ahead." Wiuen joked from the engineering console. He'd been reading up on Earth's pirates and found tried his new jokes on his fellow passengers/victims.
Mouse was trying to get past Ray. "Don't get in my way." she warned Ray. "Just give me a phaser. I promise to set it to stun before I shoot him."
"No." Ray said again. "KNOCK IT OFF WIUEN. NOW!"
Ray glanced down at the helm console reacting to a sensor blip he just spotted. "Hey, I've got a - "
His words were lost as the shuttle careened away on impact, as if struck by a giant hammer. The shuttle pitched and rolled helplessly; alarms wailed in outrage as essential systems started failing. The entire cabin shuddered. Power failed, main lights went out, and the sudden zero gravity sent them fits of rising nausea as the shuttle spun around and around. Mouse cried out and all three of them tumbled about the cockpit like rag dolls as a result of their leftover momentum.
The power drain was fixed somehow and backup systems automatically activated themselves. The lights flickered back on, gravity suddenly restored. Wiuen winced when he banged his shoulder into the floor as he fell. Ray clambered off his accidental landing on the majority of the control panels, and Mouse inadvertently collapsed back into her seat.
"Damn," Ray muttered, shaking his head to retrieve his wits. He got back into his seat, feeling bruised but still healthy as he strapped his safety harness on. He tapped a number of commands into the console to stop the shuttle's descent, "Are either of you seriously hurt ?"
Mouse groaned, holding a hand to her head. "Miraculously no."
"I'm fine," Wiuen snapped, ignoring an abrasion he discovered on his wrist. He was all business now, no joking around. "Raising shields."
Another blast rocked the ship, but this time the power held. Ray swore, "What happened ?"
Mouse grimaced as she found a tender spot just above her forehead. Wiuen gritted his teeth as he scanned the shuttle's damage report. "I'm not sure just yet." He magnified a section towards the aft of the ship. "It looks like something just punched a hole through our rear stabilizer and thruster assembly. And I'm afraid I mean that quite literally too."
Mouse monitored the readouts on her console. "Dammit, who is shooting at us ?" she grumbled. "There is nothing on sensors."
Her eyes flashed with sudden fear. "Incoming !"
The lights in the cockpit flickered beneath the strain of the third impact. "Another one's coming !"
Ray blindly threw the ship to his left, sending them careening into an inadvertent circle. Proximity alarms warning them of possible collision, loudly blared in their ears as the runabout Griffin flew past, its starboard nacelle leaking warp plasma. Ray straightened out the shuttle's course. "Someone turn that damn thing off."
The shuttle shook again as two brilliant bolts of blue energy impacted on the shuttle. Mouse muttered something when the monotone computer voice beeped, "Warning. Warp core overload."
Wiuen's readouts displayed eight nested forcefields seperating 260 kilograms of anti-deuterium from the deuterium tank. Two forcefields were down, a third was already failing. "Transfer emergency power to anti-matter containment !" Ray yelled.
Mouse entered the commands into her console, "Power transferred, no effect on the containment."
"Eject it !"
"I can't eject the core, " Wiuen announced.
"How much time do we have ?" Ray shouted as he swerved the shuttle again, but the blast clipped the shields, sending another shudder through the small ship.
"Fourty five seconds !"
"Damn," said Ray. "One more solid hit and we're all dead."
"It will be quick at least," Wiuen muttered.
"Don't be so morbid !" Mouse yelled.
Ray examined his short range sensor displays and the distance to the nearest planets. "It's too late for an emergency landing."
The shuttle spun as the strongest attack yet punched through their ship. Gravity fell to zero, but their adrenalin had rose to such a level now they barely noticed. Their harnesses kept them in their chairs. Ray furiously punched in a series of commands to try keeping the shuttle in one piece.
An energy surge flowed through the shuttle's internal systems, causing the EPS conduit underneath the cockpit's floor to explode and frying a number of circuits throughout the shuttle. Another nested forcefield failed.
Wiuen tried to repair the fire suppression system while Ray used more colourful lauguage, "That last blast took out our shields."
"I sealing off the cockpit, " Wiuen yelled. "Unless they breach us here we will at least have air !"
"Ray, comminications are offline." Mouse announced from her console.
Three more nested forcefields went offline. "Transporters ?"
"Transporter buffers were destroyed by the energy surge. Propulsion is about the only thing still working."
"Warning, warp core breach in twenty seconds." The computer warned them. The ship shook again. The thrusters sputtered and fired, sending hundreds of minute vibrations rattling through the shuttle. The sixth nested forcefield's strength dropped below twentynine percent, the critical threshold.
The computer beeped again. "Warning, warp core breach imminent."
"Tell me something I don't know." Ray muttered. Wiuen cursed, knowing what was about to happen. He shouted garbled words to his companions just as the final forcefield started to fail.
Deadly maneuvers
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