Chapter 12

Of scouts and flyers

The delta flyer emerged from the dark side of the planet as she did so, the scout immediately changed course and speed.

"I think we got their attention" Susan Ivanova spoke her voice betraying her calm mannerisms, she'd never been in battle with a shadow vessel of any kind in a ship this small, what the hell was this woman thinking.

"This is the Delta flyer to unidentified shadow vessel, you will leave this system at once or be destroyed, resistance is futile!" she said with a hint of a smile on her lips

Susan couldn't believe that she woman had hailed the shadows and given THEM an ultimatum, they were going to die of that she was sure.

"Shadow scout vessel has just increased speed towards us, if you wanted to make them mad; I think you've achieved it" Susan spoke with a hint of anger in her voice.

The two ships came closer, the flyer bank hard to port as the beam weapon of the shadow scout hit home, the flyer rocked from the impact, then returned the favour with a three phaser blasts. At the site of the impact on the shadow vessel, debris exploded as if it were blood flowing from an injured creature.

The scout swung back round for another assault, this time it opened fire with all its weaponry, releasing a devastating volley of blows onto the flyer.

"Shields down to 45 percent commander" Susan relayed the information to Seven, realising that maybe, just maybe they stood a chance.

The flyer let fly with a volley of photonic torpedoes, followed by a volley of phaser blasts that ripped into the scout and blew it into oblivion.

Susan Ivanova looked open mouthed out of the cockpit window, a shadows vessel admittedly only a scout ship, but none the less a shadow vessel had been destroyed by a vessel of this size.

"Commander", Susan said, "I'm reading a signal that was sent by the scout just before it was destroyed, it was only partly sent, but I think they were calling for assistance."

Looking at the data that had been collected during the brief conflict, Seven of nine came across a stimulatory to the vessels used by species 8472. They were not as powerful, but none the less some features of the vessels used by the two cultures were intriguing.

"Seven, I think we've got a problem!"

As a shadow battle crab phased into view, Susan cursed herself for thinking they could actually get away from this in one peace.

"Adjusting our heading towards the shadow vessel."

"WHAT are you out of your mind Seven, that vessel is much more powerful that the scout we destroyed, we've only just managed to destroy that odd one or two with a wing of white stars, not one vessel when the shadows are at full strength"

Seven said nothing.

As the flyer got within firing range of the Shadow Battle crab, Seven jump to high warp for a brief second, deploying a flawless picard maneuver, with the shadows vessel firing on the point where the flyer appeared to be.

At that point the Astex de-cloaked from behind the Shadow vessel and opened fire with a full spread of phaser fire and six quantum topedoes blowing the shadows vessel out of the sky.

"As I said resistance is futile" Seven said calmly as she looked back to an ashen face of Commander Ivanova.

Thirty minuets later within the Astex, both commanders, were sitting with the Captain who was going through the sensor details from the Astex who had been monitoring the whole battle while in cloak.

"Most impressive commanders, you did a fine job acting as our decoy and drawing one of the shadows capital ships out into the open, we have invaluable data from that encounter."

'Decoy', Susan thought to herself, she hated playing the decoy and not being told about it, she slowly took in a deep breath and let it go.

"I have sent a full copy of our findings to the Illustrious, and now I think its time to get back to Babylon 5 and work out a plan to take this war onto the offensive."

A moment later both commanders and Captain Folders sat at her station, "set a course for Babylon 5 lieutenant, and take us into slipstream"

Just then all hell broke lose onboard the Astex as three shadow battle crabs appeared, they opened fire just as the Astex jumped to slipstream. The attack sent the Astex into a tumbling freefall as an explosion ripped through subspace and outwards into normal space giving the impression that the vessel was no more.

Three hours later Captain Sheridan, was seated at his desk when Commodore Rothchild materialised before him, he nodded then sat down.

"You wished to see me Captain?"

"yes, I did Commodore", he sat looking at the commodore then clicked on the view screen, it showed the Astex jumping into slipstream as three shadow vessels opened fired, then a huge explosion, followed by the three shadow vessels phasing out.

"My god" the commodore said softly

"We lost a lot of good people, including Commander Ivanova, I've put the station onto high alert, I'd suggest you do the same with the Illustrious

END OF BOOK 1

I hope you like it so far, I am planning to write book two and three, both taking different directions from the same point, you'll see what I mean latter. Let me know what you think.

Book two is called "Out of the looking glass"

And I am working on it now; the first chapter should be up sometime in the next week I hope. ((26/10/10 today's date))