My Death Battle Attempts

by LittleZbot

In which I take two fictional characters and pit them against each other in a duel to the death. Rules in the first chapter. NEXT EPISODE: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender) VS Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson & the Olympians)

19. Kestrel VS Hero

A/N: I'm going to start doing the footnote thing that the real Death Battle does, which should allow me to impart way more information without overwhelming you (hopefully). Keep a lookout for numbers like these: [1], [2], [3]. When you find one, feel free to scroll down to the "Special Notes" section of that particular analysis (just below "Weaknesses") to find out what more there is to be said about the topic that was just mentioned!

Episode 17: The Kestrel (FTL: Faster Than Light) vs. The Hero (Chicken Invaders)

In the vastness of space, war runs rampant. Whether it occurs a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away or during the distant future in our very own solar system, we're doomed to always have epic space battles. And when a federation elects to appoint a single ship to take on the opposing army all by itself, you can bet it's going to be the best of the best, fully armored, loaded with the best gear, and perfectly suited for taking down any opponent. Unless you're the guy who appointed these ships. He just took a look in the basement and said "Yeah, that'll do." Still, thanks to ingenuity and innumerable upgrades, these two vastly outmatched vessels still ended up being the heroes of war.

The Kestrel, the outdated salvaging ship that stopped a galaxy-wide rebellion, and The Hero, the pizza-delivery ship that took out an evil empire of chickens.

I'm LittleZbot, and it's my hobby to analyze their weapons, armor, and abilities to find out which would win a Death Battle.

The Kestrel:

Far in the future, when humanity has reached the stars, incredible discoveries have been made. An alien race made up of nanobots, a device that makes you invisible, and, of course, warp speed. But, as we all know, war is the way of the future, and it wasn't long before humanity faced their greatest threat yet: the mantis. Mantis are a proud, bug-like warrior race who commonly hold tournaments to the death and send their young into space to hunt innocents as a rite of passage. In their eyes, humanity was a weak race, as yet unready to face what was in the skies above them, so, well, they decided to wipe them out.[1]

The Human-Mantis War lasted for years, and the humans never would have won without the aid of alien allies and several strategic minds at the top. But afterwards, things began to change. The Federation (the government of humans that explored space) had been brought down from a great galactic power to a crippled state with very few bases. As not-so-friendly aliens moved in on their turf, some Federation officers began to think differently of their government's mission for peace. Many had lost family and friends to the mantis, and now rocks (not boulders, actual rock giants) and lanius were acting just as invasive. It wasn't long before a cult began to spread, preaching that humans were the only worthy beings in the galaxy, and all other races should be bowing to them. When most of the best men in the Federation joined, the cult became something much more. The Rebellion, it was called, and its war with the Federation was less of a war and more of a series of massacres. They drove aliens underground, killed all they deemed unnecessary, and generally seemed unstoppable. Then, years later, a small salvaging ship called The Kestrel stumbled upon a vital piece of information: the rebels' Flagship, a monstrous ship that put all others to shame, was also the key to the rebellion's defeat. If it was destroyed, reportedly, the rebellion would go with it.[2]

So, when the crew reported this, what do you think the higher-ups did? Send word to the front lines through a series of black market messengers? Get in their biggest cruiser and zoom ahead all the way there at warp speed? Ask for help from all the other alien races in the galaxy, seeing as they all hated the Rebellion? Nope! Instead, they took this information, looked at the captain, and said "Well, what are you standing around for? Take your salvaging ship that was never meant to fight anything and bring this to the front lines at the other side of the galaxy!"

To be fair, they did give some minor upgrades to the ship, like a shields system, two weapons, and an FTL Drive (the thing they use for warp speed). But it was one salvaging ship against a galaxy. Still, surprisingly, thanks to ingenuity, adaptability, and innumerable on-the-fly upgrades, they prevailed. Well, and thanks to their ship, of course.

Delivering a shipment by request of a merchant to a space station, The Kestrel opens hailing frequencies. They respond immediately, saying, "It took you long enough! We have practically no use for these now... I refuse to pay full price, take this and leave the cargo in our holds."

The Kestrel remains silent, but powers up its weapons.

Instantly, the attitude of the station responder changes. "You make a good point! You traveled all the way out here to fulfill our request, despite what must have been... a difficult scenario to cause such a delay. Here, we'll even tip you for the inconvenience you must have gone through!"

The Kestrel leaves, far richer than they arrived.

The Kestrel uses a single power source for all of its augmentations, weapons, and systems, a battery that distributes power based on a power bar system. Normally, when fully upgraded, it has 25 Power Bars to play with, which is enough to activate most things at once. Even when it's not, the Backup Battery system gives it an extra 4 Bars temporarily, so it doesn't have to worry about that anytime soon. That's good, since this stuff powers the weapons, and The Kestrel can have a LOT of weapons. To be clear, The Kestrel can only activate four weapons at a time, and only hold four others for swapping quickly. But, with its Advanced FTL Navigation, it can jump to any previous beacon it has ever visited, immediately granting it access to swapping out its weapons and drones for any others it wishes. So we're studying ALL of them. Also, if a weapon has a number after it (like III or IV), that likely means that there are others before it that are weaker, but faster, that we aren't covering for the sake of time, although they are included in our calculations. Every weapon also has a cooldown period before it can be used again. Got it? Great. Let's see some weapons.

Its primary weapons are laser weapons, which shoot out Star Wars-type laser blasts that sometimes do different stuff. First up is the weapon it starts with, the Burst Laser II. This thing fires two lasers that deal 1 damage each. Cooldown is 12 seconds. Heavy Laser II does 2 shots and 2 damage each, but these also tear through hulls and start fires. Cooldown is 12 seconds. Hull Smasher II does 1 damage to systems, and 2 damage to non-systems, while firing three shots. Cooldown is 15 seconds. The Chain Vulcan fires only one shot at 1 damage, but the cooldown lowers by 2 seconds every time it's used consecutively, down from 11.1 seconds to 1.1 seconds. Finally for laser weapons, the Laser Charger shoots four shots that deal 1 damage, and has a 20 seconds cooldown. However, this weapon can also shoot each shot individually, or in batches, by waiting 5 seconds at a time.

After that, we have Flak weapons, which just throw pieces of metal at enemies like a shotgun blast. Inaccurate, but deadly when it hits. The most powerful of these is the Flak Gun II, which shoots seven metal scraps that deal 1 damage each. Cooldown is 21 seconds. Crystals are basically Flak, but don't shoot all at once. Crystal Burst Mark II deals three shots at 1 damage each. They tear through shields and have a 17 second cooldown. The Heavy Crystal Mark II only shoots one crystal, but it deals 4 damage and easily punctures hulls of other ships. After that, our next weapon type is Missiles. Each of these are powerful, aimed explosives that go right through most shields, but take a missile to use, of which The Kestrel has 99. Artemis is what the ship starts out with. It shoots one shot for 2 damage and has an 11 second cooldown. Hull missiles deal 2 damage to systems, 4 to non-systems, and have a 17 second cooldown. Pegasus is 2 missiles for 2 damage each and a 20 second cooldown, while Hermes only shoots one for 3 damage and a 14 second cooldown. Swarm Missiles only do 1 damage each, but can be readied and stacked up to three, waiting 7 seconds for each. Then there are Ion weapons, which disable portions of a ship's functions when they hit. The greatest of these is the Ion Charger, which shoots one shot for 5 seconds of disabling, and takes 6 seconds to charge. However, this weapon's ammunition can also be stacked, up to three, disabling a system for up to fifteen seconds.

Bombs are weapons that take up one drone part (of which The Kestrel has 99) and are teleported directly onto the opponent's ship, and deal types of damage from within, like the Small Bomb, which kills crew (cooldown: 13 seconds), the Fire Bomb, which starts fires (cooldown: 15 seconds), the Ion Bomb, which disables a system for 20 seconds (cooldown: 22 seconds), the Breach Bomb II, which causes hull ruptures, injures crew, and badly damages certain systems (cooldown: 17 seconds), and the Crystal Lockdown Bomb, which blocks off an entire room with a thick coat of crystal preventing anyone from getting in there (cooldown: 15 seconds). Oh, and the healing bomb and repair burst are used on The Kestrel to heal people and fix the ship, respectively. It should be noted, however, that bombs have a tendency to miss, and can be dodged by fast ships. The final weapon type is Beams, which are kind of like phasers from Star Trek. Basically, laser pointers of death. Fire Beams set things on fire (cooldown: 20 seconds), Hull Beams cut across the whole ship and deal 8 damage to non-systems (cooldown: 14 seconds), and the Halberd Beam can deal up to 10 damage, depending on how far it goes (cooldown: 17 seconds).

But the three most powerful weapons The Kestrel has are the Anti-Bio Beam, which incinerates only organic life, the Breach Missiles, which were capable of blowing up a crystal barrier that no other weapon on the ship could even scratch, and the Glaive Beam. This monster of an energy beam slices straight through shields, has a 25 second cooldown, and can destroy entire warships with a single shot. It's known as one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy!

"But," you say, "you've still told us very little. What does 1 damage, 2 damage, and so on even mean?" Well, that's a bit hard to quantify. We know how much health most ships The Kestrel fights have, but not what they can normally stand up against besides lasers and missiles. But hey, you know what's the same in that universe as it is in ours? Asteroids. When flying through an asteroid field, asteroids will sometimes pelt The Kestrel, crashing into it and dealing 1 damage. The fastest asteroids fly at 65,000 MPH, and the most dense ones weigh in at 212 lb/ft^3. Measuring the largest of these asteroids against the Kestrel (which we figured out the size of by measuring shoulder span of female crew members, since they don't wear armor), and applying speed and the less-than-a-second it takes for them to stop against the ship, we have it that 1 damage = 120,836,734.5 Newtons of Force. And Kestrel can survive 30 of these! Actually, its durability is even greater thanks to its shields.

The shields of The Kestrel are a forcefield of sorts that disables oncoming attacks. It has four layers of shields, and each one blocks one shot of…well, pretty much anything. Whether it be a small asteroid or a nuclear warhead, it will be nullified by the shields, and take down one layer with it. So you have to get five shots in super fast in order to actually damage The Kestrel, and I mean SUPER fast, because each shield layer regenerates after only 1.4 seconds while manned! Well, unless your opponent has beam weapons; minus the Glaive Beam, those can't hurt the shields at all. The Kestrel has a variety of other systems to aid it, like sensors that can see into enemy ships, down to their systems and locations of crew,[3] a universal translator, hacking that can shut down one system of a ship (if the launched drone reaches it without being shot down),[4] a teleporter that will beam two crewmembers onto enemy ships to kill its crew, and a medbay that regenerates the bodies of those that enter within. You can be near-death, and the medbay will have you in top shape in less than eight seconds! There's also weapons control, which reduces weapon cooldowns/charging times by 40%, cloaking, which turns the ship invisible to sight, smell, and sensors and makes it almost impossible to hit for 15 seconds (has a 20 second cooldown), and mind control, which, um, takes control of an opponent's mind for 28 seconds. Though they must be visible, and it won't work on powerful minds or psychics.

And, finally, the FTL Drive that the Federation is so proud of. This allows The Kestrel to enter Warp Speed after just about a minute and a half of charging. In Warp, it can move up to 2,000 light years away, and, in the show FTL: Kestrel Adventures, it takes around 45 seconds to move 100 Light Years with one jump. That's flying over 70 Million times the Speed of Light! Sure, that isn't canon, but we never see how fast it goes in-game, and that's actually the only other piece of FTL: Faster Than Light media that's been officially noticed. So, well, beggars can't be choosers. Oh yeah, and The Kestrel has drones.

Drones are…exactly that, small machines that do work for The Kestrel, and each takes one drone part to use, of which The Kestrel has 99. Defense Drones shoot down projectiles, other drones, and asteroids. Boarding Drones ram their way into an enemy ship and kill its crew. The Ion Intruder does the same, but instead disables systems. Shield Overcharger Drones give a much weaker version of the Zoltan Shield (which we'll get to soon), Anti-Personnel Drones take out Intruders, Medi-Bot Drones heal on the fly, System Repair Drones repair disabled or broken systems and Hull Repair Drones repair the hull. Then there are all the Anti-Ship Drones, which attack enemy ships with laser blasts, beams, and fire, depending on the drone. So, lots of options, and we haven't even gotten to augmentations yet!

The Kestrel in gameplay can only have up to three augmentations at a time, but there's actually nothing in text events that states as much, and other ships, including ones less powerful than The Kestrel, seem to be able to use more. So it's actually possible that this is a mere gameplay balance mechanic, and it should be able to run more. Which is good, because it has a lot of them. It has augmentations that fix hull breaches, put out fires, send pieces of crystal flying at ships when fired upon, speed up drones, speed up crewmembers, slightly prevents damage to systems and hull, pre-ignites weapons after every FTL Drive Jump, protects from ion damage, doubles the time it takes their enemies to use their FTL Drive, decreases the time it takes The Kestrel to use their FTL Drive, repairs the hull through scrap, detects lifeforms, improves scanners to read ships within one jump, boosts the shield's recharge rate by 15%, replicates missiles 50% of the time they're used, reduces weapon cooldown by 10%, allows The Kestrel to fire weapons while cloaked, and even more! The best one of all is the Zoltan Shield, which prevents hacking, mind control, teleporting, and other hax moves, and takes 5 Damage to break through, though it doesn't regenerate until The Kestrel makes a jump with the FTL Drive. Still, upgrades are really handy.

Even without them, this ship is a beast, taking on and defeating every other ship that gets in its way, including famous pirates and specialized mantis hunters. And it should be, with its crew. In addition to the three humans who started out on it, the crew has a rock named Ariadne that they saved from an arranged marriage, an engi (one of those nanomachine-made aliens) that was infected, destroyed, and rebuilt by a rogue virus who decided to join their crew, one of the last crystal beings outside of their pocket dimension (his name is Ruwan), a psychic slug mercenary named Slocknog, and the legendary mantis KazaaakplethKilik, one of the greatest thieves in the galaxy! These guys are all super well-trained, in everything from weapons to piloting to martial arts, which has served them well when dealing with giant alien spiders, a zombie plague outbreak, and discovering a portal to an alternate dimension and accidentally leading the Rebellion fleet there. And, with a good pilot at the helm, this ship is fast enough to dodge 65,000 MPH asteroids and 1.34 Million MPH meteors! Beyond that, it once entered a secret crystal cache within a large asteroid, only to accidentally unleash a singularity. With the engines at their breaking point, The Kestrel actually managed to get out of its pull! If this singularity was indeed a black hole, that means The Kestrel would have to have been moving faster than light itself!

But more impressively, the black hole was powerful enough to compress the asteroid it was located in down to the size of a tennis ball. In order to have not suffered any damage from its pull, The Kestrel's tensile strength must have been, at minimum, 6,561,638 tons/in^2. That's insane; way more than our calculated asteroid field feat![5] It does actually have some support in other text events, like when The Kestrel survived the explosion of a space station it was hooked up to, or when it was struck by the explosion of a ship so powerful, it sent them careening into a nearby planet! Its weapons fit the bill, too; it's destroyed giant asteroids and some space stations in just a couple of shots, and when it stumbled upon an in-progress second rebel flagship, they destroyed it, despite this one having needed entire moons and planets mined out to make it![6]

And, after all that, it accomplished its mission; it destroyed the Rebel Flagship itself, stopped the Rebellion, and brought peace to the galaxy.

All because someone high up was too lazy to think of a good plan.

As The Kestrel jumps in, it immediately sees an impressive slug pirate ship with "The Black Raven" painted on one side.

The pirate ship hails the cruiser. "Greetingsss. I am the dreaded pirate, Captain Nights. You mussst be full of fear, no? You have heard of me... no?"

The Kestrel's pilot stares back simply and severely, and says "No."

Captain Nights appears surprised, but recovers quickly. "Well, I have heard of you, and I must see if you are as dangerousss as they say. I challenge you!"

The Kestrel's pilot stares back simply and severely, and says "No."

Slightly angered this time, the captain replies once again. "I sssee... However you have no choice in the matter!" They move in to attack.

There's a quick and bloody battle where The Black Raven is torn to pieces. Immediately, the pirate ship hails the cruiser once more. "I see the rumorsss are true. I yield, we are no match for you. Take this and let us leave in ssshame." He offers a large sum of money and a powerful weapon. He is clearly desperate for The Kestrel to accept his surrender.

The Kestrel's pilot stares back simply and severely, and says "No."

The Kestrel:

Designation: The Kestrel Cruiser

Class: Kestrel-Class Layout A Federation Warship

Length [Stern to Bow]: 688 inch/1747 cm

Weight: 77391 lb/35104 kg

Crew Size: 8

Original Purpose: Salvaging Ship

Kitchen, Bathroom, Quarters located below deck

Accidentally made enemies with a race of nomads, so killed them all

Fourteenth ship sent on this mission, first to succeed

Crew thinks that moss is worth saving a planet for, and threatens to kill humans to prevent some of it being burned

Systems/Augmentations:

Shields

Engines

Oxygen

Weapon Control

Drone Control

Medbay

Crew Teleporter

Cloaking

Artillery Beam

Flak Artillery

Clone Bay

Mind Control

Hacking

Piloting

Sensors

Door System

Backup Battery

Automated Re-loader

Weapon Pre-Igniter

Stealth Weapons

Explosive Replicator

Hacking Stun

Defense Scrambler

Shield Charge Booster

Reverse Ion Field

Repair Arm

Emergency Respirators

Fire Suppression

Backup DNA Bank

FTL Recharge Booster

FTL Jammer

Adv. FTL Navigation

Distraction Buoys

Long-Ranged Scanners

Scrap Recovery Arm

Drone Recovery Arm

Battery Charger

Zoltan Shield Bypass

Reconstructive Teleport

Lifeform Scanner

Engi Med-bot Dispersal

Rock Plating

Titanium System Casing

Drone Reactor Booster

Slug Repair Gel

Mantis Pheromones

Crystal Vengeance

Zoltan Shield

Weapons Arsenal:

Dual Lasers

Burst Laser Mark I

Burst Laser Mark II

Burst Laser Mark III

Heavy Laser Mark I

Heavy Laser Mark II

Hull Smasher Laser

Hull Smasher Laser Mark II

Chain Burst Laser

Chain Vulcan

Laser Charger (M)

Laser Charger (L)

Flak Gun I

Flak Gun II

Crystal Burst Mark I

Crystal Burst Mark II

Heavy Crystal Mark I

Heavy Crystal Mark II

Leto Missiles

Artemis Missiles

Hermes Missile

Breach Missiles

Hull Missile

Pegasus Missile

Swarm Missiles

Healing Burst

Small Bomb

Fire Bomb

Ion Bomb

Breach Bomb II

Crystal Lockdown Bomb

Repair Burst

Stun Bomb

Ion Blast

Heavy Ion

Ion Blast Mark II

Ion Stunner

Ion Charger

Chain Ion

Mini Beam

Pike Beam

Halberd Beam

Fire Beam

Hull Beam

Glaive Beam

Anti-Bio Beam

Boarding Drone

Ion Intruder

Combat Drone Mark I

Combat Drone Mark II

Anti-Ship Beam Drone I

Anti-Ship Beam Drone II

Anti-Ship Fire

Anti-Personnel Drone

System Repair Drone

Hull Repair Drone

Defense Drone Mark I

Defense Drone Mark II

Anti-Combat Drone

Shield Overcharger

Feats:

Able to break apart an alien device that creates wormholes

Missiles were used to mine large asteroids

Destroyed an automated ship capable of destroying a refueling outpost

A single lanius ship is capable of taking out several rebel automated ships, and The Kestrel destroyed a pirate ship capable of destroying dozens of lanius ships

Scanned several ships at once and harvested every possible bit of scrap from them

Sensors can pick up nearby planets, messages put out, and what type of atmosphere and vegetation the planet has

Weapons exploded two asteroids that had a ship trapped between them

Discovered the long-lost crystal section of space and thoroughly explored it

Breach Missile destroyed a crystal barrier when no other weapon could even scratch it

When entering asteroid crystal cache, accidentally set off a trap that formed a gravity well that "crushes the entire asteroid to the size of a tennis ball"

That gravity well was described as a singularity, and with fully upgraded engines, the Kestrel was able to escape it on impulse power

Medbay was able to cure a disease that wiped out a whole space station in minutes

Hacking countered another ship's hacking that disabled part of Kestrel's systems permanently

Scanners scanned crates supposed to be immune to scanning

Sensors picked up a hidden base on the other side of a nearby moon

Weapons scared a Federation ship meant for terraforming planets

Survives the explosion of a space station that it was docked alongside

Anti-Personnel Drone was sent into a space station and destroyed a bunch of giant alien spiders with no problems

Used hacking to reprogram an anti-battery gun on the surface of a planet to fire at rebels instead

Destroyed the in-progress second rebel flagship

Survived being caught up in a series of explosions that sent The Kestrel blasting into a nearby planet

Engi crewmember remotely changed a defense satellite's AI

Destroyed a mantis ship hunting slugs in the slugs' own territory; which only the mightiest ships and warriors do

Rock Plating rammed through a Mantis Ship and disabled it

Medbay analyzed a neurotoxins, developed a cure, and dispersed it within a few seconds

A Space Station fears your weapons, as if you could easily destroy them

The Kestrel hooked up to a small fueling station right before it exploded

Defeated the dread pirate Tuco

Survived the outskirts of a solar flare

In FTL: Kestrel Adventures, The Kestrel endured its FTL Drive being tampered with and crashing into the borders of the jump, while being struck by lightning bolts and ejecting wildly into space at FTL speeds

Weaknesses:

Only 8 crewmembers, so not everything can be manned at once

Can't dodge beam weapons, as they move at the speed of light

Without Zoltan Shield, just as vulnerable to hax moves as any ship

Only has 8 weapons and 3 drones without jumping

Limited fuel for jumps, also limited ammunition for drones, bombs, missiles

Easily torn apart if caught by surprise

If a shot hits a specific system, it is disabled until it can be repaired (including shields, engines, sensors, weapons, and even oxygen)

Special Notes:

[1] Mantis are deadly warriors. A single mantis can take down multiple rocks (the aliens), their damage output can exceed the healing aura of a medbay, and they can slice right through humans like butter. In a text event that isn't in the game due to a glitch, a mantis can slice through the wall of a space station and tear it apart from the inside in seconds!

[2] In FTL: Kestrel Adventures, the Rebellion was actually started by an evil A.I. named Simon that infected a Federation General's cybernetic eye, though only a select few know of this. The Flagship is actually his central hub, hence why bringing it down will cripple the Rebellion. This certainly isn't confirmed canon, but it's a cool thought.

[3] The Kestrel's sensors become much less powerful in the presence of a nebula. It's handy to have a slug crewmember in these times, since slugs' telepathy is actually more powerful than The Kestrel's sensors even under normal circumstances!

[4] While in gameplay hacking is a timed mechanic, in text events it's matched and countered hacks that would permanently affect the ship. Unlike Mind Control (which can't even last long enough to finish a conversation) there is no real specified time limit to upgraded hacking in text events.

[5] If the asteroid had a 100 km diameter, and we used the maximum crushing strength of asteroid rock, we can raise this number to as much as 7,874,013,048 tons/in^2. In this case, to destroy the ship in its entirety would take nearly 35,000 Megatons of TNT! The ship has also survived the outskirts of Solar Flares, which release energy with the force of a billion hydrogen bombs!

[6] In one text event, The Kestrel's weapons scare another ship into powering down theirs. This ship was meant for terraforming entire planets!

…

The Hero:

War may be the way of the future, but chicken is the way of the present. Through chicken sandwiches, chicken wraps, barbecued chicken, chicken dumplings, chicken alfredo, fried chicken, chicken chinese salad, orange chicken, sesame seed chicken, lemon cream chicken, and many, many other variants, the world is obsessed with consuming chicken. But beware, for one day, they will have their revenge. One day, the chickens will strike back.

Not our normal earth chickens, though, more like alien space chickens that are crazy good with technology and the size of six-story buildings. Angered at how readily we consumed their brethren, these chickens made it their singular goal to wipe humanity off the face of the universe. Our forces were worthless. The rest of the universe was incapable of handling these monsters. Our fate lies entirely within the hands of a single man, piloting a small ship.

All is quiet on the outer edges of the Milky Way. All is quiet, that is, until a black hole suddenly opens up and spits out a confused, grey, formula-one-looking ship, having recently been thrown by the chickens' latest creation.

As our hero emerges at the far side of the galaxy, one thought torments his mind…

"I'm hungry."

No! Not that! The Yolk-Star, remember? We need to get back before the chickens finish it, or the Earth as we know it is TOAST!

"Ah…right! Let's do it! GO! GO! GO!" our hero shouts valiantly as he takes off into the unknown.

You're going the wrong way!

Our hero turns and zips in the other direction.

Yep, we're screwed.

Nonetheless, he did surprise everyone when he actually defeated them. All of them. And the three or four times they came back, he was just as ready to crush them. And then eat them. Because they're chickens.

Something to clarify here is that, contrary to popular belief, the ship isn't called "The Hero"; the PILOT is the one known as The Hero (or "The Authentic Hero," if you want to get technical). His ship is actually designated "Fighter," but if I were to put that in the title, nobody would know who I was talking about. As it is, they're going to think I meant the Dragon Quest XI guy. So, yes, keep that in mind. Even so, it's extraordinary that the ship was named Fighter, since that's exactly what it's good at. It's killed giant chickens wearing an inordinate amount of winter gear, a robot chef, an egg-themed version of the Death Star, and the CK-01 Henterprise. Yes. The Henterprise. It's done some weird stuff.[1] But Hero couldn't have done any of it without his weapons.

The standard weapon for the M404-PI (the class of ship Fighter is) is the Ion Blaster. This simple bullet-like laser blast can blow up its fair share of stuff…after a while. But Hero is resourceful, and soon he had his ship completely outfitted to use scrap and dust left from what they'd destroyed and transform it into new weapons, or upgrades for old weapons. He can destroy an asteroid and gain a brand-new weapon from its debris in less than a second, with it registering in his scanners as a colored christmas present. When the Ion Blaster is fully upgraded, it shoots FOURTEEN laser blasts with every shot!

He has a lot more weapons that he can harvest, but before we go into them, we do have to acknowledge something: every weapon has infinite ammo, but different rates of fire, and, if fired too quickly for too long, will overheat the weapons system of Fighter, preventing him from using any weapons for three seconds. That might not seem like much, but it can be everything in a high-speed battle against an army. For each weapon, I'll give a description, a power level, a rate of fire, and how long it takes to overheat.

The Ion Blaster is the standard weapon of Fighter. At maximum power, it fires fourteen laser bullets in groups of two in the shape of a semicircle with every pull of the trigger. Every bullet deals 100 damage. Hero can fire 6.5 volleys every second, and overheats after 16.5 seconds of continuous fire. The Neutron Gun fires five green nuclear laser bullets together in a horizontal line. Every bullet deals 500 damage. Hero can fire 6.5 volleys a second, and overheats after 7 seconds of continuous fire. The Laser Cannon fires five orange straight-line laser blasts like laser pointers, with all five joining to increase the width and power of the laser beam. Every laser deals 400 damage. Hero can fire 6.5 volleys a second, and overheats after 4.5 seconds of continuous fire.

The Vulcan Chaingun fires five blue laser bullets just like the neutron gun, but longer, thinner and way faster. Every laser deals 240 damage. Hero can fire 10.2 volleys a second, and overheats after 6.4 seconds of continuous fire. The Boron Railgun is the same as the Vulcan Chaingun, but yellow, longer, and weaker. Each laser deals 150 damage. Hero can fire 6.5 volleys a second, and overheats after 6.5 seconds of continuous fire. The Photon Swarm fires four orange photons that travel in a sine-wave at a ridiculously fast pace. Each photon deals 150 damage. Hero can fire 20 volleys a second, and overheats after 5 seconds of continuous fire. The Hypergun fires similarly to the Vulcan Chaingun, but has seven lasers, and they're slightly more spread out. Each laser deals 150 damage. Hero can fire 10.2 volleys a second, and overheats after 4 seconds of continuous fire. The Riddler fires freakin' shrapnel, and sends it out in a somewhat more spread pattern, each bullet varying a few degrees to the right or left of the last one. Each shrapnel piece deals 80 damage. Hero can fire 20 volleys a second, and overheats after 18 seconds of continuous fire. And finally, the Corn Shotgun. It fires seven giant corn kernels in varying directions. Yes, corn. It's unpredictable, but powerful. Each kernel deals 400 damage. Hero can fire 4.4 volleys a second, and it never overheats.

Whew. But surprise, we aren't done yet. Those are just the projectile ones! Fighter has three others. The Lightning Fryer delivers three straight lines of pure electricity into whatever it's aimed at. These lines can track opponents and automatically lock on to them, and move way faster than normal electricity. Each one of these lines deals 3300 damage PER SECOND as it's locked on. It overheats after twenty seconds of holding down the trigger, but if Hero opts to do rapid presses instead, he can still deal the same amount of damage, and it will never overheat. The Positron Stream unleashes an enormous purple wave of pure energy emanating from Fighter. It'll carve its way through anything by dealing 6600 damage a second, locking onto targets, incinerating them, and moving along instantly. But it overheats after only five seconds, making it pretty dangerous to use. But it's far outclassed by Fighter's second-best weapon: the Plasma Rifle. This baby is the exact same as the Positron Stream, except it deals 8000 damage a second, and overheats after 15 seconds. When Fighter wants to murder one thing exclusively, this is what he turns to.

But that's still only his second-best weapon. Behold his best, the Utensil Poker. This shoots five spaceship-sized carving fork and two normal giant forks at his enemies in the same pattern as the Ion Blaster. The difference is that each carving fork deals 450 damage, and each fork deals 300. He can fire 6.5 volleys a second, and it overheats after 9 seconds. This means that, with this weapon, Hero unleashes 18525 damage a second. And it's spread out, so if there are multiple enemies, they all get mutilated! And you know what? That's not all. If he absorbs enough chicken, he can construct a missile, which obliterates most things, or charge up Fighter to unleash a mine, a powerful explosion of force that deals 10,000 damage to everything within nearly 100,000 square yards! AND he can find satellites locked away in alien crates, and equip up to two at once. There's a chaingun that fires 10.5 rounds per second for 12 seconds that do 300 damage each, a flamethrower with a flame that deals 2500 damage a second for 10 seconds, a biological weapon that holds 15 green goop shots that deal 1000 damage to whatever it hits and creates a 500-damage shockwave of poison, and, finally, a rocket launcher that holds three rockets, each of which deals 5000 damage to what it hits and 1000 damage to anything in its blast zone.

Yeah. A lot of weapons. And you may be saying "Well, that's great and all, but I still know nothing. What are these units of damage, anyway? What do they mean?" Well, that's what we're about to get into next. Hero has done a lot of stuff and blown up a lot of stuff, but it's initially a bit tough to pinpoint a good measurement for how powerful his weapons are. Sure, he'll blow up crazy huge inventions, but how tough were those made? Sure, he'll cook big chickens, but how resistant are they to lasers? So I got my information from when he joined in a comet chase and blew a few up – particularly, a giant one taking up a quarter of the screen. Comets are typically composed of 80% water-based ice, 15% gas-based ice, and 5% rock. By measuring this comet next to Fighter (fun fact: I actually emailed InterAction studios, the makers of Chicken Invaders, to find out Fighter's size! Yes, they did reply. It was awesome.), I can get a volume of 655 Billion Cubic Centimeters.[2] Now, we have the scientific equations on what it takes to pulverize rock and water ice (214.35 j/cc and 22.4 j/cc, if you're wondering), but the gas ice is a little harder. The closest we have is dry ice, which is tougher than water ice, but no official studies have been done to measure how much. Luckily, a lot of people have destroyed dry ice for the fun of it over the years, so, by literally comparing dozens of real-life durability tests, I've come to the conclusion that Dry Ice is approximately 62.5% tougher than water ice. Now that we have our percentages, numbers, and various equations, it's simple to work out that destroying this meteor would take approximately 5,256.2 Tons of TNT! It takes four Ion Blaster bullets to pulverize it, so we finally have our equation: 100 Damage = 1314 Tons of TNT. Though even that might be lowballed, since Hero's been able to destroy the Viteline Molecular Propulsor, or Egg Cannon, and the giant eggs it fires, which are powerful enough to destroy planets![3]

This ship has SERIOUS firepower. It has to, I suppose, in order to save multiple galaxies from ending up as chicken feed. It's killed shapeshifters, the space invaders alien mothership, chicken superheroes, the giant chicken version of Darth Vader, the giant chicken version of the Headless Horseman, giant turkeys that shoot lasers, and even the heart of a frickin' planet![4] And alongside that firepower is some great speed. It dodges dozens of projectiles constantly, including ones based off lasers, electricity and radiowaves, all of which move at the speed of light. That shouldn't be a surprise, though: with its warp drive, it can make a 10,000 light year trip in just seven seconds! That warp drive is serious stuff, able to take Fighter nearly halfway across the galaxy in mere seconds, but it has to stop every 45,000 light years or so and rest for around two minutes before being able to be used again.

Even on impulse power, though, Fighter is ridiculous. This is a ship that witnessed the collapse of a star, and decided to ram ahead at top speed in order to make it through as the black hole was forming so that it wouldn't get struck by the supernova's energy wave! Debris caused by pre-supernova explosions was flying at him during this instance, and such debris in real life is sent flying at 10% the speed of light. Since it took twenty seconds to reach him before he made his move, Fighter must have been approximately 599,584,916 meters away from the collapse. In order to make it in as the black hole was forming, he had to cover the distance in less than a tenth of a second. That means that, at this point, Hero was flying and shooting his way through debris and sentient apple cores (don't ask) at 13.4 Billion MPH!

This isn't the first time he's pulled off such a trick, either; he once flew 0.6 Astronomical Units of the Jupiter system in two minutes and eight seconds, clocking in at 1.6 Billion MPH. He's shot down objects while coming out of warp, and his weapons have caught Ultra-Celeritas Comets moving at Warp 9.9. That's, at the very least, 6.64 Billion MPH.[5] As if all that isn't enough, Hero has fought his way from the back end of the Pluto system to the Neptune System in 25 seconds. The closest those two ever come to each other is 16 Astronomical Units! What's an Astronomical Unit, you ask? Oh, nothing much, just the distance between Earth and the Sun: 91 Million Miles! And he made his way through 16 of those in less than half a minute! Yeah!

But for his speed and firepower, Fighter has one major flaw. Sure, its sensors are good enough to track individual spaceships and planets on the other side of the galaxy, and sure, it's essentially immune to tracking and seeking weapons, but it's also…really, really fragile. Seriously. You throw one rock at this thing, and it's gone.[6] For all those chickens it's murdered, a single egg, laser beam, balloon, satellite, or even collision from a single one could seriously completely end the ship in an instant. It can barely survive atmospheric re-entry, for chicken nugget's sake![7] And the Hero himself, well, he IS unpredictable to the point where even psychics who can see the future are surprised by him, but for the most part he's a selfish, arrogant coward who cares very little about his fellow man. His primary stakes in all the fights he takes part in is simply that he wants to stay alive or keep eating chicken. He's absolutely addicted to chicken; it's 99% of what he eats. Even under those circumstances, he usually has to be shoved along by an invisible narrator (whom he can communicate with) in order to get anything done. Also, he's an idiot, and all his plans fail unless they come from the narrator.

But hey, you can't knock him too hard. The guy has saved all of humanity several times over, and took out threats that would be impossible for any other person or ship in the galaxy to deal with. And all just with his skill, reflexes, and one of the best ships in the whole universe.

I guess he probably does deserve a five-course chicken meal after all that.

As he watches the CK-01 Henterprise explode, our hero gives an exclamation of pride.

"And…BOOM!"

Mission complete! Congratulations! You've defeated the despicable Henterprise! You've restored sunlight to our planet! You've literally saved the day!

"All without breaking more than a half-dozen laws of physics!"

…and you slightly rearranged our Solar System.

"I just staved off global warming for a while. You're WELCOME. Ahem, now, back to business…"

Our hero takes off for the nearest Space Burger, leaving behind the scattered remains of the Henterprise, along with a giant fan sitting on top of a quarter of the Earth. He claims his hard-earned reward, as we all give our thanks, again, to The Authentic Hero.

What, you're just going to LEAVE that there?

The Hero:

Designation: Fighter

Class: Müller M404-PI Deliverer

Length [Stern to Bow]: 630 inch/1600 cm

Weight: 9260 lb/ 4200 kg

Crew Size: 1

Original Purpose: Pizza Delivery

Leaks five gallons of water for every mile traveled underwater

Has a special named after him in the universe's biggest fast food chain (ironically, none of it has chicken, and he changes all the ingredients when he orders it)

Always carries a mop wherever he goes

Can talk to the narrator

Systems/Augmentations:

Sensors

Underwater Travel

Black Hole Transport

Warp Speed

Missiles

Mines

Thermostat

Two Satellite Ports

~Microgun

~Barbeque

~ICBM

~Bird-Flu Gun

Weapons Arsenal:

Ion Blaster

Neutron Gun

Vulcan Chaingun

Corn Shotgun

Laser Cannon

Boron Railgun

Photon Swarm

Riddler

Hypergun

Utensil Poker

Lightning Fryer

Positron Stream

Plasma Rifle

Feats:

Killed the Space Invaders aliens – all of them

Destroyed the Yolk Star

Destroyed the CK-01 Henterprise

Destroyed the Viteline Molecular Propulsor

Destroyed a Planetary Egg City

Destroyed the Mother Hen Ship (many times)

Killed superhero chickens

Killed a giant chicken who was trained as a member of special forces

Killed Darth Vader-themed chicken

Killed a robot clone of the Darth Vader-themed chicken

Killed giant turkeys

Killed the Chicken Headless Horseman

Killed Chicken Santa Claus

Killed the Easter Bunny

Killed a giant chicken-piloted cyborg jellyfish

Outsped the Enterprise

Found all the pieces of the World's Greatest Fan and constructed it

Can sense specific planets and spaceships from across the galaxy

May have accidentally moved the Earth a few thousand miles away from the sun once

Unpredictable, even to Madam Madàmme, who can see the future

Survived a small meteor crashing into him

Traveled 0.6 Astronomical Units in 128 seconds while fighting chickens

Flew between Pluto and Neptune in 25 seconds while fighting chickens

Travelled nearly 45,000 light years in one warp trip

Moved 10,000 Light Years in warp in only seven seconds

Weapons shot down meteors moving faster than light

Rode ultra-celeritas comets

Outpaced the shockwave of a supernova and made it past while the black hole was forming

Destroyed a 843,592 cubic yard meteor

Retains control when being affected by the Force (yes, from Star Wars)

Killed the living heart of a planet

Dodged lightning and radio waves

Killed a giant shapeshifting ice creature

Easily dodges seeking weapons and evades sensors

Uses weapons while in warp

Eats millions of pounds of fried chicken and never gets a heart attack

Weaknesses:

Pretty dumb

Extremely lazy

Way too addicted to chicken

Fighter is a total glass cannon; one hit and he's down

Special Notes:

[1] In Ultimate Omlette, Fighter destroys what is called a "Planetary Egg City." While it appears small, the scale of buildings within indicate it to be much larger than you might think. When taking into account the fact that most chickens are more than fifty feet in height (and live in these buildings as we humans live in ours), this planet could be as big as 343 Trillion Cubic Feet in volume; that's 97 times the volume of Mount Fuji!

[2] In Chicken Invaders 1, the Hero fights a hoard of chickens evidently surrounding the Earth a few times. This is clearly a fake version of the Earth, as it's dropped on top of the ship near the end of the battle, and it does not make Fighter close to the size of a planet.

[3] The Chicken Invaders Wiki lists the Viteline Molecular Propulser's width as 35,000 Kilometers. This likely stems as a result of the multiple official statements that the eggs it shoots are "planet-scale." If this is true, the weapon would be more than three times the size of Earth!

[4] Far in the future, Fighter-based ships became the standard for Earth's defense force. Some of these ships have obliterated two-million cubic yard meteors and destroyed entire stars!

[5] While we don't know exactly what Warp Speed is in the Chicken Invaders universe (hence why I went for the simple "this much times the speed of light" approach), the narrator heavily implies that even Warp 9.1 is faster than Fighter's typical Warp Speed. So it's entirely possible that Fighter was shooting down objects moving over 27 Quadrillion MPH!

[6] In Revenge of the Yolk, Fighter survives entering a black hole. He's not surviving black hole-levels of pressure; rather, it's revealed in Ultimate Omelette that most spaceships in the Chicken Invaders universe are specifically programmed to use black holes as portals.

[7] Fighter did used to have a frying-pan-shaped shield that could block extremely powerful energy beams, but it was destroyed by the Yolk Star. Without it, the most he's survived is deep water pressure and a small asteroid breaking apart on his hull.

…

All right, the combatants are set. Let's end this debate once and for all. It's time for a Death Battle!

…

As our hero flew through a solar system in a faraway portion of the galaxy, he blasted away the last of the chickens in this wave.

"Oh, yeah! Score one for the Hero!"

There was a quiet wait for about twenty seconds.

"Um, isn't there supposed to be a boss fight now?"

That would seem to be the pattern. Maybe you just got lucky?

"More like UNlucky. I. Am. Starving!"

You've eaten more chicken in the last five minutes than the entire rest of the world has in all their lives!

"I don't see how that's relevant."

Without warning, a stream of light poured into the scene as The Kestrel burst out of its latest jump towards The Last Stand.

Seeing a grey racecar-like ship nearly their size in front of them, the pilot quickly informed his captain. "Hey, Ricardo? What kind of ship is that?"

Ricardo flipped through some readings. "Not sure. I don't think I've ever seen one like that before. It has engines, weapons, but…no shields? Anyone recognize this ship?"

Negative answers came in from all over the ship. The only interesting bit came from Slocknog. "I feel the presssence of only one human aboard that vessel. His mind isss weak."

Jose, the pilot, shrugged. "I guess we'll try hailing him." He opened a channel. "Hey, uh, you out there. Are you planning on, uh, killing us?"

…

Well, it looks like the boss fight has just arrived!

"It's kinda…small."

It's, um, new, more dangerous technology?

"Then wouldn't it be bigger? I mean, last time, they made this giant Egg Cannon, and I still blew it up. You'd think they'd want to make something bigger than that to fight me. Also, why are my sensors saying they're, like, mostly human?"

Egads! The chickens have learned to mask themselves as humans and…other aliens!

"And the size?"

And to…make themselves smaller?

"…Do you want me to attack it? Why-"

They have chicken in there.

"WHAT? WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY THAT FROM THE BEGINNING?!"

A static-ey voice came over Fighter's comms. "Hey, uh, you out there. Are you planning on, uh, killing us?"

"GIMME ALL YOUR CHICKEN!"

Jose was almost blown back by the voice. "Uh, what? Is this a ransom or something?"

"Oh, right. I forgot. I have to blow you up, and then you turn into chicken! Sorry. Won't happen again."

A blue light went on in front of Jose. "He's charging weapons!"

Ricardo's voice echoed over the radio. "All hands to battle stations!"

-FIGHT!-

The Kestrel dove down, out of range, as the crew scattered and picked up their places at shields, piloting, engines, cloaking, drone control, and weapons. "He's only got a few systems," Pavalo stated over the comm. "Let's send a bomb in there, keep him busy!"

"You got it!" Ruwan inputted some commands into the weapons bay, pulled a lever, and a fire bomb instantly vanished. Sensors revealed the inside of the opponent's ship, where it exploded and set fire to their weapons control. "It landed!"

"Fire a volley while he's distracted!" advised KazaaakplethKilik. Complying right away, Ruwan shot out an Artemis missile and a round of Burst Lasers.

Both the missiles and the lasers were easily dodged.

Jose noticed something funny on-screen. "Hey, the fire isn't there!"

Over the still-open hailing frequency, he heard The Hero. "That was kind of a surprise, but little did you know, I never leave home without a mop!"

Jose opened his mouth slightly, and then leaned forward as he tried to understand what his foe meant. "Did you say mop?"

"My turn!"

Jose gripped the controls and drove the Kestrel downwards to avoid whatever this ship fired.

"Relax," Pavalo informed him. "According to these readings, he's just firing a basic laser blast."

"Yeah?" Jose fired back. "Have you ever seen a basic laser blast like that?!"

All the crew stared in shock at their computers as Fighter released fourteen red energy bolts at once. Jose had dove, but not quite far enough, as one of the lasers bounced off the Zoltan Shield. A blue light went on. "He's char-"

Before Jose could finish they were struck with another wave of red blasts, all of them now hitting the Zoltan Shield. The blue light went on immediately as another wave slammed against the shield.

"What is this?" Pavalo wondered aloud. "His recharge time is faster than I've ever seen!"

"Hit him with the beam! Quick!" KazaaakplethKilik shouted at Ruwan. He complied right away, locking onto Fighter with the Hull Beam and pulling the trigger.

"We've got him!"

Hero noticed the beam almost too late. He stopped firing and threw the controls back, flipping Fighter completely over in a somersault, causing the beam to just barely scrape by the cockpit window.

Jose leaned further forward. "Did anyone else just see him dodge a beam weapon?"

"Jose, get us away!" Ricardo ordered. "His weapons are battering us down, he's dodging everything we throw at him, and the FTL Drive still needs twenty seconds to charge."

"Right. Activate Cloaking!"

Ariadne had already primed the system, just in case, and now all she had to do was press a button to activate it.

Hero saw The Kestrel turn and start to flee, and flew after it, shooting at it constantly with laser blasts. A few were dodged, but given that it was to the ship's rear, he doubted whatever chicken was piloting that thing could dodge much of anything. He shot and landed a number of ion blasts until he finally saw the grey shield around the ship break and dissolve.

And then he saw the ship vanish into thin air.

"Um…hello?"

There was no sound or sight of them, and nothing showed up on sensors.

"Hey, did they leave?"

Although The Hero questioned the narrator, he didn't reply. Nor would he reply for the rest of the fight. This was fight between them, and he could not interfere.

"I can still hear you, you know."

Crap.

The Hero wasn't eavesdropping on the narration for long, though, as a beam came out of nowhere and almost hit him. He backed up instantly, and began flying in an up-and-down zigzag pattern while firing round after round of ion blasts. Almost every one of them missed, but he did see one or two glance off of something invisible. Not that it mattered, though, as he quickly picked out where it was as it shot out more lasers and another missile. Hero immediately twirled and dove as he saw these, predicting that a bomb was coming along with the other weapons. He was right, as he saw one appear and explode in space, where he had been moments before. So, even that weapon could miss if he moved fast enough.

A thought for later, as a metallic device shot out from the invisible ship, adjusted itself, and began chasing him around and taking potshots. Hero zoomed backwards, to the left a few thousand meters, to the right a few thousand meters, then forwards at high speed. But this thing kept on him.

As he continued to dodge, he saw The Kestrel uncloak in front of him. It charged ahead, evidently intending to ram into the small ship. Hero shot a round of lasers at it, but most were absorbed by a layer of shields, and those that broke through were absorbed by the second and third layers. They shot one more missile, which Hero managed to work to his advantage, ramming at it then dived down at a 90-degree angle, causing the drone to smash into the missile and explode. From the wreckage of the drone emerged a green christmas present, slowly drifting downwards, which the Hero picked up in order to gain the Neutron Gun.

"Oh, yeeaah. Say hello to my little-"

The Kestrel turned into a mass of light and vanished.

"…Well, that was rude."

Aren't you going to go after them?

"I thought you weren't going to talk to me for the rest of this fight."

Eh, I'm sure it's fine as long as I don't actually help you. You are going to continue the fight, aren't you?

"Well, I could, or, and hear me out, I could not. Because if I don't, then I…can save the world faster?"

Stop being lazy! You know quite well what kind of danger they will present to the Earth if they manage to escape!

"None? I mean, I get that they have weird powers and stuff, but-"

THE FUTURE OF CHICKEN SANDWICHES IS AT STAKE.

"Fine, fine! I'll chase them down! But only for the chicken!"

The Hero activated warp drive and space began to distort and move around him. As he blew ahead at incredible speeds, it never looked so much like he was moving, but more like space had gotten tired of standing around and had suddenly decided and run off the opposite way he was headed. So, when the white and orange cruiser appeared to make its way to him, Hero was more than ready.

What he wasn't ready for was a drone latching onto his hull and drilling its makeshift teeth in, blocking off direct access to his engines.

"What the…" Hero tore off ahead quickly, looping around, flipping, and rolling, trying to dislodge the hacking drone, but it didn't work. It didn't help that his speed was now reduced thanks to said drone.

Which, of course, was exactly what The Kestrel's crew was counting on.

"Fire!" ordered Ricardo. A two-pronged weapon opened up out of The Kestrel's hull and shot a beam at Fighter. Despite his lowered speed, though, Hero had little trouble dodging the Anti-Bio Beam. He'd dodged worse under worse circumstances. This would still be easy for him. Probably.

He shot several rounds of the Neutron Gun at The Kestrel. Jose was quick on the stick, and dodged all but the grazing of one, which revealed to Hero that the Zoltan Shield had been restored. The two ships began engaging in what was, for both of them, a typical space firefight, with blasts of lasers and other weapons, dodging, tearing past each other fast enough to make your skin crawl, and narrowly making or missing every shot. In The Kestrel's case, it missed every time, and in Fighter's place, it also missed mostly, though a few hits were landed. Not that it mattered much, with that powerful of a shield stopping him.

"This isn't working!" Pavalo informed the captain.

"He seems overwhelmed. Our hacking drone has slowed his craft considerably. I recommend we 'throw everything at him' until he becomes broken under the pressure," Virus coolly advised. Of everyone on this ship, Ricardo noted, Virus was easily the best strategist. Which made sense, since he was a computer beyond computers, but regardless, it meant his advice was almost always taken.

"Do it."

"Launching all drones."

A beam, a laser, and a fire drone were all dispatched to chase Fighter, and at the same time, three of The Kestrel's weapons were switched to flak and crystal ones to create more chaos for the chicken-killer to avoid. They began firing immediately.

"Woah!" Hero announced as the drones began to fire upon him, forcing him to dodge more rapidly. Immediately, bursts of metal and crystal were thrown at him as well, and before long it became impossible to stop moving. Like a shark in water, if he wasn't constantly running, he would die. "I thought this was shoot-em-up, not bullet hell!"

"We've got him on the ropes!" cheered Ariadne.

"Indeed, hisss mind is extensssively preoccupied," informed Slocknog. "If we have anything elssse to give, we should do ssso now."

"We do." Ruwan spoke. "How do some swarm missiles sound?"

Hero was gritting his teeth, hand mindlessly clenched over the trigger for his weapon as he just focused on dodging. This was getting to be too much; he was supposed to be grilling them, not being hunted down.

Then, through the lasers and the flak and the drones, he heard a single cluck.

He stopped dodging for one second, just enough time to get ahold of his surroundings, and, miraculously, he wasn't hit during that second. Which he was most glad for when he saw a stream of dozens of chickens filing in to take him out. And the one he had killed left a brownish yellow christmas present.

He flew ahead towards the box, and, though he had the perfect opportunity to release a dozen or so rounds on the Kestrel before grabbing it, he found that his weapons were overheated from holding down the trigger. That was fine. Once he had this weapon, victory would be his.

"Um, Slocknog? What are those?" Jose called in.

"Those would appear to be…chickensss."

"Chickens?" Pavalo bellowed. "The biggest chickens I've ever seen!"

"This is quite unfortunate," KazaaakplethKilik hissed. "I heard tell of the rising chicken empire, but to think it is already here!"

"You heard tell?!" Ariadne shouted. "There was an evil empire of chickens out to kill us, and you didn't warn anyone?!"

"Look, in my defense, I was kind of an awful person back then." KazaaakplethKilik backed up. "And I hardly thought they'd be here anywhere near this soon."

"The engi empire has only encountered the chickens once before," Virus noted. "They were most impressed with their technology. Until the engi ship was destroyed, collected, and turned into a giant egg meant to destroy planets. Still, most impressive."

"So how do we destroy them?" Ricardo asked, slightly angry.

"Um," Jose replied, "maybe just let this guy do it?"

Indeed, while they'd been talking, Fighter had been mowing through the army of chickens with ease thanks to his new weapon, which appeared to be some sort of shotgun that blasted spaceship-sized corn kernels, and, thanks to the chickens and their eggs, the three drones trailing him had been destroyed. Still, some chicken stragglers made it through, but The Kestrel was more than happy to take a few potshots with their Anti-Bio Beam and cook them easily.

"Not to interfere with this riveting battle," Virus interjected, "but now would be an excellent time to leave."

"Oh, yeah. I guess we don't have to fight this guy if he's busy with these chickens," Ricardo replied. "Activate cloaking and prepare the FTL Drive."

A few seconds later the ship vanished, and silently zoomed ahead in bursts of light.

As Hero cleaned up the last of the chickens once again, he spun around, newly equipped with the Lightning Fryer and two satellites: a chaingun and a flamethrower. He was decked out for finishing off the spaceship that had kept shooting all that weird metal stuff at him.

Except it wasn't there.

"Dang it! Again?"

Luckily, Fighter had some pretty fantastic sensors, and, once it was given the command to look, it easily tracked The Kestrel coming out of a jump about a thousand light years away. A short stroll for Fighter.

"Okay, hold your buns, I'm coming!" The world began to move once more.

In another solar system, Ricardo paid careful attention to the sensors, reading the exact location of Fighter thanks to their Advanced FTL Navigation augmentation. And he saw the moment Fighter got a burst in speed.

"Ruwan, now!"

Ruwan nodded and pressed down on a button, releasing a pulse from the hacking drone, disabling Fighter's engines.

The world suddenly came to a crashing halt for Hero as his engines died mid-warp. He was thrown out and sent twirling and flying hundreds of light years into empty space, dead in the water.

And as he saw The Kestrel bear down on top of him, ready to end him with a single shot, one last thought entered his mind.

"I'm hungry."

Oh, for the love of-

"Kidding, kidding! Let's fix this."

Fully charged from a mountain of chicken, Fighter released a mine.

The Kestrel had no time to react before a massive shockwave rattled the stars. The hacking drone disintegrated, the Zolton Shield was ripped to shreds, and all four layers of the Kestrel's normal shields vanished as the ship rolled out hundreds of thousands of miles. Fires appeared, but were immediately suppressed. Hull breaches were everywhere, but were quickly covered in gel and repaired. But, crucially, their drones, mind control, weapons, and shields were totally out.

System repairs began slowly on their own, but crew immediately left to repair the broken systems themselves so they wouldn't be sitting there to die. After recovering from the shockwave and ensuring that they weren't bleeding out of their ears, of course.

Jose clambered back onto the pilot's chair, dizzied, but alive. Not for long, though. His eyes widened as he saw what was coming, moments before a lightning bolt burst through the windshield of the ship, striking through Jose and killing him instantly. Repair gel oozed out of the ship to fix the windshield, but not before Jose's mostly ashened corpse was sucked into the vacuum of space.

With nobody at the pilot's seat, there was nobody to dodge Hero's attacks. His lightning bolts danced around the ship, disabling systems and starting fires everywhere. The fire suppression system and the rock plating and titanium coating throughout the ship protected it a little, but it wasn't much help, especially when the satellites came into play. The outside of the ship started to toast under the flamethrower, and the windows riddled with bullet holes from the chaingun. Oxygen and the medbay were down before long, and the remaining crew was scattered with only medi-bots to treat their wounds. Things weren't going well.

"Ricardo-" Pavalo was interrupted when another blast of lightning pierced the hull, striking near him and sending him flying into a wall. He dropped onto the ground, neck snapped; he was dead before he hit the floor. Pieces of crystal flew off at Fighter, but it shot them down easily.

Ricardo knelt down, coughing from the chemicals used to counter the innumerable would-be fires. "I…don't know what to do."

Voices came in over the comm. "Captain, we're going over."

It was KazaaakplethKilik. Ricardo started. "What?!"

"Me and Ariadne are beaming onto the enemy ship. There's only one man on that ship. We can kill him, and if we can't, we can at least stop him from firing long enough for you to leave."

Ricardo stood up and slammed his hand onto the panel in front of him, partially in anger, and partially to steady himself. He briefly considered yelling for KazaaakplethKilik to get back down here, that they'd find another way out, or maybe to encourage him to stay safe, or even say goodbye, as if they were guaranteed to not make it. KazaaakplethKilik was a mantis and Ariadne was a rock; of anyone on this ship, those two were the most likely to be able to handle themselves physically against an alien foe, so they must consider this an extremely dangerous opponent.

But in the end, he opted to simply say one word.

"Confirmed."

This was a desperate situation. People didn't always make it. Those two weren't expecting to. They knew the risks when they chose to join his crew. If they were willing to die for his cause, then he wouldn't insult them with futile pleads.

The readings in front of him changed to show three life signs aboard Fighter.

He clenched his hands into fists.

Hero heard strange noises behind him in the cockpit, and turned around. In his face, ready to attack, was a man-sized bug and a living pile of rocks.

"Man, after staying healthy all these years, it looks like, at long last, space finally gave me an alien bug."

Really? That's the best you can come up with?

"Hey, don't give me that! That pun rocked!"

Uggghhhh.

Both Ariadne and KazaaakplethKilik were much, much better fighters than The Hero, and Hero took particular note of how KazaaakplethKilik could slice through pretty much everything with his bare claws, but it didn't matter too much. Hero was much faster than them, having been steering his ship manually his entire life, and was able to get out of the way of every hit the two of them tried to land.

Ricardo stumbled over to the weapons system and tried to start on repairs. They were no longer under fire, which was a relief, but he had to get this done quickly if he wanted to save his crew before blowing the ship in front of them to the great beyond. He'd repaired all of these systems hundreds of times, and was easily able to disconnect and replace wiring, slide in new carbon tubing, and fuse together replacement computer boards. But as he worked, he felt himself slowing. He started to get short of breath, and his brain just didn't work quite as well for some reason.

He weakly lifted himself up, using a nearby medi-bot as a prop, and stared at the screen in front of him. It took him four times as long as it should have to notice the problem.

He wasn't getting enough oxygen.

The oxygen system was down, and in the chaos, nobody had noticed. All throughout the ship, rebreathers were being quickly supplied, but even with all their augmentations, none of them were going to last longer than a few more minutes.

Except one.

Virus picked up Ricardo and placed a rebreather over his face. "Under our current conditions, the chances of this ship's survival are less than 2%."

Ricardo snorted slightly, and then shuddered at the pain it caused. "Always take the optimistic option, V."

"I am."

Virus sat him down and walked over to the weapons terminal. "If I disassemble myself into my base components and re-integrate myself into the ship, our chances of survival increase dramatically. I would not be able to take on a physical form again. But it must be done."

Ricardo bit his lip, understanding what was going on.

Virus turned around. "I should like to thank you for the pleasure of working aboard this vessel. It has made me feel…alive, I suppose." It turned back towards the terminal. "Goodbye. No, I had forgotten. Your species dislikes that work. In that case…see you later."

It broke down into billions of tiny parts, parts so small Ricardo could no longer see them, and then was gone.

But immediately, the oxygen was restored, the shields were back up, and the weapons were online.

Ricardo grabbed the desk and began pushing buttons, entering codes, and sliding levers. He prepared their last resort.

Right before he pushed the button to fire, he saw Fighter zap something in space with its electric weapon. Two somethings.

Two life readings vanished from his sensors.

Ricardo pressed it.

Hero took his finger off the trigger. It'd been an annoying fight, trying to move a five-hundred-pound pile of rocks out the airlock, but he stood at the end unharmed. Even better, from their now-disintegrated corpses came a purple present. Fantastic! He needed something like this to finish this fight.

A beam flashed from The Kestrel.

Hero survived entirely by accident. The beam had startled him, so he bounced back, tripped over the handle of his mop, and fell on top of the control stick, throwing Fighter off just enough to dodge the beam. He wiped sweat off his brow; geez, he'd been so focused on a job well-done that it had almost been the end of him. Wouldn't that have been a sucky way to go. He should really have re-installed that frying-pan shield. It would have been so useful so many times already. But it was just so much work!

No matter, he thought. He turned and fired upon The Kestrel. One solid blast of lightning should be enough to destroy the ship at last here.

But the lightning just hit the shields and was absorbed into them, spreading around them and not breaking through.

"Huh. That's a thing."

You know what else is a thing?

"Oh, right!"

Fighter dived downwards and snatched the falling purple present. Now equipped with the plasma rifle, a stream of purple energy that could blow up most things in less than a second, he felt pretty confident again.

So, when he saw the bright red light of The Kestrel's weapons coming back online, he took aim and fired. The Glaive Beam and Plasma Rifle met halfway, clashing into each other, wrestling power output. The two matched for a while, but then Fighter overheated. The plasma beam stopped and, expecting this, Hero dove immediately, only catching the tail end of the glaive beam, causing some minor hull damage. Everything was fine. He knew from watching this ship that it took way longer to recharge its weapons than he did to cool down his.

Ruwan and Slocknog walked through the two doors leading to the weapons room at the same time. They glanced at each other, then Pavalo's body, then Ricardo. Ruwan was the first to speak. "Ricardo? What's going on?"

"We're losing," Ricardo replied blankly. "We have to end this now."

"Where are the others?" Ruwan asked, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

Ricardo stopped, but only for a second. "There are no others."

Ruwan sat down and let the shock wash through him. "Oh, geez, I…I-"

"No time," Ricardo interrupted. "Ruwan, get to piloting. Slocknog, engines. I'm firing everything, but if this doesn't work, we have to make a hasty getaway. Oh, and Slocknog, try to activate cloaking on your way."

Slocknog and Ruwan left the room without another word.

But Slocknog had made sure to leave a simple imprint on Ricardo's mind. One of sympathy, and one of resolve.

Ricardo wasted no time. He launched every other weapon at once, all missiles, bombs, and drones he possibly could as fast as he could. He was tired of having to deal with this, and he was sick of watching his friends die. This ended, now.

Hero saw it all coming at him as the ship fizzled out of sight. "Uh-oh. I think they want to kill me."

Gee, you think?

"Well, thank Captain Sanders that I had all that chicken earlier! Awesome Mode: Engage!"

A missile was launched. It travelled a few hundred thousand feet before exploding and rocking the area around them with just as much force as the mine from before.

The moment he saw the missile launched, Ricardo turn on his comm. "We need to jump! Now!"

Luckily, right before the missile blew up, they turned into a mass of light and escaped.

Hero picked up their jump on his sensors immediately. "Well, lookee there! Just let me pick up something first…"

Ricardo sat back in his chair and exhaled many sighs of relief. There was a heavily-fortified mantis base at their next stop. Not the nicest place to be, but the ship hunting them would never survive an encounter with it, and for a price, they themselves could easily hide there. It was over; they were safe.

Ruwan's voice came in. "Uh, Ricardo? You might want to take a look at this."

Then Slocknog's. "Holy ssscrap!"

Ricardo stood up and turned his attention to the window. Then he fell back down immediately. "No way. It's not possible!"

Chasing them through warp, casually entering into their jump field, was The Hero.

The Hero fired a set of many giant forks, perfectly aimed at The Kestrel. The Kestrel, with no shields and no weapons while jumping, could do nothing but take the attack. The forks riddled its large engines, stalling them and throwing the ship out of the field mid-jump. The engines tried to compensate, but there was no doing. It worked and worked, and the heat rose and rose, until Fighter fired another set, impaling the engines again, and finally blowing the whole section up.

The explosion sent the other half of The Kestrel soaring through space, blowing out its shields, though with no engine, it wouldn't matter anyway; there was no longer any power for the ship. Oxygen drained quickly as the slug repair gel tried desperately to fill out the gaping hole left by the disappearance of half the ship. Everything was broken. Nobody was left except Ricardo and Ruwan, and both of them were still struggling to get up. There was nothing to be done.

Ricardo tapped his communicator. "Ugh, Ruwan?"

"I'm here. This is it. There's nothing left."

"No. We can still survive."

"No, Captain. We can't. We have no engines, no oxygen, and no power for them if we did. Face it; we're done."

Slocknog's imprint of resolve struck Ricardo hard at that moment. "The backup battery."

"That'll only give us enough power-"

"For one shot, and then a rescue beacon. It's enough."

Silence, then a voice with some renewed hope. "You'll have only one shot. Can you make it?"

"I won't have to. I'll use a breach missile."

"…Good luck."

Hero gallantry strode over his latest conquest, collecting one last christmas present from the scrap left from the engines. "Oh, yeah! Who's awesome? Who's awesome? Is it me? Of course it is! Hey, why isn't this stuff turning into chicken?"

Hmm, how mysterious.

"…I don't like that voice. Why are you not telling me something?"

Hey, it's not my fault. This whole thing has to be a fair match.

"Huh, that's a funny thing to say, considering that, A, the match is over, and 2, IT WASN'T FAIR TO BEGIN WITH! Do you know why?"

Is it because you're awesome?

"Yes! I mean, how many people can fight off two armies of chicken, chase a ship through three star systems, shoot them down in warp, and blow up half their ship with a few well-aimed forks?"

You got lucky on those shots.

"Shhh! Don't let the fans know that!"

What fans?

"Oh, come on. There's inevitably going to be an epic TV Show chronicling my adventures through space, because, you know, awesome, and when that happens, I need them all to think everything I did was pure skill! Which it was, by the way!"

Right. Well, Mr. Pure Skill, it was nice knowing you.

"What? OH, CRAP!"

The Hero narrowly dodged the Breach Missile, but it turned around as soon as it passed him and began following his ship. He zoomed ahead at top speed, but it kept pace even then. He went up, down, all around, he did the hokey pokey, and flips galore, and it still tracked him.

Ricardo watched quietly as his eyes grew more heavy-lidded from lack of oxygen. He smiled. "We won."

Then Fighter turned around and made a beeline for the remaining half of The Kestrel.

Ricardo's eyes widened, not for the first time this battle, but now, definitely for the last. "Oh, scrap."

The Hero came within a few inches of the ship's hull before sharply turning upwards. The Breach Missile wasn't so exact. There was a loud shattering noise as the missile broke the entire outside hull of the ship, upon which The Hero turned around and fired the Positron Stream.

It only took a few seconds to carve through the ship, its weapons, and everyone on board.

There was one final explosion, and it was all over.

-KO!-

The Hero finally saw The Kestrel turn completely into chicken. Chicken legs, whole chickens, and quintuple-stacked chicken burgers. He dove in, collecting all the goods, with various shouts of glee.

Huh. You actually did it.

"What, didn't you believe in me?"

What? Sure, oh, yeah, definitely.

"…Wait, did you set all this up to kill me?"

No! Definitely not! Well, I mean, kind of. I just wanted to know who would win.

"So what you're saying is… you weren't sure I would win. So, you didn't believe in me."

Um, I think the phone's ringing! Coming!

…

Well, that blew up in their face.

The Kestrel obviously took an advantage in the sheer variety and size of their arsenal, systems, and defenses. They had a very well-rounded approach, and could probably take out most ships like them. But Fighter is far superior, on a level The Kestrel's crew has never seen. Yes, it had a more limited array of weapons and abilities, and one shot from anything The Kestrel had would put it down, but, honestly, Hero's been fighting people like that all his life. Could The Kestrel destroy a space station with one or two shots? Yeah, but it really doesn't matter. Even if it was destroying a car in one or two shots, that'd still be enough to blow up Fighter. But it never got the chance to, because Fighter was way too fast.

Let's do a little math here. At its fastest, while jumping, The Kestrel could cross 100 Light Years in 45 seconds, moving 70.13 Million times the speed of light. Meanwhile, Fighter flew 10,000 Light Years in only 7 seconds, reaching speeds over 45 BILLION times the speed of light. And that's not even the fastest he's gone![1] And while The Kestrel can perhaps just barely move past light speed while its impulse engines are at their maximum, might I remind you that Fighter casually flew, while fighting entire armies, 16 Astronomical Units in 25 seconds. That's nearly 320 times faster than light. And that was a very casual fighting speed, whereas when The Kestrel broke away from the black hole it putting everything it had into trying to move ahead in a straight line.

When it comes to actual reaction time, the fastest thing The Kestrel has ever dodged would be a meteor, and even then, we'd have to highball it say that some of those meteors would be moving as fast as the fastest we've ever seen, 1.34 Million MPH. Mildly impressive, but absolutely nothing compared to what Hero was flying and fighting at. In fact, there was no way The Kestrel was ever going to dodge anything The Hero threw at him when Hero has shot down ultra-celeritas comets moving, at the very least, 6.64 Billion MPH. That's almost five thousand times faster than any meteor The Kestrel has dodged! And, since he's dodged armies' worth of firepower at those same speeds, none of the shots The Kestrel fired were going to land.[2]

Still, there are a couple of things that you'd think could maybe eek out a victory for The Kestrel. Sending a boarding party through the teleporter, for example. But it's not quite that simple; The Kestrel has to get a solid lock on one of the rooms on the opposing ship to use teleportation, and there's no guarantee that Fighter has enough room to fit three people. Even if it does, The Kestrel has had difficulty locking onto specific places on asteroids moving much slower – like when it tried to beam out a guy who was getting sucked into a black hole, indicating that it won't get a solid lock if the place is moving faster than light, which Fighter almost always is. In fact, it often barely gets people out of ships in time before they blow up, and explosions only move at 6,000 MPH! And even if they did get a boarding party in there, that party would still have to contend with a guy who can aim at, shoot, and react to things moving hundreds of times the speed of light. A mantis crewmember is a ferocious thing to contend with, but not so much when you can literally grab him and throw him out an airlock before he's moved more than an inch. For the same reason, teleporting bombs onto Fighter wouldn't work so well, either. Besides, teleported bombs are even slower than teleported crew, since normal ships in the FTL universe have dodged those before!

Hacking is a dangerous tool, but only when you understand the technology you're working with. In FTL text events, it takes anywhere from several minutes to a number of days to fully understand technology enough to affect it, giving Hero a solid advantage that most of Kestrel's opponent's wouldn't have. Plus, it's only possible through a hacking drone, and there's little chance a drone is ever going to land on a ship that fast. Zero chance if Hero just shot it down, which he totally can, and would, do. And even if he was hit by an ion burst through hacking or weapons, it wouldn't affect him. Ion radiation affects electronics similarly to the radiation from a star, and Fighter has been right next to a star and was fine. Cloaking may fool the sensors of The Kestrel's equals, but Fighter's sensors are on a much higher level,[3] and, even if he couldn't find Kestrel for the 15 seconds it stays cloaked, it's still fast enough, and Hero is wary enough, to not get hit by its weapons while it's cloaked.

The Kestrel's shields are impressive, but unfortunately, most of Hero's weapons would have no problems getting through. We already know that beams of a high enough caliber will simply cut through the shields, of which it seems quite likely that the Plasma Rifle and Positron Stream would apply. But even if they can't, there are tons of multi-projectile weapons Hero can use to get through all the shields at once, including the Ion Blaster, Corn Shotgun, and Utensil Poker. Other ships in the FTL universe have done the same, so there's no reason this would be any different. And while The Kestrel is much tougher than Fighter, again, that really doesn't matter. Most of its big durability feats, including that black hole one, are ill-defined and have some holes in them.[4] But even if we count them and use the biggest numbers we've got, The Hero has still faced tougher. His battle against the Egg Cannon alone proves that his ship can take on adversaries the size of planets, which is a little out of The Kestrel's wheelhouse. Whether we go by our simple, realistic, calculated numbers or if we go by assumptions, lore, and scaling, The Hero has faced and torn apart MUCH stronger opponents in both cases.

And, although one of The Kestrel's biggest advantages would be its enormous weapon and drone supply, it'd have a hard time taking advantage of that. Fighter is much faster than it in warp, and his sensors could easily detect exactly where they were at all times. Even though his Warp Drive takes longer to charge than the FTL Drive, it doesn't really matter when he can go much farther. The most The Kestrel has ever gone in one jump is from one side of the sector to the other. Since an entire sector can be covered by an emission nebula, the largest of which is 2,000 light years in diameter, we can assume that to be his maximum jump distance. Meanwhile, Fighter has gone nearly 45,000 light years in one warp trip! So they were rarely going to have time to exchange weapons and drones, and they were never going to hide from or outrun Fighter.

The Kestrel did, actually, have one thing that could perhaps give it a chance: Mind Control. Since there's only one person inside the ship and all they need is a single shot, if they could just mind control The Hero and get him to stand still, then they'd win this. But that has its problems, too. In-game, mind control lasts for 28 seconds, but in text events, it doesn't even last long enough to finish a couple sentences. They also need to be able to detect and see the person they want to control. And they've never, ever, tried to take over the mind of something moving that fast. Not to mention how the chickens, who have invented way worse stuff than The Kestrel has ever seen, can't invent something that reliably tracks Fighter in combat, so it seems doubtful that the Federation would have accidentally made something that can.[5] Even still, if mind control did work and gave them a free win, I look at the bigger picture. The question isn't "who wins in this one specific scenario," it's "who wins more times than not?" So, one good tactic isn't going to tip the percentages enough to give this one to The Kestrel. And it's not like mind control has ever been their go-to method of handling a situation. And, just in case, here's one good tactic to guarantee victory for The Hero: warp over to a black hole and hide in there. His ship is built to handle those, while The Kestrel isn't. So that's a free win right there, and arguably more easily attained than through one subsystem.[6]

So, yeah. I didn't mean for this to be a total mismatch, but it kind of was. The Kestrel had a lot going for it, but ultimately, very little of it mattered against a foe like The Hero, whose superior combat speed and experience dealing with much deadlier ships gave him the victory.

The Hero invaded the scene, making The Kestrel feel chicken, and took the win faster than light.

The winner is The Hero.

Extra Notes (For the Conclusion):

[1] Even that low speed is fairly generous when you consider that, in the "Crystalline Men Buried" event, it's implied that a simple jump of this type could take multiple days.

[2] We don't know the exact speed of most weapons that are fired from and upon The Kestrel, but beam weapons, which move at the speed of light, are completely unavoidable, as are teleporting crew members, which also involves turning them into speed-of-light energy. So, at most, these weapons must be slower than that. In addition, while the Kestrel can survive portions of solar flares, it can't dodge them after they've begun, and the maximum speed of a solar flare is only 0.67% the speed of light.

[3] The furthest The Kestrel's sensors have reached without augments is the far side of a moon they were near. Even with augments, its sensors can only reach nearby stars. Fighter's sensors have found the locations and states of planets and spaceships on the other side of the galaxy!

[4] The fact that a normal human survived the pull of the gravity well indicates that it was just supposed to affect the asteroid, rather than everything inside. We don't know the size of the station Kestrel was docked to, or what type of explosion it was. We don't know the location of the planet where it destroyed that ship; for all we know, it could have been a battle within the planet's atmosphere. And moons and planets being mined for certain materials while making a ship certainly doesn't make that ship as durable as moons or planets. Even its surviving solar flares is questionable, as the text seems to indicate that the heat is the problem, rather than the flares themselves. Plus, The Kestrel is commonly damaged by small asteroids or stray debris, none of which, I'm sure, have enough power to break a moon.

[5] Even if the mind control did land, it's possible The Hero wouldn't be affected. The Kestrel's mind control has failed before, and The Hero was able to continue using his ship and fighting relatively normally even while both he and Fighter were under the power of the Force. Theoretically, he should have just been standing still, but he moved and fought all the same. Plus, the Narrator has snapped him out of delusions and dazes more than once.

[6] Fighter's sensors could likely easily detect the inside of The Kestrel, and the information that shooting at one system would deactivate it instantly. This would prove especially useful if he were to take down shields, weapons, engines, or mind control, or, with his spread weapons, all of them at the same time! In addition, The Kestrel's limited power supply meant it could never activate all of its abilities at once.

...

Next time, on Death Battle…

A man clad in black armor walks through the flames of the burning deck of a ship, activates his burning sword, and shows the terrified guards his pet dragon.

VS.

A young woman clad in blue flight gear drops from the sky onto a sacrificial altar, cuts the victims free, and shows the terrified crowd a warrior god.

(Hiccup vs. Nausicaä)