Hegemony cruiser Kobe wrote:"Kiroter'nah ship do not move one inch or you will be destroyed. You will be towed into a parking position in lunar orbit. Do not resist the towing. And, above all, do not try something like this again or we will destroy you. After you have been secured in orbit, your ship will be searched and impounded until such a time we deem it acceptable to release you."
how dare they Access to this ship's technology cannot be permitted.
"Kari'naha, they are locking tractors. Shall we cloak?". Taxaani-Rokain#7-Myaar'neth, the deputy tactical co-ordinator, was clutching his perch hard enough to dig his claws into the polymer.
fly? Failure on all scenarios.
Kari'naha bared her teeth. "No. They have our position locked in, they could blanket the volume around our current position with weapons fire and destroy us before we could get moving." She thought for a moment. "Disengage neutronium containment safeties, set self destruct for total disintegration."
Taxaani-Rokain#7-Zaahneesh, the communications co-ordinator spoke up; "Kari'naha? The self destruct? Is it the only way?"
"We must go down fighting, or the humaans will think we are easy prey!" Myaar'neth snarled.
"Prepare to bring shields and weapons to maximum. Signal the humans that we surrender. Let them get complacent before we strike. We must have an element of surprise or this will be futile."
like the still alive prey that bits the talons that snatched it
"Target their tractor emitters. Ripped wings, I wish we carried distortion wave emitters, we could disrupt those tractor beams in an instant. Displacers?"
Zaahneesh spoke up; "Negative. With this interference we cannot get a lock on the surface, it's too far. But co-ordinator... perhaps the displacers can still help. If we create a series of displacement nexuses along the path of the tractor beam, will that not disrupt it?"
"Excellent, we can save our weapons fire for their bridge." Myaar'neth's bravado aside, they all knew the Hegemony cruiser carried twice their firepower and that they would be lucky to get out of this alive.
Flash simulation received... success probability 0.57 with combined strategy. as good an escape route as i could expect Assuming supporting forces have manual fire authorisation. If automatic fire is authorised, probability of success is 0.03 but any chance of escape is better than dying in a useless direct attack
"An ingenious suggestion. We will try it your way first. Program the sequence, include a full spread of decoys. One burst on all particle/lasers as the displacers engage, in a wide spread. We may dazzle their sensors for a moment. But if the displacers fail, redirect all fire on their tractor beam emitter."
The ship shuddered slightly as it was hauled around by the tractor beam. The tension was unbearable as the command crew refined the strategy and prepared the ship's systems.
"Displacers ready. Burst transmission to the surface team ready, but I cannot guarantee it will get through the jamming." Zaahneesh flicked his ears nervously.
Myaar'neth was in a state of maximum alertness, fixated on the tactical display. "Targeting and evasive patterns programmed. If the displacers fail, we must rely on a weak spot where the beam crosses their shields. Otherwise we will be a wreck before we break through to their emitter."
Kari'naha felt a strong temptation to waste time saying something sentimental, but there was not a further moment to waste.
they drag us ever closer to their den for dissection We must respond before they can instigate full precautions or send marines.
----
The K.O.S.C. Elucidate drifted through space, appearing from a distance as a gaggle of pearly grey eggs trapped in an intricate lattice, flattened into a roughly triangular shape. Ahead the Hegemony heavy cruiser Kobe drove purposefully ahead, the tractor beam linking the two ships barely visible as a shimmering of the background starfield.
"Execute!"
Power flooded into the Elucidate's displacers, building to a crescendo while the technicians frantically brought the ship's weapons online. A series of bizarre warping distortions appeared ahead of the ship, right in the path of the tractor beam. The fast warm-up rendered the displacer imprecise, and the interactions of the device with an alien tractor beam could not be fully predicted. Flashes of light appeared, and the beam seemed to burst into strands of visual distortion exploding in every direction. The Elucidate lurched forward, while the enemy cruiser shuddered from the feedback.
"It is working, Kari'naha. We are gliding free!"
"Maximum sublight, fly! Fire weapons and release decoys!"
The Elucidate lept away on a spiralling course, particle-lasers lashing out at the heavy cruiser. The Kobe's shields flared brightly under the bombardment, but instantly xaser beams stabbed back at the fleeing Kiroter'nah ship. Stripped of shields by the cloaking sequence, the beams shredded sections of the support structure and cracked the primary tactical module like an egg. The enemy commander had not left the Kobe's response to merely human reaction times.
"Get that shroud up, now! Evasive maneuvers to pattern beta."
Trailing glowing metal fragments, the Elucidate blinking out as the cloak finally engaged and wrapped its distortion shroud around the ship. A spray of sixty four tiny drones shot through space around it, each broadcasting hyperwave noise and signals designed to resemble cloaking bleed. The human cruiser continued to pour fire into space in the direction that the Kiroter'nah ship had travelled.
A horrendous medley of pounding impacts and shrieking metal reverberated through the command space, overpowering the already deafening hum from the straining engines.
"Co-ordinator, multiple hits from their xaser weapons! The tactical module is a mess... They seem to be firing blind, but with that fire rate they're still connecting with a few shots." The Eludicate was blind and defenceless under cloak, the ship could only fly as fast as possible and hope to get out of range of the clumsy blind fire.
"Six P/LEs offline, three HK turrets out."
"Executing Kalimna's spiral..."
"Major impact on the aft power module. Another one! Aft reactor output is dropping... lost the upper-aft-starboard turret as well."
A disembodied voice burst through the internal comms; "Kari'naha, convertor assembly delta is out, core containment is fluctuating but holding, we are attempting to stabilise but with the safeties off we can't take many more hits."
weave through the trees outfly the kar-zekels they have terrible claws but the chiro terah are cunning...
Suddenly the fire slackened and stopped.
we are away and faster than i thought The human weapons must have a shorter range than predicted, or the blinding burst did more damage to their sensors than expected.
quick before they tighten the net FTL interdiction perimeter reachable in 43 chronons given minimally convoluted course.
"Step down to evasive pattern gamma. Get us into FTL as soon as possible. Re-engage neutronium containment safeties. Get the casualties out of the tactical module and seal it. We won't need the weapons for a while, either the cloak holds or we're food for the kar-zekels. Damage control to focus on the aft reactor, they may be able to track any leakage."
Engineering co-ordinator Bo'kaarisa came over the comms again "Kari'naha, the displacers were burned out by the feedback from that beam. Can't give you a repair estimate, it's a mess down there". The sound cut off in a burst of static.
Zaahneesh's expression seemed to alternate between relieved and distraught. "Ship-to-surface comm burst was transmitted, who can tell if it was received. Are we to abandon Serenaas, Cahaan'nol and Tara'shaani? To dissection by those humaan barbarians?"
they wanted to meet these vicious predators they chose their fate but they are of the flock no chiro terah deserves to be abandoned to the tortures of such beings
"No, we will not abandon them. I will not break that trust. But we cannot hope to reach them now. First we must get to a safe range to inform the overflock of what has transpired here. The humans betrayed our trust, we followed their instructions, but they intended to capture and dissect us and then tried to kill us when we flew from their trap. The Contactiphiles cannot maintain their position after this. But then we will loop back, observe under cloak and find a way to extract them. We will start by rescuing these misguided children from their own folly and then we will do the same for the overflock itself."
(rewrite #1)
