The Demise

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Little background (simply because I like to write background information for my stories ):

When Tamarillho ordered her helmsman to take the Vulture out, he replied with "ahead one quarter, point five m-clicks to free space,". This means that the ship accelerated to one quarter of third-degree max speed. Third degree speed is the maximum allowed speed for (civilian) ships near stations, asteroids or planets. Second-degree is for interplanetary space close to planets - up to one sector out, to say it in game terms. First-degree is long-distance interplanetary space. This explains the awful scale of SEIV systems. Third-degree max speed is 5000 kph, second-degree max speed is 150.000 kph, and first-degree is 2.5 million kph.

M-clicks are "micro-clicks". This are, again, third degree clicks. 3-clicks (for short) are 100 km. 2-clicks are 5000 km. 1-clicks are 100.000 km. 3-, 2- and 1-clicks are not directly related to the same degree of speed.

When approaching the warp point, Tamarillho orders her helmsman "Divert course one-quarter CC regarding ship's central axis.". What she said was to divert the ship's cource one-quarter of a Course Counter in "heading 000 bearing negative" to use Trekspeak. Course changes are measured along two circular planes (like the Trek heading and bearing), with each plane divided into 100 CC in both directions. Directly ahead is 0 CC, a "180" is 100 CC. CCs do not work in the same way as degrees; say, a 90-degree turn left is 50 CC left, while a 90-turn right is 50 CC right. Simple, no? This standard has been set universally (ok then, galactically) to make maneuvering go more smoothly. Also, this overcame the "cultural" difference between races in this area - you don't want to know how difficult it is to convert Xiati Try'lyin (speak: [trylian], like a single word) to Terran (OK, and Kytheran) degrees.

When the ship enters the WP, Tamarillho "blues out" as it is called in space travel. This is a result from both the gravitonic distortions when they go in, and from her being yanked into a different space-time "plane" - think subspace or hyperspace.

Tamarillho and her crew are from an Empire called the "New Kytheran Commonwealth". The original Kytheran Commonwealth originated from a Terran deep-space colony, founded by a sleeper ship. When the ship landed, the colonists would be declared independent anyway, so their spreading across the galaxy was a logical result.

Perhaps more to explain as the story progresses

[El_Phil]

Ahhh jumping in right in the middle. I also think the freestyling is good.

As for the style, I'm not the best person to ask I think, but it's good for a rough draft.

I'll pass on the Captain Janeway comparison, for I despise her with an unjustified vengance. I'm fully aware it's unjustified but can do nothing about it.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

-----CHAPTER FIVE: CHASE-----

“Second Wing, left flank, fire all torpedoes! Third Wing, form up, right flank, fire all flak lasers!”
“Second Wing copies! Torpedoes away! Half of ‘em have hit all these rocks!”
“Third Wing! She’s hiding behind some large asteroids! We can’t get a clear shot!”
“That’s why I hate fighting in an asteroid field..... Third Wing to left flank, fire! Fourth Wing, vertical echelon, pursue!”
“Fourth Wing! She’s dropping seismic charges! She’s drop–”
“Fourth Wing lost! Second Wing, scatter cone, pursue!”
“She’s launching cluster torpedoes! Breaking off! Repeat, breaking off!”
“Third Wing, take down those torps, then form up behind me!”
“No can do, sir! Torps’ve already split up, we can’t stop ‘em anymore! Forming up!”
“Second Wing taking losses!”
“First Wing calling base, come in base!”
“First Wing, this is base. Pull back, repeat pull back. We’re sending Hunter squadrons after her. Pull back!”

Tamarillho had found a way to monitor the military comms frequencies without being noticed. This proved to be very handy.

Though she didn’t know what Hunter squadrons were, she knew, regarding her situation of being in an asteroid belt, having just destroyed several high-quality fighters and forcing the rest to break off their attack, it would spell trouble.

Big trouble.

A squadron of fifteen small fighters appeared on her scanner viewscreen. The speed with which they moved and the uncanny maneuverability of the fighters in the rather dense asteroid belt caused a slight hint of sheer terror to appear in Tamarillho.

She struggled to find the frequency these fighters communicated on. She found it. Robotic computer sounds. Not good.

The pack of fighters soon caught up with her. Risking a look backwards, Tamarillho saw a sleek black fighter with an approximate conical shape and a sleek bluish engine trail. As it easily flew past a largish asteroid, it performed a barrel roll. No cockpit window. No pilot hatch. Just two sleek weapons mounted on what seemed to be the underside of the nose of the fighter.

She was being chased by a squadron of robotic fighters designed specifically for work inside asteroid belts.

“OK, so you may be built for work in these bloody rock-infested regions, but can you handle a few tricks of a human mind?”

She still had three of her five seismic charges left, and eighteen of her twenty cluster torpedoes. Weighing in at ten small torpedoes per cluster torp, this was quite an arsenal, though she knew not to waste it unless there was a very good reason to. For all she knew, there might be hundreds more Hunters coming her way, out of her scanner range.

However, losing the squadron of fighters was hard. They hadn’t fired yet, but that was probably because they were still in an area with a rather high asteroid density. The fighters were clearly trying to drive her to open space, like a group of cowboys chasing a cow into an enclosure. Spotting this threat, Tamarillho took her chances and ducked straight down, away from the ecliptic plane. The fighters, after a moment’s consideration, followed her. Now, they seemed to be simply hanging on to her, following her until a new opportunity arose for them to drive her into a clear space. She wouldn’t give them that opportunity. Not if it was up to her.

However, she soon noticed a lightly dense dust cloud in an otherwise empty region, probably the site where a large asteroid had been mined to dust. The fighters went into a tighter formation and started closing in. There was no clear way to evade flying into the dust cloud, so Tamarillho had to take action.

The fighters pulled closer together and prepared for the kill.
“Come on, come on, just a little bit closer..... GOTCHA!”
Just at the edge of the dust cloud, Tamarillho dropped one of her three remaining seismic charges at almost point-blank range. The fighters had little or no time to evade. Ten of the fifteen fighters perished in the explosion, the remaining five scattered in all directions. The shockwave of the blast sent Tamarillho’s fighter spinning straight in the direction of a large asteroid. She stabilized her fighter with the nose pointing approximately downward regarding her previous course. She fired up her afterburners and narrowly avoided scraping the asteroid. She needed a new trap, a new place where she could easily take out her pursuers.

Four more squadrons suddenly appeared on her scanner viewscreen, closing in fast. The five remaining fighters of the first squadron pulled back together and resumed their chase.

Tamarillho spot her chance. A large asteroid which had a tunnel running through it, a rather wide tunnel with an S-turn in the middle. Probably the result of the miner droids following the path of a metal vein and hollowing out the asteroid as they harvested the materials.

“Ok, so you can perform some nice astrobatics. But can you handle the dirty tricks of a human mind?”

She slowed down to 20% of normal maximum speed and let the fighters close in. When the four squadrons and five fighters – totalling sixty-five pursuers – were arrayed behind her, she kicked in the afterburners again and sped for the asteroid. Making a tight turn, Tamarillho ducked into the tunnel. The fighters followed in single file. Leading them towards the S-turn, Tamarillho couldn’t stop grinning.

As she predicted, the fighters closed their ranks so as not to lose her in the turn. When all sixty-five robotic menaces were arrayed in the S-turn, Tamarillho pressed the button hard and dropped her remaining two seismic charges.

She pushed her afterburners to overload to escape the shockwave and massive cloud of debris chasing her through the tunnel after the detonation immediately vaporised her pursuers.

Making a sharp turn upwards, Tamarillho spotted two more squadrons closing in on her from “above”. Noticing the big empty space in front of her, she took her chances and launched three cluster torpedoes. She tracked the small dots on her scanner and saw them closing in on the thirty blips, splitting up into thirty tiny dots as they got close. None of the fighters managed to escape; all thirty were hit head-on by a micro-torp.

Thinking she was safe, Tamarillho relaxed and loosened her grip on her control stick. She didn’t really notice the cloud of blips that assembled on the edge of her scanner viewscreen.

When she did, she panicked.

She spot twelve squadrons of fifteen fighters each assembling not so far from her location.

One hundred and eighty fighters. No more seismic charges. Hey! Fifteen cluster torpedoes..... One hundred and fifty micro-torps!

She turned around sharply and headed straight for the cloud of blips, ignoring the fact that every single atom of her instincts told her to run like hell. Closing in on the fighters, she launched all of her remaining cluster torpedoes and pulled the control stick back hard.

Even though the explosion was directly behind her, she was blinded momentarily by the flash. The chain reaction of one hundred and fifty fighters exploding almost simultaneously was so powerful, that the other thirty fighters also perished – the explosion even generated a shockwave, and a powerful one at that.

Rejoicing her victory, Tamarillho set a course for the Devonshire warp point and kicked in her afterburners.

-----END OF CHAPTER FIVE-----