“Main engines are malfunctioning, switching to sub-engines.”
“No, conserve the energy, we’ll stay right where we are!”
“Sir, the deflectors are reaching critical levels! Once they’re gone we’re space dust!”
“Divert power from the engines to the deflectors. And focus them towards the font, we need to provide cover for the “Charmer,” it’s our one of our last destroyers!”
“Sir, the “Directive” is down! Two tellairan destroyers heading this way!”
“Shit, alert the “Charmer” and the “Sinker,” we can’t handle any more!”
“Mass drivers are running out of bullets, I won’t be able to intercept much more fire!”
“Keep at it until we’re out.”
“Sir-”
“The fuck is it now?!”
Taliseen was reaching his wit’s end. It had only been ten minutes since he had moved to protect the “Charmer,” and the “Duty” was already in a critical situation. Though, thinking about it, it made sense. The “Charmer” could hardly take much more of a beating, and the “Duty” was surrounded by multiple corvettes of greater firepower; the fact that the “Duty” had lasted so long could only be attributed to Taliseen. Any other Ensign would’ve already gone down with their starship.
“Sir, reinforcements will be here in five minutes.” The communications officer said.
“Oh, that’s good,” Taliseen breathed a sigh of relief, before snapping back to attention. “Wait, no it isn’t! We can hardly hold on for much longer, we’ll be dead in five minutes! Damn, reroute power from the turbolasers to the deflectors. Limit weapons fire to missiles, keep the energy weapons off. Use the reserve energy, we must hold on until reinforcements arrive.”
The officers on the bridge nodded, some used their earpieces to alert the other crew members of the new orders, while others immediately went to work. In seconds, the lasers on the “Duty” stopped firing, and the deflectors took on a visible blue tone, rippling whenever projectiles hit it. Breathing a sigh of relief, Taliseen slouched in his chair. Though he seemed calm on the surface, his shaking hands were gripping the arms of the chair so tightly his knuckles had turned white. His mind was filled with thoughts on how to escape this situation, simultaneously cursing the tellairans and thinking of strategies.
As a plan began to form in his mind, a loud siren came to life and broke him out of his daze.
“What’s happening?!” Taliseen demanded.
“Sir, we’re in the way of a warp path. Well, a supposed warp path, if whatever is coming our way doesn’t move.” One of the officers reported.
“What’s coming our way?”
“Well, sir,” the officer gulped. “It’s a tellairan Bruiser. I think it intends to warp straight through us. A suicide attack.”
The air in the bridge seemed to drop a few degrees. The carefully laid plan Taliseen had been formulating fell to pieces instantly. He turned to look at the hologram of the battlefield, seeing the only ship preparing to warp was out of their effective range. He could order the ordinance officer to fire upon it, of course, but any missiles would easily be intercepted by point-defense systems while traveling that long distance. Energy weapons were fast, and near impossible to intercept, but assuming the ship still had its shields up – as any sane person would have done – there was no chance they could penetrate the shield in time to do enough damage to stop the warp. The mass drivers were an option, but there were pitifully little left of them.
“… A simple, but hard to counter move. Damn, the tellairans are good,” Taliseen shifted restlessly in his chair. “Ajax, how much time do we have left?”
“Not much sir,” the officer who reported the attack replied with a grim face. “At most, seven or eight minutes. Most likely, our reinforcements will arrive just in time to watch us get pummeled.”
The bridge was silent except for the alarms as Taliseen searched desperately for a solution. He thought of countering their move by initiating his own jump into an enemy destroyer, or perhaps even a cruiser. But the time it would take for the warp drive to spool up would be too long. It was an impossible situation, and he saw no way to escape this death trap. However, an idea suddenly came to mind.
“The Idenfibber Conundrum...” Taliseen muttered. “Yes, that’s it!”
The Idenfibber Conundrum was a tactical situation where a corvette was stuck in deep space, a projectile heading towards it at lightspeed. As the engines were inoperable, there was no way to avoid it. It was considered a primer for hopeful strategists, and was often a basis for variation. The most used way to beat it was to analyze its trajectory and fire mass drivers at it accordingly. As the projectile was simply an advanced mass driver round, it wouldn’t take much to destroy it. Another way to solve it was to concentrate the deflectors to just the point of impact, so that nothing would be damaged and no ammo wasted. However, with the “Duty” under fire, there was no way to do the same without allowing the “Duty” to sustain severe damage.
“Alright, pull back some power from the deflectors to the turbolasers. Fire them at one point at the front of that Bruiser, do your best to break those shields and do damage to its hull. Charles, stop firing mass drivers and prepare to intercept the warping Bruiser. Once it enters lightspeed, I want you to fire so that all bullets intercept this point.” Taliseen marked a point on the hologram of the battlefield and sent it to Charles. “Send the same info to the “Charmer,” we’ll need the help. Just get Captain Reacher to fire her turbolasers at the same point we are. Leave the mass driver part to us. We’re going to split that thing open.”