Into the Frying Pan Pt.II
Astarte had been looking over some irregularities in the new reactor’s output when the wave of distorted space hit their warp bubble and shunted them out of FTL. Since the Astaroth wasn’t perfectly symmetrical they drifted away from the Cameo and had swung a little off course before their navigation computer realized they were back in relativistic speeds and kicked on their EM stabilizers and corrected their course. Just as a tight grouping of pulse cannon shots hit their shields, the shield bubble held for a second before the overwhelming fire power broke through and hit the Astaroth’s port flank. Automated systems took over and the ship rose itself to condition four as claxons began to blear. The Cameo had been in the Astaroth’s shadow and was spared any damage.
“Damage report!” Astarte roared over the alarms.
“Hull pressure is still holding in all compartments, no penetration.” A bridge tech called.
“That’s because they aimed their shots at our signal jammers and comm equipment. We’re at half capacity on all E-war systems and comms are out.” Kat reported.
Fuck! That meant they knew they were coming, and had planned this in advance. “Evasive maneuvers! Get us some fucking breathing room.” Astarte ordered as she made her way back to her command chair. She felt the ship lurch forward and the pull of g-force tightly push her deeper into her chair. That wasn’t right, inertial compensators should have nullified most of that. She watched as the ship’s external cameras and sensors locked onto the unidentified enemies and began to piece things together. They were smaller ships, destroyer sized and smaller, about fifteen in total, more than that was hard to pin down since a lot of their radar equipment had been blown out. A short burst of info from Cameo’s active sensors gave them a better picture.
“Eleven Kruhur destroyer class ships and four gunboats, calling up all previous combat data.” Kat called out.
Astarte examined the situation at present, the field of spatial distortion was being generated by every one of those ships, and with their smaller size they could keep up with the Astaroth’s sub-light speed, but not the Cameos. She could use her ship to defend the Cameo’s retreat, once out of the distortion field they could escape and call for help. But against only a handful of Kruhur ships? A handful had kept them occupied during the attack on the Kruhur station when it was them and the Asmodeus, but they would have eventually won in the end. Smaller ships didn’t have the power generation to keep up with the Astaroth, meaning they eventually would have won the fight. And besides, there was no one that could help them. Most of the Hellworld fleet was in dry dock, and the few still patrolling space were very far from the secured trade lanes into Sol. It was better to use the Cameo to fight off the attacking Kruhur.
The bridge doors opened, and Karega emerged breathless “what’s going on?”
“Kruhur ambush” Astarte answered as she began to form a battle plan. “They were here waiting for us and knew which systems to hit.”
Karega looked confused “That’s not like them at all? The Kruhur usually target supply depots and ports, they don’t lay ambushes.”
“Just because they always do one thing one way doesn’t mean they’ll always do so. They’re attacking now, and we’re half blind.” Astarte snapped, “Bring us around, order Cameo to our port side, we need to thin the herd and try and break their formation.” She ordered.
“Is retreat an option?” Karega asked.
“No, they match us in sub-light speed, we wont be able to get away unless we make them run. And I’m not really inclined to let them escape.” She said as the ship made a wide arcing turn and she was pushed to the side by g-force. There it was again; the inertial dampeners weren’t doing their jobs? Was there an issue with the refit? “All guns focus on their leading edge; I want to split their formation down the middle.”
Karega turned towards her “Captain, this is not their usual tactics, I think we need to be more cautious. They had one surprise already waiting for us, whose to say there aren’t more?”
She glanced at Karega side long with her left eye, and she saw that he was worried “And what would you suggest then?” she asked patiently. All her instincts were screaming at her to charge the enemy and break them and crack them open like an egg, but that was exactly the same kind of thing her mother would do, and that gave her pause.
“Why not send the Cameo outside of their distortion range and have it send out a message? What could it hurt?”
“We’re already vulnerable and half blind, and there’s no one who can help us, the only way out of this ambush is forward.”
He still looked concerned, but he remembered his place as her Lieutenant and kept his fears to himself so as not to dismay the crew.
~~~*~~~
Karega was still unsure of Aster’s plan to face them head on, that was obviously what they wanted, and since their E-war was out they were far more susceptible to enemy fire. But he didn’t have a better plan, and challenging her openly in front of everyone on the shaky grounds that it seemed strange was not a wise idea. So he sat there and tried to think of alternative solutions, he was checking the battle space and nearby stars for a potentially more advantageous place to engage their pursuers. But alas, he couldn’t find anything near enough to use. The Kruhur had chosen their location well, there was nothing for the Astaroth to use as occasional cover. There wasn’t a star around for a fifty lightyears, and without their long-range scanners they wouldn’t be capable finding any random loose planetoids or debris fields.
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So their only option was to engage them head on, and try to deal with their superior numbers and higher maneuverability. They weren’t as heavily armored and also had a lower power yield than Astaroth, so they had that going for them.
The two Hellworlder ships opened fire and hit the squadron of Kruhur with everything they had, and the Kruhur hit back, both forces were locked into a grueling slugging match. Karega idly wished they had brought a drone frigate along with them instead of the Cameo, not that they weren’t holding their own, in fact they had gotten some really good hits in. But the Fiend class destroyers were built for very different roles, while the Temper class drone frigates were literally made to help fill out the flanks of an engagement to lessen a numerically superior enemy’s innate maneuverability advantage. Its why they had done so well against so many during the battle of the confederacy.
A heat sync failure on one of the Kruhur destroyers caused a capacitor blow out, and for a few seconds their shields fell apart and their formation was vulnerable to the Astaroth’s missiles. Four Kruhur ships went up in and the shrapnel and wreckage hit two more ships. The formation broke apart and Cameo instantly jumped on the weakness and tore off the side to capitalize on their unprotected flank. Pressed between heavy fire from both the Astaroth and the Cameo the Kruhur squadron lost another destroyer.
He felt the energy around the bridge begin to change as crewmen began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, they saw that victory was in hand just as Karega realized something awful. From the beginning he thought the ambush smelled fishy, and now he saw the weakness they had just offered the enemy as the Cameo pressed harder into the Kruhur squadron.
“Pull the Cameo back, it’s a trap!” he shouted just as a second Kruhur squadron warped in on the Cameo’s exposed flank.
This squadron was made up of eight destroyers, one cruiser, and another ship that sent shivers down Karega’s spine. The Venom.
~~~*~~~
The moment Astarte saw the Venom she knew instantly why Karega had said the Kruhur’s tactics seemed off. Ambushes were not a Kruhur tactic, they were an Egh’ahd tactic. If there was one thing that made Ah’ared a successful pirate it was his ingenious traps.
They had put the pressure on them by sending in just enough ships to put their backs against the wall, but not so many that they couldn’t fight off. And the moment they went to finish off the first squadron the second one warped in on the Cameo’s exposed flank.
“Full power to shields, we need to bust through and rescue the Cameo.” She ordered as the fear and panic temporarily stunned her well trained crew.
The oncoming fire from the first squadron stopped and turned their attention to the lone destroyer, and the new threat also flooded the space with fire. Cameo’s shields held and they began to push their main thruster to its limits, probably stretching the reactors max yield and overloading what the engine could take. Astaroth tried to push itself through the enemy’s flank, but their formation held and they diverted just enough fire power to hold them back.
“Direct com request from the Cameo!” Kat called.
“Put it through” Astarte ordered.
A square video feed appeared on the front viewing window, she saw Captain Brigham standing on a smoking bridge and saw beads of sweat falling off his face. “Your attempts are appreciated sir, but we need you to pull back. We’re about to move to condition five.” He said gravely.
Astarte’s heart dropped as she realized what he meant by condition five “that’s suicide!”
“Yes, well, we’re already dead men walking. Just a matter of minutes. It has been an honor serving with you Sir, don’t let our deaths be in vain.” He said before manually terminating the transmission.
Astarte wanted to keep pushing forward, but even she knew that it was pointless. “Break off the attack, while they’re distracted by Cameo’s sacrifice we’ll escape forward.” She said hoarsely. “Do we have any wake communication arrays still intact?” she wanted to let the rest of the fleet know about Cameo’s fate.
“No sir, we’ll need an EVA team to look at them.” A bridge tech reported.
“Fine, get us out of here, we’ll find somewhere to hunker down and attempt repairs.” She ordered.
The Astaroth pulled away and none of the Kruhur turned their weapons on them or stopped their retreat. As the Astaroth soared forward they launched several nuclear Javelin missiles around the edge of the Kruhur fleet just as the Cameo’s reactor overloaded and exploded with the force of a small star. In all the chaos of the exploding ship and the screen of nuclear explosions the Astaroth was able to mask her escape route and left the battlespace at full speed.
~~~*~~~
The Venom had been at the edge of the formation along with the large Kruhur vessel that had made its way to the battle just in time, it was a much slower ship than the Venom and the other smaller Kruhur ships, buts its fire power was more than welcome. So when the smaller Hellworlder ship self-destructed they were spared a majority of the damage, they couldn’t say the same of the other ships that had closed the distance to put pressure on the Hellworlder ship. Many were lost in a less than a second, and the Astaroth had used the distraction to flee. And if Ah’ared didn’t have a tracker on the ship then they would have just lost their prey.
A transmission from the Kruhur captain from the larger ship, whose name hadn’t once been mentioned to Ah’ared, came in as they reoriented themselves “Mulka, you’re quarry has escaped, how do you plan to answer to the High Vicar.”
Of course, put all the blame on him, not the thankless Kruhur idiots who couldn’t stay alive during the initial stages of his plan. If they had been alive then they could have destroyed the smaller Hellworlder ship before it self-destructed. “Do not worry” Ah’ared croaked slowly through his growing anger “thereg and tracker, remember? We will have our revenge”
“What, I don’t know what ‘juthik’ is mulka.” The Kruhur captain jeered. “just give us the tracking frequency.”
Ah’ared flicked his tongue in agitation “even if I gave you the code, your thip ig too thlow to catch them. We will interkept our prey, and to make thure they don’t egcape” he said as he nodded to Sk’tharc.
The avian also looked annoyed with the Kruhur as she pushed a button to trigger the trap they had set in the Hellworlders reactor.
~~~*~~~
Alwen and Gato had both sat nervously in the med-bay as the ship shook with oncoming fire. The strange reduction in inertial damping made it far to dangerous to go running down the halls because any high-g turn could knock someone off their feet and throw them against a wall. So they all had to hunker down until the captain moved them back to condition three.
The ship eventually stopped shaking and the condition dropped to condition three and Alwen let out a sigh of relief. Before Gato could say anything Alwen stood and unlocked the med bay door “Captain Gato, I believe your squad needs their leader right now.”
He stood up and nodded, he was about to jog down the hall when something strange happened, all the lights shut down, and the constant hum of air filtration fans cut out, and then Alwen felt weightless and began to leave the ground. It was terrifying to suddenly be in the dark and weightless, and wondered if she had just died and was now with Reyfa, Ashendra’s twin and the lady of the dead. Then the lights came back on, and she fell to the ground with a thump.
She looked to Gato, he stood up and offered her a hand “something must have damaged the reactors.” He said nonchalantly as all the lights suddenly went far to bright, and some of them burst.
What he said about the reactors made her think of that strange, malnourished man she had seen the other day when she had returned from her hiking trip. Cold dread sluiced through her as she turned to run to the bridge.
“Where are you going!” Gato roared as he followed after her.
“Someone tampered with the new reactor, I need to tell the captain!” she shouted as she urged her legs to move faster.