[Strategia_In_Ultima]

-----CHAPTER FOUR: FIGHT OR FLIGHT-----

Tamarillho sat stunned in her command chair. The realization that she was on the bridge of Central Command’s latest and most top-secret warship almost caused her to faint. Sure, she had wanted to make the jump to the combat navy at some point, but she had wanted to decide for herself when she felt ready. Now, she had no choice. She was commanding possibly the most powerful and dangerous ship in the Commonwealth Navy. There was no resigning now.

A sudden cry from her TO caused her already present fear to deepen.

“NAAH!!!!! Ma’am, that Kent’s coming after us!”
“What…..?”
Her TO looked at the verge of mental breakdown. He was whimpering slightly.
“It’s chasing us….. It’s chasing us…..”
“Come on man, get back to your senses.”
He continued whimpering and slowly turned a rather pale shade of chalk-white.
“No….. No…..”
Tamarillho realized she’d have to check her own small screen to see what was going on.

She felt her face change color to the same shade of white as the TO’s.

The Kent had all of its turrets trained on the fleeing Vulture, and it was preparing four long-ranged torpedoes, two standard ones and two heavy-duty, the torp’s target trackers flickering on the Vulture’s hull.

“Ensign..... Durryn..... take..... take us to the next..... warp point.....”
“Aye ma’am.”

Tamarillho felt the ship change course, but her eyes were riveted on the unknown warship racing towards them, slowly catching up with them. A cold fear slowly crept up into her stomach. She felt her heart rate decreasing. Several sentences lurked at the edge of her mind, ready to be shouted aloud over the bridge, but “Abandon ship! All hands abandon ship!”, “Kamikaze course!” and “Push the engines to as far as they’ll go! I don’t care about the Caranck border!” didn’t manage to reach her vocal cords.

Tamarillho noticed her nav officer was talking to her, but it didn’t quite register.

“Excuse me, Ensign? What did you say?”
“It’s diverting course, ma’am. It’s got its torps trained on C-Devonshire. Some of its turrets are still tracking us, but the larger part have diverted to C-Devonshire.”
It took a few moments for it to sink in, but after that she felt she was fully in control of her faculties again, and acted quickly.
“Durryn, course nearest warp point. Push the engines as far as they’ll go. Lieutenant Wheliin, get back to your senses and start jamming any and all transmissions to and from us. We’ve got a chance here, people.”

A bright light in the corner of the viewscreen attracted her attention. She immediately realized what it was, even though it took a few seconds for the shockwave to hit. C-Alpha 5 Devonshire was gone.

“Ma’am, it’s coming after us again!”
“Durryn, take us to the Cartsial Storm. Try to keep away from the pulse-energy pockets.”

She always felt nervous when sending her ship into a stellar storm where it might get damaged, but she felt it was their only chance. If they managed to lure the Kent into it as well, they should be saved – that is, if Durryn managed to stay away from the dense pockets of gas where energy pulses arced back and forth. Any ship coming too close to these pulse-energy pockets would unavoidably receive a powerful jolt of raw energy, which could easily blow out several bulkheads, and if a ship would go through one of the pockets, the energy would be completely drained but the ship’d receive massive damage. Some of the larger pockets could destroy a largish Destroyer were it to pass through. All pilots and crews were explicitly warned against entering these stellar storms when they first enrolled in a Commonwealth Navy Academy. In fact, the entire first week at any Academy consisted solely of a red-faced officer shouting these words over and over again at his recruits. Entering a storm like this without explicit orders would be punished severely. The least one could expect was a lifetime ban from piloting any space craft.

“I’ve got a fix on a clear corridor. Kent’s following. It’s at 17-right, distance fifteen hundred clicks and closing.”
Fortunately for scientists, explorers and reckless maniacs, almost all stellar storms had clear tracts of open space running through them. Most were less than fifteen m-3-clicks in diameter, barely enough to accommodate a medium-sized probe, but larger corridors are known to exist.
Unfortunately, however, all corridors changed continuously, so piloting any space craft through them was very risky. Tamarillho wasn’t at all certain if Durryn wasn’t going to get them all killed, but it was better than a certain death running.

The knot in Tamarillho’s throat tightened as she felt the slight jolts of the ship being pulled by the EM fields in the storm as the gases closed around them.
“Ma’am, way we’ve come in’s just closed.”

So here they were. Inside a very dangerous storm, with no clear way out, and a large warship approaching, bent on killing them. Well, at least Tamarillho’s command chair was comfortable.

-----END OF CHAPTER FOUR-----