The Hellfires Begin

Posted on Fri Oct 12th, 2018 @ 2:47pm by Lieutenant Commander Shaille Levine & Captain Michelle Bartlett & Commander Rostra Tang & Major Hailey Weston & Lieutenant JG Sandra Garcia

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/5
Location: Main Bridge

"Focus targets as requested." Michelle said turning to tactical. "Red Alert."

The bridge began to glow an eerie shade of red, the klaxons sounding around them, almost resounding around the bridge. "Weapons charged and ready Captain," Shaille replied watching her console carefully, the only sign of her unease being the fact that she had paled visibly by one or two shades as she swallowed hard before muttering "Today is not a good day to die..."

"We won't, if I can help it." Michelle replied. "Evasive maneuvers, pattern Gamma-4." she called out to Cally.

"Aye, ma'am." Calypso took the Wellington in a downwards dive to relative below the Icarus, surging forward to be best able to support the other starship.

"I'm ordering fighters deployed." she added as she transmitted the deployment orders down to the fighter bays. "Maintain an open channel with the Icarus. We'll coordinate our efforts."

On the main screen, the fighters blazed out and away from the Wellington, another dot, light glinting off of it, denoting the single fighter that had come through with the starship, already in a move to intercept the squadron. On the screen, the four larger fighter contacts deviated from the vertiable swarm of small, flitting dots that seemed to be in utter chaos, but moving so precisely within their own formation to prove it was a fully controlled situation. The last, larger fighter, seen only on the sensors, reoriented itself and hung there for a few seconds before turning back towards the swarm and staying well back, letting the distance between it and its swarm grow.

The Icarus had already turned to face the oncoming swarm, the weapons ports on her frontal aspect beginning to glow again in that peculiar rainbow color patterning. A targetting request came over the tactical circuit, indicating the four fighter group, now escorted by seven of the little craft.

"Captain, we've got multiple fighters. Capabilities are unknown." Garcia replied.

Michelle paused for just a half-second. In her reality they would at least warn a hostile group to stand down. In this reality, it seemed procedure was drastically different. "Target the larger vessels, firing pattern Gamma-2." Michelle called out. "Fire when ready."

"Sick Bay reports the earlier Icarus casualties have been beamed aboard and are undergoing triage." Garcia replied.

"Well, here goes nothing," Shaille murmured as she activated the weapons and fired as ordered.

As the concentrated fire of both the Icarus and Wellington shot out after the eleven craft coming in, they began to perform some basic evasive maneuvers, but despite that, there was only so much dodging they could do. In a nearly impossible maneuver, one of the smaller fighters intercepted a rainbow bolt moments before it would have hit one of the Kojal fighters, scattering it in pieces. One of the beams from the Wellington hit one of the heavy fighters nose on, collapsing the shields on it in rapid order and impacting the nose. It began to glow under the impact, then as the beam cut off, it cooled again, misshapen, but still charging on towards the pair of starships.

Another volley of fire lanced out from the two ships, this time three of the small fighters intercepting shots aimed for their charges, but one of the rainbow bolts hit a Kojal fighter this time, leaving the still mostly intact craft on a ballistic course towards the starships, obviously a contact kill, but the durability of the craft was unmistakable.

Then the fighters themselves opened fire. From each of the three remaining large fighters, a meter wide beam shot out continously for a ten second period. Two of them hit the Wellington's shields and the ship shuddered slightly, but the shields began to drop under the assault, "Shit, shields are down five percent, six... Impact ended." Cally said quietly, "Engaging evasion pattern Echo-Niner."

"Ms. Garcia divert more power to shields." Michelle called out. "Change firing sequence to Alpha 9."

Rostra took this moment to come up with a concept, "Concentrate fire on the tip of that advancing craft. We don't have to disable them, just knock them off course." she pointed out. "They're direct impact course..."

".. craft. At the speed they'd need to be effective, even a little nudge off course could send them wildly off target."

"Aye Commander," Shaille replied. "Changing the firing sequence to Alpha 9, targeting as directed, and firing..." She held her breath momentarily, watching as the weapons fire increased again between the vessels.

The outgoing fire seemed to hang in the middle of space for interminable hours before it hit the target's nose, it having barely done anything to dodge except seemingly push its engines even more. One of the drones intercepted a torpedo, shattering under the heavy weapon, but truly only the nose of the armored craft moved, some of the molten metal sloughing off from the heat. Thrusters underneath it began to move it back into line with the Wellington when another beam hit it, this time exploding something in the nose and spinning the fighter off, one of the smaller drones screening it. The quartet of rainbow bolts from the Icarus engulfed the initial target and turned it into vapor and plasma.

Then the drone fighters broke off after twitching once, coming at the two starships from three different angles, keeping in movement around their base course, but randomly jinking. From the Icarus, several smaller batteries began to fill space between them with the more familiar pulse phaser fire in rapid fire, obviously intending to try to build a wall of coherent light in space. One shot clipped a spine and scarred it, sending the drone in a briefly uncontrolled spin along its base vector and it hit Wellington's shields. It broke into pieces, but again the ship shuddered, "Shields down another twelve percent." Cally grunted, briefly having to grab onto her console to prevent being thrown out of it.

"Divert as much power as you can to shields!" she called out. "Continuous fire. Don't hold back!"

The two fully capable Kojal fighters split their fire, one beam again impacting the Wellington, the other finding the Icarus in mid maneuver, first hitting the shield, then ripping through it to impact the dorsal aspect of the ship, some small debris flying off the ship, but otherwise appearing to do less damage. Then the Icarus finished the maneuver and at the closing speeds, the last thing that one fighter saw was four rainbow bolts along with a half dozen torpedoes incoming from nearly point blank range. One moment, Kojal fighter, the next moment, a whiff of plasma on the solar winds.

"Target the remaining fighter, Shoot to destroy." Michelle called out. "Alter evasive pattern to Gamma 4." she asked, observing the Kojal fighter... What the hell happened to it?

Molten rock-plasma hammered the Wellington's shields, but they were small and burned out rapidly, doing less damage than would have been if their shields had fallen. The last Kojal kept reorienting on the Wellington, but finally one of the shots from the starship cracked something and the craft went quiescent for a handful of seconds before an internal explosion blew it into fragments. Between the Wellington and Icarus's fire, it was just a matter of time before the final two Shalti drone fighters went down in pieces as well.

Then there was silence. It seemed very anticlimactic now that the shooting was over. On the screen, along with the blank threat screen, Charlotte seemed to sag in her chair as she noted the same thing. "Captain Bartlett, it appears that we're in the clear for the moment. I'm launching a drone to watchdog the anomaly in case something else comes through. If it would be convenient for you, I would like to have a meet with you and whatever senior personnel you feel need to know whats going on in about half an hour? I'll bring my own with me, but I want to get a feel for damage and casualties here first, if you wouldn't mind."

"Of course." Michelle replied. "Take your time. We'll still be here."

Captain Charlotte Averis nodded slightly, "We'll transport over shortly then, Captain. Thank you again. Icarus, clear." The screen went blank.

Calypso's eyes dragged from the screen and then briefly around the Bridge, "Ma'am? What'd we just walk into?" She asked Michelle.

"I guess we'll find out." Michelle replied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to brief Commodore Myers on what just happened. Commander, you have the bridge."

Shaille exhaled slowly, glancing at the Captain's retreating back. "Well, wasn't that fun... NOT!" she finally exclaimed, shaking her head as she watched the screen bringing up damage and casualty reports. "Minor damage is being reported throughout the ship, and we have sustained minimal casualties. Engineering reports crews are already undertaking repairs. Looks like we've come out relatively unscathed..." she cast a glance back at the view screen where the battle scene had now been replaced by the static view of the Icarus. "Let's just hope it stays that way."

"Roger, I have the bridge." one of the twin forms of Rostra Tang stated as Michelle made her way off the bridge. She turned her attention over to Shaille and gave a nod, "We can always hope. Just keep a wary eye out there."



=/\=

Captain Charlotte Averis
Commanding Officer
USS Icarus

Captain Michelle Bartlett
Commanding Officer
USS Wellington

Commander Rostra Tang
Executive Officer
USS Wellington

Lieutenant Calypso Skyie
Chief Helm Officer
USS Wellington

Lieutenant Shaille Levine
Security/Tactical Officer
USS Wellington