Dramatic SFB: GWO Turn 7

[Matt]

> "Drop out of high warp, Navigator." The captain of the light strike 
> cruiser /Taranto/ said.
>
> "Aye sir. We have dropped out of high warp. Now traveling at warp 
> three point zero", the navigator replied smartly. Now that the main 
> sensors weren't addled by the energy required to travel so fast, other 
> stations around the bridge were reporting.
>
> "270,000 miles from the Hydran colony." A gaseous planet with a green 
> atmosphere, rich in methane, hung in the display at the captain's elbow.
>
> Fire control signals began to wash the metal-hulled Jindarian ship. 
> "Sir! Several orbital defenses are present. I see half a constellation 
> of defense satellites, a small commercial base, and a ship."
>
> "Sir, the ship has the warp signature of a cruiser -- she appears to 
> be a command cruiser!"
>
> "The base is hailing us. It's a system activity base, and we found our 
> target planet."
>
> "Give her no reply" The captain said.
>
> "The ship is speeding up, sir."
>
> "So much for a quick in-and-out raid", the captain thought and then he 
> smiled. /Time to dance among the stars/.
>

The captain began laying out his plan to the crew manning the stations 
around him. "Helm", the captain said. "I want high speed until we get to 
about 150 K-miles, then slow down and pop the drogue." "Tactical, that 
ship is going to make a lot of trouble for us. Hydrans like to charge. I 
want you to hit it in the nose and keep hitting it. Stay off the 
flanks." "Sensors. I expect them to make a lot of noise. Particularly 
that base of theirs. For this approach, I want you to cut through it. 
Give tactical their edge. We'll see if they have the power for it later."

The bridge was briefly filled with a chorus of "Aye." "Helm," the 
captain returned to her, "Stay out of overload range. That ship is going 
to accelerate like a space banshee. Stay ahead of it so tactical can 
smack them around. Don't you let them smack us around."

The /Taranto/ kept up just a touch below her entry speed while the 
Hydran swung wide around the planet and then took on a bearing to 
intercept the raider. The Jindarian ship curved around to centerline the 
system activity monitoring base. The Hydran ship also curved her course 
to come in ahead of the Jindarian.

Just as the /Taranto/ reached 150,000 miles to the base, she slowed down 
to warp 2.3 and a tethered drogue slide out of the hatch. The base 
activated it's specialized sensors to blanket the /Taranto/ with 
subspace static. The computers on the drogue analyzed the patterns in 
the static and were able to pull the truth from the randomness. Feeding 
the signals-analysis back to the /Taranto/, fire control firmed up again.

But the Hydran ship was getting to close. The /Taranto/ swung steeply 
across the defender's bow. One of the orbitals spat a hellbore at the 
raider and a pair of phasers lanced out from the defender. The hellbore 
arrived half a second before the phasers and warmed the shields without 
finding a weakness to focus on. The phasers created the weakness on the 
Taranto's port flank, but only for later shots. The /Taranto/ bucked as 
she fired a rail gun at the defender, hit, and scored half damage 
against the forward shield through the reinforcement.

Now the two were far to close for the captain's plans. The helm officer 
had waited a second or two too late to perform her swing away from 
threatening the orbitals, and now was well within overload range with 
the Hydran. Fortunately, the Hydran captain must not have expected the 
/Taranto/ to engage as closely and had not pumped the extra power to the 
torpedoes.

Nonetheless, the raider did not care to be so close to so powerful an 
adversary. She brought in the drogue and sped up a touch. Another 
orbital fired their hellbore while the defender added another pair of 
phasers. The /Taranto/ bucked as the weakened shield became moreso. 
Making the best of the unexpected range, the raider returned fire with 
her full phaser array and further damaged the Hydran's forward shielding.

The two ships were engaged in a furious knife fight as moments later, 
the defending ship fired a hellbore and more phasers. The hellbore 
missed but the phasers continued to weaken the already-damaged shield of 
the Jindarian. The raider kicked again as a second meteorite streaked 
out and collided with the Hydran's nose. Moments later, another 
ship-borne hellbore struck the fleeing raider. That weakened shield was 
down to half strength but the Hydran's forward shielding was down to a 
third of it's original strength.

Both ships accelerated, nearly doubling their speeds but keeping a rough 
parity in distance. The defender was hampered because she was in orbit a 
few minutes ago, which allowed the raider to match the known 
acceleration curve. The Hydran ship was spending her power lavishly on 
recharging the weapons systems used moments ago and on her engines. This 
was seen by the raider when the Hydran could no longer maintain her 
jamming. The Jindarian, on the other hand, couldn't keep full reserve 
power and left the phasers uncharged. Both ships were breathing heavy, 
in their own ways.

The Hydran turned slightly, to bring her last hellbore into play. The 
Jindarian ship shuddered as three hydran phasers played along a new 
shield and then the hellbore struck again. Only the use of reserve power 
was keeping the Hydran fire from knocking down that shield. The 
jindarian weapon's officer was doing a good job, though, as yet another 
rail gun sent a collection of rocks into the Hydran's front. That shield 
was now a hair's breadth from folding.

Both ships had exhausted their weapons systems and streaked out-system. 
The Hydran was trying to keep up with the Jindarian, who was trying to 
open the range. Very quickly, the Jindarian was approaching the point 
where the defending ship would chase her right out of the system!

The Hydran accelerated again, to warp 3, while the Jindarian pushed her 
speed all the way to 3.15. At these speeds, the Hydran only loaded one 
weapon so that she could protect that faltering shield. The Jindarian 
could only load half her rail guns and could not reload the phasers. To 
make up the lack, the Hydran launched her Stinger fighters  and tried to 
bracket her quarry. The /Taranto/ reached as far as she was willing to 
go from the planet and begun to swing around.

As the opportunity allowed, she fired another rail gun at her adversary, 
but the energy was completely absorbed by the reinforcing energy. Later, 
the raider was able to repeat the attack and scored a hit. Rock at 
superluminal velocities sliced through the protective energy field and 
slowed only enough to keep the resulting collisions from being 
catastrophic. The Hydran took hits on all of their forward weapon 
systems. Overloads in the power grid damaged the warp engines. an 
instant before, the Hydran fired her only charged hellbore and hit the 
Jindarian with a flare of energy. Reserve power again slowed the erosion 
of the Jindarian's weak flank shield.

The two ships streaked along at about 450,000 miles from the planet that 
anchored them together. For many seconds, the two were maintaining a 
distance of about 100,000 miles. Suddenly the /Taranto/ pulled into a 
wrenching turn that put her pursuer going the wrong direction to keep 
up. Knowing that the Hydran could not perform the same trick at the 
speeds they were going, the Jindarian opened the range again and forced 
the defender to sweep around. For a moment, the helm officer of the 
/Taranto/ played with staying on the Hydran's flank. She was reminded 
otherwise when the Hydran fired several phasers into the Jindarian's 
weak shield. Afterward, the Taranto flew away from the defending ship, 
which took them into range of the long-suffering and wholly-abandoned 
Stinger fighters. Those fighters had their day, firing a full 
alpha-strike at 100,000 miles and severely weakening the /Taranto/'s 
front shield. Without the phasers to deal with them properly, the raider 
simply allowed them to be left behind the speeding ship.

The Hydran slowed down, having expected things to go quite different 
than the sharp turn the Jindarian made. The raider used her speed to 
keep the distance comfortably outside of overload range and traded shots 
with her adversary. The hellbore hit and the rail gun did not. This time 
the mushy medicine-ball feeling of the shields absorbing another 
smothering hellbore was punctuated by an explosion in the right 
engine-deck. A moment later, the Taranto fired another rail gun at the 
Hydran and missed.

With her shields beginning to fail and facing a ship that is technically 
two ship-classifications larger, the light strike cruiser /Taranto/ 
reached for the orbital limit. Having achieved it, she dropped into 
high-warp and was gone. At the end, she failed to raid the colony but 
succeded in harassing the Hydran forces. The defending Hydran ship is 
going to spend a couple of weeks in the dockyards, getting her weapons 
repaired.

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