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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Captain Traccus sat in his chair on the deck of the DDL Dacentrurus. His mission was to escort a three-ship convoy to Magrathea. His escort fleet consisted of his ship and two DDs, the Pikachu
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Traccus wasn’t expecting any trouble. After all, rumor had it that all the three ships were hauling supplies to Magrathea for some kind of party. Mr. Gorntastic and his cabinet were celebrating
the fact that they hadn’t been kicked out of office yet. <br>
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mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Capt. Traccus was interrupted from his thoughts by his Science Officer. “</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What
now?!?</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">” the captain thought as he called back, “What is it?!?” “I’m detecting some anomalies on the scanner consistent with three Andromedan ships, Sir!” Traccus rolled his eyes, one to the right and one to the left
(a definite sign of irritation), and the Science Officer twitched in anticipation of a tongue lashing.
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“Let’s fire up the weapons, then!” he called out to his tactical officer. “Andromedans”, he muttered under his breath. “I guess it’s true that those freighters are hauling prophylactics and
blow for the party…”</span></p>
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mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Andromedans were approaching from head on. They arrived before their weapons were fully
charged while Captain Traccus had just enough time to bring his weapons to full power. “</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Maybe Science Officers aren’t all bad</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">,” he thought
to himself. </span><br>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The Tactical Officer warned, “Even with our weapons ready, we don’t have much of a chance against these guys. We haven’t been able to beat these guys, even when we have the tactical advantage!”
“Just leave it to me,” Traccus responded. “I have a trick or two that we haven’t tried yet against these guys.” Now it was the Tactical Officer’s turn to roll his eyes, one in each direction.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The Gorns were facing three ships, the COQ "Rotura", the COB "Martillo", and the COU "Cara". Captain Traccus thought that the Rotura was probably too big for them to really harm, but if the
could cripple the Cara, they might have a chance since the scouts were always worth more in battle since they could do all of their sciency stuff and make true warriors miss more than normal.
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Captain Traccus ordered his ships to charge the enemy and to be ready to unload on the enemy ships on his mark. The Andromedans seemed to have a similar idea as they also approached head
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">When the two fleets were about 9 parsecs from each other, Traccus ordered three pseudo plasma torpedoes be launched, just to give the Andromedan captain something to think about.
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The Andromedan used his scout to identify the target and then used one of their fancy special mines to determine that the torps were fake. Shaking his fist, Captain Traccus ordered the Pikachu
to launch another three pseudo torps, just to keep the Andromedan guessing. He didn’t think that the Andro would fall for it, but you never know.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">At a range of five, the Andromedans opened up and fired their TRs. Two heavy and two light. Captain Traccus and his bridge crew threw themselves to the left and then to the right as their
ship was rocked by the barrage. The front shield was destroyed and the ship took heavy damage, but she wasn’t out of the fight, yet.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The next chance he had, he ordered return fire, bolting every available plasma and firing every available phaser on the Martillo. He would have fired on the Cara, but she had upped her ECM
with all of that sciency stuff before Traccus had the chance to order the attack.
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Now it was the Martillo’s turn to throw themselves to the left and the right. The barrage ripped through the Martillo leaving it almost dead in space.
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Doing a quick review of his situation, Captain Traccus knew that with his ship almost crippled, there would be no way for them to hold off the Rotura. Ordering his fleet to turn towards the
enemy, Captain Traccus ordered another barrage on the Martillo with everything the fleet had left. The Martillo exploded with a less than satisfying ‘boom’ as the captain’s next order was to abandon the Dacentrurus and make their escape.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">As the captain boarded the Pikachu, he thought about the tongue lashing that he would receive from Mr. Gorntastic for letting the prophylactics and blow fall into the hands of the Andromedans.
The worst part about it was that he couldn’t blame his loss on the Science Officer, as he’d done an admirable job of warning them so that they could be ready for the attack. Maybe the Tactics Officer…
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<p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0">Mr. Gorntastic will be ready to cycle the turn once he's received word from Captain Slartac that he's been able to successfully raid the Gorn Confederation's convoy of their cheese and crackers.
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