us as easily and we'll have torpedo ports pointed in their direction at all times. Remain ready to receive pickup coordinates.”
“Aye!” Ashley called back as she worked to manoeuvre with the constant advice and input of her navigators. Anyone else would be confused by the pair sitting to either side of her, sometimes they offered completely different options, momentarily disagreed on their best course but in the end Ashley used the information to make the best decision for the ship. Second by second she absorbed information from her console, the tactical display, status panel, course advisory hologram and her navigators.
“Flight deck, get ready to retrieve the Clever Dream. She's space worthy but I don't know anything else about her condition, so have emergency crews ready and have people with medical training standing by. They have refugees with them,” Alice called down to Chief Vercelli.
“Aye, Captain. My people will be standing ready.”
“Now we just have to keep it all together until the Clever Dream can get to us,” Alice said as she looked at the Triton status screen to one side of the command seat and watched the larger tactical display at the front of the bridge. The shields were holding, the gunnery deck was already firing a mixture of heavy seeker shells and electromagnetic pulse flak while the torpedo bays were loading high speed fusion torpedoes with simple guidance systems. The ship's shields were down to ninety three percent and recharging, drawing on four of the ships massive fusion generators but there was an entire squadron of fighters on their way, and several West Watch and Regent Galactic destroyers were bringing weapons to bear. “Hurry the hell up Jake.”
The Saviour
“We have a new contact, sir, the Triton, ” announced the lead tactical officer in the forward control pit.
The bridge of the Saviour, when put to its full use was nothing like the Triton's and he enjoyed its state of the art responsiveness, the tight organization of the stations and the pedestal mounted command chair. He could see what everyone on the bridge was doing with three quick glances and the command holograms he viewed were angled especially so only he could see them. Even someone standing right behind him wouldn't see them clearly.
“Thank you Garrison, there's a pay bonus coming your way,” Wheeler said from the command seat as he brought the tactical sensor data to the center of his display. The hologram focused in on the Triton, manoeuvring perfectly to avoid most of the enemy fire that was being hurled its way. The defensive fields were deflecting and absorbing all of it, gunners were effectively repelling incoming craft, shredding half the fighters who were unlucky enough to cross the dorsal side of the broad ship or get caught by one of her intense hangar defence beam turrets or pulse cannons.
He checked the status of his own ship. The Saviour was behind allied lines and only adding its own firepower to the defence sporadically. It was weathering the battle extremely well. Shielding was holding at ninety nine point seven percent and his squadron of fighters was in a light inner defence rotation, his pilots barely had the opportunity to fire a shot at Carthan craft. “We've found our target. Recover our patrol craft and launch everything we have with a heavy munitions loadout. Bring us about and start advancing on the Triton at best speed. All batteries are to fire on the sections I'm marking.”
Wheeler watched as his crew went to work, passing orders down the line, activity radiated out from the bridge in great waves starting at his elevated command seat. Dozens of heavy interceptor class starfighters were launched with perfect precision and great speed, power to the shields was increased, gauss and particle accelerator cannons began firing on Triton while his helmsman used allied and enemy ships alike for cover.
They were just beginning to close the gap between themselves and the other ship as his quarry turned to hide behind a moon tens of thousands of kilometres away. Already the effect they were having on the Triton was evident. Wheeler couldn't help grin. I might not have to chase these bastards across the galaxy after all.
Departure
Jake ignored the crushing headache and gnawing hunger as he finished familiarizing himself with the controls of the Clever Dream and listened to the reactor power up. He knew Dementia had already tested the whole system, that the small holographic and two dimentional displays all told him that the remade machine was performing within its optimal range, but that didn't mean he had to trust it.
The tactical screen suddenly marked Triton's location and as he glanced at the status of the exterior hatches and verified they were all closed up he started to lift off.
“I'm opening the main hangar doors and raising the shields, there are soldiers outside who may be ready for our departure.”
“Do you know what kind of armaments they have?” Ayan asked.
“I don't imagine they have enough firepower to sufficiently damage our energy shielding, the anti air guns in Damshir are another story, however.”
“I'll see if I can channel Minh a bit, he's pretty hard to hit,” Jake said as the nose of the long black vessel tilted up and he pushed the accelerators hard. The Clever Dream erupted from the hangar and turned tightly upward, pointed towards the darkened sky and the numerous protracted landing platforms that were in the way.
Ayan braced herself and sucked air in through clenched teeth as the inertial dampeners began to struggle. Jake forced the ship up the center of the spaceport, twitching the controls just in time to avoid colliding with the underside of one thick platform after another. A screech sounded against the outer hull as he guided them around one of the last ones. “Hope we didn't need that,” he said under his breath as he punched the solid rocket booster activation control and the wining of the inertial dampeners became a screech that was loud enough to compete with the roar of the controlled explosion they rode up into the atmosphere.
Jake took a moment to look at the tactical screen as it updated and shook his head.
“We're not going to make it through that,” Jason said as he looked from where he sat to the right. “There's thousands of fighters in our way.”
The outer atmosphere was approaching quickly, seconds away and Jake considered the problem. There were thousands of fighters from both sides fighting for dominance over Pandem and the entire solar system, the Clever Dream would only last seconds and their cloaking systems would be useless until they cleared the inner orbit.
The image of the Triton loomed just beside the second closest moon and it was being swarmed by fighters. “We have to take the long shot,” Jake said under his breath before looking to Ayan. “Do we have enough power to project a wormhole two kilometres past the Triton?”
“We do, and plotting the course isn't the problem, the atmosphere is the problem,” she answered. “It's too dense.”
“We'll be clear in eight seconds. How are our shields?”
“We've only taken a few hits, they're regenerating.”
“All right, so could we survive a collision with one of those heavy interceptors?”
Her eyes went wide and she glanced at the tactical screen, realizing then that a collision was a distinct possibility. “Depends on how fast we come out of the wormhole.”
Jake looked at the main pilot's display then back at Ayan; “Forty eight point four kilometres per second?”
“Let's just hope they're going in the same direction when we hit. I'll try to shore up the shielding.”
“I'm setting a wormhole course, Dementia has half the work done,” Jason added.
“We'll open one as soon as we're in low orbit, there shouldn't be enough matter there to interfere with its formation or stability, at least not for the amount of time we need it for,” Jake said, turning his focus back to the controls and the main pilot's display. A few seconds passed before he burst; “You know, this was supposed to be a milk run.”
“Just tell me it's not always this exciting in this end of space,” Jason said as he worked through course
