In the meantime, time to do some heel dragging of her own and wish the transports luck. That, and ignore the Blank Slate's surging relief at this outcome.
“Lana, I'm sending Fix 3 to help with repairs,” Aiden abruptly snapped. “Nothing against your skills, but we've got the combat androids available and I want the shields squared as soon as possible.”
Fantastic.
* * * * *
Going into combat with five layers of shields wasn't the worst thing in the universe.
After all, Aiden could still remember back when he'd first been given the Last Stand, pristine and beautiful from the shipyard. It had only had three layers of shielding then, and he'd made do.
In fact, sometimes he looked back at that time and wondered how he'd survived. Especially since his younger self now seemed almost suicidally reckless and daring, flying through the fiercest fighting during massive scrums between fleets and coming through on the other side to brag about it.
Then again, he supposed when it came to jumping headfirst into fights with Deeks, not much had changed.
Aside from the fact that he was feeling less like bragging in this particular fight. That was because he'd noticed that the Pilots in those automated fighters came close to matching his flying skills, as well as the gunner's shooting. Which, considering there was a planet eater out there most likely churning out ships run by the things by the tens of thousands, or if there wasn't now there would soon be, was a worrying thought.
That was a concern for the future, though. For the moment, those frightening AIs were on his side, and he really needed them.
Almost first thing as he turned his ship around to engage the transports, the Pilots shot down the atomics coming for the Last Stand. Thanks to their flawless reaction time and intimidating accuracy, they managed it before the warheads could get anywhere near his ship.
Then, as the gunner opened up on their first target and Aiden maneuvered to put it between them and the other enemy ship, the fighters swarmed around the two big ships like flies around a couple of spaceport drifters, hammering them with railgun slugs. That forced the transports to evade, keeping them from focusing fire on Aiden's ship.
Which was a good thing, because the two enemy vessels seemed determined to finish off the Last Stand, pouring all their firepower at his ship with dogged determination and completely ignoring the fighters. He wasn't sure if Elyssa was pushing for them to destroy him as a first priority, even if it wasn't tactically sound, or if they thought he was hacking their Pilots and were trying to take him out to stop it, but it was obvious his ship was their one and only target.
Which, oddly enough, Aiden didn't mind. As long as he flew to keep one transport blocking line of fire from the other, maneuvering with every ounce of skill in that constrained zone to stay ahead of the enemy fire, the gunner working alongside the eight fighters had nice fat targets to take potshots at.
It worked for a minute or so, until the transport they were targeting made the desperation move of launching an atomic point blank and destroying both their shields. The enemy vessel had been down to its final layer in any case, likely hoping that would be enough to at least prevent catastrophic damage when the atomic overloaded it.
It wasn't.
The gunner reacted quickly the moment the nuke launched, spraying a barrage slugs from the railgun's swiftly emptying magazine, and depleting the capacitors in both laser arrays in a quick burst. Together that was all enough to finish off the beleaguered ship's shields, and for a moment Aiden allowed himself to hope the enemy gunner would realize the danger and simply allow the atomic to fly off into space.
No such luck, although whoever it was did aim it to shoot past the Last Stand and detonate on the far side of them, with more distance from the transport itself.
That bought Aiden time to evade, although not enough. And it wasn't enough for the transport, either; as the Last Stand's shields once again went down, warnings blaring about minor hull damage as well, the massive explosion rolled over the support ship. In the wake of it, his sensors reported systems down and multiple hull breaches on the larger ship.
Although at the moment he had other worries, since the explosion coincided with the other transport popping into view; the two support ships had coordinated maneuvers to veer in different directions at the same time. Before the closer transport took the brunt of the atomic's blast, it managed to get off a barrage of shots of its own.
Which, combined with the other transport's sudden flurry of shots and the Last Stand's shields being down, proved to be a threat that Aiden realized he couldn't dodge only seconds before the attack hit them. Even abandoning his attempts to stay in the transport's shadow and evading full out wasn't enough.
He actually braced for the impact that would destroy or cripple his beloved ship. At his station, Barix was muttering something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. Or at least a bitter complaint to some higher power.
Then three of the unmanned fighters made a suicidal dive into the nuke's blast wave, putting themselves between the Last Stand and the incoming shots.
Aiden watched their icons wink out on the display as he continued his mad dash for safety, one eye on the attacking ship and the other on the blaring red outline of his unshielded hull, with a countdown of far too many seconds before his shields were back up.
Another fighter suicided to block more incoming shots, while the others converged on the unshielded and heavily damaged transport and picked off its vital systems, leaving it dead
