Taking Space

Take Two

Daniel pulled back and jerked off the helmet.

“You can’t overload the propulsion system and the shields at the same time that’s too much energy flow into the conduit!” Steven shouted at him.

“Well, sorry, I didn’t know!” Daniel angrily retorted.

Stephanie glared at him. “You were also fighting way too much. You didn’t get anywhere near the capital’s ship.”

The adrenaline from the fight still flowed hot through Daniel’s blood, and he turned to her. “I have to fight if I don’t they will blast me out of the sky!”

“No, you don’t! All you have to do is get in range of the capital ship and fire once!”

Daniel’s face grew beat red. “You have no clue!”

“I do too.”

“No, you don’t! I start at seven K away and if I’m lucky I get three K in before I’m detected meaning there still 4K to go and the max range of the lasers is one K. If I try to run that I’m dead!”

“No, you wouldn’t be.”

“I would too!” Daniel clenched his fist. “Any time a fighter straightens out and tries to run, I can take them down in two hundred SU! I guarantee their absolute worst pilot can do it in a maximum of one K much less two or three! And that’s just one-on-one, not one verse fifty!”

“Then, just dodged them! You don’t have to fight them!”

Daniel rolled his eyes and put out his hand palm first.

“Oh no, you don’t do that to me!”

Michael quickly stepped between them. “Stop just stop you two!”

Daniel turned his back. “This isn’t going to work. It was a stupid plan.”

Dan’s voice carried with it a heavy sense of finality, and everyone just stood there, not knowing what to say.

Catherine took a deep breath. “No, it’s not going to work. Stephanie’s right for this plan to work you would have to somehow just dodged them. And all of you should know.” She looked at the others. “That trying to get Daniel not to fight is completely against his nature.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Yeah in every RPG we play he has to kill every single enemy in sight before he moves on even if we’re all protesting.”

“Yes, which means this plan won’t work; however, if we make a minor adjustment to it...”

***

Michael sat in the commander seat and pulled on one of the normal commercial Virt helmets they owned.

Daniel began to put on his as he complained, “I hate escort missions.”

The virtual screen loaded up, and Michael looked around. He didn’t like this Virt helmet. It felt too clunky and plastic, and even though he could see his own virtual limbs, something seemed off about them. He closed his eyes and put it out of his mind as he turned the starfighter on.

When he opened back up his eyes Daniel was already headed for the dimensional gate, so he started to head for it as well, but as he watched Daniel passed through it he realized just how small the opening was. “I don’t think I can get through that.”

“Here let me.” Alf’s voice said in his ear.

An invisible force took control of the starfighter correcting its trajectory then turned it off as it flew through the dimensional door.

Michael came out on the other end, and a little black dot appeared in the distance which had to be Daniel’s fighter a good distance ahead of him.

He looked past him to see the giant capital flagship that was the government’s capital, and all around it was hundreds of fighters. “Is there more than there was last time?”

“Probably,” Steven answered.

Michael decided not to think about it and craned his head to look around. A large assortment of different types of freighter sized or bigger combat vessels formed a massive circle approximately ten K SU out and around the capital. It had only been around thirty minutes since their threat had gone out, but already large portions of the giant link shield were going up. The Almandine bureaucracy was moving a lot faster than it normally did.

“I guess everyone in the capital is worried about what might happen to them if they ended up in the Lionhearted custody,” Michael mused to himself.

“Okay, it looks like a formation has detected my presence. I’ll engage and draw them off. Don’t power up unless you have to.”

Michael didn’t stop himself from nodding even though he knew Daniel couldn’t see him. “I won’t. Just remember that your objective here is to protect this ship. Don’t get too caught up in the fighting.”

“I know, I know,” his brother retorted.

Daniels starfighter sprung to life and moved with ferocious energy as it opened fire on the formation coming towards it.

Michael watched for a few seconds then scan the horizon. “Looks like three formations are diverting from their patrol patterns and headed for your direction.”

“Okay,” Dan answered back his voice lithe with the combat he was now engaged in.

Michael let his eyes flicker back towards the fight to see that Daniel had indeed somehow drawn them father off and out of the way of his flight path.

Less than thirty seconds later, he floated pass the fight, making it, so he had to crane all the way around to see how Daniel was doing.

The three other formations joined combat with him, and two more headed his way.

Michael quickly flew out of range to see what was going on, but it honestly looked like a royal mess to him. He turned around and closely watched the rest of the fighters. To his surprise he made out two of the disabled fighters that Daniel had taken out earlier. From the looks of it someone had come along and pushed them back towards the capital so they could be rescued.

He smiled. With any luck at all, his starfighter would easily be counted as one of their numbers at least until they got a direct visual.

“One of the patrols is coming around, and they’re going to cut right into Michael’s flight path,” Steven warned.

“O, great just great.” Daniel moaned

“Want me to power up and see if I can outmaneuver them?”

“No!” Daniel shouted. “Once they know you’re here, that’ll make my job all the more harder, and I already have my hands full. I’ll get them out of your way don’t worry.”

Mike wasn’t sure how Dan could possibly do that; he was already two K behind him, but Mike sat back in his seat and calmly waited.

***

Daniel lined himself up, so the ship he was pounding on was in a straight line with the patrol that was going to fly into Michael’s flight path. He killed all energy to his propulsive system and sent it to the beam cannon along with as much energy as he dared pull through the conduit.

He switched the beam cannon to charge burst and pulled the trigger. There was a small charge time then a blinding light shot straight through the ship he was pounding on and continued two point three K on smashing into the leader of the patrol breaking the shield and taking a chunk out of its aft.”

***

“Whoa, that was some shot!” Michael said as he blinked a few times to get the light spots out of his eyes.

“I hope you’re happy. That completely burned up my beam cannon!”

“I am. From the looks of it, the patrol has stopped moving.”

“You know in real life it would cost us around thirty-five thousand to replace that beam cannon,” Daniel shouted back.

“This is real life. And you don’t need to shout were all right here.” Stephanie reminded him.

“Oh… yeah.”

The room fell into silence as Daniel concentrated on the fight he was in, and Michael carefully watched the fighters around the capital.

Four to eight seconds later, Michael heard Daniel say, “Ah, man!”

“What? Did they get you?”

“Yeah. It looks like you’re on your own from here.”

“That’s fine. I’m only one point three K out now, and even if they spot me I should be good.”

No one replied so Michael slightly lifted the Virtual helmet so he could see what they were doing.

“We are just watching the view from your ship on the big screen,” Catherine said as she saw him pull the hat up.

“I can take over from here if you want.” Daniel enthusiastically offered.

“No. Keep your hands to yourself. You’re likely to screw it up.” Stephanie scolded

Michael pulled back down the helmet and began to countdown the space units.

As soon as he was within nine hundred and fifty, he powered back on the starfighter flipped the light sail up on the P988 or rather modified ‘Blower’ and fired the lasers.

The lasers collided with the capital ship's shields and Michael’s eyes barely caught the flicker around the impact. Then for good measure and show he opened up with the beam cannon as he shouted, “Did it work?!”

“I think so give me a second,” Steven answered.

Turrets all over the capital ship swiveled toward Michael’s Starfighter as he uselessly raked the capital ship's shields with his weapons.

“Yes, it worked! I have a dimensional door just wide enough for me to put my hand through open right now.”

The starfighter began to scream warnings at Michael, and he ripped off the helmet. “Here Dan you can take over from here.”

Daniel smiled and pulled back on his helmet. Michael stood up and stretched as he looked over at Steven. He was holding a six-inch in diameter dimensional door. “How is it?”

“Well from what I can tell, it’s in between the hull plating and the interior. So I’m either going to have to maneuver it to a better position or blast a hole open somehow to allow us to deploy a dimensional door large enough for the androids to go through.”

“How long will it take you?”

“To do it right without being detected ten maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Okay, we will get the androids ready.”