Re: Chapter 06: No Cosmic Justice
Reply #17 –
[ LT Daniel Havenborn | Cockpit | AC-307 Mark-II Valkyrie "Grey Wolf-01"] Attn: DocReno, Auctor Lucan, anyone I missed
With the remaining fighters off his tail and having caught up to the remains of his squadron, Daniel cycled through his weapons list, all of his ordnance was gone, he was down to just phaser cannons now. "You holding up okay Knight?" He said to his RIO. "All good here Salvo, just looking forward to getting outta this cockpit." Knight said in response. Hearing the new orders to begin a series of maneuvers Daniel pushed the engines to full throttle and began to go through them, however as he was about to finish up the maneuvers he got the abort order from Commander Renard. "Omega-1 aborted, moving to support." Daniel said over the squadron channel. As they got closer to Vector 02 he saw the mass of fighters coming towards them, the way they were formed up would only make it harder for them to miss.
Seeing the Orcus fighters open fire on the interceptors was kind of a shock but he was glad to have some more potential allies, he hoped that they'd become allies anyway, they needed all the help they could get at the moment. He saw the Husker's fighter being chased by the interceptors and decided to help out. "Salvo to Husker, adjust your course by thirty degrees and continue forwards at maximum thrust." Daniel said as he matched the course correction himself, he was on a direct course with Husker but if he'd done his math right, and he liked to believe that he did, their fighters would only come within a few inches of each other, this would help him surprise the interceptors, if only a little.
As his fighter got closer he could hear the collision alarm in his fighter begin to sound, Daniel rechecked his math and it still checked out so he shut the alarm off and continued on course, another five hundred meters...three hundred meters...one hundred meters... He watched as Husker flew over his cockpit, had he been able to open his cockpit he could've reached out and touched the outer hull of the other fighter. There, his targeting sensors locked onto the first interceptor, he fired a full blast with his pulse phasers, watching as its shields flickered and then failed, he kept firing until the ship was destroyed, he locked onto the second interceptor and repeated the process.
When the second interceptor was destroyed he knew he wasn't going to get a chance at the third, at least not from this angle. He thrust past them and made an Immelman turn maneuver, now that he was behind them he targeted the closest interceptor and fired until its shield flickered and the ship was destroyed, he locked onto the fourth interceptor as another one broke formation to get behind Daniel's fighter. He'd have to worry about that one later. "Knight, watch that interceptor, let me know when it's in weapons range." He said as he began firing on the fourth interceptor. "Got it Salvo, it'll have weapons lock in thirty seconds." Knight said in response. Thirty seconds was more than enough time for him to take out the remaining two interceptors.
The fourth interceptor's shields flickered then failed and he scored direct hits on its warp engines, the detonation blinded his sensors for a moment but he recovered and locked onto the fifth interceptor, he followed the same pattern as before, though this one had learned a bit and was trying to evade his shots. "Ten seconds to weapons range." Knight said. Daniel kept at it and soon enough the interceptor's shield failed. "Incoming torpedo!" Knight said as Daniel watched them on his tactical display, he just had a brilliant idea, he just needed to adjust his course a little. He dodged the torpedo and got the lock back onto the fifth interceptor, he fired all of his phasers and watched as the interceptor exploded into a ball of dust. One more to go. "And now to try something I've always wanted to do." He said out loud. "Salvo, no; this is not a time for the Havenborn Special!" Came Knight's response. "It'll work, trust me." Daniel said, he seriously hoped that it would work, he'd only done it in simulations and hadn't had a lot of success with it, but it was better than nothing right now.
He slowed his fighter down letting the interceptor get a clear targeting lock on him. He could feel Knight's anticipation; the two of them had worked on this maneuver for hours at a time on their journey home so they both knew what they needed to do. "Targeting lock, incoming torpedo!" Knight said as he tried to calm himself. Daniel thrust the engine output to maximum. "Knight, take weapons offline and divert power from the phaser arrays into the engines and the pulse phasers into the shields." He said as he watched his display screen show the changes in the power allotment. "Engine output increased by ten percent, we can't sustain this for long." Knight said as Daniel brought the fighter around, the torpedo gaining on him as he maneuvered. He could see the energy levels dropping as he pushed his engines, another few meters. "Interceptor is directly in front of us, he's locking on." Knight said. Daniel grit his teeth, another couple hundred meters... "Interceptor has a lock!" Knight said. "Keep it together Knight, we can do this." Daniel said in response, as the interceptor tried to maneuver away but Daniel matched each maneuver as the torpedo closed in. "Fifteen seconds to impact." Knight said.
"Transfer all power to shields and engines." Daniel said and he watched as the energy transfer, another five percent. Daniel supposed that's the best he could hope for, he watched as he closed distance with the interceptor, it switched from its torpedo launchers to its phasers and Daniel could feel the phaser impacts against Valkyrie's shields, he watched as they began to drop, ninety-six percent, eighty-one percent, sixty-three percent... Daniel watched as his fighter came within inches of hitting the interceptor and suddenly the target lock tone was gone and he relaxed for a moment. Then there was an explosion behind his fighter as the torpedo slammed into the interceptor. He watched as his shields depleted another twenty-six percent as they absorbed the explosion. "Shields at thirty-seven percent and holding." Knight said. "Transfer power from the phaser arrays from engines to shields but transfer power back to the pulse phasers." Daniel said as he set course back to formation with the other fighters before the rest of the interceptors caught up to them. "We've got shields back up to sixty-seven percent." Knight said.