Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2014 19:23:31 GMT -5
Blurry streaks of light shifted across the darkened sky each little strip of light was a distant star, though looking similar to each other at such high speeds, ripples of reds, blues and yellows could occasionally escape too be seen just for a second before they disappeared. There were hundreds of billions of stars that could been seen in the vale out of all of them maybe a one in one millionth had been explored or even fully cataloged by intelligent life, and who was to say more hadn’t been claimed by other life that wasn’t know yet. Too Anri his people were just a shadow in the deepest regions of space, it wasn’t until he had shown his face to the vale that any of life forms had ever heard of the Vennor, and every day new species of life forms we’re being introduced into the galactic community. Head placed against the front window of his cabin he watched as the tiny twinkles of star light blurred around him, he often found it relaxing just too watch the stars as he traveled through the vastness of space. It was so open and wide that if often took a few weeks just to reach the planet he was heading too, but it wasn’t as though there wasn’t any other inhabited planets around. Deadlines kept him from any leisurely stops; time was money and money made the universe move.
Though mercenary work wasn’t something that he though was going to ideal for him he found that such work was something that came naturally to him, once he was out in the vale he was his own boss and could take of the job any ways he saw fit. He hated taking direct orders, having someone watch over his every move and act according to their command and with his innate ability to fight he found that the line of work was prefect for him. There was many different types of mercenary work, protection jobs, heist, spying, but he found that he preferred taking out hits on people, though he could do the others just as well he hated working with others, he often found that they dragged him down, on top of that he had to share the wealth among more people. He often though of become a pirate but Anri didn’t think he could pull off such a thing, he was only one person and pirates seemed to run in groups which brought him back to the whole, not liking with others thing. No…merc work was for him, however even as much as he liked doing it he felt as though he could do a lot more with life than just this though. Eventually he knew there was going to come a day when it was going to want more out of life than being stuck inside a metal tube for weeks on end just to wind up on a uncharted world to kill some rich asshole and then get paid by another rich asshole, it was a continuous cycle.
Distant thoughts always hung at the outer most edges of his mind but whenever he tried to reach out and grasp them they would float further away or disappear completely. It had been that way for a while, he couldn’t remember a lot of things; his memory seemed to be shot. Some things were still clear to him, like Riva his home, or even the base he was trained on, but he couldn’t remember his parent’s faces. As much as thought saddened him it wasn’t just that alone, little things were missing from his mind as well, such what his house looked like or even why he left his home. All of it happened after he had woken from a terrible accident, he had no idea what had really happened but he had been hurt very badly. Strapped to a hospital bed he had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there, the doctor told Anri to settle down but in such a panicked state mixed with a heavy load of drugs he broke free of the restrains. It wasn’t even a struggle to get away from the security staff even as they shot sedatives at him they merely bounced off his skin. Luckily there had been a ship that had been sitting unlocked in front of the building, though he had no idea of what he was doing at the time he stole the ship to say the least. After that day he had issues trying to remember things as if grey blobs were coated his mind, struggling to remember such things made his head hurt more than usual so eventually he gave up on trying to remember such things.
“Hey computer how much longer?” He called out as he pulled his face away from the clear window, slamming his back into the leathery seat.
“Less than an hour until your destination, if you look at a forty five degree angle to your left you will see the targeted planet.” To anyone else the voice would not have been heard as the sounds were heard from only inside his head.
“Thanks. Let’s hope this one looks actually nice compared to the last one.” Anri chuckled as he craned his neck to the left as he leaned forward towards the window.
“Indeed, as much as I enjoy volcanic vents shooting magma towards my processor I don’t think a summer house would fit well there.”
“Ya not the best marketing campaign. Best advertised to molten men, or old folks.” The two laughed together.
“Come for the lava, stay for the burns!” The computerized call out.
“Now you see I could see such a slogan catching on.” The two laughed again as Anri looked out the window.
The planet was floating silently in the bleakness that surrounded it, on first appearance the giant planet seemed to be a gas giant but as the clouds that rolled over the sky began to shift he could make out little patches of land that ran its surface. There was no real way to tell how much of the planet was solid just from using his eyes at his point, he could sit around for hours getting a good read for the land but that was time that he didn’t have as of right now. The cloud banks seemed to rage over the surface, there was no doubt in his mind that they higher altitude winds were more than capable of ripping such a tiny ship as his part. Flying through space was one thing but trying to fly a space ship through a planet’s atmosphere was something else completely whereas in space there are no forces other than gravity effect your ships movement, but in an atmosphere one would have to worry about turbulence and random gusts of wind.
“So what do you think of it so far?”
“Sensor indicate that the targeted planet is a terrestrial planet with a dense make up and a thick atmosphere. Just from basics scans it looks as though upper atmosphere winds range anywhere from 800mph-1200mph, dangerous to small craft such as ours.”
“Well we kind of need to get down there so any ideas, oh how we can go about such a thing?”
“Hm…there are pockets of atmosphere were the levels of winds are not nearly as high as the rest ranging from around 600mph-700mph but even then-“
“Not good huh? Well that’s looks to be out best chance, once we’re below the high atmosphere what then?”
“Wind gusts seem too stabilized out around 50mph-100mph, relativity better.”
“As long as we don’t get creamed by the high winds we’ll be ok. Well then I can see no errors with this plan.” Pushing away from the window he collapsed back into his comfy chair as he looked up at the ceiling, after all the time he had spent in the ship he would have though he would have bought a T.v.
“Well things might not able as simple as that…. I suggest you buckle your belt.”
Without even asking a follow up question Anri’s hand snapped down against the safety belt and latched it tight into the locking position. As soon has the locking sound was heard the whole ship flipped to the side in a barrel roll just as a blast of energy whooshed past them in space, continuing away from them at the speed of light. Turning his attention back to what was going on before him he saw the lurching ship as it slowly emerged from around the planets moon, it was gigantic beast as it slowly trudged its way around the curve of the satellite. The sheer size of the ship was massive enough to scare most fighter pilots away from such an encounter but fear was such an emotion that Anri could not express, and not to mention the FTL drive of the ship would need to cool down after dropping from FLT. Most flyers would try to avoid such a fight but as soon as a maneuver such as a dodge was commenced it forced the FTL to stop to avoid gravity from ripping a ship apart; not always true in all cases but it often saved more lives than it would have otherwise.
“Well looks like someone was waiting for us.”
“One way to put it.”
“Any idea who it is?”
“No clue, but whoever it is knew someone else was coming and have more than a little cash in their pockets.”
“A little? I think you underestimated how much cash it would cost to build such a monster.”
Another shot exploded front from the ironclad ship as it torn through the space between them in less than a second, if it had been anything else controlling the ship it could have been blown to bits but that was the advantage of having a computer control your vessel. Kicking the boosters on the right wings alive the ship pulled to the left rapidly moving out of the way of the coming attack. Luckily the ship had inertia dampers so the rapid movement of the ship didn’t affect him at all, rather he simply sat back in the chair as he sipped a cool drink he had just poured himself.
“For such a big ship their cannons don’t seem too stand a chance against your flight skills.”
“Those were test shots, a ship that big as hundreds of guns at the ready to fire. Finish that drink quickly.”
Without needing any other incentive he gulped the drink down as he tossed the cup towards the empty passenger’s seat that rested next to him, already piles of trash rest in the lonely corner. Just as the cup smacked against the seat Anri could see the board side of the ironclad ship light up like the stars that burned around them. Even though he had spent years flying ships back on Riva this was a completely different realm and he was glad he wasn't about to try and dodge out of the way of such an attack. With the cannon’s fully charged the barrage of shots fired across the plain between them, each one looking like a shooting star that was about to crash into his tiny ship. Waiting until the last second the ship lurched into emergency maneuvers as it zipped in out of between the shots, being shot all at different times it gave the ship just enough room to direct its self through the barrage of light. Flying just out of reach of the last shot the ship returned to his normal flight pattern as if nothing had ever happened just a few seconds ago.
“Shit, don’t think I could have done that.”
“An advantage computers have on you fleshy mortals, reaction time as just how long the electrical signal takes to move. I’d go more into it but we’re not anywhere near done with this thing.”
“Ya but nothing this ship has to fire could put a dint in that behemoth…. although, I might.” He grinned as he looked down at the ball of fire he held in his hands.
“And this is how people die from crazy ideas.”
“Please, I destroyed a train when I fell asleep on the tracks, I think I can take down a two thousand ton war ship. Just shut up and open the exhaust vent; damn thing is so large I’m sure it can’t dodge like we can.”
Anri could hear the sounds of gears rubbing against one another as the mechanism below him came alive, no sooner had be heard the sound did a small vent opened on the floor and rose up a few feet to meet him. Placing his hand over the vent he dropped the orb as a gravitational field took it over, holding the orb in midair rather than letting it crash into his own ship, such a result would no doubt cause his ship to rupture in flames. Pressing a button that rested on the arm of the seat the orb dropped back down into the ship as it past the rim of the vent it the metal tube closed up and sunk back into the metal flooring.
“Locked and loaded….”
“Activating firing sequence. Bye bye bitches!”
The main cannon of Anri’s ship came to life as the fiery orb exploded from its steel barrel, almost matching the stars that filled the void it ripped across the distant between the two. Anri watched with great intent waiting to see what might happen, it would have been very clear to see such an attack coming towards them but the ship didn’t seem to make any effort in try to avoid such an attack. Either their captain though the attack would be ineffective or there would be no such time to move such a ship, it worked for Anri though, he wasn’t sure how many of his blasts he would need in order to take the beast down but the more that hit the better.
The impact happened as the fiery orb slammed into the side of the ship with a bright explosion of light, being that there was no oxygen in space no flames were generated by the attack like usual but the heat should have been more than enough to cause serious damage. Sitting on the edge of his seat he viewed the bright wavering energy trying to see how much damage his attack had done, it was the largest structure he had ever taken on before and he was rather curious of how effective he was against such a thing. That’s when he saw it, a blue shimmer that seemed to vibrate around the area of the impact, Anri sat back with a look of frustration spread across his face.
“Fucking shields man.”
The blue shimmer was the electric signature that gave proof that the ship had a shield generated around it, given the size of the ship he should have known such a thing was possible. The generators were very large not to mention expensive, if someone went through all the trouble of building such a ship then they would want to protect their investment as much as they could. Normal shield were something that could be easily shattered if they were material based ones, and not energy based ones. With normal physical shields all one required to break it was continuous hits until it shattered but with energy based shield it was slightly different as such shield responded too attacks by changed the frequency at which they exist at. In doing so they repel the oncoming attack with a frequency that it cannot pass with ease, it wasn’t impossible to break through such shield but it required a large amount of strength rather than multiple strikes. As it was he had used his strongest attack and it hadn’t so much as dented the barrier surrounding the vessel, though it was true that he was not powered up to his full potential, but doing such a act inside his vessel could prove dangerous, as much as Anri had always wanted to experience the vacuum of space he thought it was best to save such an experience for later.
The sides of the massive ship lit up again as another barrage of shoots ripped off through space towards his ship, not even having to tell the computer it kicked the ship into overdrive bouncing between the gaps of shots. Anri guessed this pattern would continue until one of them ran out of fuel or they had managed to get a shot in on them, it would only take one good shot and that would be it for the two of them. He needed to change up his pattern of attack so that he could find a new opening in which to strike; what he really needed was to power up to his full form but it was something the he couldn’t do unless he wanted it to be a draw and Vennor’s hated to tie. It looked as he had around a twenty second gap in-between the attacks, with shots that large with that speed the cannons would have to be rather large to compensate, therefore cooling would be an issues which explained for such the large gap between the attacks.
“Computer calculate distance to vessel at max speed without FTL.”
“Thirty five second.”
“How close will be at twenty eight seconds? Still within effective range of their cannons?”
“Well put it this way we could just fly straight into their ship if you really want to commit suicide.”
“Any other options at this point? The closer we get the less energy is needed for my blast to reach the vessel which means more power in the attack, maybe a twenty percent increase from that of before but it could be more than enough to breach the hull.”
“Options are limited, I would suggest we escape, but I know you would never do that.”
“Hell ya, never hide in fear. After the next barrage head straight towards the vessel at max speed, don’t hold anything back. Once we get to one second before the cannon’s fire turn the ship at a ninty degree angle and open the cockpit.”
“Warning against doing such action, you know…vacuum of space.”
“I’ll be fine if it’s just for a second, might black out but that’s why you’re here.”
“We’re going to die aren’t we?”
Anri yelled at the top of his lungs as he held his hands above his head, a grin was spread across his face, he loved these types of fights. He was out matched in a fight he had little chance of winning but that’s what made it fun, he didn’t care about the pain or suffering it was a mental game for him, like chess he had to plan carefully but even in war sometimes things were sacrificed to win, the key was to known when one had sacrificed to much, that’s when it was over. With their ship floating there in the void of space they awaited the next attack it would only be a few more seconds before it was coming as he counted the seconds since the last.
“Eight…seven…six….”
There was plenty of time before when they could have flown in towards the vessel but they required every second they had to reach the vessel, the closer they got to the ship the easier of target the would have been, less distance means the attack arrives faster to the target.
“Five…four…three…two….”
Already he could see the dim lights of the cannons begin to come to life once again as the beast was about to roar to life once again. As if everything seemed to slow down he could hear his heart hammered against his chest, it wasn’t fear that caused such a reaction no, it was excitement. The warrior and his aid on an adventure as they faced down a metal monster that loomed over a moon, such stories could be heard in only legends that were passed down from generation to generation. He was about to live such a moment and the pure rush of energy flowed from his body.
“One!”
The cannons blew their bright beams of energy out towards the small ship the distance was closer than it had been when the first arrived so the blasts of energy were raining down upon them even faster than they had been before. He was quite glad that it was not him piloting the vessel, the quick reaction time of a computer beat the hell out his two hundred millisecond reaction time, and in such a situation every milisecond was need to doge the oncoming attacks. Even though the computer was successfully dodging the attacks he could hear the wear and tear on the ships parts as the metal groaning slightly under such quick maneuvers, if they did make out of such a fight he would need to replace a few parts not to mention give it a full tune up.
As the last of the energy blasts zipped past them the ship kicked into full throttle as it speed towards the ironclad ship, the twenty eight second window was all of time they would have before those cannons burst to life once again, if he wasn’t able to get a decent hit on the vessel that was it for them. Opening his palm face up he began to charge his Ki into forming another orb putting as much of the power he could into it, he longed to transform but knew he couldn’t so whatever he could muster would be it. Racing towards the ironclad ship the planet on his left and the moon on his left came into closer view as he could now fully see the greenish grey clouds that raged over the surface, it was a lovely site but as much as he would have liked to view the site more he was rather busy at the time with the coming planned attack. Snapping his attention back to the ever looming ship his tiny vessel zoomed closer and closer to its hardened exterior, the bright orb burning like a star in his hand. There was only a few seconds left before the cannons would be able to fire upon them once again, the plan was coming down to the wire.
“Alright! Turn!” He yelled as the cannons lit up in a spark of light.
Taking in a lung full of breath the cabin quickly released all of its oxygen stores as the cock pit lid open letting the cold absence of space flood into the cabin. Turning on a dime the ship flipped to the left facing in towards the planet, with no gravity in space such a turn did little to shift his body as he let the orb fling from his hand towards the side of the ship. All of it happened so quickly and with the vacuum of space ripping at him his vision began to blur. As soon as the blast of energy escape from the lip of the cabin the lid shut immediately as it pumped fresh air and pressure back into the cabin, snapping back to life Anri coughed as he tried to shake off the dangers of the vacuum. Without having to even mention such an action the engines kicked forward once again as the ship tried to speed away from the directed cannons but it was too late, even with all the planning he knew that such an attack had many risks and as the closet cannon fired he knew it would strike his ship. As if on instinct Anri’s hand slapped down on a button that was on the arm of his chair as it activated a thruster on the side of his ship, the sudden boost of power was enough to take a glancing blow.
The blast of energy scrapped across the front of his space ripping out a large portion of the engine along with the main cannon, the sudden impact caused the ship to fail around in space as it tumbled away from the ironclad ship and towards the nearby planet. It was hard to tell what was really going on as he bounced around in his seat as he did his best to keep from being tossed around. Anri couldn’t tell if his hit had done any damage as getting a clear view of the ship was proving next to impossible as the ship swung violently through the vale. With the engined now missing from his vessel there was no way to control the vessel so directing it any other direction was not something that he could accomplish.
“Shit, how bad is it?”
“Bad enough, engines are down.”
“You mean the engine is gone.”
“That.”
“What else?”
“Main gun is offline, long range communications are down and landing gear are gone. Scans indicate that we are drifting towards the planet at alarming rate. If you recall the winds would have torn the ship apart at its fully functions self, and now….”
“Not like we have anything else to go on, without the engines we can’t do anything else other than spin. Once we get inside the atmosphere we should have limited control but the winds won’t help us any.”
“Best case scenario the ship will be totaled but you shall live.”
“On an uncharted world with no communication. Fan-fucking-astic.”
Though mercenary work wasn’t something that he though was going to ideal for him he found that such work was something that came naturally to him, once he was out in the vale he was his own boss and could take of the job any ways he saw fit. He hated taking direct orders, having someone watch over his every move and act according to their command and with his innate ability to fight he found that the line of work was prefect for him. There was many different types of mercenary work, protection jobs, heist, spying, but he found that he preferred taking out hits on people, though he could do the others just as well he hated working with others, he often found that they dragged him down, on top of that he had to share the wealth among more people. He often though of become a pirate but Anri didn’t think he could pull off such a thing, he was only one person and pirates seemed to run in groups which brought him back to the whole, not liking with others thing. No…merc work was for him, however even as much as he liked doing it he felt as though he could do a lot more with life than just this though. Eventually he knew there was going to come a day when it was going to want more out of life than being stuck inside a metal tube for weeks on end just to wind up on a uncharted world to kill some rich asshole and then get paid by another rich asshole, it was a continuous cycle.
Distant thoughts always hung at the outer most edges of his mind but whenever he tried to reach out and grasp them they would float further away or disappear completely. It had been that way for a while, he couldn’t remember a lot of things; his memory seemed to be shot. Some things were still clear to him, like Riva his home, or even the base he was trained on, but he couldn’t remember his parent’s faces. As much as thought saddened him it wasn’t just that alone, little things were missing from his mind as well, such what his house looked like or even why he left his home. All of it happened after he had woken from a terrible accident, he had no idea what had really happened but he had been hurt very badly. Strapped to a hospital bed he had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there, the doctor told Anri to settle down but in such a panicked state mixed with a heavy load of drugs he broke free of the restrains. It wasn’t even a struggle to get away from the security staff even as they shot sedatives at him they merely bounced off his skin. Luckily there had been a ship that had been sitting unlocked in front of the building, though he had no idea of what he was doing at the time he stole the ship to say the least. After that day he had issues trying to remember things as if grey blobs were coated his mind, struggling to remember such things made his head hurt more than usual so eventually he gave up on trying to remember such things.
“Hey computer how much longer?” He called out as he pulled his face away from the clear window, slamming his back into the leathery seat.
“Less than an hour until your destination, if you look at a forty five degree angle to your left you will see the targeted planet.” To anyone else the voice would not have been heard as the sounds were heard from only inside his head.
“Thanks. Let’s hope this one looks actually nice compared to the last one.” Anri chuckled as he craned his neck to the left as he leaned forward towards the window.
“Indeed, as much as I enjoy volcanic vents shooting magma towards my processor I don’t think a summer house would fit well there.”
“Ya not the best marketing campaign. Best advertised to molten men, or old folks.” The two laughed together.
“Come for the lava, stay for the burns!” The computerized call out.
“Now you see I could see such a slogan catching on.” The two laughed again as Anri looked out the window.
The planet was floating silently in the bleakness that surrounded it, on first appearance the giant planet seemed to be a gas giant but as the clouds that rolled over the sky began to shift he could make out little patches of land that ran its surface. There was no real way to tell how much of the planet was solid just from using his eyes at his point, he could sit around for hours getting a good read for the land but that was time that he didn’t have as of right now. The cloud banks seemed to rage over the surface, there was no doubt in his mind that they higher altitude winds were more than capable of ripping such a tiny ship as his part. Flying through space was one thing but trying to fly a space ship through a planet’s atmosphere was something else completely whereas in space there are no forces other than gravity effect your ships movement, but in an atmosphere one would have to worry about turbulence and random gusts of wind.
“So what do you think of it so far?”
“Sensor indicate that the targeted planet is a terrestrial planet with a dense make up and a thick atmosphere. Just from basics scans it looks as though upper atmosphere winds range anywhere from 800mph-1200mph, dangerous to small craft such as ours.”
“Well we kind of need to get down there so any ideas, oh how we can go about such a thing?”
“Hm…there are pockets of atmosphere were the levels of winds are not nearly as high as the rest ranging from around 600mph-700mph but even then-“
“Not good huh? Well that’s looks to be out best chance, once we’re below the high atmosphere what then?”
“Wind gusts seem too stabilized out around 50mph-100mph, relativity better.”
“As long as we don’t get creamed by the high winds we’ll be ok. Well then I can see no errors with this plan.” Pushing away from the window he collapsed back into his comfy chair as he looked up at the ceiling, after all the time he had spent in the ship he would have though he would have bought a T.v.
“Well things might not able as simple as that…. I suggest you buckle your belt.”
Without even asking a follow up question Anri’s hand snapped down against the safety belt and latched it tight into the locking position. As soon has the locking sound was heard the whole ship flipped to the side in a barrel roll just as a blast of energy whooshed past them in space, continuing away from them at the speed of light. Turning his attention back to what was going on before him he saw the lurching ship as it slowly emerged from around the planets moon, it was gigantic beast as it slowly trudged its way around the curve of the satellite. The sheer size of the ship was massive enough to scare most fighter pilots away from such an encounter but fear was such an emotion that Anri could not express, and not to mention the FTL drive of the ship would need to cool down after dropping from FLT. Most flyers would try to avoid such a fight but as soon as a maneuver such as a dodge was commenced it forced the FTL to stop to avoid gravity from ripping a ship apart; not always true in all cases but it often saved more lives than it would have otherwise.
“Well looks like someone was waiting for us.”
“One way to put it.”
“Any idea who it is?”
“No clue, but whoever it is knew someone else was coming and have more than a little cash in their pockets.”
“A little? I think you underestimated how much cash it would cost to build such a monster.”
Another shot exploded front from the ironclad ship as it torn through the space between them in less than a second, if it had been anything else controlling the ship it could have been blown to bits but that was the advantage of having a computer control your vessel. Kicking the boosters on the right wings alive the ship pulled to the left rapidly moving out of the way of the coming attack. Luckily the ship had inertia dampers so the rapid movement of the ship didn’t affect him at all, rather he simply sat back in the chair as he sipped a cool drink he had just poured himself.
“For such a big ship their cannons don’t seem too stand a chance against your flight skills.”
“Those were test shots, a ship that big as hundreds of guns at the ready to fire. Finish that drink quickly.”
Without needing any other incentive he gulped the drink down as he tossed the cup towards the empty passenger’s seat that rested next to him, already piles of trash rest in the lonely corner. Just as the cup smacked against the seat Anri could see the board side of the ironclad ship light up like the stars that burned around them. Even though he had spent years flying ships back on Riva this was a completely different realm and he was glad he wasn't about to try and dodge out of the way of such an attack. With the cannon’s fully charged the barrage of shots fired across the plain between them, each one looking like a shooting star that was about to crash into his tiny ship. Waiting until the last second the ship lurched into emergency maneuvers as it zipped in out of between the shots, being shot all at different times it gave the ship just enough room to direct its self through the barrage of light. Flying just out of reach of the last shot the ship returned to his normal flight pattern as if nothing had ever happened just a few seconds ago.
“Shit, don’t think I could have done that.”
“An advantage computers have on you fleshy mortals, reaction time as just how long the electrical signal takes to move. I’d go more into it but we’re not anywhere near done with this thing.”
“Ya but nothing this ship has to fire could put a dint in that behemoth…. although, I might.” He grinned as he looked down at the ball of fire he held in his hands.
“And this is how people die from crazy ideas.”
“Please, I destroyed a train when I fell asleep on the tracks, I think I can take down a two thousand ton war ship. Just shut up and open the exhaust vent; damn thing is so large I’m sure it can’t dodge like we can.”
Anri could hear the sounds of gears rubbing against one another as the mechanism below him came alive, no sooner had be heard the sound did a small vent opened on the floor and rose up a few feet to meet him. Placing his hand over the vent he dropped the orb as a gravitational field took it over, holding the orb in midair rather than letting it crash into his own ship, such a result would no doubt cause his ship to rupture in flames. Pressing a button that rested on the arm of the seat the orb dropped back down into the ship as it past the rim of the vent it the metal tube closed up and sunk back into the metal flooring.
“Locked and loaded….”
“Activating firing sequence. Bye bye bitches!”
The main cannon of Anri’s ship came to life as the fiery orb exploded from its steel barrel, almost matching the stars that filled the void it ripped across the distant between the two. Anri watched with great intent waiting to see what might happen, it would have been very clear to see such an attack coming towards them but the ship didn’t seem to make any effort in try to avoid such an attack. Either their captain though the attack would be ineffective or there would be no such time to move such a ship, it worked for Anri though, he wasn’t sure how many of his blasts he would need in order to take the beast down but the more that hit the better.
The impact happened as the fiery orb slammed into the side of the ship with a bright explosion of light, being that there was no oxygen in space no flames were generated by the attack like usual but the heat should have been more than enough to cause serious damage. Sitting on the edge of his seat he viewed the bright wavering energy trying to see how much damage his attack had done, it was the largest structure he had ever taken on before and he was rather curious of how effective he was against such a thing. That’s when he saw it, a blue shimmer that seemed to vibrate around the area of the impact, Anri sat back with a look of frustration spread across his face.
“Fucking shields man.”
The blue shimmer was the electric signature that gave proof that the ship had a shield generated around it, given the size of the ship he should have known such a thing was possible. The generators were very large not to mention expensive, if someone went through all the trouble of building such a ship then they would want to protect their investment as much as they could. Normal shield were something that could be easily shattered if they were material based ones, and not energy based ones. With normal physical shields all one required to break it was continuous hits until it shattered but with energy based shield it was slightly different as such shield responded too attacks by changed the frequency at which they exist at. In doing so they repel the oncoming attack with a frequency that it cannot pass with ease, it wasn’t impossible to break through such shield but it required a large amount of strength rather than multiple strikes. As it was he had used his strongest attack and it hadn’t so much as dented the barrier surrounding the vessel, though it was true that he was not powered up to his full potential, but doing such a act inside his vessel could prove dangerous, as much as Anri had always wanted to experience the vacuum of space he thought it was best to save such an experience for later.
The sides of the massive ship lit up again as another barrage of shoots ripped off through space towards his ship, not even having to tell the computer it kicked the ship into overdrive bouncing between the gaps of shots. Anri guessed this pattern would continue until one of them ran out of fuel or they had managed to get a shot in on them, it would only take one good shot and that would be it for the two of them. He needed to change up his pattern of attack so that he could find a new opening in which to strike; what he really needed was to power up to his full form but it was something the he couldn’t do unless he wanted it to be a draw and Vennor’s hated to tie. It looked as he had around a twenty second gap in-between the attacks, with shots that large with that speed the cannons would have to be rather large to compensate, therefore cooling would be an issues which explained for such the large gap between the attacks.
“Computer calculate distance to vessel at max speed without FTL.”
“Thirty five second.”
“How close will be at twenty eight seconds? Still within effective range of their cannons?”
“Well put it this way we could just fly straight into their ship if you really want to commit suicide.”
“Any other options at this point? The closer we get the less energy is needed for my blast to reach the vessel which means more power in the attack, maybe a twenty percent increase from that of before but it could be more than enough to breach the hull.”
“Options are limited, I would suggest we escape, but I know you would never do that.”
“Hell ya, never hide in fear. After the next barrage head straight towards the vessel at max speed, don’t hold anything back. Once we get to one second before the cannon’s fire turn the ship at a ninty degree angle and open the cockpit.”
“Warning against doing such action, you know…vacuum of space.”
“I’ll be fine if it’s just for a second, might black out but that’s why you’re here.”
“We’re going to die aren’t we?”
Anri yelled at the top of his lungs as he held his hands above his head, a grin was spread across his face, he loved these types of fights. He was out matched in a fight he had little chance of winning but that’s what made it fun, he didn’t care about the pain or suffering it was a mental game for him, like chess he had to plan carefully but even in war sometimes things were sacrificed to win, the key was to known when one had sacrificed to much, that’s when it was over. With their ship floating there in the void of space they awaited the next attack it would only be a few more seconds before it was coming as he counted the seconds since the last.
“Eight…seven…six….”
There was plenty of time before when they could have flown in towards the vessel but they required every second they had to reach the vessel, the closer they got to the ship the easier of target the would have been, less distance means the attack arrives faster to the target.
“Five…four…three…two….”
Already he could see the dim lights of the cannons begin to come to life once again as the beast was about to roar to life once again. As if everything seemed to slow down he could hear his heart hammered against his chest, it wasn’t fear that caused such a reaction no, it was excitement. The warrior and his aid on an adventure as they faced down a metal monster that loomed over a moon, such stories could be heard in only legends that were passed down from generation to generation. He was about to live such a moment and the pure rush of energy flowed from his body.
“One!”
The cannons blew their bright beams of energy out towards the small ship the distance was closer than it had been when the first arrived so the blasts of energy were raining down upon them even faster than they had been before. He was quite glad that it was not him piloting the vessel, the quick reaction time of a computer beat the hell out his two hundred millisecond reaction time, and in such a situation every milisecond was need to doge the oncoming attacks. Even though the computer was successfully dodging the attacks he could hear the wear and tear on the ships parts as the metal groaning slightly under such quick maneuvers, if they did make out of such a fight he would need to replace a few parts not to mention give it a full tune up.
As the last of the energy blasts zipped past them the ship kicked into full throttle as it speed towards the ironclad ship, the twenty eight second window was all of time they would have before those cannons burst to life once again, if he wasn’t able to get a decent hit on the vessel that was it for them. Opening his palm face up he began to charge his Ki into forming another orb putting as much of the power he could into it, he longed to transform but knew he couldn’t so whatever he could muster would be it. Racing towards the ironclad ship the planet on his left and the moon on his left came into closer view as he could now fully see the greenish grey clouds that raged over the surface, it was a lovely site but as much as he would have liked to view the site more he was rather busy at the time with the coming planned attack. Snapping his attention back to the ever looming ship his tiny vessel zoomed closer and closer to its hardened exterior, the bright orb burning like a star in his hand. There was only a few seconds left before the cannons would be able to fire upon them once again, the plan was coming down to the wire.
“Alright! Turn!” He yelled as the cannons lit up in a spark of light.
Taking in a lung full of breath the cabin quickly released all of its oxygen stores as the cock pit lid open letting the cold absence of space flood into the cabin. Turning on a dime the ship flipped to the left facing in towards the planet, with no gravity in space such a turn did little to shift his body as he let the orb fling from his hand towards the side of the ship. All of it happened so quickly and with the vacuum of space ripping at him his vision began to blur. As soon as the blast of energy escape from the lip of the cabin the lid shut immediately as it pumped fresh air and pressure back into the cabin, snapping back to life Anri coughed as he tried to shake off the dangers of the vacuum. Without having to even mention such an action the engines kicked forward once again as the ship tried to speed away from the directed cannons but it was too late, even with all the planning he knew that such an attack had many risks and as the closet cannon fired he knew it would strike his ship. As if on instinct Anri’s hand slapped down on a button that was on the arm of his chair as it activated a thruster on the side of his ship, the sudden boost of power was enough to take a glancing blow.
The blast of energy scrapped across the front of his space ripping out a large portion of the engine along with the main cannon, the sudden impact caused the ship to fail around in space as it tumbled away from the ironclad ship and towards the nearby planet. It was hard to tell what was really going on as he bounced around in his seat as he did his best to keep from being tossed around. Anri couldn’t tell if his hit had done any damage as getting a clear view of the ship was proving next to impossible as the ship swung violently through the vale. With the engined now missing from his vessel there was no way to control the vessel so directing it any other direction was not something that he could accomplish.
“Shit, how bad is it?”
“Bad enough, engines are down.”
“You mean the engine is gone.”
“That.”
“What else?”
“Main gun is offline, long range communications are down and landing gear are gone. Scans indicate that we are drifting towards the planet at alarming rate. If you recall the winds would have torn the ship apart at its fully functions self, and now….”
“Not like we have anything else to go on, without the engines we can’t do anything else other than spin. Once we get inside the atmosphere we should have limited control but the winds won’t help us any.”
“Best case scenario the ship will be totaled but you shall live.”
“On an uncharted world with no communication. Fan-fucking-astic.”