Re: Turned Tables...... (Fiction, long) Part 1

Mike Wikan wrote:
> 
> This is a fictionalization of a recent game:
> 
> Captain Kanov glanced at his chrono and fretted about the time. His
> vessel had been alongside the forward refuelling vessel for an hour
> taking on supplies and slush hydrogen for fuel. A mishap transhipping
> a Needle Missile had severely injured a crewman as it crushed him
> against a bulkhead. "Bad Omens" he muttered and made a sign learned
> from his grandmather to ward away evil. His vessel, the CNS Black
> Prince was a Raider. A Heavy Battlecruiser with the speed to run from
> anything tough enough to destroy her, the BP was on a deep raid into
> Republican territory. So far her kill total was up to 500 million
> tonnes of merchant and escort hulls. Her only damage had been a minor
> particle beam strike on her midships point defense battery. "Easily
> repaired" he thought. "Captain!" a voice called out from sensor bay
> 1. kanov walked to the "pit" as the bridge staff called it. "Yes,
> lieutenant?" Kanov inquired. "Sir, sensors have an n-space distortion
> about 3.5 million klicks out, level two." Lt (jg) Peters looked up at
> her Captain, suddenly tense. A level 2 meant multiple ships about to
> translate into realspace. And the range was almost maximum missile
> range. "General quarters!" Kanov shouted. "Get those people off that
> DAMNED resupply ship!!" Through the vessel, the crew frenziedly
> finished their repairs and ran to duty stations.
> 
> On board the Light Cruiser Northampton, Captain Smythe watched his
> tac display. 50 kilometers off his port and starboard hung the two
> destroyers Ardive and Ardent. Tied into the Northampton's Tac net,
> they prepped for the crash fold into realspace. "Now we find out if
> the information was worth the price.." He said quietly.
> 
> Space boiled with vehement, but silent energy as the three vessels
> suddenly spat out into realspace at .25 Lightspeed. "Target!!"
> Shouted Northampton's exec. "Classify as one Type 9 CNS Heavy
> Battlecruiser!!" Smythe turned to astrogation. "Target!!" again came
> the call "Classify one additional unit as CNS Merchant hull, Type
> 2!!" Smythe bared his teeth as only those two immobile vessels hung
> in the holo display. "Take them! Tac option Gamma!" Smythe almost
> shouted.
> 
> Outside the two attacking destroyers each separated an antiship
> missile. Carrying a 20 megaton warhead, even a near miss would cause
> catastrophic damage from enhanced EMP and fast radiation effects. The
> missiles accelerated away toward the immobile Battlecruiser. Even as
> Smythe watched her point defenses flared, taking one missile down,
> the other acquired the merchant vessel and detonated squarely on her
> hull.The catastrophic explosion flared around the hull of the Black
> Prince, spinning it away, hull blackened. As Smythe opened his mouth
> to issue orders to close and destroy the Battlecruiser, the enemy
> suddenly brought her bow in line with Ardive as she frantically tried
> to evade. Two bright spears of yellow-orange energy lanced from the
> battlecruiser's bow and intersected the Ardive's Fuel tankage. The
> next instant, the ship was a vanishing halo of fiery debris. Smythe
> blinked as the shockwave slammed past his own hull. "Damn! She has
> two Spinal Particle Cannon!! Maximum Evasive! Get us out of her
> arc!!" The two Rep ships twisted furiously around to either side of
> the Raider, each trying to close to point blank range.
> On board the Black Prince, Kanov cursed silently. The Resupply vessel
> still had significant ammo stores on board when she blew. the
> resultant fireball had knocked out half his fire controls and his
> Portside point defense battery was down. Worse, his drives were
> damaged and the Prince, usually nimble for her size, now maneuvered
> like a pig. "Target that other damned destroyer!!" He bellowed.
> 
> Mike Wikan
> Game Design\Conceptual Art
> n-Space, Inc.
> A Producer of 3D Entertainment Software
I like the story!

More!  What happens next?

I love the way the story flowed!  Nice!

Say, are you a writer of some sort in real life?

Donald Hosford