Chris notices a sudden brightness in his station control room. He goes to
the window and can see the City ship's three thrusters at maximum thrust.
The trails of heat from the back of the City ship are probably half a mile
long. The ship starts rapidly moving away. Chris walks to the comms
terminal and hails Pete "Have you got a problem Pete" Pete "Yes, Dave's in
trouble, I'm going to help" Chris "Will you need any support". Pete "I'm
not sure, there may be fighting involved or the ship may simply be damaged
and drifting and need finding. One other thing is that there's Thargoids
out there but he says don't attack them" Chris "Strange, I've got a few
things to do here that will take a few minutes but I'll catch you up in
one of the dual interplanetary drive Vipers and then we can separate off
when we get to the area". Pete "Great, I'm sure Dave will appreciate the
effort".
The wrecked Cobra is spinning slightly and its making Dave feel rather
giddy. The spin is causing a disturbance in the level of antigravity in
the ship and its making both himself and the Thargoid feel rather heavy.
Apart from this rather unpleasent feeling he's also rather bored and has
been for the last hour. His boredom disappeared when he saw a blip on the
radar screen shortly followed by another. It must be the Thargoids he
thought. He soon realised it wasn't. The Cobra suddenly shook. A small
laser charge had hit the hull. A message came over the comms. "Had a bad
day have we, thought you'd survived some skirmish, oh dear, can you give
me any reason why I shouldn't blow you apart for scrap metal?". Dave "Who
is this?". A short pause "Well lets all be nice and polite and introduce
ourselves, I'm called Tony and my good friend over there is called
Richard. Let me also introduce these two lovely craft, if you look out
your window you'll see a rather nice white Krait with spanking new
military lasers and to your left a rather weedy looking Sidewinder with
pulse lasers". Richard "Hey, don't call my lovely Sidewinder weedy its
seen a lot more action than your Krait" Tony "It may have seen a lot more
action, but thats normally through the rear window while its speeding
away" Richard "Better a live coward than a dead hero" Tony "You'll be a
dead coward if you don't watch out" Richard "Oh yeah then what happens
when you have to eject again, who'll pick up your capsule then?" Tony
"Just watch it, you, Don't forget twin military lasers" Dave "Hey, do I
understand you to be pirates". The Thargoid picks up his little
communications device and types a few commands, he also moves himself away
from any window and to the side of the comms camera. Richard "Hey that
ship has just transmitted some very low level communications" Tony "Whats
happening over there?" Dave "Can't you see we're just drifting, we have
major electrical problems, and life support is minimal" Richard
"Electrical problems, thats probably it" Tony "Here's the deal, if you've
got anything worth more money than the scrap value of your hull then we
will take that and leave you alone". Dave "Yeah right, isn't it more
likely you'll take that and destroy the ship for the scrap value of the
hull". Tony "Look what choice have you got, as you're going to die anyway
surely a quick blast is better than freezing or slow suffocation". Dave
"I'd like you to just leave us alone, in the knowledge that if you don't
you will be killed by my associates". Tony "Associates, tell me more, you
can't expect me to take notice of your threats without some form of
evidence". Dave "Well looking at the console here it says that your ship
is registered to 'Tony Greenwood', wanted with a bounty of 50 credits,
small fry. It would be fair to say that practically anyone I know would be
able to take out a Krait without too much sweat" Tony "You're getting to
be very irritating in the extreme". Both Dave and Tony register on their
radar two more craft entering the vicinity, within five seconds another
ship can be seen at long range heading in from a different direction. Tony
"It looks like we've got some action, I'll speak to you later Dave" The
Krait manoeuvres away from the Cobra closely followed by the Sidewinder
and set themselves on a course to intercept the third craft. The other two
craft are approaching the Cobra. It becomes pretty clear quite soon that
these are the Thargoids due to the size. Unlike the old style Thargoid
craft containing up to 100 Thargoids these are lone fighters, but the size
is almost unchanged. The two craft separate; one continues on to the
Cobra; the other is in pursuit of the two pirate vessels.
Richard "Hey Tony, we've got a rapidly approaching craft behind us, I
think its a Thargoid". Tony "We'd better make our exit, we've got no
chance against that". Richard "Hyperspace?". "Yeah Convar will do, thats
close". Both pilots set up their hyperspace destination. Richard is almost
at the point of pressing the hyperspace jump button when one of the
Thargoids laser blasts hits the hull. Shields instantly depleted 90%, he
pushes straight down on the controls and manoeuvres to head directly down
and then around so that he's trying to escape under the Thargoid craft. He
presses the Hyperspace button and the countdown starts. The Thargoid craft
has released some remote drones of which three start firing accurately
upon the Sidewinder. The shields are now at almost zero just as the craft
enters hyperspace. A final lone blast directly hits the back of the
Sidewinder and it explodes at the beginning of the hyperspace jump. All
that can be seen is a ghost-like transparent explosion that seems to
stretch out longwise across his field of view. Tony, a little shaken by
the demise of Richard, waits for his own countdown to hyperspace. Two
simultaneous strikes hit the front of his Krait. This time a Viper can be
seen heading for him. He tries to return fire but within a second a fast
zig-zagging missile strikes the side of his Krait. Shields depleted 50%.
The Viper turns and doesn't continue the engagement but returns to head
back on the course it came from. The Thargoid craft finishes the Krait
with a single blast, an escape capsule is released which the Thargoid
ignores. The Thargoid heads on after the Viper. The Viper's speed easily
exceeds the Thargoid's and escapes, however the Thargoid continues on the
same course. Within a minute or two the shape of Pete's City ship can be
seen just as it registers on the Thargoid's radar. Two further blips
follow and the Viper reappears to the side. Its pretty obvious now that
the Thargoid craft is being surrounded. Uncharacteristically for a
Thargoid it turns to escape the confrontation and heads away from both the
Viper and City ship, unfortunately towards one of the other blips. As this
other craft takes form in the Thargoid's view screen a bright purple light
engulfs it; the Thargoid craft is instantanously destroyed, one single
shot from one of Pete's escort guns. The Viper arrives at the scene and
manoeuvres near the debris. Chris "What sort of gun is that, look what its
done, am I right was that a single blast?" Pete "I'll be there in a second
and have a look myself" Chris " You should see that plating thats floating
about here, its as thick as a space station's" Pete "Yeah don't get too
close to the gun though its unstable, but when they work, they Work!"
Chris "I won't hang about I'll see if that other blip is Dave's ship" Pete
"That other blip most be another Thargoid, they're not going to be too
happy about the loss of this one either" Chris "This one was definitely
attacking".
Back at the Cobra the Thargoid craft has arrived and is hailing Dave's
ship. Thargoid Fighter/Bomber "Is this the Damsels in Distress?" Dave
"Don't tell me you're another Thargoid with a human brain" Thargoid "I
prefer human with a Thargoid body but please yourself. You'd better get
onboard, that Cobra's hull seems seriously impaired" Dave "How?" "Well I
was going to escort your craft but considering the state its in I think
you'll be safer over here. Have you got vacuum suits" Dave noticing the
rapidly approaching blips of four other craft "Hey theres more craft
coming". Thargoid spy "There's only a human vacuum suit here" Thargoid
"Look I'm sorry about this I've got to run, my comrade has been destroyed
and I suspect that rather large craft approaching is to blame, seeyah".
The Thargoid vessel moves away. Within a minute the City Ship and Chris's
Viper has arrived. They don't bother to pursue the Thargoid.
Dave "Its great to see you Pete, who's in the Viper?" Chris "Its me Dave,
I thought I'd come along to help". Dave "Thanks" Pete "Dave, you know you
said don't attack any Thargoids, well I've just destroyed one, is it
important?" Dave "Err.. talking of Thargoids, I'd like to introduce, what
is your name by the way?" Thargoid "What, my old human name?" Dave "Yes?"
Thargoid "Martin Wilson". Dave "Right, I'd like to introduce Martin the
Thargoid". Pete "Why has it got a human name?" Martin "I used to be human"
Chris "What happened?" Dave "We won't go into that now, its too long, what
I'm concerned with is getting off this craft." Pete "What about the
Thargoid, what are we going to do with it" Dave "Is there any way we can
communicate with the other Thargoid craft that escaped" Pete "I can send a
message in the hope it understands". Martin "Thats all right I can send a
coded message" Dave "Right you send a message that he/it can come back and
won't be fired on, Right Pete?" Pete "I suppose so". Dave "He can collect
you from the docking bay on the City ship" Pete "That Thargoid craft will
never get in there its too big" Dave "We'll release Martin directly into
space in an escape pod. We can use the one in the old Viper possibly" Pete
"Yeah fine I'll drop the Viper off with the Thargoid in, it can eject and
then I'll pull the Viper back on board".
After some half hour of activity Martin finds himself floating in an
escape pod. The City ship disappears out of sight and a message comes over
the intercom "Good luck Martin". The Thargoid fighter/bomber approaches
and picks up the escape pod. Thargoid on fighter/bomber "Well I never
thought they'd let you live, quite a surprise". Martin "A pleasant one".
The Vantar system is becoming a hive of activity. Fifty Thargoid fighter/
bombers have hyperspaced into the system. At another far corner of the
system a huge Federation armada has arrived. One hundred or so small
fighters, some non-offensive support craft and the Mongoose. Lastly twenty
Panthers have arrived. Calling themselves the League against Pete
Augustin. There on a mission to destroy Pete and his City Ship. All of
these Panthers have been kitted out with the latest missiles and armaments
at the expense of all other items. They don't even have atmospheric
shielding.
Dave, Chris and Pete are all racing around the City ship's docking bay on
spacebikes little realising the events happening in the rest of the
system.
Next Chapter: Dead Pilots Reunion