OUTCASTS CH1 CONTINUED

Pagal Relic

2010 05 07

Lieutenant Perry Brister had been with Captain for 35 years and had passed up many promotions and retirement in order to stay on board the Rhadamanthus. At fifty he was the oldest member of the crew and had been on board since he was fifteen, having joined on as a deckhand by falsifying his age. He was a bear of a man standing at six foot-four and seemingly untouched by time.

"Sir confirmed they are Urian scouts."
"Armaments?"
"Four quad lasers and one torpedo tube at the bow."
"Train all guns... Helm evasive maneuvers!"
"Aye sir!"

Richard watched the helmsman Ensign David Peterson. Small and scrawny he looked like younger than the seventeen he said he was. Nonetheless he was a gifted pilot despite his age and inexperience.

"They have entered firing range permission to fire?"
"All ships fire at will Mr. Brister."

The salvo buzzer rang and Brister fired. Sixty quad lasers fired from Rhadamanthus but the veteran scouts avoided deftly. Shots from the Minos and Sarpedon were just as ineffective but the better trained crew of the Wilson scored several hits from their twenty quads but these did little visible damage.

The view screen, having finally returned to normalcy, turned on to show the six attacking scouts maneuver into an attack formation and fire a volley of torpedoes.

" Left full up four zero degrees full speed, deploy decoy!"

From the rear of the two mile long transport a forty foot long decoy shot away blaring tremendous heat and noise. The two torpedos targeting Rhadamanthus sped after the decoy exploding brilliantly in such a way only nuclear armed torpedoes could.

The salvo buzzer rang again and immediately the sixty quad lasers totaling 240 high density laser beams sped off at the attackers scoring many more hits than the previous attempts. Matched by those from Minos and Sarpedon, four of the scouts shields crumpled and exploded quickly only to meet the vacuum of space and wink out instantly leaving only the pitifully shriveled wreaks. The whole thing had the appearance of somebody flicking a single light switch quickly on and off in a cavernous room. The remaining two turned and fled.

"Cease fire, damage?"
"Wilson took a torpedo sir... shes gone..."

Richard took the news hard, the valiant frigate had sacrificed herself to protect the six million refugees packed into every nook and cranny in the three transports

"Survivors?"
"Twelve escape pods sir, shall we pick them up?"
"Yes make it so helm."
"Sir long range sensors pick up several ships closing in probably cruisers by their size,not ours sir."
"Very well... Helm the moment we have all the survivors set course to two six-four up two zero degrees I-flight if you will Mr. Peterson."

Realizing that he was standing he sat down, suddenly feeling older than his 46 galactic years.
Ten minutes later the three "modified" transports fled the battlefield and their lost home forever.