James Somers - The rise of Lucin

One of the larger vessels exploded a few miles away over the rooftops. The Vorn cruiser had found a nice sized target and obliterated it. The rest of the ships were filing steadily out of the city to the west, leaving behind the aerogores that had driven them out of the base. But the pods were almost to the others still trying to get above ground.

"I'm taking us right at them," said Kale as he brought the Equinox to bear on their position.

He charged the ship toward the pod squadrons. The auto-tracking for the weapons systems came alive as the first pod was picked up by its sensors. Gun turrets all across the hull of the ship blazed into action, tracking and terminating the one man attack fighters.

The offensive attack was wreaking havoc on the orderly pod formations. They resembled swarming insects as they engaged the larger vessel plowing through their ranks.

"Hopefully, we can buy some time for the others to escape," said Kale.

A blast hit the Equinox sending a booming shudder through the ship.

"What happened?!" shouted Jael.

"We've been hit by one of the cruisers," replied Emil as he quickly sifted through the various alarms and information pouring onto his displays. "We're losing the engine control systems!"

Kale was battling the controls to keep the ship stable. "I'm losing the helm!"

"How did they get through the shields so quickly?"

"Shield Frequency Capture… it's a system that was developed for the cruisers back during the Baruk war," said Emil as he tried to bring the engine control backups online. He tried to reroute power to auxiliary systems but everything was failing under the power load. "It's no good, Kale-I can't get helm control back up yet. I should have taken you up on letting me drive the next time."

The ship was beginning to tumble out of control and lose altitude.

"Load the coordinates for Sayir and activate the transgate!" shouted Kale.

The Equinox's shields bounced them off of the side of a burnt out sky scraper as they continued out of control in their descent.

"Man, I'm getting tired of landing upside down," said Emil, frustrated.

"What's going on up there?!" shouted Mirah through the intercom.

"Hold on Mother-it's going to get rough!"

The ship began to tumble over again in its descent. The pods that had been engaged with the vessel were trying desperately to remove their selves from its path. The pavement was approaching fast. Emil hammered away at the computer controls from his upside down position strapped inside his flight chair.

"Talk to me, Emil!" shouted Kale desperately.

"It's tricky! We don't want to land on our backs somewhere else, you know?!"

Their flight chair harnesses strained against their bodies to hold them firmly in place. Kale hoped they were strapped in well enough in the med-lab.

"I've got it!" shouted Emil triumphantly.

The Equinox was enveloped in a pocket of bright light and vanished.

TIET sat in the dusty mold infested cockpit of a relic. The ship was Barudii made, a predecessor of the Viper class aerial fighter. He completed the login of the coordinates that had been transmitted by Emil from the Equinox. He powered up the engines and they gave only a slight choke before coming online fully. Boy, these were well made.

A few ships down, Grod had his fighter's engines warming up and Wynn was outside of his ship tinkering with a regulator. He made a final manual adjustment that set the engine cycle into a nice purr. He looked at Tiet with satisfaction.

A screeching noise could be heard from the hallway near the control booth-the aerogores were coming back to their nest.

"Get in!" Tiet shouted.

Wynn fumbled with the lock on his canopy, it was stuck. Aerogores began to march through the hallway into the chamber. When they saw the aircraft, powered up for flight, they became enraged. Wynn finally got the canopy to open up again as Tiet and Grod began to lift off of the pad.

The aerogores took to the air, sailing over the railing toward the hovering ships. Tiet instinctively went for the guns and set them blazing, rapid fire. Several of the beasts fell out of the sky, chewed to bits by the onslaught of the aerial fighter's guns. Tiet brought the nose of the ship to bear on the hallway's opening in the rock and launched a small rocket into it which shattered the stone to pieces. The entryway was mostly blocked to the others coming back to the nest.

Wynn was airborne and following Grod's fighter out of the underground hangar bay through the cave that had once served as a launch point. The guns of Grod's ship blazed to life, taking out oncoming predators that were returning from the outside. Grod cleared the way and all three aerial fighters shot into the open air above ground.

They were immediately faced with the awesome sight of a Vorn battle cruiser hovering above the grassy plains where their ships had emerged.

"Switch on your sensor cloak!" shouted Wynn through their cockpit speakers.

"What?"

"Lower left on the panel-quickly. I don't think they've spotted us yet."

Tiet obeyed his mentor and tapped the switch that was labeled Sensor Cloak. The indicator lit up green in color.

"What does it do?" Grod asked.

"Just what it says. We're masked from their sensor scans, at least if they're working properly," said Wynn. "Now, we can head toward Sayir and they won't even realize we've been here."

Tiet studied the ship ahead of them. Lucin could be on that ship. Also on his display, was payload information. He was carrying fifty rockets minus the one he had used inside the hangar and one laser guided smart bomb.

"We're not leaving just yet," said Tiet into the cockpit microphone.

"What are you talking about, we have to rendezvous with the others at Sayir," said Wynn.

"And we will. I just want to give them a little present before we bug out," said Tiet. "Are your ships armed?"

"Mine is; I'm in," said Grod quickly, a lust for revenge in his voice.

"Wynn?"

He hesitated. "How do I always get outvoted?"

"Just your luck old friend," said Tiet as he brought his aerial fighter on a course for the Vorn cruiser.

The others fell in line at his wings and armed their weapons.

"If they don't know we're here then they probably don't have their shields up."

"We'll have to hit them with everything at once before they have an opportunity to put them up," said Grod.

The fighters were closing in on the target fast at subsonic speed. They looked like insects swarming a large animal, but their sting would be nastier.

"Let her have it!" shouted Tiet as he triggered every weapon to fire on the hulking cruiser ahead.

The triple volley was heaved away from the fighter group almost simultaneously. The ships shuddered heavily as all weapons released their payload at once. The rockets sailed ahead of them at a slightly faster speed, like a prey outrunning its predator. The group pulled up just in time to clear the hull.

Multiple impacts of the smaller missiles swept across the hull like a swiftly moving rain. The three smart bombs sailed elegantly after, crashing heavily against the armor of the hull. Each one erupted in a devastating display of fire and shrapnel, breeching the ship's exterior hull. The strafed side of the great vessel was a huge patch of fire burning on the hull surface with more damage throughout the lower layers.

Tiet whooped aloud at the impacts, but it was a very small victory. The Vorn cruisers could take much more before being crippled, but at least they had struck back. The trio brought their fighters back around; it was time to head for the rendezvous. From the belly of the vessel, smaller ships were birthed into the air and they quickly set their collective sights upon Tiet and his group.