Randolph Lalonde - Fragments

"Operating below tolerances, but straining. I can't give you more power than Panloo is using."

"Long range projectiles incoming," Agameg announced as he marked over fifty incoming missiles on the main tactical hologram.

Oz looked at the shield status and was satisfied that they read at ninety three percent of full charge. "No evasive manoeuvres, just decelerate so we don't turn into a great big flare when we hit the dust."

The projectiles swept past the Triton, the closest of them came within five kilometres. "I just confirmed, they're using hyperspace torpedoes."

"It's like these guys are collecting a bounty on our hull and we just don't matter. Has this crew built hyperspace torpedoes before?"

"No, there's an order for manufacturing to make them, but they're backlogged," Agameg reported.

"Damn."

"Do you want me to move them up in the queue?"

"No, we're better off evading and having the manufacturing crews help with work outside the ship. I just hope they can't get a fix on us after we've taken cover."

"Sir, if those torpedoes struck-"

"I know. We'd have breaches across the ship. Whoever launched that group of fifty isn't too happy right about now. That's an expensive miss."

The trio of battlecruisers were incoming just under the speed of light. The tactical information accompanying them informed him that they were using hyperspace to catch up.

"They're trying to get to us before we enter the dust cloud," Oz muttered. "They're coming in too fast for evasive manoeuvres. Fire what you can Agameg, no torpedoes, they'll be too slow."

"Yes sir,"

The ship was enveloped by the thick nebula and everyone could hear the inertial dampeners strain for a moment as the Triton met the resistant field of particles.

"We're flaring. Slow down," Laura advised. "Unless you want to sandblast through several millimetres of our outer hull."

"Thruster three's pylon is showing above tolerance stress. We can't keep this up," Engineering Chief Grady's hologram announced.

"Ordering Gunnery Chief Frost to fire high velocity slugs for thirty seconds," Agameg announced. "Most of them should make it through the edge of the cloud and have a good chance of striking the lead battlecruiser unless they change course."

"Price, you sure this mark is right? We're firing into open space," Chief Frost said over the tactical comm.

"Use his mark, Chief." Oz reinforced. The Triton finally slowed down enough so their gravitational shielding was able to repel the nebula's thick dust and the impact shields began to recover.

"Aye, on the mark."

"Chief Vercelli, launch our three birds," Oz ordered.

"Aye. Punting in five seconds."

The asteroid grouping and their three planetoids were far beneath, and Oz couldn't help but suck air in through his teeth at the sight of the monolithic fireballs as they closed in. "Can we land on this trajectory?"

"It's fine," Panloo's navigator barked over his shoulder. "We'll have to accelerate at the last moment so we strike our landing coordinates properly."

"Don't let the computer do all the work, recheck your course as you plot," Oz ordered.

"Easy big guy, I think he's got it," Jason reassured with a whisper.

Oz watched as the tactical display switched to short range. Their long range sensors couldn't read through the cloud. The Uriel fighters launched and made haste to the opposite edge of the cloud. More information on the cluster of asteroids moving beneath the Triton was becoming available. The final course was plotted for them to land on the flattest space available on the rear of one of the largest flaming cosmic bodies and he immediately started rechecking the navigator's calculations. "If you think we're in bad shape now, imagine what a minor misjudgement could do to us."

"I know, but you've got to trust your staff. I've seen this helm team's scores, they're good."

Oz finished rechecking the calculations and nodded. "The math is solid, I'll give him that."

"All guns, cease fire," Agameg ordered calmly from the tactical station.

The Triton’s railguns stopped firing as she manoeuvred through a layer of agitated, flaming dust. The lumbering carrier moved behind the broadest asteroid. It was just ahead, and several members of the bridge staff braced themselves as the main thrusters fired hard to regain enough speed to make contact.

The front of the ship was pointed directly at their landing site. It loomed closer and closer until Panloo finally stopped accelerating and rotated the large carrier so her heavy landing struts were in position to make contact.

Oz clamped his jaw shut as he watched the ship drift off course slightly.

"We could dose you with something, calm you down a bit maybe?" Jason whispered, smiling impishly.

Oz shot him a stern look then returned his focus to the navigational data displayed on the centre bulkhead. The representation of what was going on around the Triton bathed the bridge in flickering red as the faux window displays showed the view of flaming particles all around the ship and the asteroid they followed. They drifted gently back on course, the distance reading changed from kilometres to meters. Their speed reset so it was relative to the asteroid, not to the field, and Oz couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as it switched from hundreds of kilometres per second to sixty three kilometres per hour.

With a low, thrumming sound the Triton’s undercarriage touched the asteroid and Panloo's navigator engaged the drills and clamps that would secure them to the asteroids surface.

Oz glanced to Agameg and checked the compositional readings of the asteroid for himself. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the issyrian doing the same in just as much of a rush. "It's not going to work," he stated plainly.

"We're drilling thirty meters in, we'll be secure," reassured Panloo's copilot.

Oz checked the readings for himself and saw how loosely packed that side of the asteroid was. "Get ready to maintain a drift Panloo. Those makeshift moorings won't hold us. Stop drilling."

"They'll hold."

"If you drill and kick up debris when the mooring posts shift the repair teams might not survive it. Stop. That's an order."

Panloo's navigator irritably shut down the undercarriage drilling systems and started reversing them slowly. "Funny, I've never seen you in the sim doing my job," he muttered.

"You just lost your leisure materializer rations for a week." Oz growled.

Panloo's navigator whirled in his seat. "I can't help that the slug handling tactical can't remember to run a topographical analysis before we touch down! You should know better than to put a shifter in charge of weaponry and combat sensors!"

"Stow the attitude, mister. We're not discussing his performance. Report to me after your shift."

"What? Why?"

"If you have a problem with a member of my staff you have a problem with me, and I settle my problems off the bridge. Now do your duty, navigator," Oz ordered flatly from the command seat.

Everyone busied themselves, no one wanted to be caught gaping. Agameg couldn't help but let a smile creep across his thin lips.

"Tim's lucky you're here," Jason whispered, nodding at the copilot as he turned back towards his control. "Jake would have taken his station and shot him."

"You think?"

"He doesn't tolerate racism."

"Neither do I."

"He enjoys shooting people a lot more and he finished the nav qualifier for the Triton last week."

"Good point." Oz finished double checking the ship's status and cleared his throat. "All right, we're going to concentrate on repairs. Double shifts and double quick. Chief Grady, how are our chances of getting those main thrusters installed?"

"It's not a good idea," Liam Grady's hologram answered.