Down South

[jammi]

"Get those engines restarted now!" There was another rolling boom from below as one of the Titans swooped low, strafing the Cook from end to end with neutron fire. Red lights blared all over the bridge, claxons screaming. Halfway to the planet, a wing of Corsairs had got a lock on them and gone in for the kill.

Alex had wheeled around and aimed back towards the hole to Dublin, the Resolution flying just ahead. But the Titans were fast and soon knocked the Cook out of cruise. Now it was a game of endurance. The Titans were slowly hammering away at the shields, chipping them away bit by bit. Down on engineering one of the shield relays exploded, and a hole the size of a small car was ripped open in the shield bubble on the ship's underside.

"Engineering, what the hell are you doing? Get shield integrity back up!" Alex bawled down the intercom. Static and the sound of profuse swearing crackled back. The Resolution had just breached the edge of the asteroid field and was relaying an all bands distress call through the probes around the hole, hoping to bounce the transmission through the anomaly and call for help. Alex watched in silent despair as a Titan broke away and went streaking after the fleeing Clydesdale.

Desperate measures in desperate times he thought faintly. "Engineering, shut down cruise engines, reroute power to the shields and weapons. Proceed on burners and impulse." It was all going wrong... To his left, Luke Gordon (a crew member trained in gunnery) was wearing a Sim-Helmet that plugged him directly into the weapons controls. Occasionally he'd twitch as a battle of velocities, attack vectors and tactics unfolded behind his eyes. Then the Cook's weapons unleashed themselves on the nearest aggressor, dropping its shield and causing it to go evasive.

Alex yanked on the helm to try and roll the Cook sideways to avoid an incoming missile, with partial success. Instead of ripping through into the vulnerable underside, it exploded on the port side's already taxed shields, setting off yet more emergency alarms.

"Cook this is the Resolution! We're through! The Corsair is gonna be on us any moment though! Were making a break for Graves. Good luck, sir!"

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