Tides of Change

[Dashiell]

Captain Pike of the Hathor Finishing Touch was sitting in a corner of the battleship Isis. He was tired. Very tired of it all. Non stop attacks from all sides. Homocidal aliens on one end, crazed lunatics called the Core on the other. And more losses to Order forces everyday.

The Touch was being launched almost daily to try and repel attacks on Toledo. Well, repel is a big word. More like damage control. It was as if the nomads were just playing a game. Increasing the difficulty a little bit every attack. See when the humans would reach their breaking point. Pike knew, this point was awfully close for a -lot- of the Order agents. Including his own crew. Only his gunner, an over enthousiastic Libertonian was running around screaming 'lemme at `em! lemme at `em!'

How long has it been since the Order had a break? Well, Pike remembered one occasion. When some arrogant loon in a Mako was flying around Delta. He was screaming how awesome he was and that he could kill every ship he would encounter. Because Mart the gunner was so very eager to shoot stuff, Pike decided to see who it was, acting like a little kid with too much energy drink in his veins.

It was a Mako called 'Mimic'.

It had some Core ships around it, fighters mostly. The Mimic was blabbering incoherently, but the gist of it was that he would blow up the Touch without as much as breaking a sweat. The Core fighters which were around mumbled something about a bet and flew to a 3k distance, then held position.

Then the Mimic attacked. And missed. And missed. And missed some more. But then-!








It missed again.

Pike was getting bored and Mart was punching his console screaming 'engageglubbb!' (there was a mint stuck in his throat), obviously wanting to attack. So Pike humored his gunner and came around and attacked the Mako head on. The Mako was still missing every shot and then the Touch let rip with its pulses and razors. Soon the Mako's shield was gone. Then its hull started to take damage to the quad-razors the Touch kept spitting out.

Soon the Mimic hit the reverse and started screaming at the Core fighters to help him. They didn't. All Pike heard coming from them was laughter and some Core pilot, almost choking on his laughter, saying to one of his wingmen 'You owe me a 1000 credits, Malachite. I told ya that fool would lose to a gunboat'

Then more laughter was heard.

Meanwhile, Mart was jumping up and down behind his console, firing razor after razor barrage at the ill-dodging Mako.

'hahahha! Die! Take that! Want some more! LOOOOSSERR!'

Mart was drooling at this point.

Yes, Pike really admired the military-like dicipline of his gunner.
After the Mimic had take so much damage its captain decided to run like a little girl. The Touch fired a few cds, and disrupted its cruise engines. Then Pike waited for the Mako to try and cruise off again before firing another cd up its tail end. It was a sad sight, to see the battleship desperadly try to get to safety, with its captain screaming in rage at the Core fighters who just sat there, laughing their arses off.

Then Pike decided playtime was over. This was just too sad. Not wantng the Core fighters to eventually rescue the Mako, Pike ordered the Touch to rtb. Mart had had his fun, and the crew`s spirits had lifted. If all Core ships fought like that Mako, the Order still had a fighting chance.

That was a while back, however. Recently, competent Core agents attacked. And it was messy. Only the Isis had prevented an all out disaster. But how long would it take for even Isis to fail one day?

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