Captain Darren Price - Chicken

I hope you guys enjoy this. Hopefully this will be the first of many to come.
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Chicken
By Adam Milton
5/6/07
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Captain Darren Price – Log – Date 2441.2

Right now the crew of the Tiburon and I are on our last patrol in the Orion system. We have been ordered to return to Martian Dry Dock and receive upgrades. This old destroyer took quite a beating in out last engagement with pirates. It has been nearly 2 weeks since that engagement and we have finally got my log working right again.

The pirates jumped us while we were on deep patrol around the ice moon of the third planet in the Orion system. We were responding to reports of the lost satellite that broke earth orbit a year ago. Nothing to important just the boys back at Intelligence want it back. It was the last thing on my objectives manifest and I decided that it would be an easy way to finish up our tour.

The Nav-Officer, En. Larry Watson first called my attention to it. ‘Sir we have a UNSF ID code coming in on low band width.’ His young wide eyes were happy and begging for some adventure. We spent the past few months scanning comets and other stellar objects.

I asked him to run an active scan and to see if it wasn’t a fake. He did and as he confirmed it my 1st mate, Lt. Katherine Patterson advised that we check it out. I agreed and I had the Ensign set in a new course for the moon. Lt. Patterson was sitting next to my, pushing her black hair out of her face.

It appeared that the satellite had crashed into the moon. We would send down some engineers to retrieve it and then leave the system with in 2 hours.

The moon itself was nothing more than an atmosphere-less ball of ice. I routed the sensor information into my personal HUD, in the right arm of my chair, I heard my tactical officer turn and shout.

“We have two, I repeat two tango’s, approaching.” I put that in quotes because I will never forget the sound of his voice and what he said. We were all bored, bored silly. His voice was mixed with fear and energy.

“View screen.” I ordered and the picture of the moon faded and gave way to two fast attack craft moving on an intercept course.

‘Those look like pirate raiders.’ Lt. Patterson said as she licked her lips.

“Tactical, warm up weapons. Anti-Proton beams at full. Keep the CSM on stand-by.”

Before I could even think to brace myself the raiders opened up fire, hitting our bow with meson disrupters. The off green bolts were absorbed easily by our shields.

‘Sir, they have brought out shield down 2%. All systems are reporting in at optimum.’ Lt. Patterson said.

“Well, if that’s how they wanna play it,” I said under my breath. “Open fire!”

In the dead of space there is no sound. That is elementary but when you are on the ship, a ship as small as this one, you can hear the energy flowing to the weapons, or even feel the kick back from a CSM. I heard the Anti-Proton beam warm up and fire and one the view screen I watched the beam slice through the raider. It erupted into a plume of fire and was quickly snuffed out in the cold vacuum.

“Get ready—”

‘Sir, we have a bigger ship, it is at least the size of a cruiser coming in from the far side of the planet.’ I heard the OPS officer cut me off.

‘I think this is a trap.’ Lt. Patterson said as she punched up what she could on her HUD. ‘I think they tricked us here.’

“We are a easy target, a lone UNSN ship, no back up…at least 3 jumps to a fleet base.” I said.

‘Sir, the second raider is coming back…it is locked on.’ Tactical said. ‘What are your orders?’

“Helm, turn to face the raider attack pattern C-Niner.” I commanded. “Tactical, ready the CSM. We are going to need some luck against that Cruiser.”

We were pinned between the cruiser and the raider. The raider would could take out in one shot but the cruiser would chew us up if we didn’t out smart it.

The Tiburon was a fast attack destroyer. Normally we were escorts in main battle fleets. Our job normally was to protect the flanks of the bigger ships, mostly Agamemnon Class Dreadnaughts and Ticonderoga class Carriers. Instead we were on a solo mission performing routine patrols.

We just didn’t have the firepower to stand up to a cruiser, not alone.

“OPS, scan the cruiser, see if you can find any weakness.”

“Aye,” OPS said. “Sir they have an engine leak. The are using anti-matter engines. They are leaking anti-matter when they manuver.”

“How come we didn’t see it before?”

‘They must have had it locked down, I think moving to us may have caused the leak to get bigger.’ OPS said. ‘If it wasn’t locked down we would have seen it when we entered the system.’

‘A CSM in the right place can rip them in two.’ Patterson said. It took me a half second to realize she was right.

We managed to cripple the raider on its second fly by. We took out its life support and engines. As we did that the cruiser scored two direct hits on out aft and we were down to only 75% shields. We turned about to face the enemy cruiser. With a full compliment we fired two salvos mixing both anti-proton fire and CSMs. We scored three hits.

“Rush them,” I said to the helmsmen. “Run right at’em.”

‘Aye sir.’ He complied uneasily.

“But at the last second duck under them. Ok,” I said. “Tactical…when we duck under them, you fire everything we have into their engines. Once we punch them in the gut Helm you kick it into high gear.”

Now we were playing a game of chicken. We were moving at full impulse towards each other. The helmsmen turn dipped the nose down and we missed the Cruiser. As we slide under it I watched as the CSM impact and tear through the metal. The Anti-Proton beams sliced and cut like a surgeons scalpel into the ship.

“Full Impulse Helm!” I shouted and felt the engines kick in.

I sat back and watched as the enemy cruiser buckle and the engines erupt into an anti-matter explosions. I was hoping we were moving fast enough to dodge most of the explosion. The shock wave hit us and we lost some power. Two ordnance bays were crippled, one sensor array was burned out completely and 3 of our 6 engines were not working.

After the explosion we sat in the dark for a moment, all of us surprised at how big the explosion was. With what we had left we set a course for the nearest Warp Point and we all pitched in and did repairs as we floated through the Orion system. Once communications were up and working we set a report back and we were promised a follow up survey would come and do a complete scan of the system.

I was also told I have to report to the UNSN Ship Hercules, a Dreadnaught and the home of Admiral Holmes, Admiral of the 5th Fleet. Who knows what I will be getting while I am there…

End log…