POLITICS AND SOLDIERS SUPER CONTINUED

By Griffin Vengance

10th Jun 2005

The Excailbur had arrived just in time.
She was on the front line, being a very heavily shielded ship. The laser cannons were warm, the prototype photonic torps ready.
The Fleet exchanged fire immediately. The alien fleet was too far off for visual or sensual anyalsis, but their own type of ship-to-ship combat weapons were much slower then the lasers and photons, which cut obvious damage on the enemy. Purple explosions littered their Fleet.
But there was no time to get out of the way of the retaliation. Their weapons were in fact controlled plasma, a curious weapon but effective none-the-less. The Excalibur was spared from being hit, but many other ships didn't have the same fate; this time, orange explosions littered the Fleet.
Now there was no time for brooding. The Fleets were close now, and there could be no doubt it was going to be a tense battle of dogfights and squadrons. Statistic readings came up that the two Fleets were eveny matched, and the Excalibur lurched into action like a nervous greyhound. She suffered a grazing shot from a passing enemy ship, then twirled and pursued it,. battering the poor thing and forcing it into a crossfire between an ally and an enemy.
This was how it went; the Excailbur suffered hit after hit, but never faltered. Fires erupted, systems failed but she held firm.
Then the captain spotted a ship larger then any ever seen before. It was around two times bigger then the Excailbur, and bristling with turrets and cannons. However, she was holed with photons and lasers and it was obvious it needed a killing blow.
The Excalibur demolished the tiny guardship that protected the enemy ship and came into a broadside, firing everything she had at the enemy.
But the captain didn't know if his opposite number was lucky, smart or just instinctive, because the back-end of the enemy was suddenly swept aside...right into the Excailbur's fore engines. The enemy was undoubtedly destroyed by this manueveur, but the entire back of the Excailbur was destroyed.
Including the engines.
Good God.
Time seemed to stop. A million arguements sprang up in the captain's mind, the ones saying to abandon her coming from his head, the opposing side from his heart. He loved his ship, just like every other mariner. But there could be no compromise.
With a trembling hand, he reaching for the all decks button as the Excailbur shook from weariness.
"All hands...abandon ship."
In the insueing chaos, he grabbed the Primeminister who had been helping a medic tend to a wounded techie. He hurled them into a bridge-pod and, with a last, grief-stricken look at his slowly dying ship launched the pod.
Looking out the one and only window, he watched his love, his divine, his life crumple...and as an allied ship passed, he saw the great explosion.
Inwardly he cried.