I have changed the dialogue layout to make it slightly easier on the eyes and fixed whatever grammar errors i could see in the first chapter. As promised, here is chapter two.
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The Hunt: Chapter Two
Nathan stood up and looked at the image on the view screen, his bounty, the fighter he had been pursuing for the best part of a week, was in orbit of a planet, some 80 thousand kilometres ahead.
“Hold our position”, he ordered the navigator.
He turned to his advisor, “Could it be a trap? The ship looks lifeless, we have been chasing it down for days and now, it’s just floating in plain sight?”
“I have no idea sir, he must know that the fighter is no match for our Cruiser” replied the bemused officer.
“Are we close enough to scan the vessel?”
“No sir, we would need to get within 40 thousand kilometres, and if we can scan him, he most certainly can see us coming”.
Nathan scratched his chin, “What do you suggest? We need to get this finished today. What is our maximum effective weapons range?”
The advisor pushed a few buttons on his console, looking at the screen as though he was trying to work out a difficult equation. “We can deliver a lethal shot with the forward Ion Cannon to their engine chamber from within 5 thousand kilometres. They will be able to detect our approach from 40 thousand kilometres, at maximum combat speed we can cover the distance from detection to firing range in 28 seconds sir. But if….”
“Is there any way to reduce the distance at which they will detect us?” Nathan interjected, running a hand through his hair.
The advisor smiled for a moment, “As I was about to say sir, if we loop around the planets moon and fire the impulse engines at maximum as we leave its orbit, it will mask us from the targets sensors until we are roughly 17 seconds from lethal shot range.”
“Enough time for them to escape”, added Nathan with a small tone of annoyance in his voice.
“Yes sir.”
The hell with it, Nathan thought,
no risk, no gain. “Bring us up behind the moon” he told the navigator. Turning to one of his battle operators, “Tristan, I want the forward cannons charged to maximum safe capacity as soon as we break cover, am I clear?”
“Cannons are standing by, sir” replied Tristan, a small smile on his face.
It’s now or never, thought Nathan. “Navigator, lock our target into the combat computer, fire the imp…”
“Sir, we have a problem”, interrupted Tristan in an unusually worried voice.
“What is it?” replied an irritated Nathan.
“I have picked up a vessel closing on our position, it seems to have locked onto our target...Sir, the vessel is travelling incredibly fast, it will be upon us in less than 10 seconds.”
Nathan looked dumbstruck, for the first time in his short career as a bounty hunter, he was lost for words. The view screen flickered on just in time for him to see a slim, powerful looking vessel screaming through space, just a few kilometres from their position. He watched, fascinated as the a bluish ball of plasma detached itself from what was presumably a weapons bay on the ship and soared towards to orbiting fighter. The plasma struck with unerring accuracy, rupturing the fuel bay on the fighter, destroying it instantly. The ship rocketed away from the explosion, circling around, seemingly inspecting the damage.
Nathan jumped as an alarm sounded in the bridge of his Cruiser, “What the hell?” he yelled already angered by the loss of his bounty.
“Sir, four Battleships just dropped out of hyperspace approximately 500 kilometres off our port side” reported a worried looking Tristan.
“Jesus, prepare for emergency impulse burst, get us out of here!”
“Sir, wait, they are ignoring us” responded Tristan.
Nathan watched as the view screen showed the four huge Battleships flying past them, they were converging on the now stationary ship that had destroyed his bounty. The lead Battleship fired an Ion Cannon, hitting the other vessel on what would have been a crippling shot. Shields flared brightly as the energy was absorbed, the rogue vessel fired into life immediately, it soared around in an arc, turning back against the four Battleships that had ambushed it.
What the hell is he doing, thought Nathan,
he’s crazy, four against one fighting Battleships, this guy is space dust. He was brought out of his thoughts as he saw two of the Battleships fire heavy Gauss Cannons, Nathan looked on in astonishment as the outnumbered vessel rolled and twisted, evading the massive projectiles with unnatural speed and still soaring towards the attackers.
The entire bridge crew was watching open mouthed as the vessel swerved to the side at the last second, narrowly avoiding another ion blast, as it swerved it let loose four blinding plasma balls, too close to avoid the hits, the lead Battleship took all four, the first two crippled its shields while the rest slammed into the hull breaking the ship apart. A massive explosion rocked the Cruiser as the Battleships reactor was hit; the resulting shockwave almost destroyed the second Battleship, leaving it floating dead in space. The rogue vessel was knocked out of course slightly as the shockwave caught it, unable to gather itself fast enough the ship took three successive hits from the remaining Battleships Gauss Cannons. Nathan watched as its shields flared brightly, absorbing the energy from the first two, the last hit seemed to linger as the shields buckled under the sustained fire. The vessel regained it’s movement and looped over itself and rocketed back towards the two remaining Battleships, soaring between them and letting lose a volley of laser blasts at key sections of both ships. One Battleships shields gave way almost immediately, the lasers tore through the its armour and destroyed the ships weapon arrays. The others shield glowed with the immense energy and seemed to dissipate. Before the smaller vessel managed to get away it suffered another hit from the last Battleships Gauss Cannon, right into its rear shield. Weakened from the fight the shields failed as the projectile ripped through them and slammed into the engines, crippling the rogue ship.
“Sir, they are going to be killed!” exclaimed Tristan.
So be it, Nathan thought darkly,
they had just cost him a very high paying bounty, why should he step in to save their hides. He watched as the remaining Battleship came around and slowly converged on the rogue vessel.
“Sir! The Battleship is charging its cannon! They will be destroyed, do something!” Tristan cried out with frustration.
Nathan bit his lip, fighting with his inner demons, he was angry, very angry, but could he live with himself if he let these people die, knowing he could have prevented it? He came to a decision, “Tristan, charge the Ion Cannon with all available power, take it from engines and shielding systems if you have to.”
“Sir, that exceeds safety limits, chances of a backwash are dangerously high”, he replied.
“Just do it Tristan, bring us in closer and aim for the Battleships reactor.”
“Shields are offline and the cannon is charged sir, we can only hold it like this for another 30 seconds before it fatally overheats. The Battleship is having trouble energizing its Gauss Cannon, they seem to have taken heavy damage” Tristan reported.
“Tristan” Nathan said, with slight frown on his face.
“Sir?”
“Fire.”
The crew watched as a the bright blue ion beam lanced away from the Cruiser, slicing into the Battleship, exactly on target. For a split second, it seemed nothing had happened, then, explosions ripped through the Battleships, destroying it. The shockwave radiated outwards, striking Nathans Cruiser.
Nathan cursed quietly to himself as he felt the ship shudder.
“Sir, engines have been damaged by the shockwave; we are dead in space until the drones can complete repairs. The Battleships have been neutralized, we are safe, along with our friend out there.” reported Tristan.
Nathan turned to look at the view screen, the rogue vessel was still floating, leaking deuterium from its crippled engines, small drones were flying around it, seemingly looking for the worst areas. Nathan squinted sharply as something caught his eye in the distance. He swore as he saw a dark shape, unidentifiable, fly towards the crippled vessel.
He turned to Tristan, “More hostiles?”.
“Sir, I’m not picking up anything on scans, as far as the computer is concerned, there is nothing out there but us and the other vessel” replied an utterly confused Tristan.
“What do you mean nothing? We can see whatever the hell that thing is!”
Nathan turned to look again, the dark shape came further into view, it looked to be some kind of dark globe shaped object, smaller than a fighter. It was slowly following the trail of leaked deuterium the damaged vessel had snaked behind it. The globe suddenly darted forward, attaching itself to the damaged engines of the rogue vessel; Nathan looked on in horror as the vessel slowly disintegrated under the globes touch, within seconds there was nothing left but the dark globe, still and pulsing slightly. Without warning, the globe darted to the side, as if searching for something, it pulsed again and slowly started floating towards Nathans Cruiser, unable to do anything to prevent it, his mouth opened in a silent scream as the ship was engulfed in a suffocating darkness…
A loud beeping sound cut through Nathans scream as he bolted upright in bed, the intercom was beeping on his desk. He reached over and hit the button, “What?” he said groggily.
Mitch’s voice sounded over the comm, “Sorry to wake you sir, we have just finished our analysis of the warp system. The sphere is holding integrity at 93%, we have noticed it deteriorating over time. We should be able to maintain hyperspace travel for another 6 hours before we have to let the dishes recharge.” With that the intercom was closed.
Nathan lay back against his pillow, drenched in cold sweat. His heart was pounding against his chest, he had had that dream again. Every night for the last 5 days he had dreamed of the battle he had first met Mitch in, when he had brought Battlecruiser technology into the empire. Only the end of the dream was twisted, the dark globe destroying them, that never happened, yet the dream was repeating itself over and over.
He pressed his hand against his temple in annoyance; Nathan didn’t believe in the supernatural, he put his dreams down to his stress and over active imagination.
I’ll go to the nurse and get something for a deep sleep, he thought to himself as he climbed out of bed. He cursed his lack of sleep as he walked towards the shower; these dreams need to stop…
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I'll get to work on some more at some point this weekend, pretty busy over the next few days though.
-Istalris-
I am also a big fan of Sci-fi ( Especially spaceships and stuff )
