A Moving Target

Posted on Wed Apr 8th, 2015 @ 6:28pm by Captain Li Hawke & Warrant Officer Awf

Mission: Breaking New Ground
Location: Gunabout James

Li sat in the cockpit beside Awf, silent as the bay doors of the Ghost opened.

"This is it, Awf. Take us out hard and fast and let's give them something to chase, just not something to catch. And we will make it home. Go!"

With his customary grin, the Ocampa pilot looked like he was enjoying this entirely too much. His fingers were pattering about on the tactile LCARS interface in front of him, and while the miniscule vessel certainly moved in a way that would have allowed chase there was nothing to suggest that Awf was going to allow them to be given up for capture.

Raising a brow, he leaned back again and tilted his head back.

"How's that?"

Most people probably would have found his flight erratic and dangerous, but he had a feeling that Li would have appreciated the fact that he was giving the illusion of being catchable without genuinely being so.

"Excellent." She studied the console in front of her, keeping watch on the positions of the Dominion ships. "The Ghost has made it clear and --" She was cut off as the gunabout took a hit and shuddered, slamming Li and Awf back against their seats. "No damage," Li called out over the noise. "I think that was just a warning!"

Tapping a few more controls, Awf didn't wince as they took fire since it didn't seem particularly serious, to him anyway. As Li said, it seemed to essentially be a warning shot. He was glad, though, that he was wearing a harness in his seat.

"If you want I could probably bias the deflector shields to the aft of the gunabout so that we'd have more protection back there. We'd loose some up front, but not enough to cause navigational problems with micrometeoroids."

"Make it so. Hopefully they'll only see the back of us anyway." Li pressed the panel before her. "In the meantime, I don't like getting shot so I think it's time to respond in kind. Take us up a little so I can get a good line on them down below. Once I've sent this volley, get us the hell out of here."

Soon enough his fingers were again tapping out commands and the shields in the aft section of their vehicle intensified quite a bit, albeit at the cost of their forward shields. "I'm already on it! Coordinates for the engines have already been laid in!" He made a little mock salute, getting ready for the ship's weapons to overload the inertial dampers as they so commonly did.

"Like I said, you drive, I'll shoot. Firing..now!" The gunabout jolted only briefly, and down below, the quantum torpedo hit home. Flames bloomed above the Dominion ship and it listed slightly to starboard. "Initiating camouflage shielding. Now, Mr. Awf, let's put some distance between them and us."

"Aye aye!" Having spoken only the two words that signified his acknowledgement of her order as well as the carrying out of it she would have soon felt the small vessel begin to accelerate beneath her before the inertial dampers again kicked in and compensated for the foreword velocity. He briefly glanced at the explosion on his sensor scan before looking back out the frontal view port.

Li scanned the area and nodded, satisfied. "We are the last of the teams, Awf. The cargo is away and the rest are likely home by now. Let's do the same."

Again he repeated the acknowledgement and suggestion that he was going to do as he was told, "Aye aye!" With that simple pair of words and another stroke across the LCARS display in front of him they were soon making the quantum shift that allowed the various star streams around them to move into an incalculable blur.

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Captain Li Hawke
Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

Warrant Officer Awf
Having Way too Much Fun with the Gunabout