Xeno Core

The long distances between stars of interest makes for long stretches between anything exciting happening, and Gelly likes it that way. The system they're making repairs in shows no signs of technological presence, perfect for a brief stop.

Even with the new crewmembers taken aboard before they departed, the ship feels quiet to Operative Gelly Drop. Less full of life, somehow. He decides it must be the reduced hum with the engines off for inspection. He'd grown so used to it that it only registers because of its lack, now that they're off.

Shrugging it off, Gelly gets back to work. Without Mos Denn keeping the ship running smoothly, there are many more minor repairs needing to be done. Currently, he's helping one of the newest recruits to adjust the power output on a string of overstressed relays. Zanna's blue armor is marred by grease and coolant, from her other repairs, as is her long white fur.

She knows the layout better than the more experienced enlisted, being one of those that had installed the new layout. He's mostly handing her tools or components, or holding things down as a makeshift clamp. She has twice as many hands anyway, as well as the modifications on her suit providing extra tool functions.

When another enlisted walks by, reading a digital novel, Gelly stops her.

He leaves Zanna with a wave and heads deeper into the ship. The battery banks have been causing interference with each other, reducing the overall power availability, despite numerous adjustments. Tollek had finally given up and ordered them separated, with each operating on separate power grids.

Tulson greets him with a grin as he enters the engine room, grease coating her face and uniform. "You get the relays sorted out?"

Shrugging, he grabs the nearby wire cutter and begins freeing the powered down particle accelerator from its harness. "I left Zanna in charge o' that. Sheth volunteered to take me place, she could use the practice."

The two officers pull it free, setting it to the side where Terla can make sure it hasn't been damaged beyond repair. She and Tulson both are excited to crack the device open later. Gelly is just as glad it's not his problem, and heads to his next task. There are many power connections to cut out and replace, and it promises to be tedious.

He joins up with another work crew, wrists deep in the walls of the ship to reach troublesome wires.

Patching over the power grid is simple repetitive work, made faster by an experienced partner to keep track of which current is meant to flow to what systems. Splice in one end of the wire, figure out where it needs to be, cut to size and splice the other end. Make sure the whole thing is secure and sealed then move on to the next.

This particular section supplies energy to the lights. Gelly removes another panel and extracts the wire harness beneath it. He replaces it and tucks it back inside the wall and stoops to grab the nearby panel.

An alarm blares, and Tollek's voice plays over the speaker system. "Seal up whatever you're doing, there are unknown energy signatures headed our way. The signals are faint, so we have some time, but that could change in an instant."

"Forget the lights, go work on the blasted shields," barks Gelly as he simply drops the section of wall panel he had been about to replace before Tollek made his announcement. The operative runs down the corridors, weaving past confused crew. At the end of the hall Gelly stops and climbs up to the next level. At the top he takes off again, running until he gets to the command deck.

Gelly drops into his customary seat, ready to activate the armaments protecting the ship. The targeting system in front of him displays one large object and a cloud of smaller signatures moving around it.

"Gettin' off to a good start, Jim," he quips, hoping to relax his cousin but accomplishing the opposite. "Twenty at once on yer first try. We'll be done with this mission quick, at this rate."

Ignoring Gelly's jibe, Tollek turns to the Scout at the comms station. "Any response to the transmission you sent them, Kali?"

"No, sir, but I am detecting signals being exchanged between the smaller craft and the carrier ship."

"Any idea what they're saying?" Jim leans back in his seat, making alterations to a battle simulator on his personal tablet.

"No sir. They're using a low power signal that breaks up too much to read by the time it gets this far," she says, trying to clean up the patterns she can just pick out from the background noise.

"Keep monitoring them, it might be important," he orders. "Bella, you still want to try out that fighter you've been tinkering with?" The mechanic's face appears on the main screen.

"Sure, but I'd like to wait til you get their numbers down a bit. It's still more an armed shuttle than a fighter ship," she replies from the hangar. "Let me know when you want me to launch. Til then I'm gonna keep welding more plating onto it." Beside her Lowun loads ammunition into the modified craft. He'll be operating the weapons while Bella pilots. They've dubbed the craft Springkick.

"They're accelerating, Jim!" Kali turns in her seat to look at the command dais. "Heading right toward us."

Looking at his display, Gelly is much less upset. The larger vessel is still moving at the same speed. Only the swarm of smaller ships have sped up. The enemy fighters stay packed close together, trying to disguise their numbers as long as possible.

He launches a volley of guided missiles, programmed to reach a designated area then enter low power mode and wait. If they receive their safe code they'll deactivate for easy retrieval. Until then they wait for any metallic object to enter range before seeking them out and detonating.

Two more volleys and the approaching fighters now have limited approach angles, assuming they want to avoid the obvious trap. He also starts the main cannon up, allowing it to charge up its capacitors.

The fighters alter course to avoid the wall of dormant missiles, just as Gelly had predicted, and fly right into his targeting sights.

The energized particle beam surges out, tearing the first small ship to tiny pieces. Two more ships follow it before the others pull to the side, where the missiles patiently wait. Explosions blast another four fighters into slag, but the rest keep coming.

A volley of dumb missiles fire into their formation as Gelly cuts power to the main cannon. He fires more guided missiles after them, hoping to surprise the so far predictable enemy.

The enemy formation scatters, ships spreading out to make harder targets. Without mine fields to stop them, they push closer to the ship.

"Turrets get ready, they'll be your problem soon," Tollek says, keeping a close eye on the battle.

Three more get destroyed by missile fire before they are too close to safely target. Gelly alters the flow of power, increasing the shields around the front and back of the Resurgent, but weakening it around the top and bottom. The turrets will be more exposed, but less of their ammo will be wasted.

The small craft burst apart under the close-range fire from the turrets. Despite their losses they keep coming, and even manage to score a few superficial hits. Soon the swarm is thick around them.

Briefly powering the cannon back on causes the small fighters to pull back even without firing the massive particle beam. A trick that will only work once, but it buys the turret operators more time to defend the cruiser.

Picking them off slowly, soon only five enemy ships are left, though the much larger vessel has kept out of combat range completely.

"Go ahead Bella, this is the best chance you're likely to get," Jim says into his pick-up. The bay door opens in response and Springkick exits on full jets.

Jim orders the turret operators to hold their fire while Bella tests her new toy. The additional kinetic projectiles from Springkick are able to act as a mobile turret, moving seperately from the Resurgent to attack enemies grown used to the limited firing ranges of the swivel guns mounted to the hull of the heavily armored cruiser.

The enemy fighter have fast reflexes, observes Gelly silently. They score several consecutive hits on Bella's craft but are unable to penetrate the dense armor. The Springkick chases the last of them back into the upper turret operators range before heading back to the hangar bay. Scorched armor still glows hot from enemy weapons as they exit the battered shuttle.

After Jim congratulates her over the speaker system, Gelly reports the damages to his cousin. "We took a few hits, nothin' too bad, but the armor'll need looked at soon. Missiles are low, but we still have plenty 'o energy left. If you want to chase 'em, Tully can get the engines back online pretty fast."

"How did the shields hold up?" Jim stands and stretches while he waits for a response.

"They're fine, blew a couple more resistor banks, but we can fix that while we catch up to the mother ship," Gelly says, getting up from his own chair. "Tully's gonna need me help, though. Resistors wasn't the only thing we blew."

"Scan the remains. I want to know if there really is a deathworld in this sector," Tollek orders as he climbs down to his suite.

"Yes sir," Kali calls after him, already running the scans he wants.