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V2 Chapter 15: Stranded II
🕑 Added 2023-01-24 15:00:04 +0000 UTCIt was a bit of a conundrum. They're in a formation, so if Sevs had them leave, the other ships would surely be wondering what was going on. He also didn't just broadcast out a message without having it be at least known to the rest of the Tarlaki that he was sending a message using their ship. That would be quite suspicious.
The risk was the other ships all around him would start firing at them. He wasn't sure about ship capabilities here, but the concentrated fire of all the ships would likely cause significant damage. He kept studying the map that Soshal had displayed on the screen. He started to be able to make out the indicators of what kinds of ships they were. He couldn't read exact details, but he could tell what they were by their icons.
The Tarlaki heavily relied on carrier ships. They did have some light scout vessels and some heavier destroyers, but most were some sort of carriers with an accompaniment of attack vessels. The humans, on the other hand, had a lot more heavy ships and light ships but not too many carriers. Sevs wasn't entirely sure why that was the case. It might have something to do with how many players wanted to be a pilot.
That would be odd, as he would normally expect a lot of players to become pilots. It just as well could be because of the way the system is integrated. The people here didn't tend to lean toward that, as one had to spend several years as a foot soldier first. That was actually more like a flaw in humanity's leadership than it was an inherent system property.
As expected, they had landed in one of the carrier ships. Sevs took a look at the weapons and realized they weren't that powerful. They were mostly designed to keep enemy fighters away rather than to take down a large ship. They also had decent shielding. It made sense the job of the carrier was to get towards the edge of the battles then, launch their fighters and then be there when the fighters returned. Its best weapons were the fighters and its defenses, the distance it could maintain while still inflicting damage as the ships went out by themselves.
On the downside, though, they couldn't necessarily move as fast at sub-light speeds. They didn't need to. Why would they? Mostly they just had to stay still enough for fighters to take off and land.
"I locked down the hanger so no ships could leave. A few of the remaining fighters had tried to take off, but I figured we shouldn't let them." Soshal said.
"Good thinking. I assume that because we haven't been fired on yet they're the comms on the ships inside here weren't able to work?" Sevs responded.
"It looks like it." Soshal agreed. "On the downside, though, it also locked down ships returning. So we're on a bit of a timer after the next fighter tries to land."
That wasn't comforting news. Sevs did his best to speed up his thoughts and think of some sort of solution that could get them out of this in one piece. He was coming up blank, though. The only saving grace was that they weren't exactly in the center of the formation. They weren't on edge, but there was a destroyer right between them and the human fleets.
Sevs started to realize he was not playing to his strengths. Maybe in a previous run-through, his intelligence would have been high enough to carry him out of this, but as it is right now, he was a charisma based player. To his team, he said. "Suggestions. We need a brainstorm."
Jason was almost always the first to speak up in a time like this and now was no expectation. "We can charge out after the humans while firing on the ships around us."
Everyone looked at him for a half second before continuing on. "Hey! Let's get obvious out of the way. Besides, there are no wrong answers in a brainstorming session."
Carl spoke up from the lifts. "As much as I hate to admit it, Jason has a point. As soon as we do something to give ourselves away, we might as well start firing and running. I think we should consider if there are any actions we can take that don't immediately give us away."
The conversation paused as everyone considered Carl's words. Sevs saw another issue, though. "We don't know how loose those constraints are without trying anything. Besides getting closer to the humans or taking down ships around us, I don't see anything else that can help us."
Sevs paused, hoping that someone else would have a better idea. Bexy said, "Are we really going with Jason's idea?"
"Hey, just because I said it doesn't mean I like it!" Jason responded. Sevs nodded. He couldn't think of anything they could do covertly anymore that might actually help them. Arguably they were in a better position than they were in since the escape pods blew. "I think the time to stop sneaking has come. Soshal, get ready to give full power ahead to the humans. Jason, how's understanding the weapons going? Bexy, I want you to broadcast a message to the humans on every channel we have. No point in trying to keep it hush as they will know what's up pretty soon."
Soshal nodded, "Ready whenever. We aren't exactly fast, but we are not too slow, either. It could be worse."
"I'm not sure. I can manually take over one gun right now. I don't know if I can figure out how to auto-target what the ship designated as allies, though." Jason answered. Sevs nodded. "Carl, come to help Jason with the weapons."
That just left Robert guarding the doors. Sevs hoped that would be enough. He turned to Bexy, "Hold off until they figure it out or in a couple minutes."
She nodded. "I'm queuing them up right now. We should be able to catch our fleet's attention."
Now it would be up to what the admirals of the human fleet decided to do. Sevs figured if it was just a single squad, they wouldn't come back for them. That was their job, after all, to die so the majority of them could escape. But if Sevs and his men brought something more… Well, Sevs figured that they might do something different.
Carl and Jason looked up from where they had their heads together over a console. Jason shot Sevs a big grin and thumbs up. "We are good to go. We should damage the engines of the nearby ships before targeting their weapons. Then we will go after their fighters as they close in. Ready when you are the captain!"
Sev looked to Bexy and Soshal, both giving him the all-green signals. "Hold on tight. Punch it, Soshal."
Everyone gripped their chairs, and Robert grabbed a handrail with his free hand. Nothing happened. Soshal coughed, "I told you we weren't exactly fast."
Focusing, Sevs could feel them slowly accelerating but only just. He watched as their ship slowly started to move out of the formation. "Bexy, start transmitting."
Sevs figured they might get a little bit further before they were exposed, but he didn't want to risk the rest of the Tarlaki being able to turn off their transmission capabilities before they were able to get their message out. In the end, it all came down to the humans responding. If he and his team decided to try and jump to lightspeed, then they would probably lose the bridge eventually. As well as likely not being able to find their way back to humanity.
As soon as Bexy sent her queued-up messages, lights started flashing.
"We are receiving a lot of incoming transmissions. It seems that they didn't like that." Bexy warned. "I'm going to send it again."
Jason and Carl had got to work while all that was going down. There were only half a dozen of ships in range of their weapons, and they had charged up full blasts to stop them from pursuing. So far, their attack was working; the two nearest ships were caught off guard and now would not be able to move without extensive repairs. The other ships nearby were starting to turn to protect their engines from the commandeered ship, but they were slow.
They were nowhere in the clear. Sevs saw that the single layer of ships between was trying to block their path out. But their little bit of acceleration before everyone noticed seemed to give Soshal enough time to maneuver around them. The ship was rocking from the fire it was taking, but they were moving. Sevs was just hoping they would get enough momentum before they lost their engines too.
Thinking about what he could do to help, Sevs looked around. Then he heard a flurry of shots come from over by Robert's position.
