Honour Duel: a story

[verbosity]

It's a bit silly having the story split into parts, so I'm moving it here:



Al's bar was quiet at this time of evening, the lights were low, and the only occupants at the bar were a few stragglers slowly drinking their sorrows away. Verbosity stood at the bar talking shampoo and bloodwine with Al as the news muttered the nights business reports on the viewscreen above the bar. At that point Eclipse walked into the bar, making stright for the bar and ordering a beer.
"I'm surprised you still let that scum into the bar al" mutters Eclipse shrugging in verbs direction.
"you looking for a fight?" verb replies turning to face Eclipse " you know where my ship is."
Eclipse turned back toward the bar " Ha, you wouldn't be so loud if it was BraveHart, you can challenge him - he's on his way here now..."

A few minutes later Yoda walked into the bar, meeting Verb face to face.
" A challenge old man, for the honour of your Clan"
" Where did this come from?" asks yoda
" you should be more careful who you let speak for you" replied verb pointing in Eclipses direction, " and I'm in a fighting mood anyway".
"Very well, if you want to meet your fate! tomorrow, in pearl at dawn!"
"I hope your insurance is up to date old man, now let us drink and be merry, for tomorrow one of us dies".....

Ice crystals floated around the station like a fleeting mist before dawn, BreaveHart ran one last check over his systems, Part of him relished the calm before battle, but he could feel the stress building, but that was also good, it gave him his edge. Tapping on his coms he muttered "will he arrive or has he lost his nerve?".
At that a small energy flicker near one of the outer station constructs as verbosity decloacked, " I've been waiting for you old man I hope you're ready."

BraveHarts hand flicked once again towards his comm, but as he did he noticed a strange shadow pass briefly across the cockpit glass, " A vonari fighter, here"
" It's a bomber" came verbs voice over the comms "They haven't entered Alliance space since the conflict, We should check this out"
BraveHart and verbosity both hit their afterburners after the alien craft, Traveling at high speeed they slowly gained on the enemy craft until further shadows darkened their view.....


Even at This early hour Al's was packed, The place was known as the place to watch such honour duels as was going on at that moment, and the bar was packed - even the klingons had turned up to watch this battle between two pilots who had held at bay their invasion of the sector for so long. Shewter ordered another shampoo and turned to Vice
" We have to do something about these honour duels, here are two of our best pilots about to destroy each other. Our clans have had an uneasy history, but we have stood together to defend evochron too many times to allow ourselves to destroy each other."
"I agree," replied Vice " but pilots understand honour almost as well as those Klingons, and ego is part of being a pilot. With no common enemy, its human nature that we will fragment and fall into conflict with ourselves."
"We managed to leave our home planet, reach out to the stars and survive, yet we're still trapped by our basic animal nature" muttered Shewter as he turned back to his drink.
Back at the bar Al was tuning the view screen in to the alliance
network for pearl station, there onscreen was Bravehart, seconds later verbosity appears. The bar once nosiy, became deathly quiet.

and the viewscreen collapses into static....

"long range comms are out"Shouted verb, almost frantic " I can't even reach the station!".
"stay calm" responded BraveHart "How many to you count?"
" 3 capital ships, a wing of bombers and 2 other wings of mixed interceptors and fighters, They are heading for the Arvoch station!" said verb, gathering himself for what seemed like an impossible battle..
"Its revenge, for the conflict, And we are all that stand in their way. I've got a bunch of exodus missiles and a couple of leeches, what about you?" BraveHart knew as he said this that it may not be enough
"6 Exodus and 1 Stealth, what are you thinking?" Verb said making some minor adjustments.

They were staying on the edge of sensor range, but the Vonari weren't breaking formation, and were making their way slowly toward Arvoch command.

"We can't engage them head-on, there are to many, if we use hit and run tactics we should be able to concentrate fire on one capital at a time" braveHart suggested.
Verb agreed " if we can damage or take out 2 of those capitals it might force them to retreat"
But verb knew this was unlikely, never once had he seen a vonari craft retreat. Even when heavily damaged they still fought on...
" Hit and run is dangerous, but its the best chance we've got."
"Well we both know what to do, You've got stealth, get in postion and disable the lead ship on my mark - we'll repeat jump as long as we can before retreating"
part of BraveHart wondered if they would make it out of this alive, but part of him didn't care, if they didn't hold of this attack all of Evochron, all of humanity, could fall.

Verb stealthed and moved into position just underneath the belly of the giant Alien ship, He knew that not only was timing critical, but if his aim of position were only a little off then the ships weapons would not be disabled, and he and BraveHart would quickly become scrap. Once disabled, he and Brave would be able to jump in front of the ship and crusing on inertial be able to unload their guns before once again jumping in front of the ship. It was a daring plan, both the other Vonari capitals would be unable to attack without hitting thier lead ship. the smaller craft would have no such trouble, but the repeated jumping would keep them offguard and scrambling for the humans current positions.

Verb held his breath as the timer slid to zero. as he unstealthed and let of the missile he could see the warp effect of Brave coming into the fray. He let off his afterburners and scrambled to get into the right heading to start his own run. it worked perfectly, The fighters, unable to organise in time were in disarray, and the ships shields slid to nothing and the ship started taking damage.

" This babys going down" shouted BraveHart " and the Fighters are pulling backK"

"that doesn't make sense, vonari don't retreat" replied Verb.

Just as the capital ship started to festruct from the final shots a warning flared on BraveHarts screens " that why, They have Fulcrums!". BraveHart Hit his afterburners, narrowly escaping the full brunt of the blast, though taking damage to both his shields and navigation array. "I'm out, my navs gone, I have to retreat till I'm repared". There was no reply....



Verb checked his systems, comms out, major hull damage, weapons and engines were on minimal and his shields were down. The navigations system was undamaged, and he could see BraveHart streaking out of range.
" At least one of us will survive" he noted as he spotted a wing of 5 interceptors on their way to him. Luckily he was on inertial, but only at 600mps. Switching his power bias to full shields he did the maths. The vonari would be in weapons range in around 15 seconds,his Weapons and engines would be around 20% percent functional by then.
At a range of 2 kilometers the vonari released their first volley of missiles, and verb responded with a series of Counter measures. Verb knew they he would likely be out of CM's soon, but without being able to rely on his weapons to shoot the missiles it was his only option.
Another flurry at 1k, once taken down he was down to under 50 cm's, But now was the time. Turning to face the vonari attackers he turned of the inertial and set his thrusters to full, at 500 he started shooting at the lead Vonari, more hoping to take out any more missiles than anything else. The lead Vonari ship headed at him, as it hit 100 meters away Verb held his breath and pressed the button tolet of an exodus.
His luck held, The vonari craft, its frontal shield having already taken damage from the sporadic energy weapons fired by verb, took the missile head on.
Flying through the fireball that was once the enemy ship Verb watch the wing split into two. Verb turned toward the nearest ship and started shooting. Part of him was aware of his systems gradually recovering, but his full concentration was on this new target. Another missile fired off and another hit. As the other two ships gained a lock behind him verb let off another volley of cm's to counter the missiles than would inevtibly follow he streaked after his target. he let off another missile, but it was turned aside by a vonari countermeasure.
A burst of his now operational afterburners allowed him to get close enough to see into the cockpit of his enemy as it burst into flames. " 2 more ships to go" he thought. More missiles, more CM's, Verb was now down to his last 10 countermeasures. He turned and streaked toward his would be attackers, and swiftly dispatched them. Checking his Hud he could see another wing on their way. Let them come he thought. Finally he heard a squawk, His comms was back online. "BraveHart! Thank god! Whats your position?"

BraveHart appeared on verbosities hud " Nice to see youre still alive, We might get that duel yet, how're you doing?" he queried.
" major hull damage,2 missiles, only 10cm's left though. Rest rest of my systems are almost recovered" verb replied "yourself?"
" the Fulcrum took out my navigational array, its only just back, thats why it took me so long to try and find you. Otherwise I'm fine"
The Vonari wing was fast approaching.
" have you got a location on one of the capitals BraveHart?" asked verb
" Yes its already logged in" stated braveHart as the keyed the coordinates to Verb.
" lets jump in now, use your leech on it - it'll take These vonari a little time to return and give us a little breathing space.

The second vonari capital was not as easy as the first, it took both of BraveHarts leech missiles to disable its systems, and this time the other capital was able to take shots at the pilots. There was still a wing of Vonari craft near the ships, and this time they too were prepared.

" this is not going to be so easy!" shouted Verb into the comms.
" Dammit, if they are gonna take us down, were gonna make them hurt"
Both pilots were taking serious damage, and the Bombers they had left behind before were joining the fray now.
" Brave lets finsh this capital, if we use all our remaining exodus missiles we should be able to destroy it"
"agreed, lets do this"
One final run, both pilots let off their missiles, and took out the capital ship, but the bombers and interceptors were ready for them this time, a barrage of energy fire and missiles streaked toward the pilots, both taking heavy damage..

" I'm out of CM's, my nav and engines are gone!"
" my engines are dead too, lets hope we did enough to give the station a chance".......


" you guys need a hand?" comes a voice over the comms

"Vice" shout both pilots at once as a flurry of green and yellow blips scattered across their radars.

"We were at Al's waiting your you two to blow each other to smithereens, when the inter-sector comms went down, We thought it was just Al's at first, till we got a notification from the Alliance. MM called in Vice and Shewter when he noticed the whole sector was silent. we thought we'd check to make sure you two hadn't destroyed the place" called out Shewter.

Verb and BraveHart watched as the fleet of Merc craft polished off the rest of the attackers. " you guys want a lift? " shouted Vice over the static of an exploding bomber. " sure, Thanks " said BraveHart.

"I hope this, means that you'll call of your honour duel?" asked Shewter.

" No way" shouted verb, "Though just to be safe maybe we'll have it in riftspace"

"Yeah, bacause its so much safer there" Laughed BraveHart .

The End......?


[Edited on 1-1-2009 by verbosity]

[Kiboney]

Nice!! Cant wait for more!

[verbosity]

Bump ^

[Edited on 1-1-2009 by verbosity]

[BraveHart]

Excellent story line Verb! I'd like to see you write more and have different scenarios with the pilots of Evochron....

[Lunaraia]

hey verb, nice story, think I can ave an apperance in the next one?


Btw we should make an intire section for stories, I bet there wouold be a load of em by the end of the week


[Edited on 1-1-2009 by Lunaraia]