by Doc 42 » Mon Nov 09, 2009 11:10 pm
The Exo ship left hyperspace, its engines at low power, skimming the craft through space. Around 250 kilometres behind it, the other ship's in the makeshift fleet dropped from hyper space as well, flanking the old military ship.
The ship's small crew worked furiously in the bridge, holo screen's and televisions surrounding each member, throwing out data. The captain watched the two blips marking the contact's they had picked up earlier. They had gone cold. They must have picked up the sensor rays their probe had let off and gone into passive mode to avoid being detected. Strangely, it comforted the captain some what. From what he knew, those two cruisers had them out ranged, out gunned and out manoeuvred. The drones were trying to perform a text book hyperspace fast intercept. Rather than focus on destroying the six ships, they were trying to halt their progress and pull them from Hyperspace. Obviously, it was working. They couldn't risk using hyper space while the drones were so close. The Jr-10's were simply slowing them down long enough for the heavy hitters to ensure escape was impossible. As little chance of survival there was, it was always reassuring to know just how the enemy planned to slaughter you.
It was more reassuring, however, to know that you were going to work against logic, and make it even easier for them to kill you, and to know that even though your sealing your own demise, it will disrupt the enemies plans just as much as needed, but most reassuring of all, was a glorious death. It was an ideal long forgotten by the Marican war movement. The idea of dying for one's beliefs had always been considered largely inferior to living for one's beliefs. He disagreed. Too many captains relied on their replaceable drones to make the sacrifices. Sacrifice, was for the living, and he intended to reclaim it's forgotten glory.
For the past month, since Maricas, along with its star and entire nation collapsed, he had been hiding from the machines. They all had. They sometimes fought long and hard against the drones they once considered their own, but in the end, the chance of escape was their only true motive. Many tried to remain optimistic, and many other would-be leader's tried to use their survival as undeniable proof of their spirit, their ability to defy all odds. But for Captain Pintelleton of the decommissioned Exo ship Freedom 1, it was a stark wake up call to what they had become. For the first time in his life, he was ashamed to be a Marican captain. He had seen the drones do amazing things. A Jr-10 flinging itself into the line of fire, giving a crippled harbringer the time it needed to retreat away from attack, the cruiser being ripped apart itself moments after it's ally had escaped. But these were machines, there was no passion behind it, it was simply cold logic. The Harbringer was more important than the Jr-10, so the Jr-10 sacrificed itself without a thought, for the cause. It was that incident in particular which drove him on now. He left that battle, with actual respect for the obliterated cruiser. He had replayed the ship's destruction nearly 10 times on his personal recorder, watching as shell after shell crashed into through its thin armour, blowing it apart piece by piece. It disgusted him. How had they let this happen? How had they given the responsibility of sacrifice over to the machines? Pintelleton was convinced that he was one of the few who recognised what had become of the Marican war movement, that machine's had become the true warriors of space combat, and the human's only their... weak... controllers. For this reason, he had decided he was going to rectify the mistake of so many others. He was going to win back the concept of glory from the machines. He was going to be die with honour, and he was probably going to enjoy it.

"
**** off TT"-Doc 42
Trophy art by CompyScavangerSlow Posters Club