Trouble in deep space
In Captain Lyndon's experience when things went wrong, they'd either go slightly or very, very, very wrong. Flight #223123 in the Heamo system, day #3 was the perfect example of that latter possibility.
The Heamo system was famous for two things: the phenomena that disrupted and disturbed navigation systems as well as surveillance systems and the sheer amount of suns it possessed. It was no bigger than any other star system, yet had nearly twice the amount of the average one. Naturally, should some fur find a way to get around the system disruption, it was ripe for resource and energy harvesting. That was why Cpt. Lyndon had been deployed there, so that the scientists on board could do their job and figure out the source of the disruptions. Normally, the gray muzzle wouldn't have allowed fancy blue coats on his ship, but if the Federation of Earth told you to do something, you did it.
Unfortunately, the nature of the mission meant that the non-science crew had nothing to do. Cpt. Lyndon slouched in the bridge, looking out at a close by sun. Heamo 30 it was designated and even though it's name was basic and plain, something about the sun itself wasn't.
"Sun gazing again, Captain?" The Quartermaster's voice came.
"Can you blame me, Corr? It reminds me of Earth's." Lyndon shrugged, turning his attention to the sleek furred feline at his side.
She, Sarah Corr, had fur coloured like daisies and eyes the same shade. Though she was a purebred snowshoe, no fur found it easy to identify that; her visage and body were longer, more stretched out than average making it difficult to tell. Her ears were taller and her fingers slender; it was a startling look to most, which is why she made an excellent Quartermaster.
"We'll get to see our home again soon at least. The Federation may not like us flying through their space, but every bit of data the blue coats get has to be dropped off on Earth." Corr reminded him.
"Couldn't we pass by the planet, stick them in a pod and drop them on the surface?" Lyndon joked.
Frowning, Corr spoke in her usually stoic voice:
"The Federation would take that as an act of war and we're not the ship to be taking on the Federation. Especially not a core region."
"It sounds like you've planned for that war."
"Not me, our very own resident Battlemaster. You know how paranoid he gets."
The two chuckled together, if Corr ever showed any emotion it was on the off occasion she found the opportunity to crack a joke. Silence hung over them before Lyndon sighed.
"Let's not relapse, eh? What did you come up here for, Major?" The wolf questioned her.
"I wanted to show you the report."
A hardlight tablet was handed over to him, it displayed Maj. Corr's decisions for food distribution and the actual stocks. By the looks of things, some fur had taken a midnight snack a couple of times and an afternoon one too by the looks of it. Corr could pick out the discrepancies and had the brains to hypothesize accurately, Corr never made mistakes in her planning after all. Regardless, she explained:
"We're down twenty one meal packets. I'd say it's the blue coats, they don't know that lunch isn't a thing here and seeing as how we've been on this mission for three days... Three times seven does equal twenty one."
"It's not kind to accuse our guests, but go and speak to them about it anyway. If they say they're not to be disturbed tell them if they can conduct their research outside of my hull."
"Right away, Captain."
With that, the Quartermaster took her leave allowing Lyndon to breathe easy once again. But only for a couple of seconds.
"Who'd have thought that our Captain was in love?"
That was their own resident prankster, the Head of Weaponry Major Carrigan. Sure he caused trouble around the ship, but The Rebut had never seen such an efficient head. Previously there would have been two Heads of Weaponry, one responsible for firing them and one for maintaining, but Carrigan was skillful enough to do both at the same time. His co-ordination with the Battlemaster's planning would bring Battleships down like they were Scouts fresh out the shipyard and for that his shenanigans were overlooked. Though that didn't mean the Captain wouldn't jab back.
"So, peeping-toms are really a thing huh?" Lyndon jested at the second cat who slinked in the shadows.
"Not really peeping if I was only listening." The tom-cat shrugged. "Besides, Elliot-"
"That's Cpt. Lyndon to you." The wolf injected.
"Fine. Cpt. Lyndon, I was just here to give you a run through on the Battlemaster's new gun arrangements."
"Start right away."
Leaning over the wolf's chair, to antagonise him, Maj. Carrigan rested his tablet on the interface and a projection of the ship appeared. He spun it to an aerial view, then zoomed in on the front.
"Four ion cannons. MKIII of course, I sold the old ones and did a couple of things for a contact to get my claws on these. They'll charge faster, disrupt more and disable for longer and with the sheer amount of them we could lock down your average ship in a couple of minutes."
"Ion cannons are great and all, but if I remember right we used to have laser cannons there. You know, the weapons that can actually kill?"
"I don't need that sass, Sir. We had them melted down to make..." Carrigan fumbeled with the screen some more, dragging it up to show a large, dangerous look weapon. "This!"
The weapon in question was undoubtedly a Lance Artillery. It was a terrifying design, a single barrel adorned by two prongs running adjacent to it. Neither Carrigan, the Battlemaster Col. Orlon or Lyndon had seen this thing in action before, only the blueprints that had been peddled to them a while back in a bazaar.
"I'm impressed. I imagine that Orlon's plan is to just stun a ship then slice it in half with the Lance?"
"He wouldn't say." Carrigan shrugged. "The bomb drones on the side of the ship are still there and we've stocked them all, engineering just finished checking them. Do we have your permission to install these changes?"
"Why are you even asking, Carrigan? You've already told me that you sold the weapons and I sure as hell hope you installed the new ones."
"We have! Sort of..."
"Carrigan." Came the Captain's growl. "What haven't you installed?"
"Look... I just wanted to play with the Lance, it's never been fired before and I was curious how it worked so we've only just started installing it-"
"Carrigan!! We're in the middle of a pirate zone and you decided to leave us defenseless?!" The Captain shouted.
"We haven't seen any life for days! We're not in any danger. Besides, you wouldn't have let every pilot go and relax in the canteen at once if you thought there was any risk."
The Captain backed down into his seat and waved his paw to dismiss Carrigan.
"Just... get your installations finished."
"Will do, Captain."
"And Carrigan?" Lyndon hollered after him.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Tell the pilots that they did a good job plotting this course, who'd have thought we could have sat in an asteroid field and gone so long without a single bump.."
The sounds of the metal automatic doors screeched through the room and Carrigan's pawsteps faded off down the hallway. Now he was alone. He melted back into his daydream, staring at the sun some more. In no time, he'd drifted off.
Lyndon awoke to the sounds of a large explosion, followed by the sudden blaring of alarms.
"Sir!"
The doors opened.
It was no fur special, a handful of rookie pilots all sprinting to their stations. One in particular, Recruit Becket, came sprinting over and shook the wolf awake.
"Sir! What's wrong? What happened! You didn't move the ship!"
BAROOOM!
The sounds of a second explosion echoed from further back and more alarms blared, the thrusters had been damaged.
"What do you mean?" Lyndon groaned, rubbing his forehead.
"Carrigan shouted for you to get out of the way over the comms, what happened, are they jammed?"
Around the two, pilots scrambled to their stations and struggled to stop the ship from drifting away. More explosions littered the hull, asteroids undoubtedly. In the background the sounds of bomb drones being scrambled to defend the ship from the asteroids could be heard.
"Why were you asleep?"
"That doesn't matter, just get to your station." Lyndon harshly brushed the recruit off and gave him a push on the shoulder. "I'm fine."
Becket hurried off.
"Can somefur update me?"
"A raider ship attacked us with stun weapons, K.O'ed the scanners the moment they came out of their wormhole. Carrigan's dead, the raiders rammed us and I can only presume he got knocked off." Lt. Harrier spoke.
The wolf's heart panged a little, Harrier had always been the type of hare to sugarcoat things. Without a doubt, Lt. Harrier knew that the ship's captain had been sleeping and that Carrigan was either dead or dying.
"Right. We have our ions, let's try-"
THUNK!
THUNK, THUNK, THUNK...
Metallic clangs interrupted Lyndon as something attached to the hull. It was one of three things, breaching drones, bombs or the ship itself. With their scanners down they weren't finding out anytime soon.
"Some fur get Orlon on the line! Our intercoms might work."
"I've already tried!" Some fur shouted back. "They're dead too!"
"Cheetah!" Lyndon pointed at a recruit practically wetting himself at his control panel. "Run like hell to the weapons and tell them to fire everything we have whilst we try and put some distance between us and those guys!"
At the drop of a penny, the cheetah was sprinting off.
"Harrier, what are the thrusters like?"
"Main four are offline because of the asteroids that just hit, we can't make a jump. Worse yet if we did jump we'd only ram right into that sun. Our stabilizers are gone too, though they're only disabled so with some time they'll be back on."
The roof began sizzling.
"What about the secondaries?"
"Fully operational! But, if we use them now we won't have any control over where we go. We should wait until we spin into a good position then fire them."
The breaching drones were halfway done, a couple of recruits had readied their blasters and were aiming at the three holes being cut in the roof.
"Captain! Their ship is coming into view." A pilot at the front of the command centre bellowed.
As they helplessly floated around, the raider's vessel was revealed. Black plated with the typical blood red raider markings (the war wounds of the ship just covered up with pigment), Battleship class and judging from the amount of red paint plastered over its body a seasoned veteran. Like all battleships, it was strong and well armoured, but slow and vulnerable in the right places. But without real weapons what could they do? Even if they got lucky and hit the O2 generators with ion it wouldn't help much. But not much was better than not at all.
Lyndon gave the order fast and the cadets in charge of the weapons took aim, how shocked the raiders were about to be when they discovered that the tiny frigate class with little more than 50 men could fight back. They managed to fire of a few charges, striking the ship in multiple places and at least bringing down their hanger's shields for a couple of seconds, though at first glance no fur was torn out into the cold grasp of space.
"Hardly any effect, sir!" Some fur reported.
"I can see that. Put some distance between us and that ship, use anything we've got to get away!"
"Sir! That'll put us back in the asteroid belt, there's no telling what the debris will do to us!"
"It's that or be boarded by an entire Battleship! Do it."
The ship lurched forwards as a pilot activated the secondary engines, boosting them away from the raiders and into an asteroid belt. No fur had to wait to see the consequences, a large asteroid struck the ship breaking apart on the hull, but speeding up its course. A fair few more hit the hull, presumably denting and scratching her as she drifted helplessly.
"Sir! We're heading straight for the sun!"
"Fuck..." Lyndon muttered under his breath.
They hardly had any choice.
"Shut it all down!" Lyndon bellowed, fumbling to scramble what data the ship carried and more importantly the star maps.
The rest of the crew followed suite, locking down systems and encrypting what they could as the breaching drones finally cut through the hull.
"Everyfur out! Now!"
Anyfur who had been with the Captain through at least one raid knew what that really meant, anyfur not proficient with a blaster leave and everyfur who is stay and fight. Most scrambled, leaving Lyndon, Becket, Harrier and two others.
Lyndon took a position at the doorway, Harrier on the other side of the mentioned doorway with Becket at the Captain's chair using it as cover and the two recruits leaning against the shutters to get the drop on them.
"What are your names, sons?" Harrier spoke to the two lions whom he presumed were brothers, aiming his blaster at the closest breach.
"Private Adams and Private Adams, Sir."
"Your actual names, not your ship names. Supposed to help a man remember who he is when he crosses over if he thinks about his name when he dies."
"We're not going to die you superstitious old rabbit. Should we hold your paws?" Lyndon chuckled.
Before Harrier or the lion brothers could reply, canisters were suddenly dropped through the breaches. They exploded into a cloud of smoke and gunfire as the Adams twins panicked. Plasma was sent flying towards Lyndon and Harrier, the two jerked to the side narrowly escaping having a hole blown through them.
"Watch your fire!"
It sounded as if the gunfire had intensified, but after those brief few seconds the Adams brothers held their fire.
Lyndon snuck a peek around the corner, only to the find both of them slouched against their cover with holes littering them.
"Shit! Becket, get over here!" The slim panther hurried for the door as Harrier prepared to lock it.
A shot clipped the side of Harrier's leg, causing him to cry out and dive for safety. The door slammed shut behind him.
"Can you walk?" Harrier glanced over his shoulder as he locked the door.
"Barely." Becket got to his feet. "I dropped my rifle."
"It's fine, we can't have you fighting with that injury." Lyndon got the panther's arm around his shoulder and helped him hurry down the corridor. "Let's get to the medbay, we need to make sure the blue coats are still in one piece."
"Understood." Harrier hurried ahead, rifle raised.
"Be careful though. We don't know where they breached from, they could be anywhere."
The trio moved through the corridors as fast as they could, knowing that the raiders wouldn't be held back by a door for very long. As they went they closed, locked and fried each door they passed. Even seconds were precious now.
"Doc!" Lyndon called out as they approached the medbay.
The doors opened for them and they were ushered inside by the resident surgeon: Dr. Ramsway.
"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" The fennec grunted, clearly sleep-deprived yet again. "Here to add to my patient count?"
"Sorry. Becket here got clipped on his leg."
Ramsway took over from Lyndon as he guided the panther to a bed, being careful not to let the patient see the missing chunk of his leg.
"A handful of minutes in a restoration chamber should do the trick, we don't have time to just wait for him to get better."
As Becket was sedated and laid down in one of Dr. Ramsways's personally designed chambers that promoted cell growth and healing, Harrier and Lyndon hurried to the Doctor's console that monitored the life signatures of the crew. There were only 6 remaining pulse rates, Ramsways, Becket's, Lyndon, Harrier's and the other residents of the medical bay: Recruit Hope and Corporal Gladison.
"Don't bother with that, it malfunctioned when our sensors went down. There's no way of telling who's alive or dead on this ship until the sensors are brought back online."
"What makes you say that, if it was really broken we wouldn't be alive on the screen."
"Internal power grid for the medical bay. They may have hit the normal generators but the backups and medical bay are harder targets. Our sensors in here are still up."
"You can tell I spend too much time on the bridge, can't you?" Lyndon rested on the end of an unoccupied bed. "Any of these patients engineers?"
"Gladison." Ramsway motioned towards the monkey who was currently recovering from a disease that they'd picked up from one of the blue coats. "He's clear now, I was just letting him his strength back. Seems as if he hasn't got time for that now."
The fennec came to Gladison's chamberside and punched in a code, the glass case slid open and the spider monkey gasped for breath. Normally it would take the patients a few minutes to recover and gather up their surroundings, but Lyndon couldn't waste any time.
"Corporal, can you reroute the power from all other systems to the sensors around the ship?"
He was dazed and stared right into the wolf's eyes for a moment before nodding slowly, it appeared his speech hadn't come back to him just yet. Lyndon helped the monkey out of the bed and into his jumpsuit, the patient garbs wouldn't offer him any protection if he happened to come under fire.
"Where are the bluecoats?" Harrier asked.
"They went to conduct some tests in their rooms, though by now I imagine they've gone and got themselves caught." The fennec didn't sound too bothered. ."As much as I care about them we have more pressing matters."
Lyndon, Harrier and the doctor formulated a plan as Gladison brought his wits about him and Recruit Hope the bengal tiger was awoken.
"To recap Harrier will stay here with the Doctor and Becket. I'll take Gladison and Hope down to the power systems, reroute the power in the backups to the sensors and the communications, then you'll be able to detect who's still alive. Using the comms and sensors, Ramsway will guide Harrier and I around the ship rescuing anyfur who's still kicking and giving us the home advantage over those raiders whilst you two keep the power systems protected."
Lyndon found himself repeating the plan to Gladison and Hope with a hushed voice as they closed in on the power systems. They were on the lowest deck of the ship and with the elevators down, the three found themselves prying open to the doors to climb down onto the maintenance ladders then into the vents to avoid the raiders flooding the bottom deck. From the looks of things, they were there for the cargo.
At least twenty odd raiders moved back and forth between a landing ship and the storage bays, robbing scientific equipment, food supplies and whatever else they could find.
"Bastards..." Lyndon cussed under his breath.
"Captain..." Hope gestured down to the wall of the storage bay.
Several members of the crew were lined up with their heads pressed to the cold metal and their forepaws behind theirs heads as if they were just waiting for the firing squad. Lyndon's mouth went dry as his eyes fell upon the lineup.
Lyndon could recall all of their names: Max Morrigan, Jamie Smith, Simon George, Valorio Long.... Ricard, Tara, Mila, Cathyrn, Sofia and finally Maj. Corr and the Battlemaster, Major Rex Orlon.
They were chained to the railing by their ankles and wrists, their fate was unclear. But the wolf assumed they were going to end up like the pile of bodies in the corner, all of them were apart of his crew with at least ten exceptions. Judging by their clothes they were raiders and judging by the fresh injuries covering Orlon, the rhino he was responsible.
"We can't do anything, if we try to help we'll end up like them. Let's keep going."
Though it was painful for all of them to turn their backs on their comrades, the three continued sneaking about their own ship until they dropped down into to the power systems. Fortunately for them the room was empty.
Lyndon took point on the door, Hope and Gladison working away at the systems quickly. Hope specialised in systems and Gladison in repairs, between the two of them this wasn't going to take a minute.
"They haven't damaged the systems." Hope reported. "We just need to restart a generator and only one. If we bring all the power back online they'll notice and shut us down again."
Gladison disappeared behind a metal door and Hope reassigned power to the sensors and communications, so that the shields or the lights wouldn't flash suspiciously. The monkey appeared from behind the door again after a minute or so of clanking.
"Done."
"I'm finished too." Hope breathed a sigh of relief and backed away from the computer. "Captain, try get a hold of the doctor through your earpiece for us."
Gladison and Lyndon swapped places, the wolf pressed the device in his ear softly and brought his spare wrist to his mouth.
"Dr. Ramsway, we brought the comms systems back online can you hear me?"
"Yes. Good going with that." The fennec's voice came through. "I've already sent Harrier off and I managed to reach the sensors."
"What? You were supposed to stay in the medbay!"
"We were compromised, a few raiders busted in. Becket's dead." Ramsway said coldly.
"Shit. What about you and Harrier?"
"Harrier got his ear shot and I got grazed by a few shots, but we can worry about that later. Get going, I can guide you towards to who's left."
"Where do I need to go?"
"The canteen. Every remaining crew member hunkered down in there, but Captain I should warn you about the rest-"
Lyndon flinched and interrupted the fox as he stepped out of the power systems, heading towards the canteen.
"I know, they're being held hostage in the cargo bay. Think we could rescue them?"
"Even if with the furs in the canteen, no. I count forty raiders stripping the lower decks clean and we don't even have fifteen."
"So that's it then? They're all going to be taken prisoner?"
"That's not our biggest problem. Our external sensors are showing severe damage to the hull, so much that a couple of shots will decimate us. Assuming we're not all cooked alive by the sun."
"Forgot about that."
"Stop. Two raiders."
Lyndon pressed against the wall, Ramsway spoke again.
"Fire, they're distracted."
The wolf turned the corner and fired off a shot, hitting the first raider square in the chest. The second was dead before he could even draw his weapon.
"Keep going."
"Do you have a plan? Normally I'd ask our battlemaster, but... You know." Lyndon gritted his teeth as he continued down the corridors.
"No. But with some luck the raiders will be leaving once they've taken all our cargo. If we can position ourselves in the crucial systems and prevent them from crippling us, we might stand a chance at escaping the sun once they're done with us. But we'd have to activate our warp drive before they fire their weapons."
"Let's get to it then."
Ramsway continued leading Lyndon through the ship, avoiding the patrols of raiders or shooting them dead. Those he killed he looted for their weapons then dragged into dark corners.
That day was just disaster after disaster, Lyndon wasn't surprised by the state of affairs in the canteen. The raiders obviously knew that the rest of the crew was hidden away in there judging by how a large group was clustered outside of the room firing at those hunkered down inside. A few shots came back, but by the looks of things the fight was a stalemate. It wouldn't be long before the raiders got bored of this game and did something drastic.
The wolf pressed up against the wall and judged the situation: four raiders (three leopards and a goat) were firing through holes in the walls, the group's leader (a wolf) commanded his men from cover whilst two more men (one an orca the other a lion) fired through the open door. There was no way Lyndon could take all of these men on his own.
"Dr, some advice?"
Bzzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzz!
Static crackled through his intercom. Some fur must have been using a jammer.
"Shit." Lyndon cussed under his breath.
The raiders were all busy taking shots, distracted; they wouldn't think that the shots came from behind them.
Peeking the corner, Lyndon took aim and fired a bullet into one of the leopard's back who staggered backwards before dropping onto the ground. The second and third leopards swore and aggressively shot back at those inside the canteen. Smirking, Lyndon took out the goat next. Only, his shot only clipped the caprine's body. Nevertheless it was enough to get him on the ground.
"Keep your head down!" A panther yelled and came rushing to help his friend. "Close the doors I'll get him to some proper cover."
The panther, dragging the goat, presented the perfect opportunity.
Unbuckling a grenade from his belt, Lyndon took aim and tossed it just as the orca, lion, goat and panther were grouped up. It clattered on the ground, eliciting a scream from the lion who attempted to dive away only to be caught in the explosion. Not wanting to watch the horror, Lyndon turned the corner to fire at the final panther who dropped just as easily as the first. The raider's commander caught sight of the wolf and turned tail fast.
"Hey!"
Lyndon gave chase, should the wolf reach the rest of his men they'd surely kill the hostages. His heart racing, Lydon sprinted around the corner and the chase was over in a second.
A furred fist knocked straight into his jaw. Lyndon went clattering to the floor, his blaster dropping out of his forepaw. The raider commander dived at Lyndon, bringing his own weapon to the wolf's head.
"Gotcha you son of a bitch!" He snarled. "I should kill you for that shitshow just then!"
Lyndon looked for an escape route, but his body was pinned under the other canine and the blaster to his head didn't exactly help much. Even if he could reach his own weapon he'd surely be shot dead before he could pull the trigger. All he had was his words.
"Aren't you going to take this ship's Captain hostage?" Lyndon spoke.
A smirk spread over the second wolf's face, he was clearly thrilled by the idea of turning a Federation ship captain over to slavers to make more coin than he ever could raiding.
"Roll over." He growled, leaning off slightly, but still prepared to kill Lyndon the instant he tried something.
Naturally, the Captain obeyed. Being taken hostage was better than dying.
"Crawl forwards. Don't care if it takes us an hour to get to the hangar, you're crawling all the way."
As humiliating as it was, Lyndon still did just what he was told. He tried to devise some sort of plan, maybe he'd be able to kick the wolf's head in or at least knock the gun from his hand. Or, maybe he could move towards a crew member who could save him.
Lyndon was lost deep in thought, he was only disturbed by the sound of a skull cracking. He froze up and shuddered as he heard the thump of a body falling on the ground.
"Captain!" A familiar voice called. "Get up, the raider's dead."
Rolling onto his back, Harrier's staunch look greeted him.
"Harrier..." Lyndon sighed in relief as he was helped to his paws. "Any progress with the blue coats?"
"Dead, executed I presume. Luckily everyfur in the canteen is still breathing. Two pilots, two gunners and an engineer. And the head of weaponry." For the first time in what must have been a year or more, Harrier smiled. "I sent them all to their respective posts, the pilots are ready to activate our hyper drive, the gunners are operating their weapons, the engineers have repaired the engines and Carrigan is mounting a rescue mission."
"Thank god he's alright, but he's going alone?!"
"No, not alone. We're going to back him up. He managed to get the lance online and all the remaining raiders are preparing to leave. Carrigan is going to plant a bomb on their ship then move to execute the hostages. That way we can trick the raiders."
"What are we doing?"
"Overwatching, if Carrigan gets into shit we'll bail him out."
The two split up at a fork, intending on watching from either side of the hangar. Lyndon arrived first and quickly took cover behind a pile of empty crates. It was impossible to tell who was Carrigan and who wasn't, that was until a masked raider started playing with his weapon. For an experienced, battle-hardened veteran you'd think that Drax has learnt to stop playing with loaded weapons.
Harrier appeared on the other side of the hangar and took a position on the walkway above.
The masked raider, Major Carrigan, continued lounging around until the second in command beckoned the raider party.
"We're all that's left, we need to leave!" They ordered. "Leave the prisoners, we'll blow the ship into oblivion when we're out of here."
That hadn't been a part of the plan. Nevertheless, Carrigan approached and boarded their landing ship undetected. Lyndon caught a glimpse of the detonator, the fool was going to blow the ship up with him still on board. Unless some fur made a distraction.
Diving out of cover, the wolf fired a shot into the cat's leg causing him to stumble off of the craft. Carrigan landed on his side next to the ship, cradled his leg for a few seconds before pretending to pass out. They were lucky that the raiders didn't believe in leaving no man behind. The feline was smart enough to play dead as the remaining raiders scrambled onto their landing craft at the commander's orders; there was no point in staying to fight. Lyndon happily let them escape.
Just as the ship was past the barrier, the downed raider jerked up and slammed a finger down on the detonator. There was a short delay, after which the ship was consumed by a violent explosion. At the same moment the sounds of the guns could be heard as a volley of ion disabled the raider's battleship. The pulses were followed by a roaring blast as the ship's newly installed lance devastated the raiders.
"Oh yeah! We cut a hole right through their engines!" A gunner cheered over the comms.
"Let's run then!" A pilot continued. "The engines have enough juice to put us back in Federation territory, permission to warp?"
"Warp!"
The normal, nauseous feeling washed over Lyndon as the ship was propelled forwards away from the sun and the raider's weapons.
But, Lyndon couldn't celebrate just yet.
Harrier dropped down from the walkway, rushing over to Carrigan.
"Captain! Go help the hostages out of their bindings."
Lyndon hurried over to the other side of the hangar to Major. Corr, Colonel Orlon and the second in command Major George. They were bound by primitive means, simple chains holding their forepaws or hands above their heads and their hooves or paws to the steel below them. One bullet on the chains freed them, they set about ungagging themselves.
"That was impressive." Maj. George, a marble fox, smiled. "A wonderful victory."
"That was no victory." Orlon snarled, angrily kicking the wall. "Half our men are dead, our ship is ready to fall apart, nearly every head of command has been slaughtered and all our supplies have been looted! All of us almost died."
"Calm it, Orlon." Corr sighed. "Yes, this is the worst we've suffered in a long time but at least we made it through. I'll go see if there's anything they left us with."
"Fine." The rhino snorted. "I'd best ressagin every fur."
"I'll attend to the dead and prepare proper burials for them all as well as their writs and the mail for the deceased's families." The marble fox bowed a little before scurrying off to the medical bay.
Harrier escorted Carrigan to the medbay and the other hostages, although they were shook to their cores, trotted off to try and help where they could.
Lyndon slouched against the wall and tried to stop himself from shaking. He had such terrible guilt on his shoulders. All of this could have been avoided, it was all his fault.