STAR WARS: Fugitive

Chapter 45

Chapter 45

Something's changed... ...I can sense it... ...coming from the dreadnaught, thought the Zeltron. He grimaced as the ship shook with another explosion and new alarms came in.

Peri twisted the joystick control to bank the yacht back beneath the belly of the barreling trajectory of the dreadnaught as the Zeltron muted the cockpit comlink, "I think she's gonna make it..." said the Zeltron quietly.

"Why? What happened?" Peri asked anxiously.

"There's a lot of surprise all of a sudden coming from that thing," replied the Zeltron indicating the dreadnaught with his stub.

"We've got three more fighters coming in at zero-seven-zero," called out Twizz.

"Window check, Fifty-three..." Bli chimed in.

"Extraction window calculation: thirty-two seconds remaining," responded HK53.

"Better let them know," said Peri flipping the cockpit comlink back on.

"Yeah.... Hey, something just changed aboard the dreadnaught; not sure what, but I think she's gonna make it!"

"That's great!" called Twizz, "I think Extoo's about figured out these deflector shields; I'll leave him to ready the airlock.

Another explosion shook the hull.

"No Wait!" shouted Peri, "We just took damage to our sublight engines! We're going to start losing speed real fast!"

"I see it!" shouted back Twizz.

"So we're going to be sitting ducks?"

"No, we just... ...won't be able to bank to starboard effectively anymore, but those fighters seem to have figured out what they're..."

"We'll be sitting ducks very soon!"

"...yeah!"

"Whaddya mean you can't get it back!?" bellowed the admiral as he floated closer to the bridge's main viewport, trying to pay attention to everything at once. He felt himself beginning to lose control of his temper, which annoyed him even more.

"Sir, I'm locked out of my terminal! The console is telling me I no longer have authorization!" responded the junior officer floating in the air clinging to his console.

"Same here, sir!" called out Tactical station.

"Here as well, sir!" added Navigation.

"Sir," called out Lieutenant Kett, "All stations are out of our control. Recommend the call to abandon ship."

"Sir," called out the chief at Combat Systems, "we can't abandon ship: I'm just now receiving cascading indications of escape pod launches... ...all of them, sir!"

The admiral spun around in the air gazing back into space and watched as the bridge pods made their departure, and then as pods from other levels gradually joined them.

"Helm! How's our trajectory?"

"Sir, she's starting to spiral very gradually it's impossible to..."

"Kett, you have the Con! I'm not losing this ship!" shouted the admiral as he propelled himself toward the entry hatch.

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"Admiral, Sir!" shouted the Combat Systems Chief. The admiral caught himself against the bulkhead next to the hatch.