Friday, April 5, 2013

Into the Black - Part 13 - The Last Stand

Fan Fiction Friday! Your escape pod is here where The Ways of the Mew explain what a Cockbag Thrasher is, where the set up came from and how to use it to effectively assplode your enemies whilst laughing evilly! Muhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha......


Into the Black - Part 13 - The Last Stand

The lights flickered in the dark. The cargo bay was a mess, but the movement had stopped. Artificial gravity had been restored. Dorn picked himself up and saw Kara a few feet away. He rushed over and helped her to her feet. She was groggy from being knocked around.


"What happened?" she asked coming around.

"I have no idea. I would have said we crashed, but we're nowhere near a planet."

Asia appeared from behind a stack of crates. Before she could speak a shot rang out and narrowly missed them. They dived for cover and Asia returned fire. She could see the Caldari assassin was still within the small shuttle, she fired again.

"Look to our left, there is a tear in the hull by the outer doors. I'll pin the Caldari down, you run for it! Get off the ship."

Dorn looked at her in shock and confusion.

"We've been scooped into the hanger of a Nyx supercarrier! Now run!"

-o0o-

Heth turned off the holo-projector. His clenched fists shook with rage. Of all the challenges he'd faced, of all the problems he'd overcome, everything was now in the balance.

It wasn't industrial secrets the fugitives knew, it was an illegal weapons development program. A weapons system that would could unite the other Empires into siding against them. The mega-corp board had been honest at least, but they didn't have much of a choice. How anyone could be so stupid as to try and modify and weaponise Sansha nanite-tech was beyond him.

Heth opened a comm-link to the Task force commanded.

"Yes Sir Executor Heth?"

"Report Admiral."

"Yes sir! The Proteus was captured. One of our special ops Tengu's was able to piggy-back onto the craft and launch boarding parties. However, a Federation Nyx moved in and had scooped both ships."

"Admiral I want that Nyx destroyed now! This has gone on long enough! Those fugitives must be eliminated!"

"Executor, we have a Tengu, crew and operative on that Nyx. There is then CONCORD to consider, we've jumped into the Gallente in direct contravention of the agreement made......"

"Understood." Heth cut him off "My order still stands, that Nyx must be destroyed and the fugitives eliminated."

"Yes sir!"

-o0o-

Dorn and Kara squeezed through the rip in the outer hull and tumbled down to the deck of the Nyx's huge hanger. Dorn looked up at the Tengu and Proteus locked together. Other people were climbing out of the wreck and fire-fights were breaking out between the two enemy crews.

Dorn dragged Kara away from the mess as the super-carrier shook. Dorn knew the Caldari had primaried this ship with the intention of ending the chase here.

They started running to the far end of the hanger bay as more and more people spilled out of the two entwinded cruisers. They got to the end of the hanger and burst into a corridor.

"Where are we going?" panted Kara as Dorn charged on.

"As far away from the fighting as possible!"


They continued down the corridor until they came to a junction.

"I need to rest a second!" Kara said whilst leaning against the wall. Dorn looked down each side of the two corridors. They were empty except for the wafts of smoke that was leaking from the ventilation system. The red light from the alarms was making the smoke glow. The supercarrier was obviously taking a pounding from the Caldari fleet. He glanced back at Kara who was bent over, exhausted.

He knew they needed to move soon.

-o0o-

Asia fired another volley of shots at the ships door forcing the Caldari assassin to duck back inside. She checked her clip, only half a dozen shots left. The Caldari assassin fired at Asia's position but was wide. Asia returned fire trying to keep her pinned in the small craft.

Time. She needed to give Dorn and Kara time. If they could make it to one of the Nyx's escape pods they'd be OK. The massive battle erupting outside in space meant that any small ship could easily escape unnoticed. The Nyx probably had many small ships they could use most having warp drive and the ability to travel through stargates. And if she could give them time, they would make it.

Another shot from the Caldari struck close to where Asia was taking cover. She returned fire, each passing second meaning Dorn and Kara got further away from this assassins grasp. The ship groaned and the cargo shifted slightly. The inertial dampeners are damaged and this ship is getting a right kicking from the enemy fleet thought Asia. She then spotted it, a rack of cargo crates by the shuttle was leaning over, a fixing strap strained to keep the stack of crates upright. Asia watched the door of the shuttle for the Caldari agent. As soon as she saw movement she fired once at the door forcing her opponent back and then once at the stack of crates. Her shot was perfect and severed the strap. The entire stack of cargo crates came crashing down on top of the shuttle burying the doorway under a mass of twisted metal.

Asia stood, surveyed her handiwork and made for the tear in the hull.

-o0o-

In the Yulai system all hell was breaking out on  the CONCORD Bureau station.


"This is against all edicts we have issued!" argued one officer.

"Well what do you want us to do? Send a ship down there and tell them to play nice?" another responded sarcastically.

"We need the old man to get onto Heth and Roden and bang their heads together. We ordered an end to this crap five years ago and this is the first major engagement outside the capsuleer militias since then. Something has happened and I hate not knowing what"

The senior members of CONCORD continued to argue around the table what should be done as reports continued to flow in from the battle raging in the system of Old Man Star.

-o0o-

Dorn was about to tell Kara to come along when movement caught his eye. He instinctively went for his gun. Asia came around the corner from the hanger bay and he relaxed. Kara smiled to see her and she in turn returned the smile. She opened her mouth as if to say something but there was a flash and the smile vanished from Asia's face replaced with one of shock. She fell forward revealing the Caldari assassin standing behind her with her blaster pointing down the corridor. Dorn saw the blackened hole in the back of Asia.

"I think its fair to say our cloning units on what's left of our ships are out of commission so no coming back to save the day this time I'm afraid. She's out of commission  permanently " the Caldari assassin yelled down the corridor. Dorn grabbed Kara's wrist and took off down the corridor.

Dorn had seen the direction sign for the escape pod and was now sprinting down the dead-end corridor to the airlock at the end, Kara was just behind him. He opened the access panel covering the controls at the side of the airlock door. As he went to push the large red 'open' button there was a massive flash. Dorn was blown back against the wall and collapsed. Kara spun around to see the assassin pointing her blaster pistol. She had shot out the escape pods control panel from 50m away.

Dorn staggered to his feet, his hand blacked from the blast. The assassin smiled and advanced.

-o0o-

President Roden stared at the monitor. Admiral Toolong was filling him in on the last 10 minutes. It would appear that the Caldari task force had jumped into the Old Man Star system and fighting had broken out. The Admiral could not say for certain who had fired first but it hardly mattered.

"Then they lit a cyno and brought their capital ships in."

"What about the Proteus?"

"That came through a few minutes later. Then all hell broke loose. The entire Caldari task force went after them and ignored us."

President Roden pondered the statement.

"They had some sort of Tengu retro-fitted for in-space boarding operations  It clamped onto the Proteus and wouldn't let go. Then our Nyx scooped them both into the hanger. Since then the Caldari have been hammering the Nyx. We cannot keep it up much longer sir. They have just too much firepower."

Roden didn't know what to suggest, there was no time and appeared to be nothing he could suggest other than to order the Admiral to try and save the Proteus crew in anyway he could. The Admiral had given him the expected "Yes sir!" but Roden knew from the Admirals face he had no idea how to achieve that either.

-o0o-

The Caldari agent had them trapped. The door controls for the escape pod sparked and hissed behind them. Dorn knew help was not going to be coming. Asia was bleeding to death down the corridor and with the Proteus so heavily damaged she would not be cloned again.

"Well, looks like we can finally have some fun together!" the agent smirked. She holstered her blaster.

Dorn moved to stand in front of Kara, shielding her from the agent.

"Oh Captain, so gallant! Protecting the lady from the evil Caldari assassin"

"At least you know what you are. And before you get to her you need to get through me." he hissed and went for his gun.

"Fair enough." the assassin said and with lightning reflexes grabbed her knife from her belt and threw it.

The knife struck Dorn in the shoulder and he went down before his gun was level, Kara screamed and the assassin advanced. Kara dove and fumbled for Dorns dropped gun but the assassin stamped on her hand. Kara screamed in pain. The assassin kicked the gun away and pulled the knife out of Dorn's shoulder. He grunted in pain.

"I'll take that, don't want you playing with it now do we? You might hurt yourself!"

She tossed knife behind her and it clattered down the corridor. She grabbed Kara by the hair and hauled her to her feet.

"Now tell me, who have you told about Project Turncoat?"

Kara looked confused as if she didn't know what the assassin was talking about. She glanced down at Dorn who was bleeding heavily on the floor.

"The weapons project developed at the facility you worked at. Who have you told?"

"Nobody" Kara screamed trying in vain to free herself from the assassins grasp.

"We'll see" purred the assassin. She span Kara around and twisted an arm behind her back and used her other hand to grab Kara's hair and pull her head back. She pushed Kara forward, keeping her tightly gripped as they approached the airlock where the controls had been blasted out. The hole where the panel used to be sparked from the ruined electrics. Kara's face was level with the mass of sparking and smoking wires as the assassin pushed her slowly towards it. The smell of burnt electrics and ozone assaulted Kara's senses. A few flying sparks struck her on her cheek and she screamed.


"Already? The Caldari agent asked. "Wait untill your face makes contact with some of those live wires, oh and the hot metal and....."

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size, or in fact, even bigger?" Dorns voice came from behind.

The assassin pushed Kara heavily into the airlock door. She crashed head-first into the metal door with a thud and fell, dazed. The assassin turned to Dorn who had unsteadily risen to his feet with the aid of the wall. A long red bloody streak was smeared on the side of the corridor where he had pushed himself up.

"Well Captain, I was saving you to last but if you cannot wait for me." the assassin purred.

Dorn stumbled towards her lashing out with his good arm. She easily dodged the attack and kicked him in the back, slamming into the wall. He grunted and turned around before charging at her again, trying to use his body as a battering ram. She flipped over him and he slammed face-first into the other wall.

"Really Captain. Why don't you just give up? I just need a little chat with Kara here and then me and you can have some fun."

Dorn growled and charged again, same result. A movement at the end of the corridor caught the assassins attention, Intellegence Office Garrett stood there. The assassin smiled at him.

"Ma'am. We need to get off this ship now" he yelled "I have transport."

"Wait there, I'll be two minutes minutes." with that she spun round and kicked Dorn in the face sending him sprawling next to Kara. The assassin picked Kara up again and slapped her hard around the face to bring her around.

"Wakey wakey! You don't want to miss your face melting now do you?" the assassin said cheerfully as she spun Kara round and grabbed her arm and hair.

Dorn groaned. He struggeled to get to his feet but collapsed. He reached out to try and grab the assassin but she was well out of reach. The assassin smiled at him.

"You know, I really believe she hasn't told anyone. But where is the fun in a quick death? Ready to watch this lovely face slowly fry captain?" Kara screamed as the assassin pushed her forward, her face stinging from the heat and sparks of the destroyed console.

Dorn tried to reach again but collapsed, battered and exhausted. His eyes flickered as he almost lost consciousness  Suddenly he was brought around. Had someone thrown water in his face? He looked up as the assassin dropped Kara to the floor, landing by the captain. Dorn wiped his hand over his face, it was covered with a silver liquid. The assassin looked incredulously at Dorn before slowly casting her gaze down. The point of her own knife blade was sticking out between her breasts. She slowly and unsteadily turned around. Dorn turned his head to see Intelligence Officer Dorn standing there shaking.

"I.... I..... I...." he stammered.

The assassin dropped to her knees clutching the blade. The look on her face was of utter shock. She tried to say something to Garrett but whilst her mouth moved no sounds emerged. She slumped forward, the hilt of the knife sticking out between her shoulder blades.

Dorn looked at Garrett and nodded towards Kara. "Save her" he hissed through clenched teeth.

Garrett was clearly in shock. Dorn repeated the commend more sternly and that appeared to bring Garrett around. He nodded and heaved the woozy Kara to her feet. She immediately bent down and tried to haul Dorn to his feet. The ship shook and a low rumble was heard.

"Don't" he gasped "Save yourself. Get out!"

Another explosion rocked the ship, the last one sounded much closer.

"NO!" she shouted "I'm not going anywhere without you! You want to lay here and die? Fine! But I'm staying with you."

Dorn looked at her in confusion he opened his mouth to speak but Kara grabbed his head and kissed him deeply. When she drew back he had a look of shock on his face.

"Now if you want more like that you'd better GET ON YOUR FEET CAPTAIN!"

Dorn laughed and with the aid of Garrett the three stumbled down the corridor. At the junction they found the unconcious body of Asia. Kara picked her up and the four hobbled down the corridor as the ship started to break apart.

"We're not going to make it" shouted Garrett as a conduit behind them ruptured and fire engulfed the area they had just been through. He was walking unsteadily supporting Dorn.

"Keep going" screamed Kara as she half dragged and half carried the unconscious body of Asia.

Another explosion buffeted them against the side of the corridor. The ship appeared to groan.

"The structure is failing!"

The three looked behind them as there was a ear-splitting sound of tearing metal and the ominous rush of escaping air.

-o0o-

From the bridge of the Wyvern super-carrier the Caldari Navy Admiral watched the Nyx break up.


"Inform Executor Heth the target is destroyed. Activate the return cyno and order the capital ships to jump as soon as they are capped up. Sub caps are to deagress and retreat through the stargate. Repeat all forces are to deagress from the Gallente and retreat."

The Admiral couldn't help but feel saddened. Whilst the Gallente were the enemy, and their mission was accomplished successfully, no human could witness such a massive loss of life and not feel moved.

2 comments:

  1. Hey, loved the whole series, you really have a talent for this. One thing bothered me about this finale though: Garrett doesn't strike me as the kind of person to put a knife through the Caldari agent's back, more like someone to put a blaster between her shoulder blades. Otherwise, loved it!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. Really appreciate that. Yeah, may be a blaster to the back may have been better.

      Wraps up next week with "Aftermath" just before I start my travels to Fanfest.

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