This is the 128th in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing. You can find out more about the challenge here.
Frigging Frigates!, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 7th April 2013
Word count: 815
The story:
The Captain pushed his little fighter into a spiral to dodge around the crimson beam of light fired by destroyer.
“Gamma flight leader,” the Captain said into his microphone as he desperately tried to keep his fighter ahead of the destroyer’s firing solutions, “Wing down. Last survivor, destroyer Kremlin has crossed the border and is attacking.”
Having sent his message he pushed his little vessel for all the acceleration it could give to give him space from the fourteen plasma impregnated laser cannon aboard the Russian Federation destroyer.
“Gamma flight,” a message came back after over a minute of the Captain’s hard flying to stay alive, “Reinforcements are inbound, two minutes. Stay alive Captain, that’s an order from the Admiral.”
The Captain knew the order was more about preserve his fighters computers, with their sensor data, and logs of any communication between the wing and the destroyer. Regardless the Captain had no intention of dying today.
Suddenly he spun the ship, and burned his engines fast and hard until his momentum was cancelled, and he was accelerating towards the destroyer, several shots went wild of the target having anticipated him flying on as before. The Captain sped towards the immense destroyer, dodging head on shots fired in his direction.
“Beep” the computer said, it had a missile lock.
“Fire,” the Captain demanded of the voice activated computer. Dutifully the missiles dropped away from the undercarriage of the fighter, and one by one in rapid succession their rocket motors kicked in and they accelerated to immense speeds.
The Captain broke away again, pushing his fighter for all it was worth.
The missiles crashed into several strategic points on the destroyer, primarily the four and five guns. The Captain pushed into the line of those guns, and away from the ship. With two of the guns down on the left hand side of the ship, he had a small break in the destroyer’s firing solution.
Not for long though, the immense maneuvering thrusters were turning the giant destroyer to give chase. They weren’t prepared to let a single man get away. Just then, from several hundred miles behind the destroyer, two hyperspace portals opened, and two Alliance frigates entered normal space.
One immediately turned it’s side towards the enemy and started pounding the much bigger destroyer with it’s five guns, it launched it’s missiles and a squadron of fighters. The second frigate put it’s engines to full, and raced after the destroyer.
The destroyer had to turn to deal with the new interlopers, it took it time to turn though, and the fire from the frigate thundered along it’s flanks. Then the second frigate raced past, and started pounding it from close range.
The destroyer returned fire, wounding the frigate and sending it careening around the destroyer looking for a break from the punishment. The frigate wasn’t done just yet, it activated it’s emergency stop thrusters, and the Captain immediately sensing the opportunity gunned his own little ship around, and drived for the opening shuttle bay doors.
The first frigate continued to blast away at the destroyer, but the destroyer was focused on it now, thinking the second frigate out of the fight.
The second frigate opened all it’s missiles tubes that were still operational and released them all, they flew up and out of the ship, and sped towards the unsuspecting destroyer. The destroyer’s defensive lasers cut apart half of the missiles, but at such close range, half got through, and each one hit it’s target the engines and thrusters of the giant destroyer.
The second frigate powered up it’s engines and powered back to it’s sister ship, both still firing upon the crippled destroyer, focusing on the guns the destroyer had.
More hyperspace portals opened, another frigate, and an Alliance destroyer arrived. Too late though, the battle was over. The captain of the destroyer ordered his crew to abandon ship and flee back to the border, while he himself offered his surrender.
“The admiral thanks you,” the captain of the second frigate said, shaking the flight captain’s hand, “That was amazing flying out there.”
“Thank you sir,” the Captain said. He had considered retiring, he had lost all of his wing, his friends, his de facto family. However he realised there would be war, and how many others would lose their families, their friends? He steeled himself for the battle to come.
“The admiral will want to debrief you himself, there’s a shuttle waiting to take you over,” the frigate captain said.
“I’d prefer to take my fighter,” the flight captain said.
“As you wish,” the captain nodded his ascent.
The little fighter weaved between the big heavy ships, on a random, and distracting route, as the captain tried to work off all the tumultuous emotions that bombarded him after the battle, so he could be clearer of mind when he spoke with the admiral.
Aspiring 