Imperial Navy Training Base - Chaven System.
00:36 Local Time.
Nerves, not something he was familiar with these days.
Being a professional capsuleer had that affect on you, the ability to be brought back to life from almost any situation made one a little less caring about what happened to you.
Today was a little different, he was about to hook up to the fastest ship classes in New Eden.
Leaning against a bulkhead of the immense hangar he took a deep breath, taking a moment to pause and calm himself, calling on the years of training and experience to slow the rate at which his heart beat, returning him to the comfortable feeling of calm readiness.
Taking a few moments to take in the variety of ships in the hangar, the golden hulled behemoths of the Amarrian Battleships dominating most of the space, the remaining space filled by a myriad of smaller hulls, a large amount of Punisher Class-Frigates taking up one portion along with a squad of Arbitrators that where being retrofitted with what looked like extra heavy tungsten plating.
Smiling a little to himself as he brought his gaze to the nearest ship, a sleek and lethal looking Crusader Class-Interceptor, the final pair of dual linked light pulse lasers where being fitted to the ship as he watched.
A clear voice pierced his consciousness "It's a nice hull isn't it?"
Math'ra jerked quickly around to the source of the voice, his eyes falling on a shorter Ni-Kunni man "Yes, one of my favourites to be sure"
The man chuckled slightly "I prefer the Punisher Class myself, but only for the robustness"
Math'ra nodded slightly "You always did Quaren, that’s why you’re my XO on the biggest and most robust ship I own"
The man winked briefly, giving a slow chuckle as his only reply.
Orbiting Planet I – Chaven System
01:12 Local Time
The flash of the sun against the screen of the camera drone caused him to loose focus for a moment as he threw the Crusader into a corkscrew to slip between a pair of large asteroids, clearing the other side the 5 other Crusaders, all piloted by various students of the Academy came into view, none had followed him directly through the small gap.
Smiling to himself before pointing the nose down sharply, activating the Microwarp Drive for a burst of speed, the increased speed forcing him to focus on what was ahead.
Scrunching his eyes inside the capsule the camera drone narrowed its focus to directly in front of him just in time, a medium sized asteroid came bowling down from his top right corner, swearing and ending up with a mouth full of goo as the Crusader pulled a hard left, the immediate area going white as the pulse lasers cycled to slice the asteroid in two, the separate pieces passing either side of the small ship, if only just.
A high pitched voice crackled into life inside his head “Careful egger, don’t wreck the ship.”
Taking a moment to spin the camera drone around to locate which of his flight had made the comment, sighing in his mind as the display showed that it was the Imperial Navy’s latest graduate, he was not only the best of his class, he was an avid proponent of the Scriptures, and the idea that Capsuleers where the most disgusting things besides an un-enslaved Matari.
Grunting, spitting out the goo he cut the boost, applying a bit thrust to push him into a loop, bringing him right down on top of the annoying pilot, choosing not to say anything but instead vaporise the ships shields in one brilliant white volley, then flying right in front of him, the ships computer told him he had about two meters between their hulls.
This resulted in some extremely vulgar swearing, much to Math’ra’s pleasure.
“You smartass fucking podder, you just fuckin’ wait! I bet you couldn’t take me in a straight one on one, you’re a fucking shit pilot, with or without those stupid implants!”
A few gasps from the other pilots managed to reach the coms, all of the normal pilots, recently graduated and on patrol with this wing.
Math’ra grinned, his digitally created voice, with an extra tinge of bass and volume added for effect. “Is that your true belief, pilot. I would be glad to indulge you if you want to test your skills”
“Damned right I do! Thrice damned arsehole.”
Now nervous, one of the other pilots chimed in. “G-guys, cool it down out there, the Capsuleer didn’t mean it boss”
“Actually, I did. Every little bit of it”
“Yeah see, this eggers going to get it!”
The rest of the patrol resulted in nothing, Math’ra had reigned in his extravagant flying and the Navy pilot quietly fumed, but it passed without incident.
However, on a private comms line, he had been cocky enough to time and place where they would duel.
Math’ra had no intention of letting the idiot live either, if you can’t work with reality, no matter your level of latent talent, you didn’t deserve a living place in New Eden.
Deadspace Gravimetric Site – Chaven System.
11:31 Local Time.
The two golden hulls gleamed in the sunlight, the flickering of the blood red spines mixing with the gold to produce the effect of a bloody twin bladed dagger in space, it really was a fearsome sight, but what completed the look was the complement of lasers attached to each ship, and at ten kilometres or less they where some of the most lethal weapon system you could mount on these ships safely.
The Navy pilot, who’s name was something like Tolnen, Tonen, Tomen, or something like that, was ranting at Math’ra, but he had tuned out about five minutes ago.
He was pretty sure there was a cloaked ship nearby, one of Tolnen’s academy friends, just incase he started to loose.
To negate that fact, he had called in one of his friends, an old Navy Captain, now commander of a Pilgrim-Class Recon Cruiser, who was also cloaked not far away, after relating the story, albeit slightly edited – he had agreed to play fail-safe and make sure that the duel could go ahead without inhibition.
Finally, once the ranting had finished, and the bare minimum of respect passed to one another, the fight started.
Tolnen ship powered up instantly, the engines flaring with the tell-tale sign of the MWD.
Math’ra expected this, so he had fitted the scrambler module, slowly spinning his ship to face the same direction as the incoming Crusader, but only using the power from his unboosted engines waited, the first laser volley nearly cracked his shield, but the time and effort he had spent into the neuro-routines to reinforce them with his will alone spared him the unpleasantness of having them buckle instantly, not even taking the moment to smile inside his capsule as he powered up the scrambler, the aggressing crusader being brought out of warp with a horrendous stop, his own lasers beginning to cycle, the purple light from his scorch ammunition he had loaded illuminating the asteroid belt, activating his own Afterburner module the sleek Crusader powered into a complex arc of twists and dives, all the time keeping the foolish pilots Crusader locked to a minimum speed.
The back and forth play of laser fire continued for a couple of minutes, Tolnen only having loaded the brutally efficient but short ranged Multifrequency crystals meaning that the longer range of the scorch had the definitive upper hand, but with the reinforced hulls of the ships, the lasers where neither as effective or as deadly to each other as against the shielding systems.
But the man wasn’t going to give up yet, the greenish hue of a nanite-repair system flickered over the hull, and resultingly the approximate amount of armour on Math’ra’s targeting systems to go up, frustrated now he switched ammunition, the conflagration crystals now loaded had a reputation of being the most dangerous crystals you could buy, both for yourself and the enemy, sure they did enormous amounts of damage, but the power required went up a lot.
Taking the chance, he pointed his nose in for a collision course, the crusader diving and swinging to avoid asteroids as he closed on the target ship, finally entering range he opened up, slagging a large portion of the starboard wing, feeling triumph surge before the pilot returned fire, this beams going straight through his weakened armour and disabling the afterburner.
Groaning at his mistake, Math’ra quickly flipped himself behind an asteroid for cover, his main engines where undamaged, but the afterburner was shot to pieces, angry at himself for the stupid mistake, he punched the throttle to full and shot out under the asteroid and overshot the other Crusader, who had been trying to sneak up behind him, both of them reacting like instantly, Math’ra with a tight powered turn that only a Capsuleer can take, and the Navy pilot with a long high-speed loop to try and bring him down behind.
The result ending up being that the two ships where powering at each other, Math’ra choosing to spin his ship to face vertically at the incoming Crusader, his undamged guns pounding into the wounded ship, tearing great chunks out of the engines, but not without damage, his own port engine was speared by the blinding light of the lasers, throwing him into a power spin that nearly sent him careering into an asteroid, cutting power and managing to stabilise he realised he was effectively dead in the water.
While the Navy bumpkin had power to both engines, if not full power, but still enough to give free movement.
Cursing himself he decided to take things to the max, shutting down non-essential modules he re-routed all the power he could to the guns, one of which now only worked partially.
An ambush he thought to himself, if he could just get a couple of overcharged volleys out before he got sliced to pieces, he might still be in this.
He didn’t have to wait long, it only took thirty seconds for the badly damaged Crusader to come screaming through a gap, not unlike the one Math’ra had initially pulled earlier.
A raw scream of fury split his eardrums as the ship got closer, the initial volley lancing against the remnants of the armour plating, snarling in return Math’ra’s own guns pulsed, the first volley scoring powerful and deep hits into the capacitor matrix, the second through the joining supports between the centre command section and the already damage port wing, causing it to spear off into an asteroid and explode.
Screaming victory he fired one final volley into the out of control interceptor, which sliced through the port wing and into the command section.
Heaving heavily, the adrenaline surging through him as the interceptor exploded in front of him, the larger sections carving molten holes into nearby asteroids.
“Capsuleer, your rampant destruction cannot go un punished, prepare to die”
Cursing himself for forgetting, the cloaked ship appeared not fifteen kilometres from him, the lethal hull of a Navy Issued Omen Cruiser appearing on the scanners.
“Captain of the Navy Omen, designation INS Theta-Fifteen-Bravo-Charlie, stand down or I will disable your ship”
Sighing in relief, the golden-red hull of the Pilgrim class Cruiser shimmering to life behind the Omen.
“Unidentified Recon Cruiser, this man just murdered a member of the Imperial Navy”
“Navy Omen, I say again stand down, this was a duel conducted under God’s lawful eyes, what happened here gives you no right to mete out punishment”
Math’ra blinked as his comms flashed.
“Hiede, you all right?”
“Yes Captain, you sure you can deal with this?”
“Definitely, eject and get your capsule out, before I have to actually disable this idiot”
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
“One clone I think delivery in your own terms.”
Chuckling, he acknowledged, punching the emergency eject from the crippled ship, and warping to a nearby celestial. Safely escaping the clutches of the enraged Navy ship and back to the station, where he had no doubt he was going to have to fill in a lot of paperwork.
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Topic: Deadly Paperwork (Read 2272 times)