09/10/2019 - Federation Security (6)

Shut Up Buzz

Alisa begins to take Drent down to the docked spaceship, which is called the Star Hunter. There is a walkway with stairs leading down to the ship.

The battle outside starts to become intense. Del, then Grant, then Cyrus quickly collect everything they need, go through the trapdoor and climb down the ladder to the area below.

Buzz is lying at the bottom of the ladder, his arm badly injured. He is almost crying from the pain, but he grabs his body pistol with his other hand as Del climbs down and tells him to stop. Del replies that he is of no interest to them. He should either shoot or get out of the way. Buzz moves out of the way.

Buzz is more agitated as Grant climbs down, but he eventually asks for medical help for his arm. Grant tells him Cyrus is their medic and moves past him.

Cyrus gives Buzz a sedative then joins the others.

Confronting Alisa

Alisa is taking Drent down the stairs. Del drops a knife on her and gets a lucky hit. In a snap response, Alisa shoots the hand he held the knife in. Del ducks back and Alisa takes refuge under the stairs.

Del, Grant and Cyrus consider what to do. She appears to be a very good shot. Cyrus readies his Plasma Rifle and begins to carefully head down the stairs, staying out of the firing line. Del and Grant begin to follow more slowly.

Above them, they hear an explosion and are sure whoever is attacking has entered the cabin and are coming down here.

Drent sees that Alisa is assembling some sort of grenade and tries to stop her, but she punches and stuns him. However, the distraction is enough for Cyrus to shoot and severely injure her.

Her reflexes are such that she throws the grenade at Cyrus before he collapses. Not sure what it is, he kicks it away and when it explodes his body armour mostly takes the damage.

Cyrus then rushes over to give her medical attention and is able to stop her dying. Drent comes round.

Boarding the Star Hunter

Del and Grant reach the lower level. Grant goes to a nearby console and quickly opens the launch bay doors. Then, using Vlen’s PDA, opens the ship and they board, Cyrus bringing Alisa with him and Grant and Del quickly get Buzz Kennedy, who is still deeply sedated.

Drent is able to work out how to operate the ship, as it is a modified scout ship that of a type he has piloted before. The engines are cold however and will take a few minutes to warm up.

Meanwhile, marines in Federation Body Armour enter the docking bay and begin to rush down the stairs. When they realise the ship is preparing to launch, they open fire with their plasma rifles, but too late, Drent is able to instigate a quick launch.

Federation Pursuit Ships

Once in the air, with Cyrus at the sensors, they detect two Destroyer class warships in low orbit above them and they are scrambling pursuit fighters. The comm system blares out a warning for them to surrender or be fired on.

They then decide to head for the space port and get their own shuttle, which is some distance away. Cyrus contacts Dirk on the Liberator and tells him to help, but Liberator is out of range still. Orac is fascinated by the data they has been uploaded from Vlen’s computer and does not want to be disturbed. Dirk will do what he can, he has an idea.

The Pursuit Ships turn to chase them and open fire. Del takes over the co-pilot seat to operate the sand casters and disperse the incoming laser fire, while Drent instigates evasive manoeuvres. Cyrus tries Liberator again, but the comms system cannot detect the ship’s comm system.

Desperate Chase

However, despite their efforts, the Pursuit Ships are able to hit the ship and begin to damage it. In addition, the Destroyers begin to open fire with their long range particle beam weapons.

Fortunately, the ship has some armour and the systems that are damaged are not critical. However, the armour is being damaged and an entire section of it breaks off the ship.

They continue their desperate race, but more and more systems are turning yellow and red on the main console.

Liberated!

Then suddenly three of the Pursuit Ships are destroyed by fire from orbit. Liberator is in orbit and is firing. There is a period of confusion when the Pursuit Ships do not fire as they are not sure what to do. Drent manages to get some distance on them, but they are still in range and he is still evading in case the Pursuit Ship open fire again.

Eventually three of the remaining Pursuit Ships turn, along with the Destroyers, to fight Liberator, while the remaining two Pursuit Ships follow the Star Hunter.

Del activates the rear missile system and is able to shoot down both of their pursuers, as they were not expecting missile fire. Meanwhile, the Liberator takes out the remaining Pursuit ships and gets into a fire fight with the two Destroyers.

Escape Switch

The authorities on Allel are now fully active and are telling all parties to stop firing. However, their Police Fighters lack the fire power to do significant damage to Navy Destroyers.

They do tell the Star Hunter to surrender though, and Grant now takes over the comms. He persuades them they were being attacked and just need somewhere to dock. They are given a docking bay.

As they reach the Allel space dock, Drent suddenly changes to the docking bay where their Liberator shuttle is docked. They quickly disembark, bringing all their equipment, plus Buzz and Alisa. The dock authorities had concentrated their Police at the designated docking bay and are not able to get into position in time to stop the Travellers escaping in the shuttle.

The space dock weapon system opens fire and damages the shuttle a little, but it is a tough little thing and Drent pushes the thrust up to maximum and they are pinned in their chairs as he hurriedly gets away and up into orbit.

Let’s Get Out of Here!

Once in orbit, they detect an explosion on one of the Destroyers and it is beginning to lose altitude. Cyrus messages Dirk to congratulate him, but he says Zen and the Battle Computers are doing the shooting. He was able to program a very short Warp journey to close the distance to Alell so quickly.

Dirk has Zen disengage and match vectors with the shuttle for docking, which goes successfully. Once on board, they disembark and Cyrus takes Alisa to the flight deck, while Grant takes Buzz to a room.

Dirk has Zen accelerate to maximum speed to get away from the messy situation on Allel. The Federation Ships are unable to match Liberator’s acceleration and do not follow. They are now in some sort of standoff with the authorities on Allel.

On the flight deck, Del asks Zen what the situation is. Two of the Power Banks are exhausted and at maximum main drive, the energy reserves continue to be depleted as they are exceeding energy re-charge capacity.

Del asks where the nearest Yellow and Red warning systems are and has Zen plot a hyper jump for Musayid, a Yellow system that has been subject to a lot of local political upheaval.

Once they are at a safe distance from the Federation ships and the local gravity sources, Liberator jumps into hyperspace, headed for Musayid.

End of Episode Six