Meeting a Myth
Keyto was woken by the proximity alarm and took a few seconds to take in the information running across the computer screen, that was the second time he’d drifted of while on autopilot, even since installing the Phobos Blockade to his Parley he been getting way to cocky and pulling extra patrol shifts, napping in transit through safe galaxies and only really paying attention once the ship had reached the unsafe zone or W2 as the universal mapping system marked galaxies this far out from Sol.
But this time he’d over done it, 3 patrols of Team Banzai’s various holdings back to back may pay off his debt to team for the Shield bank but now he was in trouble, the autopilot had cut off again (dam thing never happened when your sat watching it, only when your off getting a tube of food) and he was drifting 9000 click from the nearest gate with a pack of pretty boys closing fast, this wasn’t gonna be ‘pretty’ at all if he didn’t think quick…..
Thoughts raced through his head; no point in running they are between me and the gate and moving at least 20km/s fast. No tracking weapon and My Lipo wont take all 3 before their hairs-prayers have me spinning like a newb ‘testing’ a new engine….. not good. Much as he hated doing it he was gonna have to request backup, man after all my bravado about patrolling solo, the guys are gonna jibe me all the way to next universe. He punched off a call for help and maxed his speed to give him maximum time before the pretty boys arrived.
Turning his ship to face the incoming ships and powering up the Lipo he watched the range counter drifting down 1100, 1000, 900 waiting for them to come within range, if he could just take 2 out maybe he’d be ok an slowly wear the third down, still no answer on message screen, 2 replies from pilots far to far way to help, several offline and 1 guys only 2 galaxies away but in a leviathan full of oversized pink envelopes… Great! As the amber light turned green Keyto activated the power punch neuro tweak he’d been saving and set the lipo to fired continuous stream, the shields of the first ship, called ‘tea time for two’ vaporised at a steady rate. “Man AI’s pick the oddest names for themselves considering there supposed to be twice as intelligent as humans” he thought as all at once the neuro tweak wore off the AI’s ship exploded and the other two opened up the closer with its hairsprayer, the one lagging behind with its torpedo.
Targeting the closer ship this one calling itself ‘Part Time Hero’ the lipo kept up its firing, and a quick system check showed with the shield were still at 96% he was down to 60% energy reserve, “man those tweaks suck the juice” he thought, the first and second volley from the hairsprayer hadn’t reached and part time hero was down to about half shields, but as Keyto was starting to think more positively the third volley hit home and the Parleys Thrusters fired wildly spinning the ship and throwing the lipo's fire out into the middle of empty space, and the gremlin alert started wailing as helm control went down, all I can do now is keep firing and pray he thought.
Just then a response came though – ‘Kodos here 3 jumps off your position omw, eta 3 minutes’ well it was a hope but it could all be over buy then, man I need to find the creds for gear glue, to late now. Part time Hero and the other ship ‘fruit loop’ had split one coming round either side and were opening up with everything they had, although each hit hardly did any damage it was just enough to break the shields regen and as he span he watch the shields bank slowly decrease 91%, 85%, 80, 70… just then the parsley span in sync with Part time Heroes pass and the Lipo for a few seconds blasted the AI but just as it’s shields hit critical it passed out of the firing line and with it Keyto's last hope for a way out – Kodos eta was still 2 mins and 2 jumps and shields were down to 35% , the Lipo had stopped firing as energy was to low and all power was going to the shield. He fired the shield slave to give him a few valuable seconds to arm the escape pod
