Skargarr's Skirmish

Posted on Mon May 16th, 2022 @ 1:43am by Captain Devin Hadenbeer

1,003 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Into The Void
Location: Deep Space, The Triangle

The B'rel class bird of prey had been a mainstay in the Klingon fleet for decades and although it was being phased out in favor of the likes of the Vor'cha vessels enough had been constructed that they were a common sight all along Federation and Romulan borders.

As well as the triangle.

Disruptor cannons tore at the runabout, and it was only due to the smaller vessel's shields and the handling of her pilot that the Federation craft was still in one piece at all. But it was only a matter of time before shields failed and the doughty Jurua would meet a fiery end...

The Gorn pilot cursed under his breath as the vessel shook violently as the disruptors impacted its shields, as his clawed hands flew across the pilots console. "Computer, launch a distress call on all available frequencies." the Gorn called out as the ship was impacted yet again causing the console to send sparks flying in his face and upper chest, already suffering what most humans would call major injuries from his escape from the station, but to the Gorn they were only minor as his body began regenerating the wounds at a faster rate compared to how fast humans would regenerate there wounds.

"Unable to comply, the distress signal system as been destroyed." the computer called back.

Additional cursing came across his lips as he looked back at those he managed to save, then his eyes darted back and forth as if thinking. "Computer, Damage report." the gorn called out.

"Shields are down to 24%, weapons are destroyed, life support is minimal." the computer said as she rambled off additional damage systems until the Gorn just shut the computer down with a simple 'Enough'. He knew things were dire and he couldn't dodge an attack without knowing the various variables. But he knew he needed a chance so a light bulb went off in his head.

He shut down the engines to allow the Klingon vessel to catch up to him. Once the vessel was in point blank range for firing, the gorn initiated a tractor beam directly onto the B'Rel's weapons system effectively blinding them. So instead of a 100% accuracy, the B'rel only had a 50% chance of actually succeeding on any single attack that required the computer to auto target. He knew what angered Klingons and this was it. A prey actually preventing an easy kill.

The Klingon vessel had hunted down each and every one of the other runabouts and had either disabled them or destroyed them outright, leaving whatever survivors were left behind. Whatever the motives of its captain murder did not seem to be their principle goal. But they were finding the last ship to be difficult, in part because her pilot had been forewarned by the other attacks.

And perhaps because those attacks had been so easy the tactical officer of the Klingon vessel got sloppy, as did their helmsman. The ship overshot the runabout and when it came around for an attack the tractor beam trick cause the weapons fire to go wide, giving Skargarr a few more precious minutes...

Even at impulse it would take forever to reach help, now it was hopeless. Unable to fight back and all he could do is keep them from hitting his runabout the best he could. Even if he could shunted all remaining power into impulse engines for one concentration burst of speed, it still wouldnt be enough and at the end, there would be no power left for life support which is what was needed now. Though if there runabout was disabled, life support would be the least of there trouble as they would be dead.

So he piloted the runabout as close to the Klingon ship as he could, preventing an actual target lock. Then mirrored every move the klingon vessel tried to make, using it as a shield against the Klingons own weapons as the disruptors nor the torpedoes could fire so close to there own ship without destroying them.

If there was any flaw in most ship designs it was that at a certain range no weapon could be brought to bear on a target. But for said target to fly so close to an enemy ship it meant an almost insane risk of collision based on the relative speeds of both vessels. But sometimes the risk was worth in, especially when your vessel had taken a serious pounding.

Skarr found his skilled pushed to their limits and beyond as he found his little vessel's navigational deflectors reacting with the Klingon vessel's, it also did not help that their pilot was no slouch themselves and tried their best to confound Skarr's attempts to not die. It was impossible to tell how long the game of lizard and targ went on but finally(!) the Klingon vessel seemed to tire of the exercise and it went to warp.

But not without leaving behind a gift. Skarr detected the torpedo left behind, drifting, a makeshift mine that was drifting all to close...!

"Blasted Klingons." Skar said as he transferred all power to impulse engines, he hit the ignition button and sped away from the make shift mine as fast as he could, putting the runabout on autopilot after plotting a course to the nearest Federation signature he could find. Then he went to work on trying to fix the distress signal system. Hoping he could fix it in time before the air really did go out for good.

Skarr was good, there was no denying that. And had the runabout been in top condition he might have been able to fly clear of the blast radius of the torpedo. As it was he almost made it.

But as the torpedo exploded he was reminded of an ancient, silly Earth saying some of his fellow human officers had said once or twice, something about horse shoes and hand grenades.

Then he was slammed into his console with bone-jarring force and soon things went black...

 

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