This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Muzolf on 2025-07-01 21:24:21+00:00.
"Permission to launch the drone from hangar two?" Markus was holding a hand over the button, ready to dispatch the only thing that could save them if the shadow came back. And here he was, fighting with the stubborn old fool again.
"Permission denied Lieutenant! Also, you can stop shaking, we should be ok for now." The Captain said, apparently having regained his composure, currently trying to wipe his cap clean after it fell down during the last attack. Having taken up his poker face, and the neutral voice as if he was not the one screaming commands like captain Ahab to harpoon the white whale a minute ago.
"With all due respect, Sir! What do you base this on?" The weapons officer had to hold himself back, looking at the instruments. Half the launchers were down, the other half were mostly empty. PD guns largely intact, but useless without targeting. The other departments not in any better shape, communications still down, main engine useless. They were mostly immobile and de-facto defenseless against anything with half-decent armament.
"No use in worrying about what you cannot fix, and it is not like the drone can do much against another missile attack, not that i would expect one."
"And why is that?" He took a step back as captain Garland looked him straight in the eyes and moved up to him.
"Good God man, you are smarter than this! Think Mark! Think! They specifically targeted our thrusters just now, so they could get away. Remember the first missile strike they did, and then compare it to the second. Why would they not use those scattershot ones or whatever they were, together with the big ones as a follow-up?"
He hated to admit it, it made sense, and it made him think. "Because the big ones were less nimble. Little use when fired from that distance when we started."
"Good, why would they not try to combine them in the second attack?"
"Because the big ones had to be all they had left?"
"Exactly! Consider what they are, a stealth ship where bulk comes at a premium between heat sinks or whatever they are using. They could only carry that much, same reason we cannot fit hyperdrives on the drones. By now they must have spent most if not all of their munitions. Anyhow, the second reason i don't want you to waste the last drone on a futile defense mission, is because i need it to destroy them!"
"Destroy them?" The weapons officer started laughing. Okay, the old man lost it. He might have acted like he is back to normal, but the insanity just went deeper it seemed. "We cannot even find them! Not with the state the Troyan is in. I am not even sure we could detect normal incoming ships right now! Why the hurry anyhow if they are really running? They might have given us a trashing, but we knocked out their hyperdrive for good before that. They will not even be able to leave this general area, let alone this star system. Lets focus on fixing our communications, call in reinforcements and have the rest of the task force hunt them down and finish them!"
"Sounds good, let's call that plan B." Garland smiled. He actually smiled, it was terrifying in a way. "But i see no reason for not doing a plan A as well while we wait for repairs."
-x-
-x-
The Prowler continued its relatively slow but steady path away from the engagement area. Commander Kaba was yet to start rotation to let some of the crew rest, and there was some confusion about why they have not gone to sublight already.
"Engineering might need a bit more as expected, Correl was quick to assign blame to our strafing run shaking up things, but i had the distinct impression there is a bigger issue."
There was some frustrated murmuring. Hikar spoke up.
"A degraded drive field is no joke, even at the best case scenario it will slow us down and make our signature easier to detect once we engage sublight."
"And in worst case scenario?"
"Boom!" Everyone looked at the Nav officer. Hikar quickly jumped in before it would all devolve into something more primal. "I would not put it as crudely, but yes."
"So we are going to remain on low power acceleration for now. Put more distance between us and them." Kaba pointed at the tactical display, where the alliance Q-ship was barely on the edge of the screen anymore. "The one positive is, with us engaging further away, they will almost certainly not detect us departing." She looked at the tired visages of her crew. "And it will be hilarious, my one regret is not being able to see their expressions when they spent months in futile search of this area."
That seemed to get the desired reaction of amused snorts and rumbles, so did announcing the rotations. Of course it was the weapons officer who would object. "Are you sure? I know weapons are unlikely to be needed, but someone else should be here with you. Or i could take over yours."
Kaba squinted at him, this could be taken all the wrong ways. But she was not going to, not today at least.
"Go to sleep Ralga. You earned it, we all did. By the time you are up we will be halfways back home."
-x-
-x-
"I don't see how this helps, we been over this. The heat signatures are from their missiles, the optics were gone at this point, so we are not seeing their ship on this one at all." Most of the Troyans senior officers were hunched over the table, with datapads and thin plastic sheets, even some actual paper, whoever the maniac was who used that to print out sensor readings.
"What about their engine fumes? Our missiles certainly could go after them before they dropped those decoys. Do we have any equipment that can track gas trails or anything?"
"They were going after the heat, not the gas. We are not a science vessel, even if we had anything like that, by now there is no need for them to constantly run their thrusters. We don't know which direction to fire at, and they could just turn them off."
It has only been minutes, but it felt like it's been ages. Running in circles does that to you, Markus thought to himself. He really did not want to be the contrarian this time, the captain might not have shown it now, but his patience was running out before this meeting even started. Miss Blair suggested this huddle, to 'Listen to various perspectives' after she could not offer anything new either, but all it ended up being is the staff passing along the ball among themselves.
"I am sorry, other then sending out the drones on a random search pattern, running their sensors on full deep scan in the hope of them bumping into some sign of them, i don't see what else we could try. That at least has some minuscule chance of success."
"Not good enough Lieutenant. I expect more from us." The captain growled, leaning in over the table.
Miss Blair was staring at the footage of the infra-red detector from their last encounter. "Actually, the chance might not be that low, if we can set them to coordinate better."
"What do you mean?" Markus and Captain Garland both spoke at the same time.
"When they were running from our missiles, we could briefly detect their heat signature. It was not just what came out of their engines, it was the engines and the surrounding hull itself. We lost them afterwards, but objects in space do not cool down like that. If anything, heat is hard to get rid of without a medium. I don't care how good their heat sinks are, no way they could cool their hull or armor or whatever that quickly. Which means we can only not see them because another part of their ship which they do keep cold all the time obscures the rest, and its not their entire hull!"
"Meaning?"
"Ha!" The Captain did not wait for an explanation. "They have to be careful about which side of their ship faces us! Multiple observers could leave them no cold shadow to hide behind, and they are limited in how they can move away or towards us! Mark! Program the drones to spread out and look for heat signatures."
"Sir, yes sir!" This was the brilliant man he signed up with years ago. "Good to have you back sir. Er..." Garland was giving him a weird look, but he had no time to explain that little remark. "Sir, communications is still out, i can have our drone in the bay programmed and relay its commands to the others, but we will have no control over them once they are out!
"I have full confidence in you Markus." The weapons officer rolled his eyes as he was turning away, not this again.