Dogfight

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2020 @ 5:17am by Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick & Chief Petty Officer James Frost
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 4:47pm

Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Shuttle Bay/Dreamstate
Timeline: Moments after the storm

A Mission Post by Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick & Chief Petty Officer James Frost
Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Shuttle Bay/Dreamstate
Timeline: Moments after the storm
Mon Apr 16th, 2018 @ 4:47pm

ON:

Fick jogged to the shuttle bay. It was both exciting and terrifying all at the same time. He remembered something that one of his professors had explained to him once about how way back in human history they used to have what was called a "dogfight" in some of their very first flying machines. He kept thinking of it all the way to the shuttle bay. As he jogged into the bay he slowed and started to look around, not really sure where to begin. He was an Ensign after all, so he had done many of these things on simulators, but not so much first hand.

"Ready for some fun, Ensign?" Frost asked as he rounded a corner and came in behind Fick.

Fick rubbed his hands together like a kid in a candy shop, grinning from ear to ear. "You bet I am!"

"I might be an old Chief now and an engineer by trade but I was once a ship Captain." Frost beamed. "I had to learn the ins and outs of helm and space combat like everyone else. Plus I managed to convince my CAG to give me a few lessons on starfighter combat during shore leave. All in the holodeck, mind you but still pretty interesting stuff. He was a great pilot. Someone told me Major Raynar was one of the best in the fleet at one point."

"That's awesome! Yeah that's all the starfighter flying I've gotten to do. All simulation at the Academy. Hopefully, it'll all come back to me." He bounced on the balls of his feet for a moment. "So... where's Major Raynar now?"

"Ahh." Frost made a face. "He uhh. Got shot down in a dogfight... We will be fine though. Don't worry."

Fick stopped bouncing and eyed him seriously. "Great... great story there," he said sarcastically before returning to the bouncing. "But hey... they wouldn't be legends if they weren't dead and besides... today might be a good day to die! Qapla'!" he yelled in Klingon.

"That's the spirit!"

When they were directed toward the starfighters Fick was almost like a school kid. He bounced up and down all the way over to them and stared up at the ships for a moment, his eyes wide in amazement. He'd never flown a starfighter. Of course he had done so in simulation, but to be standing in front of a ship he was going to get to fly in reality was a much different situation. He actually clapped his hands before scrambling up the ladder into the cockpit.

Frost eased himself into his fighter. This felt a bit familiar. It had been almost five years since he'd been in a cockpit but he wasn't going to mention that to anyone if he could help it.

He pressed a few switches for the pre-flight sequence to begin. He could have asked the computer to do it but he needed that hands on time to re-familiarize himself with the system. He pushed a button and a beep sounded from the computer. "TORPEDOS ARMED."

"Oh crap!" Frost exclaimed as he frantically looked for the disarm command. A moment later the alarm stopped and Frost leaned his head back and blew out a sigh. "I gotta stop volunteering for stupid crap."

Once they were out of the docking bay, Fick felt a lot more confident about the starfighter. Although, the fact that he was in one suggested to him that Starfleet had no intention of letting the Ravagers get away and that their job was now to shoot them out of the sky with deadly force. Only a few ships had escaped the terrifying monstrosity of the Ravager mothership and now it was the job of Chief Petty Officer Frost and himself to make sure they didn't get a chance to tell any other Ravagers that might be nearby.

The comm sounded and Frost's voice came through. "You alright kid?"

"Totally alright!" Fick came back. "This ship is AWESOME!"

"Statistically speaking you should be able to fly circles around these guys. You're young and you've still got your reflexes. Just try to not get cocky. I'm quite a bit older and likely less experienced at the stick than you are and I'll need you on my wing." Frost sucked his teeth for a second before he continued. "That being said, even though this is a serious mission, try to have a little fun. Like one of those old videogames from the 21st century."

"Blah, blah, blah.... you talk too much, Old Man," Fick teased, making Old Man sound more like a title then an insult. "And what's a videogame? You do know I'm not a Terran... right? You mean like the games you play on the computer?" Fick was already laying in all the information to try and track the Ravager ships. "So this is their trail... we're gonna have to be quick. It won't last long." He sent the warp trails to Frost. "Although it looks like one of those ships is leaking... which one you want?"

When the ex-borg made his selection, Fick took his ship in the other way. "Okay! Sounds good to me!" He laid in the coordinates and shot off after the Ravager. Following the Captain's instructions, Fick made plans to knock the Ravager ships out of commission so the Pandora could pick up their occupants. The Ravagers were in ships that these starfighters would easily overtake, but it might take a bit to knock them out of commission without just exploding them.

Fick shot off across the sky, the starfighter spinning in a corkscrew fashion, as he played with the capabilities of the ship. He had to admit that it was amazingly streamlined. The Valkyrie class ship only did warp 2, but it could turn tight and spin every which way with relative ease, and go warp 4.5 in emergencies. It was a great ship for what he was about to use it for. It had a wide firing range and was known for its ability to pinpoint small targets on larger ships.

He caught up to the Ravager ship with ease. It was easy to follow because it was leaking plasma. Not much, but enough for Fick to see a clear trail on his sensors. The ship he was chasing was old and cobbled together much like everything else the Ravagers used. He wasn't sure if the Ravager even knew he was coming, but he was soon going to find out.

Their shields were up, but Fick was pretty sure he could hammer that down to nothing pretty quickly. He opened a hailing frequency to the Ravager. "This is Ensign Fick from the Federation starship Pandora, stand down and surrender and I won't blow you out of the stars..." There, of course, was no response. The Ravager ship continued on it's way, but did seem more focused on getting away from him then any sort of actual confrontation. "Alright... Well, if you don't want to talk... I'm going to have to use all my fancy Starfleet weapons on you."

There was still no response. The Ravager ship even seemed to speed up a little, but Fick was right on his tail and not losing him. He armed the weapons of the starfighter, took his time to line up the phasers and fired. The Ravager ship tried to wheel away from him, but Fick fired a second time. The Ravager's shields had already dropped to 50%, not that they were at full when Fick ran up on him. "So... like this is your last warning..." The Ravager ship turned. Fick stopped talking and concentrated on his sensor readings. The Ravager ship powered up weapons.

"Seriously? You're totally outgunned... give it up, man. Plus you're leaking plasma all over the place... we really shouldn't be shooting each other at all. Just surrender and we can go back to the ship, maybe have a nice meal..." He tipped the starfighter to the left and rolled away from the shot from the Ravager ship. "I'm sorry... you're gonna have to do better than that and besides, that's not very nice." Fick zipped past the Ravager ship and fired again.

The Ravager ship exploded suddenly, rocking Fick's starfighter. The explosion was rather spectacular as was the case of anything that exploded in the zero gravity of space. For a moment Fick was elated. He took the starfighter a distance away from the ex-Ravager ship and watched for a moment. As he watched he got a funny feeling that all of this had already happened, but for some reason he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He also remembered that he had been under orders to bring the Ravager back alive. That was no longer possible. He furrowed his eyebrows, as he sat in the cockpit of the fighter, thinking hard about why this all felt so familiar.

When he opened his eyes he was staring at the ceiling of the bridge. How did he get on the bridge? A moment ago he had been blowing up Ravagers and now he was laying on his back, looking up at the ceiling of the Main Bridge of the Pandora. His lips were dry and he licked them and tasted blood. When it all came back to him, it rushed him, almost like the surge of the storm that had been on the main viewscreen just seconds ago. He sat up quickly, a little too quickly, making him dizzy and tried to puzzle out what was going on around him. For once he was at a loss for words.

:END