Ezra's First

Part 13

"Contact! Intercept in just under thirty minutes." Daniel shouted as the proximity alarms went off on Ezra's console.

"Fuck" Ezra muttered to himself. They had three systems left before they hit human space, they had gotten so close and now they were in no position to just make a blind sprint for it, their engines were already working overtime.

The ship heaved and Ezra was thrown against the restraints in his seat.

"What the hell!" He shouted in a panic.

"Second contact, direct missile hit to our underside, multiple warnings coming from core systems."

"Another contact, I though there was only two!"

"Well we have a third, either the one we thought exploded in the planets atmosphere didn't or they sent another. Fuck I really need to get back there and have a look, can you handle up here?"

"Yes go for it." Not that there was much 'here' to handle, both enemy ships would eventually catch up with them, they had eight missiles left and half their total supply of bullets. Not to mention his weapons systems were malfunctioning slightly and the engine was using it's backup systems so it was all down to Daniel now. He would be busy at some point in the future, but not now.

---

"Daniel, we're about to be in range, are you done back there?"

"Nearly, I've managed to fix the weapons systems, and got the engine mostly back onto it's primary systems. The Ion thrusters are giving me the most hassle right now, some are not working and others are running In emergency mode, hopefully I'm only a few minutes away."

Ezra nervously watched Daniel through the video feed and the two Preshk ships on his radar. Any minute now they would open fire and all hell would break loose.

Ezra took a deep breath and tried to focus, all he needed to do was keep the ship moving towards the jump point and avoid as much fire as possible. They would be able to jump to the next system in about fifty minutes and for the next twenty minutes only one of the Preshk ships would be in range.

You can do this.

The first volley of fire mostly missed the ship and clipped the back right of the ship. Unfortunately it was the lack of Ion thrusters that prevented Ezra from being able to avoid that and he gritted his teeth hoping Daniel was close to a having a fix. The Ion thrusters provided lateral and fine movement controls and so where vital Ezra being able to dodge the incoming fire.

The gaps between volleys of fire shortened as the Preshk caught up.

The hull continued to take sporadic hits and Ezra could hear Daniel swearing up a storm over the comm. He just kept his focus on getting them to safety, 37 mins until jump, 17 minutes until both Preshk ships could accurately describe the colour of his ship's hull.

"Got it!" Announced Daniel over the comm and Ezra could see on his dash that the Ion thrusters were responding to lateral movement control.

It came a bit too late and another volley of fire raked the aft side of the ship, new warning alerts popped up on Ezra's dash.

"Long range comms have gone offline!" Ezra announced down the com.

"On it!" Yelled Daniel.

Multiple red lights flashed on Ezra's console and he instantly yelled out;

"Danny watch out!"

A barrage of missiles from the other Preshk ship washed the side of the ship. Nearly every single one of them hit and Ezra was surprised they weren't a ball of fire right now.