II. ATTACK
The ‘bogeys’ turned out to be Gnomecons—cone-tipped A.I. drones the size of a two-man spaceship that pursue and attack any foreign space-vehicle they encountertousurp supplies and finds. The Gnomecians, inhabitants of Gnomec, had been continuously producing and sending countless hordes of these pirate drones all across the universe—in different times and different dimensions. They are self-sustaining and incredibly fast. Equipped with high-power lasers, a Gnomecon stops at nothing and attacks at all costs.
Fortunately for Alex Skinner, his ship was designed to be able to defend itself from such attackers.
As the red cones of the Gnomecons pointed toward the A.S.Hydra to shoot their pulse-laser rays, Alex activated the ship’s reflective force-field.
The force-field immediately deflected the steady light rays —sending short beams of red laser scattering in all directions. Since the Gnomecons’ lasers fired in continuous rays, a great deal of beams had been deflected—destroying two and damaging one as they struck the drones.
The two undamaged ones stopped firing as they moved away to distance themselves from Alex’s ship. Since the force field hogged too much energy, Alex decided to turn it off and take the offensive.
The damaged Gnomecon struggled to remain afloat as it aimlessly fired its guns in hopes of scoring on A.S. Hydra. Alex swerved to dodge a volley of gunfire. He then released two homing missiles that shattered one of the undamaged Gnomecons to shards.
Two to go, Alex thought.
He made a sideward plunge to avoid the damaged Gnomecon’s shooting frenzy, and then turned the ship 32 degrees to port side firing one hundred rounds of space-grade titanium shells that took down another Gnomecon. Alex tried this maneuver again to attack the lastGnomecon, but its damage was too extensive that it wobbled uncontrollably and in the process, avoided Alex’s bullets that missed the pirate craft by twenty yards.
“Crap,” Alex muttered.
The Gnomecon fired its red cone-shaped laser emitter, hitting the A.S. Hydra’s hull with a steady beam.
The ship shook violently; Alex Skinner barely heard the computer voice above the noise of the onboard alarms and the ringing in his ears that was caused by the impact.
INCOMING STORM DETECTED. RE: INCOMING STORM DETECTED.
From his monitor, Alex pressed a command that caused the screen to flash:
· Estimated distance from storm cloud: 24.5662 M, NORTHBOUND
· Estimated time before contact: 52 sec.
Alex keyed-in a series of commands that conjured a holographic diagram of the A.S. Hydra. The screen displayed DAMAGE ASSESSMENT, and the ship’s 3Dimage rotated:highlighting the damage from the actual ship with a blinking red. It flashed a text:
