Yes! Finally, I got around to writing another chapter! All those who bother to read it, please reply with comments and so on.


Chapter 12: No Escape
“Surrender yourself and step off of the hover-bike. We are armed and will shoot if forced.”
“If forced? I don’t recall any turtles using that line when they slaughtered my family.” The cold, hard stare of the mysterious rabbit on the bike caused the lead turtle to become nervous.
“Identify yourself, or surrender immediately. We will shoot.”
The rabbit pulled back the hood of a long cloak, revealing her face. A svelte, thin, grey-furred rabbit with long black hair appeared from under the cloak.
“My name is Coppertop. Surrender? Now, let me think.” Her green eyes rolled upward as if deciding, but then she rested her gaze on the lead officer. With a piercing stare and a cold smile, she spun a black blaster from a holster and pulled the trigger without batting an eye.
“Yaaarrrgggh!” The turtle pitched backwards off the hover-bike and his helmet went spinning into the night. Coppertop flicked her wrist and pulled the trigger. A stream of white-hot blaster bolts peppered the turtle on the right.
“Darn, his armour ablated most of the shots. Still, I can take these guys on, no problem.”
The left-side turtle and the rear terrapins broke off for a run. The remaining turtle that Copper had moments before lit up was speeding towards her.
“Has a death wish, does he? Fine, I’ll grant it.” Her face set, she leant forward and gunned the bike. It shot forward on a collision course towards the turtle.
“Yaylaho!” Copper bellowed her cry to the now heavy rain, and, swinging the bike sideways, launched a double-handed strike on the turtle.
WHAM! She caught him in the face with the butt of her blaster and came around for another pass. The turtle, now helmetless and with blood pouring freely from his nose, brought out a blaster with automatic reload. They circled each other, shots flying from their guns. The turtle didn’t have to change the clips in his gun, unlike Coppertop, and she soon found herself with a disadvantage.
“Blast! The other turtles are closing in!” Arranged in formation, the bikes sped straight on an intercept course. Knowing she had a disadvantage up in the air, Coppertop nosed the bike down through a sharp, narrow valley and hit the turbo.

“Kaz, what is it?” defalcon rubbed sleep from his eyes. They had been in hyperspace for over 20 hours without emerging and most of the time had been dozing.
“We’ve been pulled out of hyperspace! We’re caught in an ambush!” The red bird had an ammo belt strung across his chest and was running through the corridor.
“What? Where exactly are we?”
“Just outside the entry vector for the Diamondus system. We have multiple contacts closing in.” Elfatine appeared, grabbed the two and dragged them to the bridge. Still trying to clear his head, defalcon pinched himself multiple times.
“What is it? How did they know we were here?”
Elfatine frowned. “I don’t think they did. Look out there.” He pointed to the viewscreen, where there were 5 ships exchanging fire.
“Right. They put the gravity-well projectors here to ambush someone else, and we got caught as well.” defalcon peered at the data-monitors. “Looks like they’ve spotted us. One of the ships has broken off and they’re firing at us.”
“All stations, evasive now!” Elfatine began to key in commands. A ship like the Ralvient required large amounts of power, and due to its size did not mauver extremely quickly. Moments later, a tremor rocked the bridge and the lights began to flash.
“We’ve lost a generator. Emergency power failing! We can’t-” The voice cut off as his monitor exploded in his face. defalcon and Kaz ran to the docking bay.
“Launch fighters! Alpha squadron, lead in a run on the ships shield generators. Nova Team, cover them while they head in! Move out!”
“Computer, give me a read-out of the battle.” Kaz glanced over out the cockpit at the other fighters. One squadron had already begun to move out. Kaz keyed his comm.
“Okay Alpha Squadron, this is the plan. One-flight is going to make a run through their fighter screen and pop ‘em with missiles. I want Two-flight to assault the nearest ship with torpedos, and then follow up with strafing runs. One-flight will join you shortly. Three-flight, you’re covering our rear from fighters. Got it? Move out.”
defalcon gently eased his fighter from the docking clamps and punched up a burn. The J-3005 series of Carrotian fighter-craft were he newest model before the takeover and came equipped with standard armament 8 torpedos or missiles, and had two twin-blasters as an energy weapon. They also came equipped with a hyperspace drive, which made them increasingly popular for solo mercenaries and questers.
“Alpha-lead, do we engage targets?”
Kaz flicked down the blast-screen on his helmet. “Negative. Do not engage until we’re fully clear of the Ralvient. Repeat, do not engage.”
“Aw come on lead, you’re spoiling the fun.” Kaz gave a disgruntled smile as defalcon dipped the wing of his craft in a mock salute.
“defalcon, I have a very clear shot of your engines, you don’t mind if I clip one of them for practice do you?”
“Point taken. Alpha-two pulling back.” defalcon slowly lowered his throttle, which was set a fast-burn, until he was flying even with Kaz. “Still, look at that craft there. Just gotta sip in behind him, power the cannons…”
“Don’t even think about it.” Out of annoyance, Kaz glanced at the indicated craft. It was flying straight, and the pilot didn’t even bother jerking the controls for evasive. Peering closely at the craft, he punched up the computer and had it give him the flight record of the ship.
This particular ship was not heading for the fighters.
“Lead, I think that ship’s heading for the Ralvient!”
“Yeah. According to my computer’s data, that there’s a special model of ship, the computer identifies it as the Nefirt. It carries extremely powerful warheads and has a high-powered energy-beam as a primary weapon. It couldn’t take the Ralvient out, but it could easily cripple the engines or take out the shields.
“My thoughts exactly. Yulif, break off from the flight and take it out now. defalcon, you be Yulif’s wingman for a while, and I’ll take the rest of the flight and head after the other ships.