Free Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage by Chris Hechtl Page B

flinched, aware all eyes were on him. He gasped when he saw the faint trace of something. It had to be debris, but he'd get his ass chewed further if …. He queried the computer for confirmation, then gasped louder.
    “What? What the hell is it? Spit it out!”
    “Mines, sir! Dead ahead!” the hapless tech said, looking back to Captain Corry.”
    “Mother of … Helm, pitch ship! Full power to the engines. Comm, warn the flag. And Bosun get that idiot off my bridge and in the brig!” he snarled just as the first mines acquired his ship and went into their final stages of attack.
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    Renee wondered what the elf was playing at with the mines when the lead ship, the medium class cruiser suddenly pitched up to avoid them. She snorted, now thinking it was a distraction but then her eyes narrowed as the range from the mines to the oncoming ships registered. The hunters had just found that this prey still had sharp hooves she thought as the first four mines detonated practically on the ship's wedge and keel shields.
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    Adventure Galley bucked as she clawed her way to safety, but her shields went down from the four pin point impacts of nuclear hell. Then four more got through her already wavering shields to tear into her stern.
    That knocked her drive out, and she drifted, OMS fighting to get her moving out of the way of her sister ships and the last line of mines.
    They almost made it. The last four mines went off in a staggered sequence directly on his keel. Two found breaches in his armor and got through to his vitals, tearing his reactor apart and sending it into sympathetic detonation.
    The third and fourth mines found the ship's fuel supply and keel munitions bunker respectively. The ship spun end over end as both detonated, tearing her apart.
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    Rear Admiral Von Berk swore viciously as he saw Adventure Galley flip and then began to break up. First her hull began to peel as her shields buckled and failed, then all hell broke loose as the blast wave tore into her to get at her softer inner core. It had happened so damn fast it was hard to believe. But then he saw past her, saw a couple of the missiles the now dead cruiser had launched arch around the Fed cruiser. Some were picked off by her point defense, but a few of the others were in the cruiser's crippling blind spot made by the last series of strikes. They arrowed in, and then when their warheads telemetry recognized they were in striking distance, they triggered themselves, tearing her starboard primary nacelle in half.
    He grinned. Adventure Galley had gotten her revenge even in death. Now it was time to finish the job he thought.
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    Renee was about to congratulate Guns but saw the incoming fire. Ensign Drum and the helm were just a little too slow getting the ship around so an undamaged quadrant could engage them. Her eyes watched as missile after missile was picked off, but three got through everything her ship threw at them to hit the already wounded nacelle.
    It tore open like rice paper in a hurricane, then broke in half. Pieces flared out, tearing into the other nacelles and into her ship's primary hull. She felt her ship buck like a wild thing and clung to her arm rests as her restraints dug in.
    A piece of the ship's hull hit the primary hull's stern at the base of the Prifly. Her armor held but buckled inward, and that split off a scab of material inside to ricochet within the ship.
    A bulkhead cover designed to cover up an ODN trunk was knocked loose and fell. One end slammed down into the helm tank, fortunately unoccupied, but the grav emitters inside kicked it up and out of the area like a repulsive pair of magnetic poles coming in proximity to each other.
    It flipped in the air to tear into a sensor tech, then slammed into the tactical officer chair's headrest above the diminutive Purple Thorn's head before it pivoted on that so it's other end could come down onto Lieutenant Commander Simon Dart, crushing the XO.
    The