Character Perspective: Reagan

“Weapons go hot, we are on an intercept course in T-5 minutes,” Curtis called over the 1MC and I started to shake my limbs out.

“Okay Doc, what weapons you run in the simulators? You comfortable with a Modified Rail-rifle?” I asked, gesturing toward a cockpit like opening at the bottom of our weapons room.

“That thing’s got a swivel limit, right?”

“180 degrees, you shoot where the ship’s lookin’, maybe a little bit behind it if you get it on a sling turn,” I said, pulling the hatch open and looking down into the beautifully designed simulator. “I really hope you don’t get motion sickness Doc, this area is technically my responsibility so if you puke you are so cleaning it up.”

“Que chulo, this ain’t my first time in a sim, hermana,” Doc said with a slight scowl, “What you gonna use?”

“I want to see what we have in terms of disabling gear, I’m sure their shields will be up so I’m hoping a constant barrage from you will deplete their energy enough that a well placed EMP drill might be able to leave them Dead in the Water,” I thought, explaining my plan. “Think the Captain wants the m captured or killed?”

“Hey, I wanted to be the Doc so that I didn’t have to make those decisions,” he replied, climbing down into the cockpit and strapping into the metal skeleton that acted as a chair in the pod. In space, that room would be just outside of the gravity field that was created by the ship’s drive and thus when firing you had the tendency to float in place, the skeleton acting as an anchor holding you in place.

I could make the decision, the Captain had put me in control of the room down here after all. But… No that was only if we were struck and lost communications. I hit an intercom on the nearby wall, “Hey Captain, are we going for a kill or a capture?”

“Five minutes for attempted capture or until we lose our shields, if we haven’t disabled the ship within that you blow it,” he shot back within a minute.

“Heard, Captain,” I called back then looked over to Doc, “You heard the man, we got five minutes for a capture, think you got enough accuracy to knock out their shields in that time?”

“Ha, please, I’ll do it in three or you can have my desserts for a week,” Doc replied with a crooked smirk.

“Damn, you got a bet, Neutrino you heard that right?” I asked the room and our intercom clicked on with a slight static.

“Bet recorded,” the robotic tone called.

“Good, now it’s on the record in case you try tah welch on the bet,” I laughed, “Video intercom on, I’m gonna shut you in, you good to go bud? All ready for some action?”

Doc gave me a thumbs up, “Born ready, hermana.”

I shut him in, closing down the hatch and slamming my foot onto a switch set into the floor next to the hatches lock. With a hiss of air, the room sealed off and a magnetic buzz seemed to hum to life.

“Oh shit!” Doc’s voice came through the stereo speakers of the video intercom to the cockpit. “They actually got grav sims going in here! I’m legit floating, crap I shoulda strapped myself down harder,” he laughed.

“You got two more minutes, better secure yourself before you start swinging all over the place,” I said reaching back for an intercom button set into my main weapons console. I had a window looking forward, allowing for optical zoom on anything that got caught by our ship’s main high powered cameras. I hit the button labeled Pilot, “Hey Novarod, holler over your comms before any big evasive maneuvers, I wanna make sure we are getting early warning so our shots don’t go wide.”

“Heard,” Novarod responded quickly.

“Comms channel is also open to the Rail-Rifle cockpit, Doc is in position and will be aiming to disable their shields, try to swing behind them as often as possible, I want to launch an EMP drill directly into their engines, that should be the point of most damage,” I explained quickly.

“Heard, enhance your viewport to 10k zoom, we have visuals,” Novarod called back.

“Neutrino, set Weapons visuals to 10k zoom and lock on the Parasitum ship, alert when we are in Long Distance range,” I ordered, the windows screen rapidly adjusting but seemingly bugging out as it bounced around a space that was beginning to light up with lasers.

“Two ships within 10k range, Weapons, which ship shall I lock on to?”

I looked at the screen as it settled on another ship with purple striping along the sides making a large rolling motion and skipping out of the way of what must have been a concentrated energy blast from the Parasitum’s ship. “Neutrino the ship with purple striping is friendly, lock on the second ship.”

A worrisome beep emanated from the speaker. “No second ship found,” the robotic voice droned.

“No second ship, what do you mean…” I trailed off as my eyes darted around the screen. Though I could still clearly see the MEGALODON, the second ship had indeed vanished from my display.

“Bridge, we have lost visuals on the Parasitum, can you confirm visuals?” I called over the intercom.

“Labs, report, I thought I told you to disable the pulse amplifier!” The Captain sounded irritated now, “Weapons, we have lost visuals ourselves, another pulse went out and at the same time we lost visuals on the Parasitum… Hold one, we are receiving a comms request from the MEGALODON’s bridge.”

The intercom clicked off. My eyes hadn’t left the screen as I desperately tried to see what the ship’s next move was. Even if we couldn’t see it, the MEGALODON must still be in mot-

A ball of fire erupted on the screen as the MEGALODON went up in flames, a barrage of missiles and lasers blasting into the side of it’s hull out of seemingly nowhere.

“DIOS MÍO!” Doc half yelled over the 1MC. “How the hell did it take out the MEGALODON?! And where the hell did that thing vanish to!?”

“I got no clue Doc, something seems up with our Visuals, what the hell did your lab buddy do?” I asked as I rapidly started to fire up our EMP drill.

“I got no idea myself, hermana. Kill’s a cool dude and we joke but he spent most of his time squirreled away… chipmunked away?… into the lab when we were in school, and talking about the process of cloning and genetically modifying a rodent was never what I’d call fun to just chat about, know what I mean?” He said with a sigh.

“Doesn’t sound like the Captain’s too happy with him right now either so let’s just do what we can,” I said as the intercom clicked on.

“Weapons start firing, we are now in range for Short Wave Radio Waves, visuals should be back, they took the MEGALODON out, it’s time we at least avenge them,” Curtis order, his voice growing increasingly stern, “Blow them out of the sky, I don’t even want to waste time trying to disable them now just in case we lose sight once more, take them out before they take us out. Heard?”

“Heard, Captain!” I called back as quickly as I could.