NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shayuri" data-source="post: 5314740" data-attributes="member: 4936">The 'Razzle Dazzle' Maneuver"Spider," Zoe called down from the bridge, "Give me a sandcaster shell burst at twenty-five, sixteen, minus three. On my mark."It took Spider all of half a second to see the flaw in his orders. "A burst there will just spread pretty sparkles into space, it's nowhere near...""Just do it!" There was a pause, and she added, "All hands, brace for full acceleration!"--------Vargr ships were, by the standards of Humaniti, smelly. An all-vargr crew appreciated the scents of things Humans would just as soon spray something lemony on. Dirt and blood and, most of all, fear.The hoary old vargr with an eyepatch growled at the screen showing the Zhodani vessel. It had yet to respond, despite being outmassed four to one. Just then a warning buzz sounded, and the sensor opsman yelped, "Weapons fire!"The captain roared, "What?!" Visions of some strange Zhodani superweapon floated in his head, but only for a second. One didn't become a captain on a vargr ship by being stupid."That's a sandcaster shell, idiot!"The cur at sensors whimpered at the insult, and quickly barked, "Confirmed! Its completely off target though. It won't block our fire."The patch-eyed captain growled again. Was that their way of signaling surrender?"Heat spike in their dri..."There was a flash of waste radiation from the plates at the rear of the Zhodani ship, and with startling speed it shot forward and started to weave erratically.The captain sat forward in his seat and grinned, exposing rows of sharp teeth. He loved a good chase. "Open fire, lasers only. Try to hit their drive plates!"One of the gunners emitted a coarse vargr curse. "They're moving too fast!""Helm, stay with them!"In the near-vacuum of space, laser beams had nothing to reflect from, and were silent and invisible. Only the firing apertures of the vargr's turrets blazing with unholy light gave any sign they were attacking.Their prey was eluding them by accelerating into a tight turn, faster and tighter than the lower-tech vargr ships could match. In doing so, it was keeping out of the fire arcs of their weapons. It was also a time-limited strategy in that one of the vargr ships could just stop trying to follow, and merely wait for its target to cross its field of fire. It couldn't stop, or the ship still chasing it would catch it.This is what the vargr did. It worked perfectly. The pursuing ship managed to bring its lasers to bear, and the Zhodani's hull flared with reflected light. A roaring cheer went up from the bridge crew. The captain however snarled, "Wait..."The sunburst of colors and light on the screen was not an explosion. It looked like a giant firework going off, or a nebula of coruscating lights. He knew what made that kind of display.Laser fire hitting sandcaster discharge.In a heartbeat the Opsman was reporting. "They flew through a sandcaster cloud, it's the same one they fired just before...""I know which one it is!" the captain raged. "Fire!""It's no good!" yelped a gunner. "They flew through the cloud, it's between us now""They're making a run for the planet," warned the opsman. "Once they get in the atmosphere we'll never catch them."The Zhodani ship was a streamlined wedge, while the vargr ships were designed for a life in space, where being ungainly and unaerodynamic was not a hardship."Pursuit course! Arm missiles!" The gunners exchanged looks. Lasers could disable civilian craft, but missiles...they were more likely to blow the ship up entirely, leaving no salvage and no take. Even so, neither was ready challenge over it.---------Zoe laughed with the wildness of intense stress-fueled hysteria as the sandcaster's cloud of prisms ignited behind them."See that?" she whooped. "Did you see that?!"Then came the warning tone.A moment later a much-subdued Zoe intercommed Spider in the turret controls."Hey, uh...they're locking missiles. Hope you're a good shot, because you're point defense."</blockquote>

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