Another explosion rocked the bridge of the Kharak. The enemy fleet had been so far reduced to 2 vessels, but the Cruiser was under danger. Hull integrity was failing, and a series of breaches had been reported across all decks. It’s a miracle the bridge is still here after all these damage, though Lin. One of the officers reported: “Sir, at the rate we’re sustaining damage,” he paused briefly as another explosion rocked the ship. “And the system failures we’re having as result, the Kharak isn’t going to last very long.” “How much?” asked Lin. “If the shooting stops, enough to commence repairs and save the ship. If it does not, we won’t survive more than 5 or 6 shots of those ion cannons.” The bridge was clearly shaken by this commentary. Lin paused, at a temporary loss of words. “Comm, inform the other ships of our status. We must intensify our efforts to destroy the remaining ships. Guns, I want you to try to sustain the ion cannon shots for longer in order to do more damage. Take it to dangerous levels should you need to, because it won’t matter if we don’ and fail. And none of us have dead wishes, don’t we?” Lin counted three more ion beams hit the Kharak. He also saw another enemy frigate go down as the result of the continuous attack from Kushan vessels. As the Kharak prepared to launch it’s final salvo of ion beams and cannon shots, Lin saw the enemy frigate’s weapon start to focus the beam. Like in trance, Lin looked at the beauty of the beam as it hit the Cruiser. The whole ship shuddered, but did not break up. And out of nowhere, two ion cannon beams flashed across from below the viewport. The shots zeroed on a position of the ship the Kushan had never bothered to fire at it because it didn’t seem to cover vital systems. That was wrong. Inside those bulkheads laid the enemy ship’s bridge. The complex computer systems were instantly vaporised. The command crew was incinerated. But the rest of the crew was still alive. In their last moments, they manually pushed the ship’s engines to full and sent course for the Cruiser. They were going to ram her. Lin looked in disbelief as the enemy ship moved forward, second after second closer and closer. “Fire! Goddamn’it! All guns fire!” And fire they did. In a triumphant display of fireworks, the enemy frigate exploded. Some debris hit the ship, but the nightmare was over. They had won. For a few moments, no one on the bridge spoke. They were all having and attack of emotions. Pain, relief, happiness, all mixed together. Lin was the first in recuperating. He pressed the Comm button that would run his voice across the ship and said: “Well done, my friends, well done.” Lin paused as the whole ship absorbed the words. “Now, let’s get back to work. Engineering, I want repair teams all over the ship. Comm, ask the Mothership for assistance. And Tactical, tell me where the hell did those ion beams come from.” “What do you mean, the Taiidan captain just saved the Kharak?” Admiral Triggit questioned. Like everyone else to far to clearly see the action visually, he had been paying attention to the visual relays from the Kharak and had put all his attention on the last enemy frigate. No one had paid attention to the other beams. All focused on whether the Kharak itself would survive the engagement. “Sir,” said the intelligence officer. “Recording of the battle and shot telemetry plus reports from the boarding team not only state as the Taiidan Destroyer as the source of the shots, but also that the Captain took the decision of making those shots by himself. According to the boarding party leader, weapons power up had begun before they had arrived at the bridge and the targeting system was focusing for a shot on what appears to have been the enemy bridge.” “Why would they do that?” asked Admiral Triggit in awe. “I understand you Commodore Kuei, and I will patch you to the Taiidan captain,” said the boarding team leader, or rather, his face in the holovid transmission. Lin wanted to speak to the person who had seemingly saved his life and the ones of his crew. “Thank you.” “Commodore Kuei, this is acting-Captain Garik Loran on board the no longer Taiidan Destroyer Oppression.” “Captain Loran, I greet you and thank you for your course of actions.” Lin paused, searching for words to use. “You must understand this is new to me. Never had I seen or heard a Taiidan ship surrendering with most systems functional, much less three ships and two whole squadrons of fighters.” “I understand. This is new to me too, for never had I spoken with a Kushan face-to-face, so to speak. To your point, I believe, and I beg your pardon for saying so, that you are erring by generalisation. Not all Taiidan like the Empire a few of our race created centuries ago, nor do we like the government. We don't wish to fight against the Kushan. We,” the Captain Loran paused. “are conscripts. Ripped from our homes with the threat of having our families killed, we served the fleet under loyal volunteers.” “So how did you gain control of the vessel?” “We revolted when the battle killed a number of loyal officers. Outnumbering them, we arrested them and have already turned them to your authorities. Since we’ve been probably recorded as “lost-in-action”, our families will hopefully gain something from our supposed death. This is something I have discussed with most of my fellow conscripts and we all agree on one thing.” Captain Loran paused. “And that is?” asked Lin. “We…” Captain Loran took a deep breathe. “We want to join you.”