48. Escaping a Chaotic Situation Part 2

Abyssal wasted no time in avoiding the cruiser's attacks. Their guns were much larger in calibre than the destroyer so they were slower to reload and fire. In exchange, Abyssal could tell that their accuracy and dispersion were much better than the smaller calibre guns of the destroyer as the blue coloured shells came close to hitting Abyssal a few times. The only reason why Abyssal was able to dodge the attacks was because the cruiser was several hundreds of thousands of kilometres away and it was easy to trace their bright blue shells.

[Communication incoming, video feed, open channel.] Abby sent out a notification to Abyssal.

Within it was a transmission from one of the three cruisers that appeared. It was the image of a young-looking woman with blonde hair tied in a side ponytail— a woman in her mid-twenties. She wore a red coat with many badges and emblems on them. In front of her was a large sword pointed downwards, her two hands resting on it. She looked to be of nobility if Abyssal ever saw one.

“Attention, Crimson Tide ship and the unknown pirate ship,” said the woman with a regal tone to it.

“This is ‘Lady Lucky’ of the Royal Navy. Surrender now, and we shall cease-fire. This is your first and final warning,” she said before ending the coms. As she did so, the three ships stopped their attacks towards Abyssal and the destroyer. They did not stop moving towards them though.

“As expected of Royal Navy Ships. Shoot first, ask questions after. Wait… I recognise that design. That's a Victory-class cruiser," Kuon let out a small remark as she heard the voice-com.

‘Abby, how long more till warp?’ Abyssal asked, having no energy to be the straight man to Kuon.

[4 minutes till warp drives are online.]

‘That’s quite a while away dammit… Should I just return a message saying that I surrender to buy some time?’ Abyssal thought to herself.

It was unfortunate for her that the plan would not come to fruition as another communication came— this time from the destroyer. The feed opened and within it was a small girl wearing black military clothing. She wore a hat akin to a sailor’s hat that covered one of her eyes— her other visible eye was like one of a dead fish, staring into the camera with no emotions. On her chest were the symbol of the reaper and the name tag that contained the word: ‘Sensenmann’.

“What is this? Everyone going into open channels now? Think this is some sort of playground? If you expect me to surrender then you can kiss my ass,” a young small girl’s voice came out of the speaker. It carried a small uncaring, yet mocking tone.

As soon as the young girl in the black destroyer said that, she fired some small calibre shells towards the three cruisers. The attack missed, and they immediately returned fire. The ones being shot at included Abyssal, of course.

“Oiii! I’m not with her, don’t attack me too dammit!” yelled Abyssal in frustration as she continued to dodge the attack coming from the New England Royal Cruiser.

The cruisers shelled with impunity towards Abyssal and the destroyer, Sensenmann. Salvos after salvos of shells streamed from the cruisers in an attempt to either disable or outright destroy them. For the destroyer, she doesn't seem all too bothered by the shells as it failed to penetrate through its black shields. The destroyer, shrugging off all attacks, made a beeline towards the three cruisers, perhaps in an attempt to engage in a brawl. It then fired from its box-shaped body a bunch of torpedoes towards the cruisers.

To avoid this attack, the three cruisers broke formation and split up into two groups. The larger shiny one alongside another cruiser, went over to focus on the destroyer while the last cruiser plotted a course directly towards Abyssal. The cruiser who was chasing Abyssal then shot one single salvo with its frontal main guns. The shots were very accurate and one of the shells even chipped away at Abyssal’s fins. Luckily, the damage was minimal as it only grazed Abyssal. If that shot were to hit Abyssal straight up, there was no doubt that she would be blown to pieces.

[3 minutes till warp drives are online.] Abby let out another notification during all of this.

Abyssal clicked her tongue and she focused hard on the cruiser. She knew that she only needed to dodge the cruiser a few more times before her warp drives were enabled, so she kept a close eye on where the cruiser was aiming its guns at. All she needed to do was to avoid these few hits and she would be able to escape from the area in one piece. She kept her eye and all of her attention in avoiding these salvos. It was a matter of life and death for her.

Sound could not travel that well in space if at all. So there was no way she could hear the guns of the cruisier shelling at her.

And yet she could.

Three salvo and three imaginary explosions appeared in her ears. Seeing the explosion, she quickly moved out of the way of the incoming shells. How confused she was when she noticed that there weren’t any shells at all coming towards her. She preemptively dodged nothing.

It was then that she saw a swarm of fighters towards the left side of herself. Uncountable numbers— hundreds of blue fighters carrying the emblem of liberty, a pair of wings, swarmed the battlefield.

“But isn’t communicating fun? You get to speak to your enemies! It’s like we are forming a sweet bond,” a voice came out of the speaker. It was another voice-com through the open channel. This time it was the small squeaky voice of a young girl.

The swarm of fighters entered the battlefield and launched all sorts of missiles and torpedoes towards the cruisers and the destroyer. They too, after seeing the new threat, turned to fire at the swarm of fighters.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, an all too familiar vortex of energy swirled around in the area and poof, out of nowhere, came an all too familiar sakura-coloured battlecruiser. With Jinko’s arrival, came out a barrage of guns and flak all over the place, lighting up the place with mini-explosions and shells.

“This a battlefield,A place to fight with honour,Not a playground,I do not see the ‘fun’ to be had communicating with your enemies,” Jinko’s voice came out of the communicator.

“But aren’t you having fun though? Keh keh keh,” the young girl with the swarm of fighters replied. The swarm of fighters then split into several groups. Like tendrils, they aimed to wrap around the ships in the area.

However, that wasn’t it as with Jinko’s arrival, came Astral and her phoenix-like crimson red fighter— guns blazing, of course. Her two main aims were Jinko and the swarm of fighters. She blitzed through the battlefield some sort of comet as she fired endless barrages of lasers and missiles, destroying anything and everything in her path.

"More distractions," said Sensenmann over the appearance of the fighter swarm, Jinko and Astral.

"Freedom United and even Dawning Star? Looks like the subtlety of a hidden proxy war is out of the window today. Are we now to fight in open engagement like this?" Lady Lucky spoke on the coms.

"I do not find enjoyment in idle chatter during the battlefield nor do I care about your hidden wars," Jinko replied.

"Then why do you keep talking over the open channel like this, little girl? Some sort of intimidation tactic? It ain't working just saying," Astral said to the coms as well.

"I grow wearisome of your tauntings."

"Wow, wow! Someone is scary! Oh right! Almost forgot about the usual pleasantries. This is F.U. territory right here, so I appreciate it if all of you can get out right now. The big stick is coming and I won’t be responsible for your demise,” said the girl with the squeaky voice.

"Won't happen 'E', also this isn't F.U." Astral replied.

"It is on my map. If you guys won't leave, then I'll just destroy every single one of you. Starting with you Astral,"

The communications ran wild with the idle chat of all the combatants. Astral, Jinko, Lady Lucky, Sensenmann, and the young girl with the squeaky voice were all taunting and talking to each other. The only person who didn’t bother with the open communications was Abyssal, who was tired and in too much pain to even care about the situation right now.

Abyssal let out a sigh at the sight of this chaos. “I don’t even know what is going on anymore.”

The cruisers and the destroyer could be seen doing small manoeuvres while also shooting at Jinko and the fighter swarm. The attacks on the fighters seemed to be pointless as the fighters were incredibly agile and hard to hit. Plus, there were an endless amount of them. Destroy one of them and there were hundreds more in its place.

That being said, firing at Jinko’s battlecruiser seemed to be even more pointless. Anything that hit her hull simply did not pierce through her thick shields — a small layer of membrane that seemed impervious to any attacks. As she manoeuvred across the battlefield, she fired her nine large calibre guns and released a plethora of fighters. The way she moved was as if she was scanning the battlefield for something.

That something was soon found when Jinko steered right up to Abyssal and at the bottom of her hull was a large radar dish pointed at Abyssal. Soon, a large white beam hit Abyssal and Abyssal soon found herself unable to move. She was now steadily moving towards the sakura-coloured battlecruiser.

Jinko was beaming Abyssal to her ship.

“Dammit, of course she’ll aim for me… How did she even know it’s me? What, is she just randomly using the beam on anyone now?” Abyssal muttered as she pinched her imaginary forehead.

[Warp drive is online.]

“Whatever, time to exit this place. Plot course for destination A, warp immediately!” Abyssal yelled out and the all too familiar sensation of warping started to happen.

[Initiating Warp]

Her vision turned bright for one second and then black and then back bright before finding herself in an unknown place.

With that, Abyssal successfully escaped the Little Foot quadrant.

* * * * *

Abyssal let out a sigh of relief at having gotten out of that sticky situation. Her vision went from a chaotic battlefield to one of peace and calmness— no explosions, no missiles, no jet fighters, and no shells to watch out for. If she had a proper back, she would be lying down on her nice and comfy chair while getting herself a nice sip of water for successfully living through that hell.

[Warp successful.  Accuracy of warp 96%. We are off by 783086 kilometres to coordinates A]

‘We still warped to these coordinates, huh. Plot a course for a random direction, we move at seventy per cent of top speed while we repair things,’ Abyssal gave her orders to Abby.

But Abby didn’t respond the way Abyssal expected her to.

[Unknown communication incoming, video feed, open channel.]

“Huh?”

What came out was the image of a young girl with long silver hair. She had crystal blue eyes and wore a nice white one-piece dress. On her face was a small smile as she fiddled with her long smooth silver-white hair. The camera position was off, placed in such a way that the girl was looking down slightly at Abyssal. It gave the illusion that she was either taller or higher in position.

“Hello, hello. What do we have here? How peculiar, I expected a red phoenix to come into my trap, not a blue shark. Say, little blue shark how exactly did you get the coordinates to this place?”

The girl paused for a bit before putting her hands underneath her chin. “Hmm a shark… Hey!” She said as she slammed her fist onto the palm of her hand. “Wait a minute! I recognise you! You are that little destroyed ship from the battlefield! The one that just warped away!”

She then let out a haughty laugh before licking her lips as if she found prey. “Right! You must be the idiot Astral mailed me about a moment ago!”

[Unknown Ship Detected] Abby announced and all of a sudden, right above of Abyssal; about 15000 meters away; came a large ship, tens of kilometres in length and width. The way it appeared reminded Abyssal of a chameleon which was previously blended with the surroundings, changed back into its true form. The sight of a ghost grey ship with blue stripes. Abyssal thought that Jinko’s battlecruiser was big, but this ship… was even bigger than her— almost twice as big.

“I believe we are bound for some introductions aren’t we, little shark? My name is Abigail E. Eternity. Liberty class supercarrier of the Freedom United. Nice to meet you. The E in my name stands for ‘Epic’, by the way. Or like some others like to call me, ‘Enterprise’,” she said to the camera with her chest puff out. She was flat as a board.

If Abyssal could faint, she would faint right there. Out of the pan and into the fire, they say.