Part 13

Ex Admiral Van Gehan sat. Mug steaming to his side and stone placed on the table in classical fleet position, directly in front of him. Captain Freddie faced him, same kind of mug and of course his own stone in the same position. Off to their side stood the big displays of the Golden Chance. Ko-on had placed the battle map directly in their view. They could see the alignment of ships, more information could be sent to their stones and around the corner the ships command crew were organising the repairs.
Van Gehan smiled at Freddie.
“You’ve done well, the freighter captains want me to convoy their thanks, and they want to help holding a memorium to the men you’ve lost”
“Thanks Van, it’s appreciated. Thanks for transferring over”. Freddie smiled, at his old captain.
“So what’s our condition?”
“the freighters and your ship are unhurt. That’s good. You’ve still got four Maringers, each armed with a Kruger. That’s powerful. The ‘Chance has a lot of exterior hull scorching. Three minor storerooms have been incinerated. The aft repair hatch and workshop has been blown out and our main shuttle hatch has been melted shut. We had a fired in the landing bay, but not too serious. Four fuel lines however have been burned open. We didn’t lose that much accelerant, but our top acceleration is down 17%. For’ard the main armour is brittle, so I can’t expect to do much against a direct hit and we’ve got a lot of noise in the communication array, So long range conversation is going to be limited. We expended 32% of our missile stores, but cannons are O.K. and that’s just the overview. There’s a lot of fine detail but the crew are working on that.”
“Ok Freddie. Well you broke the rules and we destroyed one Gunship, it looks like you damaged another - so big commendations in my view on great tactics. The trouble is”
“That we’ve still got the fighters and a fully working gunship to face”, interrupted Freddie.
“Yes, that’s it. We’re not sure how many fighters they’ve got, or the capacity of the damaged gunship, or the missile load on support ship.” finished the Admiral.
“Or when the next attack will come”
“So”, said Van Gehan “What next”
“How long to the your next Compression Jump?”
“Soon, the freighters have nearly finished their charge cycle. inside of a day before they’re all ready”. said the admiral, drinking from his cup.
“Good, so how about we look at buying some time by running away”, Freddie played with his cup.

“And there we go again
And then and then and then then then”