LAST TRAIN

Nykona nods and sits on the chair. He wears his pilot overalls and lifts his sunglasses. He feels a familiar feeling and also excitement, as in every new mission briefing. He inspects the planets on the holodeck.

Valentina pulls out an oil-stained notebook and retrieves the stub of a pencil from behind her ear. Flicking through the notebook until she finds a blank page, she glances up at the planetary system in front of her. "All right, so what's on the menu today, Lieutenant?"

Without taking her eyes off the hologram, Valentina flips closed the notepad and returns it to a sleeve pocket. "Sounds simple enough. What are we expecting in terms of resistance?"

Valentina turns to Nykona. "Looks like we'll get a fight this shift after all, Vapor. Guess I owe you a drink."

"Still...I would prefer better odds than that..." says Nykona with a grin. "What are our rules of engagement? Shoot first and ask questions later?" he says and plays an unlit cigar with his fingers.

"Anything else we need to know or should we just get to it?"

Nykona lights his cigar as he approaches his sled. It is always majestic as always, at least to his eyes. It's a simple sleek design. Aggressive forward swept wings, with massive thrusters at the back and large heatsink hexagons all over them, to dissipate the heat, hug the sled's bubble. The vehicle is painted in splinter camo with blue, dark purple and ghost grey colours.

Valentina performs a final pre-flight inspection of her spacecraft. Painted deep red, the sled is simply designed, with lots of additional redundancy and not much in the way of aesthetic refinement: the epitome of a spacer's vehicle. A large sensor array protrudes forward like a bundle of spears, and additional thruster modules are mounted in pairs around the bubble for improved manoeuvrability. Valentina straightens up, satisfied.

"Well, Vapour, you wanted a scrap so, unless you have any strong views, how about we take out the one with the extra missiles?"

"Roger that Paradox, hit him hard."

Valentina moves to MERGE.

Nykona will PRESS.

Paradox engages.

Vapor engages too.

Evade. Evade. Evade.

I will use my high performance thrusters to evade.

Valentina dials in a new flight vector. Bracing against the sudden change in lateral acceleration, she moves to intercept with Vapor and his target.

Vapor presses on the bogey.

The moment Paradox gets within range, two missiles streak towards the enemy. They're primed to detonate within close proximity – not to destroy the ship, but to interfere with its sensors and break missile lock.