“Admiral, we are receiving reports of an explosion in the capital city.” An officer reported.
“What? Explain.” The Admiral replied with surprise.
“Details are still coming in, but it seems that missiles hit the Bounty Hunters Guild building.”
“A missile attack in the middle of the city, why are we only learning of this now?”
“As you know, the Bounty Hunters Guild takes their impartiality seriously, and so we can only monitor their land so much; also, the missiles seem to have appeared out of nowhere.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We believe the individual responsible is the same individual we recently put a bounty on. Reports say he entered the guild hall and got into a fight with several bounty hunters and killed them before fleeing. However, before he left, he threatened to destroy the guild hall.”
“Fucking bounty hunters and their damn sovereign land?” The admiral asked angrily.
“Admiral, one of the ships on planetary patrol has detected something leaving the atmosphere, though they can’t tell what it is.” Another officer suddenly reported.
“Very well, have all nearby patrol ships converge on that location before opening fire. They might be cloaked, but that only means that they are without shields and easier to destroy.
“ALERT: Several Terran Imperial Space Force ships are on an intercept course with Spector unit five.” Spector suddenly announced.
[Wikkr (Earth): Oh damn, that’s not good.]
[Fluffy_puppy_hugger (Caniniar 4): How did they find them? Aren’t they cloaked?]
“What’s Spector unit five?” Tephe asked curiously.
“This shuttle.” Adam replied before asking, “I thought we were cloaked. How did they detect us?”
“Then why do you call it a shuttle?” Tephe asked.
“Not now, Tephe, save the questions for later,” Lorelie instructed with a kind smile.
“Boo ok,” Tephe replied with a cute pout, which made Lorelie and Rowena chuckle.
“I suspect they must have been looking for atmospheric disturbances since that’s the only way they could have detected us entering or leaving the planet’s atmosphere,” Spector replied.
“Display your position relative to the incoming TISF forces,” Adam said.
A moment later, another holographic display appeared and showed the shuttle's position in the centre with a green icon directly ahead and above showing Spector’s. Additionally, there were six red icons of varying sizes indicating the TISF ships that were on an intercept course.
“Alter your heading towards this medium-class ship and prepare for emergency retrieval. After we land, jump straight to FTL.”
“Unable to comply, the Terran Imperial Space Force cruiser-class ship is actively releasing EMP interference.”
“These guys are really starting to piss me off. I’m done playing nice.” Adam cursed.
[Leonthemoneygiver (Earth): Oh, here we go, I think the streamers going to actually take action this time.]
[DobbyL (Darah 5): How exactly? We're talking about six ships, two small class, two medium class, a large class and even a cruiser.]
“What do you plan to do?” Rowena asked with interest.
Adam didn’t answer her directly and instead pointed at the largest red icon and said, “He’s the plan, alter course and head directly for this TISF ship.”
“You do realise that’s a cruiser class, right?” Rowena asked.
[Celebrityhunter69 (Earth): He wants to fly toward the cruiser class? Is that a good idea?]
[Vinnaka (Felinia 6): That’s like the worst possible idea, not only is the cruiser putting out the EMP interference, but he can’t attack it from stealth either.]
“I want seven seismic charges ready for launch”
[Gunlovergirl (Earth): Oh hell yeah, I love those things.]
[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): But there’s no point, sure, they might be able to take out the medium class ships coming their way and disable the large class, but what about the cruiser class? We have already discussed how they will be ineffective on them.]
“We are going to use the triangulation method of attack.”
“The what?” Stacey asked.
“We will plant a seismic charge directly on top of the cruiser, then the other six will be equally distant around it so each of them looks like they are the corners of a cube that the TSIF ships are trapped within.”
[Whostolemyduck (Earth): I get it, it’s like when you use triangulation to plot a specific point in space, if you draw straight lines between each opposite corner, it will mark a specific location in the centre.]
[Noobkiller9000 (Earth): Oh, that was in the original Stargate movie.]
[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): While it’s a cool idea and he could theoretically take out the cruiser with 7 seismic charges, it will never work.]
[StealthAssassin9 (Earth): Why not?]
[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): Think about it, he needs to de-cloak in order to use his weapons and that will allow the approaching ships to target and engage them. Also, the seismic charge is a bomb; you can’t fire them out rapidly like a blaster, you have to deploy bombs, which is basically dropping them in place, you can’t launch them.]
[AlamoMatador4thewin (Earth): So what you're saying is he plans to reach the coordinates, de-cloak, drop a seismic charge, then re-cloak before he repeats the process 6 more times?]
[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Well,l that's a fucking stupid idea, the enemy ships will detect the seismic charge and destroy it even before he has a chance to drop the next one.]
[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): Like I said, it wont work.]
“You chat says your plan is a ‘fucking stupid idea’,” Tephe informed them bluntly as she had the stream open on her uniband while also paying attention to what Adam was doing.]
[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Brooooo, I just got quoted by the dragon princess.]
[Prestigious3horns (Vinox 2): Only because it was such a stupid quote. Hmph.]
[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Jealous much? Kekeke.]
[1000yearsofdeath (Earth): My man, that's how you cause chaos. Kekeke.]
[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Kekeke.]
[1000yearsofdeath (Earth): Kekeke.]
[Superhearofangirl (Earth): Oh godz, Handsome was already an idiot, and now he’s been corrupted.]
“Kekeke,” Tephe said suddenly.
[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Broooo, she did it again. Kekeke.]
[1000yearsofdeath (Earth): Brooooo. Kekeke.]
“Tephe, don’t, just don’t, don’t copy anything those two say,” Lorelie advised as she patted the dragon on the head.
“You three might want to strap in, they're about to get close enough to start opening fire on us,” Adam said, causing Lorelie, Rowena and Tephe to quickly sit in one of the available seats.
[StealthAssassin9 (Earth): Are they not going to de-cloak so they can raise shields?]
[Prestigious3horns (Vinox 2): Their better off in stealth; a shuttle's shields would not last long against a direct attack from a military ship. At least in stealth, the enemy is firing blind and is likely to miss them.]
Just as they finished taking seats, flashes of light appeared on the viewscreen, and the shuttle started to shake.
The stream switched to an external view of the shuttle, and the chat was able to witness lasers narrowly missing the shuttle that were being fired by ships in the distance that were closing in on them.
[SciFifanboy (Earth): This is so Sci-Fi.]
[Justiceistruth: (Earth): Why are the lasers disappearing shortly after missing them?]
[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): The TISF are probably limiting the laser's power so as not to strike and damage the planet below, their most likely hoping to destroy them with numbers rather than pure firepower.]
[Prestigious3horns (Vinox 2): That won’t last long, however, once they break atmo and move out into space away from the planet, the TISF will most likely use their lasers at full power.]
As Adam piloted the ship, the five of them soon saw the outline of a ship appear on the shuttle's viewscreen.
“There you are, is the rear hatch open?” Adam asked.
“Affirmative, Emergency landing protocol online.”
“Hang on tight,” Adam said as he pushed the shuttle's sunlight speed to max and shot towards where Spector was cloaked.
Within the imperial palace, Emperor Daniel Terran sat within a large room along with several of his wives and children, who all watched a large holographic screen that showed the TISF planetary defence ships firing on the location where they thought Spector was.
“How haven’t they hit it yet?” A teenage boy asked with a frown.
“Well, it is cloaked, my dear; it’s not so simple to hit something invisible.” An attractive woman who sat next to the boy replied.
“They need to destroy that ship immediately so that we can claim to have killed the terrorist who attacked the city.” A teenage girl said angrily.
“Are they really terrorists if they attacked sovereign land? I mean, they only targeted and destroyed the Bounty Hunter Guild building after all.” A slightly older girl replied.
As the children and their parents continued to discuss the ongoing situation, they were suddenly all distracted by the sound of a door banging open as Empress Victoria burst in.
“Ah, Victoria, you're just in time to watch the show. Come join us.” One of the women said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes while pointing at the holographic screen.
Victoria glanced at the screen before turning to Emperor Daniel and saying, “Stop them at once, Daniel. Do you even know who is on that ship you're firing at?”