Fiction Friday: Series 4 - Part 11

Previously:
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

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"It was expensive," Blodel admitted, "but it was worth every credit and favour exchanged."

"Really?" I asked with biting incredulity. "Just to kill my battleship? You know I won't let you take my pod, and I'll replace this ship in days if not sooner."

I felt tingles in my sides as the first salvos from the fighters began to eat away in earnest at my shields. I gave the signal to Odonnelson on the bridge to begin evacuation procedures.

On the comm display the avatar of Blodel shrugged. "Us capsuleers have to get creative to resolve our conflicts, don't you think? We are, after all, immortal beings of nearly unlimited power. How do we really hurt each other in a way that matters?"  She shook her head sadly. "I mean besides lowering ourselves to the levels of thugs and mercenaries and killing each other in leaky hotel rooms."

"Creative? It seems what you have in ISK you lack in creativity," I scoffed.

She smirked and replied with a curt, "We'll see."

I checked on the evacuation of my ship. Most life boats were off, carrying 6-10 crew each. Only two life boats in engineering and one for the bridge crew remained in their berths. I muted the channel to Blodel and brought up the bridge. "Odonnelson, what's the hold up?"

"Sir, the chief engineer is rigging the shield systems to overheat, that should give you a couple more minutes."

My shields were already below 40%. "Tell him not to bother, this thing is going to shatter once the shields are gone. Get off of it, now!"

"Yes sir!"

Moments later as the shields finally collapsed and the first shots ripped through the port side of my ship, the two engineering life boats ejected followed by the larger bridge emergency craft that held all 12 of the bridge staff. My ship was empty.

I started to feel real pain as the damage increased so I mentally disconnected my pod from most external and onboard sensors. It felt weird to still be aboard and have no sensations other than a couple basic ones as my ship slowly disintegrated around me, so I turned my attention back to Blodel.

"What now, you Amarrian bitch? Gonna come back next month and waste a billion ISK again to kill another battleship? Oh, maybe destroy my Drake this time! That'll sting..." I teased.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary." The smile she had chilled my heart. What was I missing?

Suddenly a lance of energy pierced the containment walls of my power generators and a chain reaction ripped through the super structure. My pod escape mechanism kicked in and ejected me at hundreds of meters per second from the Rokh battleship. As its stabilizing jets activated my vision cleared just in time to watch the hull break into a million pieces in all directions. Damn, I still miss that ship. You never forget your first battleship.

Distracted by my loss I didn't activate the pod's emergency warp drive in time and I felt myself wrapping in the waves of disruption sub-particles. I sighed and activated my self destruct sequence. No point in giving them hope in taking me alive.

"You win this time, Blodel."

"No, we're not quite done yet, Kodachi." She turned to face another channel. "Captain, you may begin your attack on the salvation rafts."