Crisis at Garmil's Gate - 23

On the bridge of Redalen's Revenge, battle lighting and alarm klaxons mirrored the mood of her captain and crew.

"Helm, bring us about. Configure for point-blank range and go all-ahead full!"

Gori looked to his captain. "Ready here, Captain!"

Jack called down to the hangar. "Prepare my mech for launch. I'm going out." he said, and then gave a thumbs-up to Gori. The space pirate headed for the lift while his lieutenant took his position. As Jack descended from the bridge to the hangar bay, Revenge turned about to advance on the Tiger of Maribu, dodging volleys from its turrets in doing so, and it turned on its axis to present all of its guns upon the enemy.

"Fire!" Gori bellowed, and all of the pirate's cannons fired upon the Maribu, scoring solid hits across the dorsal hull. A volley of missiles followed, swarming down and forcing the point-defense systems to their limits. With the mech squadron brawl now moving to push between the two battleships, the Maribu adjusted its position to maximize its turrets' ability to fire upon the Revenge.

Now Jack ran through the hangar bay, rushing across the open space to where his personal mech stood ready for him. Once inside, and the cockpit closed, he keyed the comlink as he rushed through takeoff.

"Gori, transmit Order Zahn and wait for my signal."

Jack's mech finished its takeoff sequence. Powered up and ready to go, Jack maneuvered to the ventral hatch and stood ready. Oh the outside, the Revenge and the Maribu pummeled each other with successive volleys from their turrets as well as emptying their missile bays with repeated launches as they closed to point-blank range. Back inside, Jack monitored the distance between the two ships, and when the distance reach clear visual range, Jack keyed the comlink: "GO!"

Jack launched from the ventral hatch, now appearing upside down from the perspective of the Maribu, and used the exchange of fire to cover its signal until it appeared out of the Revenge's shadow. Then it joined the dogfight, quickly clearing out Far's men and relieving his own. With no more enemy mecha, they fell in behind Jack and followed Jack's assault on the Maribu as the Revenge pummeled it without mercy. While several of his men fell to the ship's point-defense guns, enough slipped across the hull to support Jack's attack on the engines to make the threat of crippling or destroying them viable.

"Maximum firepower!" Jack said, "Now!"

Jack and his remaining men launched every munition they had and exhausted their guns by unloading them into the Maribu's engines. Several satisfying explosions erupted from them, forcing the engineers therein to flee as bulkheads slammed into place to contain the damage and expel the explosive forces into space. With oxygen quickly consumed, the fires flared out fast, but by then the ability of the Maribu to maneuver had already been hobbled.

"We're done here. Let's go." Jack said, and as the Revenge now began to open the distance again Jack lead what men he had left back into the hangar bay of the Revenge. The battleships kept firing upon each other, lancing each other with main guns and further slicing each other up with the secondary guns, but the engagement was now decided and both Jack and Duke Far realized it.

Unless Ramsey arrived in time.