Snippet #2493628

>Incoming.<

The bread of time that was capable for the crew of the Stalker in which to perceive the flood of data that the heuristic link of man and machine allowed, was, quite frankly, vast. However, no so much as to initially react in any sense to the strike of an instantaneous response hit that struck the port forward Hellbores, not even so much time as to erect the Hex-Plate shields in that cluster before the burst hammered the weapons, rendering them all but inoperative.

Knife and Arrow's crews suffered but disappointment at the lack of effect of the Chaser Abyss volley, like the rest of the Fist capturing the intel with meticulous recordings, intent of poring over the data at a later time.

And then the contacts vanished.

"Fuck." Spoken across the bridge of the Stalker, her captain rose from his crash couch, opening his eyes and separating from the link. Across the vessels, similar sentiments and actions were being undertaken, even as he swung to Comm. "Get me-"

"Got, sir. Patching them through."

Ahead, view holos popped into being, the bridges of her cohorts and reinforcements coming into view as the separate vessels initialized the network communications, bursts of code rippling through space at ultra-high frequencies between the ships. "Status reports."

"Abyss and Hellbores entirely non-effective, I'm afraid to call in."
"Raptor's hit and limping bad, but the core held. Comm's shot to shit, but I'm getting controlled air releases to stabilize drift. Damn glad for that, at least."

"Deflecting the psionic assault, however, successful, if draining." Whirling to the entrance to the bridge, Stalker's captain gaped at the sight of his psionic, mopping a fair amount of leaking blood from his nose and eyes. "Those bastard's are tough, I'll give them that."
"More like bloody cowards. Either the pressure drove them off, or the Nighthawk's jump made them realize there wasn't a point. In any case, I'll say this."

"These guys don't like catching return fire. Get on the battle data and get me answers. I want something to tell Archfiend when the ball drops."

---

As the Fists moved to consolidate on their wounded member, the Stalker's fighter squadron moved to rejoin its mothership. Bringing up a hail to the Andromeda, the captain stood over Comm, making his report. "Down one ship, minor damage otherwise, Admiral McGregor. Archfiend and the rest of the taskforce are en route, ETA ten minutes. Looking at what data we've collected now, and it's damned weird sir. Probably going to take a few days to start making progress. Any orders in the interim, sir?"