Homefire #35"
By: Bart "Burner" Reed, Fighter Pilot, [RNPC]
M'Ressha Mikaht, Fighter Pilot, [RNPC]

Stardate: 58209.11 1100

Lieutenant Randi Dorton tapped the comlink on her workstation. Beneath her fingers the plasmatic impulses raced through the minuscule conduits and pathways in the LCARS terminal.

The impulses triggered a sequence of events which emanated from the ship's computer core and extended into the subspace communication array.

Complex encryption algorithms computed the proximity of the experimental craft, the USS Pegasus and generated a high-level encryption cipher.

Then, with as narrow of a beam as possible, the two cloaked ships established a secure channel. A millionth of a second later, this whole process returned a small light which blinked on the LCARS panel next to her finger.

"Burner, are we ready for exercise 226-a?"

"I was born ready Lieutenant."

"Then what are you waiting for?" replied Dorton in a voice that didn't betray her slight amusement.

She closed the comlink and sighed. She was not used to working with the likes of these two marines, but she knew some how she'd miss them when her chapter on the Pegasus Project was closed.

=====================

Blitzer looked over at his co-pilot and smirked, "so what is exercise 226-a?" he asked inquisitively.

Burner returned his smirk as he checked the field test guidelines, "Says here that exercise in 226-a we will be testing the Peg's stealthiness. You know what that mean don't ya?"

"Sneak attack," they both said in unison. Burner smacked his hand against Blitzer's outstretched paw.

"Target located at 023.87," said Burner. "This is a stop, drop and get out of Dodge mission Big Cat! Let's go."

Blitzer's paws sprawled across the pilot's interface as he laid in the course.

"Yeah," he said as he engaged the Pegasus's unique horse-shoe shaped warp core.

The small craft accelerated briskly toward it's target: a proximity sensor similar to what the Federation used to secure regions of space.

"Are we attacking in sublight?" asked Blitzer as he watched the target approach on his scanner.

Burner was about to reply when he noticed they had company, "Our target has ships protecting it. 6 fighters." He scanned the area more closely. "I'm detecting an automated weapon system on the target as well."

"Dropping out of warp," said Blitzer, "...can we take the target with two torpedoes and make a break for it?"

"That depends on how fast we can get the shot off," said Burner. "We have to hit them before they activate their weapons system."

Blitzer veered the craft off into a long slow arc to come around on the target at their leisure.

"I suppose we could ask RAHW," suggested Blitzer.

"RAHW," called Burner, "Are you paying attention?"

"I am always paying attention." The Pegasus' AI shimmered into form. She stood with her hands folded behind her back and where she could see both pilots.

"We re going to decloak and raise our shields, fire two torpedoes, and then cloak again. RAHW, you need to handle the cloak, I'll fire the weapons, and Big Cat, as soon as we are done firing you got to move us out of the way. Sound like a plan?"

Blitzer looked at RAHW and back to Burner, "Sounds good to me."

"Let's attack on the side of the target, away from the fighter patrol," suggested Burner.

Blitzer engaged the impulse engine and banked sharply to flank on the port side.

"Distance to target, fifteen hundred meters," Rahw announced. "I am decloaking and lowering the shields on my mark. Three, Two, One, Mark."

As soon as the shields were down Burner unloaded the Pegasus' aresenal on their target. He let out a whoop of joy as he watched the target explode in a bright ball of light.

Blitzer's paw made an upward movement over the LCARS panel which controlled the warp engines.

He had preconfigured it to jump to warp 8.

As the warp core's thrumming sound rapidly increased the vessel shuddered and lurched forward violently, almost as if it had collided with something.

The effects of deacceleration without inertial dampeners pinned Blitzer and Burner to their safety harness.

Through the blur of the vibration Blitzer could see RAHW standing perfectly still, unaffected.

As the deacceleration slowed, Blitzer took a deep breath and unfastened his restraints.

"What the...," Burner's next words were interrupted by the warning klaxon of the computer. "Simulation terminated. Pegasus destroyed."

Laughter spilled out of the comm link. "Gotcha," came the voice of an obviously happy marine pilot.

Burner looked at Blitzer and sighed. "It would have to be Nova who killed us."

"I hate to interrupt," RAHW interrupted. "But there is a failure in the main power coupling."

The ships comm system crackled again, "Engineering to bridge. We've had a massive power system failure. The power relays overloaded."

Blitzer tapped his combadge and slumpled into his chair, "acknowledged."