Several things happened over the course of the next two minutes.
The Adauchi made it to Alpha 01, dodging shots as best it could. Its shields had taken a small beating by now, but it was a tough little ship. At relatively low speeds, the Ketsueki vessel clipped along toward the hull of the Mishhu destroyer. It just barely glided over the thing's hull, too fast for the turrets to track. Nick's plan was working. The execution came -- Lucas snapped the ship around while maintaining the same course.
Luca fired two torpedoes, one almost instantly after the other, just as a positron burst caught the ship on its starboard engine. Instantly, propulsion and half of the ship's power went dead. The VARWEPs tumbled away as the ship's CDD was toasted.
The torpedoes did not manage to hit lightspeed, and so they seemed painfully slow. The destroyer seemed to shimmer for a moment; it was going to phase.
At that moment, the crew of the Adauchi watched as a bright blue flare clashed with the dampened Mishhu shields, sending sparks along the ship's putrid surface. The destroyer was suddenly having problems phasing, and one of the torpedoes collided with the back of the hull.
The destroyer was suddenly in much worse shape as one of the aether torpedoes enveloped the aft in white. It was easy to see that its engines were wrecked, and the charred surface revealed hull openings inside.
Nicholas, Luca and Lucas watched as the destroyer weakly maneuvered itself ... to point at the Goban. It seemed to know the Adauchi had been lucky, and so targeted the wounded freighter instead. A door for a torpedo tube opened up on the front of the vessel.
About 0.3 AU away, Alpha 02 was 500 kilometers from the Goban. It had already locked on to the vessel with a tractor beam. It'd already started to tug the thing into place below it, so it could attach to the main corridor's umbilicals. Kyosuke watched helplessly as the destroyer came for him, for it. Ma'at had no chance to exit the Goban, and Roken found himself face-to-face with the destroyer, alone.
Or he would have, had he still been conscious. A couple squadrons of attack pods quickly slashed through him, using their stun missiles to put him down. He took out six, according to the AIES before it winked out of existence. Kyosuke watched that, too.
" ... " The commander took a deep breath, let it out, then took out his flask. He started to walk back toward the landing bay. It was a defensible position, he thought as he took a drink. Besides, suicide was never a bad option.
So when he found Jason, and his bomb, he could only smile. Decorum, at this point, was without much meaning. "Not a bad idea, Travkai. I like it."
There was only three minutes left on the bomb anyway. Kyosuke sat on the thing itself and took a drink. "You would've liked my sisters, Travkai. They're kind of like you, I think. I would've had to kill you if you'd touched them, but talking would be good for them."
Something made the ship shudder, just a little. Kyosuke shrugged and took another swig. "Eiko's the smart one, you know. Takes after my mom."
Another shudder. "Come to think of it, my mom was the real brains of the family anyway."
Travkai wanted to say something. But he, unlike Kyosuke, had some wits about him. He drew his NSP and wished he could feel around him ... not that it mattered. As he turned toward something he thought he heard, he was met with a painful slap to his torso, then darkness.
Kyosuke looked over -- and saw a giant black Mishhu. He sighed, took another gulp of his whiskey, then screwed the cap back on his flask. It was put inside his jacket. He didn't feel the slap as much, but he still went out like a light.
As the stealth Mishhu finished stunning Ma'at, who took a little more work, they rounded up their new prisoners.
They were then thrown, along with their captives, into the nearest wall, as the Goban was sent hurtling away. Alpha 01's quintessent torpedo tube, shocked by the positron blast it had suffered, had fired a torpedo without acquiring a solid lock. Its power level had been appropriately reduced, but the projectile had still slammed into the wrong target -- Alpha 02's hull was easily pierced by the phasing torpedo. The entire ship exploded from the inside, casting the freighter away in a slow spiral.
Alpha 01 had killed its sister destroyer. And now it was raging mad.
Soon, the crew of the Adauchi found themselves stunned as well, a hail of positron blasts shocking everything on their ship. Soon, Mishhu from Alpha 01 were dispatched to collect the prisoners, including those in power armor. They were all brought back to the destroyer, where the Mishhu, thankfully, argued with each other and cast the prisoners into a sticky-floored cell.
The crew of the YSS Goban, NL-X3-05, was captured. And no one seemed able to save them.
END
Cast (to ending theme "Sekai de Ichiban no Victory" from Slayers):
Glynn "Omega724" ................................ as Lucas Hanley
Nick "raz" ................................ as Nicholas Saiga
Anthony ................................ as Jason Travkai
Tyler "zephyrite" ................................ as Galar Vanatosk
Luca Pavone ....................................... as Luca Pavone
with "TensaiDreamer" ................................ as Ma'at Bolverk
Robert Jackson III "BlackDragon" .................... as Roken Techard
and Jake "Doshii Jun" ................................ as Ozaki Kyosuke, CIES-unit Ann, the NH-X, and the Mishhu
Yuna: "NEXT TIME, on YSS GOBAN. The crew has been captured by the Mishhuvurthyar ... but they have no information. They are just a freighter crew, after all. What could they possibly offer the SMX? The Goban and Adauchi are worth even less. Neither is a state-of-the-art ship ... but then, these Mishhu are not a cutting-edge crew, and they destroyed their own sister ship. This does not bode well for anyone."
JIKAI: YSS GOBAN!
THE REFLEX
Luca: "Fuck, those Mishhu REALLY know how to make a guest feel like shit!"
