>>5588669You find the wraithlike ship’s avatar floating by an array of lights, watching with rapt attention as they change one by one from red to green. Her wispy and semi-transparent body undulates agitatedly from the back of the Ulveng-like visor she uses as a face. You approach cautiously, trying not to startle her and upon closer inspection you notice all the damage to her visor appears to have been repaired — her unfamiliar, alien skull no longer visible.
You had hoped to glean some insight into how the ship’s torpedoes were aimed and fired by watching from within the mental command space, and the little orange intelligence being here bodes well for such a task — she had previously mentioned Control having taught her how to ‘throw birds’ after all.
“Ahem,” you clear your throat to gently catch her attention, “looks like you recovered from your run in with Guard.”
She glances over to you, not seeming to want to look away from the slowly changing lightshow, and raises one disembodied hand in a shushing gesture.
“Shhh, Friend-Captain-Dal, don’t want stinky Guard come back in your box! Peedee’s face fixed when left and came back.” She reassures you in a loud whisper, smiling slightly.
“Is this the torpedo control panel?” You ask, your own voice less of a stage whisper than hers, but maybe it's the thought that counts in this place.
She nods enthusiastically, and you make a mental note of the location for future study.
“Am watching birds getting wings ready! Gonna throw birds at bad guys!” She points eagerly as the final light turns from red to green and then… orange?
“Torpedoes are… ready to launch… Sir!”
You snap back to your physical body and level an unamused glare at your soon to be <span class="mu-s">demoted</span> XO. Kiro bares his tiny fangs in a shit-eating grin, knowing his ‘command voice’ would get your attention.
“At your leisure, Mr La’afette.” You grind out, continuing to stare at the reptilian rapscallion.
“Launching.” You Tactical officer replies immediately, tapping a single key on his console with finality.
There are a series of distant clunks as the torpedoes disengage their mechanical linkages and the white bodied projectiles are flung out into space, each riding a gravity shear projected from their respective launch tube. Looking out the front observation port, you can just make out the blue wisps of manoeuvring jets positioning each torpedo optimally before the bright flash of their main drives lighting up darkens the viewport. A moment later, they’re gone — nothing but a rapidly dissipating ion trail marking their swift departure.
“All torpedoes away successfully, Cap!” Kiro reports a little sheepishly, “Well, we did have a brief loss of comms with one, it self corrected after a few seconds. Not sure what that was about.” You’re sure the little lizard would be sweating if he were able.
“Monitor the situation, Ops.” You reply, your mock death-stare relenting as you hazard a guess at the source of the disturbance.
