[center][img]http://rbkgames.com/files/pictures/app_screenshot_854.jpg?v392[/img][/center]
[center][h1]True Grit[/h1][/center]
[center][h3]Part 1[/h3][/center]
[center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ2G2bpZpUY](Mood Music)[/url][/center]

[color=gray][color=white][b]"Open fire!"[/b][/color] Alexis commanded as the dull thudding of cannon shots reverberated through the hull.

The Lincoln was within firing range of the wounded battle cruiser and its clutch of escorts. The WMG shot that had pierced through the moons atmosphere had crippled its drive systems and it couldn't draw enough power to effectively spool its shields. Still, battlecruisers were built to keep on giving. The two behemoth ships exchanged fire, the battlecruiser's shots deflected off of the Lincoln's fully spooled up shield. The coalition ship wasn't faring so well in the defense, solid slug rounds from the Lincoln's deck guns were pummeling away at key subsystems along the battlecruiser's failing hull. Point defense cannons intercepted what they could, a hail of gunfire tracing around in every direction. It was chaos.

Meanwhile, the battlecruiser's escorts charged forward, their shields powered to full. They attempted to get in between the two large capital ships and try to stem the flow of munitions coming from the battle carrier. One of the escorts was unlucky enough to ram into a large piece of debris from the battlecruiser's injury. The shields flared and lost strength. The Lincoln took advantage and unleashed a salvo of fire from one of the deck guns. Four accurate shots pierced through the heart of the frigate, annihilating the bridge in the center. With the helm and command crew dead on the frigate, it sped forward, the engines locked to full speed. The frigate soon left the battlespace, on a collision course with the disrupted and storming moon below. The other frigate fired its main gun at the Lincoln, a powerful mass driver shot managed to pierce the Lincoln's shield and take out a gun bank of point defense turrets. The ammo magazine underneath the armor of the gun back detonated. Alexis could feel the ship rattle from the explosion.

The Lincoln turned to face the battlecruiser head on. With its massive engines set to all ahead full, it careened toward the other capital ship. They had the advantage and their shields hadn't even been reduced to 80%, a melee was in their favor. The coalition frigate moved to intercept the Lincoln, getting in front of the monstrous battle carrier in an attempt to diverts its course.

[color=white][b]"Shields forward, we're going through it!"[/b][/color] Alexis barked.

The Lincoln's shield glowed as it directed itself completely ahead. The shields made impact with the frigate first, plasma burning through the armor plates of the smaller ship before the prow of the Lincoln made contact. A loud screeching of metal on metal ringed through the hull. The frigate split in half, one on each side of the Lincoln. Small explosions on both sides sealed the fate of the escort ship. But guns were still firing futilely at the battle carrier. In response, dozens of gun banks opened up with point defense fire, barraging the two wrecks with enough autocannon fire to saturate a small city. Debris and shrapnel drifted off in every direction as the two halves of the frigate simply ceased to exist.

[color=white][i]"Captain, the battlecruiser is facing us. We're in the line of sight for its railgun!"[/i][/color] one of the crewmen said from his terminal.

[color=white][b]"Shove some plasma down its mouth. Fire the WMG, low power."[/b][/color] Alexis gripped the rails on the command platform.

The scraped prow of the Lincoln opened its large barrel, two great slabs of armor sliding outward to make way for the beam of plasmatic death. The barrel glowed brightly and shortly after, a thin beam of plasma launched out. When the beam passed, the armored slab closed so the barrel of the WMG wasn't a weak point that could be exploited. The beam went straight down the spine of the battlecruiser, melting the magnetic accelerators and piercing into the main weapons magazine. Another great explosion burst out the top of the battlecruiser. Worry of a powerful railgun hitting the Lincoln quickly evaporated. Soon the two great ships were side by side, broadsides exchanging extreme amounts of fire between one another. The kilometer wide space between the two capital ships was alight with tracer rounds, lasers and plasma. The surrounding space was filled with smaller duels between Coalition MAS units and UEE fighters, the superiority of the mech suits was gaining the advantage in those battles. Luckily, she had three pilots of the 7th picking up the slack of the fighters while the fourht, Lin, was defending the cannons on the surface of the moon.

This was a melee between ships, brutal and explosive. The Lincoln's shields held, the battlecruiser wasn't faring as well. Without its shields, the withering barrage of fire from the Lincoln had nearly reduced all four layers of armor on the ship's port broadside. Cannons rounds were now damaging subsystems below the armor. Life support had been cut off on multiple decks. The battle was already lost for the battlecruiser, but it wasn't going out without a fight.

On the battlecruiser's bridge, emergency lights were on, filling the room with a low red glow. The holographic displays were flickering, sparks were flying in all directions. Most of the broadside's weapons were offline, the Lincoln had done a good job on targeting them. The coalition captain growled, this was a fight that a battlecruiser should have won! A flash of sparks rained on the captain, causing his to shield himself for a moment.

One of the crewmen leaped from his seat, [color=orange][i]"We've lost. Abandon ship!"[/i][/color]

The captain glared at the man and watched as he made his way to the door. The captain drew his service pistol and shot the man in the back. The rest of the crew looked at him, [color=tan][i]"If anybody else wants to leave this ship, they'll do so with a bullet in the back of their head. We go when the ship does."[/i][/color]

Another explosion of sparks flew across the bridge. The captain spoke over the intercom, [color=tan][i]"All marines, prepare for a boarding action. We'll clear a path."[/i][/color]
__________

Alexis was barking orders in rapid succession. Admiral Ardin and his single remaining imperial serviceman hstood back and observed quietly, his silence unnerved Alexis. The ship rumbled some more as another shot made it through the shields and hit hard across the Lincoln's armor plating. Suddenly, the ship's AI chimed in, [color=royalblue][i]"Captain, I am detecting a large energy spike in the Coalition battlecruiser's remaining reactors."[/i][/color]

Alexis gritted her teeth, [color=white][b]"So he's going to go that route, eh? So be it."[/b][/color]

Captain Marquis spoke over the intercom, [color=white][b]"All hands, arm yourselves. Incoming boarding action."[/b][/color]

It was a common tactic when boarding a ship while its shields were raised. In a last ditch effort, the ship could unleash a wave of energy to interfere with it's opponent's systems and cause the shield to stutter sporadically and targeting systems to take time to reboot. Using that opening, the boarding pods could slip through and make it to their target. But Alexis had a plan to counteract the offense. [color=white][b]"Gemini 2, status."[/b][/color]

[color=white][i]"All batteries are singing true, Marquis. Emergency repairs are nearly complete."[/i][/color] the captain of the attached cruiser reported.

[color=white][b]"Good. Power down, we're about to get an EMP blast. Once it passes, come online and ready your point defense."[/b][/color]

[color=white][i]"Aye aye, captain."[/i][/color] the comm cut out shortly after as Gemini 2 shut down.

Then the burst came, a bright pulse of energy sweeping the battlespace. MAS units and fighters on both sides shut down, it'd take a short while for their single duels to pick up again. The shields of the Lincoln flickered as well as the lights inside the battle carrier. The ship's guns went quiet, luckily the battlecruiser didn't have any guns left to shoot unless it decided to roll the other broadside to bear, but that would stop the constant flow of boarding pods needed to try and gain the advantage. Just as Alexis had predicted, the cruiser began launching boarding pods, almost a hundred of them. The marines all thinking they would have no opposition on approach.

Suddenly, Gemini 2 powered up, its targeting systems completely unaffected by the EMP. From the cruiser, a wall of point defense fire spewed forth, catching the nearest boarding pods first. Gemini 2 had managed to wipe out forty or so boarding pods, effectively halving the strength of the Coalition assault. The Lincoln's marine compliment was brought down as well since she had deployed a whole platoon to the moon's surface. The fighting strength was still in the Lincoln's favor thanks to Gemini 2's surprise cover fire. There were heavy thuds as the boarding pods made contact with the ship. Klaxons wailed when the high power plasma cutters of the boarding pods began to slice into the hull.

The shields and weapon systems of the Lincoln came back online. They would be no use for the boarding action, but they could at least finish off the battlecruiser. The pummeling began anew and the small strike craft buzzing around both ships continued their dances. Sparks flew off of the Lincoln's hull, the plasma drills working quickly to breach the layers of armor the battle carrier was outfitted with. It was only a matter of time. To ensure her safety, Alexis went back into her ultra-light battle suit, Sigi. Aston also equipped himself with Sigi's sibling MAS, Ragnar. The two battle suits were biocoded to them, all Ardin could do was hope his imperial serviceman would pull his weight. A squad of marines entered the bridge to double up security. This happened at every critical point in the ship to make sure the enemy didn't sabotage crucial systems; command, power, hyperdrive, shields, water reservoir, magazines, the hangar, the WMG. If the Coalition was going to turn the tide of battle, their marines would need to target those specifically. But Alexis wasn't going to make it easy.

Once she received word that all squads were in position and waiting for the fighting to begin, Alexis locked down every bulkhead in the corridors of the ship. Navy marines carried plenty of breaching charges with them for such reasons, but the confined spaces of the Lincoln's class made their blasts carry back toward the breaching marines. The pressure and concussive force would stun them in the hallway long enough for UEE marines to sweep in and clear.

Then they came. Firefights began across all decks on the port side. Reports came in, some holding, some falling back, some turning to white noise. As a defense protocol, the ship's AI would depressurize the corridor if no friendlies were present. If there was an airlock to open it would. This 'flushing' protocol was well in effect now, Coalition marines and dead bodies of both sides were sucked out in the vacuum of space. Some Coalition soldiers were clever enough to turn their oxygen supplies into impromptu EVA thrusters; but when they returned to the ship, they found that the airlocks were sealed and their oxygen supply had been used up in their attempt to return to the Lincoln. Camera feeds from the bridge displayed the carnage happening through the ship. Vicious firefights, white halls turned red with blood, scorch marks where breaching charges had been placed. But the ship was doing well, the UEE marines knew the Lincoln, they drilled in the tight confines of the ship. That combined with the flushing protocol had been the advantage the Lincoln needed to survive the boarding action. There were reports of a firefight within the hangar, a Coalition MAS that was smart enough to power down before the EMP had flown through the flickering shields and into the hangar bay along with two boarding pods.

The Ferir was wreaking havoc, fighters that were being serviced or reloaded were destroyed, their crews turning to red mist from the hail of gunfire it's autocannon spat out. A whole platoon of UEE marines joined the Coalition in battle throughout the sprawling hangar deck. Cargo crates and fighter wrecks were used as cover by both sides. It was easily where the fighting was the thickest. But the Ferir was a huge advantage, and it was dishing out more damage than the UEE could bring to bear. From the starboard hangar entrance, two MAS units flew in and opened fire on the Ferir. It was Sokolov and Astelion who had finished up their engagements in the battlespace. Sokolov drew the Ferir's fire, but the heavy Centurion shrugged off the shots as though they were spitballs. Astelion charged forward in his Sentinel, drawing his large MAS combat knife. Sparks flew from the Sentinel's feet as it used its thrusters to skate along the hangar deck toward the Ferir.

The Coalition MAS drew its knife as well and swung. But Astelion's sentinel ducked low and tackled the MAS to the deck. The Ferir swung a heavy metal punch at Astelion, but the UEE MAS blocked it. Astelion dug the knife into the chest of the Ferir, when he drew it back, the edge was coated red. The pilot had been executed. The tables in the hangar had turned, the Coalition marines without their MAS had lost their momentum in the face of two UEE MAS units. The firefight was over in minutes after their arrival.

After several more tense minutes, the AI reported, [color=royalblue][i]"No Coalition signatures detected aboard, captain. The boarding action has been repelled."[/i][/color]

Alexis breathed a sigh in relief and got out of the battlesuit. She didn't need it yet again, but that wasn't a bad thing. Then the AI spoke again, [color=royalblue][i]"Be advised, a Coalition destroyer is approaching at our aft."[/i][/color]

Alexis looked at the holo display and saw the image of the destroyer. Alexis grinned and spoke over the radio, [color=white][b]"Hark, the trap is sprung, you've got your prey."[/b][/color][/color]

((Part 2 coming soon...))