[center][h1][color=00aeef]Ren[/color][/h1][/center]
[hr]
[center]Moar Dakka[/center]
[hr]

Renli hopped back into his gunnery seat as commanded by Stryker and reclined lazily. Simple mission - kill everything, right? It wouldn't be too hard to achieve that. But he wondered what the point of a boarding party was. He turned his head to the organic gunner, Sammn.

[color=0076a3]"So, any ideas why we're trying to board the station we're actively shooting at? I'm no strategist, but I'd have thought we'd want to keep our people out of the way of the big guns for a little longer."[/color]

Regardless of the reply, though, he kicked back and relaxed for a short while. A glance at the control scheme of the gunnery station revealed it was rather poorly thought out, but that was to be expected from human shipmakers. In a ship with working artificial gravity, a touchscreen setup or mouse control would have been better by far than the joysticks sitting in front of him. Fine motor control is better for precision shots than gross, after all.

The continual sensations, sounds, and images coming into his head from the Tower told him that it had successfully gained control of the ship's reaction control system. He would allow the pilot to input his control, of course, but he felt more at ease knowing that if necessary, he could simply rotate the ship out of the way of oncoming fire, or stabilize the ship's rate of rotation. It would fly much more smoothly and intelligently than the simple computerized autopilot that had been desperately trying to keep up with the pilot's commands before.

More cablevision crept into his consciousness. Engine power injection was coming next. There would likely be a hiccup for a miniscule fraction of a second while the signal to the engines was reestablished through the Tower, so he set up an algorithm to overclock the main engine to compensate for thrust lost at that moment, whenever it came. The Tower's inbuilt infection routines were sometimes a little bit janky, after all.

[@Sombrero][@Crossfire]

[hr]

The Revenant burned towards the station at full speed in the hopes that it would get under the Planet Cracker's effective range. Renli sat patiently in his gunnery seat, fingers at the controls and ready to open fire. He designated himself as primarily a defensive gunner in this scenario, and moved to the frontal starboard gunner position, then spoke. [color=0076a3]"Sammn, I'd like you to take forward port. I -- excuse me, Rento -- will be primary port-side damage output, but we need defensive gunners on both sides too."[/color]

With that, Renli went limp and his AI processes took over his body. Rento snapped to attention and slid out of her seat. It would be much easier to put out damage with [i]all[/i] of the port turrets firing at once, after all, and she readied herself to madly dash between positions and adjust firing angles. A mass of some sort appeared under her top and snaked its way up her back and through the neck hole, revealing eight long motorized cables, each tipped with two pairs of jaws and an arc welder tip. Two each moved to take the four free port gunnery controls, wrapping the ends around the joysticks.

Renli and Rento both waited for Stryker's command to open fire, and Rento took aim at four important-looking locations on lower end of the station -- two of what appeared to be hangar controls, a cockpit overlooking the Planet Cracker's alignment array, and a section of station that seemed like a logical place to put a power conduit.

Rento shouted toward the cockpit, [color=6ecff6]"Hey, pilot! Try to keep the portside guns on target, please. If we could stay between two and five kilometers from the station in a tight orbit, that'd be perfect for us back here."[/color]

[@Banana]

[hr]

The order to fire eventually came, and Rento unleashed hellfire upon the station. While the turrets weren't individually as powerful as the Revenant's forward gun, they certainly didn't disappoint at all. The four turrets under her command scattered split-second beams of brilliant light across her targeted positions, indicating that she wasn't simply holding down the trigger, but rather feathering it at a machinegun's pace to keep the guns cool. Overheating was the bane of many a laser weapon, and she refused to let that be a problem.

There were no explosions and no sounds audible inside the Revenant. Just blinding lights flashing out of the side of the ship, each ending in a pool of molten slag on the station. Hangars facing the Revenant were sealed in an instant, and what Rento assumed to be a control room was vented into space, along with a pair of crew members. Asphyxiation was a miserable death, so she mercifully tapped a pair of focused bursts into the floating crew members. Both disappeared into a small puff of superheated gases without a trace.

The external conduits melted beautifully, and with each shot, a group of lit windows went dark. Not a very useful series of shots - the important systems were likely deeper inside the station. But at least cutting the lights and door controls to some rooms might be helpful to the boarders. The rear port turret continued spraying precise shots across conduits along the station to cause as much chaos inside as possible.

Through her Tower's communication array, she sent a communication on all frequencies to the Station. [color=6ecff6]"This is the Uniac Mining Federation Flagship Mirantha, hailing Helsin Station. We are experiencing difficulties with our weapon targeting systems. Our engineers are working to remedy the problem. Please disregard all accidental weapons discharges -- you will be compensated for any accidental damage and loss of life."[/color]

Shortly after, she sent a second broadcast. [color=6ecff6]"We thank you for your patience, Helsin Station. Our engineers have fixed the targeting systems. Accidental weapon discharges have ceased and all weapon discharges are now entirely intentional. We also remind you that this coming Saturday is Earth Day, in celebration of our beautiful homeworld. If you have a potted plant in your quarters, be kind to it! If you don't have one, please report to the airlocks for disciplinary action concerning failure to celebrate Earth Day. Happy mining!"[/color]