The Ladder Up
© 2007 d. William Roberts

A cloud of weapons descended on the fleeing ship.

“Fire all phasers; create a hole in their pattern.”

The whine of the phaser batteries and the roar of the warp drive filled the air as Kelsey put the starship through its paces in a complex series of turns and rolls, drowning out the weapons officer’s reply. The phasers burned a hole in the pattern. Kelsey tried to fit his ship through it, but one weapon defeated his efforts and struck. Energy and shock flipped the forward end of the ship up, threatening to send it into an end-over-end roll.

“Forward shields are down to forty percent!”

Kelsey didn’t hear the captain’s response. It was all he could do to get the ship back under control. To make matters worse, another incoming torpedo appeared in his peripheral vision. He twisted the destroyer around on its axis, and it missed by only a few hundred meters before detonating, ruining all his attempts to bring the ship under control…

(continued)