The Traveller Universe comes to vivid life as veteran game designer and Traveller expert Martin J. Dougherty takes us deep into the Solomani Rim, humanity’s ancestral home.
A STORM IS GATHERING
Stormshadow lurched violently. Her hull made a hideous groaning, screeching sound that mixed with the scream of tortured metal as the clamp finally tore free. The helmsman caught the frigate just before she slammed into the cradle wall. The external monitors showed that Stormshadow’s fire had weakened the support beam but the clamp was still attached to the hull. Her violent struggles had torn it free of its mounts but they’d be taking it with them into action.
“Aft docking clamp . . . released,” said Browning, which was not, strictly speaking, accurate but conveyed what Crowe needed to know. “Cradle gate is still closed.”
“Very well. Commander Browning, clear us a path. Bracket the gate with torpedoes,” Crowe said. “Helm, as soon as the torpedoes hit you will go full astern. Ram the gates if they’re still there.”
Crowe heard the acknowledgement as Browning fired and the frigate began to accelerate violently.
The torpedoes went to full acceleration as they left the launchers, slamming into the lightly armored gate after a flight of less than a second. Lacking the velocity to punch a hole, they detonated on the surface. Most of the blast went into the gate, twisting it off its mounts at one side. Fragments of torpedo casing whirled across the docking bay along with one of the weapons’ drive section, its exhaust still flaring.
As the torpedo engine corkscrewed into the far wall of the bay and fragments rattled from Stormshadow’s hull, she lurched across the bay and smashed stern-first into the launch gate. Crewmembers clung to their consoles and Crowe reeled across the bridge before he could grab his seat for support.
