<b>Meanwhile, in the cruiser's command bridge...</b><br/><br/>Everything had turned to chaos in a matter of minutes. Everyone shouting back and forth in a sharp contrast to the nearly silent and smooth running of the command bridge. Ayla could hear the desperation in their voices as they made their reports, and the calm in the captain's voice as he responded to them. She felt a rush, but couldn't say if it was adrenaline, her stims or a sense of pride at their captain's coherence. He would see them through this, she mused. She continued to carefully adjust the course of the ship to match the other transport cruisers. She had always found it easy to focus, despite the chaos around her. That the captain was as calm in this storm intrigued her, and she quietly wondered if he was single.<br/><br/>A soft shudder that went through the ship pulled her out of her daydreams, and a few followed moments later. The call came a moment later"Multiple hull breaches, we've got boarding drones!" Ayla's stomach lurched, and were it not empty she would have felt the need to empty it now. She watched the panel in front of her, the screen showing the predicted trajectories of hundreds of enemy drones, as well as that of their own ships. She didn't have a weapons screen, but could see the incoming trajectories fade by the dozen as the cruiser's weaponry tore them apart. Yet for each one destroyed there were at least ten more.<span style="color: green"> "Least we don't really have to aim...Although..."</span>she muttered to herself.<br/><br/><br/><br/>She quickly spotted the opportunity, spotting the predicted course of one of the attack vessels<span style="color: green">"Aligning mass driver!" </span>She called out, calling up another screen on the panel. "Mass driver charging!" came the response from the armaments officer. "On screen!" the captain called out, and the big screen that oversaw the bridge changed from showing their battle positions to showing the mass driver's trajectory and the target attack ships. Sweat dripped down Ayla brow as she carefully aligned the ship's biggest gun with one of the incoming attack crafts, even the smallest deviation would result in a miss. "Prepare to fire on my command..." The captain spoke. Ayla could now feel her heart pounding in her throat as she made the smallest of adjustments. "FIRE!" The command came as a relief, and the hum of mass driver alerted her to the weapon firing.<br/><br/>She turned her head to the big screen, and watched as the huge mass driver running the full length of the ship down its center charged up and flung a bolt of molten metal at near relativistic speeds. She watched the blue bolt sear through several drones on it's path before finally tearing through one of six the circular grey attack crafts with a fiery explosion. It lurched in it's flight, breaking apart into 3 pieces. A cheer went up from the bridge as everyone watched short-lived fires bursting into existing and vanishing, slowly consuming the rubble of the destroyed spacecraft. Ayla returned her attention to the panel in front of her quickly after seeing one of the other cruiser's shots missing. They still had a long battle ahead of them.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>