The entire room blinked in unconcealed shock as the Commander turned off the monitor and returned to the captain's chair. A completely different mad stood before them now. He could have been ten years older, eyes burning, back straight jaw set.

"Lieutenant, what do we know about the Burg weapons capabilities."

"Well, sir, it doesn't look good for us. They have..... Some sort of heat gun that the GA has not yet been able to reverse engineer. If they hit us directly enough they could cook us all like sardines in a tin can."

"Well, let's make sure they don't hit us." He pointed across the room towards the systems specialist, "Call down to the engineers and tell them to pull power to the coolant system. I want it to be a winter wonderland in here by the time we are done. Let the crew know to wear gloves. Until the GA gets here with those extra shields, we are flying balls out naked, and I'm not a big fan of that picture."

He turned back to the original crew-member, "What are their shield capabilities."

"GA database says they are at a level two, energy resistant, but..... Well look at this. They have no impact on projectile weapons."

"What's the point of having a shield in the first place if it can't protect you against projectiles." One of the crew members muttered.

The commander leaned back in his seat single eye flashing, "Because, projectile weapons are considered barbaric and out of date, all of the advanced GA weaponry runs on energy pulses. If they have those weapons it would act like an EMP to our ship and we would loose power. Don't question the usefulness of their equipment."

He tapped his fingers against the armrest, "After all, their equipment would be useful.... If they were fighting against anyone but humans. This levels the playing field," he turned in his chair to the Comms officer, "Open comline to our other ships.

It didn't take her more than a moment to do as told, and he spun in his chair back to face forward, "Commander, have the Burg surrendered, yet?"

A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of the Commander's mouth, "Not yet, but we are working on it. Captains Ho, Silva and Bassi, peel off to protect the plants defence nexus. The rest of us will stay here to take care of the burg fleet as much as we can until GA backup arrives. Use only projectile weapons, and not anything energy found that the GA may have given you. Make sure to up your coolant systems. They have a one charge heat ray that could potentially cooks us where we sit."

"Commander, the burg ship is moving."

"Get to work everyone!" The commander ordered, "Tell the pilots to launch, and start targeting their engines. Take care of any other ship that tries to do the same to us."

"Yes, sir."

"The burg ship is targeting us, sir."

"Sunny, Preprair lateral rail guns."

"Yes sir." The small blue Drev turned back to her console and began working furiously.

The commander grabbed the controls, which responded to his touch. The chair morphed around him giving him a place to insert his hands and his feet for better steering.

A curved holo-projections dropped down over his eyes casting his skin into shades of blue and white.

"Sir, the Burg have almost reached lock... sir."

"Remain calm." The man ordered

The new recruits stared out the front screen of the ship as the burg ship dropped into position. It was a massive thing all spikes and pincers painted in colors of black orange and red, dressed for war. And between two of those pincers, they watched as a bright purple light began to grow up, targeted right towards them.

"Commander, if we don't move now there will be no TIME to move." One of the crew members yelled in agitation.

"Thank you lieutenant, I am very aware of the movement capabilities of my ship now TRUST me to fly her. Sunny! Are the rail guns charged."

"Yes sir.' She shouted back

The crew member paused mid argument, through they wriggled in their seat with panic. The bigger the flash of purple light grew the more agitated they became until everyone on the bridge crew was muttering and cursing to themselves. Outside a swarm of F-90 Darkfire jets rolled out from under their ship sweeping through the center of space.

Silently, little bolts of white light leaped across the intervening space, and little red explosions, like the blossoming of flowers appeared against the burg hull.

The large purple orb grew in power and strength

The bridge crew was in an uproar.

Commander Vir remained still and silent looking down the barrel of death without so much as flinching hands remaining relaxed around the controls.

The purple beam fired.

And suddenly, they were gone.

All around them the world warped caving in on itself imploding and then expanding in an instant. As soon as they appeared in space, nothing but a field of stars in their view, the commander pulled a hard left, slowly turning their hulking ship backwards.

There was a gap from the crew as the burg ship came back into focus though at a wildly different angle than before.

The commander had micro warped the ship BEHIND burg defenses, though they wouldn't have this upper hand for long. Even now the burg ship was turning on its axis to face them.

"FIRE!" The commander ordered.

And sunny pulled the trigger.

All through the ship, they could felt the massive ca-chunk ca-chunk as two rail guns fired. The space was lit up between them, and then space was lit by a massive blossoming explosion of red and orange alone the left side of the burg ship completely snapping off a few of the pincers and sending space debris out in all directions.

Little fighter jets, like a swarm of bees around the head of a bear continued to harass the burg shi

"Contact!" Captain, it was a good hit

"But they will be prepared for it next time, he muttered. That maneuver won't be so unpredictable."

Just then a light blue holo-projection appeared to the side of the captain's chair. Nairobi from engineering stood before him, "Captain, whatever you just did DON'T do it again, or you will overheat the warp core, and cook us all.

"Damned if I do damned if I don't." THe man muttered, "Don't worry, that was just giving us a bit of a head start." Her projection disappeared and the captain tilted their ship slightly to the right, "Fire!

That same sound reverberated through the ship, rocking them in place as they sat. The burg ship was a little more prepared this time, pulling to the side managing to dodge one entirely while the other merely strafed their starboard side, though it still left a red hot gouge against their hull

"Burg targeting us again commander." There was no purple light this time, which partially assured him they were not in danger of being cooked

Behind the Burg, the second UNSC ship had been pulling to a flanking maneuver, only to be blindsided by a second incoming burg ship

They watched as the purple beam cut across intervening space and caught her a glancing blow along the port side.

"Shit." The commander muttered

"Check on captain Eklend.

"Charging again, commander.

The ship jolted to the side, just as a volley of red hot beams burst towards them. THe entire hull rocked and shook. The crew grabbed onto their seats crushing as the entire room rocked and thundered nearly throwing them out of their seats

"They hit, hull breach on cargo deck E, sir.

"Containment.

"In effect sir, though it won't last for long.

"Casualties.

"No casualties, so far though four were injured.

"Commander, Captain Eklend is alright, through their core is dangerously close to overheating. He can't take another hit like that, and his warp capabilities are disabled for the time being.

"Tell him to adjust course and put the Bur ship between him and their command ship, I have an idea or two that might just help us.

The crew looked on from where they sat, rigid in their seats while behind them, the commander relaxed back into his chair. Again his hands were steady on the controls, his single eye was sharp

And there was a glimmer of something hungry in that bright green eye.

"Lieutenant, how long can we polarize the gravity field on the outer hull?"

"It would be dangerous sir, no more than a few seconds or risk pulling the ship apart, or pulling us apart

He closed his eyes for a moment searing mentally for Conn, who was preparing to exit the airlock

"I need you to do one last thing before you leave."

Their conversation was quick

" I just spoke with engineering, sir. It won't be healthy for anyone, or for the ship but it can be done for a few seconds. How long do you need."

"Long enough to deal with Newton's first law."

***

"Your Glory our instruments are detecting a hull breach.

The burg commander hissed in pleasure, "Puny human ship will stand no chance at the rest of our attacks." The human may have followed her once with that micro warp, but he wouldn't be able to do it again.

The ship shuddered and rocked as those tiny, pesky nits continued to batter their outer hull. One of her ships broke through and hurtled towards the human ship, catching it a glancing blow along its dorsal side before being blasted into oblivion

Didn't matter to her, those ships were unmanned, and she always had more, "Charge the energy cannon.

"Yes your glory.

The human ship fired back not a moment later, and they were only just able to maneuver out of the way, sending a volley of rounds over their upper fins. One of their dorsal antenna was blown straight off, but it was a loss she could take. Warfare in space was slow especially between ships as big as theirs, though outside the nits rocketed past in groups of four or five.

The ship continued to rumble as ordinance battered against their hard outer shell

She ordered another volley, which seared through the void battering against the human hull. There were no breaches this time, as they were aimed towards center mass, but large portions of metal and siding came peeling off like shell peels off a corpse."

In that intervening time, the humans had charged up their large opposing weapons and sent two more rounds straight for them. She tried pulling to the side to avoid them, but the human had maneuvered his ship in a sharp turn between the firing of the first and the firing of the second cannon, moving the trajectory of the second directly into her line of movement. There was an eruption on the deck below her, and she was almost thrown onto her face.

"We have a hull breach, your glory.

"Would you like a casualty report.

"I do not care about casualties." She snapped gripping hard onto one of the ship's interior rails, hooking around it with one of her pincers

She looked up at her screen, watching on radar as a second human ship rolled into position behind them. She was not worried though. Another one of the burg ships had maneuvered to cover her from the rear, and they seemed to be having marginally more success than she was

The human ship had taken multiple hits, including one from a heat beam, which seemed to have crippled it's movement ability.

She was pleased, though not pleased enough about their current position against the main human ship.

"Fire energy cannon!" She ordered, but as she did the humans dropped some sort of volley of their own. A thousand lights burst into shape before the ship, like a million tiny sparks shed from a fire, they erupted around the hull and out into space catching the energy pulse mid flight.

The little dots of light erupted through it dispersed her energy shot.

She would have been angry for her plan being thwarted, if that had been her plan to begin with. As the night around them was lit up by a thousand tiny sparks obscuring her vision and that of their ship she roared, "Fire Central cannon."

The missile erupted from their dorsal side trailing gas and fire as it went.

***

His vision was partially obscured by smoke, and he had difficulty seeing the burg ship through the remains of their flares, though something in his gut told him not to rest easy.

Which is why he, unlike everyone else, saw the sudden eruption of flame through the cloud of dying sparks sucked clean by the vacuum.

"Reverse polarity!" He ordered.

And in response, the lieutenant slammed her hand down on the button.

He felt the change as soon as it came. The entire ship squealed and groaned. Metal pulled against metal popping and cracking as rivets and screws snapped. He was thrown against his harness pulled in multiple directions at once as the outer hull's gravity was polarized backwards into space.

Objects all across the ship exploded with the intense power of gravity being pulled in all directions.

Blood pooled stuck still in veins and hearts.

Movement became impossible.

And the burg missile soared from the cloud, before slowing, stopping, and then wildly reversing direction. Spurred by a pre programmed secondary explosion which sent a wave of compressed gas outwards to propel the thing faster before dissipating.

There was a loud SNAP. as the polarity was reversed back to normal. And the entire crew gasped.

A few people fell unconscious against their harnesses

Commander Vir wiped his face on his sleeve, blood trickling down from one nostril.

"Conn? Conn are you there?"

"Yes commander, I am here. The doctor is safe, and so are your little pets. Be lucky, I just managed to get gravity belts to them in time. I wager to believe the doctors head might literally have exploded otherwise

"Good work."

"I'd say it's my pleasure, but I honestly don't care/"

***

The burg commander crowded in delight.

The human couldn't have seen that coming.

But behind her the shiplings squealed. She saw it before she could demand to know what was going on, watching as her own missile came soaring back at them from space. The shiplings reacted faster than she could have, and the ship jerked upwards narrowly missing the projectile as it roared past cutting under the lower side of the ship.

It felt as if they were safe for a moment, but then she looked up at the screen and watched as their second ship erupted.

She only had enough time to curse before the debris began pelting their ship tearing into metal, screeching and vibrating through the hull.

The human ship had known what was coming and maneuvered to dodge the debris.

"We're flanked!"

***

"Got you now bitch."

Outside in the vastness of space, little blue dots began erupting against the star field.

"Captain, GA backup is arriving." Their comms specialist said.

"Casualty report."

"Three dead, sir."

That was three two many, but he couldn't focus on that now, he had to deal with what was at hand.

"Fire on the burg."

"Sir, she's retreating."

"To where!" His question was answered as she dropped towards the ace of the planet. At some point, the three human ships had managed to get rid of most of the incoming Burg, though the defense nexus had been shredded.

"Sir, she's heading planet side."

"What good will that do her." one of the crewmembers asked

The Commander knew exactly what it meant, "We can't use any of our weapons if they go planetside for fear of killing the civilians.... They are taking this war ground level because they know they cannot win in the sky."

"That's fine."

"No its not, they could dig in, take hostages..... This is about to get a whole lot more complicated."