This Was It

 This is my entry to the Inspired By Images Of Eve Competition 2. More details and links to all entrants can be found at Starfleet Comms




"Not again. Why is it always me?" Andrea thought to herself as her Taranis skimmed out of the docking bay into the vast universe once again.

"Sorry Hun," chimed a voice in Andrea's ear. "But you know how this works, you're our tackler, and as such, this is your task."

"Yeah, yeah, can it Zekran!" Andrea said in a slightly fed up voice, the irritation clearly showing.

It was always like this, it never changed. The new system that her corporation controlled was always being visited either by thrill seekers, or by enemies who would like to see the system change hands yet again. And every time a raiding party came, it was her job to go out, and tackle the intruders so that the fleet would destroy a few ships, and scare off the invaders once again maintaining the integrity of their control over the system. Thing is, as tackle, you always die first, without fail.
The past month had been hurting her wallet a lot more than in the past. The raids had been stepped up, and she had been sent out time and time again to put a scrambler on some poor fellow's warp drive in order to bring a quick end to the intruder. However, nobody seems to like to have their systems scrambled, and more often than not, her fragile Taranis would find itself without a structure to maintain itself as the enemy invaders honed their guns in on her delicate ship.
This time around they were up against a small fleet of eight. Mostly heavy assault cruisers according to the Intel.

Aligning herself to the jump gate, she got to glance around at the assembling fleet.

"Ready to die again?" Zeebia said in a voice that sounded about as cuddly as a nest of angry wasps.

Zeebia's Stiletto was aligned as well, and it seemed today that Zeebia had lost when drawing straws for who would be Andrea's wing man.

"As ready as a corpse can be!" Andrea said, enjoying the slightly morbid jokes as they readied themselves, and prepared to wake up in new clones in the station from which they had just undocked.

"Okay battle coms every one, let’s make this clean and easy." Zekran said, addressing the whole fleet. "Interceptors, you will be going in first, followed shortly by our other frigates. The rest of the fleet will be right behind you within twenty seconds. Godspeed."

With that, the coms were closed.

"Let’s do this." Andrea thought to herself. It wouldn't be long, all she had to do was pick a few good primary targets and her task would be over.

"Warp drive active," announced the emotionless shipboard computer.
The warp tunnel swirled around her ship. Zeebia was on her port side, ready to die with her. The support frigates were behind, with the fleet bearing down behind them. This was it. This was the world of New Eden.