"..Tregessar out."
With that, there was just silence and impending doom to keep Satoshi company. This was an opportunity to be seized, but the opportunity itself had sharp edges. He would have to negotiate this scenario skilfully, or he would no doubt perish with the ship. Dying over the skies of O'reen was not in Satoshi's life plan. In fact, distinguishing himself had been more what he had in mind. Now he had an opportunity to do so. The young man remained calm, impassive. His brilliant, unorthodox and quickly powerful mind worked at such a level that he began merely acting out of impulse. He was a vessel of action for his thoughts. That was how brilliant painters, sculptors, musicians and mathematicians acted when they were in the "zone", and now Satoshi had joined them. There was no filtering of thought by his subconscious, no quality control, he merely synthesised data and melded it into his mind, then reacted.
The deflector shields were powered up to maximum now, taking a battering from Oscar One, and to make matters worse the O'reen fleet had dispatched three worn, older frigates to finish the Akatsuki off. They were much faster than the Gyon-class heavy cruiser, especially given the substantial engine damage, and their anti-ship batteries made them dangerous. They would be like wasps, stinging and harassing the larger ship into an early grave. Satoshi responded by rerouting more power from the services they could no longer use, such as the bridge's various power sources, and taking it to the shields. He angled the ship to more adequately defend against the frigates as a wave of torpedoes crashed into the shields, flickering them for a second. The Hiei was still a while away, and its large batteries would not help much against the frigates. Satoshi would have to move to the Hiei and use it like a shield, and let the Star Destroyer shepherd it back to the main fleet. But for now, he had three frigates to deal with, as well as a flight of snubfighters that moved past them and made their first attack run.
The quad-laser batteries roared and spat fire into the snubfighters, showing that the crippled Gyon still had some fight. The first attack run yielded thirty percent casualties as the efficient Imperial gunners fired effectively. Then the three frigates joined the attack, busying about the Akatsuki and hammering at it with their smaller turbolasers. Satoshi's rerouting of power to the shields meant that they would hold ... for now. But in the midst of the attack, one of the frigate's commanders made a terrible mistake. His flight path took him into the firing line of the Gyon's main guns, and Satoshi took the opportunity. The twin cannons fired again, for the first time in minutes, and hit the frigate just below the bridge. Now the frigate drifted, a crippled hulk, and the Akatsuki made for the Hiei with one less frigate to worry about.
