OIC (20)
MegaZone23
"Some people, ya know, they just will not do."
--q
TWO HOURS LATER
"Zoner--unidentified objects coming in from three-ten by
negative oh five," reported Kei, who was back at her
position, her arm already out of its cast.
"Composition?" asked MegaZone.
"Metallic, powered, ten-ton to thirty-ton. Too slow to
be missiles, probably manned."
"Fighter craft."
"Yeah, that's what I thought too."
"q, scramble the Eight-Balls to intercept. Don't fire
until I give the say-so. We've got bogeys out there, not
bandits."
"Like, gotcha, Zoner." Macquivr summoned the
fighter group as its commander was leaving the bridge at a
run; they headed out to meet their new neighbors, who were
approaching from the planet.
A few minutes later, the Eight-Balls were within
tracking range of the craft in question. Gryphon tagged the
nearest one with his target tracking system and glanced at
the small screen; there was a small schematic of a light
fighter and the words "LOCKED TARGET -- SALTHI".
"Eight-Ball One to Control," Gryphon called. "I'm
looking at two squadrons of Salthi fighters here...we've got
cats again."
"Yeah, but when they scratch, do they leave marks like
Darensbourg?" ReRob asked.
"Uh, I don't think Cat has lasers in her fingernails,
Rob."
"What are they doing?"
"Accelerating." Zark! "Make that firing guns. Request
permission to return fire!"
"Knock yourself out, Gryph. Save me a wing fragment for
my wall."
"Yeah, right. Eight-Ball One to squadron: EXTERMINATE!"
Mark responded with, "Did somebody say the magic word?"
while shoving his throttle to burner.
Daver announced, "Hey, these guys are easy to nuke."
And to prove his point, he clicked into battroid mode and
started raking space with his GU-11. Tricia responded with
"Stop showing off, fuckhead," and sent her first volley off.
Saurian started chasing the back Salthi. His targeting
system was, shall we say, tweaked. He didn't lock on the
Salthi. He locked on the pilot. He got a lock so good the
HUD wrote out, "Hey, is this a lock or what?"
"You guys watch this! This lock is sooo sweet! I can't
fucking miss!"
The rest of the squadron chimed in with "So shoot,
already!" Which he did.
Rather than Scott Bernarding, he fired one lone Reaper.
That should be enough to toast a recon bird. He made sure to
select the missile with "Let's get to know each other better"
written on the side. It spiraled in beautifully, aiming
directly for the cockpit.
At the last second, due to what had to be an error in
the internal guidance system of the missile, it reversed
course. It was flying backwards, and was close enough to the
Salthi to break/burn through the klasterglass of the
windshield. The remainder of the thrust was spent totally
incinerating the poor unfortunate Kilrathi.
A split second later, the warhead detonated, sending
the Salthi exploding in a fireball, leaving nothing but a
couple of O-rings and a piece of hose.
Daver was the first to respond, after grabbing one
Salthi and throwing it into its wingmate, with "I don't
believe it. He fucking Swimmed it!"
Mark unloaded his GU-11 into the fourth Salthi, making
it look like a piece of Swiss cheese. It returned fire,
damaging his wing.
"Why won't this thing kerfucking die?!" he screamed.
A quick burst from Tricia's Valkyrie sent the Salthi
exploding into more O-rings and hose. "You just have to know
what you're doing, Mark."
Gryphon briefed a pair of Reapers on a quick mission,
and scrambled them. They converged on the remaining Salthi
from opposite sides, destroying it in much the same manner
that the Ewoks killed an AT-ST with a pair of heavy logs.
"Scratch five Salthi, Zoner. On the leader board,
that's one for me, two for Daver with a style point, one by
Tricia with an assist by Haywire, and, well, you'll just have
to see Erik's gun camera footage. I won't even try to
explain it."
"He Swimmed a missile, didn't he?"
"It was so fucking perfect, though!" retorted Saurian.
Tricia chimed in. "Uh, guys...take a listen on 58.26."
STATIC "--peat, we are under siege by elements of the
Empire of Kilrah. Under the Salusian Treaty Pact of 17,280,
we request assistance from any Salusian ally within range of
this transmission." STATIC
"I heard that, guys," said Zoner.
"What're we gonna do?" asked ReRob.
"I think it's pretty goddamn obvious. First off, the
majority of our crew are Salusian, and thus we are basically
Salusian allies. Second, these are Kilrathi. Third, our
morale problem stems from the fact that we are really fucking
bored. The order: Prepare all squadrons for combat. We're
here to eat sushi and kick ass!"
q looked up. "But, Zoner, we like ran out of sushi
three months ago."
"Bingo. Get me a channel to the Salusians."
"Like, you're on the air, Zoner."
"Attention, Salusians! This is Captain MegaZone of the
WDF Wayward Son, responding to your distress call. We will
be in orbit of your world within forty minutes. Please
advise us as to the Kilrathi strength and composition."
"Thank you for your response, Captain. The aggressors
have ten Sivar-class dreadnoughts and seven Snakeir fighter
carriers, each holding about thirty craft. Five types of
fighters, including the new six-gunned Jalthi heavies. We
have no armed spaceworthy vessels--we had a squadron of
Scimitars, but they were all destroyed attempting to repulse
the first wave."
"Thank you. Wayward Son out." He turned on the
intercom. "You heard that guys, we've got some heavy
opposition. The Veritechs are outnumbered ten to one, so
we're going to need to support them as much as possible.
Prepare to separate Prometheus and Daedalus as Destroid
units. The main ship will worry about the dreadnoughts.
It's been over a year, guys, so some of you may have lost a
bit of your edge. Here's where we take that edge back.
Zoner out."
ReRob piped up. "Zoner, permission to leave the bridge
and the ship?"
"Huh? What for?"
"An experiment."
"A what?!?"
"Zoner, trust me on this, okay?"
"Alright, but it had better be good!"
ReRob smiled the smile of a child with a new toy. You
know, the one that set Dad back a month's salary. "Q, get
the following people to bay six, in battle dress: Deedlit
Satori, Cheryl Zukowsky, Kevin Tefft. And tell them no
hurling!"
"Like, will do, Rob."
ReRob made an evil chuckle as he took the elevator to
the lab/landing bay.