lr.14
MEGAZONE 23
"Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
--Sledge Hammer
"Incoming fire!" Kei barked as her scope lit up like a
stock exchange. "Missiles, fuckloads of them. And bigger
stuff, probably fightercraft."
"Gryph, get downstairs, you're needed out there," Zoner
ordered. "q, scramble all available Veritechs. Red alert.
Seal all bulkheads. All crew to battle stations. Et cetera.
Et cetera."
"Got it," Gryphon replied. The lights turned red and
alarms howled as Ben jumped out of his seat and ran to the
turbolift.
"All Veritechs, combat alert. Report to duty stations.
This is not a drill," the SDF-17 computer, whose voice was
not as booming as the Wedge's, but was in fact rather dull
and boring, announced.
"Missiles incoming," Kei reminded. "Thirty seconds to
impact."
"Anti-missile systems?"
"At full power. Tracking now."
"Target Ikazuchi."
"Did it forty seconds ago. Twenty seconds to missile
impact."
Gryphon jumped into the cockpit of his VF-1S, his nerves
singing in a chorus of nervous tension, adrenaline, and fear.
He pulled on his CVR-3 helmet, tightened the wrist locks on
his gloves, and checked over his controls as the Super armor
was locked in place and his fusion turbines warmed up. He
was carrying standard Super boosters/missile pods for this
run. Around him, the three other planes in his squadron were
warming up.
"All Eight-Ball squadron, check in and report status.
Eight-Ball One, okay," said Ben into his radio.
"Eight-Ball Two, okay," Daver acknowledged.
"Eight-Ball Three, okay," Erik Swimm concurred.
"Eight-Ball Four, okay, let's go KILL SOMEONE!" chimed
in Mark "Haywire" Luchini.
"Watch your ass, Mark, I don't want to have to explain
anything to Trish," Ben scolded, "Control, this is Eight-Ball
Squadron. We are ready for launch."
"Like this is Control, like go," said q.
"Hit it!" Gryphon shouted, and rammed his throttles to
full burner, punching the launch button with his thumb. The
catapults roared and the four Valkyries were blasted forward
on the decks of A.R.M.D.-1 (the portside platform). They
winged their way out in perfect formation, the white, black
and blue -1S leading the three grey, black and blue -1J's
into battle. On the other side, A.R.M.D.-2 launched Fritz's
four-craft Legios squadron. The two squadrons formed up and
made for the Ikazuchi.
"Eight-Ball and Legios Squadrons are like away," q
reported.
"Good. Tactical, confirm lock on Ikazuchi?"
"Lock confirmed."
"Fire at will."
"Thank you." Clearance given, Kei started punching
buttons. Immediately, the four railguns mounted two each in
front of the A.R.M.D. platforms started lobbing their huge
projectiles at the Ikazuchi. Targeting the micro-Reflex
cannon was going to take some time.
"Ten seconds to missile impact." They could see them on
the bridge now, huge boiling swarms of missiles coming after
them.
"Fire counterspread."
Kei selected missile racks and pods with smooth
professionalism and, in a few short seconds, let fly.
"Counterspread away," she reported as missiles vomited from
ports all over the Wayward Son, wall of missiles flying at
wall of missiles. The overhead tactical display showed
quite well the two swarms of missiles colliding, and the view
from the bridge windows of their mutual annihilation was
quite impressive. A few missiles got through on either side,
the Ikazuchi's to impact against and dent the SDF-17's hull;
no penetration was achieved with the first volley.
"No penetration of the enemy's hull, sir," the tech in
command of the Ikazuchi reported to Largo on his master
hypercomm screen.
"Fire again then, you fool! Do I have to do everything
for you?!"
"Second spread. Fire when ready."
"Second volley incoming. Thirty seconds to impact."
"Yo, like our fighters are just about in range of
theirs."
"Order them to engage!"
"Like all fighters, you are ordered to engage," Gryphon
heard in his ears.
"You heard him--let 'em have it!" Gryphon flipped the
thumb covers off his triggers and, diving to meet the nearest
GENOM fighter (which looked suspiciously like a Lancer I),
raked it with his GU-11. It exploded most satisfyingly, and
a furious dogfight began.
"Sir, we are sustaining heavy damage," a minor tech
reported on the bridge of the Ikazuchi. "Our missile
defenses are useless against those railguns!" WHAM! The
deck shook as the SDF-17 began firing its micro-Reflex guns.
"Target and fire the main laser immediately!"
"Yes, sir!" The tech scrambled over the weapons
controls for some seconds before announcing, "Target locked!"
"FIRE!"
The Ikazuchi's nose glowed yellow for an instant; then
it unleashed a great beam of white light that slashed through
the space between the two ships and slammed into the Wayward
Son's port side forward, just aft of the foredeck. One of
the micro-Reflex beam cannons exploded with a pretty fireball
and the entire ship shuddered.
"Fuck!" Zoner shouted as he grabbed the armrests of his
chair. "Damage report!"
"Sections 11 and 12 are depressurized," Yuri reported.
"One of the micro-cannons is destroyed. No casualties
reported."
"Well, that's one good thing."
The Ikazuchi fired again.
Gryphon saw the Ikazuchi blasting away at SDF-17 with
its main gun, and saw the explosions bursting from both
ships; he wondered which would last longer, and hoped it
would be the SDF-17. Not that he didn't have his own skin to
worry about, of course. Shouting "Daver! Check six!", he
ducked to the left, did a quick snaproll, and blasted a GENOM
fighter off the latter's tail with a couple of pod missiles.
Daver shouted a thanks, then plunged steeply to the right and
blew another away with his nose lasers.
"Damn! I wish I was out there. Who the hell came up
with this stupid rule about the Captain staying out of
danger?"
"Like, it's like standard practice. Like sorry."
"Well, it sucks!"
"Like sucks to be you eh?"
"Well thanks. Hey anyone else want to be Captain so I
can go take a chance at getting killed?"
There was a resounding absence of reply.
"So, I guess I'm stuck here." Toggling his comm gear he
continued, "Good shooting, guys. Keep it up, we're beating
them."
"Will you please shut up! You're distracting--" WHUMP
"--me. Shit! Now look what you did. I lost a wing!"
"Well I'm SOOOOOO sorry. Stop complaining."
"Kindly rot in hell, Zoner."
"I'd have to believe in hell first."
"This is no time to have a theological discussion,
people," ReRob interjected.
"Ok then, Zoner, just kindly rot!"
"They sound like us," Yuri whispered to Kei.
"Mm hmm," Kei replied. "Eerie, isn't it?"
"We can't take a whole lot more of this," ReRob
announced as the Ikazuchi's main gun holed decks the port
thruster just aft of the bridge. "They just missed the
bridge, for crying out loud!"
"Target the main gun!" Zoner shouted. "I've had enough
of this playing around."
"Now you're talking," Kei said with a grin, and flipped
out the targeting joystick for the main gun. "Main gun
armed and charging. All other weapons cease fire."
The foredeck split in the center, and port and starboard
halves started cantilevering outward on a cam-like
arrangement, separating by about their width; when the rear
sections stopped rotating, the ship looked like a huge tuning
fork, with the foresections of the nose still oriented as
before. Orange lightning started flickering over and between
them.
"They've stopped firing!" shouted Haywire, looking back.
"What the--oh, shit! They're gonna fire the main gun! I
wanna watch!"
"Well, finish these schmucks off, and we can," Gryphon
replied, wincing as a GENOM missile blasted a piece of his
left wing off.
The octagon around the Ikazuchi on Kei's targeting scope
flashed red as the one the main gun's joystick moved
overlapped it perfectly; they both strobed together and the
words "REFLEX CANNON LOCKED" appeared on screen.
"Reflex cannon locked!" Kei reported.
"FIRE!"
Kei pulled the trigger.
For a moment, nothing happened; then the orange
lightning quadrupled in brightness, pulsed once, twice, and--
FOOM. The entire nose of the SDF-17 spat a huge bolt of
orange energy that streaked unerringly toward the Ikazuchi
and punched right through it, emerging from its aft end to
streak off into space. The GENOM ship, punctured completely
through, drifted for a moment, heeled, faltered, and then
exploded in a brilliant small sun.
"YES!" Mark shouted, pumping a fist in victory. "Shoot
that ship! Blow that up! KIIIIILLLL THEEEMMMMMMM!!!!!!"
"Great shot, Kei!" Yuri shouted, clapping her partner on
the shoulder.
"Wow!" Kei said, looking wide-eyed at what had been a
rather nice starship out over the foredeck, which was calmly
closing back together as though nothing had happened. "I
like this gun..."
"All fighters reporting now," q announced. "Like
they're all ok, like a little chewed up, but ok."
"Cool! Our first major battle--and we kicked ass!"
Zoner said. "Get Gryphon up here as soon as you can--he has
to be here for the celebration."
"Wait a second..." Yuri said, in an "uh oh" tone of
voice. "What's that point of light there?"
"What point of light?" asked Kei.
"That one. The yellow one. It's in the debris zone
from the Ikazuchi, but it's too bright to be hot metal, and I
think it's moving."
"What--hey, it is. I think you're right." Outside, a
yellow point of light was indeed moving toward them, growing
in brightness and size.
"Shit--evasive!" Zoner shouted. It was coming right for
the bridge windows, after all. "Sound collision! Science!
Jenna what is it? Someone tell me SOMETHING!"
It stopped, right as it was filling the bridge windows;
just stopped dead and hovered there. There was something in
the middle of it, a shadowy form that--
The glow disappeared, just like that. A red-haired
woman, dressed neck-to-toe in black armor which had the look
of leather, was standing, just standing, unprotected in the
vacuum of space outside the window. She had long, flowing
red hair and long, pointed ears.
"Oh, shit..." said Zoner.