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 Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 4:18 pm
The Ottyo continued to look at the Admiral as the larger crest feathers seemed to wilt from horror, dismay or some other downturn of emotion, giving a furtive glance at Steven before addressing the older man. "...All year round?" Yotruyan shook his head side to side, shutting his eyes closed hard. He shivered. "Change of topic. Are you here inspecting the fighter crafts Admiral? I myself was curious to their size relative to our own."As one side of his face was presented to Admiral Kerning, the other and it's eye was free to look at the crowd. It fell on each person there in turn, including Istavan, before finding Fred.
At that, anyone could tell he was happy again.
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 6:46 pm
Garrett grinned at that. "I assure you there are many things I can do that a court marshal or five couldn't even imagine." Vague statement aside, the Lieutenant was feeling near to normal, and as if to validate the sensation the nurse returned.
With a smile he asked, "Did you miss me or is it time to let me go?"
With an amazingly unphazed expression, she answered, "Time to go." She took care of the sign-out procedures, checked his injuries, and returned his clothes. Before she left, the nurse added one final comment: "Next time you're in here, wear the gown properly."
"Why? So you can look at my a**?"
"If that's what does it for you." She left, and Garrett changed right there, heedless of the many pairs of eyes around him. He was entirely comfortable with his body, but it wasn't as though he had any desire to show it off, either. He just wanted to change and be done with the med bay.
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Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 6:41 pm
Kai continued to snore. It seemed that living the life of a marine allowed him to sleep through just about anything, including a scuffle. someone would have to wake him up if they wanted him to go with them.
******
Istvan, after seeing the Ottyo approach, remained silent, observing him for a while before slowly approaching. He pulled out a small device, which he began to sweep around the Ottyo liason in seemingly random directions, allowing the device to take various readings. a chorus of "hmmmm"'s and "I see" 's followed him as he studied the almost birdlike being while it spoke to Admiral Kerning.
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Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 2:31 pm
When the Ottyo had arrived Hungary's attention had immediately switched to the large alien. The pilot wasn't really interested in him exchanging pleasantries with the Green Squadron Lead's pa – no the real meat in this situation was the cooler Killy was lugging under one arm.
Downing what was left of one of the many flasks he carried, the pilot rubbed his forehead as he attempted to think through the drunken haze that he had slowly developed. With a mental snap, his attention refocused on the cooler; it didn't even matter that he didn't know its contents – it had to be something good. Hungary forgot all rank, reason, and tact in his concentration and began to yell.
“Oi, Otya – Ottyor – uhh, feather head! Hurry up the conversation alright? We could use your cooler over here and none of us would be adverse to sharing a little of our home brew to make it a fair trade!” The big man's face was red from the drink and he was smiling stupidly as he looked behind him at his fellow squadmate, giving each of them a 'Of course none of us mind' look as he waited for Killy to respond.
–
Siberia was speechless. He was honestly not sure what to do with Hungary at the moment, the man had just begun shouting when the alien liaison was talking with Admiral Kerning. And now, he was just standing there stupidly, completely unaware of his blunder.
But, it had happened and nothing could be done about it now. Siberia shook his head and then composed himself. Then, he stepped forward and threw his weight in with his drunken idiot of a subordinate. “Ahem, once business is aside I'm sure we could all do with a bit of refreshment, could we not? With the arrival of two such men as yourselves – and the liaison too – we seemed to have a lost a bit of the original purpose of this meeting in all the to do, as it was at first a simple greeting party between the two Squadrons.” Having quietly said his two bits out of loyalty the Squadron Leader nodded to all the parties involved and waited for it all to blow over or, in the worst case, to have a front row seat to watch the hammer fall.
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Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 11:28 pm
Cibo's interest perked up a bit as Garrett vaguely boasted about just what he could do. Cibo just sat there and watched at the little exchange between the nurse and the marine. When the other woman departed, the intelligence agent gave out a small "Tsk." at him, speaking in a sarcastic tone. "It must be one of the most unforgiving jobs in the galaxy. Being a nurse on a military ship filled to the brim with sausage while getting hit on all the time." she grinned like a wolf at Garret as he went on to dress. Cibo just kept on talking, now deflated and dejected. "So much for respect, huh? You'd expect a person who just had a role in saving life or patching up broken bones would get a 'thank you' at least."
****
When the scientist approached, the alien ceased speaking for a moment and turned his attention to the old Terran. "Greetings to you, esteemed one. Are you truly--" The Ottyo stopped for one of Istvan's 'hmmm's' before continuing. "--the one who imagined and created--" Yotruyan was cut off again by an 'I see.' this time around. The alien was amazingly patient. "--a great amount of Terran technology?"
It was about then that Hungary interrupted. Yotruyan stared at the pilot with his yellow eyes in a predatory fashion, large crest feathers slowly slicking back. It was about then that the plain alien nature of the Inquisitor was hammered in. He bowed to both the Admiral, and Great Inventor. "Please forgive me." The Ottyo put the cooler and pack down to the floor before pulling out a small container of vanilla ice cream. With an armored claw, he quickly lopped off the lid, and scooped out the frozen sweetness into the palm of his hand, making sure it was soft.
With a wind up pitch and it's entire body, the Ottyo sent the ball of vanilla ice cream smacking into Hungary's face with incredible force, the loud sound of impact reverberating across the hanger.
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Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 12:16 am
Steven and Fred, as well as most of Green Squadron, stopped what they were doing when they heard the disturbance, and when the ottyo unleashed his rain of frozen vanilla goodness they more or less froze in shock and time seemed to slow to a halt. Quite a few of the pilots looked from the alien to Hungary to the Admiral while wondering just what was going to happen next. A few more wondered if this counted as an act of aggression by the alien and what they should do about apprehending the thing. Fred simply smiled, and Steven was debating whether or not to step in as the ranking pilot to ease the tension.
Instead, amidst the shocked silence, the next thing the group heard was in fact the sound of chuckling. Steven looked around for the source. It was Sean who was chuckling. His chuckling then grew into blatant laughter. Some of the other pilots around him began to laugh uneasily to try and ease they feeling of discomfort.
“Being in the military is a hell of a lot more exciting now-a-days than when I was first starting out,” Sean managed to say as his laughter began to fade away. After a few more seconds of laughter Sean cleared his throat and return to looking pensive. “Pilot, go clean yourself up. Sober up while you are at it," he said to Hungary, and then he turned to Siberia and went on, “Corporal, do try to have your pilots limit their drinking to the designated areas, not around the ships. That is why we installed bars into these vessels. Hell, back when I was a pilot we had to wait until shore leave before we could get a good drink. Don’t abuse the privilege.”
“Yortuyan, my apologies for the behavior of my men, it is unbecoming of a Terran soldier.”
“Oh and before I forget,” he said now turning towards Steven, “Your Grandmother told me to tell you that you do not call enough and that she wants to talk to you again soon.” He was just about to turn back towards the Ottyo when he remembered something else, “Oh yeah, one more thing. Green Squadron is receiving a new pilot. I should also tell you while I am here that you and Green Squadron are hereby promoted one respective rank. Congratulation Lieutenant.” He then turned back to Siberia, “The same goes for Red Squadron as well. You will be receiving a new pilot and you are all hereby promoted one respective rank. Congratulations Captain.”
Steven’s eyes went wide with surprise when Sean made his announcement, and he said nothing for he was in shock. It was when Fred and Dan came up to give him a pat on the back that he snapped out of it. He was still in shock though when he came to the realization that he was now the same rank as his father, and he was more or less the same age as when his father made Lieutenant. He did it.
Fred was also somewhat in shock by the news that he had made the rank of Captain. He always thought he’d be dead by then. Now he walked up to Yotruyan. “Sorry about my counterpart there. Nice solution though. They do that offen where you’re from?”
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 1:26 am
Garrett actually laughed as he tugged on his boots. Having tied them tight, he rose with a sardonic smile. "Really? Do Marines ever thank you for gathering all that useful information that saves their lives? I sure as hell don't hear anyone thanking me for any grunt work that makes this War-Machine advance. We all do our part thanklessly, because if we don't do it, we all die." His tone gradually moved from snappish to matter-of-fact, and was deadpan by the final phrase.
"I think we can take that as a no," Garrett added when Lieutenant Nakamura didn't stir. He still had something of a limp, albeit greatly subdued. He prodded the thinner man's shoulder twice. "Up 'n at 'em, Lieutenant. I've been released." Lieutenant Hendlow held his arms wide to display his almost complete uniform- he had yet to close up the front.
Kai twitched a few times, swatting at Garrett's prodding fingers before his brain caught up with his sleeping body and he began to blink, rubbing his eyes, yawning, and stretching. "What'd I miss? I dreamt there was an earthquake.." He mumbled, smacking his lips and then cracking his neck and back via a sharp twist. The Lieutennant swing his feet over the edge of the bed and looked groggily up at the two other soldiers who were waiting for him.
Despite Garrett's tone of voice, she was having fun with it. "Ah, what a thankless existance we all live in!" Cibo lamented. Her grin widened as she went on. "How far we Terrans have fallen if we are no longer able to say or give thanks to one another..." Her voice changed from her false lament into outright sarcasm. "Even now, my ears hear whispers of the cakes being lies! No more real flour! I can't even sit down and drown my worries with actual cake anymore...Oh woe is me!" At that, she started cracking up; it probably wasn't funny to anyone else though. When she finished, she wiped a fresh tear from her eye and noticed Nakamura was up. "Oh. Welcome back Lieutenant."
Garrett knew he didn't like Cibo Malinowsky, had always known; what he hadn't known was just how easily she could annoy him. Before he knew it, he'd grabbed hold of her shirt front again and pulled her in for another serious discussion. The Lieutenant's eyes were ablaze. "Would you like it if I bitched as much as you? If I complained every time I successfully-"
"That's enough Lieutenant" Kai stopped the Demolitions expert short, Pulling the two apart, suddenly coherent and spry. "We may already be in the med bay, but I don't need you threatening and possibly injuring other marines., you got that?"
Garrett heaved a sigh and spared Cibo one final death-glare before straightening up. "Sure thing, Lieu-Kai. We ought to get moving, hm?" And that was that.
Cibo muttered to herself like an insane child who tended to talk to teddy bears. "Damn. He couldn't tell I was kidding? I must suck at this..." The intelligence officer shook her head. "Right, well. I'm off to see the Shipm--damn. I mean, the Admiral. Unless you two want to come along, I...guess I'll see you later?" A hint of something laced her voice as she trailed off. Maybe she wanted to stick with them?
"Well, I have business with her, and suddenly, time for it, so, I'll be going with you. And Cibo, Garrett is like his explosives, nice and harmless, even once you've lit the fuse, but his fuse is short, and he'll explode once it's down." the younger lieutenant explained, scratching his head a bit as he stretched one more time, back to his laid-back self in no time. "You wanna come, Garrett?"
"Psh. That's a horrible analogy," Garrett interjected as he finished buttoning up. "And yes I would, didn't we already have that conversation?" Silently Hendlow admitted that the analogy might not be that far from the truth, but then again he was never very good with literary devices.
"We might've, but I'm good at forgetting things when I sleep." Kai confirmed.
"Well we did, and I said yes. Let's hup to-it." One more deep breath to compose himself.
As Cibo took the lead out, she looked over her shoulder. "Short? Not sure about that. I haven't made him completely explode yet." she spoke, eyeing Garrett. "Nope. Not short at all if you ask me." Her eyes briefly glanced down, just to kid with him some more.
If it was a chide about his manhood, Garrett only took the compliment in silence and refused to respond. She was so... childish. Hendlow might have found Malinowsky more amusing if she'd been around in his Anarchy days, but now she was just tiresome.
The Trek through the ship wasn't as long as it used to be- the Bridge had been relocated deeper within the ship, to keep it safer from harm during a battle. Still, it was more than a few minutes walk, which was, after this point, completed mostly in silence, as Garrett was ignoring Cibo, Kai had nothing to Say, and Cibo seemed done joking for the moment, as it wasn't working very well.
When they did arrive, however, Kai spoke up first. "We may outrank you, Malinowsky, But I know you have permissions to enter the bridge that we do not so... Could you let us-" He was, however, cut off with the door to the bridge opening itself, and the person that they had been looking for showing up framed within its confines. the shorter, brown-haired, blue-eyed girl walked towards them with a smile and greeted them. "Hello Cibo, Lieutnant Nakamura, Lieutenant Hendlow." she began, with a small bow.
"Hello, Admiral." Kai answered, standing at attention and saluting.
"Admiral!" Cibo spoke, snapping off a crisp salute. "I've come here to deliver my report. I hope you don't mind the Lieutenants that I have picked up on the way here." The intelligence agent handed over the information to the shorter Admiral. "Hey, if you got time, do you want to hang out? You're always so cooped up in there, like a hikikomori these days." She went on, suddenly dropping her formal tone when the exchange was done.
"Admiral Evelyn," Garrett chimed in, with an admittedly softer salute than either of his colleagues.
Evelyn stood up, and saluted the three in turn, allowing them to relax, before taking the package from Cibo and answereing "I would not mind hanging out, and I heard that at least one of these Lieutenants has something to talk to me about. I think, maybe my Brother?" the gynoid answered Cibo, turning to Kai and winking at the surprised look on his face that went away just as quickly as it came; of course she would know, Adamsk had known of her, so it could easily work both ways, couldn't it.?
She finally turned to Garrett "But this one, I'm not so sure why he's here. Garrett, you bored or something?" she asked, taking on an extremely familiar tone with the group, as the door snapped shut behind her.
His eyes lit up, a little surprised, but quickly faded again to their casual simmer. "Something like that, ma'am." He was briefly reminded of the day he hit on her, and a weak smile emerged- weak because it was rather insincere. Still, it could have easily been mistaken for one of his more... licentious expressions, but there was no energy in his eyes to suggest such a thing.
Cibo was still acting cheerful, but watched Garrett more carefully. 'Hmm. Intel about these two is probably right on the mark, or, it may just be another of the man's...whatever. I should just relax after all that crap earlier. I earned it!' She thought. The intelligence agent kept silent so the others could talk, maintaining her happy smile.
Evelyn giggled a little at Garrett's admission, before turning back to Cibo "Aww, looks like you're worrying about me, Cibo. Isn't that cute." she observed, giving the Intelligence officer a hug- Very Familiar indeed. She almost didn't act like military personnel at all, but, Cibo knew what she was like during battle. Still, it was amazing that the sentient AI could pick out behaviors so quickly and precisely- almost eerie, in fact.
"Of course I worry about you! You're like family to me." Cibo replied, answering the hug with one of her own, then mussing up the shorter woman's hair like she would with a younger sibling's. "But enough standing around, where to?"
Lieutenant Garrett Hendlow was in a rum & coke kind of mood. "I could use a drink." Or three. "Or... whatever works. I honestly don't know much of the ship beyond my bay and the Marine quarters." Thinking about it, he realized how little he wanted to 'have fun' right then. He wanted a drink, and maybe some company- or some work if that wasn't possible- and then a good long nap. He attributed the nap to the drugs still floating in his system. Everything else sounded entirely normal for an irate explosives expert.
"I suppose I'm kinda thirsty as well." Kai added, agreeing with Garrett. He looked over at Evelyn and Cibo as the two separated, and the Gynoid Admiral went about the task of fixing her hair.
"Well, How does that sound, then, Cibo? a trip to the mess or maybe the pub?" Evelyn asked the intelligence agent, obviously relying on her to make the decision. Truthfully, Evelyn didn't care either way, she could get all the energy she needed directly from the ship, but food and drink were still quite refreshing to her, as she was largely organic.
"Either one's good for me. I haven't had anything other than a little icecream since I came back. I'm starving." At that, her eyes widened in horror. "Oh no! I forgot to bring you some! I'm sorry Evelyn!" She apologized sincerely; besides having the marines be used as a cover for her purchases for the alien, she also wanted to share with Evelyn. Both for friendship and work reasons of course. Work reasons...these days, it bugged her that she had to 'keep an eye' on someone who turned out so relatively harmless. Even Cibo had to admit that.
Garrett nodded. "Then it's settled." He gestured the way they had come and started walking, his mind wandering off on its own and going nowhere. Damn painkillers were really doing a number this time, but at least it wasn't like Ovid III... That was Ovid III, right? When he flashbanged all those poor Ottyos. Whatever. At least it wasn't as bad as then.
As the group walked, they made their way down a flight of steps- 'The Hymn has steps outside of the apartment decks?' Kai thought- and through a very narrow, dingy hallway that appeared to not have been cleaned in a while, before finally finding their way out of a large Janitor's closet and into a hallway, facing the opening into a Pub, in this case, Pattel's Pub, the same one that had originally been on the Hymn. Why they took such a route, they probably couldn't tell, but it had actually been a secret passage for a ship's captain to get straight to the Pub, which, Admiral Evelyn, being the Ship's Captain, Knew.
"Wait... What?" Kai stuttered, as he realized where they were and where they had come from. it had been nearly three decos of difference but they hadn't gone down nearly that many stairs. He decided not to worry about it, as it would probably only hurt his head.
"What? You don't think a ship's captain can't appreciate a nice relaxing moment or two?" Cibo asked the Lieutenant. "I'm sure they took this into account when designing the Hymn and it's sister ships. I mean, really. It's a hard job, isn't it Evelyn? Well...maybe not so much for you though..." she spoke, now twiddling her fingers in slight embarrassment. "If you got to know, we just wandered through some non-Euclidian geometry to get here. If it bothers you that much, don't think of it." she went on, turning a little stern suddenly.
"Geometry can rot, it's time to relax," Garrett added, finding a booth for 4. He made sure to offer a seat to Evelyn before choosing his next to her. This was probably the closest he'd get to any female companionship that night, so might as well make the best of it. "Now I'm feeling real congenial so the tab's on me, ladies 'n gent."
"I don't need requisition tickets, so that is fine." Evelyn stated, feeling nice to have been treated as a lady by Garrett. Kai, on the other hand, took his seat next to Cibo, realizing that sitting this way had been invented by women in order to inconvenience men, as Women had to go to the bathroom a lot more than men did. Or at least that's the way he saw it.
Soon, a burly looking man wearing a dirty apron and holding a cigar in the corner of his mouth arrived, and asked gruffly "C'n I take Ya ordah, Ma'ams and Mistahs?"
"I will have a Lime soda and perhaps some of those seasond 'fries' to go along with them, if you will." Evelyn asked... without actually asking. The man- presumably Pattel- didn't seem to notice and moved on to Cibo.
Cibo thought it over for a minute. After watching the Ottyo eat so many steaks, she simply didn't want to see any more. In fact, she'd stay away from those now, craving or not. "I'll have a bowl of borsht and a glass of sake." She ordered. It was a strange combination, yes, but for her, business as usual.
"Rum 'n coke, and cheese fries sound good too- no, no cheese. Just fries. Thanks." Then he turned toward the table. "So, any interesting stories to pass the time?" I've got one, he thought. Ever hear the one about the Anarchists? Of course Garrett immediately rejected the idea of sharing that load of crock with them. Wrong place, wrong people, wrong time.
"And I'll take an Orange soda and a chicken sandwich, please." Kai ordered, last, before the man- A tag on the back of his shirt identifying him as being Pattel like they had expected- left the table to make their orders.
"Ah, well, I don't think I have anything interesting to say, since i've been in the military far too long, and all my jokes were old when I first heard them anyway." Kai answered, seeming to take interest in the salt shaker that was sitting in the middle of the table.
"I think I have something interesting" Evelyn Began "My 'father' is aboard the ship, I haven't seen him since I first came aboard the hymn, almost a year ago" she explained, seeming happy. This was an espicially odd statement for the Gynoid to make, as all the other three knew she didn't have any parents- or did she?
Cibo raised an eyebrow for a moment. "Do you mean Istvan? I remembered seeing an Admiral talking to another elderly man when we were coming out in the hangar, but I didn't expect it to be him." She spoke. "Is it alright for him to come along? I mean, this is the Hymn, but we're still technically taking our best man out into hostile space here." Cibo shook her head a little. "As much as I'd hope he's come just to visit you Evelyn, there's probably more to it, right?"
Lieutenant Hendlow really wasn't in the mood for all this serious business, and sat silently. He did harbor a mild curiosity at the prospect of meeting Evelyn's progenitor, but wasn't in any state of mind to consider seeking this fellow out. Didn't sound like someone Garrett wanted to know, anyways- old people tended to irritate him.
"Yes, It's Istvan- It's not weird that I call him that, right? I mean, he did write the base code for my AI, and designed most of my electronic parts as well as figured out how to code DNA to be able to replicate them organically if the need ever arose." the Gynoid explained casually, as if it were all in a day's work for someone such as Istvan or herself.
"Wait- You mean Istvan, the guy who invented Practical shielding and made most of the technology we use on a daily basis practical when it wasn't?" Kai asked, suddenly intrigued. Sure, he should have guessed this, but he was too busy killing Lizards to worry about it most days.
"Yup! The very same!" Evelyn answered proudly.
As delighted as Evelyn sounded, Cibo was worried. It would have been an absolute nightmare if that man dropped dead from an assasin or old age. Or both. The paperwork alone would have been something befitting of a galactic record. "So do you want to meet up with him after we're done Evelyn?" The intelligence agent asked, pulling out her pad. "Says he's still in the hangar where I last saw him. He hasn't budged an inch since then." As Cibo casually flipped through the Hymn's internal monitoring system, she cued in at just the right time to see a black clad lizard thing splatter white gooey stuff over a pilot's face. Her expresssion changed to horror.
More silence from the explosives expert. Sure, the guy was amazing; got it. On the bright side of things, his drink had arrived. Half of it was gone by the time anyone decided to speak again. Oh, very refreshing indeed! Garrett knew it was going to be a hazy evening, and looked forward to it.
"Well, Istvan is here for a new fighter project as well as some updates to my software, Firmware, and hardware, he says, though i'm not exactly certain what he meant by it. He did say, however, that he would increase my processing capacity enough that I could support a ship Larger than the Hymn without losing my motor controls." Evelyn explained, suddenly becoming delighted as her drink and food arrived, sipping down on the soda with a look of happiness that belonged to a small child, before tentatively picking up a fry and popping it in her mouth.
"Something tells me you don't get out much, Admiral." Kai pointed out, as she was acting like a kid in a candy store with the simple foods she had been given. "Anyways, As you said before- Your brother, I suppose he must be to you, Adamsk, had a message he'd like me to pass on, though I believe it was meant to be private, so it can wait." Kai, like the Admiral, dug into his meal, taking a sip of the soda before getting a moutful of fried chicken, lettuce, pickles, and mayonaise jammed between two fluffy buns.
Cibo eyed her PDA for a moment, and then everyone else before descreetly tucking it away. No. She did not see what she saw. No. She wasn't going to make a fuss. No, no, no. This, right here, was Cibo's moment to relax and have fun. But it continued to fester in the intelligence agent's mind. She kept quiet, half paying attention to the conversation and snuck another replay in and watched as the creamy white substance splattered across the man's face. For the 8th time.
Hardware upgrades? Now there was an interesting idea, possibly one he could get behind. In the meantime, though, he had fries to enjoy, and a drink to down...
...Well the latter part was accomplished in a brief three seconds. The fries: a work in progress. He was content to listening and staring at his food for now.
"Well, then, I suppose after we are done with our meals you and I can speak privately about it, then, Lieutenant?" Evelyn answered to Kai's statement. "It's not like I don't have time; I can control the ship from anywhere, it's just easier at the bridge." she added "That sounds good, but won't that cut into your time 'hanging out' with Cibo?" the Blond asked
"I am hanging out with her right now, if you hadn't noticed." Evelyn pointed out
"Point." Kai agreed.
Cibo shifted uneaslily when her name was spoken, and she cracked. "Alright, I admit it! I was watching something!" As soon as her outburst finished, she looked at everyone staring at her. No. It was just her being paranoid again; just, this time, it was another one of those moments where it bit her. "I mean...oh hell. I might as well just spit it out." The intelligence agent held out her PDA for everyone to hear; the short video clip already turned into an animated image file ready for sending.
With a quirked eyebrow, Garrett made the polite inquiry, "What the hell is that?" gesturing lazily toward the PDA with a fry before he ate it. "Is that..." His eyes widened. "The damned alien is throwing ice cream at people? What the hell?" His curiosity was clearly piqued.
"It seems that pilot did not follow proper cultural protocol for our guest. shame." Evelyn summarized, seemingly unamused, as she began munching on her fries.
"Why did you find this prudent to tell us, Cibo..?" Kai asked, bemused as he watched the glob of ice cream smack into Red Hungary's face repeatedly, as the file was on loop. "You should probably put that on the Macro boards, you'll become a 'net legend or something." he offered, sarcastically.
"W-well...I was kinda trying to keep it on the hush-hush side, but as I tried to hide it away, I...well, I got paranoid. I wasn't looking at any of you, but I thought you guys were all looking and me and when you said my name, I kinda snapped." she sheepishly offered. "Yeah, I'm posting it on 9chan right now. Sorry for the noise."
Garrett sighed and rolled his eyes, returning to his food. It was gone in short order, he realized, but his drink had thankfully been replaced. Another half glass disappeared. Cibo's childish antics were of no interest, Kai was rather quiet, and Evelyn... well, damnit she was just too observant for him to even enjoy just watching her.
Garrett was removed from his Revelrie by the thud of a fist on his arm, hitting just right to send a flash of pain straight up a nerve pathway. Kai's hand recoiled, and the Lieutenant looked over at his XO. "Hey, Mister Mopey Drinky. I think you need to cheer up." the blonde said, taking another bite out of his chicken sandwich, the meal nearly gone by now.
"I agree with the Lieutenant, We need to find something more stimilating than alcohol and fried foods for you, as it is obviously not helping your mood. What's the matter with you? My records indicate you act like this often, but it has been occuring with greater frequency as of late." Evelyn added, furrowing her brows at the demolitions expert.
As Cibo slurped up the rest of her bowl, previous crisis averted, she observed Evelyn's observation. Yes, Cibo could access lots of things. Things that could make some people squirm or beg for mercy, but she couldn't be everywhere. And yet Evelyn could. Or, to be more precise, did so specifically for this one man. What Evelyn said practically confirmed it; she may be having an affair. Maybe. Cibo slurped up the rest of her borsht like a kid. "Hey, it's not my fault is it?" she asked, prodding the man.
He sighed, his gaze drifting around the table, frankly a little surprised. Was he being more moody, lately? Not ******** lik- ...Maybe. He finished his second glass before answering them. "No, Cibo, try as you might, you can't get under my skin that easy. Nothing's the matter, just a little weird with all the drugs lately." He waved it off. "But all this talk about genius old men and aliens throwing ice cream has been extremely underwhelming. I could go for something a little more... well, interesting." Lieutenant Hendlow, however, had no idea what that might be.
"so, this is the ages of utter boredom between the moments of sheer terror they told us about before we signed up, I'm guessing." Kai observed, sipping his drink again. "I'll admit, going to a pub for a bite and a sip isn't the most exciting thing. I mean, I have my Volumetric game systems for when I'm really bored but, that only supports up to two people at once, so it's not like we could all use it." he continued, before taking another bite.
"Well, With Istvan here, life shall probably become more exciting for you. He enjoys using only the best subjects for his projects, and I'm sure he has something working for the marines by now." Evelyn added, finishing her little snack.
Cibo gently sipped at her hot sake as they spoke, before settling it down in an unusual fasion for her; it was mature like, and due to the previous moments, was unusual in nature. "Garrett, you do realize that making a wish like that is a bad idea right?" she asked. 'Hell, my little brother was bored of guard duty on the ship, and made the same wish. What did he get? A one way ticket into gib-ville.' Cibo sighed. "Who knows. Maybe we'll fight some sort of cosmic plague victims if your wish comes true. I haven't seen a good zombie movie in a while. Hmm. Or been in one."
He grinned, but it was still weaker than what most would have come to expect from him. "Nonsense, I love a good curveball in life." Although all the best pitches seem to be given when I'm not at bat. Clear proof that he was bad with analogies, but the Lieutenant thought it befitting none the less. Then his attention returned to Evelyn. "Any idea what sort of ditty he's cooking up for us?" Garrett really hoped it was something that exploded; it'd be like Christmas come early.
"Well, So far, we only have conventional weapons; things that shoot in various ways, go boom in various ways, and the like. He's trying to find new better ways to bring the hurt to the lizards." Evelyn answered to the Demolitions expert. "Though, I was designed for starship combat, so I can't exactly imagine what he may be coming up with beyond that it's different."
"Well, if it works, then that's all I need to care about, right?" Kai stated, finishing off his own meal. "We seem to be out of food." he added, dejectedly, staring at the small plastic basket his sandwich had arrived in. "Should we go somewhere else or order more?"
Yes. Her meal finished. Her time with Evelyn a little on the boring side. She honestly hoped it would have been a girls time out! Hell, the intelligence agent even planned to introduce Evelyn to Ya--wait. "Don't know where to go next, but hold on a second. Don't we have a new rifle on the inventory since Istvan came aboard? It was a long range rifle, if I remember right." At that, she lifted her little container of warm rice liquor to her lips and finished it. Her pale cheeks were sligthly pink.
Rifles were of little interest to Garrett- he was an EXPLOSIVES expert, after all. A fresh glass of spiced rum and cola arrived just in the nick of time, too. "Well, I'm not particularly picky. After this one, I don't really care. Whatever works for everyone." He took a sip. "How about it, Evelyn? You're the omniscient one: any suggestions?"
"The Rifle was not invented by Istvan, it uses older principles and is actually a remake of an older model, but, it has greater range and penetration than the Anti-material mode on a Sugar, and is perfect for a dedicated sniper such as your squad's Adrian Gorefowl." Evelyn answered, succinctly.
"I could probably use it too, but I still like the Sugar" Kai added- he was a marksman himself when need be, though his real skill was in a combination of short-range firefights and brawling. "so what do you suggest about it, Cibo? Should we go and see it or something? I kinda really don't feel like touching a gun again at least for a few days, myself, that battle was enough for me. I just want to get my business in order and rest, to be honest."
"No, I wasn't planning on seeing it anytime soon. I'm not the kind to be transfixed over every long rifle that comes around you know." Cibo flatly stated. "I just thought it came along with Istvan, that's all. Again, speaking of which, there will be some new fighters aboard the Hymn. Probably one reason why the inventor is here." The intelligence agent merely shrugged and rested her chin on the palm of her hand. "Just trying to point out anything interesting, That's all."
Garrett nodded in agreement with Kai. "I could go for a nap in a quiet, solitary room for a day or five. Maybe a little room service, books and food all-inclusive. Hell, I might be able to get a little work done." His drink was quickly dwindling, but not near as fast as the last two.
"Then I suppose it seems agreed?" Evelyn started, patting Garrett on the leg to notify him she wanted out. "We can all go our ways for now, at least, once we're all done with whatever business we have, yes?" the Admiral said, looking to Kai for a moment. "And Cibo, if you'd like, we can spend time together later tonight, Father does not need me until tomorrow."
"Works for me." Kai grunted, getting up out of the booth to allow Cibo room to go, and stretching once again. "We can figure out something more exciting to do later, when we're not tired and on meds or something."
"That sounds great Evelyn. I was really hoping for a girls' night out. Still, the company this time was nice." Cibo swung her legs out after Kai made room for her to get out of the seat. She did find it funny that girls usually ended up sitting on the inside of the booths. It was most likely to inconvenience them when they needed to get out. In all probability, it was an attempt to keep them from leaving, she concluded. Pigs. "I guess I'll see you all later at some time or another. When will we meet Evelyn? Lolita's missed you too."
Garrett sighed and stood knowing that was the most he'd be getting out of the evening. He emptied the rest of the glass down his gullet then smiled the fakest smile he'd ever mustered. "Well it's been fun, but I'm going to bunk. Evelyn, if there's ever another orbital bombardment or something pretty like that, you let me know. Night ladies, Kai." He gave a small wave and headed off without glancing back. The Lieutenant knew glancing back would only double that sour feeling that was growing in his throat.
"Later." Kai said to his XO, patting the man on the back as he walked away. "Well, Cibo, this is where we bid you adieu. I'll see you later- Oh, and if you want to stick in my squad with the alien, feel free, we're in ned of good soldiers, and you two made the cut today... sorta. just don't vomit next time."
"Yes, we shall meet in about two hours, Cibo?" Evelyn said, fidgeting with her uniform. "I'm supposed to not care about how a uniform feels, but I prefer letting all my senses work properly- this is uncomfortable so, how do you say we have a more casual evening?" the Admiral offered.
"Yeah, I'll try, but it's not my fault the shuttle got sent through a blender. Dasvidania Kai." Cibo gave off a small wave as well, and turned her attention to Evelyn. "Huh? I thought it was supposed to be comfortable?" She asked, patting down the smaller Admiral's waist and hips. "Well, I guess the counter pressure suit gets old fast, now that I think about it. Hell, even this thing gets annoying." Cibo went on, pointing to her Eidolon; the intelligence agent was still wearing the same suit from the earlier battle, only having walked through decontamnination to clean it off. "I'll see you later, but, can I meet your dad tommorrow too?"
Garrett ended his very... quiet day alone and tossing in his bunk despite the fact that it was silent and as a Lieutenant he actually had a room. After hours of fitful attempts at sleep, he finally managed to fall asleep on the floor with a book on thermodynamics draped over his face. Definitely not what he'd hoped for...
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 8:49 pm
Istvan burst into raucious laughter as the Ottyo flung vanilla ice cream onto red hungary's face, leaning over short of breath after a few minutes, resting a hand on Killy's shoulder to steady himself, before he jovially responded to the Alien. "Ah, Yes, I am the one who invented much of the technology we use now. My head should be larger than this if you really think about it, but then again oversized heads are often genetic disorders, and I'm simply a genius, so there's a distinction there." the inventor rambled on. "So I hear you're in posession of some rather intersting technology yourself, a gun that tried to bite some of the techs here, ha!" Istvan seemed highly amused by the idea, and waved a hand around his face as if to distract himself from something, or perhaps to move a bad smell away, who knew?
******
Emma was dumbfounded, and dropped the wrench she had been using when she heard the Admiral announce that everyone had gotten promotions. She was now a Private Second class, AKA: no longer a newbie. A smile grew on the girl's face, and she rose from her crouched position and approached Sean, saluting him happily and offering a thank you to the older gentleman.
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:03 pm
Sean turned as Emma approached. However he barely heard her words of appreciation as he was struck by how young she looked. “Such is the depravity of war, where parents must bury the youth,” he thought to himself as he looked at the young girl’s face. He came back to reality as Emma saluted, and he shifted his face from mild disinterest to a warm smile befitting a grandfather.
“You are quite welcome, Miss Pilot,” Sean said as he returned the salute. “You and your squadron have more than earned a promotion.”
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:32 pm
"Still, It's an honor to have a promotion handed out by one of the highest-ranked field commanders in the entire Terran navy." the young girl answered, Smiling sheepishly at the man's grandfatherly gaze; She hadn't grown up with her grandparents, whom had been killed in the Drathonian betrayal.
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:39 pm
The Ottyo slowly relaxed and finished the pitch's follow through with a serpentine grace. The slicked back feathers of his face and crest slowly relaxed again as he stood back up to proper height, licking his ice cream stained claws. Neat rows of razor sharp, porcelain white teeth flickered in and out of sight as Yotruyan continued to lick until his hand was clean. It didn't take long. He looked at Sean with a single eye. "Do not worry, I am not offended Fleetmaster. I mean, Admiral."
Yotruyan deliberately turned his head so that all the Terrans knew he was looking at Fred. He held his arms up into the air with well imitated glee. "Fred, my friend! At least we kept our drinking to the areas." The Ottyo opened his mouth slightly to reveal his teeth again in what was presumably a small smile. "Throwing food at someone unruly? No, but I hoped it would entertain."
He waited until the head scientist was finished waving his hands around to give him a proper handshake. "I am honored to meet someone of your caliber and skill Sir Istvan. If you are interested, we could talk about our people's respective technologies a little later."
****
Meanwhile, Marcus leaned against a Scimitar, fighting hard to hold back laughter. At the end, he spoke aloud, just within earshot of Acadia and a few others. "Strike Out! God, I miss those days." Even as he held the amused and reminiscing posture, the intelligence agent wasn't slacking off. 'The notes Cibo put up on the Intel Network on the alien's mannerism's are probably just like her dead mom's on the Drathonians. Accurate.' With that, the intelligence agent Captain could estimate a few things. First, the alien was lying about being offended, and second, lied about hoping to entertain. But why?
'They're secretive. In fact, if the marines' yammering is to be believed, this is the first time we've ever even seen their actual troops. Speaking of secrecy, why would he offer to chat about technology with Istvan? Other than harassing the Drathonians out of our sight, he, that ship and a few others were almost the only --' Marcus' mind was pulled out of his concealed train of thought as the Ottyo stomped down on the edge of the cooler's lid, sending it flipping up and into a waiting hand to be caught. It spoke.
****
"On another matter, does anyone want some? I...have too much and would like to share."
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 10:17 pm
Sean’s smile tapered off slightly, but the remnants were still on his face amidst the valleys of his aging face. “Heh, I think I may blush,” he joked lightly. “I am still getting used to the whole “admiral” thing.”
“You just take care out there, and I am sure you will be getting plenty more promotions in the future,” Sean said warmly, “And keep an eye on Steven for me while you are out there.”
“Oh, entertain it did, my feathered friend. Entertain it did,” Fred laughed in response.
Then Steven walked up to Fred with a slightly confused look. “Um, Fred, you know the…” he started to say, but paused to remember the name of the alien, “Ottyo?”
“Oh yeah,” Fred replied, “we had a drinking match at the bar a while back. I totally drank him under the table!”
“Why am I not surprised?” Steven said to himself before heading back in the general direction of Sean.
“Speaking of drinking,” Fred said, now turning to Killy, “We should have a rematch sometime soon.”
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 10:43 pm
Captain Rhiannon Bell ran an hand accross the cockpit of her preproduction SF-X-24 Saber Space Superiority fighter. She eyed the two other craft in the hangar, similar to hers, but slight differences. The Captain's fighter was fighter was a dull grey, the color of Duratanium, and had information sprayed on using stencils, including her own name, and the fighter's registration and identification numbers. Rhiannon's fighter sported a very large '00' sprayed on either side, the other two '01' and '02', respectively.
"Private Flandre, Corporal Feyete. You are both here because our 'boss', Istvan, decided to move the Saber project to the Battle Hymn. Unlike you two, I have responsibilities aboard the Endeavour so, you have been chosen as the liaison between the current Saber project and the two new squadrons that will be receiving the first batch of production fighters." The Captain explained, eying the two men before asking: "Any Questions?"
"Yes Ma'am." Johnathan replied. "How many fighters will be in this first batch?" the pessimistic pilot asked. 'At the least, there'll be more that'll die before I do or something.' He thought. "A hiccup in the system apparently prevented me from retrieving this data." Even before flying into combat, this man was already figuring out ways to come out of every battle alive. Weather this would cost others hadn't been made apparent yet.
"Well, yes Ma'am, I do have a question." Javier spoke up, boredom showing through his accented speech. "Are we both being assigned to a new squadron, or are we to be integrated into the Hymn's existing squadrons?" For the last few months, Javier had, for lack of a better word, been bored. After his performance at the Battle of Saratar Station, the Rhean had expected to be assigned to a new squadron. Instead, he was assigned to testing the Saber.
While the Saber was, admittedly, a superb fighter, way superior to Scimitar, Javier felt like... he hadn't been duly rewarded for his performance at Saratar, having expected to be assigned to a new ship for combat. Months of testing did not seem like a better assignment. But at least that was about to change.
"There will be a total of Twenty-four production models going to the Hymn, along with your two test units as backups." Rhiannon answered John, before turning to Javier. "You are each being assigned to a separate squadron, the Hymn's own Red and Green squadron. Each suffered a loss during the last battle at Saratar, and you are the replacements going into those elite squadrons, so I expect you both to be trying your best. If you fail, it's not your paycheck or drink on the line, it's your lives now." Rhiannon looked over the two blue-clad men for another moment. "Oh, one of you is going to be under the Command of one Steven Kerning. Say hi to him for me." she added, grinning. "Now, you have one more question you should ask me, and I'm disappointed neither of you has asked it yet."
A sinking feeling settled into John's stomach. Then, that horrible itch when one knows something had been forgotten, but could not recall! 'Great...just great, I'll never figure it out at this rate.' the pilot thought. He visibly furrowed his brow and frowned as his mind went to work shuffling through all the papers tucked away in the filing cabinets up in his brain. Maybe someone put it in the paper shredder?
"Well, ma'am. There are two things I could ask." Javier started, a slightly smug grin on his face." One, if you don't mind, is what is the ratio on the hymn of Women to men. The other thing, and the one to which the answer to is "So I can kick your asses", is why are we here in our piloting suits. Am I right ma'am?"
"Correct, Javier" Rhiannon answered, smirking again. The Endeavour's special hangar bay made specifically to keep the Saber testing quiet opened its door out into the cosmos, an atmoshperic retainment field blinking into existence to keep the three pilots from asphyxiating. Rhiannon picked her dark-colored helmet, which was emblazoned with a stylized swallow, and placed it on her head, twisting it and causing the neck seal to hiss shut, before hopping into the cockpit of her Saber and starting it up. Wordlessly, and quickly, she made her way out of the hangar and Activated her fold drive, doing a micro-jump to a point that had been pre-programmed into all three fighters.
As soon as the hangar's blast doors opened, John instinctivly grasped his helmet and slammed it over his head. He didn't want to die from having his lungs sucked out of his mouth. However, he soon noted that it wasn't venting, and Rhiannon was already making her way to her own Saber. He followed suit into his own, exiting the hangar and jumping to the pre-programmed destination. As he sat there, he thought of one thing. 'Maybe I should get some sort of emblem of my own...assuming I live through whatever she's going to throw at us.'
Javier sighed, donning his own helmet,climbing into the Saber's cockpit. Compared to Rhiannon's piloting, Javier was the inferior. Even if he worked with John, even if he used every dirty trick in the book, the chances of victory rounded out to an even 20 to one. "Private Flandre. Follow my lead, and don't get killed. Captain Bell will kill us before we can even blink if we mess up. But there is only one of her, and two of us. Now lets go!"
Rhiannon's Unit 00 suddenly blinked into existance. It was not accompanied by the telltale signs of an FTL jump, instead, she suddenly appeared on the sensors. "Yoo-hoo boys. I'm here waiting for you" her voice called tauntingly over the comms, before she boosted head on at John, before blinking back out of existance. Whatever it was, she was no using FTL or they would be able to notice her. It appeared, that Rhiannon had yet another special test system installed on her fighter that the other two did not have. Her voice emanated in their helmets once more, the source now behind the two fighters "Oh, I forgot to tell you, Istvan assigned me to a new project, this is the first time anyone has experienced this sytem." her admission was followed by several mock kissing sounds before the feed cut off and the signal disappeared, but it had been long enough for the Saber's computers to log her direction of travel and speed.
John inwardly sighed at Javier's orders. Hey may have outranked him by being a Corporal, but the man simply didn't appreciate being ordered around like that. They were both test pilots, and they were in this together. That moment alone put a wedge between them that John could already feel. 'Yep. We're screwed now.' he thought. As Rhiannon rushed at John, he jinked and juked to the side and tried to evade. And then she vanished with a kiss. Her actions after that just served to cement his belief. 'Huh. Must be some sort of cloaking device. Too bad I'm not getting one.' John took note of the Captain's previous location and fell into a loose formation, following Javier's lead. 'The best course of action for her is to attack me since I'm in the back of this formation. I'll have to evade her attacks long enough for Javier to turn around and counter.' The private steeled himself for the inevitable assault.
"It's either a Cloaking device or a teleporter, probably a cloak. Hmm." Javier thought for a second, lying a a loose formation with John before he had a flash of inspiration.
"John, switch your sensors to Optical and Magnetic. Even if it is a cloaking device, it can't be perfect. I want you to search for any optical distortions, like a weirdly black spot in space or what looks like heat shimmering. She's probably monitoring our communications, so switch to laser signaling. I want you to bank to my right, and act like the bait. She won't fall for that, so be prepared to spin your Saber's orientation towards me when she attacks."
Their sensors would not see any heat shimmers, and the magnetic sensors turned out to be ineffective, as the point Rhiannon had selected turned out to be a large magnetic spacial distortion. There did seem to be a few odd points on it, and, sensing each other, they had a nice profile of a Saber's magnetic signature in the distortion area, but this faded beyond a few kilometers. It seemed that Istvan had indeed invented a perfect cloak, or at least a perfect one for this specific point in space. Still, the only indication of position they had was the previous path prediction from tracking the radio signal.
Suddenly, Rhiannon appeared again, firing off a salvo of fifteen mini-missiles. while the missiles themselves were duds, they would still do simulated damage unless deactivated or destroyed somehow. After the missiles were successfully launched, the ship cloaked again, but this time Rhiannon activated her main thrusters, and a slight reading of an Ion trail could be seen, but this too was somewhat distorted by the space in which they were.
John quickly spotted the plume of missiles, and spun his Saber's nose to the general direction, allowing it to drift while his cannons pulsed in training mode. His Sabler sweeped it's fire across the group of missiles in an attempt to tag Rhiannon before changing it's vector into an evasive one to avoid the missiles, heading away from the source. 'She came out to do that. Reminds me of that old school show with the silly rubber foreheads and funny energy weapons.' He thought to himself.Though he was still doing his best to dodge whatever remaining missiles there were, he was very careful to avoid straying from Javier. He'd rather the other take hits first.
"Well. Like I said, the cloak isn't perfect. She has to decloak to fire, and she'll eventually have to start attacking us with her guns and lasers directly." Javier started, laser cannons opening fire on the oncoming minimissiles, his Saber strafing to the side, using the thrusters to keep the nose(and the guns) pointed at the dummy warheads.
John's laser blasts licked teasingly accross one of Rhiannon's shield portions before she disappeared, and the mini-missiles were quickly dispatched, but, once again, Rhiannon was gone. She seemed to have gone back to using auxiliary thrusters, as they couldn't pick out an Ion trail any longer. The two would wait a few tense moments more, knowing they were sitting ducks if they couldn't spot her, before she reappeared, dumping an extremely large amount of heat and firing lasers at John, from directly above his fighter. The Captain's saber once again activated its main thrusters, charging at Javier now, putting up a screen of another 15 mini-missiles, this time accompanied by a hail of paint-filled dumy 35MM rounds.
As he waited in silence, John did his best to figure a way to counter. There were two of them, and she couldn't attack them both at once. She could shift targets, yes, infact, she probably would. It was tempting, even for him if he were in her position, and her in his. Plus, there was the vector of attacks. So far, it was mostly on a 2D plane; it was only a matter of time before she came from above or below. John smiled as he recalled the classic movie, the man screaming out the villain's name thrice. When she finally attacked, John was as ready as he would be, quickly forcing his fighter to strafe and nose up to face her with blazing cannons, engine flaring to close in. Rhiannon caught him slightly off guard; he expected her to come from below where his visibility was more obscured, but this was just as good. He drew up a better bead on her this way, following the mini-missile contrails to their source.
Javier smiled as his Saber slid left and upwards, vector thrusters putting him into a controlled yet erratic spin, pulling the trigger and opening up with the four laser cannons and four gauss cannons, the movement of Javier's fighter causing the shots to come in on Rhiannon from varying angles and velocity. Javier's manuever took him in a lazy, curved roll up, over, and under Rhiannon's line of fire, mini-missiles firing at the peak of the curve, streaking out to a kilometer on both sides before turning back in, screaming towards where Rhiannon should be in the time it would take them to get there.
Rhiannon's fighter snap-rolled out of the way of the blazing fire, the Captain's reaction times just lightly better than that of the Private's. Javier's more varied fire caused her a bit more trouble, but clever juking ind jigging with the thrusters caused her to avoid what was thrown at her. She flew off in another direction entirely, continuing to fire on Javier with all she had, taking up a similar tactic as he had, but she suddenly stopped firing and disappeared again.
John swore to himself as he fell into place behind Javier again. So close, and it slipped by. No matter; Rhiannon was a captain for a reason, and he was glad she was the kind that earned it. Even if he and Javier lost, it would still technicaly be a win. The good captain would get some practice in before ripping the red shits a new one. 'What is she going to do now? She came from the flank, and above. The captain hasn't tried just coming in behind me yet. I'm still in the rear, so I just need to dodge what she throws at me first.' The pilot relaxed himself and looked over the recorded readings from his scanners. 'Heat?' he thought. The private sent a tight beam laser message to Javier. "Just incase you haven't figured, there's a massive heat dump when she exits cloak. Out." John got ready and set his vision to optics and thermal, the other scanner types left to automation.
Javier didn't stop, his fighter still spinning on his axis as he pumped high energy laser beams and high velocity 35 mm rounds into space, bracketing the array along Rhiannon's projected course, making sure to tilt his saber's nose up and down, spreading the fire vertically as well as laterally. There was no way that she could've changed direction quickly enough for him to have missed completely. Getting John's message, the corporal de-accelerated, the Saber's internal systems compensating for the g-forces of intense rapid de-acceleration, and began to fly backwards, activating thermals to try to see anything odd. Rhiannon might've been able to turn invisible, but she couldn't completely negate the laws of physics. It took time to slow down, and even more time to change direction.
"What the hell?" John juked to the side to avoid Javier as he swore again, before letting the other pilot fly by. He then flipped his craft once more to trail 'behind' the Corporal. He wasn't going to give up his positioning that easy.
Rhiannon did not need to slow down or change directions, to change her direction of travel. Javier should have known that, but it seemed he was confused by his inability to use his usual resources to find her. The shots made by Javier found themselves doing nothing but flying on until something stopped them. Oddly enough, one of the paint rounds splatted on a small metallic object off in the distance, but the distortions made it difficult for sensors to notice it.
Suddenly, Rhiannon appeared directly between the two fighters with a "Yoo Hoo~" as her saber began firing off missiles in both directions from either side of its fuselage, taking advantage of the suddenly too-close fighters as the pilots distracted one another. This de-cloaking was not accompanied by a heat dump like the last one, and she immediately disappeared again, leaving the two men to deal with a volley of perhaps 50 missiles each.
The pessimistic and now pissed off pilot was particularly foul mouthed at that moment to the point that even a Drathonian would have been impressed. Not at the Captain of course, she wasn't doing anything wrong. He was absolutely furious at the stunt Javier pulled. They nearly crashed! In empty space, of all stupid places! John's Saber pulled off to the side before he hit the throttle, essentially flying past the missiles and forcing them to make a full 180 turn to follow him before flying close by Javier in an attempt to have them follow the Corporal instead. As he looked back at Javier, he saw something. 'Pink paint?' John flipped his fighter around again and fired at the paint mark after evading the missiles.
"Huh?... I hit something?" Javier asked, almost to himself, sensors barely registering a hit on a far off object. Javier's mind got to working as he began juking, twisting, rolling, sliding, and drifting to avoid the oncoming missiles both fired at him and oh so generously directed towards him. "Hey, Rhiannon! This is actually a pretty good system for strike attacks. Have you managed to miniaturize it enough yet to fit on a Saber?" The Rhean pilot grinned, gritting his teeth as he punched the Saber's throttle, the superiority fighter shooting forward at high speed, thrusters on all sides firing seeminingly chaotically as the fighter started perfoming a series of high-G manuevers firing a pair of Heavy Lasers at the far off target.
John's and Javier's attacks hit the object, and it fizzled out and then detonated, and the Electromagnetic distortion weakened a bit. It wasn't enough to reveal the captain, but it did give an insight as to why they were at this specific point in space. Rhiannon responded, this time a good distance away behind them from the radio signal "It is in fact small enough to fit on a Saber. That just happened to be backup for one of the system's current flaws, good job finding that, quite lucky of you." the Signal didn't move, suggesting that Rhainnon felt safe enough at that distance to remain stationary.
John was impressed. "Heh. Istvan's outdone himself again." he broadcasted; the private simultanously flipped his fighter around and fired his lasers at the stationary broadcast location. The autocannon may have taken time to get there, but lasers...she couldn't travel faster than 1 c. His aim may have even been off, but if he could make her jump in her seat, it would have been worth it, just for the laughs. It took 10 milliseconds for his Saber to flip on to target, and 1 millisecond more for the lasers to fire. 'C'mon, squeak for me!' he thought to himself.
"Keep her busy! I'll get rid of her clothing, and we'll see how easy she can take us while in the nude!" Javier laughed, his saber making a sharp, almost acute turn. Javier's planned course would take him in a slight curve, and if he was right, he'd be able to find the other emitters. To help him, he reset the fighter's sensors to look for small metallic objects in space.
The source of the radio signals exploded in a nice impotent 'pfoot' as the lasers hit a small object similar to the emitter they had accidentally found. "Ah, good job, you've discovered something else. I see Javier has taken the bait." Rhiannon's voice giddily stated accross the comms. however, unlike last time, it now emanated from several points in space, and Rhiannon's fighter appeared again from an entirely different point, this time right in front of Javier, flying backwards in his path. She fired her lasers at the Rhean, accompanied by training rounds. javier found his shields going down in strength, individual sections coming down quickly under the onslaught, before the Captain disappeared agaian.
However, there was some good news; His sensor ping had discovered a network of small metal objects, some matching the sources of the previous radio signals, others matching another profile entirely. However, these objects soon began moving, their small size causing some of the smaller ones to fizzle out as the electromagnetic distortions hid them again.
He didn't even have time to be foul mouthed this time around. Johnathan quickly snapped his Saber's aim to the three closest signal sources in terms of rotation and squeezed off short bursts of laser fire, hoping they'd reached the objects before they moved out of range. "Javier, what's your status?" he asked, using the laser communication device. The private's craft fell in behind the corporal's again, this time, with some more room in case the other decdied to do something funny.
Before too long, however the Captain appeared again, dumping heat for the second time, and unloading her lasers and autocannons into the rear of Johnathan's fighter, bringing down shield sections just as quickly as she had done to Javier. She would be open for a few more minutes before she could cloak again, but this was a slight improvement over being entirely unable to see her. one thing was for certain however; this would be a long fight.
******
Two Months Later
Twenty six Saber starfighters sat in one section of the Hymn's busy hangar deck, the cavernous structure within the hull bustling with other activity. This time, the Hymn was in Warp travel, on its way towards a target. Other squadrons, equipped with Scimitars, were staging all around the smaller number of admittedly larger fighters, as were the few Shamshir fighter-bombers that were to help.
Two of the Sabers were painted a dull grey, and looked unused, but the other 24 were colored in varying shades of red and green, most customized, except, again, two, one from each squadron, which were a flat green and a flat red, signifying ships whose pilots hadn't earned the right to properly integrate them into their respective squadrons. the red one belonging to one Javier Feyete, the green one to Johnathan Flandre.
The two squadrons stood, with their new members, at the ready, awaiting a briefing to be given to them by the labcoat-clad Istvan Villanovich Plutanovicz. for once, he wasn't acting crazy; no, he seemed focused, as if her were mentally preparing for something, like he had something very important to say, that nobody else really knew.
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 2:46 pm
Lieutenant Steven Kerning did his best to stifle a yawn. Having recently woken up from a quick nap he was wiping the remnants of sleep from his eyes. Despite his nonchalant appearance, Steven was actually quite giddy and excited; as this was not only his opportunity to try out the new fighter in combat, but it was also the first honest opportunity to fly since his forced R&R.
As he stood at attention along with the rest of his squadron and the Reds, he restrained himself from scratching his chin. Which was a shame because since his close call with the ship’s morgue a few months ago he had since tried growing back his facial hair. This however was hindered do to the subsequent scarring left over on the left side of his jaw. While cool in their own regard, the scale pattern scars meant that the beard on that side of his face became patchy. As such he was now trying to pull off just a goatee. The visual result was satisfactory, but was now causing Steven’s chin to itch on occasion. You always need to itch when you know you can’t, after all.
“These were the fighters that Rhiannon was flying last time,” Steven thought to himself to try and take his mind off of the itch. “This should prove to be fun.”
Captain Fredrick Haverthorn stood just to the right of Steven in the line. He was getting anxious to try out the new fighters as well, and did his best to quell his anxiety with deep breathing. He cracked a slight smile as he heard his CO try to stifle a yawn. After weeks of running simulations on the new fighters he was more than ready to feel the visceral experience of the real deal.
As he waited, his mind began to wander to other places. He began to think back to some more peaceful times. He pictured in his mind a young woman with short, brown hair that curled in a way to make her hair look like ringlets. She had a round face that ended with a chin that had a small cleft. She wore some pale blue shell earrings that accented her eyes perfectly. What he focused on the most was her kind and gentle smile. She was waving to him, and a promise ring is visible on her ring finger.
“I hope you're thinking of me, Cassy,” Fred thought as a soft smile grew on his face. “God knows I'm always thinking of you. Wish me luck.”
Sean was sitting down in a somewhat comfortable chair in the bridge scanning over a few summaries and reports of fleet movement and status. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose to rest his tired eyes.
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Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:37 am
Johnathan I. Flandre stood at attention alongside his new squadron. They were supposed to be the best of the best, however, he noted that he was there to replace a pilot they lost. Even the best suffered casualties, he admitted. 'Now, how long can I last? This'll be like Firefight mode on that game that Bugle made, Ringworld 4.' Reverie aside, it was very, very obvious to the new pilot that things were just about to get dead serious. Maybe Istvan would unveil some sort of cataclysmic and uncorrectable flaw in the Sabers' reactor. Or perhaps a new unmanned fighter with a super AI was going to be introduced. Or maybe, just maybe, some good news.
All possibilities with the mad genius that was the great Istvan.
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