StarCraft: Brain Storm
Chapter 49: Retake
The Tarsonis' cargo bay was filled to the brim with officers from all walks of life and from every faction imaginable, and as Jim looked around he couldn't help but be impressed by just how much Bill Jax had managed to pull together in such a short period of time.
In the three days it had taken for Jim and his immediate team to get out to the Eden and warp back to the staging point located in orbit around the twilight world of Jotun, a fleet of sixty-plus ships had rallied to the charismatic colonel's cause.
In typical Bill Jax style, he had convinced Michael Liberty to broadcast a message to all ships not affiliated with the Kel-Morian Combine. Of course, this message was easily intercepted by anyone who wanted to listen, but only decodable by people who really wanted too know what it meant. The message contained within was a work of pure genius.
It featured Bill talking directly to the listener and was full of all sorts of patriotic talk of waging war on the Combine and overthrowing their tyrannical control over the people of the Korpulu Sector. All the while making allusions to an attack on Antiga Prime as the opening bout of the war. Anyone who wished further information was urged to contact the Tarsonis directly.
And contact they did, but they initially received no answer. After the origins of the call had been traced, Bill had gotten back to each and every legitimate ship commander. He'd spoken at length with all of them, and eventually gave them the position for a meeting. At the moment, Jim was standing at the very back of that meeting, leaning against a wall in his leather jacket, smoking a cigarette as he and Nick watched the political wannabes file into the room.
What Jim knew that all of them, including the Combine spooks that'd intercepted Bill's message, didn't was that the real target of the first battle wouldn't be Antiga Prime. Instead, Bill had elected to go a bolder route: straight to Moria itself.
That strategy hadn't made itself feasible until Jim had showed up in orbit with the Eden in tow, its nuclear payload setting off all kinds of radiation counters across the fleet of Battlecruisers. After that, Bill had felt much more confident about the rebellion. Apocalypse missiles tended to do that to people, Jim guessed.
Of course, there was a great genius in the whole thing. Since the Combine couldn't know of their assembly place, their last option to kill the rebels was to wait for them at the supposed invasion point. Hopefully, that would decrease the amount of ships they would have to deal with when invading Moria. Either way, Jim hoped that the exact plan Bill had worked up would work.
"Look at all the sheep," Nick muttered.
"Pigs, man. Politicians are pigs," Jim corrected, watching Ayanami and Bill enter.
"Whatever," Nick said, flicking his cigarette to the ground.
Ayanami's eyes found Jim and she grinned devilishly. She patted Bill on the arm and said something to him. He nodded, and she jogged over to where Jim and Nick were standing. She stopped in front of Jim, still grinning from ear to ear.
"Hey," she said, making a failed attempt at innocence.
Jim looked hard at her. "What's got you so excited?" he asked.
"Nothing," she lied, the smile still there.
Nick looked worried. The Reaper clearly didn't appreciate not knowing when something important was going down. And by the look on the medic's face, something was clearly going down. He started looking around the room, wondering what was up. Jim got the feeling as well, and too started looking.
Suddenly, a woman stepped out of the crowd of sweaty ship captains, her trim black uniform sprinkled with medals. The hilt of her dress saber shined in the cargo bay's light, and her holstered Ronin pistol took up most of her right thigh. A shock of purple hair tumbled down her back, untamed in the humid air.
All in all, Jim had forgotten how much he'd missed Misato Katsuragi.
"Jim," she said, acting very formal as she shook his hand.
"Katsuragi," he replied, matching her professional tone perfectly.
They shook for a few seconds, then both broke down at the same moment and hugged, laughing uncontrollably.
"Jesus, Katsuragi," Jim said, patting her back, "What's with the serious act?"
"Me?" she replied, squeezing him, "I thought you'd been brain panned or something."
When the two friends finally parted and stepped away from each other, the laughter wearing off, logic sat in.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Jim asked, noting that his cigarette had fallen in the bear hug.
Katsuragi watched longingly as he slid a new smoke out of a pack. "Give me that," she barked, snatching it out of his hand along with the lighter.
"Hey-" he started.
"They don't allow smoking on Earth," she snapped, "I've been craving one of these for six years, Jim. So please, try and see this from my point of view."
Nick shuddered next to Jim, no doubt trying to think of going that long without a smoke. Katsuragi looked at him, lighting the cigarette as she did so.
"Hey Nick."
"Hey."
"How you been?"
"Fine."
She took a long drag on her cigarette, holding it for what seemed to verge on eternity before finally letting the smoke out in an explosive sigh. "That was satisfying," she whispered.
"Looked like it," Jim observed.
"You asked why I'm here, Jim?" she said, "I'm here because the UED wants me to be. I'm supposed to overthrow the Kel-Morian Combine, a task that isn't that easy with just one ship."
"What'd they give you?" Jim asked, fishing another cigarette out of the pack.
Katsuragi grinned, holding the slim white tube of tobacco in between her front two teeth. "Just a little ship called Shogoki."
