This chapter is meant to get John off Pandora for a bit so I can advance stuff there a bit without having to go into too much detail.
It had been a few days since everyone was unloaded from Hope, and already the Omaticaya didn't like that I brought humans back. Jake let them stay at the human camp, but he destroyed most of the defensive fortifications. All of the weapons were being held by the Omaticaya as well. Several other tribes were against them being here as well. The other day a small scout party fired some arrows at the compound. Nobody was harmed, but scared the humans. The crew of Resilience was doing okay. The bridge crew was being taught about botany and the wildlife, while the rest were still learning the language. I had made them leave all of their weapons and advanced technology on Hope. I still let the bridge crew keep their ARCs, but without the visor.
I was modifying another helicopter for space flight when an unencrypted Mundar transmission was intercepted by Hope.
"Sir, Hope has intercepted a Mundar transmission. It's unencrypted, " ARC said.
"Well, let's hear it then, " I responded. I wiped my hands off with a rag and waited. It was just an audio recording, sent from Atlantis.
"This is Simon. Me and a small group of survivors have captured this comm station. Resilience, Hope, Willpower, anybody out there, we need an evac. When you arrive, contact us on comm frequency 7-7-5, channel 6-3-6. " There was an explosion in the background, and some yelling. "We gotta go, please help us!" The transmission ended. I sat there for a while.
"ARC, how old is this transmission?"
"It was sent using a Mundar comm station, which has instant speed. The message was live. "
I thought for a moment. I needed an evac for a small group of rebels. Hope would be shot down as soon as we stopped the burn; she was too big. We needed something for ship-to-ship and ship-to-ground combat also capable of evac. I looked around. The answer was right in front of me. I set down the rag and continued to fix up the helicopter.
I had gotten all of the engineers and mechanics from Resilience to help fix the helicopters. Once they were ready for space travel, we needed to get them ready to burn. That was hard, but we eventually figured it out. It didn't make its own fuel, which was fine. All it needed to do was get us there and back. We filled it up with enough for a round trip, and then added some more so we could take a roundabout way to throw off the Mundars.
Finally, we were ready. I would take a helicopter squadron to Atlantis, find the survivors, and get them back to Pandora. I hopped into the pilot's seat of the first helicopter. The other helicopters sat unoccupied. ARC would be piloting most of them. Trudy would be in one other helicopter. I would provide air support while the Trudy got the survivors loaded and then we would get off Atlantis. We would both have four other ships to command. ARC would take care of them. We just had to tell them what to do.
We left Pandora a week after the message arrived, spent four days burning, and then emerged in orbit of Atlantis.
I opened to comm frequency 7-7-5-6-3-6. There was no such thing as channels on Atlantis comms, and the frequency was always 6 digits long. It was a good idea by the survivors. Help throw off the Mundars if they got the message. "This is evac squad hailing survivors, do you copy?" a few seconds passed.
"We copy. Thank goodness you're here. "
"Well, you're not safe yet. Send you coordinates. "
"Coordinates are 34X, 17Y, -4Z. "
"-4Z? You're underground?"
"Yes. we'll be waiting at 0Z when you arrive. "
"Allright. On our way. ETA fifteen minutes. "
"See you then. "
It was surprisingly quiet. No Mundar ships in orbit. We stayed above the planet until we got to the coordinates. Only once we got there did we encounter any resistance. Four squadrons of Stinger class ships uncloaked in front of us and opened fire. I lost two of my fighters right away.
"Trudy, dive! Get to the surface!" I yelled to her. "Sending down evac transports now, get to the surface!" I told the survivors. Trudy and her four ships dived to the surface. A squadron followed her. "ARC fighters, take out that squadron, " I said ,referring to the one pursueing Trudy. They dove as well, firing on the ships. I was left alone with three squadrons of Stinger ships, which wasn't the best odds. But I took what I got. I fried an electronet, a net with electromagnets along the sides. It was very large and would strangle several ships. Then I would activate the electromagnets and it would stick to the ships or itself, causing them to crash or be neutralized.
When the net was launched, the Mundars didn't even see it. It wrapped around the first three before I activated the electromagnets. It took another in as well, making four ships stuck. They were jerked towards each other and crashed into a fifth. They all exploded, which made the odds slightly more manageable. I had installed a small shield generator into my ship, but it was very limited and wouldn't give me much time if one of them got behind me.
"Trudy, almost done down there?" I asked. It was a full out dogfight up here, and I wasn't doing too good.
"Landing now, " she replied.
"ARC fighters, did you take out that squadron?"
"Yes sir. They are returning now, " Replied ARC.
"Good. " I pulled up as two ships collided with each other where I had just been. Rolling backwards I fired and took out another ship. It was only two squadrons now, but my shields were at 4% and I was running low on ammunition. Thankfully, these pilots seemed to be rookies and didn't have much coordination. If they were seasoned veterans, I would be in a million pieces right now. My ARC fighters returned and took out four more Stingers. The rest put up a good fight, but they ultimately lost. My shield was out, chain guns empty, and out of most missiles. I only had two air-air missiles left. Trudy arrived with her four helicopters. I had only one left fit to burn. I turned to face the other that had lost all of its burn fuel. I fired a missile at it and blew it up. I couldn't leave anything for the Mundars. If they could travel at light speed, nothing would be safe.
"Trudy, how many survivors did you pick up?"
"Seventeen. Most of them were injured, " She replied.
"Okay. Let's get out of here. The sooner we're on Pandora, the sooner we can fix them up. "
"Allright. Burning in 3, 2, 1, now. "
We rocketed into light speed, taking a different route than the way we came. We landed on Pandora in the human camp and spent the rest of the day healing the survivors. When I went to sleep that night, I thought everything was turning out nicely. I didn;t know how wrong I was.