Azumangastar Galactica

Not-as-Thrilling-as-Advertised
2. Retaliation

Rated: T - English - Sci-Fi/Humor - Reviews: 12 - Updated: 06-21-08 - Published: 06-01-08 - Complete - id:4294345

The tone rang out across the Sea Slug. In the showers, Tomo paused in the middle of preparing to snap another pilot in the ass with a towel. In the sickbay, Kimura and Sakaki paused and looked up to the speakers built into the ceiling. In the rec room the normal buzz of chatter died down.

"This is the Commander," Yukari's voice boomed. "We have just recieved word that the Cylons have begun a massive nuclear attack on the Twelve Colonies. You all know what this means."

In the CIC Yukari clenched her fist. "Our time has finally come to prove ourselves! War is upon us, and we will rise to the challenge without fear!" Her voice raised as she got caught up in the moment. "We will become death, destroyer of worlds! We will come screaming from the void, wrapped in Hell's fury, to bring those chrome-plated savages war the likes of which they have not seen! We will teach them to fear the name Sea Slug! We will not stop, will not rest, until every we have killed one hundred Cylons for every fallen Colonial! Ours will be a vengeance retold through the ages!" Her voice rose to a screech that seemed to shake the entire ship. "THERE WILL BE NO ESCAPE FROM OUR WRATH! OUR GOAL IS NOTHING LESS THAN COMPLETE EXTERMINATION! SO SAY WE ALL!" She slammed the handset down in its cradle and laughed maniacally while the command staff looked at her in shock.

Finally Kurosawa turned to the Tactical Officer. "Set Condition One throughout the ship." Immediately klaxons began blaring and the glass panels rotated shut.

"Action stations, action stations," Koyomi said into her headset, and her voice was heard throughout the ship as everyone scrambled for their places. "Set Condition One throughout the ship."

"I want Vipers in the tubes!" Yukari barked. "Where's the nearest action? We need to jump!"

"The closest world is Sagitarron," Kurosawa said.

"Yes! The Toilet of the Colonies! Mizuhara, plot a jump there!"

"Yes sir!"

"You seem awfully excited about this," Kurosawa said.

"We're screwed, we're screwed, we're screwed," a pilot was saying on the way to the launch bay.

"Stow that talk," Kagura snapped as she zipped up her flight suit. "We kicked these guys' asses forty years ago, we can kick their asses now. Just remember your training and you'll be fine."

The nervous pilot nodded.

"WAAAHOOOOOO!" They were both knocked out of the way as Tomo barreled past them down the corridor, swinging her helmet. "Time to kick ass and take names!" they heard her shout as she rounded a corner.

"Yeah, let's KICK ASS!" Kagura shouted and took off after her, leaving the other pilots in the dust. It wasn't long before she'd passed her, reaching the launch bay first and running up the gangway to jump into her Viper. "Get me in a tube!" she shouted to the deck crew as she pulled on her helmet.

As Kagura and Tomo's Vipers were being taxied into their launch tubes and the rest of the pilots reached the launch bay, the Sea Slug jumped. Thirty seconds later they were struck by a nuclear missile launched from the radial arm of a Cylon Basestar.

"Oh frak me!" Yukari shouted as she was thrown forward onto the plotting table. "Get me a firing solution on that bastard!"

"DRADIS contact!" Mizuhara yelled, staring in horror at her console. "Three Cylon Basestars. They're launching Raiders, I count ten . . . twenty . . . a frakload of squadrons!"

"You just took us all on a suicide mission!" Kurosawa said as Yukari simply stared at the DRADIS. "YUKARI!"

Yukari snapped back to her senses. "Launch all vipers and bring us closer to the nearest Basestar!"

"Closer?" Ensign Wada shouted in disbelief.

Kurosawa shook her head. "No, it'll work. Battlestars are brawlers, Basestars aren't. They're not built for close-quarters combat."

"That information is forty years old!" Mizuhara protested.

"Red and Blue Squadrons away," Ohyama said. "Gold and Green are in the tubes now."

Yukari nodded. "Okay, fire control, get a solution on the nearest Basestar's center axis and set all batteries that can fire in front of us to salvo fire. Be ready to fire on my command."

"Yes sir!"

The space around the Sea Slug glittered and burst as her point-defense batteries fired non-stop, putting a wall of flak between her and the rain of missiles and Raiders. Every now and then a missile would find its way through to detonate against the hull, shaking the crew and scorching the armor plating but failing to do any major damage. Battlestars were built tough.

"Numbnuts, your six!" Kagura called over the wireless as she jumped her Viper straight up to avoid a line of blue-white tracer fire.

"I got that shit," she heard as she saw her wingman's bird flip over and fire all three guns, tearing the pursuing Raider apart in a spray of blood and gore.

"They're full of guts?" she said in disbelief. "That's frakked up!"

"But satisfying," Tomo said as she blasted another one. "Man, these guys really suck!"

"Don't get too confident," Kagura said as another Viper exploded apart. "We're still totally outnumbered."

"Where are all our ships?" someone asked frantically. It sounded like Crayon. "We're all alone out here!"

"Worry about that when we've got time!" That was Static. "Bug, four turkeys at three o'clock, bearing on the Slug."

"Got it." Two Vipers broke away from the main battle to intercept.

"How long are you going to wait, Yukari?" Kurosawa asked, holding onto the table for support at the ship shuddered under increasingly frequent missile strikes.

"Fire!" Yukari shrieked.

The Sea Slug opened fire on the nearest Basestar with her main batteries. Antiship warheads exploded against the spindly vessel's hull, quickly severing a radial arm. The Basestar was beginning to back away when the Sea Slug severed its central axis, cutting it in half.

"Target destroyed!" Mizuhara whooped with a grin as the Basestar disappeared from DRADIS. "We killed it, sir!"

"Frak yeah!" Yukari crowed. "On to the next one! Full speed, take us right down their throats!"

"We're taking quite a beating, sir," Ensign Wada said from her console.

"How's the FTL?" Kurosawa asked.

Wada checked, then nodded. "Still online."

"I want it spooled."

"Yes sir."

"Surely you can't be thinking of retreat, Nyamo?" Yukari asked with a manic grin and fire in her eyes. She was enjoying this way too much.

The Sea Slug came about with far more speed and agility than would be expected for a ship its size and advanced on the next closest Basestar. As soon as she was within range she began pounding it with her forward batteries as her dorsal batteries targeted the third Cylon ship. The second ship was just coming apart in a cloud of flame when the last one jumped out, followed by the remaining Raiders.

"Did we just win?" Mizuhara asked in disbelief.

"I don't like this," Kurosawa said. "Recall the Vipers." She turned to Yukari. "We should prepare to jump."

"Jump?" Yukari scoffed. "We just took on three Basestars and won! See that wreckage out there?" A rhetorical question, as the Sea Slug had only one window and it was nowhere near CIC. "Why should we leave now and leave these defenseless Sags to their fates?"

"Sir, I'm reading massive nuclear detonations on the surface of the planet," Petty Officer Wike spoke up. "It's a glass parking lot down there."

"No one to save, then." Yukari said.

"Last of the birds is down," Ohyama said from his station.

"DRADIS contact," Mizuhara said.

"Reinforcements?" Yukari asked brightly.

"Yeah, but not ours," she said dismally. "Six Cylon Basestars, and they're launching Raiders."

Yukari nodded. "Okay, maybe it's time to jump."

Once the Sea Slug was safely hidden in the shadow of a mountain-sized asteroid in the Abraxas belt and repairs were underway, the initial post-battle excitement slowly died down and the full weight of what had happened began to sink in.

"CAG . . ." Tomo said from her rack in the pilot's duty locker, "Yomi told me Sagitarron's been nuked into glass."

On the rack below her Kagura nodded. "That's what they're saying."

"And I hear Caprica and Picon are being nuked too."

Kagura nodded. "Yeah," she said quietly. She was thinking of her family on Picon.

Tomo reached back and felt for the picture frame behind her head. When she found it she picked it up and looked at it. It had been taken on the day she and Yomi had left for basic training. Yomi was standing with her duffel bag over one shoulder, and Tomo was grinning with one arm resting on her twin sister Torako's shoulder. Torako was standing with her hands in her pockets, cigarette hanging from her lips. As usual her hair was in her eyes and she was frowning. Nuked into glass . . . "Tauron too?" she asked finally.

She heard Kagura sigh. "Yes, Tauron too."

Nuked into glass . . . She imagined her family eating dinner as the world flashed outside and they were obliterated in less time than it took to blink. Instantly vaporized, with barely enough time to realize what was going on. Nuked into glass . . .

Tomo heard Kagura quietly sobbing beneath her as she rolled onto her side and hugged the picture frame to her chest.

Nuked into glass . . .


-Author Notes-

God, what a bunch of whiney emo bitches. I mean Jesus, it's only their familes and friends and everyone they've ever known getting erased from existence in a nuclear armageddon along with billions of other innocent people, damn. I'd deal.

Also if you're wondering where the fuck Tomo got a twin sister from check the author notes on the first chapter of "The Other Takino." Yes, I am going to work it into every story I do involving Azumanga characters (man, I hope that doesn't get to be a big number), because I like Torako. Don't like it? Well that's . . . unfortunate, I guess. For you.

Unfortunate for you.

And if you're wondering how a single Battlestar could whomp so much ass against the Cylons when the Colonies were wiped out so effortlessly at the start of the war, just watch "Resurrection Ship, part 2," "The Captain's Hand," or "Exodus, part 2." Without their 1ee7 haxxing skillzorz to shut down the Battlestars before they even step into the ring, the Cylons are at a serious disadvantage in a one-on-one fight, relying on subterfuge and superior numbers as opposed to the brute force approach of the Colonials.