Yes, this features an utterly shameless rip-off of Star Trek medical technology and an X-Men ref. Please don't sue. This is a little shorter then normal, but it works.
---
"This is probably a false alarm pilots, but since we blew the alien fleet," Rollins explained, "we're still getting a feint reading that looks like engine residue, but it's so small that it could very well be something else. Still, it might be a scouting ship that went ahead of the main fleet and is totally unaware of the others' destruction. The Behemoth is going to take a detour to check this out, since a single ship big enough to leave a trace is too big for three bombers with no fighter escort. Your objective is to protect our starboard side while we come up along this thing, bear our port side, and engage. That's it, dismissed."
No one commented on the fact that Rollins looked absolutely horrible. If any of them had to guess, they'd say he wasn't getting much sleep. Maestro and Jeager had been floored when they found out they'd witnessed a populated planet being destroyed. Maniac, whether he realized it or not, had seen enough death in his life that unless it would go on the Kill board, he didn't pay much attention to it anymore.
"Ahhh… nothing like a nice quiet patrol."
"Speak for yourself kid," Maniac countered as the pilots took off, "I'm workin' my kill record up to 2500 here. Bring it on!"
"What is your kill record, anyway," Jeager asked.
"Two thousand two hundred ninety; read it and weep!"
"Weeping will not bring my own score up," Jeager replied, far too seriously to not be joking. "I will, however, bet you a month's salary that I acquire more kills on this sortie then you do."
Maniac laughed. "Hah, your wallet has a death wish! You're on, kitty!"
"Now children, this is serious," Rollins intoned. "We're short range scan range of our little reading, it looks like a carrier… wait, we just got lock, it's defiantly a carrier. And shit, there are definitely incoming fighters, they saw us first!"
"Say no more Behemoth, breaking to engage."
Quick Moray fighters came first, and the three Confederation fighters promptly reversed course and brought them right to Behemoth's port side, letting the ship let loose. A wing of Devil Rays came next, with pilots skilled enough to evade turret fire, making them perfect candidates for the fighters.
"Great, two right in my sites and one of 'em comes up on my tail, such wasted opportunity," lamented Maniac as he peeled off, circling around his pursuer instead. The Devil Ray didn't last long. Jeager and Maestro flanked the two fighters Maniac had abandoned and chased them to flatten themselves right into Behemoth's phase shields.
No sooner had the flames died them large bolts of purple soared by the fighters and raked across the hull, knocking off turrets and dispersing past the shields to tear open spots of hull.
"It's just one thing after another," Maestro commented. "Those Stingrays have got to go before they start making holes in the weapons grid!"
"Try to look urgent, pilots," Rollins ordered, "they're hitting the starboard side, don't give them reason to go to port."
With that, the fighters raced ahead of Behemoth once more and right into the waiting alien fighter/bombers.
"Get them to stop firing first, guys," Maniac advised, popping one with a missile that forced the other two fighters to fly apart. He went after more joined groups instead of pursuing them. In a short time, the Stingrays were flying in every direction, trying to evade fire long enough to link up. A group came close, but a missile from Maestro knocked one into the other two as it exploded and they all went up in green flames.
Maestro couldn't resist. "We're gonna miss you, Bug!"
The carrier was close enough to see in a short amount of time, and Behemoth changed course to come up along side.
"Pilots, we're launching cap-ship missiles to soften 'er up for our guns. If you can make sure at least one gets through, this'll go a lot faster."
"I hate forming up with missiles," Maniac commented as they pulled up alongside the projectiles. "Here they come again!"
A Devil Ray led a pack of Mantas in, letting a missile off. Maniac threw his power to forward shields and took the missile so his charge wouldn't get blown, but blasts from the Devil Ray's guns whipped past him and tore the Confed projectile apart. A Manta rushed in, eager for a fight, but Jeager knocked him off quickly.
Two more converged on a missile, and Jeager destroyed both of them, but not before they could destroy their target. Maestro banked around the missile he was near, annoying the Devil Ray's pilot to pursue him instead of completing its objective.
"Come on bug, you couldn't the broadside of the Behemoth," Maestro shouted, maneuvering around some of his pursuer's shots and taking some, trying to seem like he wasn't good enough to get away if he wanted to. The Devil Ray stayed on him, and although the Mantas slipped past Maniac and Jeager to intercept the missile bringing up the rear, the Devil Ray had let the other one slam into the carrier.
"Direct hit," Rollins shouted, "I think we nailed her phase shield emitters too! Break off pilots, we're opening fire."
Tachyon and laser cannons flared to life across Behemoth's port side, shooting bolts of red and yellow into the carrier's bioorganic hull, obliterating a squadron of fighters that tried to launch.
Jeager looped his Vampire around a sloppy Manta and blew it away before Maniac could. "Better a gift for Sivar then your kill count Maniac!"
"I got yer Sivar riiiight here kitty!"
Maniac destroyed one of the last Stingrays as it tried to form up, and tracker missiles from Jeager destroyed the other two.
Maestro still had the Devil Ray behind him. He banked to the side and cut his speed, but his adversary was experienced enough to stay behind him. Maestro shot ahead on afterburned and looped around to make a strafing run, but the Devil Ray dodged to the side and turned to his rear when he shot by.
"Whoo, a challenging bug!"
He ate his words when the missile warning went off and didn't go away from three decoys and hard evasive action. The Vampire shook violently as the projectile hit; powerful enough to tear away shields and armor to damage systems. The warning went off again. Again, the missile didn't fall for the decoys and struck.
Maestro could feel the explosions working up his fighter, and knew his ship was doomed before the damage reader flashed "CORE: 100%."
"You little alien prick! Ejecting!"
The Devil Ray wasn't done as Maniac and Jeager rushed to finish what Maestro started. They were too far away to reach it before the craft suddenly came to a complete stop.
"Oh shit," Maestro frantically commed, "Hey… hey guys?! A little help here! Guys!"
His pod rattled as the Devil Ray's tractor beam pulled and locked it into clamps. The alien craft flew away from Maniac and Jeager, starting to outrun them.
But Behemoth's guns were finishing their job, and the alien carrier's jump core went critical. The ship exploded, sending out a powerful shockwave that totally reversed the Devil Ray's direction and sent it flying back, the abrupt change of motion damaging it severely. Maniac and Jeager were too far away to feel the harder effects of the carrier exploding, but the Devil Way was heading straight for them, tumbling end over end. Jeager tried to roll away, but the alien craft clipped him on the wing and bounced toward the Behemoth as the Kilrathi spun around, riding out the sudden wave of inertia until his thrusters fought it back.
A blue light shot out from Behemoth's docking bay and grabbed the damaged alien craft.
"Gotcha buggie," Rollins commented. "Maestro, if you haven't fainted, we're reeling you in."
---
Maestro was wobbly when he walked out of his pod, the Devil Ray on its side in the docking bay to give room for his hatch to pop off. Blood poured from his head, the result of far too much turbulence when his captor went tumbling. Jeager caught him when he finally took one step too many and collapsed. Maniac slung his arm around his shoulders; Jeager was too tall to help him walk without actually carrying him.
"I hate concussions," he gurgled, fighting back the nausea.
Marines were about to pop the canopy on the Devil Ray as the pilots dragged their comrade toward the lift. The surface looked like any other canopy, except for its pitch-black color. It showed no signs of heavy damage and scanners couldn't find hull breaches in the cockpit, so the Nephilim contained within was more then likely alive.
And it had been waiting for the humans to make the first move, because as soon as the canopy swung open, a long insectoid arm lashed out and knocked two marines off of the fighter. Another strike; the last one that had climbed up was on the floor. The alien jumped out and landed on the deck, stretching out from its balled up flying position to its full height. It roared just before the marines opened fire, and leapt over their heads before the bolts of green could hit.
The marines spun around just as fast, but the insect was expecting that as it landed and was quite prepared to keep leaping around, playing cat and mouse.
And then a roaring Kilrathi leapt onto its back before it could stand, wrapped his arms around the bug's carapace, and clawed. Jeager's claws were tipped with a Kilrathi metal to make them even sharper, and they tore through the alien's self-grown armor like butter.
The creature shrieked, reached behind, and flung the feline into a crate of cargo boxes, prompting the marines to blast it with their pulse guns.
The alien jumped again, behind the boxes it had thrown Jeager into, but the Kilrathi was already on his feet and promptly leapt into the bug with a roar, smashing them both through the crates again. Had the quartermaster been on the deck, he would have promptly written off whatever they were throwing each other into as 'destroyed.'
The alien ended up on top with a mandible poised to strike, but with the bug's armor compromised, Jeager lifted a paw and struck deep into the much larger creature's body with his natural weapons, not stopping at his fingertips and shoving so his claws made was for his paw, and then his forearm to actually impale the thing at its frail point.
The bug screeched again, but it died out as the creature did. Jeager kicked the corpse off and grinned like an idiot, admiring the black ichor that coated his fur. He'd just made the first hand-to-hand kill over one of the aliens.
The quiet getting their attention, Maniac and Maestro peeked out from around the door off of the flight deck.
"Where did you go," Jeager laughed, flinging a glob of the alien blood from his paw in their direction. It hit Maniac squarely in the eye. In his current state, Maestro thought it was absolutely hysterical and laughed as Maniac danced around, rubbing at the goo. He hobbled off to the Decontam Chute, intent on heading for the infirmary.
One of the marines suddenly yelled, "Hey! There's a live one!"
All of them, Maniac with a generic sidearm from a security station included, climbed onto the fighter and forced the canopy open all of the way. A second alien was behind the pilot's seating apparatus, but it was banged up and unconscious, probably from the same turbulence that had injured Maestro.
---
"No way in Hell Doctor, that thing is not moving so much as a centimeter from the brig. If you want to treat it, armed guards are going in with you. That's that."
"No guards in the cell."
"Doctor…"
"Captain Rollins, I've just performed a monthly physical on you and gotten extremely poor results. By your own admission, you have not slept or eaten in five days and you're borderline dehydrated. I have absolutely no qualms about relieving you of duty, which is why I waited until afterward to ask this."
"Doctor Xavier, are you blackmailing me?"
She smiled. "Why Captain, I'm a doctor, not a intelligence operative."
That prompted Rollins to smile. "On this ship, Doctor, yes, you are."
"I get the feeling I've just been zinged," Xavier replied, giving him a cross look. Rollins grinned triumphantly. "Therefore, Captain, I order you to get some sleep immediately, or I'll pump so much Methyline into you you'll be out for a week."
"Well you might as well do it now, doc," he dared, shrugging his officer's coat on, but he sat back down. "I try, if you want to believe it, I never thought sleep was something that would ever be easier said then done."
She stared at him for a second. "I have a feeling I'm missing something here, Captain."
"How can you not have heard," he asked, deadly serious, mouth agape. "Half the crew's been looking at me like I'm Death incarnate, the other half just doesn't show it," he yammered.
"I'm usually holed up in here researching out alien friends' biology, which is why I'm eager to get at the live one. And maybe if you got some sleep, you'd look like a normal human being," she scolded.
"Doctor, six days ago," he began, his tired eyes turning ice cold as he looked into hers, "I had a choice. Stop an alien fleet," he picked up a tool from her equipment tray, "by destroying a planet, or let them invade Confederation space."
He picked up another tool, and weighed them both in his hands. "Except to save all those Confederation lives, the alien fleet had to be destroyed," he raised the first tool up higher, "by shooting a planet with this thing and catching them in the shockwave. Even got them in orbit around them easily enough. All's going well. Then we jump in and bam! Planet's populated."
He raised "Confed" and lowered the "fleet" this time. "Not such an easy choice anymore, is it? Now Doctor, I want you to think very hard," he gripped them both tightly in his fists, "and take one guess at what choice I made. And for the record, yes, I think I made the right choice."
"I think I can guess," Xavier answered, not showing any effect this revelation brought to her. It helped Rollins keep whatever strength he had left, but in reality she really had no idea what to say. He wasn't even looking at her anymore; his eyes were seeing something besides the Infirmary.
"I see that planet every time I close my eyes," he went on, his face falling into his hands, his fingers massaging his temples, "I hear them scream whenever the room's quiet."
With Rollins on the edge of tears, Dr. Xavier realized that she was the first person he's actually talked about it with. She was no psychiatrist, though, and that was what he needed.
Badly.
But that didn't mean she couldn't do anything. Quickly, she grabbed a hypo-spray from the nearby cabinet and checked the contents to make sure it was what she thought it was, pressed it into his neck, and clicked the trigger.
He bolted upright as the chemicals rushed into his bloodstream, but all at once he was starting to wobble. He didn't need ask what kind of drug it was when he felt his eyes become heavy. "Methyline?"
"Nah, Triclanocine," she answered. "Not as fast, but you won't dream."
With that, she nudged him as he passed out so his head fell on the bed's pillow. After the awkward act of pulling his legs up onto the cushion, she glanced at Maestro to make sure he was still in dreamland and that his bleeding had stopped under the bandage. With that, she went off to inform the bridge that the Captain would be out of commission for a bit.
---
"Maniac, I'm still waiting for my 400 credits."
"Dream on cat! You got that last one cause your target crashed into it!"
"It counts on the kill board, therefore it counts on a bet," Jeager retorted. Maestro looked back and forth between the two for a while, highly amused at the exchange. Eventually, he looked at his watch and stood.
"Later guys, I'm turning in early tonight. Need sleep."
They didn't even hear him. He found that even funnier.
Having one thing left to do, Maestro didn't quite hit the sack when he walked into his quarters. After replacing the bandage on his forehead, he sat down with a pad and finally managed to type out a response to Casey on the Cerberus.
To: Lieutenant Lance Casey, TSC Cerberus
Case,
You wouldn't believe the shit that's been goin on here. I
wish I could tell you all the details, this place has been so whacked it isn't
funny. Our captain is on the edge of a nervous breakdown, half the ship's
weapons grid was offline AND we went bug hunting, we've got a live bug in the
brig, and the bastard's copilot tried to grab my escape pod and I ended up with
a freakin' concussion when the Devil Ray went spinning around from an
explosion.
I need to remember to breath here. I still have a very
hilarious mental picture of our babe Stiletto facing down Spyder. Speaking of
everyone, could you send me their receiver codes so I can forward to all of ya?
All I have is yours, obviously. And did anyone ever figure out why Clippy was,
well, called Clippy? Ah well, it could be worse; you could have an old war-era
comm. officer turned captain for your CO.
Like me.
=Maestro=
Maestro pressed send. It wouldn't actually go anywhere until they were in range of the Rapleetah. With that done, he pulled off his flight suit, tossed the undershirt down the laundry chute, and went to bed.
He didn't catch the broken, distorted image of Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn that flashed on the comm. terminal in the wall to his back.
But it was gone in a second anyway.
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NOTE: Just so it's not confusing, I use the star chart that came with WCP when plotting systems around and such, so there's a method to the madness of systems.