I watched as cars flew by the window off to my side. How surreal it was,
flying cars....These people were so amazing, the things they created could
revolutionize every single station and planet in this universe. But there
was also a downfall to their intelligence. If they did show their
technology to other people then they would only want them to make stronger
weapons so they could very well destroy massive areas in a single blast.
I could tell these people were kind and caring, not wanting to hurt anything that ever lived. But their kindness was also their fault. People could easily take advantage of them, like the Space Forces. They had no protection from them. None at all....Well none until we showed up. Man, how are five people going to protect an entire planet from a horde of heavily armed, greatly trained killers. Hell, two of the three people didn't even have weapons to defend themselves. I only had one clip lift in my 9mm, only one round to my shotgun and four shells to my caster. Aisha may not even be in enough shape to fight a large group. So that cut our fighting team down to me and Kitty. How? How could we save an entire planet with these resources? I also had to think of civilian casualties. As in, there had to be NONE. Man....This wasn't next to impossible. It WAS impossible.....Unless....We took the fight to them....
I got up and ran out of the room, looking for the others. I slowed my pace to a walk, I just remembered that I wasn't on best terms with anyone at the moment. That didn't matter though, this was about business and we had to push our feelings aside. I nodded my head, yeah that sounded good....I hope.
After a while of walking around aimlessly looking for everyone else a kind women came up and asked what I was looking for.
"Um, I'm looking for my crew. Did you see anybody pass by here? They're dressed differently from you guys, they shouldn't be hard to spot." I hope that didn't sound like an insult.
She closed her eyes for a moment, like she was concentrating on something. She opened them back up and looked at me. "They're on your ship, at our docking bay. You can use the transporter to get there."
I tilted me head. That was a pretty specific answer. Ah well, didn't matter now. I walked off and found the nearest trans-thing and stepped in. The door closed and I looked at the control panel, for the next ten minutes that's about all I did....Just stare at it. Why such a long time just looking at it? You get into a big green tube that sends you somewhere that could be thousands of miles away for the first time and see if you can get it to work.
The panel looked so foreign, the letters defiantly weren't in English. They were just some scribbles on different buttons. There was one button that stood out. It was as large as the panel and seemed to have a very confusing scribble on it. I decided to press it.
As my hand touched the button a serge of something went through my body. It wasn't any kind of pain like you would feel from an electric shock, it was more comforting. After the small sensation was over I looked back down at the panel, and would you believe it I was able to read every scribble on that thing. It was so amazing, not only could I read it but I also knew exactly how to work it. My excitement didn't last long though, my head started to ache, as I almost fell to the ground. So many thoughts were going through my head, I knew so many things about this place but I didn't know why. How could I learn so much from a little panel in some molecular transferring devise out in front of Kelanesa's citadel. Whoa, where the HELL did that come from?
I was going to have to ask Malashar about that later, right now I had to go comprise a battle strategy with my crew. I hit the button to the bay and within that same flash from before, I was there. I stepped in and was almost blown away by it's magnificence, it was built like a cathedral but held ships! This was a great way to greet any new people to this place. I started to notice that almost everyone from this planet looked the same. They were all tall and neatly dressed, they were also pretty lanky. You could easily tell these people didn't have enough strength to fight anyone or anything.
I found my ship and walked in, Gillium's voice greeted me. "Hello, Strife. Everyone is in the recreational room."
"This thing has a rec room?"
"Yes, it was one of the recent add-ons."
"Ok, whatever. Where's it at?"
"It is down the hall to your left, next to the kitchen."
I headed down the hall and soon entered the rec room. Gillium was right, everyone was there and they didn't seem pleased to see me. I shook my head, I had to act like that never happened.
"Ok, I think I have a plan to stop the Space Forces before they even step foot on Galactica."
No one replied, they just stared.
"Um....Did you guys hear me?"
Silence.
"What's up?"
Hmm, I was starting to think my whole "forget about feelings" thing wasn't working, Kitty's next sentence may have just tipped me off. "Again? First you forget about saying anything to Jess in Malashar's room. Now you come in and don't even say you're sorry. Just start spitting off orders."
"What? I didn't give any orders yet."
"See! You were about to! Man, how insensitive."
I sighed. "Could we PLEASE talk about this later. We need to figure out a plan to help these people."
"Hmph, I'm not doing anything until you apologize to Jess."
"Ok, alright. I'm sorry. Happy? Now can we talk about my plan?"
"What?! You call then an apo-"
"No, it's ok Kitty. That was good enough," Jess cut in, "so what's the plan?"
Cool, that was easier then I thought it was going to be. "Ok, here it is. We obviously can't duke it out with the Forces as we are now. I'm running low on bullets so it wouldn't take long for me to run dry. Mel and Jess don't have any weapons so they can't do a lot. Aisha and Kitty would only be able to hold off so many until fatigue came."
Kitty and Aisha stood up. "Hey, we could take on the whole army if we needed to!"
I sighed. "Yeah sure you could....Anyway, here's my plan." Kitty and Aisha sat back down, glaring at me. "We don't let them reach Galactica, we take the Outlaw Star and fight them in space. We haven't used a single bullet on this thing since we got it. It couldn't be anymore ready to take on such a large number."
At least Melfina was kind enough to respond to me. "That's actually a good idea, Strife. We should be able to do more damage to them in the Outlaw Star then on foot. Plus that would greatly reduce casualties on the planet."
Kitty had a counterpoint to my plan. "So what if they get by us and land on Galactica? What then?"
"Well then we fight them on the planet. But that's our last resort. We fly far enough away from the planet so that if they DO decide to ignore us and head to Galactica then we can take them down before the reach it."
Kitty sighed. "You really think one ship can take on an entire Forces fleet?"
"You think five people can hold off such a large division on the ground?"
She grunted but didn't respond, guess she got the point.
"Ok, if we're going to do this then we have to leave as soon as possible. Before we do we have to make sure every single thing on this ship is working to the max."
Mel titled her head. "You haven't adjusted the setting to you pilot seat, have you?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Well, you have to adjust the settings to your liking so you don't have any difficulty while in battle. Do you even know how to pilot a Grappler?"
"Um, Uh.....Not really. Actually this will be my first time."
Everyone fell to the ground. Kitty shook her fist at me. "Our biggest battle to date and the pilot doesn't even know how to work a Grappler?! We are SCREWED!"
Jess got up and started to walk to the door as she spoke. "I'll give him a quick tutorial and help him adjust the settings. I know most about them so I'd be the most help. Kitty, you and Aisha make sure all the weapons are working properly, Mel you can go and give a quick look over at the engine, make sure there's nothing wrong."
After that she walked out of the room. Wow, she was thinking the same as I was, separation of business and feelings. I could still sense a hint of sadness in her sentence, though.
I shrugged it off and walked to the bridge, she was already sitting in my seat hitting some buttons on the panel. "What're you up to?"
"Adjusting the settings."
"Ohh, ok....Can I ask how?"
"It's easy really. Just type in you height and weight. So what are they?"
"6'1" and 215 pounds."
She hit some buttons then got up and sat in the seat to the left of my pilot seat.
"Ok, sit down and I'll show you how to work the ship in combat mode."
I hesitantly sat down. She seemed to be fine but didn't look it. She looked as if she was hiding something from me....Like when she left me room while I was all bandaged up. I wonder what was up with her.
"Ok, when Mel puts it into combat mode then these two sticks right here are what you're going to use to move the ship. They also swing the arms around. Don't worry, you'll figure out how to pilot and fight simultaneously. It's not that hard, you just go by instinct. Anyway, the peddles down there are just like when you're driving a car. The one on the far left makes it go forward. The harder you push, the faster you go. The one on the far right stops the ship. The one in the middle makes it go backwards. Basically the brakes use thrusters in the front that use the same force as the thrusters in the back, thus canceling each other out and stopping the ship. The reverse break exerts more force from the front, thus making it go backwards. You can use the pedals and steering of the ship in combination to fly up down, left, right, and everywhere in between. The controls for the arms are real simply. The stick on the left controls the left one, the one on the right moves the other one. Also when in combat there will be cameras all around the ship that'll show us all sides so you can see attackers at all directions. This is the hardest thing to get used to since you have to be looking everywhere at once. You'll also have a head device that will put a radar screen directly into your right eye. This may seem like a distraction but it helps you to figure out what screens to look at. There, that's about it."
Wow, I hope I can remember all that. "Well, uh thanks for that. Maybe I'll be able to fight these people after all. Anyway, we should go check on everyone else and see if they need any help."
"You can check on them, I need to make sure that all the radars and scanners are working right." She said with a sigh.
She got up and moved to her own seat, as I got up and turned to the ladder, looking back on last time. "You ok? Something seems wrong."
"Oh yeah....I'm fine...."
Ah, crap. I could tell something wasn't right. She was still mad about before.
"Jess you're not still mad about what happened earlier, are you?"
"No, I said everything's fine. Plus you said sorry. Why shouldn't I be?"
I sighed and walked to the ladder but I wasn't about to leave with saying one thing. "Thanks..."
She turned to me, almost shocked. "Huh??"
"Thanks....For caring about me. That means more to me then you could know.....So thank you."
I started to head down the ladder with one last glance at Jess. I could see a mix of emotions in her eyes, now filling with tears. I just couldn't tell what they all were but I could guess she was more then happy I finally said that. My glance seemed to last forever, her smile kept me stuck on that ladder. For the first time that was the only thing about her that I noticed. Her smile.....It was beautiful, so captivating. I shook my head and went down the ladder. Wow, she might be the first person that I ever liked solely for her and not some part of her body. Heh, somewhere out there a pig just sprouted wings.
--------------*-------------------*-----------------------*----------------- -----*------------------
Author's note: Oook, there's another chapter. Not a lot happened, just some info. This would go into my "filler" chapters. Ok, so I guess the relationship between Galactica and the Forces will be explained in the NEXT chapter not this one.
And Macky, that's a good idea with the McDougle brothers. Ron having a son and Harry being the same age. Plus Ron's son fits perfectly into my whole "Next generation" theme since Sazuka's son will also come in sooner or later. Plus if I put Harry in I can make Mel's role a bit bigger since she hasn't really done a lot so far. Man, that'll be fun to think about how Harry's going to react to seeing Mel again.....
As always, this is Blades. "Good reading equals good times." I'm out.
I could tell these people were kind and caring, not wanting to hurt anything that ever lived. But their kindness was also their fault. People could easily take advantage of them, like the Space Forces. They had no protection from them. None at all....Well none until we showed up. Man, how are five people going to protect an entire planet from a horde of heavily armed, greatly trained killers. Hell, two of the three people didn't even have weapons to defend themselves. I only had one clip lift in my 9mm, only one round to my shotgun and four shells to my caster. Aisha may not even be in enough shape to fight a large group. So that cut our fighting team down to me and Kitty. How? How could we save an entire planet with these resources? I also had to think of civilian casualties. As in, there had to be NONE. Man....This wasn't next to impossible. It WAS impossible.....Unless....We took the fight to them....
I got up and ran out of the room, looking for the others. I slowed my pace to a walk, I just remembered that I wasn't on best terms with anyone at the moment. That didn't matter though, this was about business and we had to push our feelings aside. I nodded my head, yeah that sounded good....I hope.
After a while of walking around aimlessly looking for everyone else a kind women came up and asked what I was looking for.
"Um, I'm looking for my crew. Did you see anybody pass by here? They're dressed differently from you guys, they shouldn't be hard to spot." I hope that didn't sound like an insult.
She closed her eyes for a moment, like she was concentrating on something. She opened them back up and looked at me. "They're on your ship, at our docking bay. You can use the transporter to get there."
I tilted me head. That was a pretty specific answer. Ah well, didn't matter now. I walked off and found the nearest trans-thing and stepped in. The door closed and I looked at the control panel, for the next ten minutes that's about all I did....Just stare at it. Why such a long time just looking at it? You get into a big green tube that sends you somewhere that could be thousands of miles away for the first time and see if you can get it to work.
The panel looked so foreign, the letters defiantly weren't in English. They were just some scribbles on different buttons. There was one button that stood out. It was as large as the panel and seemed to have a very confusing scribble on it. I decided to press it.
As my hand touched the button a serge of something went through my body. It wasn't any kind of pain like you would feel from an electric shock, it was more comforting. After the small sensation was over I looked back down at the panel, and would you believe it I was able to read every scribble on that thing. It was so amazing, not only could I read it but I also knew exactly how to work it. My excitement didn't last long though, my head started to ache, as I almost fell to the ground. So many thoughts were going through my head, I knew so many things about this place but I didn't know why. How could I learn so much from a little panel in some molecular transferring devise out in front of Kelanesa's citadel. Whoa, where the HELL did that come from?
I was going to have to ask Malashar about that later, right now I had to go comprise a battle strategy with my crew. I hit the button to the bay and within that same flash from before, I was there. I stepped in and was almost blown away by it's magnificence, it was built like a cathedral but held ships! This was a great way to greet any new people to this place. I started to notice that almost everyone from this planet looked the same. They were all tall and neatly dressed, they were also pretty lanky. You could easily tell these people didn't have enough strength to fight anyone or anything.
I found my ship and walked in, Gillium's voice greeted me. "Hello, Strife. Everyone is in the recreational room."
"This thing has a rec room?"
"Yes, it was one of the recent add-ons."
"Ok, whatever. Where's it at?"
"It is down the hall to your left, next to the kitchen."
I headed down the hall and soon entered the rec room. Gillium was right, everyone was there and they didn't seem pleased to see me. I shook my head, I had to act like that never happened.
"Ok, I think I have a plan to stop the Space Forces before they even step foot on Galactica."
No one replied, they just stared.
"Um....Did you guys hear me?"
Silence.
"What's up?"
Hmm, I was starting to think my whole "forget about feelings" thing wasn't working, Kitty's next sentence may have just tipped me off. "Again? First you forget about saying anything to Jess in Malashar's room. Now you come in and don't even say you're sorry. Just start spitting off orders."
"What? I didn't give any orders yet."
"See! You were about to! Man, how insensitive."
I sighed. "Could we PLEASE talk about this later. We need to figure out a plan to help these people."
"Hmph, I'm not doing anything until you apologize to Jess."
"Ok, alright. I'm sorry. Happy? Now can we talk about my plan?"
"What?! You call then an apo-"
"No, it's ok Kitty. That was good enough," Jess cut in, "so what's the plan?"
Cool, that was easier then I thought it was going to be. "Ok, here it is. We obviously can't duke it out with the Forces as we are now. I'm running low on bullets so it wouldn't take long for me to run dry. Mel and Jess don't have any weapons so they can't do a lot. Aisha and Kitty would only be able to hold off so many until fatigue came."
Kitty and Aisha stood up. "Hey, we could take on the whole army if we needed to!"
I sighed. "Yeah sure you could....Anyway, here's my plan." Kitty and Aisha sat back down, glaring at me. "We don't let them reach Galactica, we take the Outlaw Star and fight them in space. We haven't used a single bullet on this thing since we got it. It couldn't be anymore ready to take on such a large number."
At least Melfina was kind enough to respond to me. "That's actually a good idea, Strife. We should be able to do more damage to them in the Outlaw Star then on foot. Plus that would greatly reduce casualties on the planet."
Kitty had a counterpoint to my plan. "So what if they get by us and land on Galactica? What then?"
"Well then we fight them on the planet. But that's our last resort. We fly far enough away from the planet so that if they DO decide to ignore us and head to Galactica then we can take them down before the reach it."
Kitty sighed. "You really think one ship can take on an entire Forces fleet?"
"You think five people can hold off such a large division on the ground?"
She grunted but didn't respond, guess she got the point.
"Ok, if we're going to do this then we have to leave as soon as possible. Before we do we have to make sure every single thing on this ship is working to the max."
Mel titled her head. "You haven't adjusted the setting to you pilot seat, have you?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Well, you have to adjust the settings to your liking so you don't have any difficulty while in battle. Do you even know how to pilot a Grappler?"
"Um, Uh.....Not really. Actually this will be my first time."
Everyone fell to the ground. Kitty shook her fist at me. "Our biggest battle to date and the pilot doesn't even know how to work a Grappler?! We are SCREWED!"
Jess got up and started to walk to the door as she spoke. "I'll give him a quick tutorial and help him adjust the settings. I know most about them so I'd be the most help. Kitty, you and Aisha make sure all the weapons are working properly, Mel you can go and give a quick look over at the engine, make sure there's nothing wrong."
After that she walked out of the room. Wow, she was thinking the same as I was, separation of business and feelings. I could still sense a hint of sadness in her sentence, though.
I shrugged it off and walked to the bridge, she was already sitting in my seat hitting some buttons on the panel. "What're you up to?"
"Adjusting the settings."
"Ohh, ok....Can I ask how?"
"It's easy really. Just type in you height and weight. So what are they?"
"6'1" and 215 pounds."
She hit some buttons then got up and sat in the seat to the left of my pilot seat.
"Ok, sit down and I'll show you how to work the ship in combat mode."
I hesitantly sat down. She seemed to be fine but didn't look it. She looked as if she was hiding something from me....Like when she left me room while I was all bandaged up. I wonder what was up with her.
"Ok, when Mel puts it into combat mode then these two sticks right here are what you're going to use to move the ship. They also swing the arms around. Don't worry, you'll figure out how to pilot and fight simultaneously. It's not that hard, you just go by instinct. Anyway, the peddles down there are just like when you're driving a car. The one on the far left makes it go forward. The harder you push, the faster you go. The one on the far right stops the ship. The one in the middle makes it go backwards. Basically the brakes use thrusters in the front that use the same force as the thrusters in the back, thus canceling each other out and stopping the ship. The reverse break exerts more force from the front, thus making it go backwards. You can use the pedals and steering of the ship in combination to fly up down, left, right, and everywhere in between. The controls for the arms are real simply. The stick on the left controls the left one, the one on the right moves the other one. Also when in combat there will be cameras all around the ship that'll show us all sides so you can see attackers at all directions. This is the hardest thing to get used to since you have to be looking everywhere at once. You'll also have a head device that will put a radar screen directly into your right eye. This may seem like a distraction but it helps you to figure out what screens to look at. There, that's about it."
Wow, I hope I can remember all that. "Well, uh thanks for that. Maybe I'll be able to fight these people after all. Anyway, we should go check on everyone else and see if they need any help."
"You can check on them, I need to make sure that all the radars and scanners are working right." She said with a sigh.
She got up and moved to her own seat, as I got up and turned to the ladder, looking back on last time. "You ok? Something seems wrong."
"Oh yeah....I'm fine...."
Ah, crap. I could tell something wasn't right. She was still mad about before.
"Jess you're not still mad about what happened earlier, are you?"
"No, I said everything's fine. Plus you said sorry. Why shouldn't I be?"
I sighed and walked to the ladder but I wasn't about to leave with saying one thing. "Thanks..."
She turned to me, almost shocked. "Huh??"
"Thanks....For caring about me. That means more to me then you could know.....So thank you."
I started to head down the ladder with one last glance at Jess. I could see a mix of emotions in her eyes, now filling with tears. I just couldn't tell what they all were but I could guess she was more then happy I finally said that. My glance seemed to last forever, her smile kept me stuck on that ladder. For the first time that was the only thing about her that I noticed. Her smile.....It was beautiful, so captivating. I shook my head and went down the ladder. Wow, she might be the first person that I ever liked solely for her and not some part of her body. Heh, somewhere out there a pig just sprouted wings.
--------------*-------------------*-----------------------*----------------- -----*------------------
Author's note: Oook, there's another chapter. Not a lot happened, just some info. This would go into my "filler" chapters. Ok, so I guess the relationship between Galactica and the Forces will be explained in the NEXT chapter not this one.
And Macky, that's a good idea with the McDougle brothers. Ron having a son and Harry being the same age. Plus Ron's son fits perfectly into my whole "Next generation" theme since Sazuka's son will also come in sooner or later. Plus if I put Harry in I can make Mel's role a bit bigger since she hasn't really done a lot so far. Man, that'll be fun to think about how Harry's going to react to seeing Mel again.....
As always, this is Blades. "Good reading equals good times." I'm out.