"Well you certainly seem to be in good spirits." Aisha said as I walked out of the ship and made my way onto the hull.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. Maybe it's just the anticipation of the battle." I lied.

I didn't quite want to talk about what Jess and I just went through a second ago, I wasn't so sure quite what happened in the bridge, anyway. I didn't matter though. Aisha saw through it.

"Something happened between you and Jess, huh?"

Damn, she was good. "Eh, maybe. But I don't think it's going to be serious."

"Well you never know. It'll only get serious if you want it to be."

"But what is she doesn't want it to be?"

She laughed a bit. "I don't think you have to worry about that one."

Aisha paused for a moment the sat down on the top of the ship, she was looking pretty tired. Well she was inspecting all the weapons....But....She shouldn't be this exhausted.

"Hey Aisha. You ok?"

"Me? Of course! Just a little tired that's all."

I shrugged. "Ok, whatever. You want me to finish the inspection?"

"No, I'm done already. Kitty should be done by now too."

Then as if Kitty was waiting for her cue, she sprang up from the other end of the ship. "Ok! Inspection complete! Anything else you need done, captain?"

There was a small pause before I noticed she was actually talking to me. "Oh, um....No I think we're done. Just have to check out the engine and that's it."

"Rodger! Ensign Kitty is on it!"

She saluted me at the end of her sentence and did a couple flips off the hull finally running into the ship.

Utterly confused, I looked over at Aisha. "....You want to explain what that was about? Wasn't she kind of angry at me before?"

"Yeah, but I talked to her a bit. She has a bad temper but you can get her to calm down with the right kind of talking, being her mother sure helps. The sudden burst of energy is because of the up-coming battle. She gets wound up like this all the time."

I sighed and shook my head. To each, their own. Aisha started to make her way down the ship as I followed her. We entered the ship and climbed up the ladder. Jess, Mel, and Kitty were all sitting around Jess's panel talking about something. They stopped as I came in....Ugh, girl talk.

I took my seat and looked at the gossipers. "You guys ready?"

Kitty jumped up with a fist raised in the air. "I was BORN ready!!"

Jess and Melfina stood next to her. "Yeah!!" The shouted in unison.

I put my hand on my face and shook my head, I felt like a large drop of sweat was forming at the side of my head. "Charlie's Angles, you ain't."

They all laughed, Mel looked at me. "Kind of an old movie, don't you think?"

"Yeah, really old. But well known. Plus it just fit."

Kitty laughed and walked over to me, placing her hand on my shoulder. "So Charlie. What's our next mission?"

Laughing, I stood up on my seat and pointed out the main screen. "To send those Space Forces PUNKS back to their base with their tails between their legs!"

"Hey. Last time I checked, Charlie was a little bit calmer." Jess said over her shoulder.

"Yeah well, he shouldn't have been....Anyway, let's get goin-"

Malashar's normally calm face blasted through our speakers. "Outlaw Star! We have spotted a fleet of Space Forces jumping out of Sub-Either! They will be here in a little over an hour!! Please stop them!"

I was dumbfounded. "GILLIUM!! Don't you have some kind of sensor that could have found them earlier?!"

Gillium, as calm as ever, replied. "Radar has just now picked up a large fleet of Space Forces ships."

After saying some not-so-kind words to Gillium I sat in my chair. "Mel, do your nude thing and get us off this rock!"

She was one step ahead of my, already snugly secured in her tube. "All systems green. Outlaw Star ready to launch."

"Ok, good! Do it now, LET'S GO!"

The engines boomed alive, throwing our ship into the stars. I never liked lift-offs. I could never get used to the extreme force holding me in my seat. The sky's blue slowly darkened into the blackness of space. Stars replacing clouds. The wild jerking from the force of lifting off finally settled down. If this was a normal lift off I might have found it eerily peaceful, a locale star to our left....Two moons of the planet hovering over to our right.

This was different, this time I....No, me and my crew had to take on a hundreds and hundreds of ships. Oh wait a sec....I wasn't even sure what kind of ships we were fighting OR how many there were. "Gillium, I need stats on all enemy ships and the total number of the fleet."

"Just a moment, Stife."

I sighed, we don't have a moment Gillium....

He scan ended then he displayed the info on the screen. "There are exactly one-hundred fifty-two ships, seventy-two basic fighting ships fitted with stock weapons and armor, fifty-six modified Grappler ships with increased armored, ten basic battleships, ten modified battleships with grappler arms and increase missile compactly, three basic war ships, and one modified flag ship. Modifications of flag ship are currently unknown."

My jaw hung low to the ground. I didn't know what to say, I didn't even know what to think! The only thing that passed my mind was holy....

"Strife!" Jess's voice cut in. "They're getting closer. Should we proceed??"

I shook the haze from my head. "Yeah, let's go. The quicker we get to them the better. That just means we're farther away from Galactica as we fight."

"Very well. Setting coordinates to fleet. Coordinates locked, Outlaw Star in now on course." Melfina informed the crew as the large heap of metal and missiles headed straight for the Forces.

Trying to find something to take my mind off the battle I looked around my pilot seat. There were these two large valves that sat on each side of the arms. I gripped each one in a firm grasp. I twisted my head to the left and right, hearing a couple cracks from the action.

Everyone else seemed just as edgy as I was, some better to hide it then others....Like Kitty and Aisha. There was as calm as an ocean breeze, but c'mon. They heard what we were up against! They had to be just as afraid as I was.

A small crackle came from the bridge's speakers followed by Gillium. "Strife...I know this is a bad time but we seem to be getting a message."

"What?! From who??"

"Jay, Fred's son."

"Ignore it. We've got bigger problems."

"Ok but the message seems to be sent with great urgency."

"Gillium.....I said ignore it. Jay's urgency takes a back seat to well....Everything else....

"Very well. Transmission cut."

Shaking my head I looked out the window. Gillium's voice once again cut in.

"Strife-"

"Gillium! I said I don't care about Jay!!"

"Your angst toward Jay has been dooly noted but I just needed to inform you that we have reached the fleet."

I sat up in my seat. "Really? How far away are they?!"

Jess pointed out the window. "Oh my god! They're are right there!!"

Looking in her direction I saw nothing but a sea of white and blue. Forces' colors... I breathed in deep and slowly let it out. "Ok, folks....Show time..." Ok, that sounded kind of lame but no one cared at the moment.

As we got closer Gillium once again informed us of an incoming transmission. This time is was from the Supreme Commander of the Space Forces himself. "Attention vessel! Turn around out once! A continuation of your advancement will be considered an act of aggression!"

Whoa.....Dejavu. Didn't I get this same lecture from the Forces before I crash-landed on the one planet with Vo-....Ah! I can't think of that now, I shouldn't get distracted.

"Well what do you know? That was our exact intentions."

Heh, he didn't seem too thrilled by my response. "You dare defy the Space Forces?! Do you even know who I am?!"

"Uh....Some guy who really needs to pull the stick out of his ass?"

That seemed to get a nice laugh from my crew. Mr. 'high and mighty' didn't seem to see the humor. "How DARE you!! I am Supreme Commander William Robert Drake!"

I tilted my head. William Robert...? That sounded familiar, like I heard that name before....It just was changed somehow....Will.Rob.....Bill..Bo- ....

"Hey!!! You're name is Billy-Bob!!!"

My entire crew was floored, laughing enough to blow their insides out. Hell, I could even here some chuckles from 'ol Billy-Bob's ship.

Billy's face was as red as fire, and about just as heated with embarrassment. He clenched his fist and shook it as he said. "That....Is....It.....All ships!! Attack that vessel!!"

My eyebrows shot up. Ok, joke times over. "Alright Outlaw Star!! Let's kick some ass!!"

The wave of white and blue scattered like millions of bugs, quickly surrounding us. The basic fighters and grapplers were attacking head on, the larger ships stayed back and gave them cover fire. It was truly a great strategy, they had their tactics down to a T....Just wish it wasn't against US!!

I grabbed the headphone device thing and put it on my ear, hitting a little switch on it. An antenna came out and pointed at my right eye. In an instant I could see a type of radar in my pupil, it was somewhat translucent so it didn't block my vision from that eye completely.

Mel punched it into combat mode and I gripped the sticks as hard as I could, this would certainly be one hell of an experience.

Five ships flew head on right at us, they were grapplers. I kind of hoped the pilots of those ships would be just as inexperienced as me but then again knowing my luck they're probably war vets.

I heard something moving under the ship then a second later two large arms flew up in front of the window and with them thousands of tiny cameras which really did show me EVERY part of the ship. Wow, Jess was right.....It was going to be a bitch to know which ones to look at.

The five ships were on us within seconds. I pulled a hard right and went after the one farthest on the end. When I was in range I swung the right grappler arm hard into it's top. As metal twisted with metal I saw something connected to the end of my ship's arm. Actually it was in it's 'hand'.....It was a rifle! A huge ass, heavy duty, tear you to pieces rifle!! Something flickered on one of my many screens. There was a nice wave of missiles coming right at us. I was kind of relieved, it said they weren't going to wait as we took them out one by one.....Like some stories and movies I've seen.

I jerked the ship in a complete 180. "Jess, anti-missiles?!" My order came out kind of like a loud question since I wasn't sure if we had anti- missiles.

She nodded while hitting some buttons on her console. Soon there was a wave of our own missiles heading towards theirs. Too bad I couldn't see if they hit their target. Those five....Er....Now four grapplers were on us and they had reinforcements.

I twisted back around locking them into the crosshairs on my screen. As soon as one ship was in my sights I was shooting like a madman. I couldn't just shoot though, I also had to dodge the incoming fire from everyone around us. My head was spinning. I was looking at five-gazillion screens and putting up and good offensive/defensive thing. Luckily Jess was also laying down her own line of missiles and bullets.

I was doing my best to dodge all the fire but I could hear things hitting the ship. Every time I heard the tings of ammo fire I thought of money for paint work. The explosions of missiles, replacing of parts. Anything bigger then that.....Well I should just be glad that hasn't happened yet.

A cluster of hard-hitting missiles cracked us in the right side, we started to do spirals. Everyone was screaming for me to straiten out, but I couldn't! We were going too fast! Well, I couldn't help to just watch as our ship collided with one of the basic ships, nose first. I was thankful that the Outlaw Star was more armored and theirs was like a piece of paper, the explosion that came from it though wasn't pretty.

The bang ripped up the covering on our nose, it also blackened the window with smut of something. To top it off it wiped out off the cameras in the front. I turned to Mel.

"Mel, re-direct all the cameras in the back to the front!"

"But then it you won't be able to see any back attacks!"

"I wont matter it they give is a blind frontal attack!"

She stopped arguing then moved the cameras. Now my view was even worse. Instead of one big screen I had to look at ten small, scattered screens.

I shook my head and continued my attack, there was a small display of my ammo reserves on the screen in my panel, It was saying that I was running low. Just great. "Hey Jess, this thing have any kind of melee Grappler weapon for when I run out of ammo?!"

"Yeah, I'll give it to you when you run out!"

"Ok!" More hits to the left side stopped the conversation.

I flew towards a small group of grapplers. They had various weapons they were just adding more damage to our already blown up nose. I jerked the controls straight up, turned back down to them, and let the bullets fly. My quick reactions were able to knock out a lot of them but the others were right on my tail. A was making a line of led in there path when suddenly my line went flat. I was empty. "Jess!"

"Already deploying! Just grab it!"

A large blade shot from somewhere under the ship, I reached forward and grabbed it just in time to block an attack from one of the enemy Grapplers. Too bad for the ship it was only using it's arms.

The blade sliced through it with ease, quickly after that I drove it deep into the ship's bridge, flying away to avoid the explosion.

Ok, so now I was using a sword to fight these guys. I was never good with swords on land....How am I going use one for a ship?!

I was getting as close as possible to kill these guys while Jess held off anyone who attacked from afar. We were only knocking out the peons, though. Those big bad battle ships just sat there watching on. Guess they were saving ammo for Galactica....

"Damn, they just won't stop coming!" Jess yelled from her console.

"Then we won't stop, either!" I yelled back.

I flew through the battle field slicing and dicing ships in my way, receiving some damage from those with lucky shots. One ship got real brave and took out it's own melee weapon. A big friggen ax.

He flew right at me, I pulled the ship to the left and took a quick swing, I hit metal but not the type I was intending. His ax stood firmly between me and the ship's body, I had to pull back to get out of some missile fire, the enemy ship followed my just as fast and with one heave of it's mighty weapon It sliced my right Grappler arm right off. Good thing I held my sword in the left.

The attack left him wide open. I took a wide vertical swing cutting his ship in half, a perfect cut. Damn, I was pretty good with a sword....Maybe I should use one more often....Naa, people who live be the sword die by those who don't. Plus those who wield them must have been truly deadly to rely on that rather then bullets.

My solo melee battle was over but my war raged on. Things started to really slow down for us, the enemy's fire was getting through our armor and into the interior of the ship. We had to cut some sections off so we wouldn't loose our air in the bridge.

We didn't give up though, we still weaved and bobbed to our full extent. Just as I started to once again get the upper-hand Jess lowered my hoped. "Strife! I'm out!!"

"Of missiles?!"

"Of EVERYTHING!!"

"Oh, dammit! Gillium, I need a number of enemies le-"

"Strife watch it!"

I jerked out of the way of more missiles only to have them hit us in the bottom of the ship. At least Gillium was fulfilling my order. "There are exactly forty-six ships left, all basic ships have been destroyed, also adding an additional thirty-one basic Grapplers."

Yeah! We took out almost half of them!! But still. Twenty of that forty were battleships, three were war ships and one was a very provoking flag ship.

The fleet seemed to pull away from us, I started to wonder what was going on.

"Strife, we are getting an in-coming transmission from the flag ship."

"Put it through, Gillium."

Billy's face again popped up on my screen his anger seemed to now be one of pompous delight. "So, do you still defy the Space Forces?"

"Yep." I said calmly.

He didn't seem angered, in fact his stupid grin just grew. "You know, we can destroy you easily. We still have very strong ships that haven't wasted a single shot ready to tear you apart at a moment's notice. You, on the other hand....Don't seem to be fairing well."

"Heh, just some scratches and dings. Nothing a good paint job won't fix."

He laughed. "Even at death you mock our power. We will give you one last chance. Surrender or die."

Gulping, I looked around at my crew....They looked back. I wasn't looking to them for answers, they were looking to me....My crew, this was MY crew. How could I put them to death? I needed to talk this over with them but I couldn't have Billy-Bob listening.

I looked at Jess and grinned. I got an idea I just hope she would catch on. I turned back to Billy. "Ok, how about this...We'll, uh...." I looked at the screen like something was wrong.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Oh, I think our transmission's breaking up....You look all staticy. Maybe it was those shots to our nose."

"Huh? You look fine from here."

Jess looked at me, just as confused. I slightly winked to her. She smiled and started to hit something on her console. Thank god she finally caught on! Soon enough the screen became snowy and the Commander's face cut out. Everyone turned to me.

"What was that?" Kitty asked.

I grinned. "The oldest trick in the book."

She sighed. "What's with you and things that were said and used like a hundred years ago."

"Hey, it was a good part of time! Anyway, on to more important matters. Do we fight or run? These guys really will kill us if we stay."

Kitty stood up. "You're putting us down?! Where's your confidence??"

"There's a difference between confidence and ignorance, Kitty!"

"Ok, enough fighting you too," Aisha interrupted, "they do have numbers and power. We may be able to take out a couple more but that's it."

"Ok, so what do we do?" Jess asked.

I crossed my arms. "I don't know....If we die here, they go to Galactica. There really is no way we could win in this predicament. I say we fight them on solid ground."

"You want to fight them on Galactica?!" Kitty was ready to throw me out the window.

"I don't think we have a choice anymore! They're going there either way!"

"Ok, so we run....Now how do we survive long enough to make it to the planet, hmm?!?!"

"Grr, I don't know!!" I put my hands on my head and shook fromm left to right.

Billy-Bob was able to get a signal back to our ship. Great and we didn't even decide on anything. "Hmm, I guess we were cutting off. Anyway, do you have a decision? You've had amply time to decide."

"Yeah, we've come to a conclusion."

"Well...?

"We're going to....Run like hell!" I threw the sword in the Grappler's hand as hard as possible right at the flagship. While that mildly distracted them, I turned around and booked it right for Galactica.

Kitty was screaming her head off. "What in the hell are you DOING?!?!?!"

"I'm running away! What does it look like?!"

"Oh my god! We're trying to out-run the Space Forces! We are SCREWED!"

"Dammit Kitty! Do you always have to say that?!"

"Only when I know we're screwed!!"

"Grrr-AHHH!!!!!" I pushed the peddle all the way down to the floor. The force shoved me way back in my seat. Mel's voice came from behind me. "The enemy's closing in! Strife they're much faster then we are, prepare for evasive maneuvers!"

I still had that head device on, it showed a wave of red dots closing in real fast.

"Incoming projectile! Prepare for impact!"

A loud BOOM came from the back of our ship, followed be an even louder CRACK.

Mel gave me the newest status report....It was not a very good one.

"They shot our engines. The fuel tanks just explode and ripped the back end of the ship off, we're dead in the water."

I sighed, dejavu part two. The power slowly started to drain from the bridge, once that was gone oxygen was going to seep out. If they let us live we would still suffocate. I heard ships close in around us, hooking something up to us....They weren't about to let us go peacefully.....

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Author's note: Ooook, that was a long one. Man oh man.

Alright, I have some things to say. First off I haven't updated because I've been grounded and because of writer's block. I think I'm out of both now....Anyway, my finals are next week so my updates may be just as slow....Ugh.....Finals.....

To anyone who reads my FF story, it's been put on hold indefinitely. It's once again undergoing another facelift. I swear it's beginning to be the Michel Jackson of fanfictions. Also, to anyone who hasn't read it yet....Don't! It not good enough, sure it's decent but it could be waaaay better so don't read it until I'm done.

Oh and thanks to everyone that reviewed so far. I really didn't think people would like this story so much. I'm glad you're all enjoying it as much as I am writing it. I would say thanks to everyone specifically but all I know are Mei and Macky. I'll look at the reviews later and add everyone to my next A/N Cause I just a friggen nice guy!!

Macky: You want to name Ron's son? Go for it. While you're at it, give him a full head-to-toe description his weapons and all. I know how to add him into the story, just not what he'll look like. Send all the info to me via E-mail. If you can't think of anything good then just give me something vague and I'll work from that.

Oh and could someone give me the right way to spell "Dejavu"?

Curses, I thought I had more to say....Guess not.

"Good reading equals good times." I'm out.