Storm Cell pt ii
"All hands prepare for thrust!" ordered the pilot. Even as he said the words his right hand clenched around the launch contrl and threw the assault shuttle from the Nemesis's flight deck.,
"One express elevator to hell!" shouted a corporal, "Going down!"
"Can it!" commanded Laura, "Get focused, we will be going in hot and heavy!"
"Yes Ma'am!" the commando chorused in response.
"ETA three minutes!" informed the pilot. Laura just nodded and buckled herself in, ready for the moment the shuttle would crash through the enemy vessel's hull.
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"Roy" Nabiki called over the tac-net.
"Yes captain" he replied, somewhat strained because of the full G turn he was pulling in order to throw off yet another alien intent on cleaning his clock.
"I need a high escort for the Invader, can you provide?" she asked.
"Yes boss, just give me two secs to splash this asshole!" Roy answered, coming out of his turn at point blank range with his pursuer. Heartbeats later the alien's craft was shattering into glowing fragments and its body burning in an elerium fuelled fire. "Oh and boss," Roy continued.
"What?" she asked, more curious than annoyed.
"We could sure use some more ammo out here"
"How bad is it?" she asked.
"Three reds and everyone else is orange" he replied, meaning real bad.
"Message received," Nabiki confirmed, "I'll do what I can."
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"We are scrambling again" said lieutenant Valentine to her crew. "Hot deliveries and more pickups" she explained, somewhat unnecessarily. The rest of her crew leapt up from their rest station and ran with her towards their ERV, pulling up zips and sealing suits as they went.
"What the flying…..?" she called, suddenly brought up by the sight of a shouting, well built Japanese man pelting across her path. The fact that all he was wearing seemed to be a sheen of oil from the med tank just made the whole thing seem even more extraordinary.
"Tomo? Where the hell are you?" the naked hunk called, stopping for a second to look around.
"I know that butt" Valentine mused, "Ranma?" she asked.
"Hi babe," he replied in a hurry, still apparently oblivious to his nakedness "seen Tomo anywhere?"
"Not recently" she replied.
"Cheers anyway" he called before dashing off again for another area of the hangar.
"Nice to SEE you too" she muttered.
"Damn, he's huge!" whispered her co-pilot.
"You didn't think the Captain would settle for anything less than the best did you?" Valentine asked, receiving only a slow head shake in response.
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"Tomo" said the voice, just before someone grabbed her ankle and dragged her out from under the ship she was repairing. It was a battered looking shuttle of an old type, with strangely new looking thrusters housing on its tail.
"WHAT?" she demanded angrily, only then looking at the figure that had so rudely interrupted her. The rebuke about being 'too busy for anyone not on her flight' died on her lips. There was Ranma, naked as the day he was born and shining like a Japanese version of a Greek god. He was also standing over her with certain very prominent aspects of himself far to close for modesty. "Er hum" she coughed, pointedly drawing his attention to those parts and their proximity to her face.
"What?" he said, following her gaze, before exploding into a deep beetroot red and diving into the ship she was repairing with a strangled "eep" noise.
"Let me guess you want into the fight?" Tomo called after him, smiling and filing the encounter for later recall.
"Uh Huh" he agreed, frantically searching for anything to preserve his modesty.
"The Sergeant major left some gear with me on her way out" Tomo replied, "and I have been fitting this bastard up as fast as I can so that we can have a way of catching up."
"She did?" Ranma wondered, "Danm that woman is good, wonder where she gets it from." Just then he found the suit and weapons rig and started dressing. "Oh yeah and what do you mean we?" he asked, pulling on the harness at full speed.
"There is no way in hell you are going to push this bastard as fast as you need to without me standing over it with a hammer" she replied, once more underneath the vessel, fusion torch flaring.
"Fine, but you clear off as soon as I get out" he replied.
"Like I would do anything else" she offered scornfully, suppressing a shudder as she recalled some of the mission logs she had watched in training.
"When you gonna be done?" he asked, pulling himself into the flight seat to check the controls.
"Any second now" she replied. "Sooner if a certain someone shuts his overworked gob."
"Fine" he answered only slightly sarcastically, "excuse me for breathing."
"Fire her up" Tomo commanded. Ranma slapped the ignition and cranked the variance up, in response the modified shuttle roared into life, bright blue flares bursting from its turbo's.
"OOH baby!" Ranma cheered, "Feel that horsepower! What the hell have you put in there?"
"Bit of this bit of that" she replied, beaming with pride, "You know me always tinkering!"
"Well get your sweet tinkering tail in here cuz we have gottamove" Ranma ordered, flicking the switches and firing up the coms to get clearance. Tomo had no sooner buckled herse;f into the seat behind him when he dropped the gravs and let the drag-shuttle throw itself out of the bay like a semi-piloted missile.
"WHOOOOO YEAH!" he screamed, thrust compressing him into the seat.
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"What the hell was that?" asked Nabiki, suddenly aware of the newest launch, if only because of the oversized flare that was driving it.
"Flight officer Saotome just took out a Pacer class" replied the bunny in charge of the launch bay.
"Who did the what with the which now?" Nabiki quizzed, "Are you saying that my injured husband just took off in an obsolete, unarmed rustbucket?"
"Er… maybe" the bunny replied.
"Crazy ass son of a.." Nabiki swore, "okay then. Mary I want that vessel recalled and escorted back to the bay right now!"
"Er Ma'am" interrupted another bunny.
"What is it?" Nabiki replied.
"I don't think we can catch it," he answered, "the Pacer is doing twice what our firestorms usually manage.."
"What?" Nabiki asked, now thoroughly confused. "Never mind, we don't have time for this. Just clear a path wherever they are headed and flash them up as friendly."
"Yes ma'am" Mary replied.
"Now lets get back to those incomers" Nabiki continued, putting her husband's plight out of her mind by sheer effort of will. For the moment the incoming alien reinforcements were a more pressing problem.
"We have a firing solution" called the man who had taken over at Weaps.
"Light them up!" Nabiki ordered, crossing her fingers. Even as she said the order the ship gave a slight shudder. Every gun and missile tube fired in a massive salvo, designed to obliterate the newcomers.
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"Holy Hell!" Tomo swore as the nighted blackness of space suddenly flared into bright day. "What the hell was that?"
"Full spread from the Nemesis" Ranma replied, still wrestling with the controls to keep the bucking shuttle pointed at the same rough area.
"Aren't we a little off course?" Tomo asked, seeing only empty space ahead of the shuttle.
"If you were a bug and saw this thing coming at you full tilt what would you assume?" Ranma asked, strain showing in his voice.
"Er that it wasn't going to stop?" she replied.
"Exactly" Ranma prompted.
"So you're saying they probably think we're some kind of Kamikaze?" she guessed.
"I reckon" he replied.
"They'll cream us!" she said, somewhat alarmed.
"only if they get the chance" Ranma replied, "I am gonna need a few more delta-V's from this thing" he finished, asking for still more thrust.
"And then?" she asked.
"Then I might just be able to crash us by the bastard's spout" he replied, "and give us enough of an angle to board without being turned into inertial pancakes"
"Whoa hotshot," Tomo called, "what happened to staying in the boat?"
"Circumstances screwed it!" he replied.
"Fine but I'm checking your figures" she asserted, "It's not that I don't trust your maths but I don't trust your maths"
"Fine… but Tomo"
"Yes"
"Speed first, and hurry!"
"Uh huh" she replied, cranking open another section on the engine. The results were an instant leap in the temperature in the cockpit and a massive lurch forwards.
"Ranma?" she asked
"Uh huh?" he prompted
"How many rads can we stand before we start to cook?"
"No idea, but my suit says we are at slow-bake already"
"Oh"
"So we spend another week or two in the goo tanks, big deal"
"Hey" she admonished, "some of us don't much like the idea of being naked in front of all those orderlies. Some of us have some modesty!"
"I don't know, you forget your clothes once and all of a sudden you're a streaker…"
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"Mother Trucker!" Laura swore, ducking behind another bulkhead. The other side of which was immediately plastered with high energy plasma. Her team had made good headway for the first while but then things ad gone 'squirly.' A sudden massive psi-assault had floored half her team and left everyone else twichy as hell. Immediately on the heels of the psychic attack had come wave after wave of sectiod soldiers. Right now the only thing keeping her team alive seemed to be the bugs' reluctance to use their heavy weapons so close to their reactors.
"Gos says he'll do what he can" reported her number two. They had manage to rig a burst transmitter and get a message back to Nemesis. "That was the good news" the man continued, "the bad news is that the colonel has got involved in organising our reinforcements."
"Shit" Laura swore again, in her mind fully aware that her CO would take for ever to organise anything and that whatever he did organise would probably only need rescued anyway. She may have been being unfair on the Marine commander but then again maybe she wasn't.
"Okay Sly" she ordered, "pattern Beta five nine! We have to move NOW!"
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"10"
Tomo and Ranma's modified shuttle was by now burning itself up at a dangerous rate. They had just thrown it around the imaginary corner and were set on an all but collision course with the main Alien station. Tomo's rapid checks had found no real problems with Ranma's maths and the two of them were sat ready to bail out at the correct moment
"9"
Between them they had managed to turn the heavily modified engine into every bit the Kamikaze charge that the ship appeared to be. It too was looking seriously close to meltdown.
"8"
Once the Pacer went by the installation it would find itself pointed straight at the largest of the Battleships engaging the Nemesis, and still travelling at speeds closer to that of missiles.
"7"
With any luck the battleship would fail to see the ship coming and let it through its net by sheer oversight.
"6"
It was a longshot sure but there was no way in hell that the Pacer was ever going to make it back to the Nemesis, even assuming none of the enemy interceptors decided that it was fair game.
"5"
"Bolts ready" Tomo reported, indicating the eplosive bolts that would throw off the canopy.
"4"
"No change in target rotation" Ranma replied. Their biggest threat had always been that the enemy vessel would turn, presenting one of its sharp instrument arrays instead of the clean area that they were in fact aimed at.
"3"
"Incoming" Ranma reported as the base opened up with some of its cannon. The Pacer's overloading shields began to flare constantly.
"2"
"Shield strength dropping way to fast" Tomo reported.
"1"
"Screw it! Blow them now or we fry!" Ranma ordered, slamming his hand over hers and onto the firing mechanism.
They were instantly blown clear of the Pacer, bright blossom of fire erupting behind them as the cockpit's escaping air burnt off.
The sudden acceleration and extreme disorientation robbed both of them of all conscious thought for a few precious seconds. By the time they came to the protective screen offered by the bulk of their shuttle was gone and they found themselves hemmed in by plasma blasts and tumbling far too quickly towards the surface of the base.
"oops" said Ranma, in what was one of the understatements of the year.
"What's up" asked Tomo, having a much less advanced readout on her suit.
"We are coming in a little fast" Ranma replied. "Its gonna be rough?"
"How rough?" asked Tomo with trepidation.
"Not quite pancake" Ranma replied, puling her in close and beginning to angle their bodies for impact.
"How not quite-" began Tomo only to be interrupted by the sudden jarring of their landing. Ranma had anged them to let him come in first, absorb as much of the impact as he could and then be bounced off to counter some of her momentum. Naturally it worked. Unfortunately it not only hurt like hell but also threw them back just enough to lose contact with the vessel. They were bouncing back out into space.
"Oh crap" Tomo swore when she became aware of their predicament. Ranma nodded his agreement through the haze of pain.
Once again their luck came into play, the Alien base finally did its adjustments. What had been their biggest fear over their approach suddenly became their lifeine.