I got a head like a ping-pong ball, I got a head like a ping-pong ball, I got a head like a ping-pong ball, oh like a ping-pong ball!
ELINT-101 - Karin - Gorean Occupied Territory
OCCUPATION: DAY SIXTY
It was packed with delicate Radar-jamming and ECW equipment. The recon fighter, an already versatile craft that had given birth to the EV-II, was originally configured to mount the rotating Electronic Intelligence package as well as a second seat.
Katz disliked flying them. The EV-II was a flying bomb, and anything stripped of its armour flying into a war zone had 'death trap' written all over it. Or so pilots' superstition would have it. Regardless, Katz patted the silver wings on his flight suit as he departed the pilot's ready room heading for the fighter.
It was technically his turn in the rotation, and even though his position as the Excalibur's CAG allowed him some perks, he didn't fancy hearing the inevitable Masconi lecture on maintaining crew morale. Everybody had a turn at the crappy jobs, even if that meant he was going to be strapped into a fighter he had come to loathe.
Folding his arms, he surveyed the beast sitting on the edge of the hangar deck, the plane tractor already hooked up as his plane captain was running through his pre-flight checks. Katz moved over to give him a hand, running a glove under the fuselage as he squinted at the hastily patched holes where the last owner of the fighter hadn't been so lucky at dodging a flier raid.
"She's fuelled and good to go," the Petty Officer reported, ducking under the nose as his team popped the pins on the under-slung auto-cannon.
"Great," Katz answered, feigning enthusiasm as he looked around him. "Anyone seen my GIB?"
The plane captain appeared surprised, and looked about the deck as well, noticing the second chair -or Guy in Back-was notably absent. He sighed and shrugged. "I know flight staff's short an' all, sir, but I have no idea."
Katz shook his head and fumbled through his pocket for his TAC-link, pulling it out and flipping it open. "Hey, where the hell is my..." He paused and shook his head as the helmeted figure crossed the deck towards the fighter. "Never mind, he's here."
He stuffed the TAC link back into his pocket. Already running late, he neglected to secure the Velcro, then clambered up the ladder and slid into his seat. He spared his GIB and aggravated look as he slid into the back seat, dialling up the right radio frequency and getting clearance to ascend to the main flight deck.
Excalibur had again moved back into orbit, allowing Ark-Royal and Invincible back into service. Katz was flying off the Invincible, where most support flights were based. It was eerily strange to be on the doppelganger of his usual carrier, Ark-Royal. He clicked over to the tower, rubbing his eyes before he slapped the faceplate down and into place. Fatigue was building; three months of constant CAP and scramble commands was taking its toll on all of them. Katz enjoyed burying himself in his work, but there was a limit to that.
His only freedom was when he was airborne, winging his way further towards the edge of the five mile limit. Operations on Karin were still ongoing, and Excalibur had developed a way to allow its fighters to act as cover for the Imperial assets struggling to fight back on the surface of the planet. The Gorean radars were limited in sophistication and easily susceptible to ECM attacks. Scramble enough of their radars and a flight of Imperial fighters would be able to penetrate and make it to the surface.
Masconi already had her new attack squadron Ice-Foxes stationed down at Fort Wallace supporting Colonel Mayfair's push to secure the northern plains. It kept the Gorean busy, and considering the gains they were making on their pushes southwards and the early Karin spring, there was hope they could secure enough of a beachhead to open a northern front against the occupiers.
Katz heaved a sigh, flipping back his helmet and unhooking his respirator, the ELINT, like all Imperial fighters, was equipped with a life support system that made it comfortable to operate for long periods of time. He cocked his head back to yell at his GIB.
"You were late!" he barked.
"Sė, sė, Ragazzo," Alessandro replied from the back seat, and Katz felt his heart sink into his boots.
"What the hell are you...?" He swore inwardly. Months of avoidance, of heeding Masconi's warning on the icy airfield on Karin, the memory of her words, he's married...
"I relieved Midshipman Yam," Alessandro replied, noisily shifting in the back seat. "Ragazzo, I wanted to talk, in private."
Katz stiffened in his chair, checking his RWR and his scopes, thankfully the Gorean weren't active that day which was a relief. He glanced behind him again, catching Alessandro's look of worry, and he shook his head. "I don't want to talk."
"Sė, sė, I know that Ragazzo, you are... difficult to talk to lately. You have been a... figilo di puttana..."
Katz gritted his teeth as he spoke. "I've been studying Italian; I know what that means..."
"Sė, sė, then you understand why I use it?" The consoles in the back beeped and trilled as Alessandro worked, brining the formidable EWO arrays on the ELINT operational. Behind them, Ark-Royal was launching Vanguard Squadron for a raid on Karin.
"I don't want to talk about it," Katz snapped, nudging the ELINT over as they passed over the equatorial line, the warmth of the spring beginning to melt the snows there, "and you called me that because you like to swear."
Alessandro sighed again expressively. "Ragazzo..."
"Squadron Leader," Katz's tone was firm. "To you I am Squadron Leader Katz, or sir! Is that clear, Lieutenant Mandola?"
"Rompiballe!" Alessandro snapped back folding his arms and sounding annoyed. "What did I do, Ragazzo?"
"Done?" Katz glanced back again, realizing he was yelling. "Only lied from day one!"
"Can you tell me what I have done?" Alessandro yelled back. He was confused, and hurt that Katz would be so vocal in his anger.
"You're married!" Katz's voice dipped to ice cold.
There was a deathly silence in the cockpit, both young men hesitating as the words fell between them. It was almost oppressively silent until the RWR warbled into the red, and Katz jumped.
"Oh shit" He yelped, his eyes going wide. A Gorean destroyer, coated in black reflective carbon plating rose at almost point-blank range ahead of them.
Alessandro jumped in the back seat as the ELINT began to turn, Katz barking a warning into his radio back towards Vanguard Squadron, who were steaming up and into the Gorean trap. If he hadn't been distracted, maybe... Any number of what ifs flashed through his mind as the massive Gorean vessel began to open fire with its point defence weapons.
* * *
Darien was on his feet in a second as Katz's desperate voice rang over the speakers. "Cover them!" he yelled. "Where the hell did that destroyer come from?"
"It's an Imperial composite," Commander Durnham answered at the Warlord's shoulder, "they must have taken it from one of the Imperial factories. I am scanning Imperial archives for all sources of the carbon composites."
"Get me targeting information," Darien ordered, pulling on his glasses as he jogged down to the weapons tier. "We need to take that ship out quickly; I don't like the idea of the Gorean in possession of Imperial technology."
"A terrifying thought," Commander Durnham agreed as the Excalibur's crew rushed to emergency stations. Targeting data for the Gorean Destroyer began to feed over the weapons consoles. "I have the location of the factories and store houses. Now, the Gorean have probably secured specimens to send back to the Imperium, however a strategic strike will deny them the Karin production facilities and set back their production efforts until they can reverse engineer what they have taken."
"Order Vanguard Squadron to abort its attack run and concentrate on the destroyer," Darien commanded. "Otherwise, fire at will at the production sites."
* * *
Lady Tagria strapped into her body armour ruffled her feathers as she bared her sharp teeth, her long tongue running down her jaw as she concentrated on her target. The Imperials had grown arrogant, attempting the same strategy one too many times, and in her mind it was time to punish them for that.
The stealth destroyer's hanger bays, great doors that ran the entire length of the warship, parted, spilling out her reds. The hunters roared skywards to face the unsuspecting Imperials of Vanguard Squadron.
There was a pang of regret as she listened to the human radio chatter. She had hoped that the Paladin would be aloft, but his appearances were limited flying with the one called Ark-Angel in the elite F-175 fighters. His tail fin painting of a cartoon cat had been burned into her memory by the sheer hatred she bore towards the man that could beat her.
No matter, she thought coldly, Vanguard would die that day.
Her powered armour splayed its tail fins as she rocketed off of the deck. Her breast plate had been decorated with intricate wards of protection given to her by Lady Melesande's monks. They would make her Invincible, and she put her faith in the ancient wyrm seer who had predicted victory for them that dawn.
The fight with the Humans had been unpredictable. Early gains had been bested with innovative strategies from the Human Warlord, Taine. She had attended many moots on the subject of how to rid themselves of the sword but, like snivelling children fighting for scraps of food amidst the brood, they were afraid.
Tagria rolled her flier, laterally moving on her boosters as she rotated out of the way of the fast moving F-150. It was a duel between speed and manoeuvrability, missiles and rapid fire plasma weaponry.
She gunned the Imperial fighter down with precision shots to his vernier boosters, firing her afterburners and shooting away from the wreckage, which went sailing down into the thrashing cannons of the stealth destroyer.
The Gorean were enjoying the upper hand over the Imperials, however the tenacity of human pilots was something Tagria had learned to never underestimate. She kept her eyes peeled, looking for the real prize in the midst of the swarming and buzzing fighters. Her optical headset rotating through different scanning modes, showing Infra-red and ultra-violet spectrums as she searched for the elusive ELINT.
The eyes and ears of the Imperial fighter squadrons, they were the reason the Imperials were scoring so many kills on their raids. Precision command and control was something Tagria desired to remove from this battle, with the surprise awaiting on the surface of Karin for the Excalibur, she could focus on dealing the Imperials a blow that would forever remind them that she ruled the skies over Karin.
She found it, the optical scopes clicking as more magnification slid into place and the yellow halo lit up around the fighter, locking it into her master fire control system. Pouring on power, she dived after the small ELINT, which was hugging the hull of the Stealth Destroyer, trying to stay within its lethality envelope.
* * *
Katz wrestled the controls of the ELINT, keeping it parallel to the hull of the destroyer, trying his best to mimic a lesson taught to him in blood so long ago at Tempus. Wing Commander Kendrick had performed a similar flight on the Excalibur in an EV-II. The ELINT, however, lacked the booster pack that had made Kendrick's flight so effective.
* * *
"Allie!" Katz glanced behind him. "Can you do anything about this destroyer?"
"I can pray?" Alessandro replied, gripping onto his seat, his ECM systems all but useless at that range, and without any SAK-II missiles, he couldn't even smack the Gorean combat radar that was co-ordinating the attack against the Imperial fighters.
Katz felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to climb, an ancient instinct that he had learned to put his faith in, and on instinct he jinked the ELINT around a radio spire as a stream of green pulse fire tore through the space where he had been.
"Oh crap!" Katz swore, trying to glance behind him and cursing at the large AWACS rotodome that blocked any chance of a rear view. He tried to come up with a plan, and spotted the large open bay doors of the Stealth Destroyer.
* * *
Tagria rotated her eyes; the pilot wasn't going to...
She broke her pursuit as the ELINT roared into the hold of the Gorean Destroyer, pulling up and over the destroyer's hull, applying full thrust and trying to catch up to him. The pilot had to have been dropped as an egg; scrambled, as the humans were so fond of saying.
Screeching in anger, she dropped the powered armour to the top of a weapons turret on the warship as she watched the ELINT burst from the hangar, curving into a tight bank to avoid straying into the Gorean pinpoint defence radius. The realization that the ELINT was trapped caused her rage to subside She cocked her head to the side, the sun goddess decoration on her helm catching the light and shining brilliantly. It didn't matter how well the pilot flew, there was no where to run.
Lifting her plasma rifle to her shoulder, she boosted off of the gun turret and set off to hunt the ELINT.
He was good, too good to be an ordinary pilot. And at first she wondered if the Humans could have another pilot capable of out-flying her. But there was something all too familiar with the way the ELINT swept aside from her next volley. He was too controlled, too skilled.
"Paladin!" She smiled, a flush of joy sweeping through her as she realized who she was fighting.
"It is an honour to fight you again," she said as she activated her radio, cutting into the Human frequency.
* * *
Katz started, she knew him? He shook his head as he concentrated, trying to find a way out of the destroyer's firing arcs, sparing a glance towards the other fighters that weren't doing nearly so well. The inexperienced Vanguard Squadron was being joined by elements of Reaper Squadron who were on Alert. What had started out being a small skirmish had developed into a full scale battle for the skies of Karin. People were dying in droves on both sides as the Gorean sought to drive the Excalibur back.
He pulled back on his controls, hammering his pedals as he spun the plane diving down across the destroyers bow and flying upside down along the ventral hull of the ship, spying the deadly combat radar ahead of him.
"I'd trade my right arm for a missile right now," Katz stated aloud.
"Sė, sė," Alessandro agreed, "I might..." he fiddled in the back and Katz noted that the laser targeting system fitted to the ELINT activated, painting the combat Radar array.
Realization dawned on Katz as to what Alessandro was doing, and the pilot flipped to another combat frequency. "Excalibur-Control this is Paladin-One, I am painting the Gorean combat radar for you..."
"Affirmative, Paladin-one," Commander Durnham responded briskly through the radio.
Katz looked down at his board, shaking his head over the ships and fighters that filled the sky about him. The AWACS systems could detect everything in the air up to 250 miles and, more importantly, it tracked the red flier that screamed in his wake, closing for a better shot.
"Excalibur, Paladin-one, I would appreciate that missile any time now!" Katz began to sweat as he nervously eyed the flier gaining on him. The first volley of plasma fire rattled off of the back of the ELINT. It was ineffective at that range, merely intended to scare its target.
"Affirmative, Paladin-one, one Reefer inbound, I suggest you break..."
* * *
Lady Tagria smiled as her targeting grids zeroed in on the ELINT and a trilling warble told her she was now within range. She opened fire, the plasma fire shooting through the rear engines of the fighter, setting them aflame as the super hot material burned through the armour and melted the vital components inside.
She flinched, however, when the silvery missile swept past her, impacting with the combat radar in a titanic explosion that tossed her powered armour away from her prey, slamming it against the hull of the destroyer.
Clambering to her feet, she shrieked again in rage as the ELINT, crippled and burning, plummeted out of her sight. The charmed life of the Ace had again saved him from her vengeance.
* * *
The ELINT shivered as it began to vibrate. The fighter's panel smoked and alarms blared. Katz ignored them, throwing his full bodyweight into keeping control as the crippled ELINT screamed down through the atmosphere of the planet. There was a terminal point that he needed to hit before it was safe for them to bail out. He tried to keep his mind clear despite the fact that the fighter was essentially on fire and dropping like a stone in a flat spin.
He had no power, the engines were cutting out, and the onboard computer resolutely refused to give him any assistance beyond the red flashing warning symbols across everything.
"I..." The fighter's ELINT package tore free from its mounting, taking a great chunk of the fuselage with it, "Fucking..." The pedals went limp under his feet as the hydraulics gave out, "Hate..." It took supreme force of will to reach out for the emergency T-bar that would fire the ejection systems, "This plane!" he called, as they cleared the maximum safe altitude to use it, wrenching the bar as, thankfully, the explosive bolts blew the canopy away and catapulted them skywards.
* * *
Excalibur's main missile doors swung open as its long range launchers rotated out of their housing, selectively arming cruise missiles and targeting the factories on the ground. The weapons roaring away in seconds, dropping past the Gorean flotilla and shrieking through the atmosphere. The heavier nuclear warheads deployed their guidance wings, tilting them on a pinpoint approach vector, zeroing in on the factory district south of Karin city.
They located their targets, dropping at a rapid rate under the hastily thrown up plasma fire as the Gorean tried to defend their factories. The missiles slammed home and incinerating five miles of industrial area.
* * *
On cue, the truck mounted ion cannons squealed to a halt, the covered trailers falling open as the mobile planetary defence weapons unfolded and swung into position. The Gorean operators worked their radios as they sighted in for a return volley.
The order was given, and a barrage returned skywards, racing past two lone pilots dropping through the sky, unseen by the Gorean fixated upon the warship in orbit.
The shots hit home, slamming amidships, a brilliant display of light in the sky as the weapons fire washed over the Excalibur's shields, driving her back and away from orbit as she climbed to evade a second volley.
Somewhere North of Karin City - Gorean Occupied Karin
OCCUPATION: Day SIXTY
Katz swung, scrambling around in his harness, reaching around and fumbling to free himself, suddenly realizing as he hit the release that he was up in the air. He cursed as he crashed to the ground, rolling over painfully a few times, grabbing for small trees and loose branches to stop him from falling too far.
He sat up after a few minutes, pulling off his helmet and casting it aside as he took a long, shuddering breath, scrubbing a hand through his shaggy hair and staring at the sky.
"God damn it!" he yelled. "It just had to be my turn this morning didn't it?"
He coughed, clutching his head as he tried to get to his feet, survival training kicking in as he felt about for any sign of injuries beyond the scrapes and bruises he'd sustained crashing through the trees. Thankfully, nothing was broken, but that still didn't stop the fact that he was up to his ankles in a foot of snow in the middle of enemy occupied territory with no idea where his own lines were, nor what had happened to Alessandro.
He reached up for his TAC link, his hand closing over the empty pocket, staring down at the open flap that he'd forgotten to seal on the Invincible's flight deck. He'd been in too much of a hurry, as per usual. This time, though...
Searching around in the snow didn't help him. He could have lost the TAC link at any point during his fall. If it wasn't near him, then the chances that he would find it in one piece were pretty remote. He drew his pistol, checking the box mag as he took a couple of steps, stopping again and turning around.
Where did Alessandro land?
Katz slipped down through the snowy ground, jumping through the brush in the general direction in which he had last seen Alessandro from him, slipping a little on the gravel as he swung around trees not really thinking as he ran, all he knew was that he had to find Alessandro and make sure he was alive.
He wasn't expecting the road. He broke clear of the trees and slid onto the asphalt. He had to physically pull himself back to the trees, looking down the rural highway and checking it before he decided to attempt crossing it.
As welcome as the sign of civilization was, it was also a sign of danger. The Gorean routinely patrolled roads on captured Imperial trucks, and the last thing Katz fancied was ending up on a one-way trip to a Gorean cook-pot. He was safer in the trees, however if he could find a road sign he'd at least have an idea where he was...
The cursing from the far side of the road caused Katz to smile in relief. He jogged across the road and into the trees and looked up.
Alessandro swung upside down from his antigravity harness, his arms folded and a particularly cross expression on his face.
"Ragazzo?" he asked expectantly.
"Now see," Katz answered, trying his best not to appear amused at the quandary the Kardiac found himself in, "this is interesting."
"Get me down!" Alessandro demanded, fidgeting again as he tried to reach the release that was only a few centimetres out of his reach.
"Uh... no," Katz decided, shaking his head. "It's your fault we're in this mess, I should just leave you up there."
"Ragazzo!" Alessandro grew frantic again, wrestling to reach the clasp, shaking snow out of the tree and soaking the pair of them.
"All right, I'm coming," Katz replied, reaching out to catch on to the low tree branches, pulling himself up as he started to scale it to a point where he could reach Alessandro's belt.
"This isn't funny!" Alessandro grumbled, despite a smile appearing on his upside down features.
"Yeah, yeah, you know that it is," Katz said, leaning out and fumbling with the catch, a malicious smile decorating his face as he found it and without warning yanked it open.
Alessandro crashed to the ground in a pile of flailing limbs.
Katz chuckled a little as he hopped down from the tree, extending his hand to pull Alessandro up.
Alessandro looked up as he took off his helmet, his hair messed up, a bruised expression on his face. "What?" he asked eventually.
"You can sit there in the snow," Katz said evenly, "or you can let me help you up."
"I'm not married," Alessandro said, accepting the hand as Katz hauled the thin man upright, he shook himself off and fumbled off the flight suit, digging through his pockets to unfurl a thick fleece jacket.
"Oh?" Katz said, feigning disinterest as he recovered Alessandro's flight suit and fished the TAC link and pistol out of the pocket, tossing the weapon to the Kardiac officer, "Cause Masconi..."
"Cagna!" Alessandro swore. "It isn't like that, Ragazzo, I'm married but not like that..."
Katz scratched his head, flipping open the TAC link. "Paladin One to RESCAP."
"I am married, but..." Alessandro sat down on a broken tree stump, shivering in the cold. "It's a big mess."
"Yeah, you can say that again," Katz said, using his palm to shield the mouthpiece of the TAC link.
"RESCAP to Paladin-one, we read you Squadron Leader," came the reply, "standby for Excalibur Actual."
"Oh now that ain't good," Katz murmured, knowing that whenever Darien stepped in over the RESCAP it meant that there was something bad happening above.
"Paladin One, Actual." Darien's voice sounded tense. "I can't send a dropship down for you."
"Right," Katz said, turning to stare about him at the snow covered forest. "And exactly what are we supposed to do until you can?"
"I mean I can't, at all," Darien replied softly. "There's enough steel between us and you that it'd be suicide to even attempt a rescue from orbit. I'm going to connect you through to Colonel Mayfair. He has a few dropships that may be able to reach you."
Katz swore, covering the mouthpiece again, then turned around and lifting the receiver again, "can you gate us back?"
"Only one of you has a recaller," Darien answered. "Mayfair'd probably be faster on the pick up, and we can always gate you from Fort Wallace."
Katz glanced at Alessandro who nodded his confirmation, pointing to the recaller he had on his sleeve. The Propylons were finicky at best and it would take time to calibrate them for a dual recovery. He nodded. "Go ahead and hand us over, Actual..."
"I'm sorry, Paladin-one," Darien apologised down the line, as the TAC-link switched over to Fort Wallace.
"I hear there's a Kitty with clipped wings," Mayfair said gruffly on the line.
"Aye, we're somewhere on the North continent," Katz answered, squinting about him. "Can you pinpoint us?"
"Excalibur has a GPS on you, though you have Gorean inbound. I suggest you get hoofing it north. We'll signal you once we have a dropship free for an Evac." Mayfair sounded firm. "We're coming for you both."
"Thanks," Katz answered, closing the TAC-link and sliding it away into his pocket. He turned to Alessandro and pointed. "We're heading north."
They lapsed into silence as they set out, Katz in the lead, picking his way through the snow, guiding the inexperienced Alessandro through the Karin wilderness. After they were underway, Katz turned to look back at the dark haired boy, noting the open and confused expression on his face as he snuggled deeply into his coat.
Suddenly Alessandro laughed, and to Katz it was a sad little sound.
"I'm married," he said finally. "It's what we do on Tempus. It's a formality; we're still a religious community, and even though I'm what I am... we still have a duty."
"A duty?" Katz said derisively. "Marriage is still marriage. It still says you're taken, and unless you're saying the vows are pointless..."
The laugh came out of Alessandro unbidden, but he couldn't help it. Katz glared at him for his trouble.
"What's so bloody funny?" Katz asked, annoyed.
"They are pointless, to a point." Alessandro sighed. "Che Ragazzo, you don't understand, I'm sorry. My cousin should have explained it to you better." He paused, resting a hand on a pine tree, tilting his head as he smiled a broad grin at Katz. "I'm married because... Montare... screwing, Ragazzo. Baby making."
Katz back stiffened. "I don't care," he lied vehemently.
"Sono Cassate," Alessandro stated, resisting the urge to put his hand on the other boy. He didn't think Katz would appreciate the gesture. "I made a baby and, since mine is a traditional Kardiac family, I had to be married. I was sixteen. It is the law on Tempus."
"A baby?" Katz's voice pitched up a strangled octave.
"You are really uptight," Alessandro concluded. "It isn't a big deal. Amelia is raising my daughter on Tempus with my mother. I did my duty now I can..."
Katz kept his voice even. "You can what?" Despite his best efforts, the way he hissed it sounded menacing.
Alessandro took a step backwards. "I..."
Katz rounded, stepping backwards, "you can what?"
Alessandro looked cross, "Ragazzo, you of all should know and understand what it takes to survive. My people survive because of a law that says we have to marry and have babies. I did my duty, now I am free to love who I choose to love."
"You should have been honest with me!" Katz stated, still angry.
"Why?" Alessandro held up his hands, "it is nothing, something I had no choice but to do. Ragazzo, now I have my own choice and I want to choose you. I would have chosen you before but I didn't know you, and of course you can't have babies... I think. I am fairly sure you can't. But I want to try..."
"I'm just another conquest," Katz sighed as he stalked off a little ahead of them, "when you're done with me you'll have just done your duty!"
"If doing that is duty Ragazzo, maybe I like duty too much," he gave a lopsided smile as he hauled Katz back by the arm, "do you love me Ragazzo, is that why you are so angry?"
Katz tried to yank his arm free, shaking his head, "it's too soon for love, and you're an asshole..."
"Sė, sė, but do you love an asshole?" Alessandro looked questioningly into Katz's eyes.
"I loved what I thought was you," Katz snapped back, "happy now?"
"Sė, a little, Ragazzo, but I want to be happy with you," He folded his arms, "I am heir to House Kardiac, though, and while you and I have no problem, it will be difficult to explain to the Chaplains. They don't understand it when two boys love each other; though I am pretty sure they understand and just lie. I heard stories about altar boys..."
Katz set his jaw, "what do you want?" he demanded.
Alessandro kissed him, a light kiss that explored its way out and into Katz as he pressed himself up against him, "I want you Ragazzo, if you don't know that... I think maybe you need lessons."
"I still haven't forgiven you," Katz snapped.
"Sė, sė you have forgiven me, I am too handsome to not be forgiven. Plus when we get back to the ship..." Alessandro looked puzzled about him, "if we get back to the ship," he turned again, "which way is the ship Ragazzo?"
"Up," Katz pointed.
"I mean dropship," Alessandro rolled his eyes walking off a few feet.
"It's coming..." Katz didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. The snowy ground he was standing on gave way beneath him, and he crashed through it. His vision blurred as he felt the snow crush down about him. He rolled through the snow as he struggled to pull himself up, coughing out snow as he forced his head above it.
Alessandro was higher up the embankment, staring down at the deep pit into which Katz had fallen in. He had a wide-eyed expression on his face. "Ragazzo, you fell down!"
It was, naturally, stating the blindingly obvious, and Katz opened his mouth to fire back some sarcastic comment. The roar that suddenly filled the air silenced him.
Alessandro looked up in surprise as the oval shaped transport curved its way around on vectored jets. White plates retracted as its hatches cycled open on Low Gorean shock troops, who sprung down to the embankment brandishing plasma weapons.
Katz struggled in the snow, trying to wrench his pistol free, yelling despite the fact that his voice was lost in the din of the transport's engine wash. He struggled helplessly as, surprised, Alessandro went for his pistol, but easily knocked aside by the pair of powerful Gorean who then subdued him.
Katz pulled himself free of the snow, trying to sight in as the Gorean hauled Alessandro bodily into the transport, oblivious to the Karin pilot beneath them. Katz shivered in the cold, pulling the trigger. Nothing happened, as in his hurry he'd left the safety on. He cursed and fought to free it, sighting in again as the transport shot skyward. As fast as it had come it vanished.
The pistol dropped to his side as he stared up after it, the shock at what had happened causing him to collapse into the snow.
Propylon Chamber- HMS Excalibur CVX-11 - Karin System
OCCUPATION: Day SIXTY
Edward was beginning to loathe the sight of the Propylons. He was currently poring over the digital scans of the Aivilik Propylon chamber, trying to figure out how the ancient Peligians had configured the devices so that they functioned properly. The Amsus had figured it out, well Rikard had, and as far as Edward was concerned if Rikard could do it then he should be able to as well, right?
Rikard was a GN-1; a base model, obsolete in the era of the GN-3. Add to that the fact that Edward had lived much of his second life as a mechanic. Machines were his dominion, he had an intuitive understanding of them, he embraced them and they embraced him. Regardless, he wasn't even sure what he was doing with the system; it was designed by a species easily as brilliant as he was. And the Peligians were cryptic with their technology - it may even have been random chance that Rikard had managed to get the system working. That, or the Polians had shown him how to work it.
Which, of course, was cheating in Edward's opinion.
He gripped a screwdriver between his teeth as he pulled panels out of the main interface, looking over the maze of circuitry that regulated the power distribution for the entire system. It wouldn't be so bad, but the Dar'shar raid had done significant damage to the original configuration. They had been sure to sabotage the Amsus computer that had Firlotte had weaselled into operating order, and that meant Edward had basically to start from scratch.
Pushing his dark hair from his eyes, he hopped under a support scaffold dropping the board to a work table and reaching for the tools he would need to reconfigure it. He was going to try something a little more complicated, at least that was what he understood from the Peligian manual, and he hoped that he'd learnt a few things from it.
He stopped his work, feeling a sense of regret about Ashley. Firlotte had been a good engineer, a good fit on the ship, but like Nazzien and Kendrick it had just been his time to go. Edward was trying to get used to death, and he felt that he was starting to do so. He no longer had the urge to unravel time and space just to bring one of them back.
"You can't," he said to himself again, in the crisp tones of Edward's voice. "There are rules about how the universe works, things that you are permitted to do, things that you shouldn't do, and things you must never do."
"It still doesn't seem fair," Matt replied, and Edward looked up at his reflection in the polished mirror-black surface of the Propylon he was standing beside. "If I sought to spare someone's pain and suffering..."
"Who's suffering?" The reflection answered him. "Who are you to assume that in their death they are suffering?"
"Enough of the quasi-religious mumbo-jumbo," Matt straightened up, selecting a new tool and toiling away, "I'm not buying into that whole mystic wiggly-fingers stuff. You're alive aren't you? So death isn't permanent, there are plenty of ways around it..."
"And plenty of ways to abuse it," Edward warned himself, his dark hair again falling across his blue eyes. "You can already feel the pull of temptation..."
"For a Denver Burger and a Coke," Matt exclaimed, "lighten up already!"
"You don't have to listen to me," Edward answered with a shrug, "I am just a figment of your imagination."
"Yeah, an annoying one." He sighed and stepped back from the table, glancing around him. He could fix it, he could sunder time and space, stepping back to the Peligian age and ask them, or he could jump forward and try to find a human equivalent. But both deeds would irrevocably destroy time as he knew it, leaving him in a potentially worse situation than the one he was in at that moment. Small changes, sure they weren't a problem, but the paradox that he'd cause by a serious violation of the normal order of things... he could spend a thousand years stuck in a single moment trying to fix it... he'd had one of those already and didn't relish a repeat performance. You just didn't jump up and down on a cardboard box and expect it to be able to carry crap afterwards.
He rubbed his head again, contemplating switching back to blonde, but knew that would please Darien too much and Darien was far too easily distracted as it was.
Edward flushed with warmth at the sudden thought of his lover, stretching out his senses to check on him, up on the bridge. There had been a battle, Edward had listened to the alarms, but getting the Propylons up and running had been his top priority, he'd left other repairs to the damage control teams. Darien seemed worried, but that wasn't anything new, he was always worrying about something.
A smile lit his face as he recognized Darien's obsessive compulsion; when he wanted to be, Darien was formidable. The universe couldn't have picked a better match. Edward was prone to fickle moods; it was something that was just a part of his nature. Darien was much more likely to focus all of his attention on a task and pursue it until it was done. They were balanced, making each other complete without the extremes their characters possessed overcoming the other.
He had a strong desire to hug Darien at that moment and he set his work aside, getting ready to pop there when the Propylon computers engaged with an incoming signal. Edward frowned, there were no Dragoon teams off of the ship, and Expedition Two wasn't due back for a while which meant it was someone in trouble.
He looked across the screens reading Alessandro's recaller. Blinking, not exactly sure what Alessandro was doing off of the ship in the first place, he hit the intercom. "Uhh guys, where's Allie?"
"We have a situation up here, Matt," Darien replied, "why do you ask?"
"I have an emergency recall request from Alessandro." Edward answered, leaning in to check the co-ordinates and doing his best to transfer them to the Propylon system. "Want me to pick him up?"
"Go ahead," Darien replied, sounding a touch relieved. "Thanks, Matt."
"No worries," Edward said, pushing buttons and smiling as he flopped into a castor-mounted swivel chair to slid across to the master computer. "One express elevator, going up."
There was a flash of light from the centre of the chamber, alarms trilling for a moment as the power fluctuated. Edward compensating for the power flow manually, frowning as a coat appeared on the deck, wrapped around something that looked vaguely humanoid. It collapsed into a pile as a pair of small round devices bounced to the deck, rolling over and over a few times as they beeped a deadly warning.
"Oh pooh!" Edward sighed as the room exploded.
* * *
The Excalibur listed to the side as there was a flash, exploding out from the bow section, a ripping crackling of thermonuclear energies that were channelled out from the ship, blowing a circular hole through the superstructure and causing every warning alarm to blare at once throughout the ship.
Darien felt the deck pitch out from beneath his feet as it literally dropped away from beneath him, sending him crashing over the situation table and knocking the wind from him.
The plotting boards shattered as the Excalibur's superstructure flexed under the force of the explosion, sending glass sliding in a wave to the deck and spilling out over the floor. The ship pitched back up again as a section of armour from the Excalibur's bow, hurled at tremendous speed, spun edge over edge to crash against the observation windows. The windows cracked in a spider web pattern that creaked and groaned, threatening to give at any moment. Emergency bulkheads swept out in a telescoping emergency shield, slammed closed over the potential breach.
It took him a moment to find his bearings, hauling himself upright he stared at the engineering diagnostic board, lit with red. Reports began to filter in over the TAC channels, detailing casualties across the ship.
Commander Durnham reinitialized a second or two later, looking, for want of a better word, pissed.
"A thermonuclear detonation onboard ship," he answered Darien, before the Warlord could ask his question. "We shouldn't be alive at this juncture... sir!"
Darien rubbed his sore stomach muscles, staring about him and at the Commander. "How in the name of god..."
"Thank you," Edward replied, looking slightly green as he appeared off to the right of the command chair. "But... I..." He turned and threw up in the corner of the bridge, throwing out a hand to steady himself against a console.
Darien glanced at him, walking through the ruin of the CIC and up to the command chair. "How the hell?"
"Me," Edward held up a hand, taking a pause from his second heave to look up. "I'm sorry I didn't have time to send them away, I had to think quickly and since I couldn't smother a nuclear blast I channelled it away from the ship... problem is that blew a really big hole... in..." Edward's face went ashen.
"The Gorean." Commander Durnham replied, his temper barely in check. "The cowards."
"How badly are we holed?" Darien asked, looking over at the spider web cracks and the blast shield covering them.
"The whole Propylon chamber is open to space," Durnham answered, marching across to the engineering boards and demonstrating on the holographic diagram. "We've lost most of the forward access ways and there are people trapped in the bow. There's a gaping hole in the hull and we're venting atmosphere at a rapid rate. Excalibur can't maintain environmental integrity at the current rate of decompression. I've sealed as many emergency bulkheads as I can, but we have ruptures across five decks."
Darien gritted his teeth, looking through the half of the observation windows that weren't sealed over. The glimmering orb of Karin was their only refuge.
"Take us into the atmosphere, slowly. Concentrate our shields to cover our damaged areas." Darien shook his head. "The Gorean aren't going to like us stuck in their airspace..."
"It appears that they preferred a cheap shot," Commander Durnham answered. "There has been no move to capitalize on our current situation. They merely want a way to keep us contained."
"Then they found it," Darien responded angrily, "Matt..."
Edward nodded, "I'm on it," he said, looking over at Durnham. "Tell her I'm going to do everything I can for her..."
Durnham nodded. "Please hurry." He looked back at Darien. "We should take standard nuclear safety precautions, and I'll alert Doctor Kyr to begin handing out radiation tags..."
Darien stared at the hologram a moment as he sat down into the command chair, feeling the rush of emotion nearly overwhelm him. He breathed heavily a moment, steadying himself against its crashing ferocity. Excalibur was terrified, no wonder Durnham was angry. She'd survived nuclear attacks before, but never one within her protective countermeasures. The brush with death had rattled all of them, so complacent in their relative safety of the five-mile limit; it was all too easy to forget that the Gorean were still just as deadly as they ever were.