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Nov. 10th, 2006 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigerChapter 11: War
The next three days passed by uneventfully, as Robert got back into the habits and swing of regular duty. Much of the time was spent training and patrolling. The Hillary had gotten updated orders which meant that they would be jumping to another system being threatened by the Shivans, and Jackson wanted everyone to be comfortable working as a team again. Robert also spent many hours in room 55 working on continuing his training in his various forms, and bringing himself in line mentally with who and what he was. During most of these time, Shannon accompanied him, and helped with his mental training. He found that although his personality was a lot more bestial in Dire form, he could retain control of himself, although it was initally a huge effort. Shannon was also using this time to learn basic sounds used in Primal, as a precurser to learning the language. Several times, Ch'Mee would also be there to assist, being the only person within 10 light years that was proficent with the five or six major languages used on Earth.
On duty, the Gang of Three remained as professional as they ever were, but off duty the were just shy of being openly hostile to Robert and Shannon. Both could not understand this, and all attempts at coming to some sort of middle ground failed. Eventually, they just gave up and accepted it. Ortega was also becoming distant and eventually the Gang of Three became the Gang of Four.
Finally the day that everyone had been dreading arrived - Jump Day. Everything was secured, the pilots were all suited up and ready to deploy, and the ship jumped from the planet they had been orbiting for the past month and a half to the new front in the war. The Shivans has been repulsed from one front, but were trying to go through a second system. This one was a human world, and as soon as the Hillary cleared the jumpgate, All hell broke loose. As fast as the ship could dump the fighters out of the the dock, everyone launched and engaged the clooud of drones that were emenating from the two droneships. There were already five other capital ships in the system: The K5 and Himayala were both running interferance for the Battleship Oceania, and the Tigerean destroyers Sh'Maa and Shh'Karth. In addition to all the Buzzsaws dumping overboard, Alpha squad dumped out in their Tornados to begin strafing the two droneships. Shannon had one thing to say to Robert as he went to close the lid on his 'pod: "Go forth, and kick ass, but keep your intact, or I'll kill you!" Robert blew her a kiss and laughed even as the hatch on his pod closed.
The battle had been underway for over an hour when the Hillary arrived. It had started in the middle of the jump, and with her arrival the odds finally tilted in the Alliance's favor. Still, it was another hour before the first droneship fell under the might of Oceania's plasma cannons and it's onboard singualarity projector. The second droneship sensed that it was fighting a losing battle and proceeded to dump the remainder of it's drones overboard in order to keep the battleship and the destroyers from engaging it. As the drones thinned out around the capital ship, the battle director aboard the Himayla directed the three squadrons of buzzsaws to engage the drones and to carve a path for the Oceania to get within range to use it's singularity generator.The destroyers, even though damaged and low on missles, switched to it's plasma cannons and engaged the cloud in a suicidal ploy to blast a path through. Tango squad was to race to the Sh'Maa and protect it as best as they could, Charlie squad was to do the same with the Shh'Karth. Bravo squad was being split into two groups: one group would protect the Oceania as it moved in range, and the other group was to act as a sapper squad between the two destoryers to create a point of least resistance. Jackson, Corlo, and the three ladies were all assigned to be the sappers, and the remainder of the team under Anderhall was to protect the Battleship along with Alpha squad. while they were boosting their way to the front, Jackson explained what he wanted them all to do. He also sent a burst message to the two Tigerean commanders aboard the destroyers, so that they would not be hit accidentally by any fire.
All five charges into the cloud and stopped equidistant from each other and allowed the drones to get within firing range. At Robert's command, his fighter began the spin manuver that he had only done in the simulator before. The drones got closer to each ship as it spun up, not knowing what to expect and sensing easy prey. When the cloud had condensed into five spheres, the four streamers on each ship opened up in a short range continusou fire mode that started slicing the sphere of drones apart. Unfortunately, the drones started shooting back after the figters started firing, and the fiver ships were barely manageing to keep their shields up intially. This entire manuver took five minutes, and as they finished the manuver, The guns from Alpha squad were picking off the survivers as the prow of the Oceania closed on them. The AI's aboard each ship slowed, then stopped the rotations of the fighters, and boosted them out of the Oceania's line of fire as the Singularity projector started glowing a demonic red. All the remaining drones tried to rush the battleship, but were repulsed by thecombined firepower of four squadrons of fighters, the plamsa cannons of the detroyers, or the close ranges streamers of the battleship. The droneship winked out of existance with little fanfare, and over the general push you could hear the cheering of the entire fleet and the civilian space station. With the sounds of victory in their ears, the five fighters that led the sapping run limped back the hillary as fast at the RCS thrusters onboard could manage.
Robert was expecting to get his butt chewed off as he stepped out of the hatch from Gertrude's Getaway, the name he gave his fighter, and saw Shannon standing there with a large spanner in one hand and a highly annoyed look on her face. "Hi honey, I'm home."he said weakly, but in a humorous tone. Shannon glared at him for a minute, then dropped the spanner with a loud CLANG and jumped into his arms with a hug that would have collasped his ribcage two months ago. "I was *so* worried about you! We were all watching from the monitors down in repair!" Her voice turned hard. "ESPECIALLY when we saw what the five of you did. Were you out of your FUCKING MINDS?!?!?!?!" Ted laughed so hard that he bent over double and started coughing. Robert hugged her as tight as he dared, causing her to gasp a bit. Realizing that he was hugging her a bit too tightly, he set her down. "Yes. I know it was risky, but it was the only real change we had of getting a gap created in a reasonable timeframe for the Oceania to get through. A more conventional method would have taken too long, or would have caused the droneship to engage us directly once it realized what was going on."
Jackson had gotten the coughing out of his system by the time Robert had finished. "OK everyone, let's get cleaned up. You've all earned your pay today, and I think I owe everyone here, repair included, a round in the bar. Besides, the last I was hearing on the command channel before I docked was that the Shivans have halted their push, in order to bring more droneships up from their tail. We've probaly bought a week's worth of downtime to repair, replensh, and prepare for the next sorte." Shannon said, "I'll bring Major Corlo up to the bar in a bit, I need to talk to him privately first." She had an evil grin on her face that gave Robert a worried tone on his face.
The 'private talk' in their cabin was mearly a prolonged kiss, and a discussion of how he had handled the stress, and the rationale for why he had named the fighter. Robert's response of "Well, Ted named his Gunstar. You don't want to know what he calls the AI on board." did not amuse her, even after he explained the references. While they were talking, they both wer echanging clothes. Robert was gingerly stripping out of the flight suit and removing the various catheters. Now fully naked, we went to put on normal under-clothing and a jumper. Shannon happened to see his tail as he was rummaging around. She flipped the privacy field on. "Do you know you have a tail?" Robert nodded. "Yep. Got it after the- YEOW!!" She had tugged hard on it, and pulled him off balance. He fell backwards and landed on his ass on the hard floor, barely missing pulling her down as well. "Whoopise." she didn't sound repentant. He turned around to glare at her and caught a full view of her. "Ya know, if you wanted to show me the tattoo on your naughty bits, you could have just said so." She laughed. "The 'tattoo' is actually a birthmark, and a sign of what I am. I take it the tail is a sign of what you are?" Robert nodded as he got back up off the floor. "Yep. At least it's small enough that it stays hidden when I'm wearing clothes." He rummaged through the closet and found the jumper he was originally going for, and pulled th green dress that Shannon asked him to pull out while he was in there. They finished dressing and went up to the "officers club" on board, where they both ordered colas. Ted saw them enter and motioned them over to a private table. Lt. Colonel Stebuens and Major Anderhall were there as well. "We need to talk tomorrow morning. We have a problem."
(1703/1667)
The next three days passed by uneventfully, as Robert got back into the habits and swing of regular duty. Much of the time was spent training and patrolling. The Hillary had gotten updated orders which meant that they would be jumping to another system being threatened by the Shivans, and Jackson wanted everyone to be comfortable working as a team again. Robert also spent many hours in room 55 working on continuing his training in his various forms, and bringing himself in line mentally with who and what he was. During most of these time, Shannon accompanied him, and helped with his mental training. He found that although his personality was a lot more bestial in Dire form, he could retain control of himself, although it was initally a huge effort. Shannon was also using this time to learn basic sounds used in Primal, as a precurser to learning the language. Several times, Ch'Mee would also be there to assist, being the only person within 10 light years that was proficent with the five or six major languages used on Earth.
On duty, the Gang of Three remained as professional as they ever were, but off duty the were just shy of being openly hostile to Robert and Shannon. Both could not understand this, and all attempts at coming to some sort of middle ground failed. Eventually, they just gave up and accepted it. Ortega was also becoming distant and eventually the Gang of Three became the Gang of Four.
Finally the day that everyone had been dreading arrived - Jump Day. Everything was secured, the pilots were all suited up and ready to deploy, and the ship jumped from the planet they had been orbiting for the past month and a half to the new front in the war. The Shivans has been repulsed from one front, but were trying to go through a second system. This one was a human world, and as soon as the Hillary cleared the jumpgate, All hell broke loose. As fast as the ship could dump the fighters out of the the dock, everyone launched and engaged the clooud of drones that were emenating from the two droneships. There were already five other capital ships in the system: The K5 and Himayala were both running interferance for the Battleship Oceania, and the Tigerean destroyers Sh'Maa and Shh'Karth. In addition to all the Buzzsaws dumping overboard, Alpha squad dumped out in their Tornados to begin strafing the two droneships. Shannon had one thing to say to Robert as he went to close the lid on his 'pod: "Go forth, and kick ass, but keep your intact, or I'll kill you!" Robert blew her a kiss and laughed even as the hatch on his pod closed.
The battle had been underway for over an hour when the Hillary arrived. It had started in the middle of the jump, and with her arrival the odds finally tilted in the Alliance's favor. Still, it was another hour before the first droneship fell under the might of Oceania's plasma cannons and it's onboard singualarity projector. The second droneship sensed that it was fighting a losing battle and proceeded to dump the remainder of it's drones overboard in order to keep the battleship and the destroyers from engaging it. As the drones thinned out around the capital ship, the battle director aboard the Himayla directed the three squadrons of buzzsaws to engage the drones and to carve a path for the Oceania to get within range to use it's singularity generator.The destroyers, even though damaged and low on missles, switched to it's plasma cannons and engaged the cloud in a suicidal ploy to blast a path through. Tango squad was to race to the Sh'Maa and protect it as best as they could, Charlie squad was to do the same with the Shh'Karth. Bravo squad was being split into two groups: one group would protect the Oceania as it moved in range, and the other group was to act as a sapper squad between the two destoryers to create a point of least resistance. Jackson, Corlo, and the three ladies were all assigned to be the sappers, and the remainder of the team under Anderhall was to protect the Battleship along with Alpha squad. while they were boosting their way to the front, Jackson explained what he wanted them all to do. He also sent a burst message to the two Tigerean commanders aboard the destroyers, so that they would not be hit accidentally by any fire.
All five charges into the cloud and stopped equidistant from each other and allowed the drones to get within firing range. At Robert's command, his fighter began the spin manuver that he had only done in the simulator before. The drones got closer to each ship as it spun up, not knowing what to expect and sensing easy prey. When the cloud had condensed into five spheres, the four streamers on each ship opened up in a short range continusou fire mode that started slicing the sphere of drones apart. Unfortunately, the drones started shooting back after the figters started firing, and the fiver ships were barely manageing to keep their shields up intially. This entire manuver took five minutes, and as they finished the manuver, The guns from Alpha squad were picking off the survivers as the prow of the Oceania closed on them. The AI's aboard each ship slowed, then stopped the rotations of the fighters, and boosted them out of the Oceania's line of fire as the Singularity projector started glowing a demonic red. All the remaining drones tried to rush the battleship, but were repulsed by thecombined firepower of four squadrons of fighters, the plamsa cannons of the detroyers, or the close ranges streamers of the battleship. The droneship winked out of existance with little fanfare, and over the general push you could hear the cheering of the entire fleet and the civilian space station. With the sounds of victory in their ears, the five fighters that led the sapping run limped back the hillary as fast at the RCS thrusters onboard could manage.
Robert was expecting to get his butt chewed off as he stepped out of the hatch from Gertrude's Getaway, the name he gave his fighter, and saw Shannon standing there with a large spanner in one hand and a highly annoyed look on her face. "Hi honey, I'm home."he said weakly, but in a humorous tone. Shannon glared at him for a minute, then dropped the spanner with a loud CLANG and jumped into his arms with a hug that would have collasped his ribcage two months ago. "I was *so* worried about you! We were all watching from the monitors down in repair!" Her voice turned hard. "ESPECIALLY when we saw what the five of you did. Were you out of your FUCKING MINDS?!?!?!?!" Ted laughed so hard that he bent over double and started coughing. Robert hugged her as tight as he dared, causing her to gasp a bit. Realizing that he was hugging her a bit too tightly, he set her down. "Yes. I know it was risky, but it was the only real change we had of getting a gap created in a reasonable timeframe for the Oceania to get through. A more conventional method would have taken too long, or would have caused the droneship to engage us directly once it realized what was going on."
Jackson had gotten the coughing out of his system by the time Robert had finished. "OK everyone, let's get cleaned up. You've all earned your pay today, and I think I owe everyone here, repair included, a round in the bar. Besides, the last I was hearing on the command channel before I docked was that the Shivans have halted their push, in order to bring more droneships up from their tail. We've probaly bought a week's worth of downtime to repair, replensh, and prepare for the next sorte." Shannon said, "I'll bring Major Corlo up to the bar in a bit, I need to talk to him privately first." She had an evil grin on her face that gave Robert a worried tone on his face.
The 'private talk' in their cabin was mearly a prolonged kiss, and a discussion of how he had handled the stress, and the rationale for why he had named the fighter. Robert's response of "Well, Ted named his Gunstar. You don't want to know what he calls the AI on board." did not amuse her, even after he explained the references. While they were talking, they both wer echanging clothes. Robert was gingerly stripping out of the flight suit and removing the various catheters. Now fully naked, we went to put on normal under-clothing and a jumper. Shannon happened to see his tail as he was rummaging around. She flipped the privacy field on. "Do you know you have a tail?" Robert nodded. "Yep. Got it after the- YEOW!!" She had tugged hard on it, and pulled him off balance. He fell backwards and landed on his ass on the hard floor, barely missing pulling her down as well. "Whoopise." she didn't sound repentant. He turned around to glare at her and caught a full view of her. "Ya know, if you wanted to show me the tattoo on your naughty bits, you could have just said so." She laughed. "The 'tattoo' is actually a birthmark, and a sign of what I am. I take it the tail is a sign of what you are?" Robert nodded as he got back up off the floor. "Yep. At least it's small enough that it stays hidden when I'm wearing clothes." He rummaged through the closet and found the jumper he was originally going for, and pulled th green dress that Shannon asked him to pull out while he was in there. They finished dressing and went up to the "officers club" on board, where they both ordered colas. Ted saw them enter and motioned them over to a private table. Lt. Colonel Stebuens and Major Anderhall were there as well. "We need to talk tomorrow morning. We have a problem."
(1703/1667)
