OT: Hell is For Heroes.

[AgentZero]

And yet again, more! Figured it was time for a little more boom boom.


Admiral McArthur gripped his command chair tightly to avoid being ignomiously dumped out of it as his station shuddered from another direct hit. As he turned his head, the station's attacker disappeared in a flash of light, utterly annihilated by a blast from the fortresses main battery that continued onwards to cripple an enemy dreadnought. Still, crippled or not, it still took another four hits to finish the ship off completely. They were built tough, the admiral noted, not quite as tough as Terran ships, but tough nonetheless. And there were a lot of them. More than a lot, a veritable horde of warships swarmed about his command. Still, the network of battle stations built around the jump nexus had been designed to hold up against the entire Tauran Navy, and while several of his stations had taken severe damage, he'd yet to lose one yet. Although, he had to admit, part of that was down to the fact that once a station had been damaged to the point where it no longer posed a threat, the unknown attackers shifted their targeting to a station that was actively firing. And, McArthur thought, despite many reminders as to the downside to that strategy, they continued to follow it. He grinned as one such reminder wiped out an entire battlegroup as Station 37 got her short range weapons back online and proceeded to tear apart anything near her with vengeful fury. His chair lurched again, and this time he barely managed to hang on. Looking up at the damage display, he was confronted with a sea of red. The station's forward shields had failed completely, her armor had been shredded and barely a quarter of her weapons were still operational. Her aft section, however, was another matter.
“Rotate one-eighty,” ordered Admiral McArthur. “And shunt power from forward weapon's systems to shields and damage control.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman confirmed. “Rotating one-eighty now.”
A furious babble erupted on the bridge as gunnery stations that had been idle due to lack of guns to co-ordinate suddenly became active again, and the gunners began tossing targeting priorities around their section with all the casual banter that went with it. To a less informed ear, it sounded terribly unprofessional, as actual target priorities seemed to get as much, or even less attention than discourses on the personal hygiene of the gunners mother, yet in truth all of what was said was a code known only to the gunners themselves, and more to the point, it was a brutally efficient code. As no doubt, the crew of an enemy dreadnought squadron would surely attest, had they been more than a cloud of vapour following a particularly crude description by the chief gunner of his second's father's genitalia.
“Tachyon spike!” one of the sensor operators cried over the din. “Almost off the scale, something massive is coming in!”
Despite knowing that there was no possible way reinforcements could be coming through that jump node, part of McArthur couldn't help but hope, that maybe, somehow the new arrivals might be something other than violently hostile. Moments later, his hopes were crushed as a vessel of unimaginable size forced it's way into normal space.
“By the Nine Divine Whores of Kantarl,” whispered the McArthur.
“Ship configuration seems to match that of hostile forces,” the sensor officer reported. “But it's just much, much bigger than anything we've seen so far.”
“Station Ninety-Seven, code Omega!” called out the comms officer. And seconds later, “Station Ninety-Eight, code Omega!”
McArthur grimaced. The two dying stations held only a small crew, being more lookout stations than actual fortresses, and had been passed over by the enemy in their desperate bid to break through the system's defenses. The new arrival, however, seemed more than willing to spare a little attention to them.
“Station Ninety-Six, code Omega!” cried a different comms officer. “Station Ninety-Five reporting heavy fire.”
“Well,” McArthur murmured. “Looks like they've finally played the ace up their sleeve. Now it's time for us to play ours.”
Turning to the comms officer, he instructed, “Contact stations Two and Three, order them to target the new arrival and fire when ready.”
The two stations flanking McArthur's command station, untouched by enemy fire given the fact that they were the only stations not actively firing, and the fact that neither of them sported any discernible weapons, aside from a few rows of point defense turrets, began to move slowly. At first, they only seem to be rotating to point their narrowest end towards the colossal enemy ship, but as they did so, pieces of the stations began to rearrange themselves, moving outwards, upwards and downwards until both stations had taken on the unmistakable shape of two singularly massive guns floating in space. Their movement slowed as they stopped orienting themselves and began tracking their target. Soon, their movement had slowed to the state of being barely perceptible, and far at the back of the stations, massive capacitors began to glow red, becoming brighter and brighter until they glowed a blood-tinged white. The stations soon were became completely engulfed in light as more and more power was poured into their single main weapons system. And then, abruptly, the light vanished. An observer would have just enough time to wonder exactly where the light had gone to, before the answer became abundantly clear to all as a massive white beam of energy blasted its way out of the barrel of the two space stations, casually cut a swath through anything in it's way, and slammed into the alien juggernaut. For a moment, but only a moment, it looked like the behemoth was going to hold up against the vast torrent of energy being poured into it, but then, inevitability, it broke, and the twin beams of light tore through the ship and out the other side. They then began slowly moving about, carving the goliath apart until they hit something critical and the entire ship blew apart in a galaxy-shuddering explosion that wiped out scores of alien ships that had been flying too close.
Almost as one, the surviving ships turned and ran, but the route back to the jump point was a gauntlet of battle stations all waiting for their turn to tear into the attackers, and barely a quarter of the ships made it to safety.
McArthur sat back heavily in his chair. “Status report,” he called into the sudden, eerie silence.
There was a moment of frenzied activity as individual stations rushed to complete preliminary damage reports, and a few minutes later his bruised and battered exec handed him a list of the damaged, destroyed and dead.
“We took heavy losses this time, sir,” he said quietly. “Given a few days to make repairs, we might, maybe weather another attack if we're extraordinarily lucky.”
“Reinforcements?” McArthur inquired.
“The Raezel is en route, along with the entire Fourth and Fifth Fleets, but they're still four days off. The Ninth Fleet should be here tomorrow, but they've taken heavy damage from running engagements and will need the better part of a week for repairs before they could be considered combat-ready.”
“Well,” McArthur mused. “We hurt 'em bad this time. That's the first time we've seen one of their planet-killers come through here. Hopefully we've given them enough of a bloody nose that they'll hold off on another assault long enough for us to get our legs back underneath us.”
“Sirs? If I may interrupt?” Lieutenant Commander Gomez, a small, petite blonde from Intelligence approached the admiral, a datapad in hand. “Station Twenty-Four managed to get some in depth scans of the hostile ships done while her weapons were out. We've just finished the analysis and though you might want to have a look.”
She handed the pad to McArthur, and stood in silence as he read the report. As he reached the end, his eyes jumped ahead to a single word, the only word, really, that the report needed to contain.
“No...” he whispered.
Gomez nodded. “It's confirmed, sir. They're back.”

[TurinTurambar]

"Marvelous!"

[i](...better than "Weeeeeeee!" ?)

[JAFisher44]

A criticism, I don't like the changes you made to the death scene. I liked it better before. Room for speculation is fine. The ponderings of your fans doesn't change what happened, and curiosity keeps people reading. Besides, it just sounded better originally.

Another criticism, poetical isnt a word, the word is poetic.

I enjoyed your boom boom. It was good. Space combat is always fun. Nice cliff hanger. Keep up the fun.

[Puke]

I'm with JAF on all points. And again, "Wheeeeeee!"

[AgentZero]

JAFisher44 said:
A criticism, I don't like the changes you made to the death scene. I liked it better before. Room for speculation is fine. The ponderings of your fans doesn't change what happened, and curiosity keeps people reading. Besides, it just sounded better originally.

Another criticism, poetical isnt a word, the word is poetic.

I enjoyed your boom boom. It was good. Space combat is always fun. Nice cliff hanger. Keep up the fun.

Criticism taken... However perhaps what I didn't make clear in my previous post is the fact that I don't want there to be any room for speculation as to whether or not Kagan and Alice are alive. They're dead, and while I'm not terribly happy with the wording either, it'll do until my muse prompts me with something more eloquent.

And yes, I know poetical isn't proper English, it's just a form of bastardized English that I'm rather fond of, but criticism accepted, I'll try to be less poetical in future.

Lastly, I've kinda gotten to a point in the story where I need to talk a few things over with someone because the story could progress in one of two radically different ways, and I honestly don't know which one to go with. And don't anybody tell me 'go with whichever feels best' because they both feel pretty damn good, but they're also mutually exclusive. So... If anyone out there feels like having a chat, preferably with a writing bent themselves, though not necessarily, but is willing to have the ending spoilt for them, though in doing so help ensure that it's a damn good ending, PM me with an MSN/ICQ/whatever and we can go from there.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Ok then, go with whatever makes a better ending.

[AgentZero]

Well, that's the problem. They're both the same ending, but very different ways of getting there.

[Puke]

pick the one on the right!

[AgentZero]

I was afraid you'd say that

[AgentZero]

Bring Us More Pie!

A champagne cork ricocheted off the roof and landed neatly in someone's outstretched glass. The room erupted into peals of drunken laughter as the victim of fate tried vainly to fish the bobbing cork out from his glass, his impaired co-ordination causing him to mostly spill wine all over himself. His antics drew more and more laughter until finally, a well aimed cork popped him square in the nose and he toppled to the ground. A brief silence descended upon the room, but only lasted as long as the first snort of poorly contained laughter. The unlucky man finally pulled himself to his feet, grabbed a bottle off the table and held it aloft.
“To success!” he declared loudly. “Beyond our wildest expectations!”
The cheers were punctuated by the sound of more corks popping as the champagne flowed liberally. The happy, drunken conversation ebbed slightly as the doors opened, then loud cheers erupted once again as a tall, stunningly beautiful young woman entered the room. She wore a full length white trench coat wrapped tightly around her that accentuated the curve of her breasts and hips magnificently, black gloves and matching black boots. Her olive skin offset her light blonde hair, and none were able to look away from her large, strikingly blue eyes. She entered the room confidently, with a sensuous sway to her hips, made her way to the table at the centre of the room and stepped up onto it.
“Gentlemen,” she purred softly. “If you will be so kind as to be seated, the... entertainment will begin.”
In all the years that they had been meeting, never had they assembled at the table so quickly as they did now, staring upwards with eager faces, smiling puppy dog smiles at her as her lips curved gently upwards. As soon as they were all seated, she began to move, swaying her hips slowly in rhythm to unheard music. She began to move faster and faster, her movements smooth and confident, graceful. Suddenly, she flung open her trench coat, and her audience gasped at the sight of two automatic plasma bolters strapped to her chest. Smiling broadly, she drew the bolters from their holsters, held them above her head and began to slowly gyrate her hips as she lowered herself almost to her knees, then raised herself up again, then began to move slowly downwards again. There was a smattering of applause as the audience recognized the bit: They were dangerous men, they enjoyed danger, and having their stripper armed just made the show that much more exciting. On her way back up again, she paused, threw her pistols into the air, let her trench coat slide to the ground and caught the guns again easily to another smattering of applause. No sooner were the weapons back in her hands than she suddenly launched herself high into the air, flipping head over heels and rotating around her centre axis at the same time. Her plasma bolters snarled viciously, and when her feet again touched down at the table, all those around it were dead, save the one at the head of the table, who found himself looking down a red hot barrel. His eyes slowly moved up to face the beautiful assassin, and his lips managed to form the words, “Why?”
The killer smiled charmingly back at him, and as she did so, her hair blackened, her dark skin paled to white and her liquid blue eyes decayed to the deepest shade of black.
“You know why,” she whispered. “Bastard.” And with that, she fired a single round into his heart, hopped off the table and strode out of the room.
The man known only as One watched her go, paralyzed from the shock of being shot, knowing he was dying, and knowing just as well that there was nothing that could be done about it. At first, he wondered if it was his dying mind playing tricks on him, but it soon became apparent that the table before him was indeed twisting and deforming itself, spilling plates and glasses and bottles onto the laps of those seated around it, except for one untouched glass of champagne that managed to stay upright as the table went through all manner of contortions, eventually resolving itself into the figure of a man, holding the glass of wine in one hand. One stared in wonderment at this apparition that stood before him, the face that most had attained legendary, almost mythological significance amongst the organization.
“Zero,” whispered One. “You're real... You're here... You're-”
“Terribly disappointed,” interrupted the other, sipping gently at the champagne. “I look around me and what do I see? Nothing but failure. The grand organization I brought into being reduced to nothing by it's own incompetence.”
“Not... our... fault...” whispered One. “Even we... cannot stop... a Deathchild.”
“No,” agreed Zero solemnly. “But I wouldn't have expected you to. I would, however, have expected you to avoid giving a Deathchild good cause for vengeance.” He shook his head sadly. “It's my own fault, really. I stood idly by and watched as you all drifted away from my teachings, as you became so blinded by your own greed and petty concerns that when the object of your entire existence was revealed, you couldn't even see it for what it was, instead branding a threat. You were supposed to protect her,” he hissed, then paused and took a good look at One. “Of course, you're not listening to a word I'm saying, seeing as you're dead and all, which is a terrible pity, really. You see, now there's no one left for me to share the delightful irony of this whole situation with.” He sighed softly. “I suppose I could always catch up with the Deathchild, I'm sure she'd appreciate the irony. Yes,” he said, taking a deep draught of champagne. “I'm sure she would appreciate it indeed.”