Outcast Space, Omicron Eta.
06.10.817 AS, 2138 SMT.
The green hued nebula surrounding the Outcast worlds looked as sinister as ever. It beared witness to war after war, madness and malevolence and scores of hastily built ships designed to kill over reasons that have long been forgotten by any of the participants. It was a rare occurence to see the sinister light of the nebula reflected upon a black hull belonging to a Coalition fighter, a light that would turn the blood red star engraved on their wings into an almost yellowish colour. Yet there they were skimming through the middle of the warzone, a squadron of three making their hasty escape through the battleground of two of their most dangerous enemies. The squadron consisted of two fighters and a bomber. In hot pursuit behind them were a group of no less than ten Outcast Sabres, hell bent on destroying the ones who dared infiltrate their capitol system. The escaping pilots stood no chance against their numbers in hostile space, and they knew it. All they wanted now was to return to base in one piece, and to do that they would need to rely on a bold plan..
- "Hold it together.. we're almost at the jump hole."
The lead shifted more power to engines, as more and more Outcasts kept showing up on long range scanners. One of the wingmen was quick to report.
- "More druggies on approach vector. That's a fourth group already."
- "Concentrate on jumping through the Theta hole. They won't matter in a moment." - the bomber pilot shouted into comms as he flew straight into the anomaly, and reappeared in a different system.
He engaged his cruise engines slowly, while waiting for the rest of his squad. Once they got through, the group sped off towards the thick nebula clouds. The Coalition bomber engaged system wide comms..
- "Caballeros! Outcast attack group coming at you from Palermo. To guns, vamos!"
Switching back to encrypted comms, he explained it to the pilots.
- "This trick always works. They'll be too busy killing each other to notice us slip through. Lets disperse to evade their sensors."
As the three ships broke formation and flew apart, the Outcast force following them has by now stopped pursuing, due to being engaged by a flurry of Corsair ships hastily reinforced from the nearby Freeport. The ruse had worked for now. The lead bomber gave his last order for the mission, before changing directions altogether.
- "All pilots set course for the Omega-41 jump hole. We'll meet back at Cape Verde. Ares out."
***
The shape of the beat up bomber blended in nicely with the debris and asteroids in the battlefields of Omega-5. Having lost his pursuit somewhere in the previous system, the Coalition pilot now made his way across Hessian space, slowly but steadily, knowing that his ships' engine couldn't sustain cruise any longer. It wouldn't be long until the ship would be surrounded by Hessian patrols trying to identify it as friend or foe. A hard Rheinland accented voice soon sounded in his helmet.
- "You are tresspassing in Hessian space, freelancer. Leave now."
- "I can't do that. My ship is damaged, and I need assistance."
- "That's no concern of ours."
- "I'm barely keeping it together. I couldn't cruise away if I wanted to."
- "Why should that concern us?"
- "Well, for starters, I have some interesting information about your "allies" and some of their new bedfellows."
The immediate Hessian response was a pause in communications. After a short while, the patrol responded with a simple:
- "Join in formation."
Within minutes they approached a condensed area of larger rocks, and manuevering became even more difficult. More and more patrols could be seen skimming dangerously close to the ever present asteroids, as they approached a larger rock than most others here.
- "Don't bother trying anything stupid." - the Rheinland pilot advised his escortee in public comms. He on the other hand responded with a chuckle:
- "Trust me, gringo, if I wanted to attack this station, I wouldn't have come alone with my ship lacking even a shield, leaking oxygen and fuel everywhere!"
He was responded to by the voice of the docking supervisor.
- "This is Ronneburg to Coalition ship. Approach dock two. A team of engineers will be ready to recieve you."
The Coalition pilot clambered out of his burning wreck of a bomber, to find himself at the point of a dozen men's guns.
As lucky as he was for surviving that drug barons' hell-hole, it was now time for the hard part of Operation: Dark Alliance. He raised his hands into the air, showng that he wasn't a threat, struggling to keep his feet due to the burns and blood loss.
There were several shouts in what sounded like German before one of the marines spoke up in heavily accented English.
"You vill be needing medical attenzion, ja!?"
In spite of the hospitality of the words' content, the middle-aged sergeant sounded angry. Maybe Red Hessians were always angry.
"It... can wait, comrade..." stuttered the Coalition officer, removing his bashed-in flight helmet which had probably saved his life an hour previous.
"I've some... very important information for your leadership... I need to speak to Kaspar Meisnerr as soon as possible..." he continued, trying to remove the blood from his eyes, whilst attempting to keep his hands raised in a fashion which wouldn't appear threatening.
"Ee iz on Deck Zix! Vee will go zere immediately. Ee is most interested!" snapped the guard in return, still angry of course. Typical Rheinlanders.
A couple of marines stamped up behind the injured pilot as a pair of robots hosed down his bomber with fire extinguishers. They apologised gruffly, "Es tut mir leid", as they roughly grabbed him and cuffed him as if a prisoner, not that the stun-cuffs would help against a man with a mechanical arm, but protocol was protocol for some people.
The Coalition representative quickly found himself in a small audience chamber, sitting as comfortably as he could, face to face with the leader of the Red Hessian Army, a unit known for sticking to the revolutionary roots of the biggest Rheinland pirate organisation.
He spoke in much more refined English than his men, and better than the Coalition man to whom he spoke.
"So... I assume that you have come here for more than simple repairs and medical assistance..." he paused to check a notebook, "...Commodore Jovem?"
"Si, Comrade Meisnerr, si... it regards the Bastards of Malta... they're even worse than we had thought..." responded the Corsair-turned-Revolutionary, still dazed, perhaps concussed, from the combat earlier that day.
Meisnerr didn't look impressed. "The private business of the Outcasts is none of our concern. I think that you had best elaborate further before your status changes from 'guest' to 'prisoner'..."
The, now obviously very badly injured, Coalition Commodore continued...
"Si, si... it surrounds their alliances... to parties that we revolutionaries both consider... beyond the worst of the worst..."
Coalition Commanders Eugen Wise and Totenkopt slammed their fighters into the Cape Verde landing bays, and staggered out, coughing and hacking at the smoke from their wrecked vessels.
"Eugen, I swear to Lenin himself, the next time we need to make getting shot at look realistic, we're not going to red rad-poisoning at the same time. Also, why is that missle still in my engine nozzle? How did it get in there? What was O'Jovem thinking?"
"Buggered if I know, would have been much easier to blast the ships apart ourselves, much less danger of getting even more mutated..."
Leaving their ships to the frantic ministrations of a dozen techs, the pair hurried upwards, arriving at Admiral Kirk's command center minutes later. After conferring briefly with the marine guard at the door, they entered, to see a host of captains and other commander's gathered around Kirk, who was holding forth on tactics and planning regarding the new destroyers entering service within the next few months. At their entrance, he turned, and fixed them with a piercing gaze.
"Commander, Commander. What brings you here, and in such condition?" Kirk raised an eyebrow at the disheveled officers, both bleeding and scraped, reeking of explosives and sweat. "Also, where is your boss? I thought he would have the good grace to show himself after nearly destroying three snubfighters with nothing to show for it..."
As Eugen opened his mouth to reply, Totenkopt raised his hand, and the red eyes in his mask fixed Kirk with a chilling glare. "Look, Admiral," he growled with biting scorn, "I know you're some hot **** in a barge, but this is more important than you bloody know. Ares is on a Hessian base, begining the opening phases of-"
Kirk cut him off with a wave of his hand. "O'Jovem is where? What does he think he's playing at, gallivanting off to some Hessain dirthole! If I'd wanted him to fu-"
Click. Totenkopt's pistol, an Order model from the Nomad Wars, was poised steadily three feet from Kirk's face, cocked and loaded. The Order weapons from that time period were known to fire a .45 frangible round, splintering into several hundred slivers inches from the barrel, in order to stand a good chance on cutting down any opponent in a single shot. With nomads, one rarely got a second try...
Totenkopt's voice growled forth from his mask. "Kirk, I'm telling you now, and you'd better be listening. Ares is on Ronneburg, in Omega 5. He's there for the opening phases of Operation: Dark Alliance. You've been told about this before, and you knew it was in your area of operations. You also knew we would be impliimenting it, as the Hessains have more respect for fighter pilots, and you're needed here anyways. Got me?"
After a long pause, Kirk nodded, and waved Totenkopt's pistol down. "Fine. If O'Jovem can be worth pulling a gun on an Admiral, he must be worth more than I'd thought. Posturing aside, in the future, I will expect to be told about things like this before they get started. I assume you're here for some reason other than to inform me of it though, I don't think you'd have bothered unless you needed something."
"Got it in one, Admiral," drawled Eugen. "We need you, and your merry band of barge drivers here, to be prepared to extract Ares in the event that thing's don't go to plan. I've already told Major Bigeard and his marines, they'll be able to land and extract him, we just need you to co-ordinate with the fighter corps to hold off the Hessians, and break through the defences and allow the marines to land."
"Done, and done. When is the earliest possible extraction date?" Inquired Kirk, his mind already working out the numbers.
"48 hours from the time he docked, so about 46 hours and three minutes. At that time, if we've recieved no signal indicating he's alive and not a prisoner, we'll move."
"Agreed. I can muster two Fearless destroyers, one with the Heavy Mortar package, and three gunboats." Kirk grinned at the expression on Weise's face, that kind of firepower was normally never, ever gathered to one place, and would never be given in support of a single rescue operation.
"Weise, if Commodore O'Jovem can muster such loyalty and skill from his pilots, he's obviously worth saving, and I have the authority to take as many ships as I have. I'm tired of arguing with you fighter jocks all the time, we need to work together if we're going to ever win this war."
"Kirk, you're not entirely the arse I had believed you to be," grated Totenkopt, holstering his pistol. "After this is all done, we'll have a few drinks, this time without the bottle smashing."
"Sounds good. Now, gentlemen, I need to get this thing set up, so if you'll excuse me..."
Together, the two pilots straightened to attention, saluted, and left. Once in the hallway, on their way to the Pilot's Quarters, Eugen turned to Totenkopt.
"See? I know he's an arse, but he does perk up at the chance of a scrap."
Jack Handey Wrote:I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
- "IMG convoys in Omega-3... increased Hunter presence in Omega-47... Corsairs pushing half a fleet through Theta..."
Meisnerr stood straight in an almost military fashion, looking at the outsides of the asteroid base he was on through the mock viewport of the briefing room, half burnt cigarette in his hand. He took a puff and looked back at his aide who was still checking through a bunch of reports, mentioning sentences out of context loudly.
- "Do you have anything in there that is even remotely out of the ordinary?"
- "Except the burnt out hulk of a Coalition bomber in our docking bays? Although.. that's more of a task for our cleanup crews."
- "You and I both wish."
Meisnerr took a look back at the viewport screen, focusing on the wing of Hessian fighters flying right through the middle of the screen, carefully avoiding the ever present asteroids. His expression changed to a scowl as he drifted back to the matter at hand.
- "How's our unexpected guest doing anyway?"
- "Well, Alvin Riess is the best medic we have and he's treating him. He says this guy's strong... stronger than your average cockpit grovelling Corsair. He's gonna heal up just fine."
- "Good."
Taking a longer whiff from his cigarette, he looked at his watch. It was almost twelve o'clock.
- "We should change our recon procedures.."
As he muttered those words, the large door at the other side of the room slid open with a loud hiss, allowing four uniformed figures to slowly walk in one by one.
- "Ahh... About time." - Meisnerr said while turning towards them and pointing to the table. His aide stood up from his reports to salute at once.
- "Admiral Heinrich Kreis?" - Meisnerr greeted and saluted the man in the front, a large, intimidating figure with a stone cold look. One could mistake him for a Rheinland Military officer, was it not for his grey uniform adorned with a distinctive painted red hammer and pickaxe badge on the shoulder pad. The man saluted back while walking, stopping only after reaching his chair. All the men exchanged nods and sat down, including Meisnerr himself. He looked for a moment on the Admiral and his highest ranking officers, turned a scowl, and began his speech.
- "Gentlemen, I assume you've been briefed at least promptly about this meeting, and I know that you may think we are wasting your time. In fact, I thought so myself until that foreigner we have in our medical bay right now threw me a data disk. I was reluctant at first, but after a minute of careful review of both the contents of..." - Meisnerr paused for a second to pull out a small, chromed steel rectangle from his chestpocket, and then show it to the others in the room. - "..this disk as well as the pilot's own words I knew this cannot stay hidden."
He put the disk into a small device on top of the desk, took it's remote control while standing up and leaned across the table.
- "Tell me gentlemen, what would you do if someone was to tell you that our biggest supporters and suppliers, the Outcasts, were nothing more than a Nomad tool in a ploy to create chaos inside and out of the four colonies?"
Kreis, carefully rubbing his chin, responded with an unimpressed tone.
- "I would describe it as unconvincing."
- "As did I, but then he shown me these pictures.."
Meisnerr moved away from the table to the side of the room, and flicked a switch in the remote he was holding in his right hand. Three images then show up on the viewport in quick succession, replacing the view of the space around Ronneburg.
*click*
*click*
As the people in the room carefully analyse the scans, Meisnerr walks back towards his seat at the middle of the table.
- "There are literally hundreds of pictures like this on that disc, all of them showing either Outcast ships cooperating with the aliens or outright ignoring their presence. And then there are videos from ship cameras, interrogation sessions, records of conversations of certain individuals who are believed to be 'speakers' of sorts, following the will of the so called 'guardians' willingly, and relaying what they tell them to their brothers in arms."
He switched off the screen behind him, returning it to a subtle image of the Hessian crest, before continuing.
- "At first it seemed a bit too convenient for me, but when you think about it carefully: the Outcast "alliance", the war with the Corsairs escalating towards the houses, the drug Cardamine they happily use to enslave more and more people, now the hostilities between Liberty and our own fatherland? It all adds up..."
Kreis just sat there, still digesting the images and the proof shown to him, rubbing his chin, slowly going towards the neck. He looked at Meisnerr, scowling, and spoke.
- "Herr Meisnerr... can you make a copy of that disk for me?"
- "I already did. It is in front of you, Admiral."
- "Good." - He said while scanning the little steel square in front of him, then quickly pocketing it. - "This matter needs to be brought in front of the general council. Meanwhile I am going to put you in charge of dealing with that Coalition pilot. Keep him here, keep him happy, I want to talk to him myself. Right now I got an important call to make."
That said, his colleagues stood up and started preparing to leave. Kreis himself continued speaking.
- "I am going to depart for Vogtland as soon as I confirm this information. Try and arrange a transport for our guest, he will no doubt be needed there as well. Tell him he can call in his own escorts if he wants to."
As his entourage started walking outside of the room carrying their reports and folders, he quickly added: - "Be on your tightest guard and prepared for anything. I'll be down in medical in a few minutes." - before walking out of the room himself. Meisnerr just stood there for a bit afterwards, looking at the Hessian crest displayed on the monitor, before moving out to the station's sickbay..
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