Wesley launched from Darmstadt, hearing of some sort of commotion going on around Planet Stuttgart. Approaching from the far side of the barren moon that was in orbit of Stuttgart, Wesley powered down the ship and drifted in, hand on the emergency power button in case he had to get out of there real quick. What he saw was interesting.
A Rheinland Cruiser!
Wesley also found it amusing to chat with one of his old friends from the Rheinland Military. The conversation went on quite a while longer, but anything after the excerpt was not nearly as important or interesting.
It came suddenly. Like the dreams, only he was flying. It wasn't real, couldn't be happening, but it was. Something was talking to him. Through his head. He wasn't crazy, he had heard what the Nomads could do, but he refused to believe.
However, denial couldn't last forever. Soon, Wesley had to admit to himself what it was.
The Nomad knew about it. All of it. And Wesley fought it.
He tried a change in tact, trying to address the human that the Nomad was possessing.
And then... Wesley's eyes were opened to his purpose in life. His destiny, fate, the very reason for him being baited into Wilde space and taking what he had.
Wesley knew that what he had to do was free the Wilde from their Nomad hosts. He didn't know how, but he saw now that he was their only hope. He slipped into sleep as he planned how to do it.
Before Wesley could begin, he needed some test subjects. Knowing that the Wilde frequent the New Berlin to Sigma 13 jump hole, he set a course using jump holes from Darmstadt to Dresden, then up to New Berlin. As he entered New Berlin, he picked up two RM ship signals on long-range, thus sending out a message.
They were otherwise preoccupied, and would have engaged had they seen him at the time. Getting to the jump hole, he saw a Spatial attacking the Wilde, so he jumped in. Pretty soon, a Bounty Hunter Battlecruiser with RM identification ((not [RM]-)) named AEGIS came, requesting direction to attack, obviously skittish to open up on a ship engaging Nomad-infected humans, not an LWB fighter.
Luckily, the two Wilde fighters were downed before the Battlecruiser got permission to fire, and Wesley was well away. However, the two RM fighters intercepted him at Brandenburg, requesting that he halt. Wesley almost laughed in their faces.
Wesley outran them to the Dresden jump hole, and jumped. Not waiting for confirmation of pursuit, he floored it for Stuttgart, and didn't let off the gas until he slammed onto the deck at Darmstadt. Checking the long-range sensors, he saw that he had no pursuers. He checked his hold and the escape pods, wondering what to do next...
Wesley wrestled the unconscious Wilde from their escape pods and onto two stretchers he had wheeled in. Strapping them down hard and forcing straight jackets onto them, he now considered what to do next. Supposedly, he had some powerful Nomad device in his ship, if he could believe what that other Nomad had said one of them gained consciousness, and started fighting against the bonds. Foam came out of his mouth, and his head came up and down with force, each time slamming the headrest of the stretcher.
Going more on a gut feeling than anything, Wesley walked forward and put both hands on the mans head, forcing it down. He resisted, but lacked the strength. Soon, the eyes started glowing purple, and the man made some guttural grunt. The purple shifted through the color spectrum, straight down to red and straight back up to purple. Something weird was happening the lights flickered, and took a purple cast. The man quieted and settled down, and then it was over. He was dead.
Before he realized he was backing away, Wesleys back hit the wall of the cargo bay. The other one had awoken to watch, and just sat there, quietly, a look of pleading fighting with a look of hostility, each taking its turn as if the Nomad and human were fighting.
Please he said in a small voice, then a hiss: Pathetic human help you cannot hope me. to win. We are too strong.
At the end, the Nomad seemed to have the upper hand. Wesley, full of uncertainty except for the fact that he had to do something, walked forward and placed his hands on the mans head. This time something different was happening, his eyes didnt turn purple, and the lights did not take a purple ambience. However, the man convulsed on the bed, each muscle undergoing severe spasms. The only warning was a faint purple glow coming from his mouth, before this this thing slithered out, screaming. No, not screaming, but projecting piercing telepathic messages that felt like a high-pitched squeal. It flopped to the ground, like a fish out of water. Wesley, too shocked, didnt realize he had pulled his gun until he put the entire clip into the damn thing.
The man lay on the table, passed out, yet breathing raggedly.
Wesley disposed of the Nomad the most economical way possible he blew it out an airlock. He tried his best to keep it a secret, carrying it bundled in a blanket the short distance. On returning to his cargo bay, he noticed that the man was still unchanged. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and lines around his eyes that said he had endured a lot. He looked to be about 40, which would put him as a young recruit back in the Nomad War. Wesley had no idea what being infected for so long did to a human psyche, but he had a feeling he was about to find out.
He sat against a bulkhead on the far side of the cargo bay, snoozing a little as he waited for him to wake up. Hours passed before a startled gasp from the man brought Wesley out of his half-asleep half-awake state of consciousness. The man tried to sit up, straining against the bonds. Wesley got up slowly and walked over.
Who are you? Where am I? Why why is it so quiet?
I am Wesley Richter. This is my ship, and its so quiet because you are no longer infected with those abominations known as Nomads.
His eyes widened, his mouth quirked to a smile. There there is no way I can thank you enough! I went through hell with that thing in my head, treating me like a beast of burden. Please release me.
Wesley pressed a button on the stretcher and the restraints popped off. The man swung to a sitting position, and massaged circulation back to where the straps had been. Please, you must tell me who you are. I must know who could have saved me.
This is Darmstadt Depot, the Landwirtrechtbewegung base. I am one of their Guard pilots.
What? My own people, the Military, would not save me, but you, my supposed enemy would? Wesley you have shown me that the Rheinland Military does not care for its pilots. Please, I owe you my life. Allow me to fly with you.
It would be an honor to have you, ahh whats your name?
Wesley figured out what had gone wrong the first time. The human needed to be fighting the Nomad back for whatever Wesley did to work, which is why the second time it did work. The first person had completely surrendered. Deciding to try again, he once again flew out to the Sigma 13 New Berlin jump hole, and found three Wilde ships. Blowing them up proved easy, and even though the Rheinland Federal Police got close, they wisely held their distance as Wesley flew by with the Nomad-infested pilots in his hold.
This time, he made sure to talk to them before hand, tell them what he was doing, told them to fight. And they did, they tried, as if they were caught in quicksand and all of the sudden a branch of hope had fallen so they could pull themselves out. Soon, there were three Nomad corpses on the ground, each shot to death by Wesley after being ejected from the human bodies. And they were alive. These, however, after talking opted to return to serve the Gottkanzler and the Military. So Wesley respected the wishes of the newly humanized men, and hesitantly called the Rheinland Military. He didnt expect this to go down too well, but he had to try
Wesley read over the reply to his transmission. Good old Freelamen, replying exactly as he had expected. He was in the cockpit of his Wrath, and the three 'Military' pilots were behind him. He moved some and let them look at it:
' Wrote:
--- Running Rheinland Comms ---
Source: Vice Admiral Meric Freelamen, The Vineta, New Berlin System
Connecting... Wesley Richter Connection Established, Restricted Access Granted
Transmitting...
Very funny, Mr. Richter. This however looks like yet another trick that you've seem to come up with to get us within your grasp. Very well thought out I must say, but we aren't stupid Mr. Richter. Keep your nonsense filled and worthless transmissions to yourself, we won't need them wasting our space on our comm units.
-Vice Admiral Meric Freelamen
Rheinland Military High Command
Transmission Complete
Sending... Message Sent
Logging Off...
"So you see that they don't care about you," was all Wesley said blankly. They looked a little spooked, but nodded. "There's always an open door in the LWB for pilots such as yourselves."
Two took a transport bound for Kreuzberg, and from there Freeport 2, and the other joined the LWB to show the RM what they had made him by showing how much they look after their pilots.
Something was different. Wrong. It wasnt so much a a he couldnt explain it to himself. A smell, maybe. Some sort of sixth sense. Nothing that could be described. He had flown out and gotten one Wilde pilot, which had fought like a demon from hell itself, each flake of hull taken was yielded only after much fighting, the Wilde resisting tooth and nail. Wesley, however, was better. Only just. He won with a considerable chunk of his ship gone, and had to take a long detour back to Darmstadt to avoid the RM patrols he normally breezed by.
Once he set down, he found a woman in his cargo hold, somehow awake despite the sleeping gas he had activated to put her out. There was naked rage painted on her face as she beat on the cargo holds door. When he opened it, she jumped at him, and he barely managed to grab her and stop her before she overwhelmed him and got out. That would have been bad. Instead, he wrestled her to the ground, doing his best to not get hit by the random spasm-like punches and kicks she was throwing. Damn stubborn
Her hands suddenly reached out and grabbed his head, eyes focused. She stopped flailing, and soon he stopped trying to hold her down. They were both locked there, eyes meeting and her hands on his head. In her eyes was pain, hate, outrage; in his were wonder. Some sort of link was made there, one between the minds. They saw each others pasts, most intimate thoughts and fears. It was odd. Wesley saw that her life was a tumult of pain and suffering, abused as a child by her own brother, then having a string of abusive relationships to finally end up in the Military, her hatred for all of humanity coming out in that she would lash out at anything that gave her an excuse. When the Nomads came, she had willingly given herself to it.
She pushed him off her and got up. Leaving the ship and a dazed Wesley she stole one of the LWBs Eagles and left for destinations unknown. Wesley didnt know why, but he did not pursue or even try to stop her.
After that, try as he might, he could never separate a Nomad from a human again.
Since the encounter with the female Wilde, Wesley grew more contemplative, unable to do much besides fly combat missions, sleep, or think; even eating eluded him. He killed three more Wilde in attempts to save them before realizing that she must have done something. Who could say what Nomads were capable of?
Something was missing. Freeing Wilde hadnt been his destiny, and he had been forcibly ejected from that false path. Then what was it? Surely not helping the aliens wipe out humanity he would die before he considered it.
That girl
Not understanding or bothering to finish the thought, Wesley set a course back to Omega 55. Back to hell, where that woman surely had answers.