Week 5 Summary (July 8-14, 2002)

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"Swallow One to flight control," Gunther spoke out over the comm. "Venusian cruiser has appeared to break off pursuit. All systems are nominal, no new problems to report. We are continuing en route to the Fierce, over."

"Swallow One, this is control. I'm showing you on final approach in fifty-one minutes at your current velocity. Maintain speed and heading, but stay sharp in case that cruiser makes a run."

"Roger that flight control," Gunther returned. "Will maintain speed and course heading. We'll alert you if the cruiser reenters our scopes. Swallow One out."

Gunther killed the afterburners on his Lancer, letting Susan coast along. There was no reason to waste the remass. The Venusian cruiser had apparently given up pursuit, now disappearing off his scope. From the sound of things over flight channels, the lone Ryu had made it past Grackle Flight with minimal damage, but there was little that he or McGregor could do from their location. Frustrated that he was powerless to help defend the Fierce, powerless to have helped Dee Dee... he just felt a bit useless. He knew that it didn't make logical sense; it was just how he felt under the circumstances. To top it off, he was stuck with Miss "I'm busy" for the duration. As could be guessed, McGregor and he hadn't spoken much since they left Swallow Two's debris field.

"So," Gunther asked to break the silence and hopefully ease the tension both in his soul and between he and McGregor, "You still busy?"

McGregor glanced up from her computer terminal, where she had been simultaneously trying to figure out where the damage to the Bigeye pod was and analyze the data on those surprisingly deft Ryu exo-armors. "Not too much now," she replied. "I'm running a bunch of tests on the systems here to see where the damage is. Nothing better to do..."

"The Lancer seemed to make it out with only minor damage," Gunther called back. "Seems the Ryu's lance got caught up in all the antennae arrays. We likely have all those protrusions to thank that we're not limping home. How are you holding up?" Gunther asked trying to keep the conversation going. "How's your neck?"

"Fucker probably would have missed if it hadn't been for the damn antennas!" McGregor exclaimed. "He was fast, Gunther, as you probably noticed. Nowhere near what we've been believing its performance to be for the past couple of years. Nowhere near it. Anyway, my neck's okay, though I'll probably need a brace for a few days."

"Glad to hear it," Gunther acknowledged. "About your neck, I mean. Sorry I had to jerk you around down there. I figured you'd rather be alive and in pain than dead." Gunther punched his sensors panel to make some minor checks. "I will say this though. This hulk of an ATMP moved pretty well," Gunther praised. "I was surprised that Susan could keep up with some of my maneuvers with all the extra mass. We were lucky to get out of that firefight alive. As you said, those weren't normal Ryu, not by a long shot."

"Hmmmm..." McGregor mused. "I wonder. They certainly didn't match our intelligence on the model, but I'm not convinced the whole thing hasn't been a snow job up until now. Anyway, we were fairly careful about where we put the apogee motors on this pod. It was bad enough it's fifty percent more massive than the space frame; we didn't want to sacrifice the fighter's already limited maneuverability. No offense."

"Well, it's the pilot and not the machine that gets both out of trouble," Gunther admitted. "Personally, as a Lancer pilot, I like the challenge. Better than being an exo-pilot in my mind. At least that's the way I see it." Gunther was still listening in on the flight channels while conversing. Things didn't sound good. "By the way, I thought you should know, the Fierce is entering full battlestations from the sound of things over the comm," Gunther informed. "Communications from the Ryu to Grackle Flight have confirmed that the exo is likely on a Kamikaze run. It seems your feelings are proving true, ruling out this whole affair being a snow job. I'd say the Venusians want us out of the way, out of the way bad."

"Wonderful," McGregor said. "It's not this attack, by the way, that's the snow job. It's the whole Ryu thing across the board and our failure to gather correct intelligence. I don't think we're seeing a modified or souped-up Ryu out there. I think that's what the Ryu is, and what we've seen up until this point has been a very successful campaign of misdirection."

"Well, the stealth and EW specs on that cruiser weren't exactly standard fare for an HDF warship of that class either," Gunther stated, affirming McGregor's suspicions. "At least, the specs that JAF intelligence has released to us pilots... but let's talk about the sled for a moment. What do you make of the Venusians being interested in a sled? Even more strange, according to what we were seeing on our sensor readout after we pinged it a second time, the sled looked like it was accelerating."

"I confess I'm not entirely sure anymore," McGregor replied. "Here's the thing about the sleds: they're poor targets. Their meekness is about the only thing that keeps them safe from predation. That is, it's not wealthy, powerful business executives traveling via the Circuit. It's not rare pieces of pre-Fall artwork being shipped. It's average Joes and Janes with precious little to steal that's worth stealing, and with no political or economic clout to barter in a kidnapping scenario. So pirates generally keep away from them -- they're far more trouble than they're worth.

"Here's the thing, though: the sleds are so safe that the corporate bigwigs and the government higher-ups are actually gambling on that safety! I'm not at liberty to disclose any names -- though God help me, I want to -- but in the past three years no fewer than five top corporate executives have traveled via sled. If the pirates ever learned of this, no sled would be safe ever again. The whole system would be in danger of collapsing.

"I assumed," she continued, "that's what we were dealing with -- that those idiots had finally done it, that they'd finally gone and lost their idiotic bet. With Venus suddenly in the picture, I don't know what to think anymore, though I'd guess it's along similar lines: some jackass was shipping something or someone via the Circuit on the arrogant pretense that it was cheaper or better security than actually securing the delivery."

Gunther listened to McGregor's synopsis with interest, but clearly she didn't know much about the shipping underground, underestimating what pirates and smuggling rings knew. Safe? he queried silently to himself, smiling. Safe from whom? While he felt mildly tempted to mock her, he was smarter than that, considering what his eventual reply would be carefully. Being a JAFI officer, it was likely that she was choosing her own words carefully too.

"Well, you could be right about the Venusians," Gunther spoke up when McGregor seemed to be finished with her point. Whatever you intelligence officers may believe, it has been well known in labor circles for some time that Hanson Sleds have shipped a lot of blacked cargo. My experience has been that pirates and smugglers are even more ingenious than you people have been. I used to work as an assistant dock master for the JGMC, before my commission with the JAF. I saw a lot more than JGMC raw materials and cryo-tubes being shipped via the Hanson Sleds, but you learned to keep quiet in those circumstances."

"I'm talking about bigger fish, Gunther," McGregor replied. "Yes, there's smuggling and such, but that's still relatively safe. It's not big enough bait. It's not worth the pirates' effort to get. See, the public doesn't care two licks about a pirate assault on a private shipping line -- that doesn't affect the public. Well, it drives prices higher, but that's not the point. When pirates go after a sled, however, which is public transportation used by Joe and Jane Q. Public, the public outcry is deafening. Only a political idiot would ignore it, which means a terribly armed response from us -- the protectors of J. Q. Public -- and which in turn means no end of trouble for the pirates. Not worth it. Oh, sure, they sometimes board a sled and go after stuff that won't get the public in an uproar -- in fact, more than one sled has gone out with 'offerings' to pirates -- but they still keep it low profile. And they do not board the passenger modules. Unless there's some pretty big bait in there. Like an important executive or politician."

She sighed. "Anyway, that's all beside the point now. I don't know what the hell the Venusians were after. Though you can bet whoever shipped it is going to catch hell."

"I guess we'll see," Gunther resigned. "At this point, I am all questions and few conclusions." Gunther then realized that their was no reason for him to pilot Susan manually at this point. Switching on the autopilot, he then stretched as best he could in his cockpit chair. This has turned out to be a long shift, he reflected.

A little gleam appearing in his eyes, Gunther cracked a slight smile. "Given that we have just less than an hour before we arrive at the Fierce, that is if their still is one by the time we get there, what else is there to talk about?" Gunther asked semi-rhetorically. "Tell me, who is Lieutenant McGregor?"

"That's classified," she replied.

"Really?" Gunther exclaimed in disbelief. "Surely there's something about you that isn't classified."

"There is," McGregor replied. "However, knowledge about what is not classified is, itself, classified."

Gunther smirked. "You don't like me, do you?"

"I don't know you well enough to make that call, Lieutenant. If it'll make you feel any better, my profession isn't about making friends unless it's to screw them over later for God and Country."

"Well, I guess that means I'm pretty safe," Gunther joked. "I mean we wouldn't want things to get personal and then have you screw me."

Harry was just putting away his exo-suit when the call to battlestations came and so was already suited up when the other marines arrived on the flight deck. "Suit up and get to damage control stations," commanded Harry to his squad, his voice booming over the Decker's loudspeaker.

Private Ng was last to arrive, shortly behind La Rue, whose sweat-dampened clothing was sure sign that she'd been in the gym. In short order, all ten of the marines on launch deck 5 were suited up and running tests on their exo-suits.

"Hey Nicky," Brinks offered quietly as he towered over his squad mate, "don't worry. I'll be looking out for you."

Ellis made a face behind her Decker's faceplate. "That's kind of you, Noah, but I don't need to be babysat. I'm a marine too, remember."

Satisfied that her suit was ready for action, La Rue walked purposefully forward. "What's the situation, Sarge?" she asked Mandrake. "Are we under attack? Am I bustin' out the armor gun?"

Harry checked the constantly updating situation report on his suit's display again and shook his head. "There's a single exo inbound for a lightning strike on the Fierce. We're in no danger of being boarded that I can tell. Report to normal damage control stations, looks like the Redtails got caught napping and can't set up a proper intercept," he said over the squad's radio frequency. Switching to the squad commander's private channel he spoke again. "Squad ready for damage control duty, sir. Any further instructions?" he reported to Duran.

Over on launch deck 6, Duran had just finished getting into his Falconer exo-suit. "Unless you hear otherwise from damage control on the bridge, it's SOP for you and Tucker," he said to both Sergeants. "My squad will take care of any external problems -- your two will carry out normal firefighting, breach-sealing and rescue ops, but be aware that you're two of the fastest and best damage control teams on the ship. If we get hit, you're going to get called. I want you where you need to be on the double."

Lieutenant Messier glanced up from his console and turned to look at the captain. The air on the bridge had already been evacuated, and everyone present wore hard shell space suits -- standard operating procedure for a warship under combat conditions. It made for a strangely quiet environment, when the bridge was usually a hive of electronic noise.

"We have 90% atmospheric reclamation, sir," he said over the open bridge line. "Hab 2 and the main hull are green -- only a couple of decks on Hab 1 have crew that haven't checked in. It looks like a lot of the off-duty crew were in the commons, so it's taking them some time to get organized."

Captain Delacroix nodded and keyed open a channel to the first habitation module. "This is your captain. Move it, people," she commanded firmly. "This is not a drill. I want Hab 1 locked down in sixty seconds."

Down in the Hab 1 Commons, small throngs of people suddenly stirred to action, redoubling their efforts to get suited up and check in so that the air in the module could be recovered.

The walls of the room were now lined with previously hidden stations that had folded down to produce acceleration benches, vac suits and direct connections to the ship's life support systems.

As Lana Epsilon sealed her faceplate with a click, she plugged her suit into the wall and watched as its power, air and fluid levels returned readings in the normal range. Sitting down on the couch, she pulled on her web-like harness and settled in.

Arianna Cyan struggled slightly with her suit, fumbling with the fasteners at her neck for a few seconds before someone's hands covered hers and directed them in the necessary fashion. Turning, she came face to face with Lieutenant Montreal. He lifted his faceplate so he could speak normally.

"I don't mean to be forward," he said slowly, his voice smooth and rich, "but it looked like you could use a hand."

Luckily, no one could her Lana's squeal as she stamped her feet happily, overjoyed by the scene in front of her.

"Ummm, thanks," Arianna said, slowly, as he finished fastening the brackets that held her helmet in place. "You're Montreal, I think. I'm Private Cyan."

"Yes, I know. We've met, though it was brief." Montreal looked about to say something further, but was interrupted by someone else calling over to him. It was Private Collins, who was only about halfway into her suit.

"Ricardo! Come give me a hand! I'm all tangled..." When Private Meltwater almost spoke up and offered his services, Collins silenced him with a fiery glare. "Come on, Ricardo!"

Montreal smiled ever so slightly at Cyan. "It appears my services are needed elsewhere," he said without guile. "You'd better finish getting suited up and check in."

As if on cue, Epsilon leaned back and transmitted her check-in sequence. Then opening a private channel to Cyan, she gleefully declared, "Arianna! He so wants you!"

"What?" Arianna asked, genuinely shocked. "He was just helping me with my helmet. That's all."

Epsilon grinned mischievously as Cyan sat down next to her and signaled her readiness for the air to be removed from the commons. "Yeah, sure!" the young gunner hooted. "But there is one thing you're doing wrong -- that female pilot, Collins I think he name is -- she's trying to get her hooks into your man. Just look at the way she's wriggling around. Are you just going to sit back and let her steal him?"

"My man?" Arianna responded. "He's hardly my man. I don't even know him. Besides, what makes you think I even want him?"

Epsilon backed off. "Whoa, whoa, okay. You wanna play hard to get. Good idea," she commented. "Just watch Collins. She's wily."

"Thank you," Arianna said, coldly. "I'll keep that in mind."

Turning her attentions back to the monitors and displays lining the commons, Arianna watched the ongoing drama transpiring outside, along with the rest of her shipmates. She had never seen a battle, not in person, and it lacked some of the excitement she expected. It wasn't much like the trivids she was used to. It wasn't as much fun.

Epsilon smiled weakly, finally aware that Cyan didn't seem particularly keen on the subject of the handsome pilot. Leaning back against the wall, she instead turned to watch the screens as well.

"Just a little closer," Vice said, his finger poised over the trigger of his Retaliator's cannon. Slowly, the Retaliator closed the distance. Agonizingly slowly. The Fierce seemed to be closing faster. "Almost there..."

"Where the hell did he come from?!" Corporal Cosby exclaimed.

Taking up pursuit in her Pathfinder, Gilding responded to her wingman, "I don't know -- but I hope to God he's going fast enough to catch that thing."

Valkurie smiled when his targeting computer locked up the Ryu. He was at extreme range, but was running out of time. The lights of the Fierce loomed bigger with each passing second, and the Ryu was headed straight for her.

Vice focused on his target like a Hawk on its prey. There was no way that he was going to let this Ryu get near his ship. He took a quick glance at the thruster display. Retaliators were known to burn out the thrusting verniers if too much thrust was applied for an extended period of time. He was surprised that his hadn't burned out yet. It was getting close, though. A minute more and they might go. Maybe.

The only defense that the Ryu had right now was its speed. It had shot past the second picket line and continued to barrel full burn at the Fierce. Vice could play it safe, reduce his thrusting, save his verniers but he might not be able to take out the faster Ryu. He was only at the very edge of his weapons' effective range. If he missed, then the Ryu would continue unchallenged. If he continued his burn then he might be able to close the distance a little more and then the Ryu would make a better target. This would cost him his verniers.

Valkurie glanced at the nozzle temperature gauge. The temperature was still rising slowly. If he wanted to play it safe, he never would have joined the service as a pilot. Plus a part of him was enjoying this. Riding a speeding mass of metal armed to the teeth on the verge of burning out his systems. Is this how his pilot predecessors felt riding on this razors edge? The adrenaline rush of spitting in the face of danger. What was it that Gunther had said earlier? Linear Frame, Linear Brain. His crack probably held some truth to it. Vice wanted to stop the Ryu. At this point it was his whole reason for being.

Verniers be damned, he was going to stop this Ryu.

Vice throttled up some more, and gritted his teeth as the machine bucked in protest. "It's just you and me now, pal," Vice said to the Ryu, his smile creeping wider. His finger hovered over the firing stud as missile lock tone of increasing volume filled his headphones. "You, me and my little armor crushing friends."

The pair of exos plunged onward, one chasing the other in a deadly race that was all-to-quickly reaching its conclusion. The Ryu wasn't trying any fancy maneuvering; its pilot seemed hell-bent on simply ramming into the Fierce, just as Valkurie had surmised. For his part, the pilot of Grackle One cut his engines for a few seconds when the range was finally right, steadying his Retaliator to make the shot count. Launching his last two medium missiles, Vice held his breath as they soared ahead of him, pursuing the Ryu. The pilot of the Venusian exo saw the missiles at the last moment and opened up his thrusters full in an attempt to outrun them, but two bright flashes in the darkness ahead of him told Valkurie that his aim had been true. Before he could celebrate, however, a blue-white flash filled his vision. A Second later, his war machine was swatted from its flight path by a storm of atomic fire.

The flash was intense. Vice went from having his vision filled entirely with White to total blackness. The brightness of that secondary explosion was too much for his exo's polarization screens to compensate for. The darkness... he wasn't sure if it was his exo or his own eyesight. Seconds later there was a cacophony of metal colliding with the outside hull of his exo. Then all was silence.

Vice had no reference for the passage of time. He was blind. Every exo pilot was familiar enough with their machines that they could pilot them with their eyes closed. In Vice's case, none of the controls were responding. There weren't even any warning klaxons. Just a silent darkness. Either he was dead or that explosion had done something to his exo.

He opted for the latter.

It became time to take stock of the situation. The silence was at some level a good thing. He couldn't hear any hissing, which meant that his flight suit was still intact -- so bailing out was an option. Of course at the speed he was traveling he had probably shot right past the Fierce and was half way home. There was no response from the controls. Nothing seemed to work.

This had all the symptoms of an EM pulse, assuming that he wasn't dead. The exo's systems would come back on in a few minutes -- hopefully. The disruption would be temporary -- hopefully.

All he could do was wait. Wait and try to figure out how to slow himself down.

On the bridge of the Fierce, Captain Delacroix cursed a blue streak that would have made her grandfather proud. The Ryu had been wired with a nuclear device of some kind, and it had detonated when the exo had been destroyed. "All hands!" she shouted into the comm, "Brace for impact!"

No sooner had the captain's message reached her crew when an electromagnetic pulse washed over the carrier. The warship's systems were built to withstand such assaults, but she was simply too close to the blast, and as a result systems all over the ship shorted out and shut down. Chaos reigned when, after the electrical systems went down, the ship was buffeted by heat and pressure waves. Neither were strong enough to do heavy damage to the Fierce, simply because the near vacuum of space didn't allow for energy transfer like an atmosphere did, but the ship still shuddered and blistered as though she were struck by a great, white-hot hammer.

Alarms blared as harsh emergency lights sprang to life all over the ship. Damage control teams moved out to ascertain the extent of the damage, which they'd then report to the bridge as they immediately attempted containment, rescue or repair.

Captain Delacroix issued a command to Messier, but when her first officer didn't respond, she knew her suit's comm system had been fried. Moving down to his station, he touched him on the shoulder before moving in closer to touch the transparent shield of her faceplate to his.

"What's our status?" she asked, her voice muffled and fuzzy.

Messier gestured at his console, which had only now come back to life. "Give me a minute," he said, communicating in the same vibratory manner. "The damage reports are slow coming in."

Delacroix nodded, though she didn't like not knowing how serious the damage was. Taking her seat, she breathed a sigh of relief when communications were restored a minute later.

"Fierce, do you copy?" Lieutenant Spencer was calling, his voice distorted and full of static. "Fierce, come in!"

"This is Fierce control," the flight controller's voice came back, finally. "We'd lost power for a minute, but it looks like the backups are online."

"Roger that, Fierce," Spencer replied. "We're all present and accounted for out here... luckily we weren't too close to that blast -- except for Valkurie. Grackle One is moving away -- he's still on that same high-speed vector. Permission to go after him -- I think his exo's been disabled."

"Granted," Delacroix butted in. "Go get him, Elliot." Turning to Messier, she cut the channel to Spencer and added, "So tell me where it hurts, Lieutenant."

Messier didn't turn around as he began ringing off the problems that had been reported. "We've got casualties in both KKC turrets and down in engineering near drive 3 -- it's worst in the port turret. We've got reports of explosions and some crew trapped in there. I've sent in Mandrake's squad. We've lost life support and power in cargo pods two and three... it looks like several of the drive fins have been knocked out of alignment, and drives one, two and four are off-line. We're listing, captain."

There was the flash, the captain's warning, and then everything went dead. The overhead lights, the displays, the steady chatter of talking over local channels, the vitals readouts on the forearm each vac suit -- everything.

"My god," Private Cyan muttered to herself, her words becoming lost in the helmet she wore, inaudible to everyone around her.

A few seconds later, the hull rang as though it had been struck by a titan, and everyone in the commons was jarred out of their initial shock at having lost power. When several more vibrations buzzed through the ship's metal skeleton, the more experienced spacers knew that secondary explosions were now rocking the ship. Bedlam reigned for a moment as people realized that they were unable to communicate with one another, and that they had no way to find out what had happened, or how serious the damage was. The group was rapidly calmed by several veteran crewmembers taking their feet and settling the crowd with hand signals. There was no immediate danger, and the damage control team assigned to the commons soon deemed the structure sound and set off to try to find out what had happened.

Private Epsilon unfastened part of her acceleration webbing and motioned for Cyan to do the same so the two could lean in together and touch helmets.

"Oh my God!" Epsilon cried, her voice muted in Arianna's ears. "What do you think happened? Do you think anyone's hurt?"

"I have no idea. We may have been hit," Cyan explained. Then, added, "Hard."

"But there was a pulse," Private Epsilon exclaimed. "It had to have been..."

"Lana, calm down. We're okay so it's likely that everyone else is fine too," Cyan said. She turned, eyeing the doors, then realized that Lana would be unable to hear her, so she was forced to turn back. "I'm going to go up to the bridge."

"You'll only get in the way," Epsilon snapped back. "If they wanted you up there, they'd call."

"Maybe they can't," Cyan responded. "If they need extra help at the helm, I should be up there."

Epsilon shrugged. "It's against protocol, but I'm not going to stop you," she said simply.

Unfastening the rest of her acceleration web, Arianna got to her feet and bounced clumsily for a moment, unused to the light gravity. The ship had been thrusting under 0.8g -- now it couldn't have been more than a quarter of that.
Moving towards the exit, she felt many eyes in the darkened, eerily silent room watching her. When she reached the door, someone touching her shoulder seized her attention.

"I'll go with you," Lieutenant Montreal silently mouthed when the girl looked at him.

Cyan signaled bridge in runic, and Montreal nodded. Not having time to debate with the man, the helmsman set off, intent on making herself useful, intent on finding out if she was needed.

Though it had suffered some damage in the blast, the ship was surprisingly peaceful as the pair moved through its sections, down the central habitat well to the connecting arm, up the arm to the main hull, and then up to the heavily armored bridge. Here and there damage control teams, busy getting somewhere or busy working on a problem, waved them along towards their destination. The duo had at least found out what had happened -- that a nuclear device had gone off in close proximity to the Fierce, and that some of the damage had been significant, and that there were casualties.

When they stopped just outside the heavy doors that led to the command center, Montreal turned the young woman around and touched his helmet to hers. "I'm going to go to the hangar, to see if they can use my help." His eyes, so very close to Cyan's, flashed darkly. "Good luck on the bridge, Private Cyan."

"Ummm, thanks," Cyan answered. "And, good luck to you too."

Watching the pilot go, Cyan turned to a panel on the wall and called into the bridge. "Captain and bridge crew, this is Private Arianna Cyan, reporting for duty. If you need me, I'm here at the entrance."

A few seconds passed, the heavy door lifted, stopped, stuttered for a moment, then lifted the rest of the way. Inside, Captain Delacroix waved her in. The bridge was bustling with activity, and when Cyan came to the captain's side the middle-aged woman handed her a comm link that the private could affix to her helmet and use to stay in contact with the rest of the bridge crew.

"I don't know what the hell you think you're doing up here, Cyan," Delacroix's voice suddenly sounded in Arianna's helmet, "but we can use you. We're still off course, still listing. See if you can't give Eroll a hand in getting that corrected."

"Yes, ma'am," Cyan answered, quickly. "I'll do what I can."

Moving slowly, trying to make sure her footing was sound with each step, Cyan moved across the command center to the helm, touching Eroll on the shoulder when she arrived to signal her presence. For a long time, she just watched him, trying to understand the situation, to figure out what systems were still online and which systems were down. Periodically, she would turn away to watch the other men and women on the bridge, looking for more clues about the Fierce's current condition.

"Duran's outside with his Falconers," Messier stated over the emergency channel. "Tucker and Mandrake have taken their squads to the two turrets, and we have several DC teams moving into the drive sections. We still have some personnel unaccounted for, but it could have been worse, captain."

Delacroix nodded curtly. "I know, Lieutenant. What concerns me now is the extent these people are willing to go to, using weapons of mass destruction. Just what the hell is going on on that sled?" Looking down at the helm station, she commanded, "I want us back on target as soon as you can manage it. I have a feeling that we don't have a minute to waste."

Eroll nodded and looked over this shoulder. "We're working on it, captain. Most of the lateral thrusters on the port side were knocked out, and the drive fins aren't responding properly either. Unless engineering can get us more power to the one functioning drive, we're looking at being off-course for another three hours."

"And in that time," Delacroix said evenly, "that cruiser can move to block our pursuit of the sled."

"I think I can get us back on-line in under an hour," Private Cyan announced. She hated upstaging her friend, but she knew the most important thing was the mission, was reaching the sled.

"How?" Eroll asked simply, not offended by the girl's brash declaration.

Arianna adjusted a dozen settings on his control panel. "Like this," she answered.

"Private," Eroll began slowly, "you've overridden the safety protocols on drives one and two."

"That's the only way we'll be able to re-ignite them and get the thrust we need," she responded matter-of-factly.

"Captain," Corporal Eroll said, "this might just work -- but there's a risk involved. We could seriously damage the fusion coils and the plasma injectors if we push the engines too hard."

Cyan spoke up. "Nakasu builds their fusion cores well beyond JAF spec -- it's one of the reasons they've won so many contracts with us. But what good are the increased tolerances if we don't use them?"

Delacroix was silent. If Cyan was wrong, and the two drives melted down, they wouldn't have much hope of catching the sled. But their best chance was right now, before the cruiser to move into position. "Do it," she said evenly to the two helmsmen.

Eroll nodded and sat back down. Cyan made a few final adjustments over his shoulder, and her friend smiled. "You've really got gumption, you know that?" he said quietly over a private channel. Contacting engineering to let them know what was happening and fine-tuning some of the woman's settings to make the maneuver a little less ballsy, Eroll re-ignited the first two drives and prepared to bring them up to power, then signaled being ready to the captain.

"All hands, prepare for emergency maneuvering," Delacroix said over a ship wide channel, aware that not all of her crew could yet hear her. To Eroll and Cyan she added, "Do it. Gently, but do it."

Eroll gradually increased power to the two engines while Arianna fought the urge to sit down and open the throttle wide immediately. Precious seconds were wasting, but she wasn't about to push her luck since her presence on the bridge was already questionable. She knew from the looks Messier had given her that he certainly didn't approve.

The ship began to rumble, and everyone aboard felt the press of heavier gravity as three of the Fierce's four drives now burned brightly. "We're coming around," Eroll said deliberately, "and are on a recovery vector." A few minutes more of steady burning saw the man grin. "Captain, we should be back on vector in 47 minutes."

After cruising along in rather strained silence for some time, McGregor suddenly asked, "Hey, Gunther? You ever hacked a transponder signal? Running these tests down here got me thinking: if I can trip a self-test on the beacon, I might be able to get a message to Dee Dee."

"You mean program Dee Dee's transponder remotely?" Gunther inquired. "I thought that it was a transmission only device."

"Yeah, nominally, but it does have a remote diagnostic input used for triage by SAR teams," McGregor replied. "It uses public/private key pair encryption to keep the occupants safe from information blackmail, but the keys are held in escrow by the Solar Cross. And, ahem, by Intelligence. Anyway, it's a doorway into the system. Like I said, if I can trip the right self-test sequences, we can get her a message. You guys know Morse, right? There are some status indicators in the escape module that I should be able to get to blink in Morse. Of course, she won't be able to respond."

"You can do that?" Gunther inquired, his tone indicating a bit of disbelief.

"Yeah," McGregor replied, "though like I said, it's one-way only. Let me get it going..." McGregor began working out the details of hacking the transmitter.

"I guess that's better than nothing. Anyway that I ca--" Gunther began to offer before he was cut off by a priority call from Starling Flight. "Lieutenant, I've just received a transmission from my CO. I'll let you work while I find out what's up." With that he closed his channel to McGregor and opened another to Senior Lieutenant Spencer.

"Well, fine," McGregor said to the stars. She started tapping away on her keyboard. After a few moments, she noticed an interesting message on the diagnostic console: the guide star system had gotten momentarily confused by a bright, non-point source object, much brighter than any planet and quite a bit brighter than most stars. "What the hell?" she wondered.

Playing back the sensor logs, she found the sequence and watched with curiosity. There! A flash in the direction of the Fierce. Playing it over and over again, she decided to run it through the spectral analysis package.

Someone had detonated a nuke near the Fierce!

Bringing the search for Dee Dee to a halt, she focused her sensors entirely in the direction of the ship, hoping it was still there. With a sigh of relief, she found that it was. It was too far to make out any details, but there it was, drifting in space.

Just then Gunther interrupted McGregor's concentration. "Bad news," Gunther explained. "Starling Flight reports that the Fierce was nearly hit with a nuke. She's taken some damage."

"Yeah, I saw it in the replay," McGregor said. "Assholes."

Switching from autopilot to manual control, Gunther ignited the Lancer's thrusters, then he continued. "We have been instructed to perform perimeter scans, keeping an eye out for that Venusian cruiser or any other bogeys. I'm bringing Susan about and taking us along a patrol flight path that will let us scan a wide arc for the cruiser. I want to keep them from flanking the Fierce's position."

"Okay," said McGregor. "We've got fairly big eyes out here. All the better to see those monkey fuckers with."

"Monkey fuckers?" Gunther gaped. "Where did you make that up?"

Mandrake's team had moved swiftly and surely towards the port kinetic kill cannon turret. The damage that had been reported there sounded serious, thus the team of Deckers had been called in as soon as their systems had rebooted and come back online. Ellis, unfortunately, hadn't been able to get her comm system back up, so she'd been forced to communicate with the others via gestures and hand signals.

Details were sketchy, but all indications were that a nuke had been detonated in space somewhere fairly near the Fierce. All Mandrake knew about the damaged turret was that there were crew trapped inside, and that explosions had been reported. A heavy access door barred the marines' entry into the turret collar, and it quickly became apparent that the door would have to be forced, blown or cut open.

La Rue fought with the door a minute before asking, "What's the plan, Sergeant?"

Harry stepped forward and quickly examined the hatch. "La Rue, you and Brinks try and force it open. Ng, get a cutting torch ready in case that doesn't work. Ellis will stand by to evacuate the gunnery crew." Turning to Ellis he gave her the Spacer's Runic hand signal for first aid.

Ellis nodded and stood ready to move in quickly. Ng knelt and prepped a laser torch as La Rue and Brinks both gained purchases on the hatch's manual controls. "It's jammed," Brinks said through gritted teeth.

"But we've got it," La Rue added, exertion evident in her voice as well.

Long seconds later, the actuators and joints on the exo-suits straining, the door moved a few inches, and then a foot. Re-adjusting their grips, the two armored, burly marines forced the door the rest of the way. Had there been atmosphere, the metal-on-metal sound would have been grating.

"Got it!" La Rue exclaimed.

Ellis was already moving in. Inside, she was shocked to see that the turret had suffered massive damage. There was a hole in the decking ahead of her, and even in the armored exterior hull beyond that. Stars were plainly visible though the gash, and hard vacuum had settled into the section.

Scorch marks and wreckage abounded, but it only took Ellis a few seconds to find the three crewmembers who had been in the small section when it had been hit. They were trapped under a tangle of twisted and melted metal, and looked to be in bad shape. After quickly evaluating their states, Ellis turned back to look at Mandrake, signaling one death -- two injury -- one bad -- urgent spacesuit leak -- rescue unstable, in runic.

Coming forward, Mandrake could see that extracting the pair of still living gunners wouldn't be easy, and that there wasn't a lot of room for this squad to work.

Finishing his quick inspection, Harry swore under his breath and then addressed the squad. "We need to get this guy out quick. Brinks, you start clearing away the wreckage, but be careful and if looks like it's going do more damage get out of the way and let Ng handle it with the torch. Everyone else clear the way, we can worry about the other guy afterwards." Switching on his helmet camera, Harry contacted the bridge.

"Damage control, this is the port turret. We have heavy damage here, one dead, two wounded, one of them serious. Tell the infirmary to stand by and get some stretchers here." Brinks got to work as Harry swiveled around to give the bridge a full view of the scene.

Seeing the images, Lieutenant Messier responded from the bridge. "Port turret, I'm receiving your video feed... it doesn't look good. Do what you can, and we'll get you a stretcher ASAP."

"Roger," Mandrake returned, frowning as he saw that it was going to be slow going for Brinks. When one piece of wreckage proved particularly tricky, Ng moved in and ignited his torch. As he began cutting, Mandrake waved Brinks out and Ellis in, signaling repair spacesuit to the young marine. She gave a thumbs up and knelt down beside the wounded gunner, quickly applying sealant patches to the many punctures she could see and reach.

"Clear!" Ng called out a few moments later, shutting off his torch and pulling a large piece of cut-free wreckage with him back into the corridor. La Rue took the wreckage and moved it out of the way as Ng stood aside to let Brinks go in and resume his work.

After Brinks moved another few pieces of twisted decking, Ellis was able to help the uninjured crewman -- Private Henry Salam, a quiet man who had just joined the Fierce -- out of the turret. As he shakily exited the turret a pair of crewmen arrived with a stretcher. Mandrake instructed them to wait for the next gunner, who was hopefully going to be free in a moment.

"Shit!" Brinks exclaimed, jostling the injured gunner with one of the last pieces of tangled metal. Fresh, bright red blood welled from several small and until now unseen punctures in the man's suit, and Ellis moved quickly to free him from the jagged wreckage as Brinks tried to gingerly lift it away. When she succeeded in untangling the gunner, Ellis saw that she could now move the man without further injuring him. Gesturing for Brinks to get out of the way, she pulled the man -- Sergeant Blake Salazar, a veteran KKC gunner -- out of the dangerous tangle. Placing the man's bloody, limp form onto the stretcher, Ellis stood back as the two stretcher-bearers inflated an emergency air cylinder around the wounded crewman.

"We'll take him straight to the emergency," one of the two men declared, and they were off, Salam going with them.

Back inside the turret, Brinks was kneeling sadly by the dead gunner. "Private Fan," he said softly. "Look like she wasn't more than twenty years old."

Though she couldn't hear him, Ellis could tell from Brinks' body language what he was thinking. Placing a reassuring gauntlet on his shoulder, she paused for a moment before helping him solemnly work the woman's body free.

"All hands, prepare for emergency maneuvering," the captain's voice sounded in most of their helmets. The ship rumbled slightly, and everyone on board silently hoped it wasn't Cyan at the controls. The maneuvering was fairly gentle, it turned out, though an extra half-gee or so of gravity now pressed on the ship and her occupants.

A minute later, Messier contacted Mandrake. "Sergeant, we seem to have most of the situations under control. What's the status on that turret?"

"Private Salam, lightly injured, Sergeant Salazar seriously injured, Private Fan, deceased." reported Harry, trying to keep his voice calm. "Turret is off-line and has a hull breach. We'll patch it, but it'll need an EVA team to do a proper repair." As he spoke La Rue and Ng unrolled a sealing sheet and fitted across the hole, securing it in place with epoxy sealant.

"Copy that, Sergeant," replied Messier. "There'll be a repair team there shortly to do a full assessment. In the mean time your squad is to conduct standard internal security."

"Acknowledged. Mandrake out." Seeing that the two marines had completed their task, Harry addressed the squad. "Good work. We're finished here and are assigned to security detail. Brinks, you're on bridge duty, La Rue and Ng, you're in the main hull and Ellis and I will be in engineering. Any questions?"

All of the marines shook their heads negative, and in short order they moved off to their stations, leaving the turret and the body of Private Fan for the clean-ups teams that were now moving into place.

Lieutenant Spencer had the afterburners on his Pathfinder Command opened up full, and he was still losing ground at a frightening rate. Looking at Valkurie's Retaliator on his scanners, he knew it would be quite some time before he'd be able to catch up. Radioing Cortez, who flew the third and final Lancer in the Redtails Squadron, he asked, "Old Dog -- have you got Grackle One on your scopes?"

"Yes," Cortez answered firmly.

"Well go get him. I'm in pursuit, but it's going to take me about forty minutes to catch him at this rate -- I'm thinking your interceptor can do it in half the time if you really let 'er rip."

Cortez opened his burners and blasted off after the stricken exo. "Thrush One, on my way," he said simply.

It wasn't long before Spencer watched the old pilot rocket ahead of him, and, checking his readouts to make sure he was still on an optimal pursuit vector, the squadron leader opened a channel to Swallow One.

"Gunther, you copy? This is Starling One. We have a situation back here."

There was sort pause before finally Gunther replied. "Swallow One here. What is the situation, sir?"

"That Ryu was carrying a nuke. Valkurie got him at the last second, but the Fierce took some damage when it went off. The rest of the Redtails made it through okay, except now we're trying to chase down Valkurie in his crippled exo. We don't know if he's alive or dead. I need you to keep your eye out for that cruiser -- if it shows up now, all hell's going to break loose."

"Damn," Gunther quietly exclaimed. Regaining his composure, he added, "Roger that Starling One. We will assume a perimeter patrol, scanning for any encroaching craft. I will keep our channels open so that we can listen in. That should save you from having to continually report status."

"Sounds good, Mockingbird. Just remember to bring her in when you need to -- you must be getting near BINGO."

"We'll keep you apprised," Gunther affirmed. Swallow One out."

"We've got green on hull integrity across the board," Messier declared. "The port turret was the only place breached -- hit by debris hurled at us by the explosion is the best answer I've been able to get out of the DC team."

Delacroix nodded. "What's the power situation looking like?"

"Not good," Messier frowned, looking at the three large monitors in front of him that displayed damage control information. "We've only restored full power to about twenty-five percent of the ship, and there are some decks that are still completely black."

The captain shook her head slightly and then contacted flight control. "Flight control, has there been any word from Valkurie yet?"

Sergeant Lopez -- the on-duty controller -- answered, "Yes to the contact, and no to any word from Valkurie. Thrush One is alongside, and Grackle Two will be shortly -- Fenris waved off Starling Flight since he had a superior vector and velocity. He'll perform the recovery, which will probably take several hours." Continuing his update, Lopez added, "FYI, Starling and Finch flights are on the picket. They've just let Swallow One through -- Lieutenants Gunther and McGregor should be back aboard shortly with the Bigeye."

"Good to hear," Delacroix returned. Back to Messier, she added, "It's nice to here some good news. What's the status of the recovery team for Durst?"

Messier touched a few buttons on the panel in front of him but didn't look up. "We've got Duran and his Falconers prepping for SAR on the shuttle now. Finch flight can come off of CAP and escort them to Swallow Two's last known location. We'll need Thrush One to come back and join Starling's screen once Grackle Two has Grackle One under control."

"You copy that?" the captain asked the flight controller.

The controller responded in the affirmative. "Roger, I can bring Thrush One inbound now, Fenris has just made contact."

"Do it," Delacroix commanded. To Corporal Eroll, she added, "Helm, how's that new intercept course coming?"

"We're just about there," Eroll replied. "We're giving the Venusian cruiser as wide a birth as possible while still targeting the projected position of the sled, based on Swallow Flight's last sighting of it."

"Let's just hope the Hadrian can get into position to harass that cruiser and keep her off our backs," Delacroix commented, referring to the Alexander-class destroyer than wasn't far behind them.

The bridge crew worked quietly for a few moments, intent on their tasks, when the captain summoned Cyan to her side. The young private approached.

"Private Cyan, I wanted to personally thank you for your work in getting us back up and running," Delacroix began. Cyan smiled, but then the captain added, "And I wanted to let you know that breaking protocol and running around a ship that's under fire is not a transgression I take lightly. You're confined to quarters until further notice. Dismissed."

"But captain--"

"I assume I'll not have to ask marine Brinks to escort you there, Private," Delacroix warned.

It was difficult to tell how much time had passed since Vice had last heard or seen anything. If the problem was just his Retaliator being knocked out from the effects of an EMP blast, surely his systems would have reset themselves and come back on line by now. Yet he still sat in the dark.

"Enough of this," he said to himself. Anything to break the eerie silence of the cockpit sphere. He couldn't even feel the characteristic vibrations of the Retaliator. Obviously his exo was in even worse shape than he had first thought.

Vice reached around behind the linear frame and found the small emergency gear pouch, noting pain in his limbs as he did so. He opened the pouch and dug around for the small flashlight that the kit contained. He pressed the stud and a small beam of light cut through the dark interior. The monitors that lined the inside of the cockpit sphere were dark and lifeless yet intact. As he swept the beam around he could see that there did not appear to be any damage to the cockpit. It was just completely powerless.

The pilot reached around behind the linear frame again, feeling for the life support connectors. They were still plugged in, which was a good thing. He had not started to feel any change in the temperature or air quality of his flight suit so there must still be some life support left, although without power there was no telling how long it would last.

Alright, Vice thought, We are playing the role of the derelict. He flipped open a small cover and rested his thumb over the little button inside, then paused for a moment. He had been in the military for close to a decade and had never had cause to use this button. It was the emergency transponder. Being on a completely separate and self-contained system, the beacon should work even if the rest of the exo was destroyed. Usually it was he who was responding to them. The button lit up once it was pressed and silently flashed to an invisible radio beat. The Fierce should now be able to see him. Catching him would be another story.

Vice winced as he detached himself from the linear frame and slowly panned around the tomblike cockpit sphere with his little flashlight. The cockpit was completely closed off, all visual input being provided by the various sensors and monitors. As a result all exos had backup systems for communications, sensors and life support. Why none of these systems had come back up was a mystery that he meant to solve.

Things had settled considerably for Mandrake and Ellis in the last hour, as damage control teams finished their immediate fixes and started working on and scheduling time for major repairs.

Communicating with Private Ellis through runic hand-signals had gotten tiresome, but it had done the trick. Both marines were sweat-slicked inside their armor; the past few hours had been exhausting. Now, back on security detail, the pair watched as a diminutive crewman approached their position.

"Uh..." the young engineer began, "Hi. I'm Milo Brown. Er, Private Brown. I've been told that one of you is still having some trouble with your communications gear. Did... did you want me to have a look at it? I'm pretty good with that sort of thing."

Ellis glanced sideways at her Sergeant, looking for his approval (or disapproval) before answering.

Still fuming at being confined to her quarters, and at having found crates of foodstuffs stacked nearly to the ceiling in half of the room, Private Arianna Cyan's eyebrows came together in a first-class frown. She'd risked injury in getting to the bridge to see if her help was needed. She'd helped them get on course early! She'd -- she'd not checked her mail yet, that day, she noticed, seeing the small, blinking icon on her computer terminal, across the room.

Getting up off her bed with a grunt, the young helmsman sat down at her desk and opened her messages. Her frown deepened. It was a note from her parents. With some hesitation she ran the message.

"Arianna!" her two smiling parents said together before her mother continued. "How are you dear? We've been missing you terribly. Is life aboard a Jovian warship all you hoped it would be?"

"Arianna, we forgive you," her father said suddenly. "Come home, Ari. You know as well as we do that a military lifestyle isn't for you... we thought you were kidding when you threatened to join the JAF, and even when you did, I thought that you wouldn't go through with it. I was wrong -- I didn't see how stubborn you'd be." His face saddened. "I didn't realize the lengths you'd go to just to hurt us."

"Things have been good here, and your sister will be home next month, on the 15th," Arianna's mother broke in brightly, as though she hadn't heard what her husband had said. "She's playing with the symphony, and we'd love it if you'd come too. It can be a kind of reunion, dear -- we can put all this behind us. Anyway we have to run, Arianna. We just wanted to drop you a short note to let you know we were thinking about you. Let us know about your coming home."

"We love you," they finished in concert.

Swallow One had been recovered just before 1300, and Lieutenants Gunther and McGregor had enjoyed short reprieves before having to report to Senior Lieutenant Messier for their debriefing. The Lancer, for its part, was being refitted with a standard ATMP pod, while the Bigeye pod was already being repaired. The ship under full battlestations was a thing to behold; it was a model of precision and efficiency.

Now an hour into their debriefing, the pair of lieutenants had described in good detail the events of their sortie. Messier had focused on the crisis at hand, and had wanted to shelve discussions of the Bigeye's performance for the time being.

"We're not even sure who we're dealing with," Messier stated. "The images we got from the Bigeye look like the cruiser was unmarked. Same thing with the footage we have of the Ryus. I'm not convinced it's the Venusian government behind this, despite all the Venusian hardware that's being fielded. The pilot of the Ryu carrying the nuke said something interesting when Valkurie tried to intercept him the first time. Listen."

Messier touched a button on the PDA in his hand, and a recording played on the channel McGregor and Gunther's spacesuits were tuned in to. The voice was distorted, but clear: "We will not be prevented from reaching our destiny. One will not be denied. One is the future of humanity. One will be our salvation."

Messier cocked an eyebrow behind the glass of his helmet. "Mean anything to either of you?"

Three hours prior, Sergeant McLean, piloting Grackle Two, had made contact with Grackle One, Valkurie's stricken exo. There'd been no sign of movement, no sign of life, no sign of anything, but McLean had found himself hopeful about his flight leader as he hauled the inert Retaliator back to the Fierce. Now, with the big exo supported by a launch cradle and a set of hydraulics in place to crack open its cockpit, several members of the deck crew held their breath as the machine prepared to do its work.

Private Moore scrambled over the blistered and scorched exterior of Grackle One with considerable agility while Booger and Loogie operated the equipment. Dr. Gilmour, suited up in a specialized medical space suit, stood ready with a pair of assistants.

The exo shuddered for a moment, and then the cockpit revealed its secrets, opening slowly but steadily with a groan that was lost in the near vacuum of the hangar.

End Week 5 Summary (July 8-14, 2002)

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ALL SYSTEMS GO is set in Dream Pod 9's Jovian Chronicles universe. Jovian Chronicles, the Jovian Chronicles logo and Silhouette are trademarks of Dream Pod 9, Inc. Exo-armor, Jovian Confederation, CEGA, Silhouette and all other names, logos and specific game terms are (c)1993, 2002; all Jovian Chronicles art and designs are Copyright (c)1994-2002 Dream Pod 9, Inc. No challenge to these copyrights and trademarks is intended.

Except where noted, all original content is copyright 2002 John Guilfoyle, Alistair Gillies, Chris Schaller, Robb Neumann, Dennis Kirkpatrick and Bryan Lee. Page last updated on September 30th, 2002.