Famous last wordsthus had Martins wingleader spoken on the flight deck, before they launched on that fateful patrol. Martin was an Ensign relatively fresh from training, and his wingleader was rather optimistic. Hed strapped himself into his Crusader that day grinning ear-to-ear, because today was his big chance to prove what he was capable ofto prove that he could lead a wing of his own. On this patrol, the wingleader Henry would be taking a figurative backseat.
Unless something happened, of course. In the event of enemy contact, command of the little fighter wing would switch right back to Henrybut enemy activity wasnt expected that day, and certainly not in the shadow of the Battleship MacDuff. The Gaians were still busy picking up the pieces after a destroyer group raided their base the previous week, and the Kusari had yet to make a major push into Tau-31.
It was a simple patrol route; the wing would fly a roundabout path to the Leeds jump gate, to Holman Outpost, to the Tau-29 jump gate, and back to the MacDuff. Long, but expected to be uneventful. And so it was. A few small patrols of Gaians in Startrackers, and a couple of Kusari scouts flying Drakes. Nothing to get worked up about, and nothing requiring Henry to take over from Martin. The only tense moment was when they passed the Tau-29 jump gate, and the Ensign half-expected a Kusari strike force to come barreling out of it.
Nothing.
He breathed a sigh of relief, pointed his Crusaders nose towards the MacDuff, and turned on the autopilot. The relief was painfully short-lived, howeveras wingleader, his Crusader was the first target for the two wings of Chimaeras that popped out of the Tau-29 jump hole, right next to the path from the Tau-29 jump gate to the MacDuffhe didnt even have time to evade or shout a warning into his radio. His fighter disintegrated around him in a ghastly symphony of rending metal and escaping atmosphere just as his escape pod finally activated, flinging him clear of the flaming wreckage.
And thus it was that Ensign Martin Barclay had nothing to do but watch and listen helplessly as the wing was torn apart. Henry responded quickly, and managed to rally one of the other surviving fighters for long enough to pick up Martins pod as well as a few others and high-tail it back to the MacDuff. Had it not been for a gunboat on patrol nearby providing a welcome distraction, theyd never have made it alive. As it was, two pilots died, Martins escape pod had activated just a fraction of a second late; and as a result, one of his legs was badly burned and partially mangled.
When he woke up in the MacDuffs medical ward, he was informed that he would probably never fly in combat again.
And when he went to sleep in the medical ward, he couldnt erase from his memory the images of the pilots that had trusted him to be a leaderHenry assured him thered been nothing he couldve done, but there was still that lingering guilt. It drove Martin all throughout his rehabilitation, and ensured that he was more determined than ever to remain in the Queens Navy. He owed a blood debt, and the only way to repay it was in kind. He owed it to those pilots to be the kind of leader that would know about that jump hole, that enemies might come from itand he owed it to the Kusari to deprive them of victory over his country.
"Keep firing, lads! We've got them on the run!" The Defiance shook with each firing of the massive cannon mounted atop the gunboat's spine, followed by a creaking rumble as the ship's structure absorbed the recoil. Martin - now a Lieutenant Commander - adjusted course just a hair...with a massive and thoroughly satisfying bloom of fire and debris, the Kusari destroyer was no more. A few muffled cheers erupted from the two crewmembers on duty on the bridge with Martin at the defeat of the Defiance's first serious foe.
"Gunnery, take a break. Good shooting. Navigator, set us a course back to Leeds, if you please."
"Aye, sir."
"I'll be in my cabin writing the report for this encounter. Let me know if you need me." With that, he stepped off the bridge, walked down the narrow corridor, and into his tiny cabin. Well, tiny by terrestrial standards, but spacious to the point of luxury by gunboat standards. His bed didn't even have to fold into the wall for him to enter the cabin! He undid a small latch, and a control terminal slid out from the wall, right in front of his bed. Using the bed as a chair, he set about writing the report, letting his mind wander a bit as he did so.
A year ago, I never would've imagined that I'd ever fly a fighter again...and still less that I'd get to captain a gunboat! I have a crew! Martin grunted, and smiled; then his smile fell a little as he remembered the conditions placed upon this ship and crew. Deep immersion officer training...I'm not sure whether to be excited that I've been chosen to participate, or terrified. I took part in one such course before, but that was one course. This is a whole 'nother matter...and I hear it's so grueling at times that some officers have been known to resign rather than face another day of it.
But then, since when have I listened to pessimistic estimations of my chances? Not for quite some time...certainly not since I proved the doctors wrong by not having my leg amputated, and managing to walk on the blasted thing a few weeks later. Oy...hmm. I wonder if Henry will be there, too? I haven't seen him in months. Or maybe that cute Lieutenant I saw at Southampton Shipyard when I took possession of the Defiance? I think she said she was entering some sort of officer training program... Abruptly, Martin shook himself, and continued typing up his contact report. We shall see.
"Now! Hit him with the hullbusters!" At Martin's command, waves of destructive energy poured forth from the gunboat's forward gun and battlerazor, tearing into the Corsair gunboat's heavily armored hull. The two warships could have been evenly matched; but the pirate vessel was armed for anti-fighter work and destroying transports. The Defiance, however, was made for this sort of battle. That, combined with late - but no less appreciated - fire support from a mercenary gunboat, was too much for the pirate ship to handle.
The space over Planet Cambridge blossomed with fire and debris as the enemy vessel's hull finally ruptured, and a wave of cheers erupted, filling the bridge of the Defiance with jubilant noise. Martin couldn't suppress a smile of his own as he thanked the mercenary - Sam Motion - for his services and checked the scope for Captain Windsor's Hussar and the Benitez Titan she'd been fighting. Nothing. Worried, the young officer made an inquiry; "She's in Omega-5!" came the answer, "And the Corsair is there, too!"
"Some minor hull damage aft, and a scarred bulkhead on deck 3. Low on batteries, but our nano stock is solid."
"Good. Nav, get us to Omega-5."
"Aye, sir."
Omega-5 is rocky as all hell...it'll be tough to even maneuver in there with this monster of a gunboat, still less to catch up with a pair of fighters that're God only knows where. But I don't have time to run back to Leeds and get my own Hussar, so I'll just have to do the best I can. "Captain, what's your location?"
"By the jump hole!" came her terse response; obviously, she was engaged with the Titan.
"We're en route!" Not a moment later, the Defiance jumped...into Omega-3. "Nav? Why didn't we take the Cambridge/Omega-5 jump hole?"
A pregnant silence. "...there's a Cambridge/Omega-5 jump hole, sir?"
"By God..." Martin mumbled; then, louder: "Get us to the Omega-5 jump hole in the southern asteroid field, now!" Should've spent more time mapping...I know it's there, but this ship's system map didn't.
"Aye!"
Thankfully, there were no further delays in getting to Omega-5 - except for the delay upon jumping in. Since the Cambridge/Omega-5 jump hole wasn't mapped, and Captain Windsor's tracking device was malfunctioning, Martin had no way of knowing exactly where she was. After brief consideration, he barked, "Set a waypoint just northwest of Cadiz Base; that's where the jump hole from Cambridge dumps you out. I'll take the helm." And take it he did, guiding the gunboat through the asteroids and mines with all possible speed.
In seconds, the two combatants came up on the scope. Martin adjusted his course accordingly, and came within firing range just as Captain Windsor's Hussar was destroyed. "Dammit! Tractor in her escape pod, then CD that bastard before he gets away!" While the tractor did its thing, Martin centered the primary turrets on the fleeing Titan, loosing a series of volleys that destroyed its shields and much of its hull.
But before he could finish the job, the Titan fled around Cadiz and towards the Omega-41 jump hole...under cover of fully a dozen Centurions loaded with cruise disruptors. Frustrated, Martin used the gunboat's thruster alone to follow the Corsair all the way to the jump hole. The Benitez got away...but the Centurions were not so fortunate, as they were spaced one by one within view of their base.
When they were done, Martin breathed a sigh of relief. "Nav, get us back to Planet Cambridge, if you please. How is Captain Windsor doing?"
"She'll be alright, sir. She's resting belowdecks under the doctor's orders."
He nodded, then keyed the ship-wide comm. "Tonight, we fought our first real battle against a worthy foe. All of you know we fought a Corsair; but most of you probably did not know that it wasn't just any Corsair. The gunboat we destroyed today belonged to none other than Senior Elder Custo Benitez, and we gained the upper hand on him one-on-one. Well done, everyone. None of you will have an empy glass on Cambridge tonight as long as I have a credit to pay the bartender with; that includes Captain Windsor, who kept the Titan off our backs at the cost of her own fighter."
The flagship of the QCO was often a hectic place; but today, it was quiet. The mighty Dunkirk-class battleship was awaiting a new shipment of turrets at Southampton Shipyard, and thus had only a skeleton crew onboard. The communications officer was therefore somewhat startled when a voice suddenly came through over the emergency channel. She jabbed a finger down on the controls, and the message came on the main screen...it was a simple transmission, one-way. A distress call.
The image was grainy, but it was obviously the bridge of a Bretonian gunboat. The overhead ventilation fans were sparking instead of spinning, and as a result, smoke was rapidly building up. There was one crewmember slumped over a console, face bloodied...another was clutching his arm. And in the middle of it was a man in the uniform of a Lieutenant Commander, blood flowing over his face from a gash in his forehead. Flashing red lights could be seen in the corridor beyond as a heavy blast door slammed shut to seal off the bridge...
"We were just passing thr-*static*-ambridge when we got jumped by a Benitez gunboat! Aegis has t-*static*heavy damage, but not as much as we have. Hull breach in the hold and in enginee-*static*don't know how much longer we can last. I'm going to give the order to abandon-bloody hell! They're boarding!" The crewman with the injured arm drew his cute little defense pistol, and Martin drew his slightly more impressive-looking officer's sidearm. As if on cue, the screen shook as the blast door was hit with heavy weapons fire, obviously much more firepower than the Bretonians could call on from within the ship. "All we have are sidearms, we can't repel a boarding pa-*static*"
The screen went blank, and the comm officer's console read simply, "Transmission Lost." Her eyes got a bit wider as she tried to establish a video link...her first two attempts failed, but the third succeeded. She gasped at what came on screen...there were no Bretonians left standing on the bridge. Just Corsairs. Four of them...two with heavy military-grade rifles, one with a stunrod, and the fourth with two black pistols featuring silver castillian lettering on the barrels...the young officer noted with some satisfaction that the body of a Corsair lay near the entrance to the bridge, unmoving.
But that satisfaction was small indeed in the face of the fact that the Corsairs had apparently managed to capture a top-of-the-line BAF gunboat. From the way that the other three pirates held their distance from the fourth, she assumed he was some sort of authority figure. With as much confidence as she could muster, she keyed her mic. "Corsair boarders, this is the HMS Pendragon. Who the bloody hell are you, and what do you think you're doing?"
The man with the pistols turned to look at the screen, grimly smug. "I am Praetor Zavier Benitez...and what does it look like I'm doing, senorita? This ship, and its crew, are now the property of the Benitez family. Adios." He pointed one of his pistols at the screen and fired, severing the link. The communications officer sat there in shocked silence for a minute or two. Then, she dialed up Admiral Windsor.
The M26 was made to haul captured escape pods and small amounts of loot away from a battle...it was never intended to hold a conscious crew captive in the hold, and tow a war prize with greater mass than the M26 itself. The situation was placing enormous strain on the ship, and it could only just plod ahead at impulse speed. Add to that the fact that it had to steer wide of trade lanes and jump gates, and what should have been a quick and easy trip became an arduous journey.
However, to the Corsairs' credit, they had not been unduly cruel to their Bretonian captives. They hadn't been allowed to keep their uniforms, of course, but at least the bright orange jumpsuits they'd been given - to increase their visibility should they try to escape - were...festive? The coarse fabric was uncomfortable, but clean. The wounded were treated; not well, but treated nonetheless, and bandaged. The area in which they were being held was a makeshift prison, formed out of excess metal bulkheads arranged in a rough triangle in the cargo hold of the Aegis.
Luckily for Martin and his crew, the Aegis' best welder was on sick leave back on Crete. They'd been sure to be very discrete in doing so, but they had managed to discover that one of the corners was particularly weak. A few good shoves or kicks by a few determined, able-bodied individuals would likely break through. It would've been suspicious for them to not have tried to find a way to escape, however, and so Martin had once led an effort to dislodge one of the sturdier welds, to take attention away from the weak one. It had worked; the strong weld held, and the Corsairs relaxed a bit.
The rest of their time was filled with exercise, or long discussions engineered to annoy the guards.
"Hey, Wren?"
"Yeah?"
"You never did tell me what your favorite type of tea was."
"Well, you never asked, sir."
"C'mon, man! I have to stock the cupboards, and to do that, I have to know what my crew likes. So, do you favor tea with a tang, or the sort that goes best with a crumbcake?"
"Oooh...crumbcakes're the best, sir."
"No, no...you haven't lived until you've eaten at MacGuffin's Truffles."
"Oh! That place on...on...what's the street?"
"32nd?"
"No...oh! Ocean and 8th, right?"
"Yeah, that's the place! Right next to that cafe with the splendid dinner rolls."
"That's the one. Mmm, their cherry cordials are simply to die for. Say, when you attended the Academy, did they make you press your uniform to within two millimeters?"
"Aye. Harsh, that. One time, it took me all morning to get it right!"
"I say, they're much easier on recruits now...the tolerance is five millimeters! FIVE!"
"No! You're joking!"
"'Fraid not. I'm quite serious."
Of course, discussing luxurious foods and the onerous formalities of being in a house military was not the way to get on any Corsair's good side. They started taking bets on how long before the guard would yell at them to shut up. The navigation officer, at Martin's request, rarely said anything. Instead, he was committing the guards' patterns to memory. This one is right-handed, and always holsters his gun sloppily. Probably isn't quick to draw. That one limps and doesn't move his arm very much; probably bothered by an old injury, and can be taken advantage of in close quarters. He quietly confided his observations to the Lieutenant Commander and the others late at night, when the guard was sleeping, under the guise of a word game.
Judging from the expressions of the crew when they bring us our food, we're being well-fed; and honestly, I don't suppose I can complain terribly much about our treatment. I'll have to thank Zavier...after we steal back my ship!
At first glance, one might not think there was anything unusual or interesting about the battered Bretonian gunboat that exited the tradelane in front of the Ross planetoid. Sure, she was leaking atmosphere and missing some of her turrets; but with three wars going on, beat-up BAF warships were a common sight. Sure, she was escorted by a little BPA Arrow interceptor, which was frenetically trying to keep the camera ships from getting too close to the gunboat and inadvertently ramming her; but it wasn't uncommon for the BPA to provide escort for one of the Queen's Own on their way back from the battlefield.
What was unusual became apparent when the gunboat's crew, using a jury-rigged camera, responded to a hail from the battleship Norfolk.
"HMS Defiance, you, uh...do you need some uniforms sent over?" The normally icy captain of the warship stationed at the Ross planetoid couldn't keep the confusion entirely from his voice when he beheld the gunboat's crew in orange prison jumpsuits.
On the gunboat's bridge, Martin grinned, knowing full well how odd the scene must look to the battleship captain...and simply glad to be headed home. "Negative, Norfolk; when the Corsairs had us over for tea, they rather neglected the tea and took the clothes off our backs. Right awful hosts, those Corsairs - we're en route to Southampton for repairs and some R&R."
"Roger that, Defiance...sounds like you've earned it. Norfolk out."
Planet New London boasted a surprisingly gorgeous boardwalk not but an hour's flight away from where the docking rings dumped ships into the atmosphere. It was one of the political wings of the Green Front's few visible and lasting victories: a thirty-kilometer section of relatively unspoiled waterfront, kept free of resorts and the like by law. They'd had to concede some points, however - like a boardwalk rather than the simple trail they wanted. Martin didn't mind, though, as he was at the moment thoroughly enjoying both the scenery and the expression of surprise on his sister's face.
"A destroyer command?! How in the Queen's name did you manage to snag that?" Martin's younger sister demanded. Like him, she was still in uniform from the day's work, though hers was BPA rather than QCO.
In reply, he smirked impishly at her. "Exactly. In the Queen's name." He returned his gaze to the sea, trying to imagine an ancient age in which his ancestors had plowed through the waves in ships made of wood, of all things! Tried to imagine what it must have been like to be aboard one of those men-of-war during a pitched battle, the acrid stink of gunpowder, the hair-curling scent of burning wood and flesh, the salt spray on fresh wounds...and quickly concluded that he preferred the sickly-sweet stink of ozone, the iron-rich scent of spilled blood on the way to medical, and the gentle caress of a shipboard air conditioner.
Though I must admit, sailing across the sea in a modern vessel has a certain romantic appeal...I shall have to learn sometime. He shook his head, startled from his internal monologue by his sister's pestering. "I'm sorry, Heather...what did you say?"
"I said you weren't even listening to me."
"Ah. Well, you were right."
"Bastard. Okay. So...seriously now. How'd a gimp like you manage to land a destroyer command?"
Martin shrugged, and threw a rock into the waves. "I could give you all the patriotic rhetoric, but the reality of it is that we need senior officers. We've lost too many in the war, and against the Corsairs. I probably would've receieved command of the Exeter sooner, had it not been for the extensive battle damage that had to be repaired first."
"Yeah..." Heather began, looking over at him. "I've heard a few things about the Exeter. Any of 'em true?"
Martin chuckled as he searched the sandy beach for another rock to throw. "Probably not. There's no hot tub in the captain's quarters, she doesn't boast plasma-based flamethrower turrets, and she can't move at 300 on thrusters alone. Most of what you've heard is probably about the former Exeter, back when the old Victoria-class dessies were still in service."
"Just before the war began, right? Or was that a pre-Nomad war class? No, before you start hawking your 'superior naval education' on me, remember that we have actual laws to study, unlike you glorified jarheads."
"I object to that! Whyever would I dare to belittle your education, sister mine?" A knowing smile gave lie to the statement, though, and he continued. "Pre-Nomad war. THAT was one storied ship...the present Exeter has quite a name to live up to, but she's yet to see much real action aside from when she got ambushed, alone, by a Kusari bomber wing...which, of course, is what killed her former CO and landed her in Southampton's repair yard."
"You sure you're up to it?"
"I'd better be," he answered with all the apparent seriousness of a turret salvo, "Because if I'm not, that cute brunette fighter pilot based off the Suffolk will never be interested in me!" That earned him an elbow in the ribs, and they both laughed as they continued down the beach.
Martin Barclay, former commander in Queen Carina's Own, formerly commanding officer of both the gunboat Defiance and the destroyer Exeter, was depressed. Not for the first time, he was killing time in New London's spaceport bar. Not for the first time, and not for the last, he looked down at his missing left leg. It was a metal stick with springs now, essentially - purely mechanical, though covered by his trouser legs. Worst part is, wasn't even a battle that finished it off...just an accident. While inspecting the work being done on the Exeter after a particularly nasty skirmish, he'd tripped and - in a freak accident - broke his fall on the jagged edges of a hole in the bulkhead.
Trying to grab hold of sharp-edged torn metal was a bad idea...he'd not only ruined his hand, but when his flesh had been torn his hand had slipped, and his bad leg had been unable to catch his weight. It got ripped into by another jagged piece of armor sticking out of the hole. Even Navy insurance wouldn't pay for the suite of cybernetics required to replace his leg and hand, so he'd simply had to have his left leg - the one that'd been mangled early on in his service to the Crown - amputated. They'd fought to save his hand, but an infection ensued, and they were forced to amputate his left arm just below the elbow to keep it from spreading.
I just tell whoever asks that the Kusari did it. It's true, in a roundabout way... He tapped the wooden counter with the simple hook he'd gotten for a left hand, indicating he wanted another of the usual. He could've gotten an artificial hand that looked "real", but he'd tried it and hated it. It was clumsy, awkward, and a poor substitute. Same for the leg, though for the sake of being able to move about without a wheelchair he'd accepted a skeletal prosthesis. He'd also accepted an honorable discharge for medical reasons. While he waited, he glanced up at the holovid that was set to a Bretonian news station.
Quote:An image of a motley collection of fighters and bombers - some civilian, some Bretonia - flashed through space, the distinctive trails of Bretonian tachyon and particle guns (and a few SNAC torpedoes) lancing out at their target: a Kusari Train and its escorts. In the bottom-right hand corner, tiny words proclaiming "Simulation" flashed. As the escorts fell, a voice-over began. "Today another Kusari convoy supporting their war efforts in Leeds was stopped dead in the Taus by the efforts of Queen Carina's Privateers. To date, they have-
His attention was broken by a voice next to him. "Brilliant, aren't they?"
Martin didn't have to turn to know who it was, and didn't have to guess to know how this conversation would go. He'd had it before with his BPA sister. She'd turn the subject to his wasting his life - and pension - at the bar, and he'd dare her to come up with something good enough to pull him away, and she'd give up and storm off. With a mental sigh, he decided, Suppose I may as well play along...though we both know how it will end. With a real sigh, he scratched his unshaved chin and replied, "Yes...some of my old QCO squadronmates are in that outfit."
"What if I told you I had a message from the leadership of the QCP asking for you by name, saying they want you to come back and fly for them?"
He snorted. "First, I'd say you're mad. Second, I'd point out the minor obstacle of the fact that I appear to be somewhat short on body parts. I didn't join them before because I felt I could do more good holding the line at the conn of the Exeter, and I didn't ask to join afterwards for fairly obvious reasons." The bartender finally came by with a glass of the whiskey he preferred; he nodded in thanks, and took a drink.
Heather leaned closer, pulling a piece of paper from her uniform pocket. "Okay...now, what if I told you the QCP anticipated your objection, and offered to pay for a cybernetic arm and leg with funds taken from Kusari shipping?"
"Beg pardon?" Martin gingerly took the paper from his sister, unfolding it with practised ease in spite of his hook. He skimmed over it, took note of the seal and name in the signature, then favored his sibling with a far more serious look. It's for real...how about that. "Well then, I would then say you have my undivided attention. But I would also ask: what makes me the man for the job? I'm just a washed-up commander...I had my time in the fight, and did what I could. It wasn't enough."
"I know some pilots that would beg to differ...you're a good pilot, a good man, utterly loyal to the Queen and Bretonia," she lowered her voice to just over a whisper. "...and you know firsthand that conventional tactics aren't winning us this war."
The former Bretonian officer stared at his half-empty glass in silence for a moment, gently rapping its side with his hook as he considered his options. Perhaps I've wallowed quite long enough. I can't deny, it is an appealing proposal...becoming a sneaky bastard, and putting the hand that feeds right on the chopping block. It took him all of thirty seconds. "Now, what if I told you I was exceedingly interested in said proposition, and wished to know where to begin?"
Heather tried not to smirk, only partially succeeding. "I rather hoped you'd say something like that. Clean yourself up and catch a shuttle to Cambridge. You've already got an appointment to be fitted for cybernetics by one of the best doctors in Sirius. Once they've patched you up - might take a couple of weeks - notify the address listed on the paper. They'll have a reasonably-equipped Falcon heavy fighter waiting for you on the launchpad. You can exchange it for some other civilian fighter if you wish. Fly it, get used to your new parts. Once you feel you're ready for it, get your letter of marque from Salisbury and it'll be time to trade your fighter for a bomber, and the lads & lasses there will be able to tell you where to go."
Martin nodded. "Sounds grand. Finish the whiskey on me, will you? I've an appointment, and would rather not be late." Heather grinned, and downed the liquor in one gulp - feeling the fires of alcohol and pride as her brother left the bar with a straighter back and clearer eyes than he had in many months...not for the first time, and not for the last, a Barclay was going to war.
Gibraltar had always been a busy place. During the Tau-31->Tau-23 gate's construction, it'd been busy for obvious reasons. A constant stream of workers and materials flowing to and from the station in a wide variety of craft, along with their escorts and the pirates trying to lift their goods. Once construction was completed, the Privateers moved in. Though they were far fewer in number than the crowd of engineers, architects, workers, and pilots that'd previously inundated the station, they made up for it. Besides the space taken up by their bombers, fighters, handful of gunboats - not to mention the Dagobaz, pride of the QCP, berthed alongside - there was the massive amount of infrastructure needed to support such an effort behind enemy lines. Crew, engineers, supplies, replacement parts (smuggled from Bretonia, stolen from Kusari, and purchased at the nearby Freeport 6) and service personnel nearly filled the space that'd been vacated.
All of this combined to mean that it wasn't always easy to find solitude on Gibraltar. Martin had, however, managed to find one particular hangar clear, at least temporarily. Scattered around the periphery were various umbilicals, reloads, parts, and service equipment needed to minister to the hangar's central piece: a Challenger-class Bretonian heavy bomber.
This was no ordinary bomber, obviously. That much was apparent at first glance. Several of the engine cooling units had been replaced with Kusari gunboat units; the tiny gunboat's engines were scarcely larger than those of the Challenger, had extra capacity & were well-armored. That, and they'd been unable to smuggle a proper Bretonian set recently. The sensors had been taken off an Ahoudori destroyed in Kyushu a few weeks ago; while they were intended for civilian use, the added sensitivity of the explorer's scanners helped in locating hapless traders for the bomber to prey upon. The thruster had once belonged to a freelancer's Roc, sold for its component parts a few days prior at Freeport 6. The bomber guns - two were still the original Bretonian weapons, but the other two had come from a Farmer's Alliance bomber that'd tried to assault one of the QCP's few gunboats during a patrol of Tau-29.
As Martin boarded the bomber and climbed into the "cockpit" - more of a bridge, really, as spacious as it was - it became even more apparent. Though barely two thirds of the equipment and consoles were Bretonian, great care had been taken to ensure that they were securely attached to the bulkheads in a sensible way. In spite of their various origins, they didn't appear haphazard at all. When he powered the craft up, everything worked. Minor system incompatibilities made the start-up take slightly longer than normal as a set of customized code resolved the inevitable errors, but everything worked. In spite of the hardships the Challenger had faced, in spite of the fact that she'd had a third of her systems and several parts of her hull patchworked with whatever was available, it was readily apparent that the ship's previous owner had cared a great deal about it.
Of course, that was to be expected from what had been Captain Jack Fraser's personal bomber. Martin had been mentioned his love of the Challenger in passing, from the many sorties he'd flown in them while under the banner of Queen Carina's Own. Near the end of his service, he'd flown his bomber more often than his Templar or captained the Defiance or Exeter. At any rate, a few days later he'd casually asked Martin if he did, indeed, like the Challenger. When he'd responded in the affirmative, Cap'n Jack had allowed as to the fact that he happened to have one he had no particular need for, and that it really ought to be flown more often. Martin had permitted the possibility that he might somewhat enjoy taking said craft for a spin once in awhile, to which Jack had laughed, and said the bomber was now Martin's. The former QCO officer had understandably been somewhat caught off guard, and was left speechless in Fraser's wake.
It had taken an engineer asking him to authorize the transfer of the Challenger to his command, and the relinquishing of his Roc, to really convince Martin that he'd really gotten his old baby back. Well, one of them, and not really, but absolutely.
He sat down in the pilot's seat and strapped in, taking a deep breath as he closed his eyes. With that, he was transported back in time to one of his bomber sorties...to the time he'd lost a SNAC joust to one of the SCRA's best bomber pilots. To the time he and a fresh recruit had, with just the two of them, handily taken out a Molly destroyer in Cambridge. To the tense engagement in one of the Leeds smog clouds, between the QCO and SF bomber wings (with a pair of fighters) and a Molly fleet including two destroyers and a pair of gunboats. Sent them running with their tails 'twixt their legs that time, he recalled. To a more recent engagement, joining with other QCP and BAF to destroy a Kusari battleship in Leeds. Martin opened his eyes again, and with a start, he saw that a small picture of the fighter pilot he'd met two years ago on the Suffolk attached to the center console.
Now, how did I fail to notice that on my first run-through? He plucked the picture from the console and held it closer to his face. Ah, yes...definitely her. Those high cheekbones, that chin...no mistaking them. Well, I haven't been introduced to my bombardier. Perhaps she- His reverie was rudely interrupted by a distinctly male throat being cleared just behind him. Martin practically leapt to his feet, dropping the picture on the console - only for a grin to spread across his face as he beheld the intruder.
"You two need a room?" the intruder asked with a nod to the picture.
"Sully! What brings you to this godforsaken rock, eh?" Thomas Sullivan stood in stark contrast to Martin: whereas the latter was average in height and build, with brown hair and a decent but relatively unremarkable face, the former was almost too tall to fly fighters, lanky, with blonde hair and a ruddy face with a crooked nose from one too many fistfights.
The two men clapped each other on the back, and Thomas chortled. "To burn and pillage, my friend. Rob Kusari blind, then cruise through the streets of a conquered New Tokyo in a stolen limo."
"What's with the picture of Ruth? Did you put that there?"
"Yeah. In case you forgot what we're fighting for." He gave a not-too-subtle wink - he was terrible at it. "Anyway, how's the new hardware working for you?"
"Not bad. Like anything with a computer, it has bugs every now and again, but it's like being a new man."
"S'that how they got you?"
"Part of it. Also, I was tired of being a bump on a log when it was possible to make a difference. The only part that troubles me is the 'robbing' part, but I'll get used to it. They are the enemy."
"Damn right they are," Thomas grunted. "Remember, these are the heartless fiends that took Tau-31 and half of Leeds. The guys that nearly shot down your sister a couple times on patrol in the core systems. The folks that ruined half your body, and killed dozens of your friends and comrades-at-arms."
"Right. Haven't forgotten that bit. It still goes against the grain - we trained to protect the innocent, not prey upon them." Martin reattached the picture to the console, and sat back down in the pilot's seat.
"Marty, Marty, Marty..." The bombardier shook his head. "That's the whole point. They're not innocent. Anybody doing shipping within Kusari is giving them money. Samura is the primary corporation in Kusari. The shogun is their puppet. Therefore, doing business in Kusari equals paying the shogun. And what does the shogun do with that money?"
"Builds more of those damned Chimaeras and capital ships."
"Exactly. We're making a difference here - shipping through and within Kusari is down quite a bit. We actually have to go hunting for targets now, and we're the bane of the KNF. They hate us, really hate us - if there's Outcasts, Chrysanthemums, and us in the same system, guess who they go after first?" He jammed a thumb at his chest. "That's right, us. We're cutting 'em off at the knees, and if you've got some kind of moral objection to taking money away from the shipyards that build the ships that kill your friends and family, then don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."
Thomas' words had their desired effect; Martin stood and drew himself to his full height - still nearly a head shorter than his old friend - and answered, "No objection, Tom - I came here to feed the Kusari dragon its own fingers until it chokes to death, and by God and the Queen, that's what I'm going to do."
