The Uli Rouge

[Eppy]

Control stared down at the lines of code spanning his console, massaging his forehead.

"This is hopeless. Somebody's going to have to go out there with the torpedoes." according to the ridiculously complex blueprints he'd had dug out of storage just before the virus hit, the tracking systems were shot, but the monsters were solid-fueled (in space? How in the name of the Don did that work?) and the detonaters were simple contact fuses. Still theoretically operable.

"All right, who gets to do it?" Control called out over the bridge. Everybody suddenly became very busy.

Except one...

"Huh? What?"

Control stared down at the hapless sixteen-year-old sensor operator, who had given up on cracking the encryption and fallen asleep.

"Eddie! My friend!"

"Yeah?"

"You've just volunteered for a very important mission, my boy. You know what it is?"

"No, sir."

"Well, you see..." Control put his large, hairy arm over the smaller boys shoulder and escorted him off the bridge.

"Cloak batteries die in five...four...three...two...one..."

On the edge of the ice nebula, space shimmered as a massive Bretonian battleship appeared out of nowhere. The old HMS Fantasia, Control's base of ops, had been sold to the Outcasts (off the record, of course) on the condition that it be used to destroy the Corsair threat in Omega-49, and assimilate Gran Canaria so as to put a much tighter rein on the Mollys. Now she floated, helpless, her engine cold and dry.

The great ship's bay door blasted outward, the explosive bolts installed for just such an emergency doing their job perfectly.

A Dagger, very sluggish, dropped out of the bay, cloak (a working cloak, this time) shimmering on seconds after. A very skittish boy in a flight suit smelling strongly of urine sat shaking at the controls.

The fighter dropped into the atmosphere, ascending to a mere fifty feet, well below the Rouge's radar, and made a pass at the canyon, dropping the inactive superweapons into the narrow gully and ascending as fast as the small engine would push it.

"Mommy." whimpered Eddie.

---

Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen

Which Dreadnought was that?

One of your nine.