Return of the Children

[Leo]

I'll say one thing for Commander Keller, the man is a neat freak. I've never seen a fighter that clean...or new...hell, I'd never even been inside a fighter until we left Barrier Gate Station. Soon as we hit the jumphole, I remembered why.

"Haha, yeah, I remember the days when I wasn't used to jumphole travel." Keller said from the seat in front of me. I was bent over puking my guts out into a small bucket. "Don't get any on the floor or you're cleaning it up."

I tried to tell him to stick his comments somewhere but was lurched into another violent dry heave.

He just kept laughing.

* * *

We made it to the California system. The Navy is searching the ship for contraband. Have to put down the log.

* * *

I'm convinced now, that man is totally bugf**k. The Navy got to our ship pretty quickly and began scanning the ship for contraband. That's when Keller got really really antsy. Something was bothering him. Something he felt he didn't need to tell me. To be frank, I don't think he expected it at all. Soon as they got to the cockpit for scans, the Navy member made a surprised gasp over the comms.

"Eagle 4-2! Weapons--" the Navy pilot started. Before he could clear his weapons, Keller had his thumbed on. He ripped the small Navy ship apart before it could get clear of Keller's weapons. The other pilots cursed and began to form into an offensive maneuver to cut Keller off from retreating back out the gate. Another squadron of fighters were coming up fast from Planet Los Angeles, but Keller wasn't going to either of those places, oh no. He bolted straight for the nebulae cloud directly in front of us.

Weapons fire danced around us for only a few minutes by the time we cleared the outer threshold of the ice cloud. Keller wasn't in a friendly mood anymore. He was uttering some kind of mantra under his breath, cursing the Liberty "bureaucrats" for their meddling in human physiology and something else that I couldn't catch. I think he forgot I was there for a few minutes because he kept on wishing very bad things on their mothers. I tuned him out and began to look out the windows of the ship.

The Ice Field, I forget its name, was one of the largest landmarks in the California system. Supposedly there were rumors of people catching glimpses of a station deep in the cloud, but those who have sworn it's there are branded insane. The field's asteroids tend to like to randomly collide at high speeds either into one another, or into whatever is in their way.

"Stupid groups...Liberty funding...idiots having more children...should just...blow them all up." Keller said under his breath before exploding out of the cloud at the other end. Directly in front of the ship sat California Minor. The planet was small, tiny even. He configured the ship to angle wide around to the dark side of the planet and throttled completely back until the ship was stationary. He looked back to me with a sh*t eating grin on his face...I see his mood improved fast..."You're going to hate me."

"Uhm?" I replied stupidly.

"We can't dock at the docking ring anymore because we've been flagged by the Navy. Seems they knew I was coming and tracked me." he tapped his skull. "Implants some times are more trouble than they're worth. Especially mine which are easy as pie to identify. Hey, I made a poem. Heh heh." he wandered off into his own mind for a second before coming back. He smiled that damn smile again. "Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride." He turned around and popped his neck staring at the planet. He still had that damn grin on his face...then I caught the hint of what he was going to do.

"Oh no. No no. You've got to be bullsh*tting me. You're not going to...no...oh GOD no."

Keller laughed like a maniac and punched the throttle. As soon as the planet had us in it's gravity well, he angled the nose up rapidly. Fire began leaping out from around the metal on the ship. For the fourth time that day, I lost more contents of my stomach. Keller was still laughing like a madman.

F***. My. Life.

---

You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
The Banished Legion