Titan Battle, page 4
And if that extra efficiency didn't happen, then he would have to suffer the damage to his capital ships…
Cockpit, Fighter 004, in transit back to the human carriers, Alpha Centauri System
"Damn, that's a lot of missiles," said Maniac. "What do you think, guys? Think we can take some of them down before they reach our fleet?"
Beck's heart agreed with Maniac. And even a bit of his logic agreed, too.
But Wing Commander Jerome Bottis cut in, "You know as well as I do that we can't do that. The moment we entangle with those missiles is the moment we'll become targets to our own destroyers' flak fire. We'll suffer too much damage to our own numbers… and no matter how much damage you think we can cause to the enemy's missile numbers, a fighter is still much more valuable than a missile. We can't do this. I want to do this. But we can't. So… nobody deviate. All birds must continue heading back towards our carriers."
Beck thought about it for a moment. "Are you sure, sir?" interjected Beck. "It'll still be 8 minutes before the enemy missiles reach the extreme range of our fleet's flak cannons. We have 8 minutes to take out as many missiles as we can."
"Yeah, Sal. I realize my mistake. What you say is true," admitted Bottis. "But you have to realize that we'll be fighting missiles with fighters. Our shields can't withstand even one blow from their standard shipkiller missile. If the enemy commander decides to sacrifice some of his missiles to take down some of our birds, we'll be dead meat. We can't sacrifice birds for missiles on a one to one ratio. Maybe 1 to 20, but not one to one, which is what will happen. And remember, their missiles are faster than our birds."
Beck didn't say anything. He thought about what the Wing Commander said. After a while, he said, "You're right, sir. I understand."
The communication net was silent after that.
Beck sat in his cockpit, watching his map display as all the tiny enemy missiles headed towards the human fleet, and most likely his own carrier Newson. Worst thing was he knew he couldn't do a thing about it…
xxx
It took only 4 minutes for the human missile wave to crisscross paths with the enemy missile wave. Since it was near impossible for a missile to hit a missile, there was silence throughout battlespace, as neither side's missiles detonated to kill off an opposing side's missiles. And then, a minute later, all missile waves, both human and enemy, stopped entangling with the missiles from the opposite sides and each headed in their preset trajectories straight for the opposing ships.
Even though all missiles were launched in roughly the same time, the Argonans' missiles were faster, so they hit the human battlefleet first. 121,080 enemy missiles screamed down on the human fleet. The moment they entered flak range, the human destroyers and frigates opened up with their flak cannons and point defense lasers. A hail of laser beams and exploding flak canisters stormed into the path of the enemy's missiles. Since the human destroyers and frigates were in close-formation together, the wall of anti-missile counterfire was very thick. And, since unlike human fighters, the enemy's missiles were not shielded - the Argonan missiles were extremely vulnerable to anti-missile fire.
They fell in waves. Walls of flak fragments destroyed some of the missiles. Walls of continuous laser beams gutted the others. The enemy missiles themselves were very fragile, so the slightest damage caused them to suffer drive failure or premature detonation. Out of 121,080 missiles that entered the human anti-missile screens, only 9,850 made it past that same wall of doom created by the human destroyers and frigates.
But 9,850 missiles were still a lot, and they screamed down on the vital targets of their long path towards the human fleet - the human fleet's capital ships.
The human fleet's 29 Artemis class Battleships and 8 Warhammer class superspacers opened up with their own hail of anti-missile fire. Again, walls of exploding flak canisters and anti-missile point defense laser fire smashed into the survivors of the earlier anti-missile screens. Again, missile after missile was taken down.
But once the survivors of the original 9,850 missiles reached their targets, or even reached proximity detonation range of their targets, that was it - the end for these Argonan missiles. Success.
Out of 9,850 missiles that entered the human capital ship's counterfire, only 420 directly struck their targets. The other 1,040 missiles that hadn't fallen off course… or premature detonated… had proximity detonated. The result: the equivalent of 66,000 megatons of TNT smashed into the shields and hull armor of the human capital ships. This damage was spread out throughout the human fleet.
Some of the human battleships and superspacers lost their shields. Others received hull damage, which varied from minimal to terrifying. Yet, others suffered no hull damage as their shields completely absorbed the blasts.
A total of three battleships lost control of their power cores and suffered power failure. They were as good as dead. Seven battleships suffered critical damage to their frontal hulls, but since most of their drive rings were behind their forward armor, it was a heaven's send that they didn't suffer drive failure. A total of 14 out of 29 Artemis battleships had fully lost their shields, and a total of 3 out of 8 Warhammer superspacers had fully lost theirs as well. It did not bode well for the capital-ship-to-capital-ship battle to come. Luckily, only one of the Warhammers had suffered serious damage to its forward hull. Not enough to be life-threatening yet, but that would soon change when the ship to ship engagement began.
And then the human missile waves hit the enemy fleet.
Chapter 9
Bridge, Federation Starship Newson, above the wormhole to Sol, Alpha Centauri System
Sector General Thorim eyed his displays. He saw the damage reports from all his ships, especially his capital ships, and he shrugged.
The damage is actually not as bad. At least, it's not as bad as it could have been.
Why?
Thorim considered it odd that the enemy solely targeted capital ships instead of his carriers and smaller warships such as destroyers and frigates. If any of those missiles had aimed for his smaller screening warships, it probably would have prevented that frigate or destroyer from being able to pump out anti-missile fire - as of result, such a strategy would have allowed more of the enemy's missiles to survive the anti-missile fire wall from his smaller screening ships.
At least, that's what I would do.
But no. The enemy had aimed all his missiles at his capital ships, and had suffered the full anti-missile damage from Thorim's screening warships to the enemy's missile wave.
And even better, the enemy had not targeted his carriers… but that would make sense… because the enemy had depleted Thorim's fighter force by 50%, which meant that Thorim did not need 50% of his carriers anyway. Targeting his carriers now with their missiles would have been a wasted effort for the enemy… at least when the outcome of this battle was considered. Thorim shrugged. If he had been the enemy, he would still have targeted Thorim's carriers. Less carriers meant less maximum fighters for any future battle, providing Thorim could replenish his fighter force afterward from his non-carrier based fighter reserves.
A moment passed. Thorim was well aware that soon it was time for his missiles to arrive at the enemy's fleet.
My turn, he thought. He turned his full attention towards his pixelmap, watching as his missile waves plunged into the enemy's ships… and their anti-missile defenses.
xxx
54,820 human missiles darted towards the enemy fleet.
By now, the enemy fleet had finished reforming their formations to optimally counter the human missile waves. Their two flak battleships formed at the front. Behind them were the enemy's destroyers and frigates. Together, these screening warships sent out a thick wall of anti-missile fire due to their tight close-in formations. The enemy's capital ships were in the way back - also in tight formation, in preparation of repelling those missiles that penetrated through the first line of defenses.
The moment the first human missile entered extreme anti-missile flak range, the enemy fleet opened up with all their countermissile flak cannons and point defense laser mounts. A wall of anti-missile fire smashed into the 54,820 human missiles. However, unlike their Argonan counterparts, human missiles were equipped with weak miniature shields. These weak shields did offer some protection from the enemy's flak shrapnels and laser beams. The human missiles could sustain several indirect hits before their mini shields collapsed.
Still, thousands of missiles died.
Because of one major difference to the human missile wave's targeting strategy, some of the human missiles rammed into the enemy's smaller screening ships as well as the enemy's dual flak battleships. Although none of these attacks completely destroyed the enemy's flak battleships, a large proportion of their weapon mounts were disabled by those missiles that penetrated the battleships' flak wall.
Missiles also slammed into the enemy's smaller screening ships. These simply became disabled or destroyed when hit by missiles because, like their human counterparts, they were much more weakly armored than their capital ships.
And as of result of all this, the enemy's overall hail of anti-missile counterfire diminished.
More human missiles got through the enemy's anti-missile screens than how many of their Argonan counterparts got through the human screens. Out of 54,820 human missiles, almost 15,000 of them penetrated through the enemy's first line of anti-missile defense fire to make attack runs on the enemy's capital ships in the far back. The enemy's capital ships fired and fired with all their point defense laser batteries and flak cannons, but the human missiles were merciless in their penetration - because although they were slower than the enemy's missiles, the human missiles' shields deflected several strikes from enemy point defense guns before collapsing - strikes that would have otherwise destroyed the missile.
4,160 missiles made it through the enemy capital ships' fire wall. Most proximity detonated. Some directly struck the enemy's capital ships. But - this was where the enemy's armor made all the difference. Although the enemy capital ships did not have shields, their armor was much harder and more reinforced than that on the human capital ships.
It was a cataclysm. It was a firework. It was an inferno - but most of the enemy capital ships survived.
Part of this was due to the human missile's weaker payloads. At the destructive equivalent of 20 megatons of TNT, the human missiles were 1/3 as destructive as their Argonan counterparts. Added to the fact that the enemy capital ships, some of which had over 100 meters of hull armor, and there was no doubt which side came through victorious from the missile exchange phase of the overall battle.
Out of 43 operational battleships, only 8 were critically damaged by the missile attack. All 43 battleships had fully operational power cores, but out of the 8 that were critically damaged, 4 did suffer damage to their propulsion drives. Those four dropped behind the main enemy fleet, like stragglers.
Out of 11 operational superspacers, only 3 were critically damaged to the point of suffering internal fires and internal explosions. Most of them suffered frontal hull damage where the human missiles had penetrated through their frontal armor. However, only two were damaged to the point where they could no longer follow the main fleet.
Out of 2 enemy Thornguards, both moved along with their fleet perfectly, although one had a cascade of explosions crippling its forward hull, an outcome caused by internal power stores being damaged from the missile attack. But both Thornguards had fully operational power cores and drive rings.
Once the missile attack was over, the enemy fleet reformed into their 'standard' loose formations, and headed towards the human fleet for the third phase of the battle.
Bridge, Federation Starship Newson, above the wormhole to Sol, Alpha Centauri System
Jason Thorim eyed his sensor displays, each showing the health and damage readings on the enemy's capital ships.
It was not enough. His missile strike had been damaging - certainly more damaging than his fighter strike - but it was not crippling.
In other words, although he had succeeded in his strategy to destroy some of the enemy's screening ships to enable more of his missiles to arrive on target to the enemy's capital ships, the total damage on the capital ships was not enough to turn the battle in his favor. This meant that he would have to rely on his shield-depleted capital ships to win the ship-to-ship engagement that would soon follow. And that was dreadful. 17 out of 37 of his capital ships had depleted shields and suffered some form of hull damage. Out of his capital ships that had some portion of their shield matrix operational, the keyword was some. Those ships were only operating at a portion of their total shield saturation.
Thorim patted his head and sighed. But he had to do what he had to do. He had to continue fighting, to defend the artificial warp point to Sol. And if he couldn't do that? Well…
"All ships, loose formations," he said into his mic. "Prepare for ship to ship battle! Power up the main cannons and fire up the primary capacitors!"
Chapter 10
Cockpit, Fighter 004, Inside Newson's hangar bay, Alpha Centauri System
10 minutes later…
"Hey, hurry up out there!" yelled Beck Grim to the ammo reload crew. "I got bogeys to scratch and superspacers to sink!"
"We're doing it as fast as we can, Sal," said the blonde in a maintenance suit who couldn't have been older than 20.
"Well, do it even faster! Every second that passes is a second where a superdreadnought hasn't been sunk! We're talking about the well-being of the fleet here!" Beck gazed at the girl massaging… er… doing maintenance on his plasma cannons. "And I'm a married man! You can quit it with your flirty nonsense!"
"Uh, I wasn't flirting… and you think too highly of yourself," the girl answered back.
Beck snorted. "I know a flirt when I see one. All the girls flirt with me."
The girl didn't even laugh. "Yeah, right."
Beck returned his focus on his instrument panels. There was nothing to see. It was all green. He didn't need to go pee, and he was far too stimulated to take a nap, so he decided to fuel up. His stomach growled. He took a meal-ready-to-eat from one of the storage pockets inside his cockpit and opened the bag up. There were dozens of high carbs, high protein superfoods, but he chose the best one - a high protein candy bar.
While he was chewing on that 500 calorie candy bar, his cockpit communicator beeped.
He looked at his display. It was Marie.
He choked. He had nearly forgotten about her in his frenzy to take down enemy warships and to be - in general terms - a high performance show-off.
He gulped down the candy bar, and pressed the accept button.
Marie's freckled face appeared on his forward monitor. "Hey, you."
"Hey, Marie."
"I saw what you did back there. It was… nice. Like the way you play cards, always risking everything to gain the big reward."
"Thanks, Marie. I can't help it."
Her face suddenly turned sullen. "Did you forget about me?"
"No, why?"
"I just figured that if you remembered me, you wouldn't have risked your life out there… that you'd be more intent on living and seeing me, again."
Beck was silent for a while. "I can't help being myself, cap. I always go for the big bang."
"Am I another one of your big bangs?"
What is she going on about here? "No, you're more than that. Far more."
Her seriousness disappeared… almost… but she didn't seem convinced.
Beck spoke. "What's going on here, cap? I thought you'd be the first to cheer for me when I took down that superdreadnought."
She took a while to say what was on her mind. "It's just… after we got married, I started thinking, Sal. I started thinking that you were more to me than the whole wing…. that I valued our future together more than anything. I wanted both of us to survive… you going and being a flyboy and ignoring Bozeman's orders - that wasn't surviving."
"- But I took down a superdreadnought."
"- While being reckless and gambling with your life!"
"Listen, Marie," Beck rebutted quickly. "We're all gambling with our lives. Simply being fighter pilots and going out there in our fighters against an enemy like that - it is gambling with our lives. And if we don't do our best, we won't win. And if we don't win, well, then there won't be a future for either of us to go back to."
"Is that how you rationalize being a show off?" said Marie.
Beck opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He was out of words.
The woman on the display looked back at him, freckles and all. She was hot, with her brunette hair and all, but he had a very bad feeling about what was to come. "Look, Sal." she continued. "If you don't value our relationship… our future… then maybe we shouldn't have one."
Cockpit, Fighter 004, in transit back to the human carriers, Alpha Centauri System
"Damn, that's a lot of missiles," said Maniac. "What do you think, guys? Think we can take some of them down before they reach our fleet?"
Beck's heart agreed with Maniac. And even a bit of his logic agreed, too.
But Wing Commander Jerome Bottis cut in, "You know as well as I do that we can't do that. The moment we entangle with those missiles is the moment we'll become targets to our own destroyers' flak fire. We'll suffer too much damage to our own numbers… and no matter how much damage you think we can cause to the enemy's missile numbers, a fighter is still much more valuable than a missile. We can't do this. I want to do this. But we can't. So… nobody deviate. All birds must continue heading back towards our carriers."
Beck thought about it for a moment. "Are you sure, sir?" interjected Beck. "It'll still be 8 minutes before the enemy missiles reach the extreme range of our fleet's flak cannons. We have 8 minutes to take out as many missiles as we can."
"Yeah, Sal. I realize my mistake. What you say is true," admitted Bottis. "But you have to realize that we'll be fighting missiles with fighters. Our shields can't withstand even one blow from their standard shipkiller missile. If the enemy commander decides to sacrifice some of his missiles to take down some of our birds, we'll be dead meat. We can't sacrifice birds for missiles on a one to one ratio. Maybe 1 to 20, but not one to one, which is what will happen. And remember, their missiles are faster than our birds."
Beck didn't say anything. He thought about what the Wing Commander said. After a while, he said, "You're right, sir. I understand."
The communication net was silent after that.
Beck sat in his cockpit, watching his map display as all the tiny enemy missiles headed towards the human fleet, and most likely his own carrier Newson. Worst thing was he knew he couldn't do a thing about it…
xxx
It took only 4 minutes for the human missile wave to crisscross paths with the enemy missile wave. Since it was near impossible for a missile to hit a missile, there was silence throughout battlespace, as neither side's missiles detonated to kill off an opposing side's missiles. And then, a minute later, all missile waves, both human and enemy, stopped entangling with the missiles from the opposite sides and each headed in their preset trajectories straight for the opposing ships.
Even though all missiles were launched in roughly the same time, the Argonans' missiles were faster, so they hit the human battlefleet first. 121,080 enemy missiles screamed down on the human fleet. The moment they entered flak range, the human destroyers and frigates opened up with their flak cannons and point defense lasers. A hail of laser beams and exploding flak canisters stormed into the path of the enemy's missiles. Since the human destroyers and frigates were in close-formation together, the wall of anti-missile counterfire was very thick. And, since unlike human fighters, the enemy's missiles were not shielded - the Argonan missiles were extremely vulnerable to anti-missile fire.
They fell in waves. Walls of flak fragments destroyed some of the missiles. Walls of continuous laser beams gutted the others. The enemy missiles themselves were very fragile, so the slightest damage caused them to suffer drive failure or premature detonation. Out of 121,080 missiles that entered the human anti-missile screens, only 9,850 made it past that same wall of doom created by the human destroyers and frigates.
But 9,850 missiles were still a lot, and they screamed down on the vital targets of their long path towards the human fleet - the human fleet's capital ships.
The human fleet's 29 Artemis class Battleships and 8 Warhammer class superspacers opened up with their own hail of anti-missile fire. Again, walls of exploding flak canisters and anti-missile point defense laser fire smashed into the survivors of the earlier anti-missile screens. Again, missile after missile was taken down.
But once the survivors of the original 9,850 missiles reached their targets, or even reached proximity detonation range of their targets, that was it - the end for these Argonan missiles. Success.
Out of 9,850 missiles that entered the human capital ship's counterfire, only 420 directly struck their targets. The other 1,040 missiles that hadn't fallen off course… or premature detonated… had proximity detonated. The result: the equivalent of 66,000 megatons of TNT smashed into the shields and hull armor of the human capital ships. This damage was spread out throughout the human fleet.
Some of the human battleships and superspacers lost their shields. Others received hull damage, which varied from minimal to terrifying. Yet, others suffered no hull damage as their shields completely absorbed the blasts.
A total of three battleships lost control of their power cores and suffered power failure. They were as good as dead. Seven battleships suffered critical damage to their frontal hulls, but since most of their drive rings were behind their forward armor, it was a heaven's send that they didn't suffer drive failure. A total of 14 out of 29 Artemis battleships had fully lost their shields, and a total of 3 out of 8 Warhammer superspacers had fully lost theirs as well. It did not bode well for the capital-ship-to-capital-ship battle to come. Luckily, only one of the Warhammers had suffered serious damage to its forward hull. Not enough to be life-threatening yet, but that would soon change when the ship to ship engagement began.
And then the human missile waves hit the enemy fleet.
Chapter 9
Bridge, Federation Starship Newson, above the wormhole to Sol, Alpha Centauri System
Sector General Thorim eyed his displays. He saw the damage reports from all his ships, especially his capital ships, and he shrugged.
The damage is actually not as bad. At least, it's not as bad as it could have been.
Why?
Thorim considered it odd that the enemy solely targeted capital ships instead of his carriers and smaller warships such as destroyers and frigates. If any of those missiles had aimed for his smaller screening warships, it probably would have prevented that frigate or destroyer from being able to pump out anti-missile fire - as of result, such a strategy would have allowed more of the enemy's missiles to survive the anti-missile fire wall from his smaller screening ships.
At least, that's what I would do.
But no. The enemy had aimed all his missiles at his capital ships, and had suffered the full anti-missile damage from Thorim's screening warships to the enemy's missile wave.
And even better, the enemy had not targeted his carriers… but that would make sense… because the enemy had depleted Thorim's fighter force by 50%, which meant that Thorim did not need 50% of his carriers anyway. Targeting his carriers now with their missiles would have been a wasted effort for the enemy… at least when the outcome of this battle was considered. Thorim shrugged. If he had been the enemy, he would still have targeted Thorim's carriers. Less carriers meant less maximum fighters for any future battle, providing Thorim could replenish his fighter force afterward from his non-carrier based fighter reserves.
A moment passed. Thorim was well aware that soon it was time for his missiles to arrive at the enemy's fleet.
My turn, he thought. He turned his full attention towards his pixelmap, watching as his missile waves plunged into the enemy's ships… and their anti-missile defenses.
xxx
54,820 human missiles darted towards the enemy fleet.
By now, the enemy fleet had finished reforming their formations to optimally counter the human missile waves. Their two flak battleships formed at the front. Behind them were the enemy's destroyers and frigates. Together, these screening warships sent out a thick wall of anti-missile fire due to their tight close-in formations. The enemy's capital ships were in the way back - also in tight formation, in preparation of repelling those missiles that penetrated through the first line of defenses.
The moment the first human missile entered extreme anti-missile flak range, the enemy fleet opened up with all their countermissile flak cannons and point defense laser mounts. A wall of anti-missile fire smashed into the 54,820 human missiles. However, unlike their Argonan counterparts, human missiles were equipped with weak miniature shields. These weak shields did offer some protection from the enemy's flak shrapnels and laser beams. The human missiles could sustain several indirect hits before their mini shields collapsed.
Still, thousands of missiles died.
Because of one major difference to the human missile wave's targeting strategy, some of the human missiles rammed into the enemy's smaller screening ships as well as the enemy's dual flak battleships. Although none of these attacks completely destroyed the enemy's flak battleships, a large proportion of their weapon mounts were disabled by those missiles that penetrated the battleships' flak wall.
Missiles also slammed into the enemy's smaller screening ships. These simply became disabled or destroyed when hit by missiles because, like their human counterparts, they were much more weakly armored than their capital ships.
And as of result of all this, the enemy's overall hail of anti-missile counterfire diminished.
More human missiles got through the enemy's anti-missile screens than how many of their Argonan counterparts got through the human screens. Out of 54,820 human missiles, almost 15,000 of them penetrated through the enemy's first line of anti-missile defense fire to make attack runs on the enemy's capital ships in the far back. The enemy's capital ships fired and fired with all their point defense laser batteries and flak cannons, but the human missiles were merciless in their penetration - because although they were slower than the enemy's missiles, the human missiles' shields deflected several strikes from enemy point defense guns before collapsing - strikes that would have otherwise destroyed the missile.
4,160 missiles made it through the enemy capital ships' fire wall. Most proximity detonated. Some directly struck the enemy's capital ships. But - this was where the enemy's armor made all the difference. Although the enemy capital ships did not have shields, their armor was much harder and more reinforced than that on the human capital ships.
It was a cataclysm. It was a firework. It was an inferno - but most of the enemy capital ships survived.
Part of this was due to the human missile's weaker payloads. At the destructive equivalent of 20 megatons of TNT, the human missiles were 1/3 as destructive as their Argonan counterparts. Added to the fact that the enemy capital ships, some of which had over 100 meters of hull armor, and there was no doubt which side came through victorious from the missile exchange phase of the overall battle.
Out of 43 operational battleships, only 8 were critically damaged by the missile attack. All 43 battleships had fully operational power cores, but out of the 8 that were critically damaged, 4 did suffer damage to their propulsion drives. Those four dropped behind the main enemy fleet, like stragglers.
Out of 11 operational superspacers, only 3 were critically damaged to the point of suffering internal fires and internal explosions. Most of them suffered frontal hull damage where the human missiles had penetrated through their frontal armor. However, only two were damaged to the point where they could no longer follow the main fleet.
Out of 2 enemy Thornguards, both moved along with their fleet perfectly, although one had a cascade of explosions crippling its forward hull, an outcome caused by internal power stores being damaged from the missile attack. But both Thornguards had fully operational power cores and drive rings.
Once the missile attack was over, the enemy fleet reformed into their 'standard' loose formations, and headed towards the human fleet for the third phase of the battle.
Bridge, Federation Starship Newson, above the wormhole to Sol, Alpha Centauri System
Jason Thorim eyed his sensor displays, each showing the health and damage readings on the enemy's capital ships.
It was not enough. His missile strike had been damaging - certainly more damaging than his fighter strike - but it was not crippling.
In other words, although he had succeeded in his strategy to destroy some of the enemy's screening ships to enable more of his missiles to arrive on target to the enemy's capital ships, the total damage on the capital ships was not enough to turn the battle in his favor. This meant that he would have to rely on his shield-depleted capital ships to win the ship-to-ship engagement that would soon follow. And that was dreadful. 17 out of 37 of his capital ships had depleted shields and suffered some form of hull damage. Out of his capital ships that had some portion of their shield matrix operational, the keyword was some. Those ships were only operating at a portion of their total shield saturation.
Thorim patted his head and sighed. But he had to do what he had to do. He had to continue fighting, to defend the artificial warp point to Sol. And if he couldn't do that? Well…
"All ships, loose formations," he said into his mic. "Prepare for ship to ship battle! Power up the main cannons and fire up the primary capacitors!"
Chapter 10
Cockpit, Fighter 004, Inside Newson's hangar bay, Alpha Centauri System
10 minutes later…
"Hey, hurry up out there!" yelled Beck Grim to the ammo reload crew. "I got bogeys to scratch and superspacers to sink!"
"We're doing it as fast as we can, Sal," said the blonde in a maintenance suit who couldn't have been older than 20.
"Well, do it even faster! Every second that passes is a second where a superdreadnought hasn't been sunk! We're talking about the well-being of the fleet here!" Beck gazed at the girl massaging… er… doing maintenance on his plasma cannons. "And I'm a married man! You can quit it with your flirty nonsense!"
"Uh, I wasn't flirting… and you think too highly of yourself," the girl answered back.
Beck snorted. "I know a flirt when I see one. All the girls flirt with me."
The girl didn't even laugh. "Yeah, right."
Beck returned his focus on his instrument panels. There was nothing to see. It was all green. He didn't need to go pee, and he was far too stimulated to take a nap, so he decided to fuel up. His stomach growled. He took a meal-ready-to-eat from one of the storage pockets inside his cockpit and opened the bag up. There were dozens of high carbs, high protein superfoods, but he chose the best one - a high protein candy bar.
While he was chewing on that 500 calorie candy bar, his cockpit communicator beeped.
He looked at his display. It was Marie.
He choked. He had nearly forgotten about her in his frenzy to take down enemy warships and to be - in general terms - a high performance show-off.
He gulped down the candy bar, and pressed the accept button.
Marie's freckled face appeared on his forward monitor. "Hey, you."
"Hey, Marie."
"I saw what you did back there. It was… nice. Like the way you play cards, always risking everything to gain the big reward."
"Thanks, Marie. I can't help it."
Her face suddenly turned sullen. "Did you forget about me?"
"No, why?"
"I just figured that if you remembered me, you wouldn't have risked your life out there… that you'd be more intent on living and seeing me, again."
Beck was silent for a while. "I can't help being myself, cap. I always go for the big bang."
"Am I another one of your big bangs?"
What is she going on about here? "No, you're more than that. Far more."
Her seriousness disappeared… almost… but she didn't seem convinced.
Beck spoke. "What's going on here, cap? I thought you'd be the first to cheer for me when I took down that superdreadnought."
She took a while to say what was on her mind. "It's just… after we got married, I started thinking, Sal. I started thinking that you were more to me than the whole wing…. that I valued our future together more than anything. I wanted both of us to survive… you going and being a flyboy and ignoring Bozeman's orders - that wasn't surviving."
"- But I took down a superdreadnought."
"- While being reckless and gambling with your life!"
"Listen, Marie," Beck rebutted quickly. "We're all gambling with our lives. Simply being fighter pilots and going out there in our fighters against an enemy like that - it is gambling with our lives. And if we don't do our best, we won't win. And if we don't win, well, then there won't be a future for either of us to go back to."
"Is that how you rationalize being a show off?" said Marie.
Beck opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He was out of words.
The woman on the display looked back at him, freckles and all. She was hot, with her brunette hair and all, but he had a very bad feeling about what was to come. "Look, Sal." she continued. "If you don't value our relationship… our future… then maybe we shouldn't have one."
