InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Who's scruffy-looking??"

Lt. (jg) Colton Nathaniel West (colton_west) wrote in kobols_legacies,
@ 2008-04-27 23:23:00

Current location:	Space
Entry tags:	( a completed scene), (c) colton west, (c) rosie shayl

Just another day at the office...
Vagabond relaxed with an easy sigh as he looked out at the endless star line. Somehow, here, behind the stick of a Mark VII, it all made sense. The fighter moved like a dart of mercury through the whale-like capital ships of the fleet. Vagabond took a kind of arrogant joy in the fact that as long as he was in the cockpit he was in control. He could outrun, out fly, and and out perform any other ship in the fleet and he knew it. This wasn't the time to stand on his soap box, though. That would come when the details of the 'military action' that had the fleet on edge were revealed. For now this was just another day, another cubit - a standard BARCAP.

"Vagabond to Avalon, things seem fine among the heavies and the civilian ships. Permission to sweep the forward quadrant?" His voice carried a static-ridden sense of boredom across the wireless.

A dull, almost irritated, "Permission granted" came back.

He shifted his weight a bit, and made a few adjustments to his sensors before opening the throttle up ever so slightly. The agile Mark VII zipped ahead, reaching the forward point of the fleet in seconds.

"What do ya say, Cupcake? You got my six as we sweep a whole lot of nothin'?" It was almost possible to hear the grin on his face as he called sardonically called to his wingman across the wireless.

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viper_cupcake
2008-04-28 03:43 am UTC (link)

It had been awhile since she'd been in the cockpit. It had been awhile since there'd been a need. With an eye on her DRADIS scans she noted with approval that there was nothing but the emptiness of space around them.

Great, so she was paying more attention to her DRADIS than the feel of the spacecraft. She really was a Raptor pilot after all.

"Vagabond, don't you worry," Rosie spoke into her headset with a grin, and juiced the engines to follow after him. "Mommy's got ya."

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colton_west
2008-04-30 03:27 pm UTC (link)

The smile on his face curled a little more. As he cleared the last of the fleet ships he opened the throttle now that he was had nothing but clear skies in his view.

As the engines flared to life he felt himself slammed against the seat momentarily before the Mark VII's inertial compensators caught up. After cruising a dozen or so clicks ahead of the fleet, eased the stick to port.

The Mark VII followed his guidance as if it were a part of his body and he let out a relaxed yawn as he eyed the darkness of space. Occasionally he glanced down at the DRADIS, but he already knew there was nothing out here.

There was never anything out here. With Cupcake on at his eight, he made his way into the starboard section of the forward quadrant. Cole let the simple joy of flight stave off the boredom of routine. It was all rote, after all. Even he, the pilot, was running on auto-pilot.

With a deep, bored sigh, he called out across the wireless, "Vagabond to Avalon," his eyes scanned the DRADIS one last time as he spoke.

"Go ahead, Vagabond."

Instantly, everything changed. A single red dot appeared on his DRADIS, then another and another in rapid succession. His voice went from drowsy to eager, "Three hostiles, twenty clicks out starboard of the forward quadrant. Permission to engage?"

He didn't even wait for a reply before toggling his Mark VII to weapons hot and slamming the throttle to full speed. "C'mon, Cupcake! It's time to hunt!"

His fighter shot like an arrow of quicksilver across the empty darkness of space. Behind the cockpit, behind the jock smock, a madman was unleashed.

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viper_cupcake
2008-04-30 09:44 pm UTC (link)

"Frak me, doesn't this just beat all?" Her voice sounded a little on the chirpy side, but she felt icy panic take hold of her stomach. Her brain flashed at the fear of taking another hit, this time she wouldn't walk away, this time she was in a much smaller craft and it would take her with it into space when it blew.

Still, there was only one way out of this, and that was out fighting. If she froze now she'd probably take Vagabond down with her in her blaze of cowardice, and that wasn't something she was willing to do.

Not even noticing that for essentially the first time since C-day she was thinking of someone other than herself, she pushed up the throttles, streaking off after the other lieutenant. She shadowed him, a little unnerved by how gleeful he'd sounded at the first blips on DRADIS, horrified that he'd caught it first.

She forced a giggle to her voice as she spoke over the wireless, trying to pass herself off as calm. "Just save a coupla toasters for me."

The words weren't sincere, but it didn't matter. She doubted he'd heard them anyway.

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colton_west
2008-05-01 02:38 am UTC (link)

His wingman's voice came across the wireless with a sense of blank detachment. He'd heard her reply, understood it's general tone - but his mind was focused entirely on the battle ahead.

Ignoring the DRADIS, Vagabond relied entirely on his own eyes as he drew closer to the tiny specks in the distance. In less than a second he could see the Raiders, with their glowing red eyes, advancing in a standard 3-man formation: A leader in center with a wingman at each flank.

Shifting his feet and pushing the Mark VII to full speed, charged recklessly towards the enemy ships. Training became instinct. Without gravity or g-forces to slow him down he juked the fighter gently from port to starboard with a gentle turn of the stick. The Mark VII reacted instantly, following the easy lead of his guidance. This simple tactic would stop the Raiders from achieving any kind of target lock for an extra tenth or even half of a second - long enough to save a life.

As the final kilometers between Raider and Viper closed, Vagabond took command: "I've got the leader, Cupcake. I'll head right up the middle to draw their fire. You concentrate on the wingman."

He never waited for, nor recalled an affirmative reply because as soon as the last word made its way across the wireless all hell broke loose.

The Raiders surged forward to meet them and opened fire in an instant. Sudden, it seemed as though everyone was on top of one another. A wall of enemy fire filled the space between them, forcing Vagabond to break his patterned juke and move into evasive maneuvers. He knew if he didn't break their line of fire, both he and Cupcake would never make it home.

He drew the Mark VII as close to the enemy fire as possible, practically preparing for a head on collision with in-coming fire before pulling his fighter up at the last minute and squeezing the lithe needle of a ship between the hail of energy blasts.

With an even grin and the single press of a button, he opened fire. Thousands of rounds of ammo tore across the starline in an instant, but the measures he'd taken to avoid enemy fire had ruined his attack run. He missed the Cylon leader and shot past the three ships in less than a second.

With an angry grunt, he jerked the stick hard in a clockwise motion and pressed a button on the stick. The Viper Mark VII reacted by smoothly rotating on it's own axis, a full one hundred an eighty degrees. In an instant he was now behind his enemy's flight line and had the wingman in his sights as he shot like a bullet away from the battle.

With a shift of the pedals, he activated the reverse thrusters and with a clasp of the trigger, he opened fire. The lead Raider reacted with machine precision and speed, but without human instinct and without the sheer dumb luck that some pilots had, there was no chance. The Raider came to bare on Vagabond just in time to find itself torn to scrap by his barrage of fire.

The two wingman broke formation, separating. They moved to form up, establishing new lead and wingman positions. With a whooping laugh of victory, Vagabond called out - "Now's your chance, Cupcake! Get 'em while they're runnin'!"

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viper_cupcake
2008-05-01 02:58 am UTC (link)

Her head spun. "Oh sure, leave me sloppy seconds," she snarked, but opened up the throttle and dove in. Vagabond was right, the wingmen were thrown. There was something in those Raiders, she thought, something almost human.

The only sounds were the ambient roar of the engines, nearly deafened by the vacuum of space, and Vagabond's almost maniacal laughter. It was enough to get under her skin, especially when she was nose to nose with the sweeping red eye of a Cylon Raider...

"Roger, Romeo," she replied over the wireless, juiced the engines to a speed that Raptors only dreamed of, and pushed the stick hard forward.

The Viper dipped hard, moving vertiginously toward what Cupcake perceived as "down", and she yanked the stick to starboard to come "up" to the plane where the Raiders were flying. She'd managed to get around so that she was approaching from their aft and opened fire, taking out the newfound leader with a couple of quick bursts.

As she watched it explode into a burst of short-lived zero gravity fire, she whooped into the wireless. "Yeah! That's right!" she cried, more surprised than anything that she'd managed to bag the Raider.

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colton_west
2008-05-04 06:48 pm UTC (link)

"Nice shot, Sexy." He said with a slight smile. He turned and brought his Viper to bare on her flank, easing his throttle to match her speed.

"Last toaster's yours, Cupcake." He relaxed slightly, watching both her and the Raider with a close eye. He needed to see how she flew, how she operated under pressure. He wanted to make sure that when it hit the fan that she could stay together.

Then, suddenly, it did hit the fan. A klaxon blared in his ear and he looked down at his read-outs: His DRADIS was a connect-the-dots of red blips. At least a dozen enemy ships had arrived in less than a second.

"Avalon, Viper. Multipule hostiles inbound from FTL. Assistant required immediately." He tried to hide the fear in his voice, instead becoming coldly professional.

He turned, leaving Cupcake to finish the last Raider and opened up the throttle as far as it would go. He didn't need the alarms from his DRADIS to tell him what he already couldn't believe: Just as the last of nearly twenty Cylon Raiders came into view, the final blow was struck. DRADIS revealed to him a single, fully armed and operational Basestar was less than thirty clicks away.

It would be impossible for Avalon to scramble aid in time. They were alone.

Vagabond made a prayer to the Lords of Kobol and rocketed towards his own death. "See ya in pictures!" he whooped with a yee-haw, and then he opened fire.

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viper_cupcake
2008-05-05 12:43 am UTC (link)

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Rosie replied as the last of the fireworks were extinguished by the lack of oxygen. It was the most satisfying thing she'd ever seen, and Vagabond's voice over the wireless didn't exactly hurt. She mentally admonished herself for picturing his cocky grin as they embraced on the flight deck. She wasn't about to let herself be distracted by even the most attractive of pilots.

She barely had time to wipe the absurd grin off her face, however, before a score of Raiders swam into view. Apparently, this whole thing had been some sort of trap. As if they'd needed the bait. Truthfully, Rosie was painfully aware of how ill-equipped the fleet was for this sort of attack. The simple sight of the Basestar was probably enough for the high-ups to shit themselves and jump to whatever coordinates were handy, especially now when their resources were stretched painfully thin. Or were they really stretched as thin as all that? She recalled John's words, when she'd encountered him on SL a few short days before. The marines were being deployed to the Avalon. No, it seemed that the fleet's resources were all being centered on one specific ship.

"Danger, danger," called the robotic voice of her Viper's alert system, and the red flashing on her monitors informed her that a missile had locked onto her craft.

"Frak," Rosie muttered, and pulled back hard on the stick. Her Viper pitched upward, and cartwheeled over itself before pitching sharply down. Her brain let go, recalling the missile evasion techniques she'd been taught in Academy, the ones she'd been so good at when she'd flown the sim.

Miraculously, it worked. She shook off the torpedo, which crashed into another Raider in a blossom of bright red fire. She might have noticed it was beautiful if she hadn't been banking her Viper hard to port.

She wheeled round and let loose a burst of fire that knocked off the wing of the offending Raider. No time for victory cheers, she flipped the Viper ass over nose until she was facing the opposite direction, and took off in the direction of the swarm that had just come down upon them.

"Don't get yourself killed, Vagabond," she laughed across the wireless. "You owe me a drink."

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	colton_west 2008-05-05 12:53 am UTC (link)
	He juked port to starboard, weaving between the rain of oncoming fire, hoping to close in on the Basestar before it had time to level it's long range weaponry. If he could get inside it's minimum range, he might be able to do some damage. "We survive this and drinks are on-" An explosion. Silence. And then, Cupcake was alone. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

viper_cupcake
2008-05-05 01:07 am UTC (link)

Silence.

"Vagabond, Cupcake," Rosie said urgently over the wireless.

Nothing.

"Vagabond, Cupcake!" This time, more frantic. She was convinced momentarily that she was on the wrong frequency, and she wheeled the dial back and forth, screaming almost wordlessly into her headset. "Frak me!" she shrieked, and slammed her fist painfully against her thigh. There were Raiders everywhere. "Avalon, Cupcake. Where the frak are my reinforcements?"

"Hold Cupcake. Maintain your present course."

What? Maintain her course? Into the Basestar?

This bore an uncomfortable similarity to the time she'd almost gotten shot out of the sky. At least then she'd had an FTL drive on her side. Now she wasn't nearly so lucky. Of course, if Avalon had been boarded they were all toasted. It was one thing for the Vulcan to meet its maker, another entirely when the flagship of the whole gods-damned fleet went down.

No good thinking like that though. Rosie took a deep breath, kicked the engines to all they were worth, and went screaming into the chaos head on.

She wasn't sure if she'd managed to take any of them out with her. The experience was immersive. For only the second time in her life, Rosie thought she was dead.

Then the lights in the pod came up, and she shoved her way out into the sterile fluorescent lights of the sim deck. She barely noticed that there were others there, she only pushed past them all, stumbling to her knees only a few feet from the sim pod. She wished for fresh air, she thought about the cool simulated atmosphere of the biodome on SL.

And then, her stomach heaved, and she vomited onto the cold metal floor.

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colton_west
2008-05-05 01:15 am UTC (link)

Cole was leaning against his own pod, arms crossed with his face painted in his typical lop-sided smirk. He raised an eyebrow and his expression darkened a bit when he saw Rosie toss her cookies all over the deck.

He took a step towards her, but didn't touch her. Some people reacted badly when hey got physically ill around others, and he had no clue what she'd do. He looked up and cleanly called across the room for a knuckle dragger to bring a mop and bucket.

"You did good, Rose." As he approached he pulled a tin from the breast pocket of his jock smock and retrieved a cigarette. He stuck it between his teeth, but didn't light it. He didn't need the CAG or some brass jumping all over him.

"I told the programmer to run a 'no win' scenario, after all."

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viper_cupcake
2008-05-05 01:22 am UTC (link)

"You...what?" she looked up, wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her jock smock, tears stinging her eyes. There was that cold-hot feeling in her sinuses that she always got when she vomited, but she blinked back the pain. It wasn't as bad as the idea that she'd been blown to smithereens only seconds earlier.

She climbed unsteadily to her feet and glared at Cole. "Why did you do that? I thought this was for fun. Or practice. Or..." she trailed off. This fit pretty securely into the realm of practice. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd been tested.

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colton_west
2008-05-05 01:32 am UTC (link)

He walked over to her, and even though they were almost the same height as he looked into her eyes it seemed as though he was towering over her.

"You're going to die, Rose." He said it plainly. No compassion, no remorse. "It's just another fact of life."

"Viper's not a Raptor. You've got no co-pilot, no FTL to save your ass. As a jock, in all likelihood, you'll die behind the stick. That's just the way it is."

He wasn't gloating. He wasn't preaching. He was just talking. A smile crossed his lips, "It's funny, really. You can have complete, one-hundred percent control of that Mark VII and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference."

He glance back into her eyes, "Because in the middle of battle it's all just a toss of the dice. Some live. Some die. It doesn't make sense and it doesn't have to."

He turned and started to walk away as a bitter tone crept into his voice, "Square with that when you climb behind the stick and you're free to do anything, Rose."

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	viper_cupcake 2008-05-05 01:41 am UTC (link)
	"I made it longer than you did, Vagabond!" she called as he practically strutted away. But deep down, she knew that was only luck. Or cowardice. Or both. When he didn't turn back, Rosie threw her helmet hard to the ground. "Frak!" she screamed, falling to her knees again. This time, she didn't throw up. She cried. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	colton_west 2008-05-05 01:44 am UTC (link)
	He turned back at the sound of her sobs. This time his eyes were softer, almost radiating an apology. Instead it came out a sympathetic warmth. He held out a hand, "C'mon, Rose. As I recall, I owe you a drink." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	viper_cupcake 2008-05-04 11:21 pm UTC (link)
	Wordlessly, she placed her hand in his and dragged herself to her feet. She picked up her discarded helmet and let Cole lead her away from the pods staggering away on shaky legs. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	colton_west 2008-05-05 11:41 pm UTC (link)
	He squeezed her hand softly then let it drop. "You did good, Rose." His voice was weaker than normal; soft and still had the ring of an apology. (Reply to this) (Parent)