From: megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU (MegaZone23)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime,wpi.students.story,alt.prose
Subject: OIC (22)
Date: 14 Sep 1992 11:46:59 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu

---------------------------------------------------TWENTY-TWO

     "On a countdown to zero/Take a ride on the nightmare
machine/There ain't gonna be heroes/There ain't gonna be
anything"
                         --Def Leppard

Author's note:
          At this point the authors could try and write out
     the entire battle.   But the reader would probably get
     VERY bored if we described ALL of the destruction and
     carnage.  After all, there are quite a few ships out
     here.  If you really want to see a hugemongous space
     battle, similar to the one which takes place here, go
     watch the end of Return of the Jedi on fast forward,
     three times.  We will, however, satisfy some of your
     bloodlust by writing what the more main, central, hero-
     type characters are doing.
          We now return you to our regularly scheduled
     carnage already in progress.

     "You fight like a stillborn kitten."
     "Bite it, catface!"  Gryphon yelled in reply, vaping the
offending Kilrathi Jalthi.
     "Nice one, Gryph!  That makes seven kills this mission,"
Daver called out.
     "Yeah yeah yeah.  I know I'm good.  No autographs."
     "You also have a Krant on your six."
     WHOMP!  "Ouch.  I knew that."
     Daver placed a Reaper where the sun don't shine and
pulled along side Gryph.  "Nice one, Darkwing.  Pat yourself
on the back later."
     "I was just kidding, geez.  Umm, excuse me..."  Gryph's
GU-11 chattered to life.  "Damn Salthi."
     "That's eight for you and five for me."
     "Well, you're doing better than most wingmen.  They
usually come up empty."
     "Yeah.  Well, I've got to get back to the battle over
here.  Can't keep the pigeons waiting."
     "Ok.  Just watch yourself."

     "Hahaha!  DIE!  DIE!  DIE!  Nine lives my ass!  DIE!"
     "Mark, calm down.  Don't take too many chances," Tricia
warned.
     "I'm ok.  Just--- HA!  Fool!  Taste my wrath! ---sorry,
where were we?"
     "Nevermind.  I give up.  Just make sure you get your ass
back to the ship in one piece."
     Mark filled a large area of space with depleted
shoggothium, and managed, via sheer luck, to frag a Gratha.
     "HA!  DIE!  I love this job!  And I was going to work
for Mass Electric this summer!  Die furball!"
     "What AM I going to do with you?" Tricia mumbled.
     Mark was totally absorbed in the glee of utterly hosing
the enemy.  Therefore he didn't notice the Dralthi closing on
him from below.  The Dralthi opened fire and nailed Mark's
battroid in the backpack thrusters.  Seriously screwing them
up.  Luckily Erik didn't miss the Dralthi.  A salvo of
AIM-105-3X missiles succeeded in increasing the entropy of
the universe in general, and said Dralthi in particular.
     "Probably scrape him up if he keeps this up," Erik
commented dryly.
     "Mark! Are you ok?!"  Trish asked concerned.
     "'Tis only a flesh wound."
     "Haywire, stop fucking around and kill Kilrathi sanely.
Alright?" Gryphon called over the comm.
     "Awwww.  That takes all the fun out of it."
     "Haywire."
     "Oh, alright."
     "Kill sanely?  Are you feeling alright, Gryph?" Daver
asked.
     "I'm fine, Dave."
     "Yeah, I'm sure that's what HAL said too."
     "Fuck you, Dave."
     "Ooh baby.  Will you?"
     "In your dreams, Dave."
     "You mean nightmares, don't you?"
     "Oh, just shut up and-- CHECK SIX!"
     "Huh?!  What?  Whoa!  Nice kitty!  Good kitty.  Have a
missile."
     The Reaper Roboteched gracefully and impacted the
Gratha's engines.  The Kilrathi was having a very, very,
very, very, very nice day.  Assholes!

     Back on the bridge of the SDF-17 Zoner was shifting
nervously in his chair.
     "Zoner, like, what's wrong?" q asked.
     "Oh, nothing.  I just wish I was out there with the rest
of the crew.  I haven't had a good opportunity to try out my
Daytona in combat yet.  My beta has more missiles than most
of them.  And I've got a GAU-8 too.  ARGH!  I want to relieve
some stress too."
     "Zoner, calm down.  We need you here.  Who else is
qualified to command the Wayward Son?" Yuri asked.
     "Everybody.  Like you for instance."
     "Oh no.  Not me.  I don't want to do it."
     "Exactly.  That's why I'm stuck here."
     "Anyway, we might as well do something a little more
useful than plinking fighters with railguns.  Kei, do you
have a good setup for targeting the Sivars yet?"
     "Well, there're a lot of fighters in the way, some of
which are ours.  So if you can get us clear..."
     "Done.  Yuri, change course 300 mark 18.  All ahead
flank."
     "Ok.  Course 300 mark 18, all ahead flank."

     While all of this was going on the kludge from hell was
closing on a pair of Snakeirs.  A small cluster of fighters
buzzed about the Snakeirs, protecting them.  Or so they
thought.
     The Kilrathi picked him up a long way off.  Well, it
wasn't like the kludge was stealthy or anything.  A pair of
Gratha peeled off and closed with the kludge head on.
They're so stupid.
     "Cheryl, you got these bozos?"
     "Yeah Rob, easy."  The two GAU-8s pivoted and each
locked onto a Gratha.  Twin fingers of depleted uranium
reached out and plinked their targets.  Hard.  O-rings
scattered about the cosmos.  "Two down, eleven to go."
     "Yeah, look sharp everyone."
     When their brethren bit the big one, the remaining
Kilrathi turned to attack the kludge.
     "Here they come.  Stay sharp.  We don't need anyone
going... catatonic."
     ReRob's crew collectively moaned and refused to reply to
the pun.
     "Deedlit, you keep us moving and keep them off our ass,
ok.  The fields of fire are sort of limited."
     "I'm a fighter pilot.  That's generally what I've been
trained to do.  Fighters pilots aren't generally trained to
sit still and say `Hey, I'm a fighter pilot; kill me.'  Sir."
     "Um.  Yeah.  Anyway, here they come."
     "We're ready for 'em.  Let's go," Kevin said.
     Three Krant circled in from below.  They opened fire at
long range, but their attacks just bounced off the kludge's
armor.  Kevin waited for them to close.
     "Come on.  Come on.  Just a little closer to be sure...
DIE!"
     Three of the chain guns spat angry bits of lead and
uranium at the Krant.  And managed to seriously pit them.
     "Hey!  ReRob these things are weak!  I said DIE!"  Kevin
opened fire again.  This time two of the Krant lost sizeable
portions of their structure and drifted off into deep space.
The third turned to limp back to one of the Snakeirs.  "I got
'em!"
     "Nice one," was all Cheryl said.  She was busy hosing a
pair of Dralthi which dared enter her arc of fire.
     "Deedlit, line us up for a Tomahawk shot," ReRob
ordered.
     "Roger."  Deedlit arced the kludge gracefully (?!?)
through space and brought her sights to bear on a pair of
Jalthi.  "Set up."
     "I've got the guns," ReRob called out.  He fired all of
the kludge's forward firing weaponry; the two Tomahawk
cannons and the Raptor's mass drivers and neutron guns.  One
of the Jalthi bloomed into a fireball, but the other dodged
and returned fire.  It's six laser cannons chewed into the
kludge and ripped off some of the armor.  The crew was thrown
about violently from the energy of the blasts.
     "Big money!  Big prizes!  I like it!  Ok, Deedlit stay
on him!"
     "Doing my best!"
     Deedlit and the Jalthi's pilot each fought to gain a
superior position over the other while Kevin and Cheryl held
off the remaining Kilrathi.
     "Argh!  This bastard is good.  Shoot him as soon as you
get a chance," Deedlit yelled into the comm.
     "I'm planning on it!" ReRob shot back.  "Now!"
     Again six weapons spat out destruction towards the
Jalthi.  This time they connected, but the craft was only
damaged.
     "Ah!  So the monkey boy can fight!" the Jalthi's pilot
exclaimed over the radio.
     "No fuckin' shit, Heathcliff!" Rob replied.
     The kludge was shaken by the impact of Kilrathi
missiles.
     "What the fuck was that?" Kevin asked.
     "I dunno.  Shit!  We've got a Gratha on our six!"
     "I shall feast upon your offspring," the Gratha's pilot
stated to the crew.
     "Jeez, you mean you haven't even tried depleted uranium?
Here, have a taste test!  Guys, hold on back there," Deedlit
called over the comm.  She hauled the kludge through a half-
loop and a snap roll, broke hard right and bore down on the
Gratha's port side.  "Now you die."  The Gratha fell apart
rather nicely when confronted with the six weapons fired at
it.
     "`Now you die'?  How cliche.  Every stupid movie has
someone saying `Now you die', it's totally unoriginal," ReRob
editorialized from the back seat.
     "Give me a break, I haven't been speaking English for
that long.  It seemed appropriate."
     "Appropriate yes.  Original no," Cheryl replied.
     "Umm.  Do you think we could get back to swatting these
furballs out of existence?"
     "Check."  The rest of the crew shut up and returned to
their guns.
     Deedlit reacquired the Jalthi they had been dueling and
reengaged in a dogfight.  The Jalthi had lost some of its
control thrusters and couldn't keep up with her skill.  It
died rather quickly.
     "Ok, what do we have left?"
     "Three Salthi."
     "Ok, no problem."  The kludge began trying to duel with
one of the Salthi.  It didn't work.
     "Uh...I see a problem," Deedlit said.
     "Like what?" ReRob asked.
     "This is like killing gnats with a shotgun.  They're
just too nimble."
     "And I can't get these damn turrets to track quick
enough," Kevin added.
     "Yeah no shit," Cheryl chimed in.
     "Ok.  So what do we do?"
     "Let me take them in the Raptor," Deedlit suggested.
     "Ok.  Do it..."
     "Alright!  Got one!" Kevin cried.
     "That's nice, dear.  Go ahead, Deedlit."
     The Raptor engaged its thrusters and raced away from the
Beta.  Rob and company sat back to enjoy the fireworks.
     Deedlit got reaccustomed to the quicker response time
and much better handling of the Raptor alone; without all
that mass behind it, Beta thrusters or no, it was a hell of a
lot more comfortable to fly.  She punched up to full cruising
speed and slung the ship around, keying the main guns to her
manual control again.  A Salthi crossed her field of view;
she locked it down and began tracking it, fighting with the
smaller vessel for position.
     The pilot of the Salthi tried to dodge as the Raptor
swung into his six, but his fighter's inability to turn right
foiled him; he had to sit and take a hit or two before his
boosters pushed him to safety.  It was enough.  Deedlit put
the trigger down, and the paired neutron guns and mass
drivers of her fighter spoke.  The first salvo knocked down
the Salthi's shields entirely; the second blasted great holes
in its armor; the third holed fuel tanks and ion drive.  The
fighter exploded majestically, but Deedlit took no time to
watch; the Salthi's wingman had been battering at her rear
shields with its lasers this whole time, and now she turned
her deadly attentions on him.

     "We're in position," Yuri reported.  Out over the bow,
the glow of the half-distant battle could be seen as missile
salvos streaked back and forth and the flaring deaths of
starfighters flashed.  That was below the line of fire,
though; directly ahead were discernible the outlines of
Sivar-class Kilrathi dreadnaughts.
     "Lay in a firing solution and fire when ready," Zoner
ordered.
     q leaned over to Yuri and, tapping her elbow,
whispered, "So like, how many do you think she'll get?"
     "Two...three at the max," Yuri replied.
     "Two?!  I beg my illustrious partner's pardon?  Four, at
the least!"
     "Five bucks says you only get three."
     "You're on!"
     "Ladies..."
     "Targeting," Kei replied with a grin.  On her small
screen, the God's-eye view of the enemy formation shifted a
little.  The dreadnaughts were jockeying for a better
position from which to thump the planet below, ignoring
entirely the enemy mothership hanging motionless some
distance away.  The Wayward Son was entirely too far away to
be a threat, they reasoned.  On the little screen, the blips
that were dreadnaughts moved a little more, coming closer to
the red band that was the main gun's killzone.
One...two...three...four...four.  Damn.  The other three
weren't moving into the beam zone, and it looked like one
would be vacating soon, so...
     She thumbed off the striped safety cover and punched the
trigger.  The bow cammed, the sparks flew, and the beam leapt
forth, clawing space in its ravenous manner, just as always.
The Kilrathi ships scattered like terrified mice before the
firestorm, but too late; the four targeted ships were caught
and incinerated in the space of a thought.
     The Salusian tech who maintained the bridge viewer
systems apparently had a twisted sense of humor; over the
magnified explosions of the four ships, the letters "GAME
OVER" blinked for a few seconds.
     "Yes!" Kei cried, punching the air in triumph.  "Four of
the bastards.  Pay up, sucker!"
     Yuri sighed and forked over the cash.

     "Good work, Deedlit," ReRob complimented as the Raptor
finished off the second Salthi.  "Now we--whoa!"  Rob was cut
off as the tremendous flash of light cut the cosmos in half.
"Wha... oh--they set Kei loose again.  God help us all."  He
grinned.  "Four Sivars--not bad at all.  I wonder..."  He
swung the monster around and aimed it at the nearest Snakeir.
"Deed, cover us--I'm gonna try something."
     "Roger," Deedlit replied.
     ReRob aimed the Beta right at the Snakeir's pipes,
opening up with all the weapons at his command; his gunners
followed suit.  He reached down and flipped the button that
armed one of his two AIM-666-XL AntiChrist heavy missiles.
The pinging of a missile looking for a lock sounded as the
small red reticule swung across the HUD and lined up with the
green gunnery crosshair (which looked suspiciously familiar
to a Leppardhead like Rob, making him wonder about the HUD's
designer).
     The ping became a tone--the missile found it simplicity
itself to lock on a target that huge.  Rob dodged some flak,
took some more (the Beta's armor laughed as it flaked away--
pathetic laser cannons), and then, verifying his lock, fired.
     The AntiChrist ripped out of its underslung launch tube,
right to the left of the locking mechanism for the Raptor,
not even bothering to Robotech before diving into one of the
Snakeir's thruster exhausts.
     Nothing happened.
     "Okay, so maybe it didn't work," ReRob said ruefully,
pulling up and boosting out as the flak got just a bit too
heavy.
     A great gout of flame shot out of the Snakeir's exhaust;
the ship heeled to port, began to list in relation to its
former orientation, and then, in a rather beautiful manner,
exploded.
     "Holy shit!" Kevin shouted, craning to look back.
     "Good shooting, Rob," Cheryl added with a grin.
     "Heh," ReRob said with a grin, opened up his throttles a
little more, and dove in to attack another.
     "Don't get too cocky, sir," Deedlit cautioned.  "You
might not be so lucky this time."
     "I know what I'm doing," ReRob replied, and proceeded to
plunk his second AntiChrist into a second carrier's engines
and blow the second ship sky-high.
     "This is getting boring," ReRob said with an evil smile,
and aimed his experiment in ugliness at a Sivar.
     "Sir, you can't be serious--" Deedlit began.
     "Just cover my tail, Lt. Satori, and watch the
fireworks.  Kevin, remember that drum bomb?"
     "I like the way you think, ReRob," declared Cheryl.
     "Heh," was all Kevin said.  He pressed the key that
armed the bomb; the bombsight unfolded from the ceiling in
front of him.  It looked kinda like that proton torpedo
targeting thing Incom T-65 starfighters have.  He had a
wireframe nose view of the oncoming rear end of a Sivar-class
dreadnaught--specifically, the pipes.
     "Shit--this AA is heavy," ReRob said as the Beta shook
from the pounding.  "Hurry up and drop that sumbitch!"
     "Got it--bomb away!" Kevin cried, hitting the Big Red
ButtonTM.  The bomb bay swung open and a small rocket charge
ejected the bomb; in zero-g, it continued on the Beta's
trajectory, plus the lateral motion imparted by the ejection
charge.  Targeted perfectly, it "fell" right into the
Sivar's thruster.
     "Let's get outta here!" ReRob shouted, yanking the
conversion lever.  The Beta's legs and arms extended, but
somewhere just short of real battroid mode but after gerwalk,
something jammed.  "Shit--I was afraid of that," said Rob,
and hit full boosters.  The Betakludge flipped over and
streaked away as it returned to fighter mode.
     Fifteen seconds later, the three Beta crewmembers
glanced back at a perfectly unconcerned Sivar.  "Damn," ReRob
said, "looks like the bomb mis--"

     BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     [Huge explosion deleted--but it looks just like the
                    Death Star blowing up]

     Three Sivars were swallowed up in the fireball, besides
the one which was actually meeting the fiery death; only one
came out, and it looked pretty crispy around the edges.
     "WOW!" Rob shouted.
     "Holy fuck!" said Kevin, looking in awe at the Big Red
Button.
     "Cool!" Cheryl agreed.
     "I think it's time to head back to base," ReRob grinned.
"Deedlit, you want to come back with us, or are you up for
some more action?"
     "Think I'll stay--ump--right here, sir," Deedlit replied
shortly.  Glancing out his port window, Rob saw her engaged
in a fierce dogfight with a squadron of Dralthi.
     "Oh.  Have fun," he replied, and headed for the Wayward
Son.

     "What the fuck was that?!" Zoner demanded as the
explosion blotted out half the main viewer.
     "Christ on a crutch!" Gryphon shouted, his face
appearing in a corner of the viewer.  "What the fuck was
that?!"
     "I don't know!" Zoner replied.  "I thought you did it!"
     "I couldn't do that if I wanted to!"
     "It was us, guys," ReRob joined in, popping into another
corner of the viewer.
     "What the hell did you use, a kilo of antimatter?!"
     "Close; a drum bomb."
     "Shit!"
     "Actually, most of the explosion probably came from the
Sivar's engine core," Daver interjected.
     "Probably," Gryphon agreed.
     "Yeah, you know, an ion drive that big has got to have
some major capacitance--now take the engine cores on the UN
Spacy's new A.R.M.D. Mark II series--" Zoner began, and
started to trail away on a long blatter of jargon.
     "Gryph, I think I activated technospew mode...I'm
sorry," Daver said apologetically.
     "No problem," Gryphon replied.  "I can just shut off his
channel."

     The Kilrathi forces surrendered five minutes later,
having lost more than 45% of their forces to fightercraft.
Most of them committed ritual suicide out of sheer
embarrassment.