The loud, deep sound of Defiance's alarm rattled the two pilots conversing in the galley.
"What's going on?" questioned Ensign Calan.
"The Defiance is under atta-" before Captain Jumiary could respond she was almost knocked to the floor before she braced herself on one of the galley tables as the Defiance took a powerful starboard hit. Whilst the rest of the pilots were getting on their feet again a dull voice cracked through the intercom: "Alpha Zeta and Gamma squadrons, report immediately to your assigned craft, Delta and Beta squadrons report to Hangar A12. AT Battallions Bravo and Charlie report to Hangar A12. All available hands find any vacant turret and fire at will!"
"Leave now!" Ordered Jumiary.
"Yes sir!" Complied the rest of the pilots in sync.
Already the clank and thud of the AT units' heavy boots clammering down the metal halls of the Defiance were heard. The place was in chaos with pilots, crew, and obviosly the clandestine AT units trying to get where they were told to go. Nervous and anxious as ever, Calan raced down the corridors of the Defiance to his destination while often tripping over objects and accidentally pushing fellow comrades, he finally reached Hangar A3. Standing in the threshold, the battle had already started. Through the magnetic field enemy bombers were finishing their attack run, many being plucked off by the newly initiated turrets, twirling out of control or exploding. He then found himself admiring the thousands of craft lifting off into the battle and then trying to find his flight group, before he could do so he was abruptly pushed down by another pilot running through to get to his craft while yelling "Get the hell out of the way, Ensign!"
Getting back up he soon found his flight leader, Jumiary, wearing the traditional flight group leader suit advertising that groups' colors of Green and a white stripes through the seams. Hustling towards her, she quickly spotted his awkward movement and pointed to his craf while getting into hers, a SF-8 Intrepid. An all-role fighter, it boasted 4 side mounted Intercept Lasers, a rocket compartment for anti-frigate rockets, and adequate speed for a fighter of its' class, the F-8 Intrepid was the workhorse for the Human fleet. In the cockpit, he quickly strapped himself inside and initiated all systems. Anxiously waiting for what seemed to be hours, Jumiary finally gave the order to lift off. Taking his craft off for the first time, Calans' heart pounded with excitement, fear, and wonder of what was going to happen, and who the hell attackers were.
Following Jumiary out of the busy hangar with the 3 other wingmen, Jumiary eventually spoke into the comm to brief them. "Do not engauge the enemy spacecraft, we've been given special orders; we're taking an alternate route. I'm sending the coordinates now. We're going to be leading the attack on the enemy cruiser, which has been identified as the Opleket. Our mission is to disable the ship for the Assault Shuttle Attack. Sending target information now. ...We've been outfitted with modified rockets and we're going to attack its' bridge.. Take my lead until we reach NAV-BUOY 89 then scatter across it's hull until you reach the bridge's proximity, copy?"
Everyone replied "Copy, Alpha Leader." Soon after, Calan looked around, the whole space around him was surrounded by swarms and swarms of small spacecraft, laser bolts, and explosions. Looking forward, the Opleket was still not in view.
Just as the main battle was coming into view, Jumiary spoke over the comm. "This is the real thing gents, we're not in the sim anymore. Don't get wreckless with your lives, remember your training!"
A huge wave of Intrepids, Moderator Gunboats, and Interdictor Interceptors soon clouded his view, he estimated perhaps 20 thousand craft, they were on their way to meet the enemies equally massive force. A long whistle came through the comm as Alpha 5, or Bruce was humbly awed by the sheer size of the upcoming battle. "Be thankful your not getting yourselves into that, gents." Jumiary commented.
Jumiary made a sharp bank right while bringing her craft lower. Calan had to quickly manuever his Intrepid to keep up with Jumiary's sudden movements. Supposedly we will be completely un-noticed by the enemy while following this route, he remembered, slightly comforting his uneasiness. After barely managing to stay in formation, Calan took a breath and let out a deep sigh. With a small since of regret, he said to himself "I wonder if it was a bad idea joining the armada..."
While getting lost in thought, he quickly came to attention as his computer bleeped: "Alpha 3 you are being targeted by UUM-5131." Looking up, the enemy craft seemed to be spinning out of control at incredible speed, upon closer inspection of the craft on his LCD, it dictated its' systems were at 23%, indicating it indeed was out of control. Before Calan yelled "Alpha 4, bank right!", it was too late, Alpha 4 let out a death scream, and was cut short when the enemy craft twisted into the left side of Alpha 4's Intrepid, which was housing one of the two rockets it was hauling, causing a huge explosion as the warhead inside was detonated, causing a chain reaction by detonating the other warhead. The explosions' wave rocking Calans' craft from side to side.
Before Calan could speak about Alpha 4, Jumiary advanced "Don't worry about Alpha 4, we still have the mission, don't let his death interfere!" Silenced, Calan began to concentrate.
Minutes past and the Opleket finally came into view, an odd looking ship, the Opleket was very large with canyons, trenches, metal spires and rusted brown armor plating. It almost looked organic. Jumiary spoke again into the comm "Direct all energy to the engines, and standby for my mark." Calan hit a few nobs directing his energy weapons power and jamming system power into his engines, his speed almost doubled. NAV-BUOY 89 swiftly went by, and Jumiary complied "Scatter!" The five craft immediatley dove down into one of the Oplekets many trenches.
Cannon bolts buzzed past Calans' nimble SF-8 Intrepid like a swarm of fiery-green bees trying to blow his craft into oblivion. Calan hauled his controls forward and whacked throttle wide open. Below, the snaking trench and canyon-like walls of the Opleket lurched up towards him at alarming speed. Ahead of him, Captain Jumiary banked left of another Intrepid and took a broadside laser hit sending her craft spiraling until it smashed into a jutting metal spire, saving the other pilot for only a few seconds before another volley of turret fire ripped his craft to shreds. "Damnit! We lost Alpha 1 and Alpha 2!" he yelled into the comm, beyond that a slender arch of steel bridged the depths, with turrets at either end of it spitting even more fiery death at the attacking Humans.
Calan's eyes were watering and the engines were thundering in his ears as he snapped back the throttle to blast straight towards the bridge of the Opleket, hitting the dual rocket release knob just when he thought he would smack straight into the Oplekets' bridge. He came so close he could view the creatures inside scattering from the image of his craft blasting towards them. In a flash the bridge was behind him as he pushed his Intrepid straight up while looking into the rear-view display on his command dash to glimpse his rocket volley explode into the bridge. He twisted higher up the metal enclosure and then circled back. Where the bridge had once been was now a flaming heap of metal. "Good shot Alpha 3!" Alpha 5 praised. "Thanks Bruce." Calan replied.
Bodies and bodyparts of some of the attackers within the hull of the explosion collided with his Intrepid as he sped out. He spoke into the comm while breathing raggedly, "The Opleket's bridge has been eliminated."
Although its movements disabled, the Opleket was now just a cornered animal, its turrets blazing even more rapidly than before.
"Affirimitive Alpha 3." The cold, dull voice of Fleet Command replied.
Still thundering through the Opleket, Calan was very unsure on how he was going to get out. Flying out would be disaster as the Opleket had thousands of turrets on its hull, he would be destroyed in seconds. Before he could consider anymore of his options a red light in his targeting rectical flashed, followed by the Computers' warning. There were three equally fast craft chasing him down canyon. "How can they keep up?" he asked himself. Looking at his rear-view display, the barely visible, almost black craft showed to be very different from the ones he saw before. The images of the three craft kept growing larger on his rear display. Calan began to panic as he manuevered his Intrepid through the Opleket's canyon maze. " I need cover!" He hastily barked through the comm.
A familiar voice replied, "What's your location Alpha 3?" He soon recognized it as Bruce, who was Alpha 5.
"I don't know Alpha 5. I'm being trailed by 3 unidentified craft, and..." Calan looked at his rear-view display again, "...they're closing!"
"Wait a second; take a left at the next intersection. I'm on a direct course for you..." "...I see you, I'm pulling in your front, hold on!"
The canyon abruptly forked and Calan took a left, one of the three pursuers slammed into the wedge before the pilot could react; the reamining 2 craft took a broad formation.
Looking in front again, Calan saw Bruce come into view, he swiftly passed Calan, weapons ablaze. The two remaining craft quickly replied with a spray of their own laser fire. Alpha 5 took a few weak left-flank, sending is Intrepid into the left canyon wall of the Opleket. He managed to barely pull of being slammed into the side, but not completely. The tip of his wing scraped against the side of the wall, in turn sending his craft spinning out of control. His Intrepid came in between the two remaining pursuers, it exploded. Each of its wings breaking off from the main body of the Intrepid and flying opposite of eachother into the other craft, pushing them into into either side of the canyon in a spectacular explosion.
A voice cracked through over the open comm: "Assault wave Gamma and Delta, fire your weapons and capture whatever is left."
"Shit, they've already began the attack!"
The Bombardment Shuttles began firing their torpedoes at the Opleket, the cruiser stood no chance at such a powerful attack. As the slow, bewildering torpedoes neared, their exhaust trailing behind them....