NationStates Jolt Archive

Three months later...



Kluft slammed into the side of the cockpit as he pulled a hard turn to escape an incoming round. His wingman punched out already, took a few too many shells to the jets. Kluft turned on a pursuing enemy fighter, jostling around heavily. The Niiatar were good pilots, but they had nothing on Kluft...He put a burst of shells into the enemy and it broke to pieces.

'When's that evac going to be here, god damn it?!' barked Kluft. Lt. Kluft didn't get an answer, to be fair, his wingman's current predicament was of minor importance to General Lyboc. The Niiatar were assaulting the Aumanii hard. Naga just engaged an enemy command ship with its broadsides. Flames blossomed around the massive Men of War as they slugged it out, neither relenting to the other's barrage...and completely uncaring of the plight of their fighter crews.

'I'm running out of air man! Help me, for god sake!' crackled Captain Chonsk, Kluft's wingman. Kluft dove on an enemy bomber and with a grunt he squeezed the trigger, his cannons belched slugs and annihilated the rear section of his prey, which started to spin, end-over-end until it exploded, showered the rest of the formation with debris. Kluft chuckled until his Niiatar counterparts found out where he was and chased him off.

The USS Virgina and its parasite craft pulled themselves off of the battleline and retreated. The Allaneans had difficulty dealing with the heavy guns of the Niiatar and always withdrew first...The last three months in Sculptor had only been notable for the string of humiliating defeats suffered by the Aumanii-Allanean Coalition Fleet. Nearly half the Aumanii have been killed in what can only be described as a running skeet-shoot.

Naga's point defenses created a wall of searing metal between the battling juggernaughts. Missiles streaked between Naga and it's nemesis, the majority of the Niiatar's were shot down by the defense guns which the Niiatar vessel lacked...however, all of Naga's missiles were intercepted by the skillful Niiatar fighter pilots, which, the Aumanii supposed, made up for the lack of flak guns on their part.

Kluft continued to dominate his sector of the battlespace. He was untouchable. 'Amateurs!' shouted Kluft as he cackled maniacally. More of the Niiatar exploded as a result of Kluft's practiced battle skills. Just as it seemed like Kluft would win this fight single handedly, he caught sight of an enemy fighter, just inside his peripheral vision. He dodged, wait...no he didn't...a shell clipped his cockpit, it shattered. The plane's automatic ejection system kicked in and the Aumanii ace was blown into the void.

'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' he yelled over the vox, due to frustration as opposed to terror.

Enemy missile hits on Naga started to build up, the gut wrenching order to withdraw filtered through the fleet...

'We're retreating...' said the grizzled voice of Fleet General Lyboc, a frigate broke in two and exploded, almost as if to punctuate the dire situation. '...May the Founder guide the souls of those we leave behind, you will not be forgotten.'

A flood of obsenities filled Kluft's helmet as he realized that him and Chonsk were being left behind. With a flash, what was left of, the battered Aumanii fleet jumped away. The Niiatar left almost as soon as the Aumanii, eager to conclude the chase as soon as possible.

----

Kluft and Chonsk were the only survivors of the battle. Running low on oxygen and seperated by probably more than a kilometer of empty space, the men quipped and joked with one another.

'So, Chonsk, seems like we're going to be spending the rest of our lives together...all fifteen minutes of it...cause I'm ready for the commitment'

'Oh great...' replied Chonsk sarcastically.

'Let me get something really important off of my chest, buddy.' said Kluft, in the same voice he uses everytime he's messing around with Chonsk's head. Chonsk sighed...

'You're not gay, are you?' said Chonsk.

'Only for you, Chonsky...you're a beautiful man. No, but shut up already and let me finish the joke.'

'You know we're going to die, real soon, eh Kluft, doesn't that bother you at all?'

'We can't die, Chonsk, we're too hardcore for that. I digress! Remember that time you put on your boots and they were filled with shaving cream?'

'I know that was you already.'

'Oh, well, do you remember that time you went to the head and there was plastic wrap over the seat? Oh man, that was classic.'

'Kluft, after awhile I just assumed you were pulling all those pranks.'

'Really?

'Truly.'

'Well, did you know about that time me and your wife...'

'Yeah.'

'And why haven't you divorced her?'

'I'm a traditionalist.'

'It's easy, all you gotta do is say something along the lines of "Get the fuck out of my house", Chonsk.'

Chonsk shrugged and sighed deeply as he thought about how fucked up his life was, like he did often. Chonsk's horrible home-life is, what Kluft assumed, what made him such a good pilot. Hopping into the cockpit got him away from his harpy of a wife, being a good pilot got him even more airtime. Generally, Chonsk was a quiet man...his trainers originally didn't think he had the chops to be a combat pilot because of his soft manner, that was before they put him into combat simulations.

'Wait, you had sex with my wife?' asked Chonsk, suddenly pissed off.

Kluft was quiet for a moment. 'Hey, man, can you see this thing? It's huge!' Chonsk struggled to see what Kluft was talking about, behind him he saw it...a massive, ornately decorated, rectangular starship was approaching...suddenly, Chonsk and Kluft were dragged into a rapidly opening landing bay, or something, you could never tell, really.

The two men sat is silent terror as they both assumed they were going to be killed, that was the nature of this galaxy after all.

Chonsk and Kluft wandered around the dark, slippery, hallways of what had just taken them aboard. Their helmet lamps lit their path and revealed to them a very poorly maintained starship. Revolvers in hand, the two men explored the ship for what seemed like hours and found nothing. They forced entry into a room, the door was blocked by stacks of boxes, filled to the brim with random electronics.

'I wonder where the bridge is...' inquired Chonsk.

'What, so we can fly this thing back to the fleet? What do you think this is, some space opera...I barely graduated from University and you expect us to...' something crashed to the ground out of sight, someone, something, chortled gutturally. Chonsk ordered Kluft to cover him with a hand signal, while he pulled the hammer back on his revolver and went up to check out what ever was making all that noise. Creeping, stooped, using a line of boxes to cover his approach, Chonsk came closer to the noise. He peaked over the top and saw a dirty, grey, fat-headed alien wearing soiled rags. It was seemingly unarmed. Chonsk waved Kluft up and then kicked over the boxes, glass smashed and flew across the ground.

'Don't you move freak! What the... what the fuck!?' Chonsk put a bullet in the alien's chest when it turned to him, what looked like a car radio in his hand...Chonsk mistook it for a weapon. The creature hit the ground, hard. A low, studdering, moan crept from its mouth, soon replace with a deep sucking sound...it wasn't dead, but it was hurt real bad. Pounding foot steps could be heard on the other side of a door, which was ajar, in front of them. The pilots ran for it. Soon the turned a corner and were met by two more of those things, they levelled their guns at them and started screaming at them, the Aliens covered their heads and fell to their knees, pleading in what ever language they spoke. Kluft moved towards one, which was weeping, snot dribbling from it's pug nose, grotesquely, and grabbed it by the soot-blackened collar of its tattered robe and threw it against a wall.

Chonsk started talking to the other one on the ground, revolver in a more relaxed grip. 'What are you? Are there any more of you here? What is the function of this vessel? Are you warriors?' The monster had no comprehension of what the Aumanii was saying. The death throws of the wounded Alien could be heard, reverberating down the halls of the ship. Kluft frisked the other one and found a small black box, with a simple flip-switch on it.

'What is this?' Asked Kluft, putting the device in the face of the Alien he'd just thrown against the wall.

'Is it a detonator switch?'

'Grendler!' exclaimed the Alien, its voice was wholely primitive...how could these things have mastered space travel? Kluft glanced over at Chonsk and he gave him a nod. Kluft flipped the toggle and a little red light started to flash on the device. The Alien spoke again, 'We are Grendler, for trading.' the device translated the Aliens words to perfect Aumanii.

'This thing is a fucking translator, Chonsk!' said Kluft. The Grendler on the ground, a perplexed look on its face, asked 'What is fucking?' Kluft looked at the hideous creature, 'Obviously something you won't do much of...' said Kluft, meanly.

'Would you like to trade with us?' asked the same Grendler. 'No way, we'll keep what we got...thanks...' The Grendler insisted and caught Klufts boot to the face for it.

'Take us to the bridge!'

The Grendlers led the two men to the bridge. Sorry little compartment had only one chair with an odd looking helmet attached to it. A single, large, screen dominated the front of the room, but was still no larger than a big screen TV. The Grendlers stood in silent ignorance. Kluft noticed one of them was looking at his handgun.

'Trade?'

'No.'

Chonsk, the ranking officer, asked 'How did you get this ship, you obviously didn't build it yourselves?'

'Trade.'

'What for?'

'Boxes'

Chonsk narrowed his eyes at the loathesome thing. 'All that shitty broken crap back there?'

Kluft laughed, 'I'll give you my gun for this ship!'

The Grendler, a totally sincere look in its beady little eyes said 'Yes, trade!' Chonsk and Kluft looked at each other for a second and the Grendler went for the gun. Kluft pushed the thing to the ground, by its face. 'I said the gun, not the bullets...stupid little thing...' Kluft took the bullets out of his gun and pocketted them, then he stooped down and took his back up revolver out of an ankle holster.

'So, how do you fly this thing?' asked Chonsk, who was met with silence. 'So, you've just been drifting?'

'Yes.'

Chonsk sighed deeply. 'What happened to the guys that traded it to you?' asked Kluft.

'Gone.'

'Where?'

'Airlock.'

'Obviously, but where did they go from there?'

The view screen flickered on, the ship apparently reacted to the questioning...two reptilian bodies were floating outside. Kluft looked horrified.

'You spaced them!?' he wailed. The the picture on the screen shifted and on it a Niiatar Destroyer jumped back into the system, warning shots were fired.

'They're going to board us...Where's a good place to hide?' said Chonsk, Kluft loaded the Grendler's revolver for it before the Aliens showed them to the engine room.