Lapointe groaned in the doorway of the adjacent room. He had been shot several times, in the limbs at least. Both Gains and Assuras were about to comment when the sound of raptor engines starting was heard. Sasha screamed and ran outside. “That’s our plane!” The Major then looked at Bear and told him to lift the traitor. “No Major we can’t take him! My grandfather said…” She wasn’t in the mood to listen about anyone’s grandparents and cut him off. “That’s a fraking order Lieutenant!” The large man grumbled under his breath, did as he was ordered, and burdened by the load; he did his best to keep up with Cupcake as she ran out of the building for the raptor.
Lieutenant Gains made it to the plane just as the doors started to close. She threw herself inside before they shut and scrambled to face the person in the pilot’s seat. “Land this plane now!” Mr. Creepy continued his lift off and Sasha moved closer pointing the guns at him. “I’m sure the Major won’t have problems flying a raptor coated in toaster guts.” With an exasperated sigh of discontent, he lowered the plane, re-opened the doors and protested, “Hurry Lieutenant, we need to get the hell off this planet fast!”
Major Assuras and lieutenant Bear arrived moments later. They boarded the plane and Bear threw Lapointe to the floor as Cupcake began the take off again. “Cover them both. The Lieutenant’s going to face charges of cowardice in the face of the enemy and I think the Colonel will have fun dismantling the new skin-bot.” Mr. Creepy ignored the snide attack; he had one remaining objective, “Now or never, let’s get out of here!”
As they began to climb a figure came running out into the clearing. The Major’s attention was consumed by the raptor’s controls, so it was lieutenant Bear that recognized the figure. “Frak me… It’s another Lapointe.” They hovered for a second and all stared in disbelief. The man in the field was waving for them to land and 3 centurions were chasing him. Mr. Creepy loudly voiced the reality they were awestruck by, “Yes, the Lieutenant is a fraking toaster. And with a tone of unmistakable urgency, “But we have got to go NOW! I set up a big nuke that will blow this entire area. So, please take me back to Argus, because I would rather take my chances being dissected, than get fried by a FRAKIN NUCLEAR EXPLOSION!”
Amid a barrage of cussing, the Major piloted skyward.
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Chief Forester and lieutenant Maxime shook their heads trying to figure out what their next course of action should be. The debate they had was how they were going to land. Forester was of the opinion that since Max was able to make the aircraft hover really close to the ground they could just cut the engines and drop the last few meters. The aircraft had proven to be fairly tough and should survive without difficulty. The Lieutenant was reluctant to try that; he figured that the area would be crawling with centurions, old and new. He thought Nike, the goddess of victory, had smiled down on them once and he didn’t want to push their luck. In the meantime they just kind of flew around without a particular direction.
It was finally the Chief that realized they were in a space plane and if they couldn’t land, they could just head back to the Argus and in a worst-case situation they could be towed onto the flight deck. His mind taxed by the stress of combat sought solace… They “would be heroes, having destroyed an enemy airfield and captured an enemy plane”.Max looked over his shoulder and was about to point out the flaws to that plan, when he noticed his friend looking upwards softly speaking to himself. “I hope I made you proud. I’m a hero now, just like you.” The Lieutenant couldn’t think of anything witty to say and wasn’t too certain if wit would be appropriate commentary for when man talks to his deceased wife. Instead he just quietly responded with, “So say we all.”
After the brief pause Max pointed out there were two major flaws. The first was that unless the chief could figure out the communications systems, they were likely to get shot down by their own people. And second was lieutenant Maxime never actually took a jumper out of the atmosphere. Therefore, he had no clue how to leave the planet. Forester cussed hard wondering how in Hades could a short-order cook becomes a heavy equipment operator. “OK then, let’s fly in the same direction Bear headed toward; maybe we can get help. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find the communications circuits.”
After some further debate about which direction they were supposed to go, the Chief proceeded to open more panels inside the plane. But within 5 minutes he had decided that he was better off trying to unravel a spider’s web. Figuring out the firing mechanism made sense because it was similar to what he seen on colonial planes. Although he understood electrical wiring and basic electronics, without a diagram, the communications systems were too complex to understand.
Seating himself beside his comrade, he inquired if he had anymore of his girlfriend’s underwear because he was sure that friendlies would respond better to his signal of choice than toasters. He could wave them in the window at any vipers that might come by. “You just aren’t going to let me live that down are you?” Forester laughed and made it clear that he was going to make sure his friend got a new call sign if they survived. He then pointed to the horizon and asked if the plane in the distance looked like a raptor.
“Heads up boys and girls! We got a bogie on our tail!” Cupcake was less than impressed because raptor was hardly the kind of aircraft she wanted to face the enemy in. She called out to Bear, letting him know that this was his field of specialty and she would accept any advice he offered. She then decided to bank hard, to the left, and increase thrust. As Sasha maintained guard on the prisoners the axe-wielding pilot took over all the navigator’s duties. “Don’t use instruments to control your stall, Major. Go by your sense of feel, it works better.” Assuras took a deep breath, stopped glancing at the panel and focused her attention out the cockpit window. Her hand gently modulated thruster control as she sensed what the plane needed to stay in the air.
They got behind the heavy raider and locked their weapons in it preparing to fire. But lieutenant Bear noticed and shouted out that the cylon plane wasn’t attempting any maneuvers. Major Assuras ignored the statement and proceeded to launch their few weapons. The Lieutenant lunged pulling her hand off the stick just before she could push the button. She screamed wanting to know what the problem was. “A raptor is a piss poor fighter and we have an easy target!” Her navigator and co-pilot retorted back that it might be chief Forester and lieutenant Max in the raider. Cupcake stumbled for words. Sasha voiced loudly, “Is that how you got those two to blow up the airfield? Made them steal a raider?” She scrunched up her eyes and in exasperation said, “Max is a big idiot; there is no way he can fly a plane.” Cupcake inquired if they could raise the Chief on wireless and Bear informed her that he couldn’t. “This better be them or we are screwed.
I’m going to fly alongside the raider and take a look.” Mr. Creepy chimed in from the back and re-iterated his comments about nuclear explosion about to occur. The raptor flew beside the heavy raider and both the Major and lieutenant Bear began to laugh. Chief Forester had his face pressed up against the glass and was frantically slapping it with his hands. “By the gods, he is flying like he has never been to flight school. Use a signal light and flash him to follow and try to copy our maneuvers.”
Mr. Creepy laughed at the absurdity and looking to his fellow prisoner, he mocked him. “Simon, you know it really bothered me that my bomb wouldn’t destroy your planes. That’s a hell of a design on the camouflage and amour protection. Unfortunately you forgot to make it idiot proof.” Sasha yelled at them to shut up and quickly stomped on the crotches of both men.
The chief relayed the signal light message to Max. The Lieutenant grumbled under his breath because he would have preferred just trying to land and letting real pilots fly them home. The raptor pulled in front of them and he proceeded to follow the plane’s rapid assent. All things appeared to be going normally when they started to break atmosphere and a huge explosion occurred on the planet’s surface. The ensuing electro magnetic pulse wave from the blast temporarily disabled all of the raiders controls and they flew into orbit erratically. The Chief was flung to the rear of the craft smashing his face against the hull. Those aboard the raptor, which had cleared the planet seconds prior, watched the event in horror. The plane was spinning off into space out of control.