“Hell yes. Ma’am.”
Bette turned the freighter’s nose around and pointed neg-y, diving down. If she was fast enough the weapon placements might not be able to lock on in time. Swinging along the x-axis, Bette targeted the south wall of the base.
Just when she was pressing on the trigger of the foreign, a weapons lock klaxon shrieked, and she was forced to pull up and swing wide.
”Coming down for round two, sit tight Nomad,” she said, her voice flat with concentration.
yo ho yo ho a pilot's life for me
Silus stood up and started making his way back toward the server room. It was a big enough wall that he could post up just on the other side of the security door.
"Shooter, if I were sitting any tigh......."
"Shooter, if I were sitting any tigh......."
Nelaa's eyes went wide as Silus was cut off by the sound of blaster fire, followed by a loud thud. For a few moments she stood in complete shock listening to the sounds coming in over his comm.
"Confirmed hit. Intruder is down."
"Ten-four, veri...."
She silenced his communicator and spoke quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Davis...get out of there."
Last edited by Nelaa Kyris; May 11th, 2019 at 04:35:44 PM.
“No, I’m coming around for another pass, just give me a second!”
Bette yanked on the steering yoke, opening fire on the base even though she was too far up to do any real damage.
”Hold on Nomad, I’m coming!”
She was halfway between shock and full out panic. The normally tight control she spoke with was frayed at best.
"Davis..get out of there now. If you get taken out..."
"I know what I'm doing!"
That was the point when Nelaa lost her cool.
"YOU CAN'T HELP HIM! YOU HAVE TO COMPLETE THE MISSION." She heard Bette trying to edge a word in and wouldn't let her. "IF YOU FAIL, HIS..." She paused and swallowed the lump in her throat.
Tears sprang to Bette’s eyes as she held up the yoke, keeping the nose of the ship down.
“Get out of there Davis! That’s an order!”
She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood in her mouth, pulling down on the yoke at the last minute, taking evasive action pos-y to break another weapons lock from the base defenses.
”Fuck!”
Nelaa's worst fears were coming to life.
"Commander. He's gone."
Her voice was trembling.
"Please don't make it in vain..."
“Shit, shit, shit.” Bette circled high, but there wasn’t an obvious opening to get back down to the base.
“Commander! Get out of there!”
Bette slammed her hand on the comm, silencing Kyris.
she
screamed
Bette knew what Agent Kyris was telling her was correct. Whatever this data was, Silus had given his life for it. She had to get it out of there. Make the jump back to Centauri Delta. The long trip back to the Anoat sector.
With a shuddering groan Bette aimed the nose of the freighter up toward space, and floored it.
Three hours later...
“I don’t care what your orders are, Lieutenant, I’m not leaving this freighter until someone with proper clearance arrives to take it off my hands.”
Bette sat in the cockpit of the YT-2400, poking the comm angrily with her finger to talk and then releasing it. She’d flown back to the Centauri Delta task group in a daze, and settled the freighter back inside a landing bay. Since then, however, she’d kept the freighter locked up tight.
In another hour they’d probably force the hatch, but she wasn’t going to let just anyone in here.
The fate of the Empire.
That’s what was on those servers in the hold.
Bette stared out the viewscreen and all the way past the shimmering blue forcefield and into the black of space.
It wasn't until she'd heard that Bette had arrived safely back at Centauri Delta until Nelaa packed up to leave the forward command post. Everything was set already. She had a tech team ready to go in and retrieve the data from the freighter on site and analyst's to start parsing through what they had brought back. Things would be on autopilot now.
Her shuttle was waiting on her when she got the hangar. As soon as she was inside and strapped in did she begin to assess her condition. She was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. She'd bitten all of her fingernails down to the quick, and her index finger stung where she'd chewed it down even further. She found that whenever she started to review the mission in her mind she would lose focus, which was very out of character for her. If she tried to force herself into focus she would become anxious. She sat silently in this haze all the way back to Centauri Delta.
As soon as her shuttle landed she was back into reality. The first word that she received was that Bette was refusing to release the freighter. Understandable, she thought to herself. It was a short walk from her shuttle to the YT-2400 Freighter. Nelaa buzzed the comm.
"Lieutenant Commander Davis, may I enter?"
Last edited by Nelaa Kyris; May 11th, 2019 at 04:53:44 PM.
Bette sat up, suddenly alert, as Agent Kyris' voice came through the speakers. Unable to sit still, she lurched to her feet and paced through the cockpit for a moment before bending over the console and activating the comm to reply.
"Give me a minute, Agent."
Her heart was pounding and her neck was tight as she walked down the passage to the hatch, one hand on the blaster strapped to her hip. Using the outer camera she verified that it was indeed Nelaa Kyris standing outside.
Bette stood there for another long moment, just staring at the closed hatch.
She pressed her left hand to the hatch controls and the freighter opened, the ramp descending toward the ImpIntel agent on the deck.
As the entrance to began to open, Nelaa saw Bette standing at the top of the ramp. The woman was far enough on the edge of the ramp that she was behind the entry lighting, the effect of which left her a dark shadow against a bright background. Nelaa took slow measured steps up the ramp. Bette appeared calm but radiated anger, as if it were coming out of her very pores. The blaster on her hip wasn't a comforting sight either. Nelaa spoke softly, her trademark calmness finally back in place after the harrowing events of earlier.
"Lieutenant Commander, I have a team ready to come in and begin processing this data. Can they come aboard and begin their work?"
Her calm voice and demeanor were a stark contrast to her feelings. Every muscle in her body was tense and ready for action. She could hear a voice in the back of her head. "This one is capable of anything."
They stood there like that for another long moment, like they were facing down in the middle of a dusty street in an old holomovie. Bette finally moved to the side, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she could taste blood. With effort she relaxed her jaw.
"Of course, Agent Kyris." She took her hand off her blaster, but left it hanging by her hip. "Everything is secure."
Bette moved further into the freighter, matching Kyris as she stepped inside, and her foot nudged something. Looking down, Bette saw it was the equipment bag that Silus had been digging through just a few hours previous. She caught a gleam of something metallic inside and knelt beside it, slowly pulling it open wider.
The clothes Silus had been wearing before he'd put on the suit for the mission were haphazardly folded inside, his flask lying on top of them.
Bette closed her hand around the flask and stood up. The anger inside her was building up to a breaking point. Behind the anger was just a black void that she desperately didn't want to look into, so she held onto the anger and her knuckles whitened around the flask.
Nelaa bit her bottom lip slightly. She was a bit unnerved by the fact that Bette seemed to be in her own little world, like she consulted some other entity that no one else could see before reacting to the world around her. Nelaa had a pretty good grasp on Bette's personality, it was that other entity that scared her. In her training, she had dealt with people in this mindset before. The smart play would be to keep everything professional. Bette would do her duty even if it killed her, she wouldn't be on this mission if that were the case. He instincts, however, told her to toss the playbook out the window. On top of that, after all Bette had been through...
"Look, this isn't something I'm very good at so please, bear with me" She looked away for a moment, gathering herself.
"I know it won't seem like it right now, but you did the right thing today." She saw Bette tense up, but continued. "Silus was my friend too and losing him...and knowing.." She looked down at her feet for a moment, then met Bette's stare. "I'm sorry...I don't know what to say..."
Last edited by Nelaa Kyris; May 12th, 2019 at 03:04:33 AM.
Bette stared at the red-haired agent. You did the right thing. The words seemed to snap her out of the daze she was in, and she dropped the flask back into the bag near her feet.
"Permission to speak freely, Agent?"
"Of course."
Bette took a quick step forward, her arm swinging and forming a fist that caught Nelaa Kyris across the jaw. As the ImpIntel agent staggered back a pace, the pilot scooped up the flask, shouldered her kit and stalked down the ramp.
"Fuck you, Kyris."
Bette walked across the hangar to the waiting Lambda shuttle she would be flying, alone, back to the ISD Admonisher.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks