City of IF

[sparta12]

Contains some coarse language



Virtual
Chapter 2: Incoming
The pilots raced to the hangar bay as the lights in the hall flashed red so all crew members would immediately stand by at their battle stations to defend the ship and it’s crew of 3152. As each one of them got their uniforms on in the prep room, the hangar crew checked as many Phoenix MK II fighters so none of them would fail in mid-flight or even explode in the worst-case scenario.
“Lieutenant Commander Art your fighter is ready to go. Bring it back in one peace okay!” Major Trammer informed the squadron leader as he climbed up the stairs to enter his cockpit
“Don’t worry about it!” Jack replied as he strapped himself in yeah that’s what you said last time! Trammer didn’t say as his fighter moved towards the opening airlock
“Phoenix, Iron-man One you are clear to take off!” the dock master confirmed him.
“Roger that Dock master,” so Jack punched in the percentage of speed he wanted the engines to maintain, launching the fighter out of the airlock and into space. And into the barrage of enemy fighters and bombers.



Admiral Magnus observed the battle radar and made a count of the enemy ships in the area
“Get the Batteries online now!” Magnus ordered as he turned around to a chart of the sector. All he could do right now was make orders and brace for any nuclear bombs that come for his cruiser.
“Batteries online now sir!” one of the crewman reported to him. Magnus turned back to the battle radar eagerly to see if any of the nuclear missiles were getting destroyed in their flight path. Tiny grey dots represented laser fire, Green was for their fighters, Orange was for their ships, Purple for civilian vessels, Red for enemy fighters, bombers, Blue for unidentified spacecrafts, Yellow for enemy cruisers etc. And White for Nuclear missiles. He watched nervously as a wave of battery fire soared across the radar and in relief one of the grey dots smashed into the nuclear missiles.



The grey enemy fighters flew towards the human vessels and as soon as one of the enemy fighters crossed his path he pressed the trigger and released a short burst of rapid laser fire exited his fighters barrels and towards the enemy target. Some of the laser rounds missed the enemy fighter by a few inches but Jack smiled as he saw the Boragnian fighter implode in mid-flight
“First-blood people!” he said over the radio all cocky and confident. Jack continued to fly through the firefight between the fleets, while manoeuvring through friendly and enemy battery fire.
“Watch out Iron-man you’ve got a fighter on your ass!” he heard Vincent inform his squadron leader and immediately Jack was trying to find the Boragnian fighter that was on his six o’ clock but the Boragnian fighter wasn’t in his view.
“Shit I can’t see him!” He said to his comrade
“Hang on I’ll try to get to you!” Vincent replied Yeah right. Nuclear bombs, fighters, bombers and battery fire. What are the chances of him finding me? He thought as he spun his fighter around
“I’m gonna try something here!” he said to his comrades and he immediately decreased the fighter’s throttle, pulled up and back down with more throttle to see his pursuer within his gun sights. He pressed the trigger as the crosshairs crossed the Boragnian fighter’s wing. The Boragnian spun around uncontrollably and before the fighter could implode an escape pod launched out
“Oh no you don’t you son of a bitch!” he muttered and tapped the trigger a couple of times until the pod had practically disintegrated.



“Incoming!” one of the crewman yelled out as he saw a nuclear missile coming at the ship
“Forty-two seconds to impact!” another yelled.
“Deploy a few counter measures!” Admiral Magnus ordered while hoping that the nuclear missile wouldn’t strike him. The least they could do right now was deploy counter-measures so the nuclear missile wouldn’t do it’s maximum damage. The batteries still had a chance of destroying the missile but when the missile was 20 seconds from impact they would have to pull back the batteries. All the crewmembers had to brace for impact because the ship was in the missiles blast radius. And they couldn’t use the ship’s thrusters to avoid the missile and they sure as hell weren’t going to leave the fight and go into hyperspace to avoid it.
“Flagship Chimera has been hit!” the radioman shouted out and for a few seconds everyone stared at the radioman in silence when one of the ensign crewmembers looked back at his monitor
“Thirty-one seconds to impact!” he informed them.




“Squadron get away from the Cruiser! Everyone get away from the cruisers!” Iron man ordered squadron as he lined up his fighter for his attack run. He flipped over the cover on his joystick and immediately the computer changed crosshairs to a large circle with a dot in the middle his and another dot that would lock onto a target that would go around the small dot in the middle. A series of beeps suddenly sprung into action as the computer locked on to a Boragnian orbital station. As he got closer he watched the targeting system head towards the enemy fighter hangar
“Oh I can’t wait for this!” Jack said eagerly with his finger on the trigger.
Suddenly the series of beeps had finished, so Jack pressed the trigger and the bomb on the stomach of his fighter detached from it, started making it’s way to the enemy orbital station with a targeting system and a few thrusters. Immediately Jack turned around, continued to shoot down the enemy fighters and bombers but as he did so he tipped his wing to watch for the explosion. Finally as he avoided an enemy laser beam he felt the satisfaction of killing hundreds of enemies who had destroyed millions of humans. A fire lunged out of the fighter hangar and killed more enemy ships that were coming back in for repairs.



“Fifteen seconds to impact!” a crewmember answered, grabbing on to an object
“Those counter measures work like absolute crap,” Magnus’s second in command whispered to him
“True. But it’s a fifty-fifty chance that they’ll run into those nukes,” he answered
“Never worked for me when I was full admiral.” Second in command Mike Ballows grunted and then walked away to brace for impact. Suddenly the cruiser shook like crazy, the battle computer blacked out, they lost navigation control and all the other defences on the ship went offline. The entire cruiser was in disarray. All the lights in the cruiser went off for a few seconds and then switched back on. The crewmembers on the bridge immediately went back to their posts to get everything back online before another nuke could get them.
“Shields down to forty-nine percent!” a crew member
“Decks A to D in sections five to eleven have been hit and are suffering from depressurisation!” another crew member reported that would target the admiral. He thought for a moment of what his course of action would be and made it quickly
“Give them forty seconds to evacuate the sectors and then lock them down.” He ordered. Immediately the radioman on the bridge started making the broadcast so the crewmembers in the missile inflicted areas.
Admiral Magnus stood in the centre of the bridge, staring at the radar screens when a Blue object appeared on the battle screen right behind their ship
“Holy shit! Unidentified cruiser at Nine o’ clock!” one of the crewman yelled out to the crewmembers.



“Where the hell did that come from?” Anne shouted over the fighter radio
“what are you talking about?” Matthew Barrels asked over the radio as he flew through the wreckage of a Boragnian fighter.
“There’s a fucking cruiser that appeared right behind the Freedom Newbie!” Vincent yelled over the radio as he saw the cruiser hovering behind the cruiser.
“Anne check your six!” Iron man said as he saw a green reticle circle her fighter on his crosshairs
“Shit where’d this bastard come from!” she yelled as she twisted her neck to see the fighter.
“Hang on I’ll try and get him!” Iron man informed her as he increased the throttle
“Hurry up I think he’s trying to get a lock!” she said starting to get frantic. Jack positioned his fighter behind Anne’s pursuer when he noticed that it wasn’t a Boragnian fighter.



“Sir that’s a Zorax cruiser at our nine o clock!” one of the crewmembers shouted out
“Shit. Launch the nukes at them now!” the admiral yelled back at him
“Must’ve employed them while they were tracking us?” the second in command suggested
“If they were tracking us that is,” the admiral corrected his comrade
“If indeed.”
Anxiously the admiral turned around and saw three nuclear warheads coming out of his cruiser
“Nuclear missiles One, two and three are away!” another crewmember yelled out, the admiral watched the three white dots on the screen head towards the enemy ship, the Zorax ship put on a wave of battery fire to suppress on the humans and the nukes. When one of the nuclear missiles got halfway the enemy battery fire destroyed it and the admiral clenched his fist as he watched the other two nuclear missiles head for the enemy ship. The battery fire came at the nuclear missiles like a tsunami and three of the battery fire smashed into the third nuclear missile while the last one soared through space and left a trail of fuel and got into the nuclear’s explosion radius area. The battery fire seemed to be going more rapid rather than accurate now and the admiral grinned as the nuclear bomb smashed into the Zorax cruiser. The crew on the bridge let out a cheer of success as they heard a loud rumble outside the cruiser. It was now time for their beam turrets to take down the shields fast and if they got the shields down they could tear open parts of the ship. That would be a very ideal situation for their bombers.



Jack held the trigger and didn’t let go. A blue barrier appeared as the laser rounds impacted on the Zoraxian fighter. The fighter tried to pull away from Anne while manoeuvring from the other human’s lasers
“ Your six is clear Ace!” Jack shouted as he chased the Zoraxian fighter. He fired endlessly until the fighter’s shields were down. Then one of the laser rounds smashed into the fuel tank of the fighter but it wasn’t going to blow up. The fuel leaked out, changed into ice and Jack got an idea that made him a complete smartass. He increased throttle to 100% banked his wing left, made the rudders turn left (up) and then the wing clipped the emptying fuel tank. The fuel tank shook violently and lit up the inside of the fighter.
“Eat that you bastard!” Jack yelled out at the fighter as it gradually imploded.
Suddenly his fighter shook and he looked at his fighter model on the computer. Then he looked back up and saw a Boragnian fighter flying past him. He looked back down and saw completely on the computer that his rudder had been torn off of the ship and he thought back to see that the fighter that had just past him had part of the wing missing. Son of a bitch clipped my rudder off! He realised
“This is Iron man. Mayday, mayday my rudder’s been clipped off and I need an escort to get back to the cruiser!” he started broadcasting
“I’ll carry your ass back,” Matthew Barrels answered him as a friendly fighter appeared on the crosshairs, a green reticle came around and a name appeared on the top line of the reticle: Petty Flight Officer Barrels, Matthews it read.


“Sir the enemy cruiser has launched six nuclear missiles!” A crewmember shouted out, checking his monitor. The admiral picked up his radio and tuned it in for the Chimera fleet
“This is Admiral Magnus of the cruiser: Freedom. Anyone help our cruiser out a Zoraxian cruiser is firing six nuclear missiles at us! We need assistance!” the admiral broadcasted immediately and waited for a while and checking the battle radar.
“Roger that Freedom this is the cruiser: Hawk coming to your position.” a voice finally answered. The battery fire was spread out across the area, it wasn’t very effective and not to mention that it would only be a matter of seconds before the nukes would be within their damage area in seconds.
“Recall all fighters and bombers… We have to make a jump. Ensign! Make a hyperspace jump to Sector C One of the Dragoon system!” the admiral ordered, realising that the fight was already over for them. He picked up the radio and made another broadcast to the fleet
“Chimera this is Cruiser Freedom. These nukes are going to do serious damage to our ship so we’re going to be jumping to sector C One of the Dragoon system!” he reported and then switched the radio to the dock master
“Dock master Former recall all the fighters and bombers! We’re going to be making a hyperspace jump in a few minutes!” he informed him.




All of the fighters were flying like crazy back to the cruiser, especially with their afterburners on. It was time to get the hell out of there but for Jack. It was more of an evasion of fighters/bombers to get the hell out of the battlefield and return to the hangar. His fighter shook uncontrollably without the rudder but he managed to keep it aiming at the friendly cruiser
“Newbie! Break off from me and get the hell back to the hangar quick!” Jack ordered the pilot that was sticking with him at half the maximum speed
“Dockmaster this is Iron man, my rudder is gone! I’m coming in fast and hard!” he yelled over the radio, sitting in a suit that was half-full of his own sweat.
“Roger that Iron man but just to let you know I cant make way for you on the landing so be careful!” the dockmaster replied.
The fighters competed for the landing bays by pulling all kinds of manoeuvres, as Jack pulled down his landing gear but the other pilots weren’t showing him any respect and were cutting him off like it was highway traffic. Suddenly one of the pilots nudged him and Jack was going off course
“Son of a bitch!” he muttered to himself. He pulled the fighter back on course and hit the landing bay deck hard causing sparks to fly out underneath. Not to mention parts of the landing gear where braking off. The gear was just a small platform where the gears would slide across the deck and the front thrusters would be used as brakes.





The bridge shook uncontrollably as the first nuclear missile impacted on the cruiser and caused severe damage.
“Shields down to twenty-two percent! The Hyperspace generator’s been damaged as well sir!” a crewman shouted out
“How many fighters and bombers are in?” the admiral asked
“Three quarters of the fighters are in. The bombers are completely in though!” an Ensign reported. The admiral waited for a few seconds and gave the fighters time when the second nuke hit the ship
“Close down all the damaged decks from the first nuke! Give the people in the damaged decks a few seconds to evacuate, then close down the decks and we’ll jump!” the admiral decided immediately after the lights came back on. They waited impatiently for the admiral to give the order to jump, it seemed forever until he said it and that was only twenty-five seconds.





The ship drifted endlessly through the nebula of the Dragoon system. It was time for them to calm down and count their losses.
“Power generator is down thirty-percent. I’ll send a few technicians down there now sir!” an ensign reported
“Can you just give us a status report on paper ensign?” Mike Ballows interrupted slightly irritated by the event. The pilot of the ship used the thrusters to get the ship upright and the second in command left the bridge to go to his quarters. It was time for them to calm down.
“Sir another cruiser has just appeared on our scanners!”




To be continued…

P.S. This chapter is two pages longer than intended. Sorry for that.