Chapter 2 - Flagrant Entrance

"Roger, Roger, no signs of enemy craft in Airspace of Juno, all craft confirmed as UNE forces. Landing procedures commenced, we're coming home." The voice which spoke those words was muffled by an fighter pilot's mask, but the words rang out clearly.

At the station where the words had come in, a man of indiscriminate age watched, and listened, leaning back in his chair.

"Griffin pack, do not enter the nest, I repeat, do not enter the nest." The leaning man's words were clear, and came only after he had noticed a beeping red light coming from his command station. He pushed in the button which the light originated from, switching frequencies to hear a clear and urgent message.

"This is the UNE Cargo Ship Tortoise, we are under heavy R'ii'tch fire. We're directly outside of Juno airspace, and it's stratosphere. SoS, SoS!"

The man swung from his lounging position, trying to get to the command panel as easily as he could, and face planted himself as he did. None the less, as he moved to get up, he switched the button again, and called out.

"Griffins, R'ii'tch are descending on the tortoise. Don't let them get your dinner, I repeat, don't let them get your dinner."

The static filled words of the griffin fighters rung out.

"Roger."

"Roger."

"Roger."

"Roger."

"Roger."

"Roger."

Quite a few more roger's rang out, and the button was switched back over to the SoS channel. The controlled called out.

"Tortoise, don't give up. Keep up the fight, and keep moving. We've got some stones to hurl at those wolves, repeat, we've got some stones to throw at those wolves."

Explosions rang out over the radio, but a "Roger." could be heard from the Tortoise's pilot.

With that, the controlled began to frantically gather forces to go support the Tortoise.

****

The UNE troop shuttle DY79 slid through space like a submarine might have in the later days when humanity had been constrained by their inability to move from their mother Earth's gravitational pull and life giving ecosystem.

It was moving thousands of kilometers at a second, as it stood outside of the gravitational pull of any of the planets in the area. It was moving from the heavily populated planet Washington to the remote and seeming backwater outpost known as Juno. The pilots, and the veterans upon the spacecraft knew exactly what Juno was, but the recent recruits knew nothing of it. The Veterans almost sneered at the recruits for a moment, and one of them was about to say something particularly derogative to one of the recruits, a young man who's hair was dark brown and eyes clear as a sea, who sat in silence while the other recruits mingled or talked about how excited they were. 

He was about to say it, but then the man was sent to the ground, as was every other person within the personnel bay of the DY79. They were almost all unconscious, and the ship dropped from its slip-drive  to an unsteady gravitational flux, the ship was spinning around, and up was down, down was up.   

The entire ship's crew and passengers seemed to be unconscious, everyone aside from that silent boy, who's had had shot up at exactly the right second to grab onto one of the handhold-tethers which these class of ships all bore. He looked around him for only a second, a cold expression upon his face, and then waited for the exact second when the floor would be the floor for the right amount of time, and shot forward, out of the personnel bay, and towards the cockpit. The way this ship was moving told him one thing.

As his rush skidded to a halt, the ship spinning right as he got into the cockpit, the youth could see the truth, the pilots both unconscious, one with a busted forehead, and the other with an half-awake half-unconscious look. The ship spun again, and  the youth shot towards the cockpit's pilot seats, his body moving with serious momentum as the ship spun again. He grabbed onto the pilot seat's back straps, and held on in the case that another concussion burst came. 

He had read enough on the technology and tactics of the R'ii'tch to know that that was what had him them. It was a burst of laser weaponry which was always pinpointed at a certain point, to disable a ship's crew. This made the youth all but frantic. 

The pilot who was dozing was hurled from his seat as the next twirl of lack of piloting came, his straps having been undone by the youth so that he could jump into the pilot's seat. The pilot landed with a force which didn't knock him out, and in fact brought him from dozing, as the youth climbed into his seat and strapped himself in. The pilot, taking himself from the crumpled way he had woke up, called out.

"What're you doing?"

The youth answered.

"Saving you and everyone here's asses. Go see who you can wake up. You're co-pilot's going to need medical attention."

The youth then moved to ignore the man, locking back into his original intention, saving everyone here. R'ii'tch either captured ships they knocked out of movements with concussion blasts, or they left them there to crash into natural surroundings. 
The youth's eyes narrowed, as he double checked the panels, and then took the controls in full. With a simple movement of the steering mechanism, the ship gained its sense of gravity and equilibrium, no longer spinning like the crazed movement of a pack of children's merry-go-round. 

The pilot had moved to the back to do as had been suggested, and the recruit continued to stare at the situation, searching for the signs of the ship. He was sure the pilots would've noticed a R'ii'tch pilot before it could've sent out a concussion blast, so they had to be another trick of the R'ii'tch he had read up on.

Ghost forward assault fighters. He had never seen them, but he knew they wouldn't be picked up on radar, sonar, or even one's vision, because of the cloaking technology they used. He could feel another blast fire coming his way, seeing it from the front. It was moving fast, too fast.

The shuttle was not hit. It moved in a way that only an experienced pilot could move it in theory, shifting at a perfect ninety degree angle, barely out of the way of the blast. And the youth had not ignore the blast or focused solely on it. He had taken note of it's origins.

The shuttle's forward cannons fired, once, twice, three times. After they had fired, he could see it. A R'ii'tch forward assault fighter, a ship that looked something like a mixture of a fighter plane and a serpent. It was very sleek, and the youth did not care for it at all. Blast after blast fired, the youth's eyes not moving from the scene as his arm reverberated the force of the blasts being sent forward by the shuttle's canons.

Then the fighter was gone, but before any celebrations or situating could be done, and SoS rang out. The UNE Cargo carrier Tortoise was in danger.

The DY79 moved at its top speed towards Juno, and arrived within minutes. The youth could feel the pull of the gravity of the planet below, and feel forward gravity towards the large, hulking ship in front of him. The youth took a breath as he saw them.

R'ii'tch fighters, swarming in numbers which he knew that the cargo carrier's mobile rotary canons just couldn't handle. He closed his eyes, taking a breath, and his hands moved almost in a way to signify someone making a 'look out for me, god' gesture. The shuttle shot towards the tortoise, canons blazing.

****

The first blast of the DY79 hit a R'ii'tch fighter which was only seconds from destroying one of the rotary canons on the Tortoise. It and its pilot faded into oblivion thanks to golden light, the lazer canons of the DY79.

The destruction of the R'ii'tch fighter of course alerted the fighters of the Shuttle's prescience, and further still brought them into high alert. They assumed the blast came from a UNE fighter, and there was a squadron of them. 

Another R'ii'tch fighter and its pilot were sent into the abyss as the DY79 sent another volley of blasts towards its enemy. The R'ii'tch realized then, as the shuttle flew towards the cargo transport, that it was only a shuttle, and not a worry. 

A R'ii'tch fighter shot forward towards the UNE shuttle with a ferocity matched only by beasts. It was only seconds from hitting the range of it's forward canons. The second passed, but it didn't move fast enough. The R'ii'tch became more garbage in space, as the canon's of the shuttle fired. The shuttle moved closer and closer to the main squadron of the fighters, taking note as one exploded from the rotary canons of the cargo carrier. 

The  young man's eyes narrowed, and two shots rang out as he pulled the trigger. Two of the R'ii'tch ships lost their cockpits, and their pilots from these accurate shots. 

The youth muttered something in regards to "Just like in a Mechana..."

And that's when the blast of the R'ii'tch Ghost Forward Assault Fighter would have killed everyone on the ship, had a blast not shot forward and brought the ghost into the abyss. 

A static masked voice rung out over the communicator. 

"Thanks for doing our job, but you're not using your radar right to pick up Gafs."

The youth did not answer, simply looking forward in silence.

"We're escorting the Tortoise to Juno base. Come along, copy, DY79?"

"I Copy."

The youth's eyes were narrowed, serious, even though the R'ii'tch had been taken out. 

"You don't sound like Lt. Donnell or Captain Yen. What's your name, mystery pilot?"

"Recruit Alexander Patrick Rainwater, pilot."

The pilot almost laughed, thinking it a joke.

"Recruit, you say?"

"Right out of Washington."

Alex gave no response to the communications from the Griffin Squadron.

A most peculiar thing had happened during a very common event. It was as good a way as any to make a flagrant entrance.