Out of the NerveGear, Into the Fire (SAO/XCOM:LW)

[7734]

Spoiler: OST

View: https://youtu.be/P4bKZT_Eg4A

My first breath in two years wasn't comfortable. It wasn't even really a breath, so much as a pained burbling, my eyes shooting open in the tank as I struggled. The suspension fluid might have been safe to let into my body, but there was no substitute for air. There was no substitute for freedom, either, and I had been trapped too long.

Trapped in a game, trapped in a tank. Same difference. I'd been here before, or had I? It was hard to remember, but I had to relax or I'd hurt myself. Kirito was coming. Kirito, or Asuna, or Klein, or Argo, or someone. I had to trust them, that they'd get me out.

When we first started playing Full Dive games, it was a way to burn off stress, to pretend the world wasn't getting invaded by aliens. It wasn't, well, a very good secret. Someone or something had been fighting them, but Japan had shut the borders for a while to try and keep the chaos out. I was just a kid, then- how was I supposed to know much? All I cared about was that I'd finally saved up enough to get a NervGear, and could play Full Dive games with impunity. Just turn up, tune out the outside world, and relax.

Then we found out we couldn't log out. That had been… rough. It was still better than reality… until the aliens entered the game. It had taken a lot of players a lot of work to discover that the game had been a trap the whole time: the aliens had helped make it, and were using it for something. Theories abounded on what it was being used for, with the main running one being 'quisling training simulator' and 'recreational system for alien patsies' being the two frontrunner candidates for what was going on. We'd run into both in our time playing- or, well, "playing" at that point- and someone had gotten the idea to rebel against the Man. A lot of people had expected us to get unplugged, maybe even killed. It never happened, though: no matter how many EXALT agents we killed in the alleyways of City 31. We ran the place like hellions, until we finally captured the Speaker- and we saw terror.

I had been there, helping Kirito scout the way into the presidential palace. When we captured the Speaker, it was more than an NPC- no, it was an alien itself inside the simulation. An "Ethereal", it had called itself, and it was happy with our performance. It was proud, in a sickening, parental way. If we would not help learn to rule humanity, then we would help teach those who would come to rule humanity. We were the villains of the game, therefore: and to be credible villains, we needed to be threatening. Soon enough, we were 'allowed' to hijack a Harvester, and the game was truly afoot.

That was a year ago, and everything since that had been the best and worst times of my life. Learning how to interface with the ship using the game's psionics, learning to fly, spending time on the bridge with Kirito and Asuna, watching our resistance build up as we spied and fought and foiled EXALT at every turn. Our fleet expanded, as we captured UFOs, and for a while I even got to captain one: a little Scout-class I named Pina. I had been powerful, responsible, I even got to speak with Kirito regularly and Asuna said I was her favorite Scout captain!

Shut up, the last one was special to me. It was something to stay calm with, even though I was trapped in this damn tank with this damn NervGear stuck to my head with a damn headache and I just wanted out-!

-and with a blast, the tank exploded. It wasn't a big explosion, just enough for my tank to have a small hole blown in it, but it was enough as the thing drained a miner's inch at a time. Soon enough, my mouth was clear enough for me to hack up the breathing suspension fluid, and my eyes burned at the feeling. We'd used this same stuff in the game for medical purposes, and it was worse in real life than in our digital facsimile of the same.

Using big words wasn't making me feel better about how bad this was, but that's okay. It was better than swearing about it again, as I carefully balled up my hands and started knocking around the hole in the tank. Soon enough, I had it big enough I could crawl through, my slim body squeezing through like I still had my Infiltrator Weave mods- and then I thought. I was naked, except for my NerveGear, so I could check. Hands roaming across my lithe form, I blinked when I found the ports in my back.

Right above my kidneys, a pair of metal interfaces sat: right where they were in the game. MELD ports. I had MELD ports now? That didn't make sense, though, the aliens were obviously fucking with us when they threw that tech tree in. None of the EXALT operatives had MELD enhancements, or else they'd have been able to do things like dodge shotgun blasts or interface with the real alien technology and not the monkey models they gave us. It had to be a videogame thing!

Still, though. Gulping, I slowly raised my left leg up. Normal people could, with a lot of practice and stretching, get their foot over their head. It was a sign of a gymnast or cheerleader or other really flexible person. I wasn't a couch potato, but I'd never put in the work to be able to do this. More importantly, my body rightfully should have been a mess. I'd been in a coma for two years! We talked about how bad that was all the time, and even pushed the game's medical NPCs to figure out how to try and get over it as fast as we could. If Liz's work meant anything, we'd need months or years of therapy to get back to normal.

So, without any issues whatsoever, I got my foot behind my head.

Okay, Silica. Breathe now, panic later. I hadn't been too heavily augmented yet. I had my Infiltrator Weave, obviously, so that stood to reason I should also have most of my other mods. Grabbing around for a handful of debris from the tank, I threw a handful up in the air, before flinging more bits at them as they came down. Hyper-reactive pupils, check. I couldn't test if my Adaptive Marrow was working, so I'd have to put down a 'maybe' on it, and the same for my Adrenal Neurosympathy. Considering where my MELD ports were, though, it was pretty likely. Good thing I didn't have any brain-mods: I could only imagine how bad they had it-

-wait, brain mods. What about the MEC troopers like Deku? Shit! They'd need their prosthetics or it'd just be torsos rolling around on the floor! Think, Silica, plan. Always have a plan.

First things first, well, uh, clothes. I needed clothes. And a gun. Then I could start trying to find everyone. Get a team together, and then we'd be good.

The building I was in looked old, and kind of European, so I started looking for side passages. There were always side passages, and I didn't want to risk the mains. Thankfully, they might have hidden it to regular eyes, but I could spot the seam in the wall and the disguised handle easily. Popping it open, I smirked. I was in. From there, I just had to find a laundry cart or something.

Moving through the dark, shadowy corridors, my mind wandered a little like it always did when I was moving through an infiltration. Dark, thick cables lined the walls, holding power and data busses through the base, while small holes scattered the walls- wait. Ducking low, I measured carefully. The holes were mostly around a meter and a third off the floor. The wrong size and with no backface deformation (more Asuna words) to be bullet holes, so lasers? Maybe? Either way, I ducked low and checked out the next side door. There were corpses scattered about, and with them- guns! Hah! Score!

Scampering out, I got to work looting the bodies. Most of them had been killed via the simple precedent of getting shot with more lasers, or a few that had been utterly destroyed by what was probably a magnetic rifle. Either way I could easily get a shirt that was only five sizes too big, some pants, and a lot of combat webbing to strap it all down to kind of fit. From there, I grabbed a laser rifle, staring at the weird thing. It wasn't nearly as, well, for lack of a better word 'brick-y' like I was used to, but the controls were still mostly the same. Pulse selector on the left side, battery eject on the right, trigger is a trigger, integrated holographic optic. Stealing a few spare batteries, I kept moving, until I saw another room full of tanks- and these ones were full.

I didn't recognize the people in them through the suspension liquid, but that didn't matter. Raking a blast of laser rifle across the bottom of each, the tanks blew out dramatically as the people inside started going through the same process of cleaning their lungs out that I did. Another raking fire across the top of the tanks broke the glass completely, and seven people finally got to taste air again.

"Silica?" a familiar voice said, between coughing fits.

"Klien!" I laughed, running over to help him up. Getting him off the floor, I tried to hide my luminescent blush when it turned out he was just as naked getting out of the tank as I had been. Eyes on the exits, Silica, eyes on the exits, don't think about your friends behind you who need clothes.

"Shit, you're a sight for sore eyes," he muttered. "What the fuck happened? We were getting ready to go hot on an infiltration mission, and then we got kicked into the death buffer and out to here."

"I don't know," I admitted. "Two rooms back, there's some dead guys. I think there's a fight going on, be careful."

"Right, fuck, okay. Do you know where the armory is yet?"

"No. You need to get your MEC a suit, right? Uh, Harry One?"

"Yeah," Klein muttered. "Harry, how you holding up?"

"I am going to kill everything in this building starting with the first person who did not have the common sense to make sure the super-soldier missing all his limbs did not immediately start with his prosthetics to hand," Harry One said cheerfully. "This sucks. I am literally helpless here."

"That's rough, buddy," Klein said, before tapping me on the shoulder. "Two rooms back?"

"Yeah, two rooms that way," I pointed. "Go fast."

"Moving at the speed of death, aye."

Naturally, as soon as Klein got to work gearing up, I heard laser-fire. Getting my gun up, I went to investigate. Down a hall, I could see a pair of EXALT heavies frantically spraying and praying down a hall, while a sentinel got ready to pop smoke to improve their odds. I was tempted to engage, very tempted- and then I heard a scream that sounded almost like Asuna.

If I wasn't the first person out- if they hurt Asuna- no! I couldn't let them!

My gun came up with a practiced snap, nestling into my small shoulder as I braced for recoil I knew the gun didn't have. It took a bare moment to trace the holosight over the head of the sentinel, and then stroke the trigger. He never saw the shots hit him, and it took a moment for his companions to notice too. I wasn't the best shot in the resistance: I was mostly ship crew, since I could and did speak to the ship's computers. Lining up a second headshot would be beyond me, so instead I just sprayed down the other Heavies. It was… easy. Too easy. Just point and pull. They must not have had armor on, I thought to myself, trying to stay calm. As laser-fire cut them up, gouts of cooking blood flying loose, I just tried to breathe and keep shooting. Finally, it was done.

"Sound off!" a new voice called from the end of the hall. "What unit are you?"

"What unit are you, idiot?" I yelled back, barely noticing we were using English.

"XCOM Strike-Three!"

"Who the fuck is XCOM!"

Oops. Language. A lot of hurried muttering came out from behind the corner. "Listen," the voice called back. "You're fighting EXALT too, right?"

"They kidnapped me, and I'm finding my friends and getting out," I replied, slowly moving towards the corner.

"Oh fuck. We're gonna have to call this in," one of the guys said. "Can we see each other?"

"Sure, but don't shoot," I replied, trying to calm down. "I might look a little weird, okay?"

"Can't be weirder than DOA," the voice joked. Slowly, rifle in a low ready, I came around the corner. I wanted to trust whoever these people were, and it wouldn't be the first time I'd taken a risk on an unknown.

My first thought, when I saw them, was that they were a mirror of Furikaizen. Eight guys and girls, armored to the nines, carrying as much firepower as they could. They were doing the same mental calculus on me, I could tell, taking in my stained and stolen clothes and gun. They didn't flinch, though, at my eyes moving too fast or the light dusting of hexagons that rippled across my face and my arms. Even more importantly, they didn't ask me to put my gun down.

"Are there more of you?" the leader asked, trying to take my appearance in.

"Seven more I got out of the tanks, but in general there should be a few thousand of us," I replied, trying to think.

"Several thousand? What the fuck? I need to call this up to the Colonel-" the other soldier said, before we all heard a familiar stomp. Turning around, I tried not to gasp as a wall went down, a gigantic MEC trooper in EXALT's black and red blew through the wall.

"Found you," it hissed maniacally. I didn't like my odds of getting out of this one: that was a lot of laser cannons on this guy. "Finally, my revenge-"

It said something, when the maniacal mechanical monster got cut off like that. It was almost like a ghost had stolen its soul- and then I saw the line of red dripping out from under its helmet, and I grinned. As the head slowly separated from the torso, and the MEC fell to the floor, a figure lept from the back of it with a dark cloak fluttering in the wind. Snapping out a katana, I watched entranced as blood and hydraulic fluid flew off, before it was wiped down and sheathed. Yep. That was him.

"Kirito!" I yelled, running over to him to give him a hug. Laughing, I dodged his dodge, before wrapping around him warmly. "You made it out too!"

"Kind of hard not to," he wheezed. "Since I think it was me cracking the EXALT HQ's router that started the decanting."

"The router?"

"You know how we'd get other actual humans dropping in to mock us?" he asked. "The useless idiot ones?"

"Oh yeah, those," I reminisced. "So that was how they were getting in?"

"Yeah. Jacked in there, and got through to the real world. Now we just have to get everyone un-tanked."

"Great. I found Furukaizen, and uh, these guys. You know where the armory is?"

"Yeah."

"Hi, yes, we're still here," the random trooper said. "Captain Gustaf Loenher, XCOM. Who the hell are you?"

From behind us, I heard the sound of a laser rifle going rack-tap-bang. "Good question, Captain Loenher," Klein said, now dressed and armed. "Kirito, bro, please tell me you found the armory."

"Yeah, follow me," Kirito said, starting to move out. "I take it Harry One isn't doing so hot?"

"You can say that," Klein muttered. "Silica, think you can work with this MEC? It's not great, but we can probably pull the corpse out?"

Kneeling down, I sighed. "Kirito would be better at it, though."

"Not so much anymore," Kirito replied, shrugging. "I lost most of my technopathy back when we had the incident with the Ethereal."

"Guess I'm it, then," I muttered. "Can you handle things with, uh, Loenher?"

"Sure."

With that, I breathed in, breathed out, and started scrying the machine. Alien technology never had very good interfaces: they didn't need it, when they could tie their mind to the machine and work with it that way. MELD was just an extension of that: a machine to bring the body in line with the mind so neither would be left alone. After two years of exposure, though, my mind was very well-tuned to the machine. I was good with people and aliens, don't get me wrong- but I couldn't mind control anyone, or use the Psionic Rift that I knew Kirito knew. No, what I did was technology, and this technology was like an open book in large print font. It was the work of seconds to disconnect every part and parcel of the suit in front of me from the cooling body of the crewman who previously owned it, which I ejected with a mental shove as I assumed direct control of the system.

"Uh, kid," one of the XCOM troopers- this one with a pale blue symbol on her chest- said. "The hell are you doing?"

"Erecting a statue of a moron," I muttered, eyes hazed over purple and orange. "Klein! I'm gonna need a guard, this thing's dumber than a clown car full of rookies!"

"You heard the lady! Boys, go with her- I got to talk to Kirito!"

Not to be outdone, the random captain decided to 'help' too. "Reaver, DOA, you're with the civvie."

Shaking my head, I just focused on walking in step with the MEC suit. This thing was a piece of crap as far as I was concerned: nowhere near as elegant as a Andromedan suit, or any of our own MEC armors. Still, it wasn't too bad to pilot, and Harry One was more than grateful when the rest of Furukaizen hoisted him into the cockpit and I handed the controls over. Slumping down, I just hissed as my nose started bleeding. Yay, backlash! This is why we had shift changeovers for UFO captains, dangit! It was worth it, though, to have Harry One carry me in his off-hand while his other lugged around the gun. A chemical propelled slugthrower, though, really? We'd been killing these when they were armed with plasma cannons in the simulation, was this EXALT really so degraded?

Well, no matter. I was getting tired. Being tired like this meant I'd make mistakes, and that meant I'd get killed. Looking over to the members of Furukaizen, I just made a few quick hand-signs. Low on energy, psionic strain. Cover me.

Wilco, they just signaled back. I tried to stay awake for a little while more, but eventually I just passed out.

////


The next I woke up, I was very clearly in a field hospital cot with Kirito next to me talking with Lizabeth.

"It's not as good of a gear as we had in the sims," she was saying, "but their Gauss systems are just as good as our old Coilguns. And their armor is better."

"Okay, good," he muttered. "And unique gear? Stuff like my Boltcaster and Shadowcannon?"

"That's on you to build: these guys are very standardized."

"Good to know," Liz said, smiling. "Good to know."

I just waved from the bed. "Hey."

"Hey, Silica," Kirito said, trying not to look down. "You want the good news or the bad news?"

"Good news?"

"We got about a thousand people out."

Just from the way he said that, I knew what he meant. "No Asuna, though?"

"No Asuna," he admitted, close to crying.

I just reached up to give him a hug. He needed it. "We'll find her, Kirito, don't worry. For as long as it takes."

"Fortunately," a voice said, ringing out quite clearly, "we're willing to help."

"Ahem," Liz said, gulping. "Kirito, Silica, this is, uh, the commander. Of XCOM. Which is the organization that attacked EXALT, and got us all out of there. They fight the aliens too."

That earned a chuckle from the older man. "An accurate, if threadbare, description. I've been briefed on your digital war on our common foe: thank you for the assistance, even if we didn't realize it at the time."

"You're welcome," I said, gulping.

"My time is valuable, so I'll try to keep this short without being curt. The only things we know about you are what you choose to tell us, and what we can find in the coming months. If you say you want to join us to fight the Aliens and EXALT, though, I'll take your words at face value. No matter how young you might seem, I'm willing to trust you have a degree of verifiable job experience. If you choose to stay with us and help fight the Aliens in some or any capacity, I'll accept whatever contributions you can make. If you choose to go home, I'll respect that and we'll get you to your families as soon as we finish burning EXALT out of Japan."

"I'm in," Kirito said seriously, staring at the old man.

"Me too," Liz added.

"You couldn't make me leave," I added.

"I suspect most of the rest of you will have similar answers," the Commander said with a smile.

"Probably," Kirito said, shrugging. "Do you have technical positions open?"

"Yes, certainly. Why?"

"We used to have to capture UFOs," he admitted. "And I'm not sure who's in charge at the end of the day, but I do know that if you tell them we can bring in a whole intact Abductor, it'd make their day. And that means you find my wife faster."

"Ah, I see," The Commander said. "I'll certainly keep that in mind, young man. For now, though, take some time to eat, sleep, and get some real clothes. I'll ask Colonel Ishimura to take a look at things: he speaks Japanese fluently, and it may help some. Until then, think it over."

"Think it over?" Liz asked, standing up on shaky legs as her pink hair that had grown far too long fell behind her. "Think it over? Mr. Commander, I'm the best damn plasma engineer we have! You'd have to be blind to not want me working over your reactors!"

"As a point of order, miss, we don't have any plasma reactors."

"Well shit, no wonder we didn't see your guys rocking plasma weapons, those are a pain if you can't kickstart them right."

"I'll let Dr. Shen know that."

"Yep! Don't worry, we'll get you set right up."

With that, the Commander nodded, and left. Finally, I breathed in deeply, before looking at Kirito. "We're getting her back, right?"

"I don't care if I have to storm the Alien Mothership itself," Kitito said, hand gripping on his belt where a sword would go, before carefully drawing it- and a blade of pure psionic power- away. "I'm saving Asuna."

"Well, glad we don't have to do it alone, then," Liz said dryly, before putting her hands on his and sending a spike of power into the construct he held. Slowly, the writhing psi-blade focused, going from a wrathful manifestation into something focused and pure. "I know I'm with you."

Placing my own hand over Liz's, I looked at Kirito. "You saved my life. Asuna gave me a home, a ship, my Gift- I have to help as much as I can. Even if its not in the front with you."

The psi-blade went from focused to scaled, then, before fading away altogether. The enemy had changed, sure, but the goal was the same. First it was getting out: now it was getting even. The aliens had made sure to teach us everything they could, and now? Now we got the chance to prove we were dutiful students.

 

[7734]

Spoiler: OST

View: https://youtu.be/oGgS6en5DAc

My first few days in XCOM Headquarters were surprisingly mundane. We had to get quarters settled out, figure out where everything was and the rules for use, then go through and use them a few times. A lot of us were used to rather different rules, though, so there were naturally some sticking points. A good example would be baths policy.

XCOM had a very simple baths policy: Showers any time, baths once every three days that reset after a mission. It was, in vacuum, a good policy. Our old policy, though, was a little different: showers only required for after-mission work, baths at any other point in time and only baths. Why? Because we had tub space for it and it let us use gentler soaps that picked up stray elerium dust. Would people think to check for Elerium dust in the blackwater system here? No, because they didn't need to, the Engineering decon took care of it.

That didn't have to stop me from going to Engineering every few days to go make sure Liz and her merry band of technicians didn't throw a fit over it though. Notionally it should be Kirito, or Klein, or any of the Divine Alliance guys, or the ALF, or anyone else doing this- except those people, who magically fell over the age cutoff the Commander had put in for direct combat operations, were all training to get up to XCOM spec. Which, well, wasn't a bad thing? Most of us hyperfocused our skills. Kirito could, would, and did kill things he shouldn't be able to with just a sword and a psi-amp, but hand him a rifle? Guy couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Asuna was the reverse, fast as light and as accurate as an angel dancing on the head of a pin, but she had been made Captain of our first ship as a sop to the need to get twelve different resistance cells together to run the thing instead of on any psionic merit.

So, it was up to me! Yay! Or not yay, because oh man was being down here starting to suck. I didn't mind small buildings, but the sun was my friend and I hadn't seen it for a week. The atmosphere of the base was cloying, and most of my friends were busy training or working to resettle the fully half of our numbers who just wanted to go home. Still, I managed to hold on to my sanity, and in the process a spot in the top five of the obstacle course. I'd say a top three slot, but between Kirito, Klein, and two random master sergeants who were about as modded up as I was, it was a tossup.

Then the day came in, the glorious day: a UFO had landed somewhere fully intact. Medium size, low Alien presence. Command would be sending out the Skyranger, and once the UFO was cleared, we could send in our own recovery crew to take a look at it. Kirito was going with the strike team to do the initial breech, while I put together a crew back home.

My old Pina had been a Scout-class, lightly armed to keep her fast and nimble. For this, though, I'd need more crew. I'd need a pilot and co-pilot for one, an engineer per Elerium Reactor, two gunners for whatever weapons it had, and and a flight technician for the engines. Fortunately, Liz was willing to be the flight tech, and I knew Kirito would be willing to ride back with me as a first mate to direct the other crew who didn't need to dial in to the alien systems.

It wasn't hard to pick up the crew I needed, even if I'd never really learn their names, and from there it was time to mount up in the Skyranger. Sitting in a borrowed set of Phalanx armor and holding a… shatter ray? Some sort of SMG-like laser, at least, I didn't feel unappreciated. Notionally, we were flying to Egypt for this, but I slept through the trip like the rest of my crew.

Touching down, though, the minute the back hatch opened up it felt like I'd been punched in the face. Choking out a gasp, I got my gun up. "Alright everyone, sound off by the numbers please."

"Sergeant Mack Cameron, escorting," our minder said, droll. Rolling my eyes, I waited for everyone else, before blinking. Laserfish as a name, really? Well, not like I was gonna use it.

It didn't take long to hike out to the UFO, where the XCOM team was lounging about and Kirito had already started doing the inspection. I just made my way to the central console, running a hand over the finish there, grimacing as my hand clipped a plasma score. There there, baby, I'd fix that up once I got you home.

"Think you can get it home?" someone asked with a Colonel's rank tabs.

"Still doing the trap inspection," I replied, mentally pinging the ship. Across the surface of the console I was in front of, interfacing and systems notifications flared up, most blinking solid positive telltales. Nothing looked odd- wait. This thing had a double plasma cannon? "Guns, run me a weapons power check, I've got a double plasma on the books here."

"This is Guns, confirm. We've got a double plasma in the weapons bay, and whatever hamfisted Muton put it in didn't route the plasma for shit. Gonna need Liz to rip this out when we get home."

"She'll have fun with that," I chuckled, breathing deeply. "All stations, any irregularities on the tells?"

"Engineer three to bridge, I'm getting some shaky telltales here. Can you ask the breach team if they were fighting in here?"

"Yeah, one second," I said, looking over at the Colonel and Kirito. "Did something happen in the portside reactor room?"

"Yeah, we had to grenade a Muton out of cover. Used an AP, so damage should be minimal," the Colonel replied, looking me over.

"Right, thanks," I replied, before sighing and keying back over to the engineering circuit. "Yeah, AP grenade went off in there, sorry."

"Alright, I'll make it work. The generator's fine, just a couple of cut conduits."

"Got it. Not the first time we've taken off on one generator at least!"

"What?" a panicked- and not ship's psionic- transmitted screech came up from the bridge. Rolling my eyes, I went over there to see the pilot cowering. "We've only got one good generator?"

"No, we've got three good generators and some damaged lines on the fourth," I said, smiling. "Don't worry, these things are rated to fly on two just fine: the other two are backups for the weapons."

"Ah, okay, okay," the pilot muttered. "I shouldn't have come here…"

Slinking in, Kirito blinked. "New pilot?"

"I had about a hundred hours on the helm in the Blood Knight," my pilot complained.

"Yeah, new pilot," I sighed. "What have you done take-offs and landings in?"

A moment of silence from the pilot, who's name-tape read as 'Laserfish', came before the response. "I, uh, haven't."

Kirito stared at me. "You're taking off."

"I am absolutely doing the takeoff and landing," I said in the affirmative.

"Hey, I can keep it in the air!" Laserfish complained. I just raised an eyebrow archly, and his protests stopped. Moving in to the pilot's position, I breathed in.

"Last chance to get off the ship," I warned the Colonel, who just shrugged and leaned next to Kirito on the wall. "Right then, nobody getting off. All hands, prepare for liftoff! Kirito, you have the deck."

"Kirito on deck, aye," he said, moving back to the central command console.

"Reactors, what are my power levels?"

"Reactor one, 100%!"

"Reactor two, 100%!"


"Reactor three, 65% and holding on damaged lines."

"Reactor four, 100%!"

Deep breath, Silica. Inhale, exhale, synchronize to the ship. "Activating lift drive," I said, mental commands making the machine thrum as the ship slowly pulled itself off the ground.

"Left side, confirming wheels up!"

"Right side, confirming wheels up!"

"Activating propulsion drive!"

With that, we started flying- really flying. As thoughts hardened the energy fields that covered our doors and bays, I sighed contentedly as we got up to altitude: about nine thousand meters up, to be precise. Relaxing my mental grip on the controls, I sighed. "Laserfish, ready to take the stick?"

"Ready," he said, synching himself to the aux-con. Breathing in and out, I slowly retreated from the system as the second pilot took it over. Handoffs were hard, but between Kirito holding up the bridge and my practice on Scouts, we pulled it off without a hitch. Soon, I was back on the bridge, and thinking over all the wonderful things I'd do to my newest ship. Oh, I was going to have so much fun painting it-

////

"What do you mean they want to scrap it?!" I yelled, staring at the crew chief. "It's in mint condition! I can be running interception patrols in three days if you let my team use your tools! Two if we overnight it!"

"I mean, they want to scrap it because we can't store it," Colonel Ishimura said, looking over my Pina where I'd parked it. For the record, kid, I agree with you: this thing is gonna be hell on wheels when we get it running up to spec."

"Of course it will be! We can just dig a revetment around it, throw some camo tarps on top; not like anyone will find it."

"My thoughts exactly," Ishimura grumbled. "Still, I can see the concern: what the hell do we do with this mint condition Alien Destroyer?"

"It's a four-bay design," I said, walking around Pina III with a quick step. "So we've got options. If we can rip data out of our NervGears, then Liz should have the layout for the prefab bay modules we can use. Assume I go low-crew since I don't think you want a month-long cruise-"

"-we likely don't, but good to know you can do it-"

"-then that's three bays to do whatever with, plus the cargo area. If I assume a two-week cruise, then I can use the cargo bay for, well, whatever. Then we can whip up a pair of weapons bays for the front end; anything you want really. Bombs, more plasma cannons, troop bays, cargo, medical… whatever you want, really."

A cunning look went over Ishimura's face. "How would you feel going against a Battleship?"

"No, not unless I've got another Battleship backing me up or a Fusion Lance," I replied, shivering. "I was on the Blood Knight and the Pillar of Spring. I've watched more than a few UFOs bounce off their flak batteries."

"Alright. What about an Abductor or Terror Ship?"

That earned a chin scritch as I kept walking around my ship. "I could do it, if I had forward weapons bays. A single double plasma cannon won't cut it, though, so we'd need to figure out how many guns I could mount off a single Plasma Turbine. I'd need to train up a crew to go after those, though."

"So small ships, like Scouts and other Mediums, that would be doable without much prep?"

"I could take them stock," I replied aimlessly as I found a rather odd dent in the fore quarter of Pina. "A double plasma is a lot of gun, the trick is saddling up to get a hit on them."

"Alright, so you can hunt UFOs. If you went full troop transport, how many people could you take?"

"If I was doing shuttlebus work? With no expected combat? Uh, maybe a hundred? Hundred forty dudes a run? It depends," I said, waving my hand at the bays. "We don't have a 'pack them in like sardines' bay pattern and I don't want to try and do standing room only. Standard detachment for a two-week cruise was sixty people, though, but that was when the Pride of Dragons was doing it."

"The main difference being?"

"Pride of Dragons was a Raider design built on Earth, so it was a, uh, 'monkey model' was the term? Local downgrade, only two reactors, which made it a lot easier to do certain changes."

"Says a lot, that they've already designed ships for when they take over," Colonel Ishimura muttered. I just shrugged.

"You're gonna keep 'em from scrapping her, right?" I said, trying not to beg. "Hell, I'll organize an airshow group if it keeps her from getting scrapped-"

"We're probably not scrapping it," Ishimura finally sighed. "Hell, kid, I didn't think you'd imprint on it this hard. Damn things's a pile of alien alloys we haven't taken the time to blow out of formation yet."

"You're just jealous because that Firestorm you have in the back hasn't been replicated yet," I responded with my nose in the air, taking a moment to faux-sniff. "When should I expect my captain's rank insignia as just reward for taking care of this fine ship?"

That earned a snort. "Nice try, skipper," he said, placing strong emphasis on the not-an-officer rank. "You'll need to pass the officer's courses if you want to be a captain. I'll assign your ship some babysitters, though, and a few troops to use as marines if you need 'em."

"They'll mostly be stevedores," I admitted. "Can they put up with that?"

"They better!"

I nodded, and went back to my ship. Sighing, Ishimura just shook his head. "I'll wire you the details later. Have fun with the work teams."

"Thanks!"

With that, he left and I could take a breather, before walking into the back of my ship. I was steadily learning Pina's ins and outs, which was good as that captain's sixth sense let me know that the number two reactor was on standby and an engineering team was beating around the weapons compartment belowdecks. Liz and her girls working on the weapons I'll bet. Either way, I was tired. So, so, so tired. Fortunately, while I was still figuring out how to order hammocks made and get an adhesive that would long-term stick to alloy walls, I'd already gotten a futon and thrown it up in the bridge. Settling into the sleeping bag there, I yawned fitfully, the cursing under my feet and the thrum of the reactor lulling me to sleep.

///

Looking out over at Kirito and the rest of the staff meeting, Ishimura sighed. The notional head of the thousand-odd refugees they'd rescued from EXALT was a seventeen year old boy with more raw psionic juice than anyone other than Durand, and the worst part was he was actually not that bad for a kid his age. Sure, he was a kid, but he generally had his shit in order, took consummate notes, and exuded a quiet professionalism that tried to make up for the fact that he was clearly grieving over his missing wife. Those were all things that helped his case as he stood there, stiff as a board, trying to figure out how to tell the Commander 'no' without saying the word.

This wasn't a test- or, well, it was, but a subtle one. Fundamentally, XCOM needed to have people in it who weren't afraid to. Central, and by extension the Commander, frequently didn't have all the information. As such, field commanders needed to be able to make the call to run things in local control, and stake out their commands as theirs. Considering that XCOM didn't have any officer- or systems- provisions for a potential fleet arm of captured Alien vessels, someone would have to step up.

Ishimura had already taken up the torch, corralling the refugees and getting them shipshape enough to start to contribute- those that hadn't immediately left for the refugee program in Germany that was handling most of XCOM's strays. However, since this was going to be a niche group welded onto the side of the command structures of XCOM, the Commander had decided that they needed a powerful local leadership figure: either to take charge, or to serve as a useful catspaw for one of XCOM's own officers. It wouldn't be a shock if Ishimura ended up promoted that high: he'd done well over time, and the only reason he hadn't advanced yet was because Field Commander Ulricht was in excellent health and could out-draw him in a duel if he wanted to change that.

"So," the Commander said, hands nestled together. "I'd like to hear any counter-proposals to the immediate sectioning-out of the recently captured and recovered alien Destroyer-class UFO we've recently recovered."

"No objections," Colonel Lee said, her voice dry and raspy from her implanted breathing aides.

"I second the choice to scrap it," Colonel Becker added, his stare clicking as one mechanical eye zoomed in on the table.

"I would recommend putting off a complete disassembly, as my engineers are well–booked with our current aerospace endeavors," Dr. Shen said lightly.

"I second the decision, the research team is currently up to our elbows in working out advanced psionics research," Dr. Vahlen added.

"Ano, er, Commander," Kirito slowly said, breathing deeply. "I would like to propose we do not disassemble the captured ship."

Halfway there, kid, Ishimura thought to himself.

"While I don't know why I'm here, I do know that those ships are very large and potent units. Even in just a transport capacity, we should be more than able to assist in broader war effort."

Lee snorted. "When? Most alien missions are fast enough we don't have time to load up a massive strike package into those things, and I'm not leaving my people on a cruise waiting to jump something."

"In dry cargo, or medical supplies- we can set up an aide station in the bays, and treat up to fourteen people. Three aide stations is forty-two places we can handle injuries on bigger assaults."

"How do we know it'll pay for itself in terms of comparative cost? There's a lot of very valuable alien goods tied up in that hull," Becker said, staring, "and frankly, I don't know if we can trust it to be able to splash UFOs. If we need a fast delivery plane, well, that's what helicopters or a cargo pod loadout on Harriers is for."

Kirito was quickly getting lost and running out of steam, but that's what Ishimura was here for. "Personally, I would look for a unique capability that this ship brings to the table- something we don't have in our arsenals yet, or only have a limited amount of."

"Then you want airborne interceptions," Kirito said decisively. "The Aliens designed the Destroyer-classes around that mission: with four Elerium Reactors and highly strengthened armor, they're designed to have as much power as possible for a long dogfight. With Silica at the helm, I'm willing to bet they can out-fight anything they can't out-run- before we add weapons in the forward bays at that."

"We do have those Phoenix Canons that got retired," Shen mutters. "I've seen miss Lisabeth's modular mounting and packing plate diagrams: I can easily have a small team mount a pair of guns to each and equip the ship that way."

That earned a small smile from the Commander. He hated seeing perfectly good tech sitting around in storerooms. "Well then, I believe I'm willing to put some work towards this. Cadet Kirito, I understand you've been the informal commanding officer of the refugees who wish to work with XCOM long-term, yes?"

"Yes, Commander."

"While I appreciate your willingness to help organize things, I'm afraid we'll need to put this in the hands of professionals. You'll be enrolling in the next class at the on-site accelerated officer's school. Meanwhile, your friend with the ship, miss Pina?"

"Miss Silica, sir: Pina is the name she's given the ship," Ishimura gently corrected.

"Miss Silica then, will be serving under Colonel Lee in the XCOM Air Arm. Colonel Ishimura, I'll request you detach a lieutenant, a master sergeant, and a standard platoon to her for use as ground troops and ship's marines. The Pina should be accomidated to the best of our ability: Shen, please put a senior engineer to work on making sure the ship is well-possessed. Ideally it'll have its own revetment on the surface we can adequately camouflage. Field Commander Ulricht, please detach two or three psions to inspect the operation of Alien equipment, and to make sure everyone in the flight crew is properly mentally protected."

"As you will, sir," Ulricht said, earning a small start from Ishimura and a large one from Kirito. It wasn't hard to guess why: Ulricht, despite being about two meters tall, had the presence of a ghost as a side-effect of his Psionic training and nature. "I do request to meet with Cadet Kirito once a week, however. His mental techniques are interesting."

"Thank… you?" Kirito tried to respond.

"Your welcome."

"Cadet Kirito, you are dismissed," the Commander said. "We'll have orders from the officer's school cut for you soon: until then, you're still in Colonel Ishimura's chain of command."

"Thank you, sir," Kirito replied, before hurrying out. Once the door closed, everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief as the Commander broke out his flask.

"Well that went swimmingly!" Lee said, her voice much closer to a human's definition of normal. "Didn't even have to be real bastards to him to get some pushback."

"He's interesting, all right," Becker said, tapping his fingers on the countertop. "If, well, literally anything his people have told us are true, then the kid can run a damn good resistance cell. More importantly, we're not tearing him off his people or that little captain of his."

"If the situation were not so unusual, I'd think her his daughter," Ishimura muttered like a rock coming down to start an avalanche. "He did say he was married."

"We'll take that one with a grain of salt," the Commander said, shrugging. "Either way, on to the rest of the meeting- ah, but Lee?"

"Yes?"

"When they get that UFO finished being ready for humans to use, schedule me a clear day to go flying over Lake Genoa. If you lot want me to take a day off, the least you'll let me do is spend it somewhere pleasant."

 

[7734]

Spoiler: OST

View: https://youtu.be/P3fRwk8yrfY

Dusting my hands off, I looked over at my new boss: Colonel Lee, the third Colonel of XCOM. It was weird, but at first blush I liked her: despite the plasma scars on her jaw and hiss-choke voice of her respirator implant, she exuded a protective aura. It was the sort of thing that reminded me of sleeping with my back to an Elerium reactor: highly dangerous, but also warm and cuddly and necessary when your ship had a draft and the wool emergency blankets wouldn't cut the wind.

Of course, Colonel Lee wasn't the only thing I had to gush about. I'd finally gotten pulled in as an officer cadet a few days ago, which meant I got uniforms! Which, well, really looked terrible I'll admit, but it was still more clothes. The XCOM Mail Order system was still flooded, so I'd been wearing a lot of coveralls from Engineering I'd acquisitioned (not requisitioned, that implied I did paperwork for them) and just bathing a lot. Fortunately, since I was the Captain- despite legally being a cadet- of the Pina, I could do that.

Either way, Lee wasn't just here to talk to me and make herself at home: she was also here to talk about the loadout I'd worked up for the Pina. I'll spare the extra dialog here: I talked a lot. So much. Probably too much if we're being realistic, but I don't care, my baby is fine and I get to keep her so that's all that matters.

Any good tour of a former UFO started at the back. Leading Lee into the cargo hold, I started explaining things simply. The cargo hold was where most of our miscellaneous stuff went: right now, several pallets of dry materials, a liquid pallet of silicon grease for the new piping we were installing, another liquid pallet full of sports drink, and the first hammock rack for the ship's marines. I'd never had ship's marines before, but I figured they could help if we stopped in some dodgy area- and in a fight, they could help run the forwards weapons arrays.

I'd get to those in a minute, since I was going anticlockwise right now, which lead to the living quarters module. That was a dense-packed space, using every centimeter of the bay possible. We'd never figured out the exact area- well, Liz did, and never told us- but the most useful measure was it was that the central trapezoidal area of the bay was about a hundred and eighty-five square meters, plus the outside curve. Inside that area, though, we'd packed everything we needed to keep a forty-person crew alive for several months.

The front half of the compartment, towards the ship's bow, was all sleeping quarters. Hammocks, nestled three deep, swung lightly in their racks; while a small sitting room with a bootleg TV and entertainment system sat off to the inward side behind a wall of lockers. On the 'midline' of the unit were four toilets, the small showers and bath, and the white, gray, and blackwater tanks. Past a wall of coolers heading aft was then the kitchen and galley: a tight, uncomfortable arrangement to sit and eat at, but also the one that guaranteed no food spills getting from points A to B.

I couldn't tell if Lee was impressed, but she certainly wasn't unhappy as we moved to the starboard side engineering room. The inside wall- which was mostly there for structural subdivision- had a rack of dry supplies against it. The little things: rods, screws, plasma tubing, et cettera. We'd of course spraypainted the floor with which removable panels did what, and I was quite happy to see the engineering people had kept their futons rolled up tight and in the storage racks. While I notionally kept the engineers from sleeping in their reactor rooms, there was a certain point where they really couldn't be torn away from their machines. At that point, it was best to let them sleep there, half-synched to the system. I couldn't blame them, considering how many times I'd slept on the bridge when we were still figuring out how to make one of these ships human-friendly.

Once we got out of the starboard engineering spaces, we made our way to starboard weapons. Here was the extra firepower I'd wanted: a pair of Phoenix Cannons, each mounted in a semi-ball turret. It wasn't a lot of aiming power: only about forty degrees above centerline and ten below it, and twenty degrees inboard and sixty outboard. The purpose wasn't for anything elegant: it was strictly a way to compensate for the ship's movement during some of the inevitable UFO dogfighting maneuvers. Aside from the centralized ammo handling system, I also had more dry storage along the walls, a fire extinguishing system, white-water tanks, and most importantly an armored cooler full of sandwiches and bento boxes.

That last was important: people still needed to eat while at their duty stations. Even if the gunner's non-combat tasks were fairly minimal- weapons maintenance, general cleaning, and ship's maintenance, plus watch-standing- there was still the simple fact that the ship's galley was more than a little cramped. I was willing to make them do a bit more cleaning to keep the galley from becoming overloaded: we already had problems with this pattern of habitation module regarding the heads. Unlike the last twenty times I'd brought it up, though, this time the problem was actually fairly likely to get fixed. I hope. I really didn't want to have to carry spare chemical toilets to use as a backup head in the cargo hold again.

Anyway, after the starboard weapons bay came the cockpit. With four central stations, it was a bit odd at first blush to people who never used an Alien UFO before. The primary piloting controls were in the foremost station, while two ancillary stations faced the outer bulkheads- the port side station for navigation, and the starboard side station for engineering. While one person could hypothetically fly this class of UFO by themselves, and I had once for a short eight-kilometer ferry flight, but not having a dedicated person on the engineering console made it much harder. Any of the multi-reactor ships needed someone to manually control the reactor flows to the main engine and the lifting drives, since flows of highly energized Elerium slurry couldn't be run through a bus bar to auto-ballance the outputs. Finally, behind it all, was the secondary helm and communications station, which was mostly used for the purposes of having a second pilot handy during shift changes.

I carefully made sure not to mention the large storage chests holding the main bridge crew's possessions, the futons lashed to the walls, or the hacked-together entertainment system on the wall that was thankfully powered off. Taking the time away from my tour to check in with the officer on deck, I got the best news possible: nothing to report. Perfect for letting me go about my day as I wanted.

While some people talk about 'brownie points' or other do the right thing rewards, I didn't. Having a watch-stander on the bridge at all times, even when the ship was in port like this, was important. Pina was too new for me to really trust the crew to have figured out all the little bumps and scrapes she had under the hood, and with Liz still coming by to do the occasional show-and-tell/fixit session, I wanted to make very certain-sure that I knew how my baby was doing at all times. More importantly, it gave me a chance to make sure every crew member had at least sat on every console. I wouldn't want to put a gunner into the engineering console as a snap move, but if, say, the ship got hit by ground fire and I lost my chief engineer? Then being able to pull someone off a reactor and slap them in the chair was pretty good.

And no, I will not stop razzing Lisabeth over the time she hit her head on a console in perfectly standard flight conditions and knocked herself out. I didn't even have the 'fasten seat belts' light on that time for heavens sakes.

Anyway, cockpit done. After the cockpit came the port side weapons and engineering bays- same as the starboard side ones, really. Guns, power plants, lockers full of tools and personnel effects and food, nothing serious.

The aft starboard bay, though, that was special- sorta. See, since I had no idea what the heck we'd be doing as a permanent assignment, I actually hadn't really installed anything here yet except for a ton of tie-down points. The entire bay was barren except for the power mains running to the Elerium Turbine sitting in the front, where it spun happily to generate all the electrical power we needed on the ship. Elerium Turbine wasn't even the best name for the thing: it was just a simple hydraulic turbine we ran via the simple expedient of putting an Elerium plasma loop into a water tank to generate steam, which then powered the turbine, which powered a generator. We then ran that steam through a condenser, and took the almost-but-not-quite boiling water to the inhabited section and used it to charge the baths with or the whitewater tanks.

I was hoping Liz and Dr. Shen made a better one soon: even if the current model was only about three ISO pallets long and one wide, it was still a kind of terrible amount of power output and demanded we hook up a local battery to power the guns in the front with. I didn't like it, Liz didn't like it, and Dr. Shen didn't like it. So, naturally, I had confidence we'd get it fixed eventually.

Last, but certainly not least, was the bridge. Located smack dab in the middle of the ship, my bridge console- and futon behind it- were the beating heart and soul of the Pina. I could sniff into every terminal on the ship, see every system, and feel every crewmember who was interfacing with literally anything at the drop of a hat. Pulsing my connection to it gently to flare up the holographic screen I didn't need, I ignored the handful of kitschy posters on the wall that were interspaced with serious instructional blueprints including pictures on where the fire extinguishers were and the breaker boxes for our tacked-in electrical grid. It was only the work of a minute to show Lee everything on the ship, and finally I slowed down to stop.

"So," I asked, grinning. "How'd I do, ma'am?"

Colonel Lee stroked her chin carefully. "Well, Cadet-" she said, making me bristle a little bit. Captain, please. When I was on my ship, use my title. The one thing I was picky about! "-you've certainly been pushing towards your aspirations. There's plenty of room for the crew, you've been fastidious about provisions and sanitation, the mechanical systems all seem to be competently assembled, and I can't fault your scheduling."

"My scheduling?"

"Tell me, Cadet Silica, how many people are on the ship right now?"

"Fourteen, counting yourself and me."

"How many people do you need to have on this ship to conduct a ready-five scramble?"

"That's in the air and ready to fight in five minutes, correct?"

"Correct."

I tapped my chin. "Worst case scenario, four. Pilot, engineer, two gunners: one on the double plasma cannon, the other on the Phoenix cannons."

Lee smiled. "So if I said we were on ready five and the balloon went up, could you get airborne?"

"What balloon?"

"If the alarm went off."

I snorted. "Colonel. From where I'm standing-" to be precise, about five meters away from my console "-I could get the reactors hot, sound the alarm, and if nobody was in the pilot's seat in half a minute, start climbing to combat altitude. From there, it's a race to see who's in what seat first."

"And if you weren't here, how much longer would it take?"

That made me think, dispelling the computer's hologram to focus better. "Hooper is on cockpit watch right now; he can pilot. If Ennie can get her reactor hot from her bunk, which she might be able to do, that's pilot and engineer. Say, thirty seconds to a minute and a half to get airborne even if they need to take an aero profile up. Guns would, again, be whoever gets to the seats first. Make it three, four minutes to get those online, and Pina would still be climbing."

"So you're saying that, even without us asking, you're maintaining your ship at the highest state of possible readiness. That's a good look to have, Cadet."

"What? No, highest readiness state is actively flying patrols, ma'am," I said, confused. "I laid this ship out to fly for two weeks straight, three weeks if we hit emergency rations and need to recycle water. I'm willing to sit around in the air for a week, just trolling for targets."

Colonel Lee thought about that for a minute, really thought about it. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am. I've always been serious about that."

"Huh. Alright, tell you what: draw up a flight plan for a three-day cruise. European theatre of operations only, and include an overflight over Norway, with a six-hour stopover in Trondheim. Obviously, don't get detected by any civil aviation."

I tried to hide my grin. "Yes, ma'am!"

///

The first thing to do, obviously, was plan. Getting out the card tables I kept on the bridge, I put the call out: all crew for the Pina were to report in four hours, and be ready for a standard two-week cruise in eight, with ship's departure in twelve. A pair of laptops thunked down on them, and I got out an atlas of Europe to get to work plotting the rough course we'd be taking.

This was going to be a round-trip cruise, so we needed to figure out our start/end point. XCOM Headquarters was buried in the German Alps, so that made it both easier and harder to determine travel times. Easier, in that we were in the middle of Europe; harder because we had to do so many little hinks in the travel course and couldn't do an aero ascent up to somewhere like 5,500-6,000 meters and just say 'fuck it, supersonic time' like I did with Pina II. After that, I decided to get the whole "Visit Norway" issue out of the way first: straight run up north, buzz Oslo, hop over the boarder to Sweden to do a flyby on Stockholm (I had good memories of City 94 built out of it, from back when I'd been stuck in the game) and then return to our planned Norway overflight. Get to Trondheim, hide in a field somewhere, then take back off and gun it to Iceland.

When I said that, my notional 2IC, Keter, just stared at me. I could understand her confusion, though: I was planning a 1,600 kilometer flight for exactly no reason except to prove we could do it. Also, I wanted to see if we could actually hit Mach 3 under 3,000 meters flight ceiling. This ship had four Elerium Reactors under the hood, and if the aliens had been halfway competent at using them then I should be able to go about yes fast without question.

Anyway: buz Reykjavik, hook south, overfly England back at safe cruise altitude, swing down to Spain, do a low-and-slow over Italy, and then… well… we were cruising at nearly 1,200 kilometers an hour over ocean, 900 km/h over land. Everything I laid out? Depending on how the speeds went for some of the maneuver bits and how much we had to adjust speed to keep from generating a mach cone? Nine to eleven hours travel time, ish. Add six hours in Trondheim, and that's fifteen hours booked. Great. Now all I needed to do was fill the other fifty-seven!

"Alright everyone," I called out, attracting the attention of my officers. "We've prepped the base mission- anyone want to add any tourist layovers in? We've got two days to kill here!"

The suggestions started pouring in. Overflights were planned for, oh, all the major national capitols, plus an air defense check over Moscow (we were Japanese) and some other tourist stuff came in too. A few of the crew, notably my Chief Engineer and two of the ship's marines, actually managed to scrounge up a very nice camera and tripod, so we could take pictures too while were were out and about. By the time the flight plan was done, we were scheduled to hit every European capital once and Paris nine times.

From there, I duplicated it on the copier- the most unreliable piece of home office shit I could credit out of the Commissary- and put it in one of my very small supply of manilla envelopes, before sending it out.
I say this all like it was easy: it wasn't. We spent three hours on the damn thing, mostly in doing the speed/altitude calculations. Making sure we weren't heard was the biggest concern; followed closely by remembering that radar exists. If this seems a little backwards, remember that we weren't used to dealing with radar-rich environments. We were used to dealing with hyperwave detector rich environments, which meant we had to avoid known Cities like the plague unless we were going in on a stealth course, also known as 'mostly ballistic trajectory' which was not fun.

Needless to say I planned a pair of those for our Moscow Victory Tour too, but that was secondary.

Either way: lots of flying to do. So much flying. I rescheduled the Telemark layover twice just because that was the only time we weren't going to be flying, and I wasn't sure my pilots were going to be good enough to keep the craft steady for me to sleep in. Since I normally slept on the bridge in my futon, I could feel the ship much more closely than most of my crew. Good for keeping a subconscious connection to Pina; bad for getting a good night's rest when a new pilot was getting their stick time.

Once we'd filed the flight plan, we started loading the ship. In a fit of paranoia, I was going for the full two-week stores compliment: anything we didn't use, we could offload at the end into our personal storage for the UFO. It was weird to think we actually had that sort of luxury, but it made sense to get us some ISO containers to bury in the side of the revetment as local storage. I even had a refrigerated ISO, which was gonna be food storage.

Then, at hour six in my twelve hour prep window, I took a four hour nap. This might seem silly: I was the boss! I should be awake for all this, right?

Well, no. I was the boss, yes, but I had to be responsible. My groundside jobs could be taken up by my first mate, Pot8o (pronounced "potato") and I needed to be around to supervise helm handoffs. That meant being well-rested. Literally nothing else to it. So, I slept, and Pot8o kept Pina from lighting itself on fire.

Arising from my bridge futon with two hours left to go on the takeoff clock, I cracked my knuckles and started doing my walkabout. Portside weapons bay? Good to go. Starboard weapons bay? Same. Starboard reactor room, where the dinged-up number three reactor was? All that had been fixed! The portside reactor room, aside from some trash I had to yell about getting cleaned up, was good too.

It was the aft bays that things were having trouble in. It had been… a while? At least two months since the last time I'd had to do an actual cruise, and more like six since I'd been crew in a Medium-type like this. For most of the crew, it was bound to be their first time. Which meant people were figuring out that we had packing issues.
Every person in my crew got an 86 centimeter long, 38 centimeter diameter, sea bag: US Standard Issue, ported forward because it was easy to work with. Each person was expected to put their sea bag in a storage locker somewhere on the ship. People were not expected to unpack their shit, getting it all over the fucking place! Worse, I had a distinct bo'sun shortage, so the officers had to waste time getting shit sorted.

Urg. Hell. This was hell.

Sticking my head into the cockpit, I looked over at my first pilot, Lumine. "Hey. Adjust starting slight speed to three hundred knots sustained, we have a shitshow to shake out."

"New crew?"

"New crew."

Making a note, Lumine just put it down in the list. "Got it."

Right, crew problem bucked down the line. Time for cargo. Or more accurately, lack thereof. Aside from the chemical toilets packaged against the aft bulkhead and the spare parts crates, there wasn't anything to write home about in the cargo area. That would change, as everyone got more comfortable and my bluejackets started getting used to the fact weight distribution was mostly a joke.

And yes, they were under my command and I didn't want to call them Marines. If they were Marines, that raised the chance they'd have to leave my ship, and I was possessive about my crew. It said something, that these days my favorite scene in a Hollywood movie was when Davy Jones' ship was slowly absorbing the members of the crew of the damned. Wouldn't be a bad way to end up, really.

A little less morbidity now though! It was nearly launch time! Firing up the bridge and busting out my folding captain's chair, I grinned.

"Pina to Tower, come in Tower," I asked. "Requesting for takeoff permissions as per filed flight plan."

"Tower to Pina, you are go for flight plan. Please taxi to the exit vector and begin launch sequence."

"Pina to Tower, thank you, over."

"Tower to Pina: good flying, out."

Right, permission secured: now time to delegate. Free up outside comms channels one through four to the cockpit, mentally scan the crew to see who's here (everyone is) as well as check to see if engineering was properly manned. It was, so time to go!

"All hands, prepare for takeoff in one-five minutes," I ordered. "Say again, takeoff in one-five minutes."

There was plenty of scurrying, before everyone had bunkered and belted down. Still, I had to let time pass as the outside of the UFO lit up and the forcefields got up to full power.

"All hands, takeoff in one-zero minutes, say again, takeoff in one-zero minutes," I alerted. "All reactors, sound off."

"Reactor one, all indicators green."

"Reactor two, we're ready to go."

"Reactor three, no issues detected."

"Reactor four, good to go!"

I nodded. "Cockpit, all reactors ready. Engineering is confirm for launch."

"Cockpit to bridge, roger that," Lumine said, 'breathing' deeply over the psi-net. "Activating lift drives and moving to taxi."

"Wilco cockpit."

Slowly, gracefully, Pina moved over to the 'runway' that had been dedicated to us. In reality it was a backup strip for the Interceptors to land on, or the Skyrangers if it ate ground fire and couldn't use its VTOL systems. As the front end of the ship did what it did and the back end waited, I took a quiet peak in the systems of the ship. Each reactor was happy to be here, and the cockpit hummed with the quiet concentration that I was learning showed Lumine on the helm.

"Cockpit to bridge, we are clear for takeoff. Permission to go?"

"Bridge: permission granted. Get us airborne!"

With that, the thrusters lit off, and I could feel my ship start to purr. Steady as stone, the ship took a standard ten degrees nose-up flight path, and Lumine kept the acceleration steady. From the inside, it looked serene and graceful: from the outside, though, I knew it looked like we were screaming off into the distance on a rising trajectory. Checking the instrumentation, I grinned. Three hundred and then four hundred knots slipped by, while we steadily came up to altitude without even a ghost of an issue.

Right. I was finally flying again in the real world. As my mind slunk out my boots, I had to smile. I was doing it. I could be a captain again in truth.