An Intense Battle
16 Dec 2022BNSF1995
Since June, things have gotten complicated. Just after the Golconda initiative ended (I couldn't turn a profit because of innumerable issues), I suddenly got drafted into the Federal Navy. And not the Auxiliary, the ACTUAL NAVY. Why? Because they needed more people to secure the home systems against the Thargoids. Suki held down the fort at our house in San Jose.During my time as a draft servicemember, I was given a crash course on flying an F63 Condor. Those things are FUUUUUN. In all honesty, though, being drafted as the pilot of a Ship-Launched Fighter was nothing like serving aboard a Farragut-class battlecruiser; in those instances, I was just an ordinary spaceman who quickly gained the rank of able spaceman, and those were just regular old patrols where we saw no combat. Here, though, I was piloting a small, nimble fighter that pushed my reflexes to their absolute limit.
My fleet was assigned to the anti-xeno coalition with the slaving despots (Empire) and disgusting neutrals (Alliance). I wish I could've been part of the push to stop the construction of Salvation's superweapon, because come August 9, 3308, I witnessed the firing of the Proteus Wave. The sound was...awful. I had to cover my ears, since I have very sensitive hearing brought on by my high-functioning autism. If you ask me, Salvation was planning to use these so-called "anti-xeno superweapons" to extort control of the entire Bubble.
I thought that was that, but then an even MORE awful sound reverberated through all of us. I fell to my knees, clutching my head and screaming. Nobody gave me crap for it, many of them had the same response. And then...all of our ships went dead, and the Thargoids reactivated.
The guys and gals in the engine room, bless their hearts, quickly restored power, the general alarm sounded, and I rushed to my F63. One launch later, and I was in the middle of a battle that would give the Battle of Endor a run for its money. There were Thargoids EVERYWHERE. By some miracle, I actually managed to take at least six Thargons down, thus qualifying me as an ace, but in the heat of battle, that didn't matter to me. All I could think of was survival. I'd have much preferred to be in my Anaconda with Suki than in THIS HELL.
Eventually, my squadron was rotated out for a fresh one. Back aboard the carrier, I looked over my F63. Somehow, the shields had held. I guess spinning IS a good trick. Anyway, I tried to contact Suki to bring her namesake Fer-De-Lance over here so I could use something more substantial, but all communications in and out of the system were completely out.
Several hours later, my squadron was rotated back in, and I went back into the fray. This time, I was much more focused, and took down sixteen Thargons. But the Thargoids just kept coming. One by one, my squadron was picked off; I never knew any of their names, only their callsigns. Soon I was the last of my squadron, and I watched in horror as the Thargoids ripped through the Bright Sentinel, then the Heart of Taurus.
Everything after that was a blur for me. Eventually, a full retreat was ordered. Most of the anti-xeno coalition ships had been destroyed. My F63 was heavily damaged, but still flying through sheer willpower. By sheer luck, a Federal Corvette with a fighter bay came and scooped me up, then high-waked the fuck out of there.
This was our Wolf 359. We were Starfleet, they were the Borg. I had visited Wolf 359 several times, and found it much, much more peaceful than what had happened in HIP 22460.
Several hours later, I was off the Corvette and back on a Farragut, being checked over in the infirmary. I was uninjured, since I was wearing a Dominator suit at the time (yeah, turns out the Odyssey Initiative made spacefaring fun again), and those things are built like tanks. There were only about 40,000 of us left after that battle. I spent the trip back to Sol lying in my quarters, now empty without the rest of my squadron. What I had just been through had been the greatest hell I had experienced since I had a nasty IBS flare-up between 2016 and 2019. I tried to calm myself down by looking at the positives: I was alive, Suki was back on Earth away from this, all of my ships would be waiting for me at Abraham Lincoln station, and best of all, one of my deceased squadron mates had a Hutton Mug that I took (I was thinking about mailing it to the Hutton Orbital Radio crew to see if they'd talk about it on their Thursday show, but then I realized they'd just mock me for sending them a dead person's mug; either that, or they'd just put it in Cubicle 3, which I'm pretty sure is a stall in the men's room).
When I returned home to Earth, I was immediately honorably discharged from the main Federal Navy (my rank in the auxiliary remains), and took the first shuttle to San Jose's spaceport (all of the airports have become spaceports since we were frozen), where Suki picked me up. Upon landing, I was surrounded by reporters, and bombarded with questions; as one of the few survivors of the Battle of HIP 22460, I had become something of a celebrity. Suki always knows how to break up a crowd, thankfully. The next few days were spent engaging in round-the-clock sex; we were both stressed, and needed to relieve it in a way that didn't involve using our holodeck to do terrible things to penguins with a croquet mallet (that's the great thing about the 34th century: consumer holodecks; we were able to experience quite a few historical events, such as the launch of Apollo 11, Disneyland's opening day, and the moment FTX went bust). Our holodeck is located in what was the den back in the day (which, before we moved, I had turned into my mancave).
After that, we just milled around, doing things that brought us pleasure, like going to Disneyland (our first day was just spent silently circling the park on the Disneyland Railroad, for six straight hours) and Lake Tahoe (34th century slot machines are VERY loose), catching up on shows from our time that we missed (like The Mandalorian), and playing video games from the 21st century that we missed like Elden Ring. Eventually, Suki set up a holodeck simulation to help me get through my PTSD: a simulation of the Battle of HIP 22460, only this time, I was in a Federal Corvette with AX weaponry, programmed to be as nimble as an Eagle. It was glorious. I fucking slaughtered them all. I must have run that simulation at least six times before my appetite for revenge was sated.
In the ensuing months, we stayed put on Earth, having heard reports that the war with the Thargoids was escalating. Eventually, though, the Pilots' Federation put out a firmware update for the galaxy map showing where the Thargoids were, which was enough for me to decide to head back up into space in early December. We took a shuttle to Abraham Lincoln, and took up our positions in my Anaconda, the FNS Enterprise, ready for new challenges.
What comes next? Well, those other pilots can have fun fighting Tharg the Mighty. I'm just gonna go raid settlements in anarchy systems to get materials to upgrade my handheld weapons, starting with my Karma AR-50 (since I can never seem to find any station stocking a Grade 3 AR-50).
I don't think a Fleet Carrier is in the cards. Those things are money pits...