[Art Exchange] Covert Courtesy Commutation ~ 6/8 gifts are up.

[e_voyager]

no request for me?

[Gabi]

Yes, e_voyager, there's a request for some more info on you now. But you know you can post whatever details you want without waiting for a request, right?

And Ren, please reply to the last post on the previous page.

[Gabi]

Hey! Do I have to start poking people again? Ren and e, please post!

And Pagan's gifter wants to know what kind of character Pagan is: "cunning, evil, sly or just the opposite". The opposite of what?, I wonder.

[e_voyager]

sorry. I'm just now seeing this. but since they asked an had to wait so long i'll give them a full story. i just which they'd asked something direct like if i had a favorite place or subject or something.

In truth E's not a real robot and his name is not voyager. voyager is a title that he inherited. he achieves his robot form by use of a technology. this technology is centered in a belt that he wears. the belt was designed to allow him to explore hazardous locations by a note worthy inventor who pioneered the robotization process. the belt was upgraded several times  and it's power sources change to allow for different not robotic transformation.  E's originally human with but left his human life behind at age 25 when he fell in love with a golden kitsune girl.  an accident with a project that he was working on left him drifting through time and space often arriving on world without a physical body. do to this and years of experience e's learned how to build virtual bodies. after 60 years of wondering e found his way home to his love who had waited for him he was amazed that she'd waited and she was amazed that he'd not only come back alive but that he'd somehow stopped aging during his journey home in his early thirties she it was still a robust young man that she remembered loved and not the withered husk she might have expected. but love is never easy form time to time  e is sometime yanked away form her and the world in general  flung to some far off location for days and months t at a time. he always has and always will return to her so long he he lives and can find the way home. at this point she's near middle age at around 500 years old and despite a body that's in it's early 30's he's in chronological terms in 130. when away from his lovely wife e will normally revert to robot mode and arm himself what items he thinks  with what Evey he needs from a   inter- dimensional storage space that was a byproduct of his technology research. in this space he keeps several robot body's built for battle and about 12 belts who's tech is  very difficult to make with the right tool and knowledge

e's robot forms have 3 basic color patterns Blue with light blue / yellow trimming. black with purple/ red  trimming and gold with silver/ platinum trimming.

e's basic belt transformation are about the only forms that become permanent for him though he no longer needs them to change his appearance. the bio bodies he built at this point are unstable and only last about a month he's he is not restoring his forms from the data store in his belts which backed up his original DNA but somehow also picked up the anomaly that's slowed his aging as well.

E has 6 forms that he uses. human 5"7' 210 lbs. short hair trimmed beard . skin color optional. vulpine 4'11"  178 lbs  twin tails ruddy red fur white highlights and black foot paws. lupine. 6'2" grey fur single tails green eyes folding feathered wings. Feline. 6"4' grey fur ( most of the time)  tiger stripes. folding wings. E's forte a stole backup of the robot forte form the first planter e arrived on with out a physical body. same size as the original upgrades stars form years of use. PBH's E a test firefighter robot  rebuilt to hours e's memory core when his original forte body was destroyed. it was later rebuilt again into a feline version that can be seen here http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1848293/ a defense body it's main feature is it';s defense screen which can cover either it's arms as a  shield of various length or can be expanded into a mobile global by surfacing about 1/2 of the shields maxime strength.

[Ren Gaulen]

Hey! Do I have to start poking people again? Ren and e, please post!

I apologise, I had a lot of stuff going on, and forgot to post a reply.

What your gifter is asking is for some details of your character's personality and history.

OK. Ren is generally an open and friendly person, though he can be a bit too serious at times, and he tends to be a little shy around girls, unless he already knows them well. He is also courageous and has a very strong sense of justice, but he can get rather headstrong at times. He seems to pursue a mission to protect everyone he can, even if they don't want his help. When dealing with his foes, he may try to convince them to stop fighting and give up their evil ways, and generally tries to avoid killing. However, if his enemy manages to get Ren really angry (by hurting the innocents, for example), he may go all out against his enemy without any regard for his or her life.
As for Ren's history, he was born on a planet Kirindor, a medieval world with a very low technological level. Ren was an adventurer and a royal knight there, serving as a guardian of a young princess, who herself liked to go adventuring (her parents could not do much to stop her, since she was a powerful, in inexperiencer sorceress, and could slip out of the castle and the capital whenever she wanted). Later Ren got involved in an ancient conflict between the powers that were protecting his world and the forces of Hell that were trying to claim Kirindor. Ren plaid a central part in the conflict, managing to save his world and defeat Azriel, one of the Princes of Hell. However,he himself waspartially turned into a daemon during that conflict, gaining an ability to transform into a Hell Knight daemon; thankfully, he learned to control his daemon form, turning it into an effective weapon against other Netherworlders. After Kirindor was made safe from any Netherworld intrusions, Ren decided to travel to other worlds and fight the Evil there, discovering a world of space traveling and advanced technology for himself. He ended up joining the Holy Order of Asheron in the Federation of United Terran Stars. Since then, Ren and some of his companions from his past adventures live on the territory of the Federation.

As for Zig, he is usually laid back, carefree, mischievous and irresponcible. He may seem to be a total jerk sometimes, and he is rarely nice to people who are not in the inner circle of his friends. However, for those close to him he is a loyal friend. Zig has a strict code of honor, and he is ready to do anything for his comrades, but he does not really give a damn about others. Though lately his views are slowly changing, and he seems to be more considerate about people around him, whether he knows them or not. Still, in battle he becomes a ferocious fighter that would use every dirty trick to win. Also, Zig has a soul of someone else sharing his body with him. This someone, known only as Samiel, seemed to be trapped in the bloodline of Zig's father, passing from parent to child, and remained dormant until now. Samiel has little memories of himself, but he seems to have been a great warrior in the past, quite knowledgeable in the ways of magic as well. In times of great emotional stress or peril Samiel may sometimes take over Zig's body, controlling it as his own. He is a cruel and violent person, and he wishes to get his own body, or at least use Zig's body as his own, but he cannot stay in control for a long time, and so for now he helps Zig from time to time. However, over time Zig was finding part of ancient enchanted armour that belonged to Samiel while his body was alive. While this armour gives great power to its wearer, when Zig wears it it also increases Samiel's power, including his power to control Zig's body. Nobody knows what would happen if Zig ever gathers the whole suit and wears it.
Zig was born on the planet Karid, in the Demon clan Lynn'Daira. His mother was one of the wives of the leader of the clan. His father, however, was not a member of the clan - he was an angel, instead. Being a half-demon/half-angel, Zig was really not liked by the rest of the clan. At an age of sixteen he was exiled from the lands of the clan. Soon, when he wastraveling in a nearby human kingdom, he was captured and made a slave. Later he was "rescued" by the Demon Prince Seth, only to become his slave instead. When he was twenty two, Zig rebelled against seth and killed him, taking his place. From that moment he slowly started to create his own Demon Clan, gathering together lots of different people - not only Demons, but anyone who had nowhere else to go and could be useful. Eventually Zig got drawn into a conflict between Demons and Angels, managing to spark an all-out war between the two races. He managed to unite multiple Demon Clans for that war, something, that hasn't happened for centuries, as the Demons were usually preoccupied fighting with each other even more that with the Angels. However, as Zig found out, there was more to this conflict than it seemed, and in fact it was all planned by the gods of his world. He and a small group of his companions fought one of the gods and managed to kill him. However, that made the rest of the gods see them as a threat to themselves. Zig and the company had to go into hiding. And the best place to hide was out of their world, in the Outer Universe. There they were hoping to find some allies or something to help them free their world from the malevolent gods. Zig and the company ended up on the territory of the Federation. There Zig met Ren. At first there relations were less than friendly, and Zig was targeted by the Holy Order itself, being a Demon and all, but the problem was solved when Zig reluctantly decided to join the Order instead of trying to fight it or hide from it. That gave him a freedom to travel around the Federation. During that time Zig and Ren became good friends.

[e_voyager]

did i bootstrap myself into this by asking if anyone had asked for information about me? 

[Gabi]

I don't know, E, but your information was quite interesting.

[e_voyager]

well pbh has most of it and Boogie help me fix up par of it in and rp a boy two years back  in the character lounge it's in the 60's some where. It  described a lot about what happens when a voyager retires his title and power. but i don't really think that's important. i hope that my prior post answers their questions as for me right not i'm still working very hard on their project hoping i don't have to ink it all over again but it looks like i may have too.

[Gabi]

The first gifts are up (i.e. the on-time gifts). Here they are!

* wuffnpuff has made this gift for Jairus: Jairus The Jedi.

* Fibre has made this gift for Beever.

* The1Kobra has made this gift for Arroyo Milori: Full - Closeup.

/* Author's Comments:
* As requested, I drew to the best of my ability, which admittedly isn't much, Arroyo's character Citrine Stone. I found the reference helpful, and I also researched what a Muay Thai stance would look like and try to draw the character in that stance. I did deviate from it in a few places, most notably the left arm, which is supposed to be raised in the air rather than across the chest. I couldn't do the feet spread accurately (though the character does wear a skirt which I don't think boxers are supposed to wear, and I would imagine the tail would give a whole new spin on balance, but I didn't know how to really factor that in.

I'll admit, I think the face came out quite well, but the rest of the drawing was kind of... meh. The tail looks stiff, the fists.... well, don't look like fists. Obviously, I can see what the original looks like, and scanning it onto my computer with a jury rigged cell phone didn't do the image quality any favors.

Anyways, I took two pictures, one is a picture of the head and shoulders, one is a whole body picture. Both are taken from the same piece of paper.

Regardless of the shortcomings, I do hope my receiver enjoys this.
*/

* modelincard has made this gift for wuffnpuff, with his note attached:

There's also a link to the sketch from that page. I do plan on coloring and shading this, but odds are that's going to get put off until, like, next weekend after school ends for me. I'll let Wuffnpuff know myself when that's done, unless (for whatever reason) the list hasn't been posted before then.

* e_voyager has made this gift for Fibre. He had me choose among 4 different versions. Bad E.

Beever, Kipiru and Corgatha Taldorthar have written to me saying they will need some more time, while Arroyo has responded positively to prodding but will also be a bit late.

I have yet to hear from Ren Gaulen, Teh_Hobo, Cogidubnus, Jairus and Pagan.

[Fibre]

* e_voyager has made this gift for Fibre. He had me choose among 4 different versions. Bad E.

Thank you, E, I love it!

[e_voyager]

i'm glad that you're pleased.  i chose an aortic fox because a fennec would look out of place in a winter scape.,

and Gabi sorry about putting you in the final judge seat but i'm not very skilled in art and was in need of you insight. i actual created about 20 similar images including some that were just the fox alone.

[Arroyo Milori]

Thanks for the gift Kobra. : 3

Sadly, I'll try to get mine up as soon as possible.

[Sprocketsdance]

Oh Modelincard!!!! That's awesome! I love it!  Very cute scene!! Thank you so much!!  Take your time with the coloring, no hurry =)

[Gabi]

Beever has sent me this gift for Pagan: Pagan immortal.

[Jairus]

Apologies for not getting mine in, but a combination of thinking it ended on the 16th and final exams have prevent me from working on it. I should have it in Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. Again, I apologize.

[Ren Gaulen]

I also apologise for the delay. I'll have my entry in later today.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Me as well. Mine will take a bit longer though. Possibly not until the weekend. My apologies.

[Kipiru]

Sorry for the delay this time, but it is here- my gift for Cogi:

Cogidubnus

I hope you like it 

[Ren Gaulen]

Aaaaah, late late late! Sorry, couldn't finish my entry yesterday. But here it is, my gift for Kipiru:

Liberator 2: Judgement Day.

Just to clarify what's going on, Kipiru carelessly asked a certain person to do something a little while ago.

..I hope you'll like it, Kip. And, sorry for that.

[Kipiru]

*gasping for air after laughing my lungs out*This is hilarious Ren! That's not what I imagined when she offered liberation- I guess that's why my horny(as someone recently pointed out) alter-ego is now picking up speed in the opposite direction! Absolutely marvelous work Ren, thank you!

[Ren Gaulen]

*gasping for air after laughing my lungs out*This is hilarious Ren! That's not what I imagined when she offered liberation- I guess that's why my horny(as someone recently pointed out) alter-ego is now picking up speed in the opposite direction! Absolutely marvelous work Ren, thank you!

I'm glad you liked it. And you are probably right about the little misunderstanding between Rio and Kip. (Although, I somehow think that Rio herself did not know what she meant by "liberating the hell out of the galaxy"; it was probably just an excuse to fly around and plunder random planets - liberating them from their stuff. )

[Lisky]

so, this is a placeholder sketch from the previous round, as my real one has been lost for several weeks by the airlines...
The resulting implications killed my muse... and i must profusely appologies to Aisha for taking soo long... i've been trying to get the real drawing back, as it's inked, larger, and better... as is, muse hit my this morning, and in about an hour, i did a quick sketch... i am soo sorry even this took forever...

The basic idea is that she's flourishing her cloak, revealing the dragon blade... most likely after someone made a quip about her needing "protection" or some other equally corny and sexist joke...




hope you like your placeholder until the real one is returned...

[Aisha deCabre]

so, this is a placeholder sketch from the previous round, as my real one has been lost for several weeks by the airlines...
The resulting implications killed my muse... and i must profusely appologies to Aisha for taking soo long... i've been trying to get the real drawing back, as it's inked, larger, and better... as is, muse hit my this morning, and in about an hour, i did a quick sketch... i am soo sorry even this took forever...

The basic idea is that she's flourishing her cloak, revealing the dragon blade... most likely after someone made a quip about her needing "protection" or some other equally corny and sexist joke...




hope you like your placeholder until the real one is returned...

Many thanks, Bas!  The sketch is cute x3  No worries about the time taken.  I honestly don't know what this curse is with me and gift exchanges, but I appreciate the placeholder and I hope you get your luggage back. 

[e_voyager]

i have to agree very well done i wish i could draw so well.

[Teh_Hobo]

Sorry for the delay. Heres my gift for Modelincard.

[Faerie Alex]

Ooh, nifty. I'm not sure that I've ever actually seen my username stylized like that before. (It does spend most of its time as sans-serif plain text. ) I'll have to figure out some way to display that now.

Thankies!

[Jairus]

Sorry for getting this in late. Okay, my all-in-one printer/scanner/copier hates me. I can print stuff, but when I got to scan something it says that the USB port is not connected. Aren't machines wonderful?

Anyway, I just used my digital camera to take a picture to show you what I've got, E. When my scanner eventually works, I'll upload a higher quality version. Don't worry, I'll be cleaning it up, but I guess now's a time to tell me if I got any details wrong. And yes, it's a chibi: I'm not much good at real proportions. Anyway, enough stalling...

Chib-E Mega Voyager

So, yeah, it's Mega Man. Kind of a cross between a few different linearts of him that I've seen.

Random trivia time: Mega Voyager is actually a giant transforming and combining mecha from the Japanese tokusatsu show, Denji Sentai Megaranger (Electromagnetic Squadron Megaranger). The footage from Megaranger was adapted into Power Rangers in Space, where the Mega Voyager became one of the few machines to share a name with its Japanese counterpart. And now I'm done wasting your time.

EDIT: Oh, sorry. Thanks, wuffnpuff. *collapses from tiredness*

EDIT 2: My scanner is finally working, so I got a better version up.

EDIT 3: Uploaded a better, cleaner version.

[e_voyager]

i understand and he's a cute little wolf voyager thrust into the roll of an mega man.  what was your inspiration?

[Jairus]

i understand and he's a cute little wolf voyager thrust into the roll of an mega man.  what was your inspiration?

A while back I saw this chibi-to-the-second-power version of Mega Man. I combined that idea with the original old pictures and lineart to kinda dial the chibiness back a little bit.

Not to brag, but I am really satisfied with this pic.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Sorry it's so late Ren, but here it is, finally finished. Maybe you can think of it as a birthday present.  Anyway, without further ado here it is.

*********************************************************************************
Hunter's Cry

    Ren Gaulen didn't flinch from his half crouch as the green lance shot past his shoulder, even as the heat of the blast scorched oxygen into ozone that managed to produce a stench that got through his armor's filters. It struck the transport shuttle, dissipated harmlessly over the armored hide.
      
    He did react to the incoming fire though, turning without rising and firing a suppression pattern off to the northeast, where his thermal sensors picked up something like a life sign, and shouting "hurry, we have to make delivery time!" at the pair of figures in armor, one thin and lithe, the other short and flabby, sprinting through the field, bearing the prize of this expedition. A bit of mental calculation told him they would make it on time, if barely. A double click on the comm. alerted the rest of the squad, who ceased their attempts to score kills, and focused on shepherding the two somewhat flabby figures in.
    No sooner had they touched down on the metal ramp leading into the ships bowels was their another click on the comm. and six seconds later, the ramp was up and the shuttle was accelerating at 15 kilometers a second away from the surface. There was fire from the ground, but all of their real anti-space vehicle weapons had been disabled on the way in, and the assault shuttle was on its projected rendezvous with a jumpship.
   
Easing his helmet off, Ren approached the two contractors, who had wasted no time in doffing their powered armor. Ignoring the slight chafing in his own elbows and thighs, he asked, in a finally unaltered voice "I assume you have it?" An awkward silence of a smidgen more than a second ensued.
      
    One of them, a short overweight, brown tabby being, was busy fiddling with a stack of datadisks and some sort of personalized hand-computer that Ren wasn't familiar with. The other, a thin, young samite canine with a dark ring in the fur around her left eye, perky breasts, and inky cephalic hair looked over at her companion and then to Ren. She had a voice that seemed rusty with disuse, and perhaps just a touch of an alcohol habit, although there had been an enforced abstinence 36 hours before the drop. "Well, we haven't decoded them yet, but if it was in the system, we got it. You can report to your bosses that the raid was successful."
      
    Trying to appear gruff, and in command, Ren simply nodded, although the instance his back was turned he broke into a jaunty grin, and fought back an urge to whistle. They wouldn't hit the jumpship for another 2 hours or so, but Deliverance their craft, had a fully operational fatline, so Ren could make a call outwards, if not a full conversation.
   
    Hurrying over to the comm. station, Ren idly thought of some of his ancient history, and the resemblance that the fatline held to some archaic invention called the "telegraph." Sending a communication wavelength at faster than light speeds, hence the name FTL line, or Fatline, took an enormous amount of energy, and was usually quite expensive. Most of the time, such instantaneous communications were only done when a craft was already in warp, when distances held less subjective meaning and back and forth conversations were possible. Thinking for a second, trying to put this in the briefest possible terms, he eventually pushed the send button, and spoke, as quickly as an automatic weapon into the receiver. "Data received. Jones and Blake walking wounded. Shuttle on time, decode work in progress. End Transmission."
   
    Business done, Ren retired to the locker room and switched from powered armor into a drab olive uniform of the Holy order of Asheron. He was the only brother along with this jaunt, working with a primarily Federation crew. As such, it afforded him his own quarters "for services". Not being a particularly religious man, Ren mostly agreed to the privilege on the chance that he would need to do something out of the eyes of his allies, but such a need for subterfuge didn't come up. Sighing distastefully, he looked over the small desk and yielded to duty, preparing datawork until he heard the proximity sensors go off, announcing their pickup by the jumpship Wide Load. Thirty seconds later, he felt an odd sensation, akin to nausea, but almost as if he were somehow inverted in relation to something that he couldn't quite describe that was his metabolic reaction to warp space.
   
    Ren let out a sigh of tension that he hadn't realized he had been holding in. Despite all the Intel, or the lack of a response for over two hours, he was never comfortable in an essentially unarmed spacecraft in hostile territory.  He pressed his fists to the small of his back, arched outwards until he heard a pop and felt the muscles loosen. Scooping up his pad, he decided to head towards the lounge. Counting the slow burn in, it had been nearly a week since he had a chance to blow any of his pay on something, and just perhaps he'd run into that slicer that had been on the mission.
   
    His purpose was thwarted however, by an annoying beep to his private comm. A voice that he did not recognize, harsh and guttural, rang out from it. "Trooper lance-class Gaulen. Your presence is required in the signal room. Acknowledge." Not trusting himself to speak, he sent the single click response that was known all over civilized space as an affirmative. He could understand the Federation's balancing act, not even wanting paramilitary organizations running along in its jurisdiction with only loose oversights, but the Order of Asheron had never caused trouble, and while often ignored on the ground, it was official policy not to use Asheron ranks, instead referring to personnel by the closest applicable Federation equivalent.
   
    Still, orders were orders, and he was on their ship, after all. He jogged over to the lifts, jabbed at an unoffending button, and whooshed his way down to the comm. hub. A part of him wanted to believe that this was some sort of stupid prank, but jokesters generally weren't officious enough to use that sort of tone and verbiage. Sure enough, when his shadow darkened the doorstep of the communication center, a gray furred mouse wordlessly beckoned to him and set him up in a private booth.
   
    Turning on the receiver, Ren was glad of his quick reflexes. He was sure that his shock was only visible for a moment, if that. The transmission was full video, something not ordinarily done, especially for a field trooper. Secondly, while he did not recognize the somewhat aged looking wolf on the other end, he did recognize a Prelate's robe, and wondered why someone so far above him was speaking to him directly. Partly to cover his momentary lapse, he saluted smartly, fist to heart, and waited for his superior to speak.
   
    He had the feeling of intense scrutiny from the other end of the comm. line, but finally his superior spoke, with a rich, loamy sort of voice that radiated care and concern. The skeptical part of Ren's mind wondered how much of it was genuine. One did not rise that high without a certain Machiavellian tendency. "I am Prelate Ekhensen.  I trust you are sufficiently recovered from your data raid. If you would like some rest though, this call can wait."
   
    Ren shook his head slightly, with an almost queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something about the voice and tone and words were....... too sweet almost. He could never consider keeping a Prelate waiting, and both of them knew it, which meant that the offer was...... Ren discontinued that line of thought, and took refuge in formality.  "Orders, sir?"
   
    The prelate leaned backwards ever so slightly, and asked, "Have you ever heard of Begma?"
   
    Ren's mind whirled, across stellar clusters, famous worlds, political bodies, but came up with nothing. Perhaps he was silent too long, for the Prelate deepened his smile and said "No reason why you should have. It's a semi-independent
confederacy of about a dozen worlds, off way in the boonies, almost at the Galactic edge. It's technically a signatory for Federation aid in certain circumstances, and they claim to have been assaulted by a group of invaders. What makes their claim interesting is that these "Outsiders" are supposedly extra galactic in origin. There is some.... circumstantial evidence to their claim, in things like ship design, enough that while The Order is not sold on the idea, We consider it plausible enough to be sending in a task force of our own, in addition to the aid that the Federation is providing. The Wide load ought to be redirecting towards the Rim momentarily, and you should be in the theater within a week and a half or so."

    Ren nodded, but remained silent, and ever so faintly suspicious.
   "How have your...... problems been, Ordinator?"
   "Problems? I am unaware of any problems."
   "There is no need to be guarded, this is no Inquest."
   "I am unaware of why I need to be guarded; I have had no problems with the crew or the soldiers I have fought alongside Sir."
   The crispness of his voice seemed to bring about a slight spell of coughing on the other end of the line. After it subsided, the voice came back, more saccharine than ever. "Some time ago, you were infected with a...
   Ren felt his face grow hot, unsure whether the flush was from shame or wrath. Not caring about how insubordinate he was being, he spoke over the Prelate, with an edge but no heat. "I have not had any transformations within three years, for any cause. I have had no unprovoked transformations for two years before that. I dose myself readily with the drugs that the Order's medical team provides.  All of this is on my record, which should be readily available. I resent this-"
   "Peace, peace, my son. I am sorry; I wished to be more tactful and failed. Let us forget about this incident. Tell me, are you still qualified to fly an AIP?"
   AIP stood for "Armed insertion pod", and were kind of a specialized fighter with a reinforced nose. They were usually somewhat slower and less maneuverable than a pure space attacker of a similar weight class, but were capable of ramming into most torchship or larger class vessels along armor seams to bring the pilot, and sometimes a small team in for a low scale boarding action. They weren't in wide usage, as few had both the skill as a pilot and the ground training to make them useful. Furthermore, piloting in powered armor was difficult. Ren was only aware of five others within the Order who measured up to AIP usage.
   "I will want to run a few sims before engaging in active duty, but yes, I should still be qualified."
   
    "Good, good. From all indications, these invaders seem to have no fixed base, a wholly migratory species, living on their ships. It might be necessary to have someone with your level of expertise to handle this foe, and indeed, it is because of you that we are requesting this jumpcraft, and any Federation personnel that happen to be along. Go forth, and do the order proud."
   
    The transmission cut, and Ren was privately glad for the interview to be over. He resolved to go find the bar and get himself drunk enough to have a hangover the next day.


   The next day, the powerful rebuke of his pounding headache made him regret his earlier declaration. He had some sort of vague memory of challenging a big, beefy, slug-faced.......... technician? He couldn't quite recall, to some sort of game that involved drinking and arm wrestling in equal measure.
   
    Thankful that in space, time of day didn't mean quite the same thing that it did planet side, and that the mess was open for all of a twenty four hour standard cycle, Ren attended to his personal hygiene and shuffled into the mess, acquiring for himself large quantities of kaf, as well as some foods with unhealthy levels of sugar and gluten and fat. As he bit into a pastry and scanned the cafeteria for familiar faces, he idly wondered why a supposedly military vessel was serving such unhealthy food. 
Nothingnothingnothingnothingnoth he saw the data team from the mission, sitting at a table next to someone from whose build Ren guessed was a marine from a high gravity world of some sort. A longer glance in their direction got a wave out of the girl, and this time giving into the urge to smile, he sauntered over the table and sat.
   
    Before he had finished settling his tray onto the table, he opened up with words leaking out of a self depreciating smile. "You know, it reflects badly on my abilities as a mission leader, but I never did get the names of you two. As with in the shuttlecraft, the two looked awkward to be addressed by someone of more blood than silicon, and after a second, the canine girl spoke. "I'm Floramiel Dastramienien, Flora for short." nudging her companion with a fork, she laughed and said "this untalkative lump is Fezrish. He's never admitted to a last name, and his personnel file is too secure for me to break into. And besides, we were just the little lambs that you boys were shepherding in. Go in, get the files, and get out." She smiled; showing even and well cared for teeth. "We would have been bored with discussions of different weapon systems and how far one can jump in those suits, so it's just as well. Did you hear about our new orders? Double time, all the way to the rim. And the tac profiles? Some sort of new bogey. I haven't looked at it myself, but they're plastered all over tactical, with orders that field personnel ought to look at them. You really should go at some point."
   
    All of this was said in one long, almost breathless, unbroken sentence that left Ren unable to get a word in edgewise. At the conclusion of it, she went back to talking to Fezrish, about something called a "Trowski splice" Sensing a dismissal, he continued eating in silence and left. Although it probably was best to read up on whatever data was available about these "outsiders". Still, he couldn't force himself to head to tactical, and instead decided to walk towards the gym. A workout in an artificial gravitic field of 1.7 should leave him too tired and sweaty to think. He strode off purposefully.
   
    How she managed to sneak up on him, with him through combat awareness training and she just a computer girl that got conscripted, he wasn't sure. But sneak up on him she did, and the first realization that she was there was when he felt a soft hand on his shoulder. He almost felt the words, more than hearing them. "You did great back on that data raid. I'd never been in the field before, not something like that, but I've read the statistics, and to pull everyone out alive like you did, well, that was really amazing. I'm busy for most of the next cycle, but I can make sure that I get the flight simulators when I want, easy enough when you know what to crack at, would you like to show me how to fly a bit? I read your dossier, and I know that you're the top scoring pilot on this craft, even if you haven't flown a while, you would show me the ropes, wouldn't you?"
   
    Ren agreed, breathlessly, although he was reasonably certain that Flora would have reacted the same way even if he had said an emphatic no. She suggested a sim time and darted off.
   
    Realizing he had close to twenty hours to kill, he decided to go to tac, look up these invaders. Sitting down at a terminal, he pulled up all data that the Wide Load had to offer on them. A lot of it was battle cam footage, not necessarily all the best shots, and a lot of sociological data that was probably just speculation. Whoever they were did have transmissions, and they were either coded in some manner that defied decryption, or were in a language that wasn't related to anything anyone knew about. If they were really extra-galactic, both would probably be the case. Unknown physiology, unknown atmospheric/pressure/temperature preferences. Nobody had ever seen one land. They had mostly been attacking asteroid mining bases, simply slagging the entire facilities. One damaged and barely operational camera seemed to indicate that they were attempting to pull out certain heavy metals, as well as any stray pockets of hydrogen, although even in these operations they didn't reveal their actual people, just small ships scurrying about with tubes and scoops. There had been two pitched battles with Begman space forces, and although the invaders won each time, they did seem to be avoiding organized resistance, preferring to hit undefended targets. A subnote to the article suggested that they were a wholly migratory species, living on their ships, probably harvesting hydrogen for fuel. If this were the case, it would be difficult to track down and defeat them, Ren thought, given that they have no static worlds to defend, can just pick up and jump out on a moment's notice. From the timing of their attacks, they seemed to move fairly slowly through warp, suggesting a sort of technological primitiveness, arguing against an intergalactic trek, although another side note suggested that if they had advanced cryogenics, the logistics became fairly simple.
   
    Shaking his head to clear himself of the scholarship, Ren turned to the tactical displays, calling for footage of the two battles, which each lasted about an hour, and then, searching for a bit of familiarity, specifics of the Begman fleet. It was about on par for an outlying sector Federation fleet. One dedicated carrier with fifty four fighter berths, one strike cruiser, a trio of destroyers, and a screen of eight smaller frigate class vessels. Over the course of the conflict, the Begmans had begun conscripting larger freighters into small strike vessels.
   
    The outsider ships, and their tactics, were far less familiar.  Each strike seemed to bring along a vessel of truly massive proportions, which had been tentatively identified as the "home ship" While never fighting itself, and seeming to have no visible armament, the craft was colossal, almost brick shaped, 20 kilometers long, eight wide, five thick. It would however; launch smaller strike craft, similar in size to single man fighters, opening each battle with a launch of five hundred craft. None of them seemed to fly particularly well, and both their poor skill and their rather suicidal tactics, including straight bore "charges" and ramming ships when low on fuel or damaged, seemed to imply some sort of cybernetic pilots, a theory further supported by their losses in between the first battle and the next, 617 craft, which were all fully replaced for the second fight, only four days later.
   
    For larger craft, they had something which the Begmans labeled a "Beam Frigate", an entire small class of ship built around one large ion cannon as its spine, designed to engage larger foes and fight "up" as it were. Their lack of secondary armament left them vulnerable to anything that wasn't directly in front of their bore, and anything more maneuverable would pull them apart. They had numerous vessels of destroyer size and larger, but either they were rotating ships in and out of the theater, had a huge fleet, or were retrofitting the things in between sightings. Either way, their capabilities beyond speed and maneuverability, both below Federation level for ships of their size, were unknown. They also appeared to have five cruiser level vessels, which never fought directly, indeed never left near the home ship, as well as smaller carriers than the supervessel. All told, it was a fleet of a projected size of over a hundred capital ships, and even if they were only half as powerful as the local  vessels, they seemed to be way more than what the Begmans could handle, although were not nearly strong enough to harm the Federation itself.
   
    For all of his sense of strength on his side, when he left the tac room for a bit of a workout, he was troubled. Even if they were materially disadvantaged against a comparably sized Federation ship, these aliens showed an extremely high level of tactical coordination, especially managing to interlock their fields of fire well above what he was used to seeing in his own side. Secondly, while the full weight of the federation fleet would grind what he had seen into paste, the Federation obviously couldn't send its full weight. The Yedagon confederacy was causing trouble again, and Halbergida was always hotly contesting their borders. Worse still, if these forces truly were nomadic, then tracking them down and exterminating them would be difficult, perhaps impossible. He wasn't certain what kind of fleet was being put together for this expedition, but anything large enough to defeat what sorts of recordings had been showing would be too valuable to be kept out in the galactic rim for months or years as they searched every last gas pocket for a fleet.
   
    Still, Ren shrugged, it wasn't his problem. He was just a ground-pounder, a skill set unlikely to come up in this kind of conflict, and a sometime pilot. As long as he didn't get lanced down, fighting one enemy seemed much the same as fighting another. Maybe it would be a good idea to get some sim time in above and beyond what he would be spending with Flora.
   
    The ten days spent in transit were hectic, and he didn't get nearly the amount of recreational time that he would have wanted. The captain of the Wide Load one Argleb Ferth, seemed to require no other sustenance than barking regulations at anyone who seemed to be slacking off at any moment. The crew was only fifty people, most of them cowed into total submission, which left him plenty of time to berate any marines and computer specialists who happened to be lounging around too much for his Spartan tastes.   
   
    Still, Ren wasn't completely against the idea, especially when going up against an unknown foe. The simulator, with a bit of work, was able to do runs with AIP's, and Ren managed to get at least some of his edge back, managing inserts under fire without cover four out of five times, and if the situation in the field was that bad, well then an insertion probably would be a wasted gesture. Still, his reflexes were better and his situational awareness adapted to three dimensional fighting. And it wasn't as if he hadn't time to flirt, just not enough that he could make a full time commitment of it.
   
    Perhaps it would be for the best. When the fleet assembled, he was going to transfer over to one of the Order's vessels, and she to one of the more protected federation ships, making it hard for them to actually be together.

    They had tried to spend the last day in transit together, or at least mostly together as they could arrange their schedules. But Captain Ferth's officiousness, combined with his soul of a drill sergeant, had them running triple shifts that last 24 hour period, producing in the ship's bowels a grumbling theory that he wanted to test how well they could fly asleep.  Ren's sim scores, usually enough to get him to the rank eight gauntlet and beyond, dipped near the start of the day and went on a fatigue induced death spiral, culminating in a final run where he managed to crash into the interior of his hangar while trying to join the battle.

    So while there was a weight in the separation of his gut and his chest when he left the Wide Load, Ren was relieved to get on a shuttle off of it, nursing thoughts during the short trip about whether or not the man had deliberately went down harder on an Asheron paramilitary than he would on a Federation soldier. Flora had promised to send the jackass a "parting gift" and Ren gave a resigned little smile figuring he'd never exactly know what it was.

    It took maybe twenty minutes to projectile over to the carrier Ren was to serve on, one of the more venerable Asheron launching pads, the Screaming Enkan. It could house fifty four fighters, and was the flagship of the Holy Order's part of the fleet, standing in the center of lazily trailing thrust jets from a pair of destroyers and several trailing frigates. The Federation contingent was considerably larger, and while they would be numerically inferior to these outsiders, if the Begman profiles were accurate, they would enjoy a significant firepower edge over their foes.
Ren found himself, to no great surprise, the only AIP qualified pilot in the Holy Order's task force, although he heard mention of two others inside the main federation fleet. Nonetheless, he would not be directly coordinating with them, and in fact, was not in command of anything other than his own craft.
   
    It was an ugly, blocky thing, designed to only be flown once. They actually had four in the flight deck, given that this might be a protracted campaign. Ren thought wistfully of the pilots who flew atmospheric craft, with their smooth lines and wings. Deep space fighter craft, on the other hand, tended towards massive engines and pod weapons. Unlike most craft, which tended to be flatter, the AIP held a massive, cone shaped nose, with multiple layers designed to peel off the craft once it made contact. It also had a far roomier cockpit than almost anything else flown by a single individual, although the controls were tremendously difficult to manipulate inside a power suit. 

    He was wearing that suit when he first met the leader of the 5 man unit that was going to be his escort, the AIP being something of a clumsy craft. The extra bulk offered by the armored shell caused him to tower over the man, who introduced himself as "Blair".  Ren had looked up the man's combat record, which was impressive, and felt himself as secure as he could be in the upcoming conflict.

    The end of his first day aboard the Screaming Enkan had him still in his armor, pacing along the flight deck, artificial atmosphere thick enough to produce clanking sounds as his magnetized boots hit the floor. Some sixth sense seemed to be warning him that he'd see action soon, and that while most of the ship was asleep, he was unable to relax. So he'd come up to the deck, with all the fighters cleared away for now, to stretch himself with the armor.
   
    The boarding marines weren't on the carrier, instead on their own little assault shuttles kept somewhat protected in the cluster of frigates. Powering up the jetpacks, he darted out of the flight hold, tethering himself with a snapshot of a grappling hook to the lip of the hangar. For all of his ground experience and Ren Gaulen had over a hundred drops under his belt, this upcoming boarding action was worrying him, far more than the flying. Good news had come in while he was in transit, a small skirmish which the Begmans managed to fend off an attacking force of about a dozen fighters, shooting eight down in the process, and sticking around long enough to recover three. No pilots were found, or even remains, but the crafts themselves gave some indication of what these outsiders were like. He jumped against the external hull, trusting his armor to stand up to the vacuum for the length of this run.

    The shattered hulks were formed of a dull, grey aluminum/nickel/iron alloy. They appeared unmarked in the visible spectrum, they had a lot of images sprayed on in the infrared. The snapping of the tether brought his boots back to the underside of the deck with a clank that forced him to bend his knees to reduce the stress. He let go of the tether, and started to slid the magnetized boots across the hull. The inside was covered in this odd silicon and sulfur atmosphere, definitely exotic, definitely a problem for invasion. The ambient gravity on their craft will be an unknown. Outside the ship itself, his footsteps were eerily quiet as he jogged across the half a kilometer length of the ship's "underside". This far out, the stars were few and far between, a depressing emptiness that smiled like a broken mouth at him. Still, at least we'll know what they look like, if we can get aboard their ships. No AI ever created could completely run a capital class war vessel.  He had reached the other side of the vessel, legs aching from the exertion of breaking the magnetic grip between his boot soles and the vessels deck.  Climbing back into the other end of the flight deck, he endured a mild reprieve from one of the flight techs for being outside of the ship on a pointless stunt like that, and exposing himself to zero atmosphere needlessly.
    Ren nodded and headed towards the showers, and from there to bed. His dreams, if he had any, remained unremembered come awakening.   
    There is nothing quite like a battle siren to jolt one from a sleep, especially if the sleep was troubled in the first place. As it was, Ren jolted out of bed, had his armor on in ten minutes, and was in his AIP and circling the Screaming Enkan in twenty, almost twitching with the adrenaline flowing through his arteries along with his blood. The commentary was fragmentary, but apparently they had jumped while he was sleeping, into a running battle between a badly outmatched force of Begmans and the invaders. They hadn't all come, only a third of the Holy Order's group and less than that of the Federations. It provided with odds that were a bit too close to equal for Ren to be entirely comfortable with, but they wanted information, and that meant captures. That meant they couldn't scare off the invaders with overwhelming force.

    There wasn't much time to plan a meticulous rescue; just on the order of get in ships there fast and try to save what can be saved. That meant that the strike craft, accelerating faster, would get in there first, and as the tiny ships burned in, Ren was glad of his powered armor, offering some protection against the acceleration forces that he knew were pressing him into the cockpit. As he zoomed, towards the tail end of the cone shaped fighter formation, he heard orders drifting into his ears.
   
    "Ordinator Gaulen, can you read, can you read?  Icepick flight will form up around you. You are to probe one of their frigate class vessels for insertion and engine disabling. We wish a capital ship in reasonable condition. Do you read, do you read?"

    Ren clicked his comm. in affirmative.

    After a few seconds consultation with Icepick flight, Ren, Blair, and a wingmate whose call sign sounded something like "Snerl" would do a flyby of one of the Outsider cannon frigates, while the remainder of the flight would stay behind to shepherd in an assault shuttle.

    With a grimace, Ren dove into the thick clouds of trailing strike craft, his two escorts behind him, and spread out, ready to fire upon anyone that paid too much attention to his odd little ship. The enemy seemed to take no notice of his craft, and he whirled past a sextet of tiny fighters, far smaller than anything the Federation flew, without them reacting.

    Being a bit lacking in maneuverability, the AIP had a rear turret, covering a reasonably wide arc. Normally, it was for simple deterrence, but with the Outsider fighters seemingly oblivious, intent upon approaching one of the Begman flights, he decided to turn away from the forward face, bring up the rear view, and fire upon one of them.

    The thing didn't even attempt to take evasive action, and almost disintegrated under Ren's casual fire. The other five fighters in the group altered their formation, but did not react to Ren's assault otherwise, instead flying into a group of Begman fighters and starting to dogfight.
His comm. flared to life once again, with just an audio of Blair this time. "We have an incoming group of four fighters. We're going to head them off. Do not fire on targets of opportunity. They don't seem to care too much about scouts."

    Nodding grimly, Ren burned off towards the closest of the cannon frigates, flew a tight spin around its hull, looking for an engine. It wasn't hard to find, and soon Ren not only knew where he wanted to insert, along an armor "seam" about a hundred meters up the hull, but had locked the location into his computer and radioed the rest of the assault team to make their run.

    He started to level out, building up a little bit of distance so he could accelerate smoothly to ramming speed, when a pair of those little pinwheel shaped fighters decided that he was getting too obtrusive for their taste and started lining up for a shot. Setting his rear turret to computer automatic, Ren hoped even the idiotic AI would be able to keep them from getting too close to him.  Switching to full evasive maneuvers, he shouted into his radio "Damn it Blair, where are you?"

    A response came back almost a second later, "Sorry sir. I'm flying naked now. I'll be able to cover you soon." Swallowing glumly at the terse reply, Ren bobbed and weaved, noticing little pieces of his armor flying away as a few odd metallic projectiles collided with his craft, thankful that the things didn't seem to be armed any more heavily. He managed to keep most of the hits away from his nose cone, which he would need to break into the hull of the frigate. By the time that Blair came in and drew attention away from the two fighters, his rear and sides were pretty pocketed, but they actually weren't all that close to a breach.

    Ren sent a short "Many Thanks" message over to his escort and leveled out. Glancing at his sensors told him that he'd probably be alone on the hostile ship for a bit over a minute before the shuttles with reinforcements could get in. Managing to shrug in the armor within the tight confines, he stomped on the acceleration pads, setting his rate of acceleration as quick as the metal could handle.

    The impact was cacophonous, and even though he knew sound couldn't travel through vacuum, Ren could swear that he heard the tortured screams of metal scraping against metal as the nose cone disengaged, widening the hole that it made upon first contact.

    The instant he regained control of his body, Ren vaulted out of the craft, and magnetically locked his boots to the floor, hoping to avoid being blown out with the rapid depressurization.  In that, he was partly disappointed, as some sort of greenish membrane seemed to secrete out of the walls over the gaping hole, preventing the atmosphere from flying out.

    It was only then that Ren noticed the interior of the vessel. It was dimly lit, although his infrared camera was showing all sorts of activity along different parts of the interior. As far as he could tell, the ship was hollow, forming almost a tube like construction.  The same silicon/sulfur atmosphere that the shattered fighters had traces of was present, and in abundance. The pressure reading stated that it would be almost four times the density of the sort of world he'd feel comfortable in. The overall ship was hot, well over 303 Kelvins, and as far as he could tell, running as quickly as he could while keeping his eye on the thermal scanner, devoid of life. There were no heat spikes that indicated a living creature anywhere on the vessel outside of his own armored shell. 

    Thinking this important enough to fiddle with the radio about, Ren diverted power away from his weapons and tried to boost through the static that the battle had to be kicking up. "This is Ordinator Gaulen, I am on a hostile ship, found no life, may be entirely cybernetic. Repeat, we may be facing an entirely cybernetic foe. There is no heat concentration anywhere along the ship. Gaulen out"

    It wasn't sight, or sound, or any sense that Ren could describe as more than instinct, but he engaged his thrusters and leaped backwards out of the way of a small metallic projectile that hurtled from somewhere along the hull. Ok, there is definitely something here that wants me gone.  A moment's search revealed the small cannon, and a small burst of laser fire melted the barrel.

    Deciding to take advantage of his three dimensional arena to work with, Ren demagnetized his boots, and then shot off towards his subjective left and up, and then after a second and a half's burn, went laterally to his right, spinning his body and sending out random lances of laser fire to keep whatever it was somewhat occupied.

    Right before he collided with the far wall, he noticed two things occurring around him. Firstly, the gas density around his area was spiking, well over 15 atmospheres now. More importantly however, was that the two shuttles following him in managed to find the weak membrane, and punch through it, rapidly disgorging over sixty marines. With his back covered, he checked to make sure his charges were still set on his belt, and started to jet towards the engine compartment of the frigate.

    Another one of those little balls struck the side of his helmet, and Ren blacked out.

    The first thing he was aware of was a feeling of weightlessness, buoyancy. The second was that he didn't hurt. The third was that he was out of his suit and breathing normal, nitrogen/oxygen air, with a very nice one atmospheric density. He cracked open an eye and light flooded into his orbs, stinging them.

    I must have been out a long, long time. Blinking through the tears, he noticed that he was in a dull green padded room, kept under artificially low artificial gravity. Craning his head more he saw,
   
    "Flora? Where are we? Wh-"

    She flicked a finger into a shushing position, and lightly bounded across the room. "We're on the medical ship Nebula.  They got you good, at the frigate, but you pulled through all right. A pellet cracked your suit, and that toxic mess in the ship got in."

    Ren was surprised at how alert he was. Usually, coming back from a wound left him muddy-headed for days after regaining consciousness. "We must have taken the ship over then, if we're back safe. How many did we lose?"

    "Not so bad as we thought, although the Begmans got hammered quite badly. There's been some grumbling that Admiral Krennek, our big boss, let the Begmans get hurt so that the Federation could lean on them harder, maybe even force full incorporation. I don't know the full losses to your assault team. Light though." She smiled, and spoke with the sort of desperate quickness that implied she memorized a set of details she didn't understand. "They laid down a leapfrog advance pattern, and jumped a demolition team into range of the engines, set down a set of explosives and slagged the propulsion.  Then they sent in a message to the rest of the fleet, which came crashing in. The Outsiders jumped away a few minutes later, only pausing to collect some of their closer strike craft."

    "So we won."

    She moved in closer. "Oh, we more than won. We learned. You should have seen the xenobiologists that got dragged along. They're in a collective state of euphoria. Apparently that gas stuff that we thought they breathed? They don't breathe it, they are it. Somehow, that silicon crap is alive, and it's what's crewing the ships. They're guessing that when they want a pilot for a ship, they just squeeze off a bit of gas, and it becomes the new pilot. Crazy huh?"
Ren suddenly felt tired again. "Yeah, crazy." He seemed to be able to hear a faint buzzing along the wall. Flora apparently heard it too, because she looked askance at the wall. "Sorry, looks like one of the orderlies is coming along. They'll kick me out for sure. I'm glad you pulled through." She leaned over the bed and kissed him, hurriedly but sweetly. "You recover enough so we can celebrate the victory more thoroughly, ok?"

    With a laugh, she darted out of the room, leaving Ren feeling buoyed in more ways than the low gravity. He whistled to himself while waiting to see who would come to see him next. To his slight surprise, it was not a medical man, but a very tall, slightly overweight green equine, in a brilliant white Federation Admiral's uniform. He was holding a datapad and what looked like a bottle of pills in his hands.

    At the sight of him, Ren moved to rise, but a short gesture from the man cut off that motion. "You're hurt, you lay still and recover." Ren couldn't quite place his accent, and it troubled him for a moment. "Prelate Ekhensen informed me that you have some exotic illness and that you're supposed to have this" indicating with the bottle and placing it down on a bed stand near Ren.  "The doctors cleared it and everything, you know, the way they act, you'd think I was just some raw recruit trying to smuggle something in."

    He straightened, backed away ever so slightly, and smiled. Something about it reminded Ren of the way the recently mentioned prelate did, although it crossed species and unimaginable distance. "Listen son, I know you got hurt, first one in boarding that ship, and you might have given us the data we need to win this war. Avowed Federation policy is to allow a rotational period out of the theater, and three weeks leave, and I believe the Holy Order of Asheron has the same view of things. But we need boarders.  We sent in two attacks into the docking bays of their carriers, and they got slaughtered, so we need AIP pilots. And one of them got shot down out there. That leaves you, and this hotshot punk calling himself Scott Rubel. Between the two of us, I don't trust him to fly straight if he doesn't feel like it on that day, so I'm here to beg you, for the good of the task force, to sign a waiver saying in effect that you want to stay and fight. I'm not trying to browbeat you, or shove you wounded into the fray. The report I got said that you were effectively fine, that they managed to purge the enemy out of your system, quite literally. Can you help us out here? The Begmans need our, need your help. " He started pacing around. "I want to impress this upon you son. This is classified data, and if you even breathe a word of this in your sleep, I'll deny even knowing you. Omicron seven got hit three days ago. Turned an entire city dome into glass and the death toll is looking to be over a hundred million. We're winning, we're going to drive these blobs back into the emptiness they came out of, but unless we're right every time, a lot of innocent people are going to die. We really need everything we've got at our disposal, and that means shouldering more than would be your fair share. I'm sorry."

    The light feeling seemed to fade into a crushing weight upon his chest. It wasn't just hearing the damage, although he was horrified at this kind of viciousness, he felt himself being manipulated, and didn't like the feeling, especially since he wondered why someone would be making such an effort to get him to do something he probably would have done anyway. He did feel fine, maybe a bit groggy, but that was probably from whatever sedative they kept him on. To cover for himself, he searched the bed stand for ... yes, a small water bulb, and shook a set of two pills out of the bottle. Smiling sadly, he swallowed the two with a water squirt. "I really do need this stuff. Thank you very much for delivering it sir. Of course I'll sign." He took the proffered datapad, planted a thumbprint at the appropriate spot. "Just don't expect me to vault back into the cockpit in a few minutes."

    "Of course not son. In fact, if I don't withdraw soon, the meds are likely to chase me out with a scalpel, rank or no." He left hurriedly, and Ren thought he saw a strange gleam in the man's eyes just before he turned to leave.

    The rest of the day passed in a haze, as he was put under another sedative. When he came to next, he was aboard the Screaming Enkan, with a gaggle of young troopers cheering over him as he awoke. There was apparently an impromptu party going on, and food and beverages (Ren noted, with a hint of distaste, that the discipline in the food at least was tighter here than on the Wide Load, nothing sugary or alcoholic was present.) It went on for a few hours, and was only dampened by the absence of a certain canine girl, who probably would be denied access to a Holy Order vessel to attend a party she might not even know about.

    It subsided, as such things eventually do, and Ren settled back in to his normal activities. He simmed often, but didn't fly much. The Outsiders tended to run when spotted, and the general consensus was that they were waiting and trying to rebuild what they could of their fleet before risking another confrontation. Good news trickled in from the analysis teams. Apparently the Outsiders had a funny form of superluminal travel. Instead of the usual continual warping of space throughout time traveled that was common in the Federation, these outsiders tore little holes in the fabric of space and "jumped" through, often light years at a time. The thing was, analysis of the captured frigate indicated that they didn't have enough power to make multiple jumps. If they could catch their fleet soon after a jump, the enemy would have no choice but to come out and fight.

    They settled into a routine that was boring, yet exhausting, a nasty game of cat and mouse that involved keeping in hyperspace until the Outsiders showed up, and chasing them off, sometimes downing a capital ship or two. Every time the enemy fled, Ren felt this maddening itch between his shoulder blades, and an icy feeling in his stomach, something he couldn't get at in his powered armor.  He told himself it was just worry, that the thought of them getting away to slaughter another city enraged him. The more pessimistic part of him worried that it was some exotic aftereffect of the injury he sustained earlier, and that he might be taken off of active duty.

    Roughly a week after Ren went back into active duty, new orders drifted down from command.  Once again, the bulk of the fleet was to depart the general vicinity, prompting a raid on one of the Begman mining outposts.  The raid would be responded to with a minimal force, not enough to defeat the raiders. It would however, attempt to capture one of the capital ships and send in a computer team to try to break into their computers. If they could discern the fallback position, they could mop up this fleet soon. Ren went to his sims with an almost feverish intensity, and paid special attention to this new "atmospheric disruptor" weapon that was being distributed, which would hopefully break apart the necessary proportions that the "gassies" as they were being called, needed for their form of existence to be stable.

    It seemed like no time at all, although the standard calendar ticked away thirteen more days, that they were finally called into action, prompting a joke about relativistic speeds from Ren and a groan from the assembled pilots to be covering him. The fleet that shot out to intercept the outsiders was a mere destroyer and frigate flotilla, although buzzing with a small swarm of strike craft, most specially attached to one use rings for launching outside their standard carriers.

    Ren managed to count to three hundred, starting from when the first wave of fighters was launched until he was released to join up with his little cone of escorts for the upcoming boarding action. Blair and his flight of light fighters were apparently already in the fray, leading Federation Wishbone class heavy fighters to make up the escort. Ren nodded in satisfaction. The wishbones, named for their distinctive shape, weren't as quick or agile as some, but they packed a punch and could take some hits.

    Somewhat to his surprise, he heard Admiral Krennel himself over the comm. as he launched. Apparently he was directing the battle himself from the destroyer, and Ren privately smirked thinking about dumping the guy into a smaller ship. He wasn't part of the Order, but he was dedicated, Ren would give him that.

    "Alright, boarding flights, you know what we're here to do. You guys are the key to this whole operation. All you need to do is get that computer team to the enemy intact, and pull the information as to where their fleet will fall back if attacked. They have to have those coordinate preprogrammed in.  Your computers should have what frigate you're suppose- What? Now!?"

    The comm. blanked out for a second and then went back in. "I just knew this would happen. AIP pilot or not, I am going to bust his ass down to toilet cleaner. Pilot Rubel says he can't fly, vomiting in his armor or something. This is up to you now. We have to have a boarding action, and that means an AIP insertion. Get that frigate, and I'll be here on the Dominion praying for you. Get it done."

    Gulping with the pressure, Ren sent his 'ready' signal and watched as the rest of the column moved forward, him a small nut at the center of the geometric figure.  Twice fighters broke off from the escort, now reinforced with the group that was going to go with Rubel, as well as his compliment of computer specialists. Normally one to ignore the pressure being directed at him, Ren found himself with his own set of shakes. Suppose they missed where the fleet was coming again, and this time Begma prime was hit?  Ren was an old enough flier to know that knotting his guts up wasn't going to help, but he felt the tension building, understood how Scott could break down under it.

    Need to focus. Need to just relax and fly. His comm. clicked on again, it was just a four word message of "You can do it", but Floramiel's voice managed to banish his muscle knots, even a good deal of the sweat. Breaking policy, he let out a loud whoop on all open channels, and accelerated his craft towards the frigate that was his target to penetrate, to break, to capture.

    A few thousand kilometers away, the Dominion rotated around its central spine, and at a wearied command from the admiral, opened fire with four lances of energy.

    The comm. channel of Ren's flight was in total chaos.
    "What just happened?"
    "Was it friendly fire? The dauntless isn't supposed to?"
    "How bad are we hit?"
    "Are we omega?"
    "Panic, panic, I'm leaking oxygen."
    "Mission is a scrub. Repeat, mission is a scrub. We have lost all of our technical vessels. We are calling in the main fleet, stand by for normal carrier landing."

    Ren sat in the cockpit, not controlling his craft at all, just flying a speeding arc, his fingers too numb to alter the controls. Just like that. Just like that. She's... The itch across his shoulder blades was starting again. They must be planning to jump out. Maybe they did it already. I am going to KILL you Rubel. If she had stayed with you, she'd be safe! Ren could taste blood in his mouth, and his teeth ached from clenching. His whole body ached actually, felt too tight. His craft's motion was arrested as two of the Wishbones following along pinned him with their tractor beams.   

    His suit was definitely feeling tighter, no matter how shocked with grief he might have been. What? No? My meds! Not Now!! There is sound inside of an atmosphere cockpit, and Ren could feel his rage feeding his demonic form, one which had quite a bit more mass and bulk than his regular furred self, tearing the powered suit open from the inside with a hideous screech that reminded him of how he toyed with a prisoner that he rent between his claws.

    Lightit'shot.IwanttoKIllSOMETHINGRIGHTNOW!RUBEL!DIERUBELDIE.ICan'twrestlethese controlsfree! I hate you. He tried to turn his weapons that could move on the Wishbones, but the pilots were too deft, kept gliding away from his angles of fire while maintaining their tractor lock. A voice rang in on the comm., and he realized it was shouting, before it penetrated his blood lusted haze. "HUNTER! HUNTER ONE! We need to know where they went RIGHT NOW! You can find them; you can track anything through their warp. If you tell us where they are, you can kill them. They took your mate from you Hunter. They must pay, but for them to pay, you have to tell us where they are." Ren could hear some sort of gas seep in from his seat. It calmed him, somewhat. His mood was murderous instead of mindlessly furious.

    The glass of the cockpit was somewhat reflective, and Ren closed his eyes, so as not to see the scaled green face, as wide as his shoulders, with tusks protruding from both the upper and lower jaw. He focused, following the rips that the Outsiders made, thinking it into coordinates, relating them to the other ship. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a second green haze seeped in, not quite making him lose consciousness, but enough to blur him up. He had no sense of direction or time, and could only say that some time later, he found himself in an empty room with Admiral Krennel.

    "If you want someone to blame, blame me. I heard about your condition, and know a few things about how you hunt with it. I don't pretend to understand everything, but apparently your demonic form smells, for lack of a better word, by opening up small holes in space. It's how you were able to track the Ashen Veil cult across worlds, that first time. Yes, I have your whole service record on file."
He sighed, paced around the room. Ren realized that he was in a chair, in a dull white room, bound with something that would yield to his new musculature.  He strained at the bonds, as the admiral continued speaking. "It was after that attack that I came up with the idea. It was damn hard to predict where they would hit next, you see, and I had to keep another hundred million people from dying, or more. The whole operation was a bluff you see, a bluff on you, not the enemy. Scott Rubel never has nerves, he's a virtuoso. And we can't understand how their computers work. We can't even understand how they manage to think, being gas. That operation didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. But you could track them, or so my people assured me, if your demonic form could be made tractable. The main fleet jumped into their rally point half an hour ago, and are crushing them as we speak. They can't go superluminal, so they'll have to fight. And they'll die, we outgun them too badly. They'll be punished."

     Ren managed to snap his bonds, stood, stretched.  The admiral backed away, but gave off no stench of fear that Ren could detect. "I just need to say one more thing. I tampered with your medication, so that I could be sure you turned into a."
     
    To Ren, his blood tasted rich, but a bit thin. He crushed the skull against the deck plate into a consistency of raspberry jam, and sat on his haunches and howled at the sky.