“Exiting wormhole in 3…2…1…”
The massive battleship suddenly appears in real space as its retro thrusters kick in bringing its 400,000 ton mass to a halt. Quickly it is followed by several other massive ships, some even larger, but all just as precise in their stopping and holding of formation. Meanwhile the reason they were there was looking at their video projection screen and doing their race’s equivalent of a head shake in disbelief.
“Battle command, this is Admiral Simineaux of Gian Battle Group One on board the Battleship Missouri with its accompanying carrier group, what is the current state of battle.”
“With your arrival? Bleak.”
“Do you say that because we are here, or because we upgraded the situation to bleak?”
The response came timidly from General Sewsew of the third galactic battle group as they did not wish to antagonize the Terrain Admiral, “Honestly, a little of the first, and a lot of the latter. Don’t take me wrong, I’ve never worked with your people before so I only have anecdotal information from colleagues…who probably did not like being shown up in battle. After the battle of Lucian two years ago your reputation precedes you though.
Even with your arrival we are severely outgunned, and we can not seem to bring their shielding down. So every volly we launch just disappears as it hits their shields.”
At that moment the enemy flagship hits the Missouri with a full broadside. Mighty Mo shimmies a bit but no damage is done beyond some scorch marks on her hull.
“General Sewsew are you firing energy rounds or kinetic?”
“Scattered plasma bursts? You have options?”
“We have several choices, pardon me a second” Again Mighty Mo is shaken.
The admiral turns to her gunnery sergeant.
“Sarge, light ‘em up!”
“Yes ma’am!”
“General, let’s see what my gunners can do.”
Before she had finished speaking, Mighty Mo’s massive turrets had swung into target lock and with a fire breathing blaze let loose her first volley, a returned full broadside. With bright flashes the rounds found the enemy shields, causing them to shimmer, wink, and glow in a kaleidoscope of colors.
“Adjusting shell choice Admiral, preparing for round two…and fire!”
One gun let out a single projectile traveling at near relativistic speed, it closed the gap almost instantly. A rod of man made diamond six inches round and thirty-six inches long passed through the enemy shields and their ships hull.
“Admiral we have a hit, they’re venting atmosphere at both entry and exit points. Reloading, targeting engines, and passing information to the battle group.”
Seeing something pass through their shields the enemy commander ordered his tactical officer to fire at will on the Gian battle group. Thousands of energy rounds dissipated across the group's shields and hulls. Then an anti-plasma round found the hull of Pig Pen and put a gash in it.
“Pig-pen, looks like you’re hit…what’s the damage?”
“Bulkheads locked down, non mission critical equipment storage vented; otherwise I have a bunch of very angry Marines on board now.”
“Tell’em to get ready for hand to hand boarding. On my mark scramble the Warthogs.”
“Yes ma’am!” As the com shuts off she can hear the Captain of Pigpen “Alright, y’all on the launch platform…”
“Gunnery?”
“Yes Admiral.”
“I cast FIREBALL!”
Gunnery relays “Turret two, lock and load Admiral’s order ‘I cast FIREBALL”
Gunnery targets the enemy’s most heavily armed ship, and in a flash a solid diamond tipped shell is accelerated to point ninety-nine of C and as soon as it passes into the hull a twenty megaton yield of plutonium turns the inky darkness of space into a blinding flash of light. The enemy dreadnaught for a few brief moments becomes a small star and most of the enemy ships just outside of the blast radius are now free floating in space from the electromagnetic pulse.
“Pigpen, launch the hogs!”
On her command 450 A-50 Warthogs started catapulting off the carrier deck of CSF-68. With space filled with small fighters the enemy flag ship began to turn toward CSF-68 as its targeting system was locked but its maneuvering thrusters still operated.
“Gunnery, finish that bastard. I don’t care what you throw at it, just do it.”
“Admiral, there’s too many of our own in the path and they’re already ducking and weaving to avoid enemy fire.”
“Fine, we do this the hard way!”
Grasping the great wheel, she turns Mighty Mo so her bow lines up with the flagship and opens coms.
“MAKE A HOLE! BB-63 COMING THROUGH!”
“Engineering, we’ve got two thousand kilometers; how much speed can you give me?”
“I can get you to point five of C”
“Let’s do it.”
General Sewsew pops up again. “Admiral, what is your attempt? It looks like you intend to…ram the flagship?”
“You're about to see a 400,000 ton bullet in action.”
She pats her rubber duck, lights a cigar, then grabs the handle on the chadburn giving the cavitate order and her com comes to life from the enemy ships commander.
Its seven feet of exoskeletal mass making it look like a giant dung beetle filled the screen, but what hit Admiral Simineaux the hardest was a leash in one of its clawed appendages that lead down to a small familiar face.
“Grandma!”
The commander spoke next “So this youngling is yours? I don’t suggest you do anything brash, but if you want her you’ll need to do that in person.”
The com clicked out, and Admiral Simineaux opened the internal hails.
“Captain has the con, ladies I need a boarding party! No quarter, no mercy, they have children as hostages, among them is my granddaughter. This battle has just gotten personal! Meet in boarding bay three.”
“Admiral, you are going into battle?”
“Once a Marine, always a Marine. First in the fight, that’s why I always take command of the ship. Let Pigpen know what’s up, I have a granddaughter to rescue and an ugly enemy to personally execute.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for your pick-up beacon. Godspeed Admiral.”
The admiral runs through the corridors repeatedly yelling “make a hole” until she enters boarding bay three. The assembled boarding party is two hundred strong and barely manages to squeeze into the bay. They all turn as the admiral enters giving their best power armored salutes.
“Let’s skip the pleasantries ladies, we have a job to do.”
In unison they respond “Yes sir!”
The Admiral walks over to the only still closed power armor locker and places her eye to the retinal scanner. The lock opens and her suit slides out for her to enter.
Her suit doesn’t have the same camouflage patterns of her party, but is painted in dress uniform black with white trim. Her many service bars also painted on its chest plate just below her battle name “Valkyrie”, the Marine corps insignia on her shoulders “semper fi” written across the back along the shoulders. A massive sword hangs on her left side, and she starts loading up weapons as her boarding party watches in awe.
She notices her crew of commandos staring, “what’s up ladies?”
One person speaks for them all. “Sorry, ma’am we never realized you are also a Marine and none of us ever thought we’d fight with a legend…with Valkyrie.”
“Well, during this excursion that’s my name. During this I’m a grunt like y’all, we cover each other, we leave no one behind, as for me I already told y’all this is personal. Our mission is the same, to end this conflict. Sadly, we have to do this the bloody way…room by room.
Now, y’all ready? Cuz I am opening a can of whoop ass that those shit eaters never expected, and I doubt they are ready for the wrath of a human grandma Marine.”
Valkyrie opens two cans of energy drinks and pours them into her suit's alternate drink system as her commandos cheer, realizing she really is one of them.
“Captain, we in position?”
“Yes ma’am, ready for boarding party, and the mixtape is ready. Good hunting Valkyrie!”
As the Captain finishes Ride of the Valkyries starts playing over open coms.
Someone in the assembled party merely says “fitting” and they all leap out the bay door into the open space between Mighty Mo and the enemy flagship. They each flip and turn as they orient their trajectory and engage thruster packs. As Valkyrie prepares to engage hers she sees other boarding parties disembarking from other ships as well and thinks to herself “hold on Eve, grandma’s coming and I’m bringing an army.” Her tactical readout shows a thousand mechs converging on the flagship including an entire battalion of the Army’s 75th Ranger Corps, and the Tokushu-sakusengun.”
“This is Commander Toyoda, Valkyrie, I understand you are out here too.”
“What are you doing out here Sanji?”
“Almost the same as you, I plan to gut a bug. So whichever one of us gets there first gets the honor, second gets Eve out of there. Whatever that thing is, it has no idea what happens when a little girl’s daddy is angry at them. Got me some Raid, Black Flag, and a katana, on board, time to fumigate this infestation!”
“Valkyrie, the enemy flagship, has altered flight path, looks like they are going atmo. I assume they realize you are on the way and you’re too small to target lock on.”
“Okay ladies, you heard Cap things are about to get hot. Keep the target, I don’t want to lose anyone to friction caused by air resistance!”
With coms closed Valkyrie kicked her thrusters up and began closing the gap between her and the flagship. The rest of the troops did the same and soon with a heavily felt thud she slams onto the flag ship's hull. She draws her plasma cutter and jams it into the ship's hull. Soon the hole is deep enough the atmosphere begins venting into space with a tumultuous spay of air and instantly freezing humidity.
“This tin can has enough humidity to be St. Louis in July!”
Several other Marines joined her and in seconds a chunk of hull plate larger enough for her mech to pass through is free floating away from the ship. Valkyrie looks across the hull and sees many such openings with Marines jumping in as fast as they open. Valkyrie dives through head first followed by two marines and twenty army Rangers.
“Everyone make it to the party?”
“Yes Sir!” Comes the reply as the coms automatically tallies up all present and accounted for.
“Okay, time to divide and conquer. Marines make a mess of this place, I want all weapons offline. Rangers, secure engineering. I need control of this tin can in short order and get it back out of atmo. Commander Toyoda, I need the bridge. Everyone, this is a room by room search, leave nowhere unchecked! You should each have enough space to carry out a child or two in your suits, yes it will be a bit cramped inside with them, but they are safer emotionally scarred than left outside of our care. To me it is obvious they raided a school as Eve should have been in class. Their hostages are now our top priority and our most precious cargo. If you can get large groups of kids in escape pods then do it and get them back to Mo or the Nimitz! Let’s get a move on cuz we’re burnin daylight!”
Valkyrie starts walking toward the bow and watching for paths leading up as she knows she is several decks below the bridge. Periodically she open hand points to doors and a couple Marines break it in. Mostly they are empty but one in nine still has an occupant though not for long.
“Valkyrie, this is seaman Soong. We found the hostages, according to their intel all except for Eve are present and accounted for. They are telling us she was drug out and has not been returned.”
“Pardon, this is Ranger Ghost, we have a large freight shuttle secured and can get the hostages out.”
“Okay you two work out the logistics, get those kids off this soon to be wreck either to Mo or Pigpen, whichever that shuttles fits in.”
“Aye, aye sir”
“Toyoda, report? Where in Hell you at?”
“Unlike you, we are using stealth to breach the bridge. We should be inside in a few minutes. Although all the noise your Marines are making is a good distraction.”
“Ha ha, this from someone who loudly sings off key at Christmas dinner every year.”
“Ouch! That hurts my feelings Mom.”
They laugh with coms open letting their crews know they may be jabbing each other, but it is just in fun.
Valkyrie’s group turned a corner and in doing so walked into an ambush of auto defence turrets and enemy soldiers. Being in the lead Valkyrie takes the first shots, the plasma being absorbed by either her armor or her suit’s magnetic shielding. She sets her feet in a firing stance and spools up her arm mounted thirteen millimeter Gatlin gun, letting loose 3,000 lead projectiles in a minute. With the enemy soldiers dealt with because they were ill equipped to handle that many kinetic impacts, her troop was concentrating fire on the auto turrets. With well placed flash grenades they overwhelmed the sensor array causing the turrets to go offline.
“Valkyrie, this is Ghost. We have engineering.”
“I thought you were dealing with a shuttle full of kids?”
“Seaman Soong here sir, the Magic School Bus has already left the party. Next stop Old Mc Donaldson’s farm, only place with a big enough field to land this thing.”
“Very well, so long as the kids are safe.”
“I wouldn’t quite say that as we are taking heavy fire from enemy craft.”
“Donaldson here, the Warthogs and Apaches are on it!”
With Valkyrie’s gatling gun out of ammo she swaps point to another Marine. Two more sets of ambush points and three defense turret nests later and they are standing with commander Toyoda outside the bridge.
“I thought we were late to the party, but you haven’t even opened the doors yet.”
“Tricky lock, harder material, and a lot thicker, they tried to secure their command better than anywhere else.”
“Ghost, can you open the bridge remotely from engineering?”
“No sir, the main door is offline. It appears to be unplugged from the inside.”
“Any other way in there?”
“Working on it, but so far only if you want to walk around the outside and vent it, and I am aware that is not an option at this time. Life scans show a crew of twelve and one human. By audio feed through their coms it sounds like they are terrified. Eve is talking…
“You may as well open the door, because dad or grandma will get it open soon, and I really don’t know who you should fear more…just hope they don’t tag team you!” *maniacal little girl laughing fills the air*
“Psychological warfare at her age, I’m impressed! Commander Toyoda, well done!”
“Oh, she gets that from her mom, mom. The scariest part is that’s your laugh.”
“Why is that scary?!”
Laughter fills the coms.
“Ma’am, when you laugh like that it usually means something really, really, bad is about to happen to whoever is in your crosshairs.”
“Alright ladies, we’re going to put a bunch of plasma cutters to this door, and make it a simmering pool of molten slag. As the old saying goes ‘it can’t be stuck if it’s a liquid.”
Four plasma cutters are jammed into the door and as their batteries go dead someone else jumps in. In twenty excruciating minutes Valkyrie kicks the door in with a very loud thud.
Commander Toyoda walks in directly behind Valkyrie as her armor takes everything the enemy can throw at her. As she walks in she begins laughing just like Eve as she walks toward her. Toyoda slips around staying behind Valkyrie his own armor being hit hard as he decapitates the two guards holding Eve with his Katana. He swaps to a plasma cutter and removes her bindings as three members of his crew form a perimeter around them. He opens his suit and Eve quickly climbs inside.
“Mom, I have Eve.”
“Roger, now get her out of here…she doesn’t need to see grandma’s vengeance!
Boarding party’s over ladies, get your asses off of this scrap heap now!”
Toyoda calls through the coms “Making a hole!”
He tosses a grenade at a viewing port and the atmosphere vents violently dragging him and Eve out as it does. He quickly rights himself and locks on the Yamato.
Valkyrie, still standing in the bridge rams her arm through the enemy commander’s kitan and leaves her own grenade inside them. She stands there watching the coms verify her crew’s escape and once she sees all are accounted for she walks out of the side of the ship locking on to Mo.
“Hostages and crew accounted for; enemy command eliminated. Ladies, let's wrap this up so we can go home. Fire command fireball is authorized at will, you may commence firing once the Apaches and Warthogs are safely out of range.”
“Aye-aye Admiral!”
Six hours later General Sewsew was in the Missouri having dinner with Admiral Simineaux as the enemy had been routed and all that remained was to push the debris field into an artificial set of rings around the planet.
Maura out
If you wonder why it is Admiral Simineaux who runs Mighty MO it is because my cousin served on her and was on deck when the surrender was signed on September 2, 1945.
