Incidents ((Open))

Fire ripples across the gleaming hull, flowing violently around the electrically charged pads and erupting in isolated storms of flame and lightning.  The hull glows, red, orange, settling to a disturbing and blistering white, the metal clinging to its form, resisiting the urge to liquify and surrender to the heat.  Inferno and debris plume, like a comets tail, far behind the mass, the tail lengthening with each passing second, marking the acceleration down to earth. 

A pause.  Only the darkness, the flames flickering but motionless, the heat searing yet unfelt, the noise as loud as silence.  They feel it stop, it feels like eternity, yet it is an illusion they are accustomed to. 

Time does not stop. 

Inevitabilty takes hold.

The earth splits to welcome the craft.  Ash, long since fallen, ascends once more around the ship, a cocoon of grey mist enveloping the flames.  Thundereous ruptures reverberate along the hull to a crescendo of catacylsm.  Metal creaks and split, glass shatters to a million shards, instantly melted to a liquid form and condensing across the tungsten carbide shell.  The ground shakes, rocks and remants of a further past break and crumble in the path of the ship and leave no trace in the long wake behind but for dust.  Flames billow as the ship slows, smoke creating a blackened veil over the craft, yet the plume diminishes.  The ships slows.  The rift behind, forever marking the earth with the deep scar, settles. 

Hisses of open pipes.  Creaks of groaning metal.  The crackle of cinders and the sparks of electricity.  But no voices. 

A gentle creak, almost unnoticeable with the noise around it, emanates from what was once the port-side of the craft.  A sliver of metal, small yet significant drops to the earth with a echoing clang.  It spins on its corner, perhaps in an effort to retain life, but it too is bound to inevitabilty.  It falls, slow, solemn, surrendering to inertia, clattering to the dust.  The engraving still clear, the markings still prominent. 

((To Be preluded and furthered))

Whirlings of chain guns streamed past everyway as far as anyone could see, nowhere to turn without being met with a hail of bullets.

Targie sighed,

"So we may have taken Zion or Old Zion or whatever but I guess this war isn't over yet. Though I suppose it makes sense... they've lost their city, they've been forced to retreat they have little else to lose, I just hope they can see the futility of war before it is too late"

The entire ship shook after taking a direct hail of bullets, Targie braced himself to try and keep steady but ntohing came except the piercing sound of Lucas' voice from the room behind him.

"Targie! Zion craft on the left, it's a heavy one, we can take him if we keep moving. What are your orders?"

Lucas had become much more respectful over the year or so Targie had been in charge, for a while they had always argued about the course of action, always at each others throats but now they had become good friends. Targie slung his head back to think...

"Can I give the order to shoot with a clear consience? Way back when I would have had no problem, but I'm no mercenary anymore I have a purpose, I want peace... can I really fire back? Survival of the fittest, this is war I can't stand around like a sitting duck. I have no choice... heh heh do I really believe that?"

The crew was understaffed, they had very few resources, Targie could pilot his heavy craft as though it was a lightweight so they had no problems in combat... but why is he fighting them anyway? They're only humans.

The ship shook again... another hail of bullets.

"TARGIE! Now would be good!"

"Argh! Hold your fire! We're getting out of here!"

"Wha!? ...Yes sir"

"Alrighty, Let's dance! Anything on radar?"

"Well yeah the big thing that's shooting at us! Other than that no"

"Right-o"

Targie pulled the ship around and shot through the tunnel the zion craft originally came out of, the zion craft had no chance of pursuit, once they were out of radar range Targie landed the ship.

"Lucas! Put Lee on the comms"

Lucas responded with an aura of pain emitting from his voice "W-we can't get through"

"What!?" Targie hung his head "Get the co-ordinates, we're checking it out"

"But, it could take hours! We'll be surrounded"

"Lucas if there's one thing I've learnt since I was freed it would be this. Zamp doesn't die. If we can't connect then they're critical but far from dead, I'll take any risk at all to get them help; any risk"

Several hours had passed, the ship had been completely silent for all of these hours except fort he whirring of machines, drilling, wiring and the occasional cuss of pain all over the ship. Targie had been working on a technique he learned from his former engineering instructor Ozzin. Because of the lack of a crew he was rewiring all the weaponry to aim and fire into one place, controllable by Lucas in front of the navigation devices.

 "Always find someway to come in handy huh Ozz? Even when you're nowhere around"

Lucas had boomed in as Targie was reconnecting all the systems, there was a look of dread on his face, his tone of voice much quieter than his usual loud self.

"I've scanned everything, boosted the signal well beyond it's limits but..." Lucas hung his head before he finished "Nothing"

The last word hit Targie like a bullet, Could it be possible? Could they be dead?...No, Zamp doesn't die, he's out there. They're out there. Finally Targie uttered his words.

"The flame is still there..." This left Lucas completely puzzled.

"What are you talking about?"

"The flame... Oriens Veritas... it's still there"

"What?"

"Those three are the last survivors of Oriens Veritas, if they die the flame fades, sure Veritas Lucis can carry on but I've always felt something that was there ever since  joined the Simus so long ago, it was like a fuel. Veritas Lucis is merely a succesor but it will not suceed Oriens until Oriens fades"

"You can't be suggesting?..."

"They're alive or... at least one of them is. I know it, I can feel it"

"Well what now"

"We go look for them... what else?"

Lucas let out a sigh "I knew you were going to say that, you are truly suggesting we search every single pipeline and tunnel to find them? In the middle of a war no less?"

"No, not every tunnel and pipeline, only the necessary ones, the flame will guide us, until the flame runs out they still have a chance"

Targie hopped into the cockpit and sat down as a confused Lucas stood at the door.

"Erm? What's with the rush?"

"Zionites, set up a link with Dash and Gookin"

"What are their ships again?"

"Why does it matter? Find the two machinist ships being chased by 3 zionite ones heading in our general direction and open up a three-way broadcast"

"R...Right!"

Targie began mashing on buttons when a generic lifeless voice let out a command

"Insert anti-security protocol to disable auto-pilot"

He let out a groan and a yell of anger as he looked between the keypad on his left and the revealed auto-pilot mechanism to his right.

"Universal over-ride!" He slammed his fist into the mechanism which was followed by a moment of silence. The ship began to plummet towards the ground.

Targie sat at the controls, unshaken at his seemingly grave mistake before pushing a button which caused the ship to come to life again in a blur of light accompanied by a roaring engine the craft seemed to have a mind of it's own as it pulled itself in a 180 degree turn bursting off in the opposite direction to before. He thought about his action and yelled to Lucas:

"Sorry! Conflicting promises!" He'd promised Lucas that he wouldn't pull that particular stunt again, but he didn't care at this moment of time, all that did matter was getting to the Simus in the shortest time possible, his thoughts were interrupted by the ill-strucken voice of Lucas.

"Beh, l-link is.... up"

Targie quickly thought of something to say before sticking his headset on and speaking into the microphone.

"Top of the mornin' fellas, How's it going"

Gookin made no hesitation with his reply

"Peachy! Now enough with the *CENSORED* talking and give us some fire!"

"Fire? Hell no! You know I wouldn't do that. Look I'll get their attention and pull them the other way, you two keep going and I'll catch up later."

Dash just sighed down the headset prior to speaking with an instructive tone.

"Targie! Quit messing around this is serious! You're suggesting suicide! It's rather them than you and the Balt! We have to fight back!"

Targie just laughed and responded,

"I suppose it was suicide the first 7 times... but then there's only 6 dents in the Balt. I counted, be there in a second guys!"

Targie looked puzzled at the blazing fireball that was once a zionite ship he sighed and yelled into the room behind him.

"Lucas! I said fire 3 rounds damnit! Grrrrr!"

"We had to! We had no choice but to take it down!"

"The whole point was "Distraction"! Remind me again of how many guns that those little guns control"

Lucas sighed and blurted out "6"

"That's right! 6! Now we have to reload those 6 guns Lucas!"

Lucas had a tone of confusion in his voice

"Y...yeah? We're bleeding spare ammo it's no problem..."

"Who's gonna reload the guns Lucas?"

Lucas realised his mistake, He and Targie were the only ones aboard the ship, the auto-pilot wasn't in a state in which it could be used and Lucas had to navigate.

Targie followed up his previous statement,

"How many rounds have we got left?"

"Errm... t-two"

Targie cursed the circumstances that he had once again managed to find himself in, he muttered under his breath

"Will you ever stop jinxing me Plectrum? Hell I never even met you..."

Ever the optimist Targie once again slapped his headset on:

"Right... we looking for the other one or moving ahead? If we're fighting then we have a slight... issue if I'm gonna get a decent shot in I'll need some cover fire, alternatively I can get him lined up nicely to give you a clear shot. Which do you guys want?"

Dash responded;

"We're gonna find him, I'm hardly in the mood for being ambushed again, got any particular ideas Gookin?"

 Targie took the silence  as an oppurtunity to give his next order.

"Lucas! Boost the signal range and find our little pal"

Targie laughed to himself

"Poor Gookin"

Targie's laughter quickly turned into a frown as he realised the sluggish pace that the Balt was moving at, he once again began running ideas through his head to make it move faster, he often stayed awake at night running these ideas through his head. His dream as far as the craft was concerned was to bring it up to the pace of a light weight class ship. Never before had he thought that more appropriate than now.

He had been in many situations where he held his life in his hands and a faster craft would have been the most useful thing to ask for, however the feeling to make the ship faster was always in the back of his head. He always valued the lives of others in front of his own, even those of people he had never met unless of course he had a particular reason to end their lives. Now his dream had become somewhat of a nightmare in his desperation to find the others.

"The engine won't take any more modifications... Can't do any streamlining until we get back to 01... must remember to do that. Can't drop any loads... Power... that's it!"

Targie's face beamed up.

"Lucas! Load 3 constructs and then circumvent the power to the engine!"

Lucas hardly shared Targie's optimism:

"The engine will set on fire!"

"Exactly! Then not only will we be faster than anything but we'll be getting lighter by the second so we'll..."

"Explode... We'll be super light then Targie, but then it doesn't matter how fast we're going if we're dead!"

Targie's face dropped, he'd thrown away logic he was desperate and didn't care but Lucas was right, dying for a reason was one thing... but dying to go fast enough to get somewhere where you would be useless was pointless, Targie uttered his next words,

"M-minor design flaw... There must be something we can do..."

Targ set his eyes forward, continuing on the path he was on and let out a sigh.

"C'mon flame... you must have an idea..."

"LUCAS! HOW MUCH FUEL DO WE HAVE LEFT!?"

Targie yelled this with a shrill of excitement in his voice

"In 01 trips from here?"

"As per usual"

"At this speed... just over one"

Targie smiled

"Then I hope you'll be ready to push"

"Targie... no... don't do it"

Targie's face was beaming, sure he had always been planning to get the ship faster and faster but every great pilot has an ace up his sleeve but those ace's aren't fairgame and so can't be counted, in Targie's case it was useless unless in short bursts anyway.

He twiddled a few levers as a voice came on

"All power re-routed to thrusters, thruster power 250%, defensive systems, down. Offensive systems, down, navigation, down, reserve fuel tanks engaged, estimated time to emptied fuel tanks 4 hours"

"Targie... you just killed us both, remember what I said about the explosions earlier?"

"Of course, why do you think the rest of our systems were shut down? We're using no additional power... just waaaaay too much fuel, but like I said. We can push"

"And if it's an ambush? What if that is a zion lure?"

"It ain't, I know it ain't"

"Goddamnit Targie... you know if you weren't you I'd have quit long ago right?"

"Aye, 'tis a shame I'm me then isn't it"

Targie chuckled as the Baltasar began bursting down at tremendous speeds, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't beat the Antares to the source of smoke that had been spotted but that wasn't going to stop him.

Targie was in a state of hysterics he had not been in for a long while he was in the mood for one thing right now: Competition.

Targie blurted down the comm line

"Howdy Dashy, be sure to not let the Ant get in the way, wouldn't want the wolf to tear throught it on it's way past now would we?"

Targie grabbed an EMP rifle and yelled back to Lucas one more time;

"You pulled guard duty again I'm afraid, pulled the short straw"

"We didn't pull straws!"

"No but I did... it wasn't rigged or anything"

Lucas just laughed

"Get going, I'll get the drinks ready"

Targie hopped outt he open door of the ship, his legs weren't too happy about the impact but his mind was focused and blocked out the pain, he looked dead ahead to the source of the smoke

"There's Mr.Flame"

He turned around looking at Dash who had just exited his ship

"It's about a mile Dash, ready?"

Without waiting for a response he turned around and began sprinting, this was quickly ended however after he fell over a block of scrap

Dash couldn't help but laugh at Targie as his face hit the floor

"Every time you try to be awesomely heroic huh?"

Targie got up with a big grin on his face,

"Nah just when I try to be heroic, I don't try to be awesome. I already am"

He picked up the block behind him

"And now for ruining my heroic-ness... wait" Targie examined the block more carefully reading the letters on it

"Sapi... Oh hell"

"Something wrong Targ?" Dash seemed confused. Targie's face had sank as he was continuosly gazing at the block in his hands.

"Erm... No, I err... need to go this way... you go on and I'll catch up. Tell them I have plenty of room, booze, food and well anything else they need. See you in a second"

"Targ! Wait! What the hell...?"

Targie had already run out into the distance...

Targie began panting.

"If I knew it was going to be this *CENSORED* far I would have gotten back in the hovercraft"

He carried on for another 5 minutes before he was met by a plethora of different toned charred scrap.

"Must have been a big explosion... at least I don't have to run anymore"

Targie looked around everywhere, rifle at the ready, walking cautiously but kicking around pieces of scrap as if expecting to uncover something.

"Nothing... just scrap, you'd think that there would be something..."

Just as Targie uttered the words he heard a beep behind him, this caused his heart to race, his ears perked as he spun around.

He looked at the object now at his feet, paused for just a moment and then sprinted the other way.

After a minute or so an explosion followed him, shaking the ground he stood on but he was out of harms way.

"Well... that was awfully heart warming... back to the matter at hand"

He carried on sprinting in the direction of the Baltasar, the Onesimus once again in his mind.