posted 12-09-98 06:55 PM ET        

Phoenix Rising, Part Two

The two massive bay doors on the back of the Phoenix's hammerlike bow section whined open, exposing the rooms they protected to the dark, unrelenting vacuum of space. While the bays were depressurizing, the immense force created by the atmosphere rushing out of the bays blew some unsecured objects out into space, the most notable of which was some redshirt who had failed to vacate the hangar deck before it began to depressurize. He flailed his arms wildly, and attempted to get one last breath of nonexistent air as he spiraled out into the endless starfield.
As Fjorxc watched the redshirt fly to his doom, with neither Fjorxc nor the redshirt able to affect the redshirt's fate, a quote came to his mind. He couldn't remember who had originally made it.
"In space, no one can hear you scream."
Fitting, Fjorxc thought. Rather than dwell on the death of a crewmember, even one as lowly as a redshirt, he began running through his preflight checklist, making sure all was in readiness for their imminent airstrike on the Firaxis installation on Chiron's Athena Plateau. It wasn't going to be all that much of a strike--due to the interference that would be posed by Chiron's atmosphere, the Phoenix's weaponry, as powerful and striking as it was, would be virtually ineffective.
No, the Phoenix was a battlecruiser built for space, a creature of the night. The only way that the Phoenix's armory could have a substantial effect would be to enter the atmosphere of Chiron, but there it would be threatened by not only unpredictable atmospheric currents, but by attack from far faster and more agile atmospheric fighters. They would be right at home in the atmosphere, while the Phoenix would have all the grace of a heavily armed Chironian soldier wearing iron boots. For this mission, the forces of CWAL Hunt Valley were depending on its airborne striking power.
Fifteen Terran Wraith-class fighters hung in their racks along the roof of the bay, accompanied by fifteen more in the other hangar. The Wraiths were hit-and-run machines, designed to get in, kill or severely injure the target, and get out again. They weren't really that effective in a dogfight, and if it wasn't for the cloaking devices they all were equipped with, anything more advanced than an F-4 Phantom would be able to make mincemeat of them, despite the Wraith's weapons loadout of a burst laser system, used for strafing ground targets, and the more powerful and seemingly endless supply of Gemini air-to-air missiles.
When the Phoenix had made an orbital scan of the Athena Plateau region, something had been found there that no one on board the Phoenix really liked. A large Spartan army had moved into the region from a nearby base, and a vast number of well-armed and well-equipped needlejets filled the sky. By themselves against the Spartan needlejets, the Wraiths would stand almost no chance. That was where the Phoenix's two wildcards came in.
The first was located in the portside hangar deck. Known as a Corsair, it was a small, sleek, functional craft, which also happened to belong to Exile, everybody's favorite Dark Templar who always seemed to be either drinking, drunk, or hung over. It was the newest addition to the armed forces of the Protoss race, but with its main weapons as only a dual plasma cannon, it would be an easy target for the needlejets. At least, it would have been, if it had not been for Exile's numerous modifications. In its current state, the Corsair likely would have been able to annihilate every single aircraft at any major base of the United States Air Force. One of Exile's more peculiar modifications was the affixion of a number of bumper stickers to the rear of the craft, which bore phrases like "Don't f**k with me...I'm from Barstow" and a "How's My Driving? Call 1-800-F**K-OFF" sticker.
The second was located in the starboardside hangar deck, and happened to be what Fjorxc was currently sitting in. Known as the Lockheed Martin AV-15A Orca, it was Fjorxc's personal aircraft, and it, like Exile's Corsair, had been modified extensively from the manufacturer's designs.
Back in June of 1998, when it was liberated from the tyrannical oppression of a Westwood Studios facility in Nevada by Fjorxc, it had been nothing more than a high-tech prop left over from the production of Tiberian Dawn, an anachronism, due in part to its successor, the AV-16, taking over its place in the upcoming Tiberian Sun. It had been nothing more than an afterthought, silently awaiting its fate in the Metal Reclamation Blast Furnace. All of that changed, however, when Fjorxc escaped with it from Westwood's concrete prison.
Fjorxc had only stolen the Orca for one reason. That was, the small nuclear warhead which had been left forgotten in its bomb bay. Fjorxc had intended to use it on the XILE base which had been believed to be under construction in Little Rock, Arkansas. When he was successful, Fjorxc found that for some reason, he had developed some form of attachment to the aircraft. He realized this around the same time he realized that he spent quite a few hours every day polishing its hull. More and more add-ons had eventually resulted, boosting the Orca's performance even more. But its most recent modification was considered by Fjorxc to be the centerpiece. It was almost a complete conversion, allowing the Orca free rein in endoatmospheric, exoatmospheric and submarine environments.
Pressing a few final buttons and making mental checkmarks on a mental clipboard, Fjorxc settled back into his chair, with the preflight checklist completed. The Orca was already hanging from its launch rails, so he wasn't going to be going anywhere before takeoff. Instead, he turned on the radio.
Fjorxc was somewhat surprised by the selection of stations available. Sure, by 2190 Chiron had been inhabited for almost a century, but it still felt weird to be listening to easy-listening music while inside the hangar deck of an incredibly advanced battlecruiser, orbiting a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. After a few minutes, he tired of the easy-listening and fiddled around with the dial. He found a few interesting broadcasts; the Lord's Believers were rebroadcasting Sister Miriam's latest speech from the spires of New Jerusalem, the Human Hive had recently begun a propaganda blitz to let all the other inhabitants of Chiron know that they weren't really a harsh, strictly regimented, Orwellian insectoid police state, even though that all the other inhabitants of Chiron knew that those were bald-faced lies.
Unfortunately for the Chironians, however, fate had taken yet another blow at them, though many of them didn't realize it, though Fjorxc, with his twentieth-century attitude and weirdness, detected it almost immediately.
It was horrible, disgusting, inconceivable.
It was a symbol of all the things that these people had flown across four light-years to get away from.
It was a Spice Girls song.
Fjorxc screamed, partly through terror and partly through anger. It was an insult to all the rest of humanity who had remained back on Earth that these vicious tunes somehow managed to escape with them. He grabbed a pencil and stabbed the station-changer button repeatedly until Eddie noticed something was up and turned the radio off.
"Hey Forks, you okay?" the computer asked.
"Yeah, sure Eddie. Except that was one of the longest stretches I've gone without dialog for all the time I've been in Hunt Valley."
"You've got a point," Eddie said. "Fjorxc, I just realized something. What's stopping the BoS from attacking HQ while we're gone?"
"That's simple, Eddie," Fjorxc replied with a smile. "Temporal physics. See, the time stream runs in such a way that while travel to the future is simple, travel to the past is infinitely more difficult. In fact, the only point in time where you'd even have a chance of completing the transit intact would be your own point of departure. So you see, from the viewpoint of anyone back home, we won't have gone anywhere. The Phoenix would disappear, then reappear instantaneously, no matter how long we spend here."
Eddie was silent for a moment. Then, he spoke up. "How did you know all that, Forks?"
"I read it off the back of this cereal box," he replied, holding up a box of Cheez Doodle Crunch.
"That explains a lot..." Eddie murmured. "Whoa, we're getting a call from up top. It's Freerunner."
Fjorxc commanded Eddie to put her through, and was met by Eddie requesting that Fjorxc use a verb that didn't have the bad connotations of "commanded". After about thirty seconds, Fjorxc finally settled on "asked", mainly because he couldn't think of another verb that meant that thing.
He touched a button on the dashboard, and was met by the radiant face of Freerunner. Blue eyes, golden-brown hair...even Fjorxc considered going out with her at one time or another, and would have, if she hadn't happened to be Fjorxc's identical double from another dimension.
"Forksy, you ready for takeoff?" she asked softly.
"Huh? Oh yeah, sure. I'm all ready, I even did the preflight checklist this time."
Freerunner was momentarily taken aback. "Whoa, then you are serious about this raid."
"Damn straight I am," Fjorxc replied. "Say, Freerunner, you wouldn't happen to have any idea where Exile is, would you? I've got a comm link to his Corsair open, and there isn't anything goin' on in there."
"I do, actually. He's in the bathroom, trying to sober himself up."
If Freerunner had been taken aback by Fjorxc performing a preflight checklist, Fjorxc responded to this like a relatively normal person would if someone came up and told them that they had been elected President of the Universe.
"WHAT? Exile is trying to get sober?"
"Yep."
"And this Exile would be a Dark Templar, about ten feet tall, best known black marketeer in Houston, and the guy who made Gluegun a millionaire when he drank all of that alcohol stuff that they make in Kentucky?"
"That's right."
"Then please let me know why Exile is trying to get sober! For god's sake, he's always either drinking, drunk, or hung over!"
"I informed him about the importance of the mission we are about to undertake, and the ramifications of what would happen should we fail," Freerunner said.
"And?"
"I also threatened to cancel his subscriptions to Playprotoss, PentNexus, and Hustler for Protoss."
Fjorxc said nothing for a few seconds. "Hey, how'd you know about those subscriptions?" he asked. "I'm the only one Exile's ever told about them."
"Correction," Freerunner said. "You're the only one he's ever told about them while he was still moderately sober. You'd actually be surprised about the things Exile mutters when he drinks himself stupid. I was thinking that maybe we should send him to AA."
"What? Hell, no! He single-handedly keeps the North American alcohol industry in business! His empties have enough aluminum in them to build a seventeen towers to Mars and back! You can't just throw an economic benefit like that away!"
"I never considered that possibility," Freerunner said. "In any case, I think that he's done now. You can launch when ready."
"Sure thing. Don't worry, we'll pull out of this alive."
"You better. You still owe me two hundred bucks from last night's poker game."
"Yeah, yeah...stupid royal flush, thinks she's so cool just cause she's from some dumb technocracy..."
"What was that?" Freerunner asked, only half serious.
"I was just thinking of some old quote," Fjorxc lied. "About technocracies...they start with sewing machines, and end up with atomic bombs."
On that note, Fjorxc depressed a button on the dashboard. The Orca was blown free from the clamps which had secured it to the launch rails, and it rocketed out into the stars.

The Spartan military base on the Athena Plateau was small by all respects, even those of the pacifistic Gaians. It was a shoddy affair, a quickly-assembled wilderness outpost and not much else.
The base was insulated against the high winds which frequently plagued this region of Chiron by having the major command and control center, as limited as it may be, constructed about five meters underground. While this also provided limited defense against an attack, the four shield generators arranged in a square and centered on the base would provide most of its defense.
The only structures visible on the surface were four immense hangars. Fully atmosphere-proofed against Chiron's poisonous air, these hangars were the homes of nineteen heavily-armed needlejets, the pride of the Spartan air force. Almost looking like something out of a comic book, technicians clambered upon the needlejets, examining every facet, every nut, every bolt. These needlejets were going to fly soon, and everyone wanted the utmost assurances that they were going to work as planned, and not have their engines stall twenty thousand feet up.
Meanwhile, about two hundred kilometers away, thirty of the Wraith fighters attached to the Phoenix entered the atmosphere, their nuclear engines leaving a visible trail of exhaust on the tumultuous Chironian sky. They dropped their altitude, losing hundreds of meters every second until they leveled out over the Athena Plateau, their low-hanging burst lasers almost scraping against the rocky surface.
At their breakneck speed, already in excess of Mach 3, the scenery whipped by the windows of their cockpits at a dizzying rate. Stands of native trees, Xenofungus patches, the occasional herd of Mindworms, all were seemingly meshed together into a colorful, albeit formless blur, rocketing away at hypersonic speeds. However, the Wraith pilots took little notice of this, for it was paramount that they kept their attention towards their forward paths. They knew full well that if they so much as scraped the ground at this velocity, their entrails would be scattered from University Base to New Jerusalem.
As they screamed over the ground, a strategically placed Spartan scanner noticed their vapor trails painting the sky, and was able to identify them as hostiles within milliseconds. The robotic watchman then sent a message to the nearby Spartan base, which was simply an order to scramble the fighters immediately.
The blue-hulled Avenger needlejets took off in groups of three and circled around the base, until all of the squadron's nineteen needlejets had taken to the air. Then, like a pack of hungry wolves, they turned east and begun to stalk their prey.
The results of this were easy enough to predict, and had already been done so by Spartan military commanders. The second the needlejets had entered radar range, the Wraiths had activated their cloaking devices. But if what Command suspected was true, that they were heading towards the other base on the plateau, all the needlejets needed to do was feign a search in that region, while luring the Wraiths into a sensor net which would render their cloaks useless. After that...well, the generals didn't really worry about that, as every Spartan pilot was able to survive a dogfight seven seconds in duration.

The base stood like a metallic blemish on the face of the Athena Plateau. The color of grey metal, it consisted of a large central dome with four smaller domes attached to it by way of both subterranean and superterranean walkways. Small aircraft buzzed around it like gnats, some going, some coming, but all in all, making Chicago's O'Hare seem like one of those small rural airports that no one ever goes to or uses, and that only propellor planes operate from. Only one symbol gave any clue to the base's ownership: a small, corporate-seeming logo that said "Firaxis."
In the sky far above the Firaxis base, there seemed to be a faint metallic glinting, and then something which looked like a meteor burning up in Chiron's atmosphere. The trails of fire soon died away, but it was seen as too long by the occupants of the crafts which had made the atmospheric insertion.
"Eddie, tell me to buy an air conditioner when we get back home," Fjorxc said, still a few beads of sweat on his forehead.
"What's the matter? Can't the Terran take reentry?" Fjorxc recognized the half-jeering voice coming from the ship flying next to the Orca. Of course, most times he heard that voice, it was when it was clouded over with slurring, profanity and other things, mostly due to the fact that Exile, the Protoss to whom the voice belonged, was usually drunk beyond recognition. Even though he was also infamous across the galaxy for his smuggling and black marketeering skills, most of CWAL Hunt Valley simply saw him as a drunk.
"Shut up, Exile. I've got to start remembering to stop leaving an open comm channel to you."
"You're just angry because Protoss don't have to sweat."
"That has nothing to do with it. And don't get me started on how you don't have to eat, either. I'm in no mood for discussing photosynthesis with you again."
"Look, the ONLY REASON that I blew up the White House was because I was drunk!"
"What? What're you talking about, when did you blow up the White House?"
"Did I say that I blew up the White House?"
"Yes..."
"Well, what I meant to say was..." Exile paused for a moment. "What I meant to say was that I blew up the White House."
"Whatever. Heads up Exile, we're approaching the target." Fjorxc down at the Firaxis base, and beheld its majesty for a second.
And then he started preparations to transform it into nothing but a smoking crater.
Well, that is to say he would have liked to transform it into a smoking crater, but couldn't, because the Alpha Centauri retail CDs were in there.
"All armament locked on, ready to fire," Fjorxc said, flipping some switches above the dashboard. "Exile, how're you?" A long, loud burp came on over the line in response.
"I'm doin' just fine, Forks. Disruption web's ready to go."
"Good. And put that beer away. Remember what Freerunner said."
"She don't have the guts to revoke my subscriptions," he drawled.
"Maybe not, but I do," Fjorxc replied. He then observed a large number of aircraft scrambling from the Firaxis base. Fjorxc locked onto a needlejet with a Sidewinder when he was reminded of an old quote.
As he launched the missile into the needlejet's side armor, he yelled, "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Alpha Centauri or give me death!"

Fjorxc the Maniac(CWAL Hunt Valley)
May the Fjorxc be with you and a happy new year.

posted 12-10-98 06:06 PM ET            

As always, I think your stories are great, slightly twisted, but great. I see you have done your SMAC homework. How do you like working with the Chiron setting?

posted 12-10-98 06:10 PM ET            

Light: What about me?