posted 12-15-98 09:22 PM ET        

"We have met the enemy and they are ours..."
-Oliver Hazard Perry, during a naval engagement on Lake Erie in the War of 1812

Sporadic flashes painted the sky of Chiron with a strange light. Already saturated with billowing clouds of smoke from downed fighters and vapor trails from missiles, it signified that the main opposing forces in the battle had met each other.
The infinitely better-armed group was composed mainly of Chironian forces. Some seventeen Spartan needlejets consolidated their control of the clouds, backed up by hordes of armed drones scrambled from the Firaxis base down below.
The other side considered themselves to be the good guys in this fight, though as in all previous and future wars, the good guys was the side you were on. They weren't as powerful as the Chironians, and they had already had much of their force depleted by needlejet attacks. Fourteen Wraiths, constituting the bulk of CWAL Hunt Valley's limited air force, took most of the hits from the Spartans, but they were backed up by two unusual craft. What was unusual about them was that while they were both easily a match for anything made on Chiron, they were technically two hundred years old.
Thumbing the launch button on the Orca's control joystick, Fjorxc watched with a smile as an AMRAAM turned yet another needlejet into smoking debris, pinwheeling towards the surface below. Having already been recognized as a major threat by the Spartans, the Orca was being pursued by five needlejets, doggedly following the small golden craft and continuing to pelt it with missiles and energy bursts. Fortunately, a new shielding system which had been obtained by reverse-engineering the one installed on the Phoenix protected it from such attacks, for the moment.
"Eddie!" Fjorxc barked, as he narrowly dodged a small singularity missile. "What's the state of the enemy forces?"
"They've still got fourteen needlejets, and about fifty of those little drone things!" Eddie yelled back, as the Orca shook like a B-17 caught in a cloud of flak. "But we're down to eight Wraiths, they're getting chewed up out there!"
"Then there's only one thing I can do, I'll send them back to the Phoenix! Those needlejets will last as long in vacuum as a Libertarian in the White House!"
"Do you even know what a Libertarian is, Forks?" Eddie asked.
"Sure. It's the other major American party, besides the Democrats, the Republicans, and Ross Perot."
"Do you know that your analogies suck, Forks?" Eddie asked. "And why is it that we're having so much time to discuss this issue, when we're in the heat of a battle?"
"Because the author's gone off track again," Fjorxc said. "Wraiths, this is Hercules. Break off your attacks, and return to Phoenix immediately."
"Hercules?" Eddie asked.
"What? I wanted a cool-sounding name."
"Roger that Hercules, we're breaking off and heading for the Phoenix," said a transmission from the Wraith squadron. They then broke off their attacks or retreats, engaged their cloaking devices, and ascended into the heavens.
Fjorxc cleared his throat, then started into the radio again. "Hercules to Exile, do you read me, buddy?"
Exile's reply was short and concise. "Not until you call be by my call sign."
"But I don't wanna!"
"If you can call yourself something stupid like Hercules, the least you can do is call be by my infinitely better call sign."
"Aww, man..."
"Either that, or you can suddenly find out what it's like to have a ten-foot-tall cloaked Dark Templar following you around at night, waiting for the perfect moment to injure you."
"You wouldn't."
"No? What do you think happened to Kazz?"
"All right then," Fjorxc said with resignation. "Hercules to Black Knight, come in."
"That's better," Exile said. "Black Knight here, what's up?"
"Think we can take Firaxis and the Spartans by ourselves?" Fjorxc asked.
"Well, that depends," Exile replied.
"Depends on what?"
"It depends on whether or not that's actually a Locust swarm coming towards us at one-niner-five."
Fjorxc immediately consulted his radar. Aside from the multiple blips which represented Exile's Corsair, the Spartan needlejets and the Firaxis drones, there was a cloud of blips moving in from the southwest. He didn't have to ask Eddie for a camera view to know what those Locusts were capable of doing. There was plenty of footage on board the Phoenix which showed entire cities being devoured by Chiron's insatiable insect swarms.
In his mind's eye, Fjorxc saw the effects first-hand of a Locust attack. First, they would probably go for the more threatening targets, the Spartan needlejets. It was likely then that they would go for the Orca and the Corsair, and no matter what would happen, the Locusts would most likely catch up with them before they left the atmosphere for the sanctuary of vacuum. They grinded their imaginary claws together, imaginarily waiting for another imaginary meal; but if he waited much longer, those visions would pass from imagination into reality, where--
"Hey!" Fjorxc said. "Can we move this along, or what? I don't think anyone came here to read tripe like that!"
I will take your offer under advisement, insolent one. But be assured that in the future, there will be no mercy.
In his short conversation with the narrator that had elapsed up to that moment, Fjorxc came up with a plan. "Hey Narrator, are you super ultra powerful?"
I am nothing short of a god for all those who inhabit your universe, one who is named for a kitchen utensil. I have the power to destroy universes and create them. I am omnipotent. I am all-powerful.
"Oh yeah? I bet you can't turn that Locust swarm into a bunch of, err...lessee here... singing, dancing cockroaches!"
Just watch me!
Sounds of frantic typing on a keyboard in another time and place permeated the scene. In no time at all, there was a brilliant flash of light, which caused Fjorxc and Exile to cover their eyes with their arms, lest they be blinded, or at least see those annoying dark spots for a few minutes. When they were able to look back again, they saw to their amazement that the Locusts were now singing, dancing cockroaches who were soon going to meet the surface of the Athena Plateau at about two hundred kilometers per hour.
"Done and done," said Fjorxc with a sense of accomplishment, even though he didn't do any real work. "Now, Black Knight, think we can crack that compound by ourselves?"
"Sure thing, Hercules. Let's go get 'em," Exile replied.
"Can't you think of something better to say than that?"
"Me? I could think of something better than that in a nanosecond. But the narrator can't."

The knight maneuvered carefully around the grim, desolate landscape. Clad in shining armor glittering like platinum, it surveyed the scene around itself with a watchful eye.
Everywhere it could see, there was devastation. Skeletons lay in small ditches, their unblinking eye sockets betraying nothing, not even the last screams of its former owner. Further away, in the distance, it could see the defenders of a castle's high tower rallying once more, to try to throw back the archers and ballistae which had closed into range of the high stone turret, and were beginning to lay it to waste.
Closer afield, there were a few raiders, belonging to the same army as the knight, skittering and slinking around in the grasses, trying to sneak up on an enemy Helepolis-type siege engine. One of them readied a primitive form of Molotov cocktail, pouring animal oils into several flasks, lighting them afire and tossing them towards the towering wheels of the Helepolis, with several more thrown in the direction of the hundreds of men who were responsible for pulling the Helepolis to its destination. Fires sprang up everywhere a flask hit the ground. In some quirk of fate, the fires weakened the siege engine's supporting structure sufficiently that it toppled over onto its side. The raiders then slunk away, leaving the burning wreckage to its fate.
Swordsmen scoured the area closest to the friendly army, their marble-white garb appearing as almost black in this desolate, nighttime setting. Every so often, they would stumble into a trap laid by the enemy, or possibly even find and kill one of the enemy's soldiers.
The knight shook its head and brought its hands up to its helmet, removing it and carefully placing it on the back of the horse. The face which lay inside the armor was one that somehow didn't belong, like an anachronism mixed with the present. For inside the knight's helmet was the face of Victor Galis, CWAL Hunt Valley's resident mad scientist and the first recruit CWAL managed to gain from Hunt Valley.
Victor silently examined the battlefield, watching the two armies fight each other. He was distracted so by this pursuit that he almost didn't hear the clattering of the hooves of an enemy horse until it was too late.
Reacting purely with instinct, Victor ducked and caused the other knight's sharp jousting-type stick to miss going through his head and coming out the other side by several centimeters. Rolling off of his horse in not much more than a moderately controlled dive, he smashed headfirst into the muddy ground as the enemy tried to make another lunge for him.
Victor pulled his sword out of its sheath, its blade glittering in what little light was present. He fumbled a moment, attempting to get his bearings, when he felt something. It was the enemy knight's spear, let's call it that, skinning against his neck and drawing blood. Victor spun around, and saw his attacker for the first time.
It was a black knight, looking like what some people would expect the embodiement of pure evil to look like. But that didn't count for all people. Depending on who you were and where you lived, you could view Mike Harris, the Grim Reaper, Bill Gates, or Darth Vader as the embodiement of pure evil. But I'm rambling now, so let's move on.
The black knight's black armor was adorned with red-painted symbols. Some of swords, some of birds, and some unrecognizable. There was a type of Runic language scrawled upon the knight's helmet, which Victor was at a loss to understand; presumably, it was his name or something like that.
As the knight prepared to stab at Victor again, the CWALer fought back with his sword, which despite its length was powerful nonetheless. He managed to get in some good hits on the black knight's armor and even draw some blood, with visible cuts and dents, until the knight finally had the sense to knock the sword away.
Now defenseless, Victor backed away, terror visible in his eyes. The knight was about to launch forth with its pole, impaling Victor, when it suddenly and inexplicably stopped. After a few seconds the knight leaned forward with gravity, and Victor had a clear view of someone dressed for some reason in a long, flowing gown pull their sword out of the black knight's back and clean the blood off of it.
"Freerunner?" Victor asked. "Is that you?"
"Who else would it be?" Freerunner replied. "D'you know anyone on the Phoenix besides me who would wear something like this voluntarily?"
"Good point. So, how are things going? It's amazing what powers Laeryn's magic has, isn't it?"
"It sure is," Freerunner replied, as she attempted to clean some of the mud off of her gown. "Things are going pretty good, we've secured parts of Laeryn's territory, but we haven't been able to--"
Freerunner was cut off by another horseback warrior riding up. "Stay where you are, and put your hands in the air," it said. Out of fear of the very long and sharp spear the knight was holding, they both put their hands in the air.
All of a sudden, the air was pierced by some kind of beeping. As the knight looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise, Freerunner and Victor both checked their wrists. Soon remembering that neither of them were wearing watches at that time, though, Freerunner eventually determined that it was her comlink.
"Freerunner here, what's up?" she asked.
"Trouble," said the redshirt on the other end, using the ever-popular Star Trek cliche which amounted to never giving the commander a straight answer.
"What's happened? Did someone spill Mountain Dew into the consoles again?"
"No, it isn't that. We're detecting a craft coming out of the atmosphere."
"Is it one of the Wraiths that hasn't docked yet, or a Chironian ship?"
"Neither, ma'am. It's the Orca, and it shows signs of severe damage. Fjorxc says that most of its systems are failing, and he was lucky to make it into orbit."
"What about Exile?" Freerunner asked. "Do you have any reading on the Corsair?"
There was a slight pause, presumably while the redshirt on the other end of the line checked some readings. "Negative, ma'am. Either it's in an area where our scanners can't detected it, or..."
Or if it's crashed and Exile is dead, thought Freerunner. "Very well, we're coming up to the bridge. Freerunner out." As she closed the comm frequency, she turned and faced the black knight. "Looks like we're gonna have to finish this another time, doesn't it?"
"Saved by the bell..." muttered Victor.

Fjorxc aligned the Orca with the Phoenix's waiting hangar doors, doing the best that he could to keep it upright. The Orca had sustained heavy damage in the attack on the Firaxis base, forcing him to withdraw. And Exile...
Exile.
Fjorxc had left Exile down there, in enemy territory. He didn't know what had become of him, whether he was dead, alive, captive, or still free. All Fjorxc knew was that he had seen the Corsair pinwheeling down, spewing smoke and psionic fires all the way, before finally making contact with the ground at a relatively high velocity. It would have been almost impossible for a human to survive a crash like that, but a Protoss, especially a drunk Protoss, just might have pulled through with a reasonable command of his faculties intact.
But still, Fjorxc had abandoned Exile down there. His colleague, compatriot, and friend.
With his hands shaking with nervousness, Fjorxc gently guided the Orca towards the recovery zone of the hangar deck. It came closer and closer, became more and more defined, until the hangar filled his entire field of vision.
It was much different than it had been when he had last seen it from this angle. There were no people in the bay, as it had already been depressurized in anticipation of his arrival, but what Fjorxc was astounded by was just the lack of everything. Fifteen Wraiths had once called this their home; now, only three of the fighters remained, their usually shiny surfaces marred by ugly scorches and burn marks. Some of them had barely been able to limp back to the safety of the battlecruiser, and others had had to be pulled in by the Phoenix's tractor beam.
With the utmost concentration, Fjorxc eased the Orca into the bay. All around him blue sirens flared, signifying that it was unsafe to enter the bay until it had been repressurized. He saw his target, a yellow circle painted on the floor, and aimed for it. Even despite his nerves, he managed to land the Orca reasonably inside the target. After a minute or two the sirens stopped, telling everyone who saw them that there was now an atmosphere inside the hangar.
Fjorxc immediately unsealed the cockpit, which hissed open like a creature opening its mouth, or something like that. He jumped out and inspected the damage, and did not notice when Freerunner, still draped in the long white gown from the medieval combat game, entered the hangar.
"Let's see what we got here..." Fjorxc muttered to himself. "They've singed the pneumatics, damaged the cold fusion reactors, blown off the chaingun, put one of the engines out of commission... shouldn't take long to fix, hopefully."
"Looks like they sure did a number on it," Freerunner said, walking up.
"They sure did," Fjorxc said, not looking up. "Say, can you hand me that welding torch over there?"
"Shouldn't you just wait for the redshirts to do that? That's what they're there for," Freerunner said.
"No way. Not a single redshirt is gonna lay a finger on this baby."
Almost reluctantly, Freerunner passed Fjorxc the welding torch. As the sparks began to erupt from the tip of the torch, she began to speak again.
"So, what happened down there, Forksy?"
"I'd rather not discuss it," he said.
"Why don't you want to talk about it?"
"It's none of your concern," Fjorxc snapped.
"You know, it's not your fault that most of the Wraiths bought it," Freerunner said. "You couldn't have known the Spartan strength there. No one could."
"Not even your supreme scanning devices?"
"You're upset about what happened to Exile," Freerunner concluded.
"No."
"You are. I can see it in your eyes and your face, Forksy. You're guilty about leaving him on Chiron to die."
"How do we know he's not already dead?" Fjorxc asked. "You must have seen his Corsair go down as well. Both with your own scanners, and my flight log, which hasn't been fully transferred yet."
"How do we know he isn't still alive?" Freerunner replied. "You know how many caves there are in that area, you did the topographical scans yourself. He could have taken shelter in any one of those."
"And it's just as likely that he's being held by Firaxis."
"Don't you want to be sure of that?" Freerunner asked. "It's no use tearing yourself apart if you don't know for sure. We have to go down and find him."
"You sure that'd work?"
"Of course it would, Forksy. Of course, we couldn't take the Orca..."
"Why not?"
"Look at it. It's barely capable of flying. You said yourself that you barely made it into orbit."
"So, what? You want me to use a Wraith? Is that it?"
Freerunner placed her hand on Fjorxc's shoulder, and pulled on it so that Fjorxc was looking into her face. "Come with me, Forksy. I've got a little surprise for you."
"All right, Freerunner. Say, since when did you start wearing stuff like that?"
"It ws just for Laeryn's medieval combat thing."
"Ah, OK then. But keep the sword. It suits you."
Several minutes of walking lay ahead for Fjorxc and Freerunner. After an uncountable number of twists, turns and corridor changes they had taken, they finally arrived at their destination, in the next room.
"I still think it would be quicker to just cut a corridor through the wall," Fjorxc said. "So, what's this thing that you wanna show me?"
"Just watch," Freerunner said. She stepped up to a panel on the wall and input a code sequence, causing the door to sweep aside into the side of the frame. She then entered the room and was followed by Fjorxc, whose expression betrayed a feeling of just seeing something that he didn't really expect to see, and had never expected to see again since the War with Yimot.
"My god...an Arrow Mark III! How'd you get your hands on one of these things?"
"Fron owed me a favor. He lost a poker game to me a while back, and so he sent us one of these."
Fjorxc walked around the huge aircraft, admiring its graceful lines. Based on the original CF-105 Arrow built by Avro in the 1950s, it was based on the last surviving example of its kind, RL 206, which had been hidden away at a secret base in the Northwest Territories. It had huge triangular wings, and was in essence a 'flying triangle.' Unlike the previous models, the Mark III Arrows had been adapted to function in vacuum as well as in atmosphere.
Fjorxc glanced at the identification number. RL 784. That meant that it was a fairly recent Arrow, the 577th fighter to be built after the first of the new models, RL 207. Its finely polished surface reflected the bright lights of the chamber, hiding one of the most advanced fighters ever built by humankind in Fjorxc's day. Superior weapon system, incredible engine, amazing maneuverability, speeds, and stability; with its current modifications, 784 could take on an entire wing of American F-14s without even working up a sweat.
"This is cool!" Fjorxc said, not being able to think of anything else to say.
"It sure is," Freerunner said. "And, it's pretty much on par with a Spartan needlejet, maybe even a little bit better."
"Wanna take 'er for a spin?" Fjorxc asked.
"Why not?"

COMING SOON: PHOENIX RISING, PART 4

DISCLAIMER: In case you forgot, the disclaimer saying that addons to the story will be ignored is still in effect. Well, that is to say that ridiculous addons will be ignored. If you don't do much, I'll work it in. That's kind of the thing I'm gonna do with Jay and his JSF.

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

posted 12-16-98 02:28 PM ET            

(Yada, yada, "destroy metal" spell, yada, all metal within a mile melts, yada, yada.)

posted 12-16-98 11:12 PM ET            

Victor Clone: Is the device installed?
Officer: Yes, Admiral.
Victor C: Victor tells me CWAL is raiding Firaxis's Chiron base, we must join them.
Officer: But, sir, traveling BACK in time is very dangerous.
Victor C: Only in your own dimension, in others we can travel freely in time. Turn on the device.
(Officer pushes a large red button. On the main viewscreen the planet changes from a desert planet to a bluish-colored planet. Six Rebel cruisers fade with the planet. Victor did not have enough "devices" for them.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chiron, Alpha centauri, our dimension
Date and Time: Classified