by Dark Knight
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He had his head stuck in a trash recycler, trying desperately to read the label of some alien candy wrapper by pointing his helmet’s lights at it. Squeaks and whimpers were coming muffled out of the assembly and while his little legs were desperately flailing in the air, somebody’s powerful hand gently pulled him out. Awesome did manage to get the wrapper though. It was for science you see – he needed more joke material and the name of the candy was most strange. He didn’t ask the alien who was eating for it, because he gave him the eye. It was simple to walk around the station, following the dirty, smelly and loudly munching sentient, whose very existence provided an insurmountably higher heap of ideas than the simple wrapper.
It was an enormously huge human man and a petite young woman standing next to each other. Both wore happy smiles on their faces and looked really intrigued, amused even by his predicament. Awesome gave them one of his best grins, stuffing the dirty candy wrapper in one of his safe pockets for later study. Politely he introduced himself by asking them if they’d heard of one awesome looking hamster starfighter pilot called Awesome lurking around.
An hour later they were still exploring Cav’s promenade area, and as Awesome was exhausting his joke repertoire, he slowly understood that those two, especially the man, desperately needed some joy and happiness in their lives. It was the duty that all hamsters took, that they spoke of among themselves only. “The Great Hamster Burden” was part of their racial responsibility towards their Patrons. They have suffered a lot, and some were losing themselves in depression, many even choosing to end their most holy – their lives. Hamsters knew that the Patrons demanded no service from their Clients, they’d take only what was freely given. So, long ago... erm... not that long, really... but saying “long ago” sounded cool and all mystical like. And so, the Elders had a secret hamster meeting where they decided – for the holy act of Creation, their Patrons would receive as payment an eternity of Joy. In the form of laughter. A lot of it.
Both patrons were keen on finding more about him and how he’d become so awesomely famous. The hamster told them his story, and when the big man frowned each time when he mentioned the dead colonists, Awesome was forced to unleash the best of his jokes. That was hard work, yes it was! He promptly excused himself and went on a tour around the Cav’s promenade shops. This time when Awesome visited that same weapon store he did before boarding “Mushishi”, he bought a semi-auto Mauser K49; an old and venerable railgun pistol, much bigger than those his kind or the bunnies would use in battle. The funny thing was – he actually wanted a weaker weapon this time but... once he grabbed that Mauser, Awesome just couldn’t let go of it. It was if the pistol itself called him, whispering promises of many a future accurate, and deadly hits.
Most peculiar.
Did his patrons not know, nor hear what weapons sometimes whispered? After spending time with that beastly laser rifle of his on the shooting range, Awesome soon began hearing things. The words that were coming from the laser promised glorious, fiery vengeance and the impending doom of his enemies. That would’ve been most strange and scary for most. Him being a hamster meant that he would care, but only ever so slightly. Was he crazy? He remembered some of the Patrons mentioning that hearing voices coming from inanimate objects was a bad thing. In his mind Awesome rationalized this very quickly, and jokingly accepted all of this as normality for his race. The Patrons were as wise as they were loving – surely that was also a part of their awesome and glorious design for his people!
Awesome spent some of his remaining creds to put both folding stock and an assault grip on that pistol. Compared to his size that Mauser was definitely more of a snub gun than pistol but he didn’t mind. Alice was adamant on installing a holo-sight on that and his ’Friedman’ laser gun too. As always, Awesome packed as many spare power packs as hamsterly possible – he remembered well his protracted shootout with the slavers on “Mushishi”.
Next time his ammo had to be sufficient so that he could take care of their entire boarding crew!
He of course returned and joined the two Patrons on a even longer stride around the station. It didn’t take long to understand that they were attached to him, his joyful presence was starting to influence the big man too – he made him smile a couple of times just by grinning at him. But a hamster’s job is never done! It might be hard, it might be long, but this awesome client was most determined to put smiles on those faces – every day.
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Awesome was startled for a second – why was he having all those strange flashbacks? Were they too part of his Patrons design? It was pointless to ponder his smart little head now, and he studied the sensor data-stream projected directly on his faceplate.
His fighter was now reaching maximum scouting distance from Starshatter, and he immediately made a course correction. Proper pilots always stayed within sensor-link distance and he was trained by one such pilot. His mistress was an old American pilot who flew bomber escort missions on Earth during their last Great War. Then, promoted due to her incredible skill, joined one of the first all female Starfighter squadrons and protected Earth during Mahimm’s invasion. The hamster was introduced to the venerable old woman during his school’s visit at the “Tri Ship monument”. Little Awesome came with his small model ’F6 Star Phantom’ starfighter that he crafted himself, and by virtue of skill won the trip for himself and his classmates. How, and why the old Patron then decided to keep her watchful eye on him was a mystery. Then again, proper Patrons shouldn’t be anything else but oozing with mystery themselves. Amelia’s teachings found his mind, and awesomely pilot inclined body, a fertile soil to plant seeds of knowledge and skill.
He sighed.
Again with the flashbacks. His old teacher would probably scold him for this lack of attention, after all, Amelia Earhart had such a legendary focus that they called her the “Zen Goddess” of starfighter combat. Awesome grinned behind his faceplate – even in her old age, she could beat his ass both in the simulator and outer space.
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Alice’s holo stopped dancing and sat before the transparent megasteel canopy with a little spyglass in hand, black pirate eye patch and old fashioned hat on top. Patrons! Her creator had access to some really cool holo-algorithms. Instead of chiming in using some pre-programmed and often stock lines that most if not all VI’s used, Alice masterfully expressed important occurrences with action and visuals.
The data stream from his main sensor array was coming in waves. Awesome was glad having an AI to help because together they calibrated the mainframe with new corrections, and did it so rapidly, that the quality and details his stock sensors displayed looked all but impossible to achieve.
That is how they managed to spot the faint taz’aran lifesigns ahead.
Six of them, they were all hiding behind large pieces of debris, and Awesome was willing to bet that those were either heavy interceptors or TA pilots.
“Now is the time kiddo.” – Awesome chuckled and moved his hand over the main gun controls – “We need to make this one count!” – he pre-programmed targeting data and fed it into his fighter’s mainframe. The hamster pilot was aiming at one of those lifesigns with his armor-piercing laser cannon, but without activating the weapon itself. Alice looked at him and grinned happily. A tiny holo of an ancient gunpowder cannon, complete with pile of cannonballs and powder barrels appeared next to her. Alice carefully aimed down the cannon’s barrel, raising her eye patch beforehand. Awesome let the fighter drift forward without using his engine – that monstrosity would be instantly detected the second he touched his navi-controls. Alice raised her hand and muttered using strange, old fashioned Earth’s lingo – “Ready to fire, aye!” – and with reaction speed that only his species could achieve, Awesome fed power to the la
ser cannon, pressed the trigger and hummed back on his coded link with Starshatter – “Fighting evil by starlight...”
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For the taz’aran flight leader this was his very first combat operation. He couldn’t believe his luck when the assignment orders came – not only he and the best pilots from the academy were in one squadron, but his Lord Captain was the Glorious Omasa himself! The younger taz’aran officers basically idolized him, and he very well knew why. The guy was a brilliant leader, and everyone who could secured service under his command. They wanted to share even a little bit of his successes and future glory. Then more good news came; they were given brand new TA’s! Not only that, but Omasa scrounged for them more and better weapons. After his first tour around the flight deck inspecting their equipment, the flight leader was adamant of their overall mission success.
Now in outer space, and with his wing perfectly laying in ambush among the debris, he was just starting his second passive sensor sweep of the area when something flashed in the distance. The sensors of his brand new, thirty feet long space mecha model “Juno”, suddenly blipped and rang the audio alarm for incoming long range fire. It all happened so fast that he was unable to do anything but watch helplessly how that beam melted the debris chunk next to him. Then slagged the cockpit of the mecha hiding behind it, instantly killing the pilot, creating a superheated, expanding ball of plasma after the target’s reactor assembly exploded.
He screamed, breaking the comm silence – “Activate your engines now! Cover is useless against this laser – Move!” – his pilots tried to follow his orders but... taz’aran mecha main systems required more time to spool before reaching full operational status. The second laser beam; yes, because it just had to be an armor-piercing effin’ laser, sliced another of his machines in two. On holo-file and during training their ambush tactics always looked good, that is, until you meet with the thrice accursed Terrans on the field of battle!
With fully spooled systems, his now four remaining TA’s instantly engaged in evasive maneuvers, and assumed without him giving them any orders to do so a wide inverted crescent formation. He grinned from behind the faceplate. His people were getting better – just you wait Terran filth. In a couple of years, you and all of your defective clients will be merchandise sold on the slave markets! The officer moved his own TA controls aiming the missile launcher at the Terran’s starfighter – all of his other weapons required him to move closer – and screamed another command:
“Swarm missile attack the Terran NOW! I want this fighter destroyed!” – he’d set his own sensors to active mode and ordered the on-board virtual intelligence to project a jamming field. Not strong enough to block target acquisition but his enemies comms were more than enough. The VI dutifully tried following his orders. As he pressed the trigger after surprisingly easy achieving successful target lock, his VI reported in with a dreary voice – “Jamming attempt unsuccessful; Target sent one highly compressed data-stream; Destination unknown; Encoding highly sophisticated and efficient; Recommend no further electronic warfare actions; Probability of AI presence on enemy craft 99.7%”
He watched as the missiles all streaked towards the seemingly motionless, drifting starfighter... and then turned course while still tracking the enemy craft. Their target suddenly activated its engine and began moving towards their formation with twice the speed he expected from a ship of this class. The ionized plasma trail that monstrous main engine left behind was as long as his own TA! Missiles were caught in the plasma wake and all exploded harmlessly, too far behind the Terran to even phase the trajectory of his craft. The flight leader could only whisper to himself with disbelief “Throne steps!” before shouting over the comms:
“This is a forward attack scout! Switch to rifles!” – and himself dropped the now useless rpg grabbing his prototype laser rifle, legs rapidly controlling the main engine in an desperate attempt to reach flanking position. He commanded – “Cover each other and try cornering him amongst the debris!” – “Fire at will!”
Easier said than done. That filthy Terran was a damn good pilot, even too good to be exact, and if they weren’t hidden in ambush all of his wing could’ve been easily wiped out.
He suddenly realized that the whole exchange of fire, all of those rapid maneuvers – all had happened in the short span of a minute. Give or take a couple of seconds. Aiming ever so nervously, the taz’aran flight leader glanced quickly at his sensor data-stream. He had to be perfectly sure before pressing that trigger because nobody wanted to hit his own craft – yes, perhaps some low skilled morons would. Not him though, and neither would his pilots. A bright yellow laser beam streaked from the muzzle of his TA’s rifle, and together with his wingmen’s created an almost inescapable crossfire aimed at their Terran quarry.
The fighter changed its course in a split second, gracefully evading all but one of those laser beams; charging at the furthest TA with a dozen dumb fire rockets swarming. The pilot, one of his best, pushed his mecha’s engines over their maximum accepted tolerance levels evading the rockets, but then the Terran used his grappler and swung him back around, directly in the rocket swarm’s path!
He heard the garbled dying scream of his pilot over the comms, and as the TA blew up in a violent whitish explosion, he realized that the enemy had actually anticipated this, using the blast to boost his next attack. With piloting skill he’d never watched before on holo-record, nor witnessed in real life, the Terran had increased his starfighter’s mobility even beyond what his overpowered main engine provided.
He screamed again over the comms – “Quick! Close the formation!” – but it was all too late. The Terran pilot closed up instead, and virtually from point-blank range shredded the next mecha with a barrage of devastating auto-railgun fire.
“Four, set your engines on full boost! I want you on my flank! We are retreating!” – his last wingman engaged in erratic maneuvers using his afterburner, while he himself aimed and with all the hate he could muster – fired. He’d switched the rifle setting to overcharge and a beam, twice as thick as before streaked continuously towards his target. For a short while the flight leader thought that his hated Terran enemy was hit. Alas his wing was only grazed by the beam, and with shields blinking and buckling continued charging forward attacking both him and his wingman’s mecha. The swarm of incoming rockets he somehow survived by hiding behind the melee shield he’d grabbed from behind his mecha’s back. His wingman was hit by another laser beam that melted both of his legs and left the machine flying only on reserve power and its torso engines.
Discarding away the now bent and melted shield, the flight leader grappled his wounded wingman’s machine and engaged his own afterburner, feverishly reloading his overheating laser rifle with a fresh power pack. Inertial stabilizer failing, his sight red from all the G’s he had to endure while both his and his wingman’s mecha were twisting and turning. Those were his best erratic maneuver patterns he’d developed during the last year in the Academy. Screaming, he aimed the now reloaded laser rifle and fired single shots aiming not to hit but create a little bit of cover for himself and his wingman. He was almost there!
No longer caring about lost equipment, the taz’aran pilot left his precious prototype rifle dangling on a single metal wire that snapped shortly after, and reached with his mecha’s hand pulling on a small piece of debris. It triggered the trap he’d set with his wingmen an hour earlier. Multiple other wires were connected with portable automatic turrets and their sensor signatures popped up on his holo-display. They immediately locked onto his pursuer’s engine signature and opened fire. The flight leader both cried and laughed manically while the devastating barrage of dozens of particle beams finally hit his target’s hull...
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Awesome had to evade those pesky beam turrets but that drank most of his remaining fuel reserve
s and slightly overheated the engine. How smart those mecha pilots were! Not only had they fought with skill and bravery atypical of any taz’aran he’d previously faced, they also were better equipped. Those TA’s were packing something fierce! Facing the set up of well hidden portable turrets, Awesome’s fighter actually got hit a couple of times. The armor-plating melted here and there but overall all of his main systems and weapons were unharmed. That was somehow amazingly funny for Awesome and he suddenly devised another worse joke for those last minutes before the end. If it ever should come to that, a hamster had to be prepared to go out with style.
“Ouchies!” – shouted Alice while blowing virtual air trying to cool her ’burned’ finger – “Those tazzies faced us well prepared this time! I wonder whose starship we have to bomb into oblivion today?” – the AI mumbled under her nose – “Four mecha means only four tazzies killed. Just a tiny drop in the sea that should be filled with the future millio... ” – Awesome gave her that puzzled wide eyed hamster look he did every time after hearing her ramblings. The very same facial expression too.
“Alice, I thought we discussed that whole extermination protocol thingy earlier?” – the hamster chuckled – “Millions are currently out of the question. Well, maybe just a couple thousands.” – It was time for Alice to give him a puzzled look of her own – “Thousands are not gonna be enough!” – The AI pointed at the debris field around – “This is what those shitheads did to my creator’s station, and your first spaceship! And you want me to be content with mere thousands?!”
“Look now,” – his hands slightly twitched over the main controls and ’Insanity’ evaded yet another massive barrage of particle beams – “You know what they say; dozen by dozen make a hundred,” – Awesome rapidly changed course and towing one of the TA’s leftover prototype laser rifles with his grappling hook, quickly maneuvered out of the turrets range. “Hundred by hundred a thousand...and” – Alice smirked and pouted but completed the hamster’s saying – “It makes thousands, many thousands! Yes, yes, I know!” – she looked at the two escaping taz’aran mecha who were leaving a trail of scrap behind them and mumbled – “This is too effin’ slow for me... ” – and the AI clenched one of her tiny holo-fists, shaking it menacingly towards the taz’arans – “Soon, you cunts will suffer exactly how all of those kids on my station’s promenade did, die gasping for air... you murdering bastards!”