"Duke" ducked through the hatch to the carrier Ready Room, grinning and batting back the ribald jokes fired from across the room. He was still wearing his "Cowboy Hat", if you could call something that you could wad up and stick in a flightsuit pouch a Cowboy Hat. Up close he resembled a young Dennis Quaid, especially when grinning as he did usually...
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ROBOTECH: The Sentinels
-- AFTER THE WEDDING --
The two of you were admitted as part of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, having recently got your assignment orders. You are apart of a small army heading into unknown deep space, but you have the VF-2 Space Fighters newly prepped and ready. The Wedding of the two commanders of the voyage was quite the spectacle, after all, both of you were invited to the wedding.
Breetai had given the bride away, and the vows were solemn and serious at the same time. Now its three days to launch and both of you are awaiting your assignment orders as to which squadron. The VF-2s are the most beautiful Veritechs/Valkyries made so far. An evolution of the original VF-1, the VF-2SS Space Fighters were designed to fly in space, while the Atmosphere fighters were designed primarily for an atmosphere.
Both of you were mates at the Robotech Academy. And both of you were recruited for your exceptional flying skills. Your other skills were also considered. You are in the hangar of the battle carrier John Fitzgerald Kennedy, one of the battle carriers assigned to accompany the SDF-3 on their mission to the Robotech Master's Homeworld.
One of the strangest things, though, is that Former U.S. President Barrack Obama is on the Governing Council that oversees the mission. How the President escaped the Bombardment of Earth, it's a thing no one talks about in the R.E.F.
Duke waved and catcalled back to some of his squadron mates as he strode through the echoing space of JFK's hangar bay. Last minute fixes by contractors are still clanging and sparking off in corners and exposed utility spaces.
Walking up to his trusty mount, a brand new VF-2SS being worked on by several techs, he kissed his hand and slapped the nose in a gesture of affection. He looked in vain for his personal name for her "Hi-Yo Silver" which he had penciled in last nightcycle, but from the looks of the Crew Chief Big Red glowering at him, it had been rejected and buffed out.
The chief gave him a sour grin, pointing at Duke's face.
"You've got guts boy, I'll give you that. Making a pass at that Meltran bridesmaid..."
Duke flushed a bit, his hand reaching out and touching the red handprint on his face.
"No brains though." Continued Red, deadpan.
"Yeah, well, 'no guts no glory' as daddy used to say. And she was really cute too." He replied, grinning anyway at the memory.
Leonard stood suffering through complaints from a fellow pilot awaiting assignment... explaining again. "There is a difference before poor design and controls not properly calibrated for the pilot. You can hardly place the blame on Vee Eff..."
He stops to nod in acknowledgement to Duke's wave before continuing. "Beitler does good work... ask him to tend your adjustments. Now if you will excuse me." Leonard walks away not wanting to be trapped into thinking about such trivial things at such a time.
"Hey Elray!" Hailed Duke from across the bay. "How's it shakin! Did we get stuck with the CAP at 16:00?"
Not terribly interested in shouting a response, Elray strolls over to Duke. "I've heard nothing." He looks around the bay at the others each dealing with their anticipation in their own rituals and compulsions... dispersing nervous energy through fidgets, pacing, or suiting up in machismo. Duke seems unaffected... he smirks to himself.
"Certainly a charged room."
Elray takes a look at the red handprint on Duke's face. "Of course you have already sustained an injury even before assignment." He extends a finger and raises a brow; feigning seriousness "I am curious... Does that pick-up line get shelved, or do you fault the practical application?"
Duke grinned at the memory, reaching up and touching the purpling bruise.
"Hah! Ow." Grimacing he shook his head.
"Nah, the line hardly ever matters, it's all about the timing. She'll come around. I think I'll wait 'till the bruise goes away though."
He took off his hat and brushed his hair back, looking around at the pre-voyage activity.
"Yeah, I bet the brass is too distracted with the weddin' and launch planning we won't get any flight time till after."
He put his hat back on and looked at Elray with a teasing grin.
"You pick a name for your trusty mount yet? My third choice was shot down. Again. I mean, what's wrong with 'Hi-Yo Silver' I ask you?" He asked earnestly.
Elray screws up his face to think...
"If I had to guess, I'd say they are hoping for a name that doesn't lend itself to being hollered through the comm channel as a charging battle cry against polymer practice targets."
"As for myself... Sparkles."
Duke looks offended.
"Hey now, that name is a Classic! I mean..." He trails off looking dumbfounded.
He looks at Elray for a moment without speaking, as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"...Sparkles? You're messing with me right?"
"No... I am serious. Sparkles was the name of my first plane. I surrendered all my funds to a retired show pilot for her, and could not afford to paint over the pink and glitter lettering. Sparkles survived a lot of hard landings she should not have, and I am not above exploiting any luck I can cabbage onto." Elray lifts one pant leg, then the other to show he is wearing his lucky socks with L and R stitched into them.
Duke sweeps his hat off and scratches his head as he looks over Elray's socks.
"OK, I can understand the socks; pilots have lucky fetishes of all kinds. But 'Sparkles'; you're gonna take a lot of flak over that."
He looks around at the hangar bay.
"Well then, if we don't have the CAP, what are we going to to til launch?"
Elray shrugs absently... a little deflated. "I suppose you are right. It would grow tiresome having to continually explain myself."
Suddenly more self-conscious, he looks around to make sure no one noticed his non-regulation socks, and shrugs again. He lays out his options with increasing enthusiasm. "Well if we have some time to kill, I wouldn't mind taking good look at the new panel welder Chief Red was using... impressive results from such an awkward tool, and there are some leaked pre-release notes on some software upgrades I have been meaning to dig into. I have heard that the AI learning function could make ganglion servo drivers more than just science fiction!" Elray wrings his hands greedily with mad grin.
Duke just smiles and nods at Elray's tech speak, only half understanding it.
When the M.C. makes its announcement, he slaps Elray in the shoulder.
"Come one man! The Ready Room has the big screen!" Before he takes off for the lift, up four decks, in through the passageway and slides into one of the few remaining seats not already occupied by another pilot. The ambient noise was subdued as the anticipation built. The seats were angled so that they could all see the large holoscreen in the center of the large crewspace. On it...
Elray scoops a hair tie from his pocket and corrals his hair while following Duke into the lift. "I was not aware we had clearance to..." His voice trails off as they enter the ready room... he worms his way with hushed apologies through the others to a clear seat. Elray tunes out the mouthbreather sitting next to him sweating and gripping the armrest, and waits for the fold.
Duke waives Elray to a seat nearby.
"Of course man, we're pilots! Sh!" He waits expectantly, eyes towards the screen.
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The John F. Kennedy maneuvered itself into position by the SDF-3 Pioneer. The mighty ship moved quickly, being able to fold itself when it was ready. The ship was breaking orbit from Earth and headed towards the moon. Faster than what is expected of the Apollo craft. Lunar orbit is perfect for a fold operation.
All this can be seen on the screen.
"Fold Operation to Tyrol in T minus 30 minutes," said one of the bridge bunnies. That gave more than one pilot a chuckle.
Elray starts prattling on... every thought that comes to mind as they watch the screen. "I wonder how the fold operation crew occupy themselves for the remainder of the mission. Of course I realize there are a good many man hours required after each use, but... would you assume there is an non-specialized team involved for just the operation? Hmm.. I suppose I would rather not find out the guy spooning out rigatoni at mess moonlights as an adjustable voltage divide controller during fold operations."
Duke glances at Elray annoyed at the prattling. He waives at him, trying to get him to quiet down.
"Shhh! Pipe down Elray! I'm trying to listen to this!"
He returns his attention to the central screen, his pilots eyes critically evaluating the carrier's maneuvers around the SDF-3 as they vectored towards lunar orbit.
"Oop Sorry. Positioning maneuvers are so slow... my mind wanders and I - sorry" Elray settles in, and watches the screen... visualizing those working the operations - still in their aprons and hair-nets.. "Who got marinara sauce on my hydrospanner?" He snorts out loud laughing to himself at the thought, then looks around at the faces glued to the screen. It was a patchwork of humanity... old-timers scattered among the green... There was something about their expressions as they prepared to pass through the threshold... which reminded him of the barflies, and others who had gathered around the TV at the Barking Duck at times of crisis and hard-fought victories. The communal pride and solidarity got to him, burned away his nerves and sarcasm. Elray was ready.
The fold always affected him like this, the vertigo, the surreal multicolored images...
... aaaand he's back in the Ready Room. Everything seemed normal.
He peeled his fingers away from the armrests and looked over to see how it affected the others; like Elray.
Elray opens one clenched eye - peeking to make sure the most critical phase had passed without setting off strobing red lights or other warning signs of unchecked human error.
He then relaxes and meets Duke's look with a "smooth sailing" gesture and the confident expression of an armchair expert.
Duke pats himself.
"Yep, still here." He looks balefully over at Elray.
"Let me guess. You make running commentary over movies too. Am I right?"
Elray tries mid-yawn to make sense of what he is looking at on the screen. The last announcement had awoken him from dozing off. "Duke... were we supposed to have friends waiting for us?" He sits up in his chair, and pulls his hair tight; waking up rather quickly.
Duke frowns at the viewscreen, his training program forgotten.
"What? No, Not that I heard of."
He jumps up and waives at an officer across the Ready Room.
"Hey Lieutenant Utay! Are those supposed to be there?" He points to the red objects on the screen.
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You see a group of veritechs being scrambled. They have the ghost insignia on them. Colonel Edwards is deploying his squadron?
Three minutes later, you get a general order to scramble your jets. "Everyone, this is not a drill. Head to your planes and get ready to launch, this is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill!"
Duke yanked Elray's arm.
"Come on boy! Time to saddle up!" He starts to move through all the traffic of pilots cramming through the Ready Room hatchway.
Elray beats feet to the hangar behind Duke, and scoots up into his cockpit. He checks to make sure his mechanic, Dilcher, had secured his "disaster kit" in place with his survival gear. He looks out to see Dilcher giving the thumbs up and a wink. He thought he had been quick, but well over half the pilots were already prepped to scramble.
Elray shimmies his goggles and noise cancelling headphones on, then switches on his linked comm channels. Hearing nothing but the digitized voices on the radio brought him into focus.
In the hangar bay, Duke swung himself up on the starboard wing of his currently nameless mount, hopped up and dropped himself into the open cockpit. He hastily wadded up his hat and stuffed it into a thigh pouch just in time to grab the helmet Big Red threw him. He put it on and the canopy slid shut. He returned Big Red's salute and hit the primary ignition. With a hiss-pop, the main fusion plant whined to life...
Elray pulls his helmet on over his headgear, and shuts the canopy. 'alright Sparkles. You ret?' He fires the ignition, and holds the output for the hangar comm channel to check in... "Elray is green. Elray... is green."
He switches his Squad channel to hands-free on his mic, and lurks for a bit before piping up.
Duke snapped a salute to the cat officer, the throttled up and leaned his head back. When the cat shot, he felt the familiar squeeze over his whole body as the ship suddenly blurred around him. Then he was free with empty space all around him and a spectacular view of the planet they had jumped to.
He triggered his comm.
"Big John, Duke here; Tiger 17 is away clean. Requesting vector to intercept Bandits."
He looks around to pick up his wingman Elray.
Duke calls up the sensor screen for the tactical readout, this is from his onboard sensors as well as anything uploaded to him from Big John.
From this, he will calculate the best approach to get behind the hostile bogies.
"OK Elray, Duke has a vector to the bandits; let's roll 'em up!"
Duke then pulls a maneuver to get on the course.
Elray tries to pull up Duke's vector, but falters in his multi-tasking. He the gets a visual before losing him, and works his way into position with an approach passing the flank a little dicier than Duke's.
"Roger that! No no no... don't you pay any mind to me... red crab thing..." Elray grimaces... expect pounding of rounds against the hull any second.
Out there in the field of combat, Ajit and his colleagues were danger close to the Invid already.
to determine where best to target on the ancient foes of his people.
to move into just the right position while avoiding attacks
ectoplasmic armblade (since i'm not sure what guns i have in my gun pod on my mecha)
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Out there in the field of combat, Ajit and his colleagues were danger close to the Invid already.
[dice=Lore: Invid or Know: Engineering]1d20+8 to determine where best to target on the ancient foes of his people.
[dice=acrobatics]1d20+10 to move into just the right position while avoiding attacks
[dice=attack]1d20+6
[dice=damage]2d8+4 ectoplasmic armblade (since i'm not sure what guns i have in my gun pod on my mecha)
[dice=crit confirm]1d20+6
[dice=damage]2d8+4[dice=extra attack]1d20+6
[dice=damage]2d8+4
It's a drum weapon gun (one of the ugliest guns in all SF). It does 2d6 damage, I believe.