Captain John Tangent, Tactical Officer Lieutenant Trianna Yang, Starbase Commander Quincy Lagrange and the phantasmal alien psychic known as Pixie stood together in the observation bay of the New Interstellar Alliance's one and only 'hot lab.' Situated upon the now abandoned surface of the Earth, in the farthest reaches of the Gobi Desert, Hot Lab 1 had been constructed in a tearing hurry using every bit of flash fabricated material that the orbiting starbase could provide and was made for one purpose only: To see if the mysterious alien Voyulon traders could be trusted.
The four of them watched in mute focus as a Class-1 Railgun was mounted into place at the central laboratory, several kilometers away. The vidscreen displayed the image through grainy, cheap pickups, chosen to be easily replaced if something went catastrophically wrong. John tapped his fingers together, while Trianna crossed her arms over her chest. "Banging one snake lady," she muttered under her breath.
"I wish more people trade this kinda stuff for banging snake ladies," Pixie said, giggling. John smirked slightly - a private smile that none of the others were privy too, as Pixie was only visible or audible to him.
"Testing in five," Quincy said, brushing his fingers through his long, wavy blond hair. He looked good in the skintight outfit of a UNN commander, cut to properly fit his waifish figure and slender build. As a femboy, certain codes of military conduct were bent to allow for him to practice that most respected of Earthborn religions - this was why he got to keep the high heels, which he clicked against the ground in the only sign of nervousness that showed on his steely, feminine features. "Four. Three. Two."
The Class-1 Railgun fired directly into the shield emitters. Designed by the alien Chemdemdemdemar, field serfs of the terrible Zemturga Totality, the emitters looked nothing like what a human might make. Instead of hard steel and gleaming crystal, they were nothing but a series of interlocking flower petals that were banded in copper wire. Those wires flashed and the railgun slug stopped about a meter away from the emitter. Then the railgun fired again - the cloud of conductive metallic vapor that the railgun blasted out with each shot occluding the screen. Then it fired again, and and again, until the heat warning indicators flicked on.
"If that was one of our shields, it'd be so much scrap by now," Trianna said, watching the screen.
"The base didn't blow up at least, so there's nothing wrong with its power fields," John murmured.
The screen cleared.
The shield emitter was undamaged, and several glowing tungsten darts shimmered in the air before it before dropping to the floor with a clang that went entirely unheard by the cheap camera feed. Pixie threw her arms up.
"Woooo!"
John and Quincy shook hands, and the Starbase Commander beamed. "We'll have the new emitters in place before the day's out."
"What's your orders for after that?" Trianna asked.
"We're heading for Sigma Draconis II." John chuckled. "I think it's time we see the Totality from the inside now."
***
Delta Vee bounced on the tips of her toes as she watched, palms pressed against the glass, as her beloved Avenger got slowly and painfully dismembered. Butchered.
Mutilated
. "My baby girl! My sweet baby girl, they're ruining her!" She groaned, pressing her face against the glass as a few other pilots lounged around in the observation room of the starbase fabrication facility. Articulated arms - running on computer control - swung and buzzed around her fighter at incredible speeds, peeling away fuselage and taking out components so swiftly that between blinks it was like her ship was completely dismembered.
"You are aware of the concept known as a refit, right?" Kat asked, her tail twitching irritably from side to side.
"I'm aware of the concept of a
refit
," Delta said, pushing away from the window, scowling at the chief engineer of the
Excalibur
. "But these Voyurlong-bullshit shield emitters are freaking
flowers
!" She swung her hand back to the window, her timing utterly perfect. A sleek arm unfolded and placed a delicate bundle of flowers and copper into the hull of her ship, leaving a great deal of extra room where the old shield emitters would have gone. "I don't want to trust my life to a flower."
"You trust your life, every day, to a collection of goo and water," Kat muttered, watching with interest as the articulated arms started to...weld the flower in. Somehow.
"I do not!" Delta said.
Kat, without looking, reached out and flicked her forehead. "Dingus."
Delta rubbed her forehead, scowling. "Hey! I don't fucking risk my life...my...I...my brain isn't goo and water. It's- I...there..." She spluttered. "There's other stuff too."
"Not from what I can tell," Kat said.
Delta grumbled under her breath. "Says the girl who goes into freaking heat."
"Hey, don't knock going into heat. Going into heat's great," Kat said, her ears twitching up.
Delta grumbled even softer. "Says the girl who can hear like a bat grumble grumble."
"Did you call me a back?" Kat asked, frowning. "What does that even mean?"
The articulated arms pressed the wing fuselage in, then lasers hissed around the entire vehicle, leaving seams gleaming with cherry red metal. A sprayer hissed over as a final step, and the Avenger was left glossy and new, as if she had just come off the assembly line. There was no sign of the flower entombed within her metal hull, nor any hint that she had ever been opened again. Delta huffed slightly as she pressed her nose against the glass. "Well, at least the Zemturga can build a nice fabricator."
"No shit, the war would be way easier if they couldn't," Kat said, throwing herself down into the observation room's chair. She flung her legs up to hook over the back of the chair and laid her head back, so she was subjectively upside down to the young pilot. This view did give her a most excellent view of Delta Vee's taut, peach-shaped, spankable ass, contained as it was in the nearly skintight UNN pilot jumpsuit. She grinned, slightly. "Hey, uh, DV, do you see that spot weld they missed? Near the ground?"
"Where?" Delta hissed, cocking her head, then bending forward, craning to try and view her Avenger from the lowest angle possible. This just so happened to push her ass higher into the air and drew the jumpsuit tighter.
"Gods, I love undress blues," Kat whispered.
The door to the fabrication observation room opened and the Captain prowled in. Kat grinned at him as he saw her position, then tracked her eyeline to Delta, then back to her again. Her arched an eyebrow and pursed his lips. Kat stuck her tongue out at him, while Delta grumbled under her breath. "It's also kinda unfair to just give us a shield buff. They should give us more guns too."
"The additional firepower would kind of cut into your acceleration curve, DV," the Captain said, his voice amused.
"Captain!" She spun around, jerking upright. "You ordered this-"
"I did," he said, smirking slightly. "The shield improvements will pay for themselves. We're about to set out for Sigma Draconis II. It's one of the major trading hubs of the Totality - do you think that we can fabricate a housing for an Avenger that can make it look like, say, any of the Totality space fighters?"
Delta opened her mouth, then closed it. She put her hand to her chin while Kat rolled languidly from the air, flipping and coming to her feet in the same smooth motion. Her tail twitched as Delta tapped her thumb against her chin. "We couuuuuuuld mimic the Kruul Evil class interceptor," she said, hesitantly. "They're basically just shitty Avenger rip offs with extra spikes, no shields and no missiles and three more crew to manage their leaky ass fusion rockets." She made a face. "Do you ever think the Kruul just build their ships like that on purpose?"
"Like what?" The Captain asked.
"So when they blow up they get as many Kruul and as many enemies as they can killed or maimed as possible?" Delta asked. "Like, according to the flight logs we have, half the pilots that go up against Evils get cancer from their dirty ships blowing up in dogfights."
The Captain sighed. "I wouldn't put it past them. Still, will the Avenger be able to fly with that Kruul shit on it?"
"Eh," Delta said, waggling her hand.
"Can you put quick det charges to blow it off in a hurry?" the Captain asked, turning to face the engineer. Kat snickered.
"Pff, easy!" she said.
"Do it," the Captain said, then turned to go.
"Wait, John, we can't just fake being Kruul. They're big ugly fucking...copyright infringing uurks from that old book by the fuckin' French guy," she said, snapping her fingers. "Sartre, you know! He wrote the book with the dragons and the riddles and the ring that lets you make green telekinetic fists and stuff? Like, I am
not
dressing up as one! Not even if you can make a rubber forehead big enough."
The Captain pinched the bridge of his nose, looking pained. "Delta Vee, once again, I am reminded of why you sat behind me for English," he said. "And no. We're not going to pretend to be Kruul in person. That's what the computers are for. And only I need to go in person. And. Well." He turned to someone only he could see. "Pixie?"
The sensation of telepathic contact was almost unnoticeable to Delta Vee and Kat. Kat's left ear twitched and Delta scratched at the back of her neck. But between blinks, the Captain changed from a handsome, dark haired Terran with exotic, pale features to a tall, burly Kruul from their northern continent of their homeworld: Gray-brown skin, piggish snout, thick tusks, tufts of fur on chest, shoulder and more. He was dressed in a thick loincloth and loomed above them, burly and massive.
"See?" he rumbled.
"Ooooh!" Delta said.
