The Huntdown

Chapter 1 - The Briefing

The dinner-bell rang in the Tibran headquarters, where some important pilots were called together by their Legion Commander. Pilots of name, two ViceRoys, a rebel and a fairly new pilot recommended by the rebel had formed a special operations squadron, to carry out assassination missions ordered by their female LC, Joesphine5. This dinner-meeting was all about their first assignment, which they had heard some rumours about but not yet the exact details. They expected though that it was something about the NAPed Legion Commander, for he had been messing around with the goodwill of the Tibran legion for a while.

In the dining-room, Joesphine5 welcomed her ViceRoys SpiderWolve and Llotyhy, both from different parts of the galaxy, but joined under Tibran command, walked them to a round table, and told them to sit down next to her. Seconds later also CrazyGirl entered the room, and was seated next to SpiderWolve, leaving one spot between her and Llotyhy open.

As they were awaiting the arrival of JackBlackIV the Rebel, son of Lord Jack III of the Boraxian Downs and Countess Capr'a Bal'h's daughter XIV of the Tibran Highlands, they talked a bit about daily Tibran bussiness, and of course they talked about the latest betrayal of the Ajaxian LC, who had not done what was agreed on in the NAP treaty signed by both the Ajaxian and Tibran Councils, assisting the Tibrans when the joint forces of Boraxus and Krilgore tried to destroy the Tibran base.

Regardless the lack of assistance from their allies, the Tibrans fought back bravely and had slain the enemy forces, suffering great losses, but also gaining good top-pilots and cruisers. The small group talked about this battle, how they had gained respect throughout the galaxy, but also what they should do with the NAP with the Ajaxians.

Llotyhy, a young, still wise warrior, suggested not to break the NAP, as SpiderWolve gestured before, but instead hunting down their Commander, for he was the person not sending help, so that not both the Ajaxian, and ofcourse the Tibran legion, would be victims of the combined attack on Tibrar after all. As Crazygirl was about to agree with Llotyhy, they heard rumours on the hallway, as a running young man had ran into a group of guards, throwing them over. Joesphine sped towards the door, flanked by both her VRs, wondering what the noise was about. Then they saw the last person of the group, JackBlackIV, being held by three guards, while the fourth tried to hit him. Llotyhy shouted to the guard, "LET THAT MAN GO!!!", and surprised, the three men holding Jack softened their grip on his arms and neck, and Jack broke loose and said, after spitting on the floor, "see, I told ya I's expect'd in there!"

As they entered the dining-room again, SpiderWolve asked Jack why he was that late, they had been waiting for over half a Tibran Hour! Jack, expecting this question, started, "well, first of all, ofcourse this group of guards was in my way. Furthermore I couldn't find a parking place for my cruiser out there on the planet, geez, this planet wasn't made for such a good army with this many cruisers! Thereby, if I had been right on time, I wouldn't ‘ve given y'all such a nice entertaining view when I arrived, would I? Oh and before I forget, I missed the jump from TMC here last tick, so I had to wait twenty minutes before I could hyper... damn hypergates closing twenty minutes every 3 hours, why don't they fix that bug?"

Crazygirl laughed, "but what if you just had left half an hour earlier, then you would've made the tick, we wouldn't have been here yet, so there would've been enough space for your cruiser, and the guards would still have been accompanying our LC in this room, right?"

The commanders laughed as well, and Llotyhy said, "well, we know you by now, so we already started talking about the weather and such, oh and about LC R34p3r..."

Jack jumped up, "Don't speak of him when I'm around, the sorry bastard, or I might not be able to controll my emotions! That son of a ..." "Now now Jack, let's not call names at the Ajaxians, they are puny enough already. Controll yourself, then we can skip the calling names part and get on with more important bussiness", the Tibran LC interrupted him.

"Allright," said Jack, "why did you call us together here? Do you have a mission for squadron 811?"

Joesphine started, "Yes, I want you and your squad to go out and hunt down R34p3r. I don't want to break the NAP, for then the Bor-Kril forces might try another assault at Tibrar, knowing the Jax might join them. Instead, I want to punish the single person who caused us so many losses. According to my Sector Scan Device, some Jax forces are amongst our troops that are trying to destroying the Kril Scan Tower, and their LC is with them. I want you to await him in the fallbacksector when he is being targetted by the Krils, and shoot him down when he chickens out. If he doesn't, hyper in and kill him. You are on a special, secret mission, and if something about it leaks out, I will not back you guys up. You will be on your own on this mission, ofcourse with assistance of a high level repairship. That's why I asked you if you knew a quite unknown pilot who is flying a repper, and that's why you're here, Crazygirl! Do you guys have any questions?"

"Yes", SpiderWolve replied, "who will be leading the assault, and what is the use, he'll get a new ship and break the nap anyways!"

"The assault will succeed. Because of the underground nature of your assignment, I have chosen Jack the Rebel as your leader, you will follow his orders! And the reason the assault will be successful, save the nap and destroy the career of their current LC, is that there is a group of resistance against him in the Council already. I know that EwokDude wants to become LC of the Ajaxian Forces, and that he has support of the other VR, as well as two Squadron Leaders, Memph and Gunny. That is why we will succeed. Once R34p3r is dead or MiA, EwokDude will step forward. It's up to you though to kill him. Never in our history an order like this has been given to a squad, and I hope it will never be given again, but sometimes the necessary must be done," Joesphine5 replied, "I suggest we finish this meal, and then get you all prepared to leave for Southern Sector!"

"Now wait just a second, so the only reason I'm on this squad is ‘coz I'm the rebel of the legion? To make the other legions think it was a rogue-assault? Great! That's what I've always wanted! Let's go!", Jack added. Llotyhy joined him, "Let's do this, and get rid of that guy!"

As they finished their meal, they talked about how they could best trap the Ajaxian LC, until Jack said, "We don't have to trap him, we're allies! He'll suspect nothing, until we start shooting ofcourse! This won't be too hard a mission, so let's go!"

They went to the shuttle-bay of the HQ building, and had a final talk before they went to their ships. "Our planning talks will take place in Crazygirl's repairship, that's the easiest I think, because she has so many ship docks... Our own cruisers can only dock two shuttles, our own emergency shuttle and ofcourse a repairship, so that won't do... Now let's go!", Jack said, as they all walked towards their own shuttle, and waited for Joesphine5 to open the shuttle-bay door.

The Tibran LC opened the door, and watched her assault squad, as they flew out towards their own cruisers, on their mission of death.

Chapter 2 - The Journey

The four ships, three cruisers and a level 5 repairship, set flight towards the hypergate section of their homeplanet, Tibrar. Luckily the hypergates were still open for another ten minutes, so they could jump out together, just before it would close for twenty minutes. The HyperGate Commander hailed the ships, just as they approached the Hypergate Border, "Hello folks, where are you headed? Need to know that y'know, to prepare y'r jumps out!" Jack replied back, "We're squadron 811, JackBlackIV reporting. We're headed for the Moons, we'd be very glad if you'd bring us there, mate!"

After the HGC had prepared the gate to lead the squad towards the Moons of Karrp, he said, "Well guys, the gate is ready, you have five minutes to jump, so hurry up if you don't want to have to wait another twenty! Have fun around the Moons, going there for holidays?"

"Yeah, I think we deserved a couple of days off after that battle here around our own planet, don't you?", Jack replied, as he activated the hyperdrive of his ship, and sent out a comm to the squad, "shut up and follow me, no more discussion with this man! Let's hyper!" He then entered the hypergate and entered hyperspace.

He then suddenly heard a very annoying "pling"-sound, announcing that a comm message had arrived.

He walked towards his chair, looked on his screen and opened his inbox. "Hello Jack", a comm from his LC said, "I see you're well on your way! I will keep you up to date with sector scans from the sectors around you! At this moment there is only one Krilgorian ship hypering into MoK, and there's a couple of semi-inactive tibs in there... The Kril is Jeffrey, he's in a Carrier, don't shoot at him. He's at full health, not much you can do in those five minutes between arrival and the opening up of the gate... You should speed towards Southern Sector as soon as possible, that's the current fallback sector. I might change that later on to Dreadlar, depending on bor and kril movement. I will send my plans for the legion to the VR's as well as to you now, but the orders for your squad are all up to you. Good luck!"

While reading the message, he had heard the irritating "pling"-sound a couple more times, indicating more messages were waiting for him, so when he had read the message of his LC, and sent back a received-confirmation, he looked curiously into his inbox, seeing replies from his squadron mates, confirming their hypering. He decided to send them a comm about Jeffrey, and ordered them to wait as long as possible with jumping to Aquarius after they had arrived in the Moons, to have at least a bit of vacation, and ofcourse, because they had to recharge their hyperdrives for a couple of hours.

When they arrived at the Moons of Karrp Sector, Jack sent out another comm, "Let's park our ships in space around Moon One, and join in Crazygirl's ship! I'll talk to you soon!"

At the moment he was ready to go to Crazygirls ship he auto-forwarded all comms to his shuttle, and headed for her ship. Halfway he received another comm, this time from a group of Tibran fighters, who had been shooting at Jeffrey, "Hey Jack, why didn't you shoot with us, we could've taken him out! Kinda strange, what are you guys up to?"

Immediately he sent out a reply, "We're on our way to Planet Krilgore, we'll get him there, we're the reinforcements ya know! Now shuddup and follow us next tick! We'll hyper directly through SS towards the enemy, and take him out as we spot him! Good luck with your targets here!"

Then his ship detection system warned him that he was approaching Crazygirls ship, and he hailed her, "Hey there Tori, could you guide me to your ship safely, or do I have to pilot all the way myself?" "Well, I think you can do that yourself, Jack, the other two are here already!", Crazygirl replied, as she looked at Llotyhy and Spiderwolve who were already seated in the guest room of her repairship. "Oh well, I'll see you soon then", Jack replied, as he piloted his shuttle towards a repair-dock and landed safely.

Inside the ship they met again, and talked over their mission and possible drawbacks. "We might get shot at by both krils and bors while we shoot down R34p3r, aren't you afraid of that, Jack? Or don't you care? Do you know if our LC thought of that?", Spiderwolve started, "I really don't want to loose this cruiser while we're shooting one ship who we're allied to, while our non-allies have free shots at us!"

"I'll be there to repair you if that might happen, remember! And we have permission to add another two or three repairships to our squadron if we need them, but I prefer to keep it a small group", Crazygirl replied, just before Jack added, "I'll send a comm to our LC if she thought about that, so far I haven't heard much from her that you guys and girl haven't heard... We'll see what happens, and act on that."

"Now let's have dinner guys, I'm getting hungry! I'd love a glass of fine Romulan Ale, don't you, Jack?" Llotyhy then said, and they went to the dining room and had a meal.

Two hours later Crazygirl's Comm System indicated that a new message had arrived, and checking her inbox, she noticed it was a message from Joesphine5. She opened the message, and they heard Joesphine5's voice, "Guys, do you know what's wrong with Jack, he's not replying on any of my comms for two hours already! Please wake him up, you gotta jump to either Aquarius or the Roids within twenty minutes! I sent all intel on both sectors to him, so get him to read his friggin comms! Good Luck!", and they all laughed.

Jack walked towards his shuttle, accompanied by Spiderwolve, Llotyhy and Crazygirl, and as Spiderwolve and Llotyhy had stepped into their shuttles, Jack looked at Crazygirl and said, "You know, I really gotta tell you something... I want to wait though till after the battle... If we hadn't had this mission I would've told you already, but now that doesn't seem fair to me... I'll tell you what I'm talking about after we shoot down R34p3r allright! But you have to remind me of it then, I'm almost sure I'll forget it before then, or want to forget that I promised to tell you..."

With an uncertain smile on her face, Crazygirl replied, "Allright, I don't think I have a clue what you're talking about this time, so I'll take it as the usual rubbish, but allright, I'll remind you of it after the battle... Now go to your cruiser and read your comms for heaven's sake, or we might get killed before we get any action!"

"Allright," Jack said, grasped Crazygirl's right hand and clumsy kissed it, "Goodbye for now, sweetie!"

Crazygirl giggled, "Stop it, you fool, and get to work! I'll see you in half an hour, in the next sector, wherever it may be..."

"Okies, bye then!", Jack said, as he entered his shuttle and headed for his ships, in the meanwhile reading his comms and ofcourse the Roid and Aquarius Sector Scans.

The Aquarius Scan comm, as Joesphine5 sent it, said "There's a heap of bors in Aquarius right now, these are the scans:

TumNarDok* Boraxian 5 124539 11840/12500
Boris* Boraxian 5 103482 12500/12500
cursed* Boraxian 5 96114 9315/12500
JetBlack* Boraxian 5 83257 952/12500
Lapoor* Boraxian 5 76394 10473/12500

Now JetBlack is the only carrier amongst them, so that should explain why that's the most damaged ship. Still I'd say go through the roids, there you'll find only Jeffrey, who just hypered there as he almost died in the Moons, and Memphisbelle, a Ajaxian Carrier... Just leave them alone and get on with your path I suggest, but the choise is to you..."

Immediately he sent out a comm, following his LC's suggestion, to the other pilots in his squadron, saying "Guys, there's a couple of bor cruisers waiting in Aquarius, and only Jeffrey and a Jax carrier in the roids, so we're taking the Roid Route! Avoid shooting at anyone, Llotyhy, we'd best hyper out as soon as we can, seeing what experience both Llotyhy and I have with the roids... Especially now that we're both in full combat skilled cruisers, we'll be headed for Dreadlar from the roids, that's where they'll be least expecting us! I'll see you there! And Crazygirl, looks like we won't meet in the Roids, too much risk for me there ;-) See you soon!", and a comm to the other Ajaxians in Moons of Karrp, "Jeffrey hypered to the roids, if you fire early next tick you might be able to kill him! We're going there but will immediately hyper out as soon as we can, so you'll have to do without 811th squad! Good luck!"

Then he sent a comm to Joesphine5, "Received your comms, was at CrazyGirl's ship with the other pilots, headed for the roids, then most likely Dreadlar, please send scans quickly! Hypering will start NOW!", and a comm to his squadron, "Hyper NOW!", as he himself activated his hyperdrive and headed for the dangerous Asteroid Fields.

On their way to the Fields Jack received a comm from Joesphine5 that R34p3r was hypering into Planet Krilgore, and some intel on ships hypering in and out of Dreadlar and Southern Sector, that made him choose to lead the squadron to Southern Sector, the Jax and Tib fallback sector during the current raid on Planet Krilgore.

As soon as they arrived, Jack sent a comm to the squadron, "As soon as we can we will hyper to Southern Sector, according to J5 that's the safest sector! Once we get there she will tell us where R34p3r is then!"

Five minutes later, as the hypergates opened again, they all activated their hyperdrives and set course to Southern Sector.

Chapter 3 - Southern Silence

As they arrived in the Southern Sector, Jack hailed Llotyhy, and asked him to come over to his ship. He then sent a couple of comms out, to Joesphine5 he said, "We’ve arrived in Southern Sector now, could you tell me t-20 where R34p3r is? I’ll be in a talk with Llotyhy now, so I’ll talk to you later!", and to SpiderWolve and CrazyGirl he sent, "I’ll be having a private talk with Ll now, so that explains why I’ll be silent for a while!"

Then he heard The Pling, and he received a comm from Llotyhy, "Would be nice maybe if you open up your shuttle-bay for me! I can’t come in if you don’t, remember?"

Jack opened his shuttle-bay for Llotyhy, walked towards the elevator, and descended to the shuttle-deck himself. There he greeted Llotyhy, and together they went to Jack’s RelaxRoom.

They sat down, and Llotyhy asked Jack why he had to come over, and why the others weren’t there.

Jack answered, "Well, there’s something I want to tell you, in case I get shot down and won’t be able to escape from Planet Krilgore - I promised Crazygirl to tell her something after we finish off R34p3r, but if I’m not alive anymore, that’ll be kinda hard to do!" He then bent over to Llotyhy and whispered into his left ear.

Surprised, Llotyhy watched Jack, and asked, "And that’s what you want me to tell her if you’re dead?"

"Hey, a little more sensitive talk might work as well, don’t you think?" Jack quickly replied, "but indeed, might I not return from battle, I’d be very grateful if you could tell her that’s what I wanted to tell her!"

Llotyhy was silent for a while, then said, "okay, I’ll remember that, even though I hope there will never be the need for me to do this!"

"So, you think I should tell this," Jack asked, and Llotyhy nodded, "Better that she knows the truth, than never hearing something from you, don’t you think?"

They talked on a while, then suddenly a comm arrived.

"Guys, there’s some breaking news! R34p3r is being targeted in PK by both bors and krils, so he’ll most likely hyper out to your sector this tick! I’ll ask EwokDude in Tara’s to message the jax repairships not to repair him, if I reach an agreement on that, you may order all the ships in your sector to shoot at him!", the LC’s message said.

Immediately Jack sent out a comm to CrazyGirl and SpiderWolve, and told them they would gather for a news-update in CrazyGirls ship. Crazygirl replied quickly, but SpiderWolve didn’t reply on the comm. "Maybe he fell asleep", Llotyhy said to Jack, as they both walked towards the shuttle-bay.

"Well, then we’ll have to wake him up, don’t you think?", Jack grinned.

They entered their shuttles, and flew towards SpiderWolve’s cruiser. They flew around it a couple of times, but there was no sign of SpiderWolve being awake, so they flew towards his sleeping quarters. They neared his windows as close as possible, knowing that the Approximity Warning Systems would wake SpiderWolve up. As their own Systems started beeping, they heard the sirens on SpiderWolve’s ship as well, and soon they saw the sleepy head of the cruiser pilot appear behind the window.

SpiderWolve saw the two shuttles in front of his window, and hurried to the comm system, while putting on his uniform.

Soon, Jack and Llotyhy received a comm, "sorry about that guys, I really needed a nap. I’ll be right there on CrazyGirls!"

They flew their shuttles towards CrazyGirl’s ship, and docked in her shuttlebay.

Crazygirl awaited them already, with a fresh cup of coffee, and they walked to her Comfort Room.

They talked about SpiderWolve for a while, who had fallen asleep, until he arrived as well. "What did you want to tell us, Jack?" he asked. Jack replied, "I just received a comm from our LC, the bors and krils are already helping us. They have R34p3r high on their target list, and J5 expects him to hyper out pretty soon. She’s now trying to reach that Ewok dude, to see if he can message the repairships in here not to repair R34p3r. In that case, we may ask assistance from the other fighters and badly damaged ships in here in shooting him. This shouldn’t be too hard a job I think. We’ll have to get him in the first five minutes after arrival, coz if he notices us shooting at him, he’ll hyper out immediately I think. We could also shoot him down in his sleep, but I prefer shooting him while he’s awake, and can’t do a thing about it!" and he grinned.

Crazygirl added, "On the other hand, if we shoot him while he’s asleep, he won’t ever know what the hell happened to him, and he’ll be very scared to ever come in the same sector we are in again, don’t you think?"

"Well", Llotyhy disagreed, "don’t you like the idea of him KNOWING what is happening to him, and not being able to save his ship? I just hope he doesn’t hyper out too quickly, or even worse, gets killed by the krils and bors! Can you imagine how it could go if he hypers in here at half health already, would be kinda hard to kill him before the hypergates open again! And if he jumps out, and keeps jumping until he’s around Ajaxus, he could pick up a shiny new cruiser, sacrificing his cloaking ability, and we’d have to start all over again!"

"No, I think we’d better wait till the hypergates close again after he’s been here for almost three hours already… He won’t expect us shooting at him then, there’s a group of ships hypering into this sector soon, when he’s here, and he’ll think we’re waiting for them. Then we’ll all be able to fire ten times before the hypergates open again, I think that should do! Now, CrazyGirl, could we keep an eye on the incoming scans from here?" Jack said.

CrazyGirl walked towards a large wall, and slided her hand along a curve in the paint. She pushed a hidden button, and the entire wall changed into a large screen, displaying all the scans available, scans of the Tibrans in the sector, scans of the Ajaxians present, scans of ships coming in and ships hypering out. Suddenly they saw a new ship appearing on the incoming list, as they had expected. R34p3r was hypering in with his shields down to 25% of maximal strength, and with him a couple of other badly damaged repairships.

The other pilots gasped at the view on that screen, such a nice wall-covering screen they had never seen before. CrazyGirl laughed, "Yea guys, that’s the newest thing on Tibrar, looks like you guys missed out on that! New piece of technology, costed me some money, but I can transfer everything to my Comfort Room like this!"

As he caught his breath again, Jack asked, "Could you send a comm to J5 for me, I wanna keep her updated on our plan... As well, I want to know if she has an arrangement with the Ewok dude already. Those badly damaged jax repairships might help our plans, Ewok could now just order the repairships to repair eachother, and we’re giving them extra bonus points by just being here. Looks like a thing allied pilots do for eachother, right?"

"Ofcourse", CrazyGirl said, and opened the Comm Panel by pushing some buttons on the controll panel next to her comfort seat… She typed in the message, and sent it to her Legion Commander. "I don’t suppose I’ll have to send it to our VR’s as well, am I right?" she laughed, as she looked at SpiderWolve and Llotyhy.

They laughed as well, and they started talking about what they would do after the mission.

After a while they received a reply from their LC, "Got your message, you have a GO! I arranged with EwokDude that the Ajaxians will repair their repairs first! Good luck with your mission!"

Jack sighed, "Finally we’re getting somewhere! Now let’s go to our ships, and Llotyhy, remember what I just told you, allright?"

As Llotyhy nodded, they went to theircruisers and left CrazyGirl behind in her repairship.

Chapter 4 - The Hunting Begins

Soon, they received a signal from the HyperGate Commander of Southern Sector, that the HyperGates were about to close for first fifteen minutes, then let some ships through, then close for another five.

As the plan was, the members of Squadron 811 did not yet shoot at R34p3r, although they might have killed him if they had shot all similarly. But since they had decided to shoot him later, they awaited their time.

The Ajaxian LC, R34p3r, arrived a while later, and seeing the quite large Tibran forces in Southern Sector, he sent a comm to the Tib LC, "Why did you not send those ships who are currently in SS in to PK, then we could’ve blown the planet already! You have such good ships, why don’t you use them?"

Joesphine5 forwarded the message to Jack, who laughed, and sent a comm back, "He doesn’t expect a damn thing, does he? We’ll wait as long as possible to shoot him, we’ll see if he’s still here around t-15, when the gates close again! If so, he’s dead meat!"

He sent out a comm to the other squadron members, "Meeting at CG’s again guys, might get boring in a while, but for now it’ll do I think! I’ll see you all soon!"

Walking towards the elevator, he grabbed a portable Comm&Scan system and configured it to operate perfectly outside the ship. As he went down to his shuttledeck he scanned the Southern Sector for friendly ships. Then he entered his shuttle and set flight to CrazyGirl’s.

In the meanwhile Joesphine5 was monitoring enemy movement, and saw that Aquarious was slowly filling up with yellow Boraxian forces, while aroun Planet Krilgore a red Krilgorian battle-group grew stronger slowly. Seeing that, she sent Jack a comm, "Might R34p3r hyper out, he’ll most likely hyper into the Asteroid Fields! Sectors around you there’s 3 legions blobbing up, the Bors in Aqua, the Krils in PK and the Jax in the Roids! Let’s now just hope they’re not backstabbing us! Anyway, I’m sending some reinforcements to the Roids, I’ll give you their names soon, okay?"

As Jack docked in CrazyGirl’s shuttle bay, Llotyhy and SpiderWolve arrived as well, and they walked to her Comfort Room together, where she was already waiting for them, standing in front of a window, with her back towards them.

Jack cleared his throat as they entered the room, and CrazyGirl verbally greeted them. They walked towards her, and as they stood next to her, they could see what she had been looking at, R34p3rs badly damaged, but still beautifully painted cruiser.

CrazyGirl turned around, and with a big smile on her face she said, "Don’t you love the sight of a defenseless prey, right there, waiting for you to kill him or eat him alive? I do, I could watch his ship for hours!"

Llotyhy and SpiderWolve nodded, and Jack too agreed, "Indeed, that’s right, there’s no way he’s going to escape us! By the way, I have some news for you guys, but let’s sit down and have a drink first!"

They sat down, and while he was filling four glasses with a bright green liquor, he started talking.

"Our LC just told me, that the enemies most likely are planning to raid this sector, because they are blobbing up around us, the bors in Aquarious, and the krils in PK ofcourse. I just hope the Jax won’t join them, coz then we would be in a pretty miserable situation, with the Roids going blue right now. Anyway, if they do, we’re dead. If they don’t, most likely R34p3r will hyper out if he’s still alive, as soon as krilgorian and boraxian ships hyper in. I bet he must’ve seen Aquarious turn yellow as well as we saw it. If he hypers, J5 will tell us where he’s going, and we’ll follow him, most likely to the roids. We have to be prepared for everything, yet also for nothing, keep that in mind!"

As he finished, he raised his glass and said, "To R34p3r, may he die with more honor than he lived with!"

SpiderWolve laughed, "That shouldn’t be too hard, seeing how his life was! I just hope the other enemies don’t hyper in too quickly, coz that might make our mission turn into a chase, which I won’t like very much."

In the meanwhile, Jack was checking the Incoming Scans, and suddenly saw Guderian, a lvl3 Boraxian Fighter, and Talon, ofcourse in a Krilgorian Microw Fighter, lvl4 this time, hypering in. He sighed, and said, "Well folks, we’d better get ready to follow R34p3r to the roids, coz we have two enemy ships hypering in so far, one kril and one bor, that must be the early hypering ships."

Crazygirl replied, after twenty seconds of silence, "yea, we’d better get ready, but we can stay together now at least until either R34p3r hypers out, or t-20, when we should get prepared to be able to hyper immediately after R34p3r, if and when he leaves."

Llotyhy added, "Oh he will leave, trust me! There’ll be to much heat for him here with Bors and Krils who already targeted him before! I just wonder if they’re hypering in without sending scouts or that these two ships are too early hypering, coz I would’ve sent cloakers as scouts! With that Scan Equipment Pack I picked up before the hypergates closed last time I noticed there were no enemy ships cloaked in here, so they have no idea what’s in here, since we already ruined all the other Scan Towers!"

As they waited a little longer, they saw also some high ranked krils, amongst whom their LC Legion, and their VR’s Impression and whyKT, and the bor VR cursed hyper in, together with Fox13 and Lapoor, two boraxian cruisers.

Jack turned pale, and said, "Okay guys, we’re definately NOT going to fight those guys in here! Not without a decent fallbacksector! Thereby I’ve never won a battle in which Fox13 was participating!"

As he said that, they saw R34p3r’s ship move towards the hypergate. Jack asked CrazyGirl if she could already ask J5 to monitor the scans of ships hypering into sectors around Southern Sector, while he and the ViceRoys would be flying back to their own cruisers, and she agreed. Jack proposed that the VRs would hyper right after R34p3r, to the same sector, and that he and Crazygirl would follow a bit later, as the HyperGate Commander of this sector was known to be irritating when more than two ships wanted to hyper out to the same sector together.

Llotyhy and Spiderwolve agreed, and so did CrazyGirl, who then went to the Bridge of her ship to send the comm to J5. Jack accompanied SpiderWolve and Llotyhy to the shuttle-bay, and as they had left, closed CrazyGirls shuttle-bay, and returned upstairs to the Bridge.

CrazyGirl was standing in front of the window again, staring outside. As he entered the bridge, Jack cleared his throat again, not sure if she expected him to still be aboard her ship. Surprised, she turned around and wiped of a tear off her right cheek, as she said, "Oh, Jack, didn’t know you were here, thought you had left with the other two guys!"

"Nah", Jack replied, "I was hoping it wouldn’t be as boring to wait if we wait together until we hyper, so I thought, let’s see if there’s a way to please CrazyGirl today", and he laughed, "is there something I can do for you?"

"Well, actually, there is something you should do, but I don’t expect you to do it, as you said you would tell me something AFTER the battle. But I’d like to know something about it.", CrazyGirl said, and looked down to the floor. "Has it something to do with us, is it that you don’t want to see me anymore?"

Quickly Jack replied, "Oh no, not at all, I hope I didn’t do anything to make you think so! No it’s something different, but I really can’t tell you before the battle, or I won’t be able to fight it... That would drive me crazy..."

As he had said that, CrazyGirl smiled, "Okay, I was afraid I’d done something stupid that made you hate me or something like that, but luckily I was wrong..."

Finally then a comm arrived from J5, telling them that R34p3r was hypering to the Roids, with the remembrance NOT to shoot in the roids. "As if I’m going to loose another ship that way", Jack laughed, as he confirmed the hyper to Ll and SpiderWolve. He and CrazyGirl then walked to her shuttle-bay and as Jack stepped out of the elevator, CrazyGirl quickly kissed him on his cheek, "Now pay attention, I want you to be able to cheer me up, so don’t hyper the wrong way!", she added, just before Jack entered his shuttle and flew back to his ship.

They both saw Llotyhy and SpiderWolve enter hyperspace, and shortly thereafter they entered hyperspace as well.