-In a rowdy bar on a space station in The Nyx system -
“Fine I’ll tell it again since you’re not going to leave me alone otherwise, but you owe me a round.
You all know Montoya was a navy brat, same as most of us. Spent his childhood moving from base to station to alien planet. Once he hit sixteen he was shipped off to the naval academy on MacArthur.
Montoya's parents were pretty high ranking officers, so you can imagine how proud they were when they got the news he was on the admiralty fast track program.
Sadly, the outpost near Jalan where they were stationed was attacked by the Vanduul and they were killed.
Two weeks later we graduated from the academy, Montoya was made a pilot and I worked under the quarter master. Not as glamorous I know but I was good at keeping track of things. Although his new lieutenant rank and uniform made him feel invincible at times, they did little to quell the nausea he experienced the first time he took his new posting.
Manning the helm for one of the UEE's prized Idris class frigate was a dream come true for any navy pilot, and the Messer was no slouch. He had a pretty good gig, as far as navy jobs go. Fact is, you’re less likely to eat a laser inside the bridge of one of those babies than in your standard hornet.
Danger didn't bother Montoya as much though, not as much as a sense of helplessness. We could hear old UEE radio broadcasts from Jalan when we scanned channels. He couldn't visit his parents grave, not that we truly knew where they were. The situation was so far above top secret no one on board had clearance, not even captain Jessup.
The Messer's patrol took it through Garron to Idris where, in conjunction with the Carrack class vessel The Asimov, it had orders to perform a ground level scan of the planet Locke. You see, ever since the first Tevarin war when it sustained heavy bombardment people have been stashing weapons and dumping their byproducts there. The planet had become a hideout and a safe haven for criminals and ne'er do wells.
Every thing was by the book from the system entry to the orbital insertion, unfortunately it’s the things that you don’t plan for that often affect you the most...."
part 2
"July 4th 2926. The 1170th anniversary of the American holiday Independence day. It was also a day that the UEE as well as Montoya would never forget.
I made my bed, brushed my teeth, and headed to the mess hall for chow. I had barely gotten half my food down when the alert sounded.
While I was sleeping two maulers and a driller carrier were spotted within range of Locke. Luckily they didn't see us first so we had the advantage.
Captain Jessup elected not to call the fleet in the Crowshaw system for backup to prevent any unwanted attention. Looking back I don't know if it would have made a difference.
We settled in near an abandoned relay station to mask some of our signature. The Asimov was scheduled to rendezvous with us in orbit at 18:00 SET. They were finishing up a scan on one of the southern continents and we had no idea if they had realized what we had.
Before too long we had our answer.
Standard protocol for docking requires both parties to issue a challenge and response, and in the event that a ship is commandeered appropriate measures are taken. The Asimov issued its challenge expecting a response from the Messer, all that it received was cold silence.
Unknowingly the Asimov had openly broadcast its location, it was a matter of time before the enemy would be right on top of them. Captain Jessup immediately issued a no contact order, aware of the fact that if we responded we would all be dead. Having recently lost his parents Montoya was not okay with this decision. He believed that no matter what cost it was our duty to try to save every human we possibly could, see it wasn't only the people aboard that ship who were going to die. Captain Jessup's plan was to wait until the Vanduul had started attacking the population of Locke before he tried to make the jump out of system to contact the fleet.
I hadn't known him for long at that point, but I knew the look in his eyes when he was going to do something stupid. Before I knew it he was gone. He’d left his post on the bridge and boarded an aurora in the landing bay. I heard him say over the comms “Either you open this hangar door or I’m blasting it open!”
Jessup tried to persuade him not to do it but once he powered up weapons we knew there was no stopping him.
If the words “Montoya’s a deadman” didn’t come out of Jessups mouth a hundred times that night I’ll eat my helmet.
I’ll take that drink now bartender. I always hate telling this part of the story.
He didn’t have much time, maybe two minutes after he’d left the messer before he realized the maullers had already locked onto the asimov. Fifteen torpedoes we counted. Fifteen. Do you know how many it takes to destroy a Carrack? Me neither, but it’s less than fifteen I can tell you that much.
We didn’t see montoya take a direct hit, by our best guess he must have taken shrapnel from the explosion.
They had moved into position and destroyed the Asimov within ten minutes. All five souls aboard were lost along with montoya, or so we thought.
Captain jessup elected to wait until they had made their move to the other side of the planet to flee. Looking for survivors wasn’t of importance, his… “self preservation instinct” was too strong.
According to the UEE News the official death count for L ocke was 743 including the crew of the Asimov. Seeing as how you all know the end of the story I suppose it doesn’t come as much of a surprise but montoya made it outta there.
Seems his ship had enough left in it to make it to, but not through the nearest jump point. He was picked up by a tevarin scrapper who just so happened to be in the area, lucky son of a bitch.
The old alien had taken a liking to montoya, I guess they found common ground in their loss. Fortunately for those of us who left the navy, there was plenty of work to be done in “alloy and polymer reclamation”, better known as scrapping.
We definitely weren't living like kings, but we were free of the UEE. "
“Fine I’ll tell it again since you’re not going to leave me alone otherwise, but you owe me a round.
You all know Montoya was a navy brat, same as most of us. Spent his childhood moving from base to station to alien planet. Once he hit sixteen he was shipped off to the naval academy on MacArthur.
Montoya's parents were pretty high ranking officers, so you can imagine how proud they were when they got the news he was on the admiralty fast track program.
Sadly, the outpost near Jalan where they were stationed was attacked by the Vanduul and they were killed.
Two weeks later we graduated from the academy, Montoya was made a pilot and I worked under the quarter master. Not as glamorous I know but I was good at keeping track of things. Although his new lieutenant rank and uniform made him feel invincible at times, they did little to quell the nausea he experienced the first time he took his new posting.
Manning the helm for one of the UEE's prized Idris class frigate was a dream come true for any navy pilot, and the Messer was no slouch. He had a pretty good gig, as far as navy jobs go. Fact is, you’re less likely to eat a laser inside the bridge of one of those babies than in your standard hornet.
Danger didn't bother Montoya as much though, not as much as a sense of helplessness. We could hear old UEE radio broadcasts from Jalan when we scanned channels. He couldn't visit his parents grave, not that we truly knew where they were. The situation was so far above top secret no one on board had clearance, not even captain Jessup.
The Messer's patrol took it through Garron to Idris where, in conjunction with the Carrack class vessel The Asimov, it had orders to perform a ground level scan of the planet Locke. You see, ever since the first Tevarin war when it sustained heavy bombardment people have been stashing weapons and dumping their byproducts there. The planet had become a hideout and a safe haven for criminals and ne'er do wells.
Every thing was by the book from the system entry to the orbital insertion, unfortunately it’s the things that you don’t plan for that often affect you the most...."
part 2
"July 4th 2926. The 1170th anniversary of the American holiday Independence day. It was also a day that the UEE as well as Montoya would never forget.
I made my bed, brushed my teeth, and headed to the mess hall for chow. I had barely gotten half my food down when the alert sounded.
While I was sleeping two maulers and a driller carrier were spotted within range of Locke. Luckily they didn't see us first so we had the advantage.
Captain Jessup elected not to call the fleet in the Crowshaw system for backup to prevent any unwanted attention. Looking back I don't know if it would have made a difference.
We settled in near an abandoned relay station to mask some of our signature. The Asimov was scheduled to rendezvous with us in orbit at 18:00 SET. They were finishing up a scan on one of the southern continents and we had no idea if they had realized what we had.
Before too long we had our answer.
Standard protocol for docking requires both parties to issue a challenge and response, and in the event that a ship is commandeered appropriate measures are taken. The Asimov issued its challenge expecting a response from the Messer, all that it received was cold silence.
Unknowingly the Asimov had openly broadcast its location, it was a matter of time before the enemy would be right on top of them. Captain Jessup immediately issued a no contact order, aware of the fact that if we responded we would all be dead. Having recently lost his parents Montoya was not okay with this decision. He believed that no matter what cost it was our duty to try to save every human we possibly could, see it wasn't only the people aboard that ship who were going to die. Captain Jessup's plan was to wait until the Vanduul had started attacking the population of Locke before he tried to make the jump out of system to contact the fleet.
I hadn't known him for long at that point, but I knew the look in his eyes when he was going to do something stupid. Before I knew it he was gone. He’d left his post on the bridge and boarded an aurora in the landing bay. I heard him say over the comms “Either you open this hangar door or I’m blasting it open!”
Jessup tried to persuade him not to do it but once he powered up weapons we knew there was no stopping him.
If the words “Montoya’s a deadman” didn’t come out of Jessups mouth a hundred times that night I’ll eat my helmet.
I’ll take that drink now bartender. I always hate telling this part of the story.
He didn’t have much time, maybe two minutes after he’d left the messer before he realized the maullers had already locked onto the asimov. Fifteen torpedoes we counted. Fifteen. Do you know how many it takes to destroy a Carrack? Me neither, but it’s less than fifteen I can tell you that much.
We didn’t see montoya take a direct hit, by our best guess he must have taken shrapnel from the explosion.
They had moved into position and destroyed the Asimov within ten minutes. All five souls aboard were lost along with montoya, or so we thought.
Captain jessup elected to wait until they had made their move to the other side of the planet to flee. Looking for survivors wasn’t of importance, his… “self preservation instinct” was too strong.
According to the UEE News the official death count for L ocke was 743 including the crew of the Asimov. Seeing as how you all know the end of the story I suppose it doesn’t come as much of a surprise but montoya made it outta there.
Seems his ship had enough left in it to make it to, but not through the nearest jump point. He was picked up by a tevarin scrapper who just so happened to be in the area, lucky son of a bitch.
The old alien had taken a liking to montoya, I guess they found common ground in their loss. Fortunately for those of us who left the navy, there was plenty of work to be done in “alloy and polymer reclamation”, better known as scrapping.
We definitely weren't living like kings, but we were free of the UEE. "
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