(OOC: Sorry about the novel here, but I got carried away
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The carrier drifted through space, it's old hull pockmarked and frozen. The engines were simply torn off along with much of the back of the ship, though whether from scrapping or from battle no one could really be sure. The hulk had the words 'CHARON' stamped on the side, with the bottom half of 'ON' missing, drifting in space or being melted down somewhere. Some of the craters in the carrier looked recent, a week old at most.
Inside, the remains of the ragged crew; forty some odd pilots, engineers and two marines, simply sat around, having accepted the fact they were doomed to drift around until the oxygen supply ran out and they suffocated. Suicide had taken at least twenty odd men, and the remains were none too cheery after seeing nearly a hundred and forty of their friends and co-workers be killed in a single battle.
When they saw the ships preparing to duke it out in the distance, their radar having long been turned off to conserve power; the entire crew shot up at once. Everyone was moving around, the entire crew moved to the bridge as quickly as they could; having to grab hold of the pipes and crevices on the walls to get around; the anti gravity systems having been cut shortly before the radar.
Jason 'Jat' Jautenski was the last one to make it to the bridge, the crew; even the wounded, holding onto whatever they could to be close enough to the window to see outside. The lasher was closing in on its pirate counterpart and fast, its weapons heating up as they watched. The last of the command staff, a rather disliked second lieutenant who went by the name of Ragget; shouted over to him when he saw him. "Jat! Quick! Warm up the talon! Go help him! Get him to help us!" The senior pilot had been killed fighting the TT corporation, the ones who had destroyed the ship; and thus Jat had been forced to take a command role for the pilots on the ship of sorts. Effwit, or Easy E as the other pilots called him, spoke up before Jat could reply.
"We hardly have enough fuel to have the aux thrusters stop all the bloody death rocks floating around here, let alone fly a sortie you green academy piece of shi-"
"We have four canisters left, talons can go on one for an hour."
Easy was about to launch into a fit of curses, when Jat interrupted. "We will do it LT, if you reactivated the radar and radio systems, you could help us out as we go out there."
The lieutenant was obviously hesitant about draining the power any further, but after glancing at the battlefield outside; relented. "God speed alpha squadron." Was all he said, as he nodded towards Jat.
Jat smiled and nodded back, this was what he was trained for; not writing suicide notes in a burnt out hull. There were six talons left in the ship, twelve of the remaining crew were pilots. Three of whom were in the infirmary for sickness when the battle that destroyed the Charon began, two others in there for a broken rib and a broken nose, and Easy was in the brig for causing the broken bones. He looked between the pilots, trying to think of who worked well together and who didn't, the two best pilots; Jupiter and Mimmer, would prefer to put a bullet in the back of each others head so he couldn't have those two together. Young, probably the most well liked and experienced of them, only worked well when he was partnered with 'Fungus' (F. U. New. Guy. U. Suck.) But true to his name, he did suck. And of course Easy would never work with the two men he beat down. And then in the end, Easy, Jupiter and Mimmer and himself still had their original interceptors, they would be very angry to hand them off.
Sighing, he looked them over. "Fungus, Young, Jupiter, Reaper, Easy E." The other pilots look dismayed, the ones chosen whooped and shouted their approval as they were called. Reaper tried to cheer but instead went into a coughing fit, still sick from the battle. Jat nodded at the hatch and pushed himself down the hallway, the rest of the pilots followed.
When they floated into the docking bay, they each either found their respective fighters and strapped in. Fungus went for Mimmer's fighter, only to get his collar grabbed by the snippy pilot.
"I like my beautiful fighter to come back in less than two pieces, you don't get it." He pointed at Reaper, who happily hopped into Mimmer's vehicle; Fungus sighed and found one of the neutral fighters. Resigned by his lack of popularity.
Jat found his own fighter, a tally of his total kills (four) scratched into the side. Along the other wing were the spray-painted words:
"Make war, note peace." He realized how silly that was the moment half the pilots were killed. The remaining engineers checked the fighters over quickly and besides the damage from the previous battle, decided they were all flight worthy, Jat grabbed the handle above his head and pulled the glass down to cover the cockpit. Once he was sure all systems were green, he slid his helmet on and attached the tube to the on board oxygen supply.
Looking to his side, he saw an engineer finish filling his engines to half capacity and then push off. The last of the signal crew awkwardly tried to look like he was standing in the zero gravity environment, his radio having been lost with the back half of the ship; he relied on hand signals to direct them.
He raised both of his arms up to his chests and motioned towards himself, signalling for them to start moving forward. The fighters all began to start their ignition and push, satisfied they were moving, he pushed himself into a kneeling stance and pointed forward as quickly as he could at the entrance to the hangar. His movements were horrible and sloppy in the anti gravity environment, but the pilots all got his meaning and shifted their thrusters to full. The fighters rocketed forward out of the hangar and into the zero gravity environment, the other five pilots followed close behind him in a wedge formation. Easy to his left and Jupiter to his right, they turned towards the battle.
