PREVIOUSLY: https://philloz3000.wordpress.com/2021/04/01/the-bowie-effect-part-nine/
The Battle of the Tannhauser Jump Gate was NEVER supposed to be a battle at all.
It was in fact Colonel Roy Batty who led the first expeditionary group to probe the collapsar in the center of Tannhauser Gravity Anomaly X-1, off the shoulder of the constellation Orion (technically he was under Brigadier Tigh in the Exelion, but that fucking toaster-lover wasn’t within 30 light-years of the fucking thing, leading from the rear). To our amazement it took us directly to the white hole at the center of our own Galaxy, the hub of an enormous interstellar freeway system that reached all corners of the universe simultaneously. Unfortunately, that is also how the Arachnids found US.
They kept pouring out of the gate like locusts, which I guess is exactly what they were – no feelings, no doubt, no fear, remorse or compassion. Hell, no *intelligence* to speak of, certainly no SOUL. Just raw instinct, and a hive-mind dedicated to eradicating the Human Universe from existence. Colonel shut the fucking reactor down in the nick of time, but it was also too late – Armageddon was ON.
Of course Colonel Batty was put in charge of the assault. The CPT was filling in for his exec, Captain Motivational Sacrifice (she was killed in the initial first contact event), on the flagship Exelion. Normally she would have been on the assault frigate with us, but we had Sergeant Zim to fill in for us.
It was a goddamn Klausterfuk from the get-go.
Thanks to bad intelligence (and even shittier human brainjuice), the battle went off prematurely when the frakking Arachnids decided to send an inconvenient scouting party, coming at near light-speed off the Eastern Spiral from Klendathu. It was a goddamn bloodbath, a rout – they popped out right in the middle of our goddamn formation and opened fire, point blank, with particle cannon and plague mines. Hundreds of ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, a torrent of z-beams slicing apart metal and flesh and hope for the human race going up in flaming arcs of hellfire and an expanding, sun-hot nebula of smoke, gas, and clouds of frozen human blood crystals raining on our flight deck’s canopy like hailstones.
The Exelion in flames, Colonel Batty ordered a regroup of the fleet for a Hail Mary, final attack run; it was nearly another total disaster. Surrounded by a million(?) enemy units, everyone traveling close to the speed of light, every encounter an orgy of disease and infection and destruction and flaming death.
The Zentraedi Imperium wiped out, in a cluster of gamma bombs. Corsair’s crew, Empress Lilandra and the StarJammers, all dead. The ENTIRE ARMY OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS, gone in an instant (pour out a 40 for Jeanne Françaix, commander of the 15th ATAC), ironically with allied tech acquired from the captured (and martyred) Invid Regis. It looked like the last sign-off for all People, everywhere in the Human Universe. It was All Over.
But then SHE stepped up.
Dragging the unconscious, wounded Colonel out of the flaming pyre of the Excelion’s CIC by what was left of the tattered sinews in his arm, CPT Evan ArmyPerson quickly made it down to the alternate control center located just above the main magazine. The CPT took command of what was left in the fleet and gave General Order 0010: Ramming Speed.
Goddamn, it was fucking beautiful. Watching Evan take command was like seeing the Archangel Michael, descending from heaven with a flaming sword, destroying all enemies and Hyperdemons from the Core with the pure, cleansing Wrath of JEHOVAH-ONE, it was the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I ever experienced in my entire life, and that’s saying something. I mean, come on, I was at the Fire Rings of Fornax, if that means anything to you.
And though it all, she was statue-still, non-regulation stoagie clenched in her teeth, her golden armored lid glowing like a crown of holy flame, gently but firmly giving commands with the authority of all of our dead battle buddies screaming in vengence, backing her all the fucking way to the gates of hell.
We managed to shatter the Tannhauser defense grid and boarded the hypergate, easy peasy lemon squeezy. The drones left in charge of the Collapsar’s Invid Clone BrainMother were fucking worthless … we slaughtered them like drunken jewel crabs on graduation night OrgyCon, which is exactly what it felt like. It felt great at the time – not so much later.
When the smoke and debris field had been swept out, the now-awake Colonel Batty sent out the SAR birds to pick our soon-to-run-out-of-oxygelatin asses after nearly 48 hours of holding down a secure position on a command deck open and vented out into space. At least half the crew had already passed out, sharing our empty bottles, when he and the brass finally arrived to tour the facility.
In the evacuation ship, we went at full burn, close to the speed of light, all the way home. Sure, we got home a hundred years too late for our own parade, but we got HOME, and not a single crew member of UN SPACY Assault Frigate No. 2039 died or was lost in combat, the only boat in the entire fleet that could say so. Go Striking Sneks!
CPT Evan ArmyPerson was the best field commander who ever lived, just after Saint Margo of the Wastes and the Universal ConstantPerson, but that’s another story.
ADDENDUM:
####TRANSMISSION ENDS SENT IN THE CLEAR NO ENCRYPTION PINGBACK ON FREQ CHECK####
Origin, Unknown. Destination, Unknown. Estimated time elapsed 457 years forward, late 25th century.
CASE FILE CLASSIFIED SECRET
Cc: Dr. Emil Lang, RDF Command, Macross City; Brigadier REDACTED, UNIT Commander, REDACTED; Gen. Claude Leon, Cmmdr., Army of the Southern Cross, Monument City Complex, Quarantine Control Zone
Signed,
Ric Gentrey, Cmmdr., Space Academy
OROCO
##30##
NEXT, THE BOWIE EFFECT SEASON TWO PREMIERE AND FULL-LENGTH CONCERT! https://philloz3000.wordpress.com/2021/05/13/the-bowie-effect-season-two-episode-one-glass-spider-2/
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SLOW CLAP.
LOL. Thank you so much!
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“Here come the warm Jets…”
FUCK! I forgot that line! Ah well, second draft fix on the way …
Reblogged this on lthldse50 and commented:
I guess this moment will never be lost now…the scribe done scribbled it.
Just thinking that I promised you for decades I was going to put you in a story. I finally delivered on that promise.
Never say I’m not a man of my word.