I am Werewolf, hear me howl.
James settled in behind the microphone of the live performance set in the music room aboard the FCS Werewolf and then settled the Third Eye headset linking him to the bridge. The enemy had wanted to be seen, they wouldn’t have shown up on radar or allowed the station in the outer belt to get off a distress call if they hadn’t. It wasn’t however like they could ignore the call however, lives were at stake and Ciara was on Earth with Haruhi hopefully getting the Kanmusu to where they could come topside. The result was a ragtag “Fleet” of retired fen-ships going off to fight. Two of them were Zig carriers with mixed complements of fighters with Infomorph pilots, two were Kobyashi Maru class transports with missle pods and the FCS Werewolf, a former Bay class Panamax freighter that had been changed into a Wing Commander style “Wake Island class escort Carrier” and cargo ship. The “enemy” was described as an enemy “carrier” with escorts, though that description was a bit lacking in substance.
Still though they had set out for the belt, her decks full of missile pods instead of spares and ammunition, the fighters and more importantly the torpedo bombers would only be making one sortie from her decks and the ships of the scratch task force would be joining them on the attack run.
“Attack wings are in position Colonel; we are ready to go on your signal.” The interwave radio crackled through his brain.
“Very well people,” he replied calmly. “Let’s do this,” and with that the band began to play and within a minute he started to sing.
Dry your eyes and quietly bear this pain with pride
For heaven shall remember the silent and the brave
And promise me they will never see, the fear within our eyes
(my eyes are closed)
We will give strength to those who still remain
***
The Abyssal fleet carrier looked at the remains of the ships that had come to fight it and its escorts, the broken bodies of fighters and bombers were scattered amongst the remains of the ships themselves, in fact only one of the ships remained under power. Severely damaged the oversized cargo ship was coming about once again, jettisoning the cargo pods it carried as it went. The pods, the Abyssal knew carried the local missiles, and while they were hard hitting when massed and covering the attacks of the fighters and bombers, each pod only carried nine and just the missiles alone wouldn’t be worth much.
***
James coughed on the acrid smoke that filled the performance bay. “Alright you bastards,” he muttered finally clearing his throat and getting a lungful of mostly clean air. “You want a fight, well now you have one.” In his mind James could see the upper and outer pods clearing away as well as the upper sections of the central forward cargo containers revealing something he had added in secret. “Deck guns prepared to fire” the central computer reported. “Forward torpedo tubes loaded and ready to fire, please select music file or start playlist.” At this he smiled, and signaled the drummer to start. It was the last song that would be played here, their last performance, their last fight. Drums backed up woodwinds as the song started and the entirety of the remaining crew took up the song all over the ship.
Grayson's lost its champion; to God she has returned,
To stand before the Tester, in the state her rank has earned.
Our Lady needs an honor guard, an escort, and a crew,
And if you're the best available, I guess you'll have to do.
No Quarter, NO QUARTER! You damn well earned your fate.
Give Harrington our compliments; we're sorry you are late.
And with a song upon their lips the ship came about and her crew prepared to go down fighting.
***
The Abyssal Destroyer looked at the wreckage in surprise. It had only been one ship, damaged and spewing parts in its wake. But then that wreckage turned out to be more of the damnable missile pods and the ship to their surprise suddenly was mounting a turret of two sixteen inch guns. Finally, the surprise was that all that firepower was not spread amongst the five abyssal ships as it had in the initial engagement, but initially concentrated on one, the carrier. A massive barrage of firepower had borne down on the carrier obliterating the commanding abyssal in a matter of seconds. The pair of cruisers that dove into rescue their commander fell to the same barrage while the two destroyers could do nothing but stand there and watch their destruction. Well, near destruction as both cruisers actually survived though were severely damaged.
***
Must protect as many of them as I can, have to kill as many of the abyssal fleet as possible.
She could feel the thought lance through her, over the pain of the damage she had sustained.
Must fight on, never quit, never surrender, not until death drags me kicking and screaming from the fight.
“Yes,” she thought, “fight on through the dying of the light, our last breath taken with our fangs closed about the throat of our enemy.” She could feel her legs take shape, her feet touch the deck plates, she could see the source of the alien thought coming from the stage in front of her.
***
James hacked and coughed for a moment, but didn’t spit out the blood that he tasted in his mouth as he opened his eyes. His face-shield was closed meaning that the ship had lost pressure, and he could feel the wound that would take his life, a meter-long shard of hull fragment had speared him to the bulkhead behind the stage, pinning him in a seated position. Through all of this though he could see her, walking across the performance room deck. In one hand was a heavy crossbow, probably an auto-loader by the mechanism that she held braced against her hip. In the other hand she held a sawed off shotgun/coilgun as if it were a pistol. Her knee length skirt was confederate grey while her midshipman’s blouse was union blue, her brown hair was brown while her furred wolf ears a slightly darker grey than her skirt. The shoulders of her blouse each bore a symbol, on her left the sun and spaceship of the Convention, on her right the full moon and claw marks of the Get of Fenris Tribal warriors Ahroun. She stopped and kneeled in front of him on her own deck, “Rest now father,” he heard her say. “For now it is my time to be the wolf.”
James lifted his hand to her porcelain cheek and looked into her hazel eyes, “Fight well my daughter.” He said before allowing his eyes to shut and his hand to drop.
***
Two abyssal destroyers were just starting to build a vector away from the combat zone when a voice called out to them, “And where do you bitches think you’re going anyways.” Turning around the foursome looked at the strange girl that now stood between them and the last of the human ships that they had just destroyed. As they stood there she continued to speak as her rigging deployed around her.
“My name is the Fenspace Convention Ship Werewolf; I am the only one of my class.” Over her left shoulder a turret with a pair of sixteen inch guns deployed, over her right, a carrier deck. “You killed my father,” at her hips boxes that could only be missile pods appeared. “Now prepare, to die.”
James settled in behind the microphone of the live performance set in the music room aboard the FCS Werewolf and then settled the Third Eye headset linking him to the bridge. The enemy had wanted to be seen, they wouldn’t have shown up on radar or allowed the station in the outer belt to get off a distress call if they hadn’t. It wasn’t however like they could ignore the call however, lives were at stake and Ciara was on Earth with Haruhi hopefully getting the Kanmusu to where they could come topside. The result was a ragtag “Fleet” of retired fen-ships going off to fight. Two of them were Zig carriers with mixed complements of fighters with Infomorph pilots, two were Kobyashi Maru class transports with missle pods and the FCS Werewolf, a former Bay class Panamax freighter that had been changed into a Wing Commander style “Wake Island class escort Carrier” and cargo ship. The “enemy” was described as an enemy “carrier” with escorts, though that description was a bit lacking in substance.
Still though they had set out for the belt, her decks full of missile pods instead of spares and ammunition, the fighters and more importantly the torpedo bombers would only be making one sortie from her decks and the ships of the scratch task force would be joining them on the attack run.
“Attack wings are in position Colonel; we are ready to go on your signal.” The interwave radio crackled through his brain.
“Very well people,” he replied calmly. “Let’s do this,” and with that the band began to play and within a minute he started to sing.
Dry your eyes and quietly bear this pain with pride
For heaven shall remember the silent and the brave
And promise me they will never see, the fear within our eyes
(my eyes are closed)
We will give strength to those who still remain
***
The Abyssal fleet carrier looked at the remains of the ships that had come to fight it and its escorts, the broken bodies of fighters and bombers were scattered amongst the remains of the ships themselves, in fact only one of the ships remained under power. Severely damaged the oversized cargo ship was coming about once again, jettisoning the cargo pods it carried as it went. The pods, the Abyssal knew carried the local missiles, and while they were hard hitting when massed and covering the attacks of the fighters and bombers, each pod only carried nine and just the missiles alone wouldn’t be worth much.
***
James coughed on the acrid smoke that filled the performance bay. “Alright you bastards,” he muttered finally clearing his throat and getting a lungful of mostly clean air. “You want a fight, well now you have one.” In his mind James could see the upper and outer pods clearing away as well as the upper sections of the central forward cargo containers revealing something he had added in secret. “Deck guns prepared to fire” the central computer reported. “Forward torpedo tubes loaded and ready to fire, please select music file or start playlist.” At this he smiled, and signaled the drummer to start. It was the last song that would be played here, their last performance, their last fight. Drums backed up woodwinds as the song started and the entirety of the remaining crew took up the song all over the ship.
Grayson's lost its champion; to God she has returned,
To stand before the Tester, in the state her rank has earned.
Our Lady needs an honor guard, an escort, and a crew,
And if you're the best available, I guess you'll have to do.
No Quarter, NO QUARTER! You damn well earned your fate.
Give Harrington our compliments; we're sorry you are late.
And with a song upon their lips the ship came about and her crew prepared to go down fighting.
***
The Abyssal Destroyer looked at the wreckage in surprise. It had only been one ship, damaged and spewing parts in its wake. But then that wreckage turned out to be more of the damnable missile pods and the ship to their surprise suddenly was mounting a turret of two sixteen inch guns. Finally, the surprise was that all that firepower was not spread amongst the five abyssal ships as it had in the initial engagement, but initially concentrated on one, the carrier. A massive barrage of firepower had borne down on the carrier obliterating the commanding abyssal in a matter of seconds. The pair of cruisers that dove into rescue their commander fell to the same barrage while the two destroyers could do nothing but stand there and watch their destruction. Well, near destruction as both cruisers actually survived though were severely damaged.
***
Must protect as many of them as I can, have to kill as many of the abyssal fleet as possible.
She could feel the thought lance through her, over the pain of the damage she had sustained.
Must fight on, never quit, never surrender, not until death drags me kicking and screaming from the fight.
“Yes,” she thought, “fight on through the dying of the light, our last breath taken with our fangs closed about the throat of our enemy.” She could feel her legs take shape, her feet touch the deck plates, she could see the source of the alien thought coming from the stage in front of her.
***
James hacked and coughed for a moment, but didn’t spit out the blood that he tasted in his mouth as he opened his eyes. His face-shield was closed meaning that the ship had lost pressure, and he could feel the wound that would take his life, a meter-long shard of hull fragment had speared him to the bulkhead behind the stage, pinning him in a seated position. Through all of this though he could see her, walking across the performance room deck. In one hand was a heavy crossbow, probably an auto-loader by the mechanism that she held braced against her hip. In the other hand she held a sawed off shotgun/coilgun as if it were a pistol. Her knee length skirt was confederate grey while her midshipman’s blouse was union blue, her brown hair was brown while her furred wolf ears a slightly darker grey than her skirt. The shoulders of her blouse each bore a symbol, on her left the sun and spaceship of the Convention, on her right the full moon and claw marks of the Get of Fenris Tribal warriors Ahroun. She stopped and kneeled in front of him on her own deck, “Rest now father,” he heard her say. “For now it is my time to be the wolf.”
James lifted his hand to her porcelain cheek and looked into her hazel eyes, “Fight well my daughter.” He said before allowing his eyes to shut and his hand to drop.
***
Two abyssal destroyers were just starting to build a vector away from the combat zone when a voice called out to them, “And where do you bitches think you’re going anyways.” Turning around the foursome looked at the strange girl that now stood between them and the last of the human ships that they had just destroyed. As they stood there she continued to speak as her rigging deployed around her.
“My name is the Fenspace Convention Ship Werewolf; I am the only one of my class.” Over her left shoulder a turret with a pair of sixteen inch guns deployed, over her right, a carrier deck. “You killed my father,” at her hips boxes that could only be missile pods appeared. “Now prepare, to die.”