Combat Tour of the Milky-Way galaxy (private with RegressionRevolution)

[GuardianWolves]

The planet earth, home to the species known as humanity. This species has been through so much in the past 66-million years, from wars to famine, to extinction-level events and many other catastrophes that would have ripped other species and planets apart. Nope, not this species, these species, these humans have survived for so long and why, no other race in the galaxy that has been observing them for as long as they have existed could tell you that. The only thing they do know is that this species is new to the space-faring and has only barely started establishing its own foothold in the galaxy.

But now the galaxy was about to feel what it was like to have humans roaming about the galaxy in a military vessel no-less, some leaders of other races, just couldn't believe the idea that humanity had managed to get this far and survive long enough to be able to become space-faring, others are happy that the humans have finally reached a league of their own in space-travel, the rest of the leaders try and come together to discourage humanity from continuing its endeavor into space by fighting or denying them access to their planets. They thought that if they could starve out the humans then the humans would not have any reason to continue to be in space, oh how very wrong they would eventually turn out to be. 

Meanwhile, at spaceport Athena, docking-bay 36-4 the crew of the United Nations Carrier Ship zero-one Invictus was getting the final stragglers of its crew-aboard as they were going to be the first military ship, representing humanity in the stars and the galaxy are preparing to set out on their maiden voyage of the milky-way. All of the crew was excited, some were nervous, others were frightened of what they might find out in the dark reaches of space. But all had a determined mind to see this through and see what life was like on other planets, some were veterans of wars on the planets, others were freshly-trained recruits out of the academy that had never been away from home, let alone their home planet. 

"Oh god, this is gonna be such an exciting moment. I can't wait to see what we get to see when we get to our first planet." One of the officers excitedly says to the officer next to him and quickly falls silent as he and the rest of the crew is called to Attention and the captain of the ship walks out onto the deck and everyone, immediately salutes him, to which he gives the order to stop saluting, which they do and return to a position of attention, it was then that he spoke to all of them.

"I am Captain Rangers, you men, and women of this planet, have all been a great opportunity, to become part of the first-ever military endeavor by humanity, in its history among the stars, to patrol and make our presence to the rest of the galaxy be known, now this isn't gonna be easy for most of you because your all used to the gravity of earth, trust me I was too when I first stepped aboard this ship, but I am happy to report that it will get easier, just remember that you are representing humanity aboard this ship, we are humanity upon the stars, so whatever petty crap you have among each other I do not wanna see it aboard this ship, we're here to do a mission and live and work together without any major diplomatic incidents happening. I do not care about your race, where you came from, etc. None of that will have an impact on this ship's mission, do you all understand this? Good! Now, have a safe tour and let's get back to this planet in one piece Hu'ah?! Good! That is all, you're all dismissed!"

 

 

[RegressionRevolution]

The squadron dispersed after the captain's address, there were duties to perform as the Invictus left orbit and ventured out from the Sol systems.

Most of the crew were already walking in groups or pairs, laughing and familiar with each other. One figure marched off alone.

Tora was of Polynesian decent. Her black auburn tinted hair was neatly tucked beneath a UN blue barret. Her uniform was conservatively button up to collar, there was a tantalising suggestion of a curvy athletic figure beneath as her hips rolled to the rhythm of her brisk pace.

Tora arrived at the ordinance storeroom and punched an access code into the maglock keypad. Once inside she had to flash an identity card to the Quarter Master. 

Soon she was lost amongst stacked shelves of boxes. She knelt on the floor, bent at the middle, leaning over a box of rail-gun slugs. She had a ship's manifest I'm one hand and a one of the bullet shaped armour piercing rounds in the other. It was about as thick as her thumb. A standardised kinetic ammunition which could be fired from a magazine. 

Her duty was a dull one. Inventory check. The computer gave her a random casement number. She had to find the box, which held the magazine, which had the bullet. The  venture into outerspace was staggeringly expensive, the investors back home wanted to be reassured everything was in order.

Tora rolled the heavy alloy slug in her palm and read the serial number stamped into the casing. She gave a small sigh of relief that it matched the manifest. It would have been a like looking for a needle in a haystack if entry had been wrong. As she packed up she wondered if pirates had to do this sort of tedious task? She supposed it seemed silly for something designed to expendable like a bullet but what if something vital was missing? Of course even the seemingly mundane could be vital. What if there were no spare UV light tubes for the hydroponics bay and some of them went out? Would they have to deal with a potential food shortage for the duration of the tour? 

It was questions like that which fast tracked Tora through her flight support officer training. She was naturally inclined to spot patterns and problems then think 5 steps ahead. It gave her an edge in anticipating things. Her friends despaired at her ability to nearly always predict and counter a volley ball shot. Her commanders praised her rational and tactical thinking during flight simulations. It could have fast tracked her to coveted a place on bridge but instead she was a co-pilot on a light space craft. It was all because of a damning statement on her psychology statement which. The doctors who assessed said she was prone to stress, in part due to her analytical thinking. Her instructors had therefore decided experience with a lesser craft and under the supervision of a copilot was the best way to test her reactions to stress outside of the flight simulator. She knew she should have been happy, she was one of the few people selected for the first Extra Terrestrial UN peacekeeping mission, and yet her ambitions reminded her she wasn't sitting where she wanted to be. 

At least there was one silver lining, her copilot was kind of hot. She seen him around the training base before but never actually talked him before. That made her a bit anxious. She'd checked out his social media but there was no way of verifying is he was nice or an asshole.

"Hey Tora." A hand clapped over her shoulder. She spun around to the bright greeting smile of Selena Ferrez, a fiery haired logistics officer and also one of Tora's friends from the academy. "Caught you daydreaming." Selena stated with good humour.

"Yeah. The next duty on my roster is some routine astrometrics calibration. I was trying to decide which sampling algorithm to use." Tora lied quickly. She had a British accent, not a Polynesian one. She'd been born and raised in the Megapolis of London. 

"You were thinking about algorithms for mapping stars?" Selena arched an eyebrow skeptically. Then she took Tora's wrist and guided her down corridor to a viewing port. "Look at that! You could have missed this. You need to learn when to chill. Take a moment and look at your algorithms later." 

Together they looked out at the Earth and it's moon. Half in darkness, half in the Sun. It was growing smaller as they distanced themselves from the gravitational pull of the Sun in order to transition to Faster Than Light Speed.

"We've been orbiting Earth for a month. Honestly, I didn't think about it much other than send some photos back to my family. Now, I don't know what to think. I guess, I'm gonna miss it... It looks, sort of sad. Lonely maybe?" Tora commented pensively.

"Not for long. Soon the United Nations of Earth will spread across the stars."

[GuardianWolves]

Meanwhile, on the Flight deck of the Invictus, deck crew members and officers were going over their assigned aircraft with a fine-tooth comb, they didn't wanna leave anything to chance when it came to battle as they knew one single mistake could cost them an entire battle and most likely get the pilots mad at them, which would be a hell of a way to start the tour. But for now, they were happy to be able to be a part of the first-ever human-led space expedition, even if it was on a military vessel.

Down below in the area allocated to the carrier squadrons, all the commanders were going over the deployment schedule with their pilots before the first hyperspace jump, once the first hyperspace jump was complete, they had been told that they would be sending up four pilots from two squadrons to do a combat patrol of the area before coming in to land again on the carrier. One of those squadrons was a newly established one, never seen combat before but the 50 pilots and over a dozen support crew that made up this squadron, in particular, had been veterans of many earth battles during their time with surface-based air groups, famous ones that everyone in the surface-military had heard of: the fighting 103, the fighting 27, the fighting 137, the fighting 151, the fighting 154, etc. The list went on and on, but they all knew one thing that they were hoping to see some combat action, if not maybe even a little bit of what other cultures perceived of their species as a whole. This squadron was aptly named "Starburst" While the name sounded dull, the pilots of 'the space fighting 165' did not take their squadron name lightly and took to it with pride and honor.

The commander of "Starburst Squadron" which was designated as a Variable Space Strike Fighter Squadron or VFSA if you wanted to boil it down to a military approved acronym, was Commander or Joseph Kalin or CDR. Kalin if you really wanted to get official. His duties as Squadron commander was to maintain the well-being of his pilots as well as the support crew and make sure that everyone was keeping on top of their assigned tasks. This was everyone's first tour aboard a space-faring military vessel and they did not want to screw it up. His co-pilot was probably milling about, doing all the normal things that a co-pilot would do, not that he knew anything about what that was...He himself had always been at the forefront of military aviation, his family came from a long line of military pilots, ones that had survived and saved others from being destroyed during combat because they knew how their planes worked and the limits it could handle before it started affording them mistakes and that was something that he could not afford to have happened with anyone under his command, because in space, no one can hear you scream, no one will know if you go overboard, luckily the UN also had this thought and decided to try and commission magnetic-gravity boots which stuck to the flight deck so that when others were walking along it, or just happened to be stupidly standing behind a catapult jet blast deflector shield when it was lowered down. 

"All right gentlemen and ladies listen up, this is the first combat tour, our first deployment in the history of our species in space, now I don't want anyone to be frightened or scared, just remember what we went over earlier and you will be fine out there, Hu'ah let's see who we got here....um, um, um !@#$ it, I have no @#$%ing clue who I wanna have come up with me so I guess it will just have to be....drumroll please and the name of the wingman selected is none other than our very own...Alaster Mcknight!, Lt, you'd better be ready for this! to which a response came always ready sir!, Alright then, let's do this right, ready! Who's the best! as a response from the pilots came starbursts the best! who are we gonna defend!? Humanity, sir! Do we ever quit!? Starbursts Don't Quit! Good job, now, ready! Break!"

[GuardianWolves]

Bump.

Sent from my SM-J727T using Tapatalk