"Rick, we have a secret admirer." Rocky called over his shoulder from his seat at the cockpit control panel, to his brother seated behind him.
Ricky instantly took notice at the hint of concern in Rocky’s voice. His younger brother was typically sarcastic and made light out of everything, like a jackass, the fact that he now sounded worried made Ricky worried too.
“Maybe not so secret.” Ricky returned after leaning forward to monitor the dashboard cams. They were being tailed by a very serious looking Zenith light fighter, armed with very serious missiles and conventional munitions more than adequate to simply erase the small research vessel they were currently crammed into.
A button on the center console began blinking urgently, signaling a ship-to-ship communication prompt. Rocky reached over and tapped the button as his older brother Ricky shuffled forwards in his seat which inside the cramped cockpit was nearly on the driver’s lap.
"Private vessel,” A commanding voice immediately sounded through the cockpit’s speakers, which were located just above the head of the pilot seat. “You are in violation of Federated Territory air space, Zenith air space violation 42.7. Identify yourself and produce your valid air codes immediately.
"I don't think we have those." Rocky quipped to his brother who was now wriggling his way besides him, despite there only being room for one in the pilot seat.
"Seeing as how we're in an unauthorized vehicle fleeing the scene of a major insurrection...I feel that's a safe enough bet." Ricky remarked while reaching across the console to activate the intership intercom system, invading his brother's personal space in the tiny cockpit area.
"Hey, back off!" Rocky swatted his brother's hand, which continued past to activate the intercom anyway. “You want to take over? I’ll go hide in the back with Rocco.”
Ricky briefly tossed a disgusted look at his younger brother. Rocky was the only one that actually knew how to operate vehicles and they all knew this fact. His comment was promptly ignored.
"Does anyone back there have any fake air codes? It's …kind of an emergency." Ricky addressed the other Titan passengers who were in the rear section of the vessel, which included a cramped living quarters with ample room for about four crewmembers alongside the centrally located workstation. There was a total of five Titans back there.
"4172." It was the young female Titan, Reegan who answered. "That's our air designation. But we don't have clearance to fly in this area."
“No joke, luv.” Rocky muttered once his brother had stopped depressing the transmit button for the intercom.
Ricky quickly took note of the underlying concern behind her voice as well. He next activated his Net-Comm and quickly initiated a voice conference with Wolton, the scientist leader of the rebel group they had left behind in Kallerish City. It took him momentarily off guard by how quickly he received a response, but then he remembered how most modern Titans had implanted Net-Comm units, which worked much faster than the units that the brothers wore externally.
"Ricky, did you run into trouble already?" Wolton responded with some level of amusement.
"You know us, looks that way. We need valid air space codes quickly." Ricky glanced again at the port and starboard monitors and saw a Zenith intercept aircraft pursuing their research vessel at a menacing distance. At this range those autoguns under the wings would tear straight through the unarmored research ship with little issue. Then, to Rocky who was helming the ship. "I never thought to ask before we started out in this thing, but do we have any weapons available?"
Rocky's maw fold curled into a snarl, exposing his sharp teeth momentarily. "It's a bloody research vessel."
"I take that as a no then?"
"Take it as a hell no. Nowt. Nada, Bupkiss. This ship is as useless in a fight as a boneless squib."
"Squibs do have suckers on their tentacles..." Ricky rose an eye while his mind raced to find an escape route.
"It's not a good analogy I’ll concede. I change my answer to a flat no. No weapons, no defense. Nothing. We're sitting targets."
"We can manufacture false credentials, but that could take some time." Wolton responded inside the Net-Comm channel. "How soon do you need them?"
"You have one minute to comply or land or be branded a subversive and enemy element." The authoritative Zenith pilot sounded over the cabin's speaker.
"Less than 'Some time'." Ricky responded drily to Wolton. "How well are you going to be able to fly this tin can Rocky? Wolton won't be able to provide valid codes in time."
"I'm not a bad pilot by any stretch..." Rocky began skeptically. "But what exactly are you asking here? Are you asking me to somehow outrun a state-of-the-art interceptor craft in a slow, clumsy metal research box? If that's the case, then you'll need a better pilot for sure."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"One moment, we are experiencing malfunctions in our communications array." Ricky spoke slowly while rapidly clicking the transmission button on and off, to create a broken transmission back to the trailing ship.
"Nice." Rocky smiled before pushing a few more buttons on the console. "Scan area." He spoke to the voice activated onboard AI.
One of the many display screens on the console suddenly popped up a radar view of the area. They were traveling over the open ocean and had been for several hours, they were keenly aware of the fact that they were still several hundred kilometers from their desired destination of the Rook Coast. Neither brother expected much to come from the scan, but to both of their surprise, a chain of tiny islands appeared out of nowhere on the scan. No additional information was given.
"Are those uncharted?" Ricky asked, dumbfounded by the very idea.
"Impossible. In this day and age?" Rocky pushed some more buttons on the console desperately trying to bring up more information, but all information available seemed to point to the same conclusion. "It appears as though somehow...despite modern Titan technology… yes, they are uncharted."
"Or more likely, cencored for some reason. Zenith's satellites can see everything on the face of the planet from orbit, at any time." Bingo, the small cyborg Wolverine interjected suddenly appearing in the doorway to the cabin of the ship. "But that doesn't mean they share that information with public records. Something about this chain of islands must have been blacklisted."
"Five. Four..." The voice on the other end of the ship-to-ship transmission began counting down.
"Looks like we may be about to get a closer look." Ricky said before pushing the button to open the ship wide intercom. "Everyone strap yourselves in. We may be in for a bumpy landing."
Ricky looked over at his brother, whose face was obviously mortified by the implications of what Ricky had just said. Ricky placed a reassuring hand on his brother's shoulder and gave a reaffirming squeeze. They both felt the cold ramifications behind the words and the fact that when the fighter behind them did decide to open their weapons, it would most likely spell the doom for everybody on board.
"Three. Two. One." The interceptor continued the countdown in a dispassionate manner.
"I have faith in you bro." Ricky's voice was low and personal. “Get us to those islands.”
Rocky threw the controls hard to the side, while simultaneously pitching the front of the craft into a g-force defying nosedive. The interceptor vessel trailing them opened fire at the same time and obviously had not anticipated such a sudden and bold maneuver. The first stream of fire that erupted from under the attack ship's nose and beneath the wings found no target directly in range, as the clumsy, boxy research vessel plunged towards the glistening blue waves below.
The move might have initially taken the opposite pilot off guard but did not keep him there for long. The attack craft deftly changed position and banked hard to catch the diving opponent once again within its targeting sights. This time, the brothers from Gunrock and the rest of the crew found their luck running out, amidst the crushing weight of the g-force pushing them all deep within their seats. Large anti-vehicle rounds penetrated the hull of the research vessel like swarms of angry bees finding little resistance in the vessel’s light hull, all while an automated klaxon warning began sounding throughout the ship's interior warning of the sudden hull breech.
Rocky fought hard against the controls and the crushing weight of gravity as another warning came across the system, warning of an incoming projectile approaching. A missile, he realized with great horror. He watched the screens on the console in front of him, trying to gauge the distance between the ship he was controlling and the incoming missile. He waited as long as possible before throwing all his strength behind the controls again, doing his best to fight against a ship that was not really designed for complicated aerial maneuvers. The ship slowly began pulling out of its breakneck nosedive, and completed a barrel roll at the same time, the warning noise beeped loudly, and Ricky shut his eyes tight.
Rocky managed to reverse the bank of the downward trajectory of the vehicle at the last moment while cutting thrust by half. It did not save them from impact, but the sudden change in speed and trajectory did trick the smart munitions just enough for it to detonate next to the craft instead of inside of it, where it was no doubt aimed. A trail of black smoke followed the ship down, as it pitched away from the water and towards one of the islands below. As the outside view showed on the monitor, it became clear to Rocky that the island rapidly approaching was actually much larger than it seemed from the air.
Rocky managed to deploy the landing gear, even as the smoke began to fill the interior of their vehicle. They did have their proton flight packs somewhere in the rear of the vehicle, but there were only three of them, and a total of seven passengers onboard. Rocky lifted the nose slightly to adjust the vehicle as it plunged towards a field of high grass below them and quickly pushed a button to reverse all thrusters to slow their speed and prepare for a VTOL landing.
Ricky screamed from next to him as the ground suddenly filled the exterior view screens. Rocky moved the control lever to descend the craft quickly. A sudden jolt nearly threw him clear of his seat as the spacecraft touched down in the high grass violently. Rocky shook his head, at that time trying to regain his senses and that’s when he saw alongside a bevy of warnings in the HUD monitors, a warning that the side hatch had been deployed. Both brothers watched the screens in a strange fascination as the interceptor craft moved quickly to position itself to strafe the now stationary research vessel. They had managed to survive the sudden landing it seemed, just to die from the follow up attack that was mere moments away.
But just then on the viewscreen, they witnessed a much smaller object hurdling towards the interceptor, moments before the object collided with the craft in a shower of fire and raining debris. Something had flown out of nowhere and destroyed their aggressor's vehicle. It had at first appeared to have been some missile, fired from an unknown source, but both brothers' came to the same realization at approximately the same moment, as the blinking warning that the side door was opened continued on their screen.
They then saw their female passenger, Amiga, descending from the sky like an avenging angel, one of their experimental flight packs strapped to her back. It became apparent then, that it had not been a mysterious missile of some kind that had hit their pursuer, but the female Titan herself. She really was what she had claimed to be back in Kallerish City, a living weapon created by some strange experiment by the Zenith Corporation. And that living weapon had saved their lives at the last possible moment.