Chapter Four: Renegade Pt 2


            The plan had been laid out, the personnel hand selected, and the odds of success were still slim and none. Still, it was the best they had, and Michael had a knack for when things started falling apart of forcing them to work regardless of everything else. It was the main thing that had allowed him to rise to the rank of Colonel, sheer dogged determination to make things happen in his favor. He’d heard rumors that men in EAP had thought that he was a demon or sorcerer, because no matter what the odds he always managed to lead his men out of, or in some cases into impossible situations.

            And now he was cashing in on about half a lifetime of luck that he hoped he had left. Everything had to work flawlessly. He demanded perfection, and he planned to have it one way or another, if he had to do the entire thing himself he would succeed. Or likely get shot trying, but that was really a secondary concern that he’d grown used to.

            “Alright girls, do you remember what to do?”

            “Uh-huh.”

            “Yep.”

            “Good. Now remember, when the lights turn red you have ten seconds. Don’t worry if don’t make it in time; I’ll come and get you later but we really need everyone that we can get.”

            “Ok, I think we can.”

            “We’ve been practicing at home!”

            Michael nodded with a smile. Really he really didn’t need them there at all, but he wanted them to be close by when everything happened. He felt uneasy leaving them alone in an operation where if found out the TA would do everything in their power to stop them. And he knew how they worked; they certainly weren’t above using women and children as leverage.

            Of course, he was about to steal an equivalent of at least a few hundred billion dollars worth of testing, research, fabrication, and assembly. Multiplied by seven. Things like that tended to even each other out in the long run.

            “And wait a little bit before getting their attention,” He reminded them, glancing in his rear-view mirror to see them nod, “Alright. Here goes...”

            Parking the car, he grabbed a briefcase and straightened his uniform, getting out of the car and approaching the massive complex at a brisk walk. Cathy and Jenny followed behind, having to jog to match their father’s speed. They looked up in awe at the building.

            It wasn’t so much a building as an entirely different section of the moon base. A wall ran from one end of the dome to the other, and inside was the premier space research and production facility of the TA space fleet program. After they got to the door, he slipped an identification card into a slot that caused the metallic barrier to slide away automatically. Armed guards saluted as we walked past, and waved at the two girls that followed. They had come to the base with their father before; especially on week-days that for whatever reason they didn’t have to go to school. The moon base was really less a base and more a city built around the base, having schools, hospitals, and even restaurants to make conditions as Earth-like as possible for the long term occupants.

            The first room of the base was a large lobby-like area, with assorted chairs and couches for the soldiers on break and various visitors to the base. As he walked towards the double-doors that led to the more heavily guarded interior of the base, Michael turned to his children and like any other day said, “Now sit over there and be good. Aunt Cassie should be here soon.”

            And thus it began. Michael nodded to several people that he passed as he worked his way into the heart of the military complex, and they smirked knowingly in return. Then he turned to the man walking beside him, taking a clipboard and skimming over it, “I trust that the new Y-Light cruisers will be ready for their voyage tomorrow?”

            “Um... We’ve had to push back the launch date.”

            “What?!?” The higher ranking officer cried out in surprise.

            “Sergeant McCoy’s technical team have found a low level reactor leak in one of the ships. The entire hanger has had to be de-radiated before the ships can fly. It may be several more days at least, a month at the latest.”

            “...Why wasn’t I informed?”

            “You were on leave. We didn’t want to worry you further.”

            “...Take me to the control room. I want to speak with Sergeant McCoy. I trust he is working of fixing the problem isn’t he?”

            “As we speak. Right this way.”

            He had to resist the urge to chuckle. In his mind, an invisible audience was applauding his performance. He’d known about the ‘reactor leak’ the entire time; The perfect way to make the last minute preparations with no one watching that wasn’t supposed to. The ships were loaded and ready to launch. All they had to do was get the passengers on board. Which is where the tricky part came in.

            Cathy and Jenny were playing hop-scotch on the tiled floor of the building, watching everyone around them. Then they saw what they were waiting for. Their aunt stood in a doorway, a bag in one hand. Moving over to the side, she nodded to them with a smile.

            And exactly on cue, Cathy started walking towards the front desk of the building as if to ask for something to drink, when her sister hit her leg while hopping from one tile to the next. Jenny fell on the ground, but she was soon on her feet, and pushing her sister, “You did that on purpose!”

            “No I didn’t, it was an accident!”

            “Uh uh!”

            “Uh huh!”

            “You were trying to trip me!”

            “Maybe you should watch where you’re going!”

            Rolling his eyes, one of the guards decided to try and break them up before they really started making a scene. Striding over, he pulled them off of each other and said in a calm manner, “Now girls, I’m sure that whatever happened-“

            “Eeek!”

            “Let go of us! Kidnapper!”

            At which point Cathy promptly kicked the man in the shin as hard as she could. Which, since it was delivered from a small girl, hurt extremely bad. Hopping around on one foot, holding his injured leg, he never even saw Jenny ram into the back of his other leg causing him to fall to the floor. The man started yelling for help as Jenny pulled off his helmet and grabbed his hair tightly, yanking on it while her sister continued to kick the ‘kidnapper’.

            And while it would’ve been proper protocol for the other guards to help their fallen comrade, they were far too busy laughing at him to help. After all, he was a soldier in the TA military. He should not have been taken down by two eight year old girls, whether he was fighting back or not. Even if they were extremely cruel, efficient, and vicious eight year old girls...

            In the base’s control and security room, most of the staff were laughing their heads off as well. The room was full of monitors of the hundreds of cameras that peppered the base; But they were all crowded around one of the lobby. Except for three. Two guards, each wearing gas masks, and Michael.

            “Colonel, come here and look at this. I’d hate to be the enemy when your little girls grow up.”

            “...They aren’t going to be soldiers.” he replied flatly.

            “Why not? They have the instinct for it. How do you manage to keep them in line.”

            Michael smirked, reaching into his coat, “Yes, they’re quite a distraction.”

            A few of the men turned at his choice of words with eyebrows raised. The ‘pfft’ of a silenced dart gun made sure they didn’t make any comments though. In all of two seconds, the entire control room was clear of all conscious personal. Except for the two guards and Michael, who put away his pistol after spinning it on his finger a few times, “Alright guys, it’s time to lock down this place.”

            “Freeze Lyhte!”

            Turning, Michael glared at the soldiers who had their weapons raised at him, “That’s not funny.”

            Lowering the weapons and going at attention again, the guards shifted uncomfortable, “Sorry Colonel. We couldn’t resist.”

            “Ya ya whatever.” Michael muttered walking over to the master control panel and began typing away furiously, stripping away the security measures that had so meticulously been weakened over the last few days in order for this moment. The moment of truth; the moment that would make or break the entire coup.

            “Either of you believe in God?”

            “I do sir.”

            “Good, then you can start praying with me.”

            With a final press of a button, the lights in the room turned a bright red, as they were doing all over the base. Emergency doors were closing off every exit and passageway. Alarms blared, and people scrambled. This was the timing; Exactly at the changing of the guard when the maximum number of personnel would be on site.

            The rest of the timing came with the rest of the rebels taking down the guards wearing gas-masks, before ten seconds passed. Because, ten seconds was how long it took the ventilation system to put enough knock-out gas into air to leave a man unconscious. They had to knock out the non-defectors and put on their gas masks before the ten seconds was up, and this required them to anticipate when the uprising was going to start, and they had to work quickly to prevent any radio-transmissions from anyone who might’ve figured out what was going on.

            Half an hour later, the gas had been dissipated, and Michael held his breath. If any radio transmissions had gotten out, their game was up. However, as the doors re-opened no TA reinforcements charged the base, so everything seemed to have gone smoothly. Michael said over the intercom, “Alright, wake up the ones who didn’t get their masks on in time, and start getting anyone that you said would be coming here and load up.”

            Cars began arriving one by one, and soon it was almost like a stampede of people carrying luggage and small children to the ships. Michael had already moved his family’s and Cassandra’s possessions on board, and was currently conducting the pre-flight checks on his Y-Light cruiser.

            It was an impressive weapon. Basically cylindrical in shape, it had four engines on the back set in an ‘X’, and at the front four more engines set in a ‘+’, so that from the front it gave the impression of an eight point star. The bottom three engines also acted as landing gear, keeping the ship from rolling around. The engines themselves were multi-directional, meaning that it was not only fast and could turn well, but it could move sideways, straight up and down, or even backwards.


            All along the length of the ship were anti-missile turrets, and also eight anti-ship/MF turrets sat two on top (One at the front of the ship to fire between the forward engines, and one at the back of the ship to fire between the backward engines the opposite way, or they could be rotated to fire in almost other direction), two on either side, and two more on the bottom.

            And dead center in the front of the ship, was the main particle cannon, a powerful but slow firing weapon due to it’s high heat. A truly fearsome ship if ever there was one, designed by Michael himself. They were called Y-lights so there would be no confusion between ‘Lyhte’ and ‘Light’, since they were pronounced the same way.

            “Come on people, hurry up.”

            “Daddy!”

            “Jenny, not now I’m busy.” He barked at her, far more harshly than he had intended.

            “...Aunt Cassandra said that almost everyone was on board.” Jenny told him slowly, eyes downcast.

            “I’m sorry, thank you.”

            Suddenly a voice came over the radio, “Colonel Lyhte! We’ve got company, it seems the rest of the military has found out our little coup. We’re sealing off the main entrance, we need to leave as soon as possible.”

            “Sir, radar indicates that the MF forces are almost double what we expected to be around the entrance!” Another voice said in a panicked voice.

            “Alright, we’re blasting our way out of here guys. Come on, remember what you’re fighting for! Remember the loved ones you’ve lost, the friends and family sacrificed, their blood spilled on the alter of a meaningless conflict! If the world doesn’t want peace, we’ll force it upon them! Final preparations are complete.” Michael glanced around at the sparsely filled bridge, then yelled to Jenny, “Get some people up here! I don’t care who!”

            Several men and women, soldier and civilian alike dashed onto the bridge and Michael quickly directed them, “Take up positions. All of the soldiers take up the empty gunnery positions, everyone else keep an eye on your systems. If your screen starts flashing red tell me. Gunnery officers, aim all available weapons straight up. We’re going to be making a rather big bang. Is everyone aboard?”

            A few seconds, then a voice called back to him, “Yes, I think that’s everyone. We’re out of time, repeat we are out of time. It’s now or never.”

            “All ships, commence firing! Make a hole for our ships to fly out of!”

            Most of the MF pilots didn’t really know what was happening. It was quite unnerving to see part of the facility they were guarding explode, with lasers coming from the inside. The large Y-light cruisers rose slowly, elegantly into space as the bubble of air that had been the hanger was destroyed.

            “...All units, fire!”

            Rifles, machine guns, cannons, weapons of all sorts fired at the squadron of space cruisers. But the MFs were forced back by the powerful turrets and particle cannons of the larger ships. Knowing that pursuit would only cost casualties, the lead MF commander broke off the attack. They could only watch as their newest, most powerful space ships shot off into space.

            Michael heaved an intense sigh of relief. A minute more, and there would’ve been too many MFs... Too many defenses. Surprise and speed had won the day yet again, “How much damage did we suffer?”

            “Some hull damage, but nothing of real concern. They were trying to force us down, not destroy us.”

            “Heh...” He stared off into the space before him, the stunning starscape that filled his view, “Gina... Here I come.”