Snippet #996456

"Alright, get the last few things loaded and then get ready to board!" the captain roared at his crew. "Get ready to get going!" The crew responded with a few unenthusiastic mutters and mumbles; a few others, glad to be off of Jupitris and into the action of the Mars front, shouted in glee. The crew loaded the last few crates of ammunition and supplies onto the Gunsleeper, and then began heading towards the crew section. The captain pulled into the ship and walked to the cockpit, sitting next to the primary pilot.

Evangeline barely registered the approach of Jarvis Lagan, and so she did not respond to his curt greeting. But she was at least relieved that he wasn't the talkative type, or so it appeared by his greeting. She would have preferred a quiet, uninterested person to an enthusiastic, inquisitive pilot. She slowly turned as the hangar doors began to slide shut with a mechanical whirring, and began walking further into the Gunsleeper, towards the passenger section. She reached it; it was completely empty. Evangeline and Jarvis Lagan would be the only people in the passenger section, so she expected the journey would be passed in silence. That suited her perfectly.

She slipped into one of the seats that allowed a view of what passed outside the Gunsleeper; at the moment, it showed only hangar A-23, but soon it would be a window to stars, comets, asteroids...things that had long fascinated Evangeline. Before she had been forced to pilot Zephranthys, she had always wanted to be an astrophysicist....she shook her head. Now was not the time to dwell on such things. She reached her hands up, and slowly removed the visored helmet. As she did so, an eerily beautiful face appeared; the only blemish was a small scar that ran down her left cheek. Her short black hair fell to her shoulders, and her black eyes gazed out as they prepared to launch from the hangar.

Time: 23:30 hours, Earth-time

"We will be arriving on Mars in one and a half hours," the captain's voice echoed through the ship over the comm system. They had slowed from the burst of speed that had brought them this close to Mars, and now Evangeline gazed out the window, watching the stars. For her, they were the most amazing wonder; space and its physics were the most fascinating thing anyone could think of. She remembered days in the station when she could sit out in the space observation section for hours, her eyes scanning the virtual pages of their extensive database. Those were days before she had been forced to pilot Zephranthys, before the war...

Up in the cockpit, the pilot noticed something showing up on the ship radars. He quickly brought it to the attention of the captain. "Could it be a Jupitris patrol?" the pilot suggested, examining the tiny, colourless blip on the radar. At that moment, it suddenly identified it: a Tomahawk-class light cruiser. A Federation ship.
"Shit..." the captain swore under his breath. "What the hell're the Feddies doing out this far?!" At that moment, the ship rocked slightly; one of the Tomahawk's three double-barreled beam cannons had blasted and glanced the side of the Gunsleeper. Five smaller blips appeared suddenly on the radar--the Tomahawk had deployed Mobile Frames.

"Attention, crew and pilots," the captain's voice, calm and collected, spoke through the comm system. "We are under attack by a Federation cruiser--Tomahawk-class. It has deployed five general purpose Mobile Frames. We are preparing the Frames in the hangar for deployment--they will hold off the enemy Frames while the Gunsleeper engages the enemy cruiser in combat." Evangeline looked away from the window, and slowly stood up, showing no surprise or excitement at this event. She slowly slid the helmet back onto her head, and began walking towards the hangar.