"Just be dead already!" Jack shouted at the enemy pilot who was so easily dodging his laser fire. Jack pulled his left hand through the control field. "Take this!" he said tapping his finger against the holographic simulation of a button that was following his hand around in the control field. A missile went streaming out from the pod under his craft. The missile flew silently from his fighter towards the enemy craft. The craft turned upside down and switched directions; thrusters firing out of dozens of ports around the vessel. "Fuck! Immelmann?" Jack shouted pitching his craft forward to track the enemy vessel. The missile veered quickly to follow the evading craft as well; glancing just off the nose of the enemy and exploding as the proximity sensor triggered the warhead. The enemy craft's shield rippled with the impact throwing glowing blue particles off into the darkness of space. Jack looked carefully at the impact site, "Come on... Come on!" Jack could see a small white puff of air. "YES!" Jack shouted. "This is bravo four, Tango zulu niner vented." he said, his voice quivering with excitement. "Copy that" the radio crackled back, "engage zulu one." "New tango zulu one. Rodger!" Jack said setting his sights on the wing leader. *** Jake shut down the engines and hopped out of his fighter. "Another mission down," he said exasperatedly. "Nice job out there Jake!" echoed loudly across the hangar. It was Jim, stepping down from his own fighter. "You really showed that wing leader who's flying was better. Bam! Swoosh!" he said running around the hanger like a fighter and finally pulling up next to Jake. "It was like watching something out of a holo-vid!" "Calm down," Jake said with a chuckle. "We did our job and there's nothing more to it." Jim looked down at his feet, dejected. "There's nothing wrong with thinking it's cool." he mumbled to himself. Jake patted him on the back, "I didn't say it couldn't be cool" he said with a wolfish grin. "Anyway, let's go to the bar and see how many it takes to forget our names." "Kay!" Jim said, his fuzzy feline ears perking up with excitement. *** "Shoh, how many haf you hadth?" Jake said. "Six, and I don't think I can take any more." Jim said looking disgustedly into the remaining chocolate milk in his glass. "How many for you?" Jake looked into the pile of glasses he had. "Leth me see. Ife got sikth small glathes and four big ones." He spent some time counting on his hands and processing the complex equations related to how much he had already. Completing his calculations he held up both hands to show ten fingers. "This many" he reported proudly. "Well, can you remember your name?" Jim asked looking at the sloppy man sitting next to him. "Of coursh I can it's... Um..." "Yup, I think that's enough," Jim said with a jovial smile, "10 it is! Well, I think we should get back to the barracks; it's getting pretty late." "You're probababaly right," Jack said. "Lef's get going." Jim reached down to catch the rapidly falling man. "Yup, time to go." *** Jack's alarm clock went off bright and early screaming into his ears through his hungover brain. Jack slapped the alarm disable button. "Alright; you don't have to shout." he mumbled into his pillow as he hid from the pounding synthetic light from the window. Jack really wasn't in a mood to appreciate it but the day in the station today looked great. They were currently in the middle of the spring cycle of the environmental simulation and the weather today had been programmed to be perfect. The air was cool with a slight breeze and the all of the flowers were in full bloom. Jack looked over to the clock and assessed the time; 1100. Today was an R&R day assigned to him and his wing so he had planned to spend the afternoon sitting back and watching the holo-vid for a bit. But for now all he wanted was some water and a pain pill. He walked over to the medicine cabinet in his bunk space and looked over his choices. Settling on a pretty pink one he gulped it down with a tall glass of water and then looked himself over. His canine eyes sagged heavily from how tired he was and made him look like he was quite a bit older than he really was. Not that he was getting any younger, he told himself. He may have only been 27, but that put him well past his prime. "I definitely can't hold them down like I used to." he said to the groggy face in the mirror. Nevertheless he wasn't in too bad a shape for his age. Like most wolfen he was quite a bit taller than everyone else and his military service had kept him physically fit. His coat was dulling just a bit from his age but generally it still looked very nice. Jake gave a toothy grin before a throb in his head reminded him that he still had problems to deal with. "Well, I should probably work on getting my morning started." Jake said heading off to the shower to try and get himself jumpstarted. *** "So, how're you this morning?" Jim asked across the breakfast table; his eggs half eaten but still broadly arranged with the bacon to make a smiley face. "Sore but I'll live." Jake responded shuffling some hash browns across his plate lazily. "Well, what were your plans for the afternoon?" "I had thought about watching some games on the holo-vid this afternoon and spending some time at the gym later." "Sounds like loads of fun." Jim said rolling his eyes as well as his eggy eyes. "If that doesn't pan out for you would you be interested in going to a game convention for a few hours?" "A game convention?" "Ya, like board games and such." "Wow Jim, always the kid at heart." "Fun is fun no matter what age you are," Jim grinned a toothy grin, "So, are you in or not?" Jake laughed a bit and replied "Sure. I haven't done something like that in years. It'll probably be fun." "Great!" Jim said taking on a devilish look, "Now I have a partner for the tournament." Jake just sighed and chucked to himself, "another satisfied customer," before ravaging his eggs. *** The convention center was located deep in the business district of the station. The tram screamed down the track moving from the barracks to the business district. Jake looked out at the passing scenery; the trees along the rail zoomed by like telephone poles counting out a rhythm like a song. Jake tapped his toe to the beat of the trees as Jim rambled on the rules and strategy for the tournament that Jake had inadvertently volunteered for. "So you have to draw one of these and then pay the cost to play it..." Between the beats he looked out into the main station area. The station itself was huge and was populated by millions of people. But this just underlaid it's main purpose; to act as the central hub gate for the entire Romeo sector. The gate itself was big enough to jump an entire battle cruiser with no assistance from it's on-board jump drive whatsoever and was invaluable to the fleet as a staging point. It also had one of the largest jump system destabilizers in the galaxy. Nothing could jump to within any more than 10 light years of the station without the station's approval. He wasn't sure exactly how the system worked, but in the academy they had explained that it essentially worked to pinch a section of the jump plane together so that the station actually didn't even exist significantly on the jump plane. He knew from his own experience that the best he could hope to hit with a jump drive was about plus or minus a million clicks and that the star system that the station sat in was only a click or two in size on the jump plane. The simulated sky sat lazily in his window. A flock of birds made their way along the path of the train, slowly sliding through his window as the train sped past them. "Ding-Dong", the PA system blurted, "Now arriving at Civic Center station." "Oooh! That's our stop!" Jim said excitedly, breaking out from the middle of a discussion on points or some such. *** The convention center wall full of all kinds of people. Kids, adults, people in regular clothes, and people in exotic costumes. The convention floor itself had dozens of tables with assorted misfits sitting around them. Some of them had holo-vid projections on them and showed the latest in games; others had complex pieces of scenery with dozens of tiny figurines marching on top. There was even a whole corner of the conference hall that was dedicated to classic card games like poker and bridge. "Over here!" Jim shouted across the conference hall. "Alright, alright." Jack said pulling himself away from watching some game that involved black and white rocks. *** The competition was fierce. Despite the fact that Jake had never played this silly card game before and he was having a terrible time figuring out the rules, but despite this he was having a pretty darn good time. "I play the swamp and then cast the lord of ugly darkness" Jim said fiddling with some cards in a way Jack couldn't figure out. "I'm done." Jack looked over at the cards he was holding. Some monster things, some lands, and some brown thing that he couldn't quite figure out how to use. Jim leaned over and looked at what he had. Pointing at the brown thing Jim gave Jack a blatant wink. Taking the not so subtle hint Jack played one of the lands and then tapped enough to play the brown thing. Jim grinned widely as the card hit the table. *** "I can't believe that we lost!" Jim said throwing his hands in air. Jack laughed, "I wasn't exactly expecting a whole lot out of that given that I still don't know what the brown thing was." "That was your deck's secret weapon! And you played it perfectly!" Jim jumped out in front of Jack and started walking backwards, "We almost won because of it!" Jim took a ballerina's turn to look forward and started flying like an airplane "But they wiped out my superman and it went downhill from there." Jim stopped at the door and looked over at Jake, "So whad'da you want to do?" Jack got up to the door and stopped, "I don't know. We did the drinking thing yesterday. We're on leave, and the convention here is kinda winding down. How about we head on over to the Book store and see what they've got." "Oooohhh! Comics!" Jim said hopping gleefully and then tearing off toward the train station. Jack just sighed and strolled down toward the station *** Jack sat sipping on a mocha and flipping though the pages of a flight magazine. The book store was full of assorted twenty somethings and a few people enjoying their golden years all sitting around quietly reading. Well, except for the bajno meetup sitting around on shelfing stools and jamming to some kind of twangy bluegrass beat. Jim sat across the table with a pile of manga stacked up a few feet with one open across from his italian soda, his tail wagging gently with the steel guitar's beat. Jack looked over his now empty mocha and let out a sigh. "I'm gonna grab some water." "Hmm." Jim said negligently. Jake made his way over to the counter. "Water please." The woman behind the counter looked up from her magazine "Sure Jake." The grabbed a small plastic cup and filled it full of ice and water. "I see you two in here all the time." "Ya. This is kind of our default hangout spot." Jake replied casually. He had been coming here for the last year since he was deployed here and she had always been working there. "So did you get to what you had planned this weekend?" she asked. "Well, my original plans were kind of thrown out the window by captain ADD over there," he said pointing at Jim. "ADHD!" Jim replied from behind his manga. "Sorry, captain ADHD. Anyway he drafted me to come help him with some card game tournament." "Ah. How'd that turn out?" "About how you'd expect given that I'd never played before." "I can imagine," She said laughing from behind the counter. "You wouldn't happen to know what the name of the card game was would you?" "Magic" came the reply from behind the manga again. "Magic?! I love that game. I used to play that all the time when I was in college." "Really?" Jake asked with a quizzical look on his face, "You don't strike me as the type." "Oh? What type do I strike you as then?" She said, folding her arms with a grin. "Um... Well..." "The not-a-kid type" Jim replied, finally putting his manga down to come join the conversation. "He's always kinda thought that when you got older this kind of thing wasn't supposed to be fun anymore. 'It isn't adult'" Jim said making little finger quotes with his hands. "No!" Jake protested, "I just meant... Well that you'd not be into games as much." "It's really just a stigma," the woman said, "Adults need entertainment just as much as kids. And to say that only kids can find fun in games is silly." She looked at Jake, who was trying to avoid eye contact, "Did you have fun at the tournament?" "Well, I never knew what to do, and I spent all of my time reading all the cards, and Jim basically told me all of the cards to play," Jake replied. She put her hands on her hips, "But did you have fun?" "Well, ya. It was kinda fun." "See? And would you call yourself a kid?" "Well obviously not!" Jake said, clearly offended. "And there you go. Magic isn't a game for kids. It's a game for people," She said, "isn't that right. Jim was it?" "Yes 'mam!" Jim said with a proud strut. "Not that I'm much of one to say since me and my inner child have play dates on Thursdays." Jake laughed, "This is more true than you could possibly realize." "So, you like Magic right?" she said, looking over at Jake. "I guess so. Probably be a lot more fun if I wasn't struggling so hard with the details." "Tell you what. Every Monday here in the bookstore we have a mini-tournament," she said pointing over to a flier on the wall, "You come down on those days and play and I'll teach you." Jake looked over at her mulling over the idea of missing his Monday evening 'do nothing' plan and was interrupted by Jim moving up to the counter and giving her the most depressing puppy dog eyes ever. "I didn't say you couldn't come," she said, giving Jim a grin, "You're going to be his sparring partner." Jim's eyes brightened up in a flash. Looking at how much he'd have to crush Jim to decline Jake replied. "Sure. What's the harm in a little fun now and then?" "Great!" She said with a slight bounce. "Oh, I almost forgot, I'm Samantha Taylor. Just call me Sam," she said, holding out her hand over the counter. "Jake," he said, grabbing her hand and giving a friendly shake, "Jake Collins." "Nice to meet you Jake," she said returning the greeting. Jake and Sam spent some time in an awkward silence. Jake pondered over the various things that he might say but nothing really sounded like anything more than babble. "Let's go get you a deck!" Jim said grabbing Jake's arm and dragging him towards the door. "I'll talk with you Monday!" Jake shouted as he was pulled through the door. Sam just smiled and waved as the strange pair escaped from the shop. *** The base was covered in scrambling pilots when they returned. "What's going on Pat?" Jake asked the gate guard. "Enemy surprise strike. They're scrambling everything we have to keep them out of local space" "Sounds serious," Jake responded. "If I had to guess I'd say it's worse than they're telling us at the gate." "We should check in with the CO," Jake said turning to where Jim was standing only to find that he was already halfway to the barracks. "Hurry up slowpoke!" Jim shouted. Jake just sighed and took to a slow jog. Kid or not he did his job and Jake respected that. *** "The enemy got a lucky shot and one of the carriers came out of jump only a few thousand clicks from the station." The man in the meticulous officer's uniform barked at the pilots in the ready room. "What's the plan boss?" Jake said, arm flung over the chair next to him. "That's obvious isn't it?" the man replied, "You get there now and take out those fighters while we get a dreadnought into position to take out the carrier and buy our fleet time to assemble to repel the main force." "First priority's those fighter then sir?" Jim said leaning slightly forward in his front row chair. "Yes lieutenant. Take out those fighters and then meet up with the fleet for the counter-attack." "Understood sir!" "Gotchya," Jake replied. "Suit up. You're in the third wave." *** Jake hit the engines and made his launch into the blackness of space. "Sublight until you clear the local gravimetric distortion," the tower crackled out over the radio. "Rodger," Jake replied. "Weeeee!!!!!" Jim shouted over the com just before the small blue speck of his fighter escaped from the launch tube. "Keep the chatter under control!" came an authoritative voice through Jake's headset. "Aww..." Jim replied, "Bravo three making egress to gravimetric distortion perimeter. ETA four-one seconds." "Rodger that Bravo three." *** The battle had been going on for several hours. The fatigue of fighting for hours was taking it's toll and he was hitting his limit. The secured channel readout sprung to life. "Ragnarok in place. Break off and move to 5,000 clicks." "Jim! Move it!" Jake shouted through the com as Jim was in the middle of a dogfight with a model of fighter that Jake hadn't seen before. "Just one more minute!" Jim replied. "Bravo three! Break off now!" Jim's craft made an abrupt turn and shot off away from the fighter and the carrier. A series of bright flashes came from the direction of the station. Jake pulled up a targeting window on the carrier and watched the video feed as the zoom factor kept increasing as his craft bought as much ground as possible. The metallic silver carrier stood silently in the blackness of space. Then without warning the shield peeled away in a blue sparkly show. With the shield pulled away by the preceding shower of high energy particles large impactors collided directly with the hull and fragments tore off in hot molten fragments and flew off into the blackness of space behind the ship. "Bravo unit. You're out. Echo is enroute to replace you." "Bravo one copies," crackled out over the radio, "Bravo team, return to base." "Rodger wilco Bravo one. Bravo four out." Jake replied. *** "Damnit!" Jim shouted, throwing his helmet at the locker door. "I had that motherfucker!" "Calm down Jim," Jake said watching the helmet roll around on the floor, "you accomplished the mission. We were only there to tie up the fighters till Ragnarok was ready to fire." "But he was mine!" Jim said placing his head on the locker door, "I had him lined up. I needed maybe 60 more seconds and I'd have scored the last shot." "We'd been fighting for hours; aren't you glad that the Ragnarok was able to finish that up so we could come back?" "Of course I am. But I needed to finish that on my own!" Jim said plopping down on the locker room bench. "Why was that one so important?" Jake asked. "I don't know. Maybe it was the challenge of the new model. I don't know. But he was mine and they took it away." "With a weapon far more suited for such tasks. You have to admit that multimode particle slugthrowers do a far better job than our measly chem lasers." "True. That was cool," Jim said looking a bit more happy. "Wasn't it?" "Emmmm Hmmm!" Jim hummed happily. "So, we're going to be back in the air in a few hours. Let's get some shut eye." Jim yawned, "I don't neehhh-eeed to sleep." "Sure you don't," Jake said grabbing his duffel bag. "Let's get going." *** Sam took a slight hop to avoid the crack in the sidewalk. She put her hands behind her head and looked up at the ceiling of the dome. The synthetic blue of the sky mingled with the reflection of the ground below. Sam made her way over to the games shop when she saw the bright flash of the Ragnarok's main cannon through the sky simulation. "Woah!" she said, stopping to watch the line streak through the sky. "What the hell was that?" Sam jumped to a quick hustle and streaked into the game shop. "Bruce! Let me see your computer!" she shouted to the clerk skidding around the corner. "Why Sam?" the startled clerk said. Sam just ignored him and started typing on his computer. A video window popped up and started playing. "... The Protan assault force jumped to within just a few light years of the station. The defense force has deployed the massive warship Ragnarok and has decimated their front most force. Defense Minister Jacobson assures us that this leading force was annihilated. However, we are being warned that the particle shower from the cannon will fall into the station's synthetic gravity well at 15:00 station standard time tomorrow and cause a minor disruption in the station's systems while these energized particles interact with the station's energy screen. There shouldn't be too many issues but as a safety precaution station management is asking all citizens to stay off decks 1-4 and 50-54 in the central path. Also any craft being held in off station docks should be moved out into the holding space in grid 44-21-60." "Woah!" said the clerk. "I saw them fire the cannon through the sky," Sam explained handing the keyboard back to Bruce, "I may still be in school but we covered the technology in the Ragnarok's cannon in physics and you'd have to be psychotic to fire it this close to the station. Or desperate." "So do you think that's why they're having us stay off those decks?" Bruce asked cocking his head to the side. "Definitely. Those are the decks near the station's two shield generator units. I'm not sure exactly what they're worried about but I wouldn't be surprised if the have firefighting gear on standby. That much energy is going to overload the hull integrity shield generators." "What?" Bruce said, still leaning over. "Bad shit's goin' down," Sam said wandering aimlessly over to the miniatures. "Basically what they did was terribly dangerous and will probably damage the station so they've got to be desperate," Sam reached down and pulled up a miniature orc looking it over. "You got any more in the back?" "Oh, um ya, I think. I'll look." "Thanks Bruce," she said as he watched him walk into the back of the shop. When she saw him disappear into the back she stepped up to the computer and got to work. *** "So Jim how do you feel?" Jack said looking over the pile of cards he had been handed with a puzzled expression. Jim yawned, "A little. I mean I'm not sure how well I will be able to move on with that-OOH! You'll love that one. Pay two, tap it, sac a land and it lets you put any creature on the board same turn as though it had haste." "Well, I'm glad you're doing okay," Jake said with an amused toothy grin, "So, do you think of this?" Jim looked over at the cards that Jake was holding. "Not a bad hand. If you could pull a hand like that in a tournament you'd be sitting pretty." "Hmm..." Jake said, looking over the cards and fiddling with the one with the shiny stuff on it. "So what do you know of Sam?" "Sam? Reigning champ of the local player's chapter and in the sector tournament she came up second behind some jerk with a superman." "Super... Never mind." Jake put down the cards and made his way over to his bunk and dug up a PDA out of the chest at the end. "Karin," Jake said with a commanding tone to the handheld machine. The screen lit up and a cute face of a young woman appeared from the minature holovid projector. "Yes?" "Schedule a new appointment called Card tournament for Monday afternoons at the coffee shop" "Done Jake," the machine replied obediently, "But cards? When did you take up games of chance?" "It's not a game of chance." "Wait. A collectible card game?" The machine said with a slight bit of surprise.. "You make it sound like there no way that was possible," Jake said pouting at the machine. "Actually, given your previous appointments and our other interactions I estimated the probability of such an event being something like one in three-hundred over the next twenty years." "Really?" "Well, the only thing that would temper that would be.. Um.. well... if there was a woman involved. In that case the probability would increase to about one in four." Jake laughed, "Stochastic analysis is a scary thing. Ya, there's a woman involved." "Ah," Karin said looking relieved, "I was worried that I had incomplete data and it would interfere with the confidence intervals in my analysis. Is there anything else I can do for you?" "Ya, what other things am I likely to do?" "Do you want the whole list? And over what interval?" "Top four and over the next week. I don't think I'm ready to do know my whole cosmic destiny just yet." "The four most likely events to be scheduled given no prerequisites are 'call my mother', 'Go to briefing', 'Buy cards', and um..." The program stopped, "Do you need to hear that last one?" "What's wrong with the fourth one?" "Um... Well, it's 'pick up for date'. All with a probability of over 90 percent." "Okay, way too much information," Jake said looking away trying to hide the large amount of pink of his ears, "and her name is Sam. "You asked and duly noted," the disembodied head said with a slight squeak, "Need anything else?" Jake scratched behind his ear hoping to ease the discomfort from the slight bristle his fur had picked up. "No. No I think that's good enough. Thanks Karin." "You're welcome," she said before fading into nothing. Jim just sat laughing in the corner. "Having trouble with your computer being too honest?" Jake snapped quickly "No!" and then realizing that he had basically just admitted completely he turned and put his hand behind his head. "Okay. Maybe just a little." Jim picked up the deck and walked up to Jake. "That explains a bit about why you'd ask me to try and teach you a bit before Monday. But I wouldn't worry about it. She's a master tutor and I doubt she would have just offered to anyone to tutor them so I think you're well on your way." He put the deck down on the bed, "just don't forget to play the land first and you'll be good." A slight alarm went off from Jim's pocket. "Oh ya! Magical Girl Haruhi Marumoto is on!" and the cat ran off. Jake just flopped down on the bed with a sigh. "Why is everyone so confident about this but me?" *** Grant looked at his watch, it was already well past quitting time and but they needed every hand they could get. "We've finished work on gearing up the axillary particle bank sir!" The young ensign was standing in full salute. 'Still green aren't we?' Grant thought to himself. "Good work son," Grant said giving a responding salute, "Get home and get some rest. You're going to need it for tomorrow." "Understood sir!" The young man said, turning to leave. 'God save his soul' Grant said. Grant pulled out his pipe and stuffed it with some of his better tobacco. Giving it a quick light he took a long draw. His age was taking it's toll on him. He'd joined the imperial navy when he was fresh out of school as a basic technician. He'd served in various positions on several vessels but when he'd been tapped to be the head engineer of the largest stationary assignment in this sector he accepted it with no hesitation. But now the cushy assignment at the station didn't seem so noble. Not that he wasn't used to this kind of thing, but it's always easier to take risks when your family is on some distant planet. Now he was facing the ramifications of his decision to give the go-ahead on firing the Ragnarok's main cannon near the station and it meant that his family was on the line. Grant blew a smoke ring that sailed gently along and collided with the nearby control panel; diffusing in to a fine mist along the screen. Looking over the screen he assessed their dire situation; in twenty-four hours he would be dead. The end.