**Actionette** "Last stand"

** Actionette **
<snip>
"Relax.." Amber replied "They're just cocky, cos they don't think we
can get
to Earth!"
"How wrong they are..." Jay said, as the defence field shut down in a
second.
The Earth fighters began to fly back to their motherships in a blind
panic...then seemingly as new orders came through charged back into
battle,
as the Hymenoptera fleet passed through the field perimiter.
"Charge the weapon..." Jay ordered "And open a communications
chan...NAAAAGH!!!!" Jay dropped to his knee's clutching his
temples.....
<end snip>
Who: Acting-Captain Phil Febuggure, Dean Thomas and Drive room staff
Where: Blue Dwarf, Drive Room
When: As Earth's defence grid shuts down
Phil stood up from his seat, he could feel the sweat running down
the back of his neck. This was it. The Hymenoptera were perched on
the edge of his home, of everybody's home. The Hymenoptera fleet
were all facing the planet, their weapons were too small to see from
this distance, but Phil knew that he couldn't let any one of them
fire towards the planet. Imagine a busy afternoon in the centre of
London, or Toyko, or New York. If one Hymenoptera blast hit the
busiest part of town, it could kill hundreds if not thousands of
people.
Hopefully of course the people on the planet were in hiding, in safe
underground bunkers, or evacuated the planet. But with the amount of
time they'd had to evacuate hadn't been enough. Less than 10% of the
world's population had evacuated. All of these were the rich, who
could afford passage. What about the billions of average people?
And even if they did get off the planet alive, where could they go?
The Hymenoptera could still track them down. No other Space Core
colonised planet had defences anywhere near as good as Earth's, and
Earths had been as useless as a chocolate fireguard. They might as
well have had a chocolate fireguard to protect Earth – at least then
they'd have something to throw at them.
"Tell me Dean…" said Phil, feeling a little serious for a
moment. "What are our chances?"
"About as much as a welk in a supernova."
"I thought you'd say that." Phil paused for a moment. "Suggestions
at all?"
"I suppose we could just… run away or something?" said Dean.
Phil sighed and sat down. "Normally I'd be right with you, but I
don't think it'd be right this time."
"At least we're not totally alone." Said Dean, checking his scanner
and finding a few more blips.
"Oh great, so we have as much chance as two welks in a supernova?"
Phil said quizzically.
"No look!" Dean pointed out of the window. Beyond the Hymenopteran
swarm was another fleet of ships, surrounding Earth. "I think this
is the most ships I've ever seen in one place!" said Dean.
A few hours ago Admiral Hayes of the Space core had made the hardest
request of his life.
"I ASK THAT ANYONE WITH A PILOTS LICENSE BRING YOURSELF TO YOUR
NEAREST SPACE CORPS ESTABLISHMENT...WE WILL GIVE YOU A VESSEL, OR
UPGRADE YOU EXISTING SHIP, AND ASK YOU TO HALP US IN COMBATTING THIS
MENACE THAT THREATENS TO DESTROY US. For every five minutes we keep
them fighting, another transport ship can escape with our people
aboard" he had said.
"Is that a fleet of civilian ships?" asked acting-Captain Febuggure.
"Mostly. Theres a few Space Corps ships mingled in, the remainder of
the 13th fleet."
"And that's all there is left? Some battered space corps vessels and
a whole load of civilian transports and cargo ships. Are they at
least armed?"
Dean checked the scanner. "Well it depends what you mean by `armed'…
I think some of them have plenty of rocks to throw."
Phil slapped his head. "Why does it always have to come down to us?"
he stood up again.
"How long until we're in firing range?"
"Another minute yet."
"Dammit can't we just get this over and done with?" said
Phil, "people are dying out there!"
"We could use the wormhole drive to get closer?" Dean suggested.
"Do it!"
********************
Who: Commander Rich Tees
Where: A ship in the 13th Fleet, surrounding Earth
Rich stood on the bow of his ship, although it wasn't really his. It
was an old clapped out Space Corps vessel that they'd pulled out of
a museum in sheer desperation and need for ships.
He looked to his left and his right, the 13th Fleet was always seen
as the unlucky one. Although at this particular time they were the
only surviving Space Corps fleet in the entire galaxy. Lucky for now
anyhow.
The fleet around him was made up of ships like his, half wrecked
military vessels, but most of them were small transports, people's
own private vessels and shuttlepods. None were very well armed, and
all were about as dangerous to the Hymenoptera as a Peugeot 306. But
he admired peoples bravery. Around him were people in tiny weak
little shuttles that would undoubtedly explode from one hit. They
weren't getting paid, and they probably wont survive long enough to
even get a shot at the Hymenoptera. But they were trying.
"Here they come!" Shouted his sensor operator behind him.
He grimaced.
"Tell the fleet to engage the enemy!"
The human and Hymenoptera fleet moved towards each other, and
clashed with fiery rage. The Hymenoptera started firing first, as
they had a much longer range than the humans.
Rich covered his eyes as the explosions blinded him. The ships in
front of him exploded before even reaching the enemy.
A stray shot passed through their densely packed fleet and hit a
small ship at the back, which was unfortunately piloted by an
Islamic fundamentalist who had packed his ship full of explosives.
He exploded before he could even get to the Hymenoptera and took out
half of the Human fleet.
"We're not close enough!" Yelled Commander Tees over the
explosions. "They're picking us off at range. Full speed!"
Then he saw the lead ship. The big big mothership. It was larger
than any other ship he had ever seen. Larger than Any ship could or
should possibly be. The ship he was in probably wasn't even as big
as that ship's weapon turrets. The best he could hope for was to jam
his ship into their cannon. A suicidal plan that he hoped he'd not
have to do.
He took the inter-com microphone and barked orders to the entire
fleet. "Everybody listen! Ahead is their lead ship, their
mothership. The best we can hope for is to destroy that ship. God
speed everyone."
The fleet targeted Jays vessel. They wouldn't scratch it, but they
had to try. They all fired.
Then something strange happened. The space in front of them bent,
twisted and swirled, and a large dirty blue mining ship came through.
"Hello everyone, this is acting-Captain Phil Febuggure of the Blue
Dwarf, fancy some assistance with kicking some slimy insect ass?
Hey – why are you shooting us?"
Commander Tees growled under his breath.
"Blue Dwarf get the hell out of the way!"
The Hymenopteran fleet covered almost an entire cubic light-year in
space, and the Blue Dwarf managed to jump straight into the middle.
It slowly and dramatically pulled up next to Jay's massive ship.
**************************
Who: Phil and Dean
Where: Drive Room
Phil looked through binoculars at the Hymenopteran ship. "Oh look
there's Jay!" he waved.
Mini-phil chose this moment to come to the drive room and mooned Jay
out of the window.
"He doesn't seem to like that." Said Phil, and flipped him off.
"Sorry to interrupt… captain." Said Dean. "But I think we've better
do something rather than just sit in the middle of a massive enemy
fleet and made hand-signals to the enemy leader."
"Oh yeah… um…. Open all turrets and launch fighters!"
Along the sides of the Blue Dwarf, turrets extended and began
firing. The flight deck hangar doors opened and several wings of
ships flew out to engage the attacking fighters.
<OOC - tag to everyone to start fighting!>