"The Dust of Dead Stars"

Downhill, Every way

Italics = Actions and Thoughts

Standard Text with Quotation Marks = Normal Speaking

Italics + text in Quotation marks = Whispers

Characters:
Co-Pilot Martin Raymond
Systems operator William "Lee" Hewitt
Longsword AI Jellicoe
Unnamed Nav.

(Lieutenant Commander David "Sovereign" Cunningham's POV)

Another Shitty day of Drills, Training, Maintenance, another day like this and I will crack

-"God, when will we be able to Stand down? I swear, ever since they assigned us to this ODP we haven't been able to rest Properly, they just keep Doing Drill after drill"

I tell to my Co-Pilot, Lieutenant Martin Raymond, a new guy who just enlisted to the Fleet Air Arm probably filled to the brim with propaganda, or love for Earth like us all. All of this while walking in line to Hangar 2

- "I Agree, Crew Comfort is even worse than on board Hannibal" Said our Systems Operator William "Lee" Hewitt, a Veteran from Reach, we don't know a lot about him other than that he's a silent man. He doesn't speak a lot, poor man

Eventually, we reached Hangar 2 and there she was, our big lady the Kiss of Spring, the C709 we pilot and crew. It was a lovely Aircraft, even if it feels like flying an Apartment Complex.

- "oh boy, Time for the best part of the day, Mock Anti-Ship Runs, Interception, and the biggest nightmare of any air crew, Maintenance"

MR: - "Maintenance? Isn't that job of the Engineers and all of that? Why haven't we done that yesterday?" he says, puzzled by what I just said

- "well, you see newb, it's because all our engineers got assigned to the Home Fleet or to the ODP with the Light Aircraft of the cluster, so now we are all alone and it'll be your job today to do it"
it is clear that this is not true, as I am just trying to pull a trick on our Newbie as to have him a little scared by the idea of having to maintain the logistical nightmare that are Longswords, and once we return from the training, boy will it result in some laughs, at least I hope that we return, incident rates are horrible lately.

We Enter the Aircraft and climb the staircase to the top floor and walk the 35 meter corridor 5 to the Cockpit

NAV: - "man, I'm still amused by how big these things really are, just how practical is it to have an aircraft the size of a House and a Half? I am no logistician but this sounds like hell itself for any maintenance crew in a Carri-"

MR: - "Silence, This is an aircraft we have been using for over 50 years, If The UNSC HIGHCOM chose to keep it in service, it's because there is a good Reason, they can't be THIS wrong."

We Weren't shocked at all to hear Martin interrupt our Navigator, just to, as always, be a HIGHCOM Bootlicker, so we chose to ignore the problem and Continue with the Pre-Flight Preparations

- "Flight instruments checked"

NAV: - "Navigation and Datalink gear Checked"

MR: - "Comms Checked"

WH: - "Weapon system's Checked, 4 ASGM 10's, 1 Shiva Missile, 120mm Ventral Gun, 8 Octodart LGB's, all lights are Green"

- "Everything Ready then, Martin, Ask for permission for Takeoff"

MR: - "Tunisia Cluster Central Command, this is Tobruk station Longsword Squadron Aircraft Call sign Rook 4, Asking Permission for Takeoff"

Tower: - "Permission gran-"

And Suddenly, when we less expected it, our Longsword AI Suddenly Turned on, spoke over the Tower Control, and said the message we were always expecting, 3 Words that brought Both Total Terror, Shock, and will To Fight, it was time.


Jellicoe: - "Slipspace Rupture Detected"

When we least expected it, they found us, And tower was in Absolute shock, not a single word coming out of his Mouth, or maybe he actually was saying something, but we couldn't hear it over the total Chaos that comes from having a single radio Channel for Light Aircraft and the Longsword Squadron, it was Stress, it was Anxiety, we saw them Warp out of Slipspace, with the zoom provided by the Camera of our aircraft, we could see them Deploy wave after wave of what we think are boarding craft and hordes of Seraphs. It is lucky that we were just about to take off. And Then, Permission was granted, we got greenlit and so, we took off