"The Mimbari Incursion..."Ya, I was there. I was an Alpha Pilot sent in on the second wave. The first wave, command knew there was no way that was getting through, so those were all automated. Total sacrifice force. They wanted the cube so focused on that, that they'd miss the VALIVARRE coming right at them...""The what?""VALIVARRE-Class SDF. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. Only a few hundred were built by the Tiresians, and the REF doesn't normally use them. This one was fitted with a battery of over a hundred sychro-cannons fixed forward in place of the Reflex gun. First one would go off, then the next, and the next. It looked like a damned Gatlin gun, 'Blah blah blah!,' each one wearing down the Beorge's shields a little bit more, then all of sudden, 'BOOM!' one gets through, but then it was too late and like a hundred more had already been given the order to fire, so they're SLAAAAM!ing into the cube, 'BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!,' just DRILLING her, and all of a sudden from our side, you can see they blast just EXPLODE out the other side, 'BLLLLLAH!' like a big ugly exit wound... Then we went in, a couple thousand darts, just 'Zoom zoom, zoom.' We were told to do two things: First, watch your exit route and keep it open, second, don't shoot each other. So we kept about 200 or so just to keep the corridor open, they just sat there and kept firing at the edges, keeping it open, while the rest of us just were told fire as many rounds as you can as fast as you can, and anyone that comes back empty the Admiral herself was hosting a kegger for. When we started running low we started pulling back, but by now it's gotten so bad the cube's on fire... Everything's burning, and I mean it's just conflagrating...""It's what?""Conflagrating... Large, out of control fire, the only way it's gonna STOP burning is it runs out of fuel, air, or, uh, heat I suppose... I mean the entire cube, you could see jets a few thousand feet long just 'WOOOSH!' out like a jet... And the colors, they weren't red like wood and stuff on a planet... It was greens and blues and purples... From the metals burning...""Oh come on now. Metal doesn't burn."The officer gives a long look. "It does if it gets hot enough. And normally, when metal burns, it releases it's own oxygen, but it can't sustain the fire too very much long. This was just so out of control, not only did it keep burning but it grew and grew. Really, we're lucky we got out of there alive. And that cube just kept burning for months after that. Getting smaller and smaller. It was motherfucking awesome. Just awe inspiring.""Sounds horrific to an outside ear.""Hmm? Well, maybe it should but consider this- The Beorge hasn't tried straying near UGC territory since. In fact, they're hiding from us." |