III. The Other Side

We've only just begun

Hypnotized by drums

until forever comes

you'll find us chasing the sun

-The Wanted (Chasing the Sun)

___________________________________________

Approximately 3 hours earlier...

Yesha: AIKA!

The capsule explodes in full leaving a contained crater in the middle of the school.

Aika: Retrieve successful!

Yesha appears on the bridge of her ship. The DJS Light of the Grey is a heavy destroyer fully crewed with 60 men and women supporting The Directive Dimensional Fleet. A common design of the heavy destroyer ships of The Directive is having almost the same schematics as a battle cruiser stripped of the missile and torpedo pods. A destroyer degrades further with the removal of the railgun. Both types of destroyers have a tonnage or 200000 tons.

A Commodore in The Directive commands a total of 1659 personnel including the 751 designated combatants spread across 1 heavy destroyer, 3 destroyers, 6 frigates, 8 corvettes, 5 Armed Boats, 8 defense capsules, and a large group of combat drones, this forms one battle group. A usual combat fleet under a Vice-Admiral would have 8 battle groups plus 1 other heavy destroyer escorting the Flag ship; usually that flag ship is a battle cruiser.

Yesha: *coughs* Good work Aika...

Aika: Thank you Commodore...

Yesha: How is everything here, Field Executive Mikami?

Field Executive Aika Mikami is a 24 year old lady with pearl white skin and a gracious figure. She has distinct Asian facial features. She supports Commodore Romanov in the Directive Dimensional Administration (the support arm of the military fleet) since childhood. She is more commonly known as the Maiden of the Grey who moves the battle group fluidly in Yesha's Absence and commands respect even from the combatants.

The majority of Yesha's battle group is women and the rest are old men without families. All of them are born in World 7, a few with at least 1 World 7 parent. They are known as Roses on the Grey; a special battle group dedicated to capturing or killing the traitor Rerillion Gapes and any of his versions affiliated with the rebel group Free Jumpers Association.

Aika: All is well Commodore!

Yesha: Were we able to track the ITALICA?

Aika: Not yet Commodore...

Yesha: Do not worry. Have the armed boats patrol the Karman Line in stealth. Their local space station must not know about us. The ex-Vice Admiral was never able to complete his retrieve. He either transferred the ITALICA to subject 75 or warped him without any power over the ITALICA,

Aika: I would like the second one happening. He will die alone in a large ship without any power. But, why patrol the Karman?

Yesha: in the event scenario 1 happen our attack boats can react quickly. Subject 75 will probably want to go home. We will ambush him.

Aika: Great plan Commodore.

3 hours later...

DIANA: Captain... Please wake up!

Trevor: Whuut? Huh?

DIANA: Alert! Multiple lock-ons detected...

Trevor: What? Wait, wait... wait!

DIANA: Shifting to manual control... activating augmented visual support... plugging in vitals tube.

Suddenly the pilot's seat plunges deeper into the console of the cockpit, forcing Trevor's gear to align with the tube port which connects a tube to the gear. The helmet extends a glass visor that covers Trevor's eyes. A loading screen appears then turns to a HUD. Trevor turns his head around and all he sees is the vastness of space with a few blinking diamonds that shows the description of the object it surrounds once the object is at his point of view, it also shows the distance of the object from his boat.

DIANA: Injecting 10% of Xing Juice allowable... Injecting surgery nano-bots...

Trevor: How do I pilot this thing?

DIANA: The joysticks on your gloves control the ship. Right controls roll and pitch in an inverted y axis just like your usual plane. Left controls the throttle, shifting it side to side fires the side retro boosters from a single direction. The pedals control yaw just like your rudders stepping at both at the same time activates the forefront retro boosters that we use as breaks.

Trevor: Ok... just like a plane game for real.

DIANA: incoming missiles... activating defense turret in auto mode.

Three missiles approach the boat. Trevor executes a barrel roll to evade the missiles, the defense turrets fires a burst of plasma rings at the missiles as the roll completes. The missiles explode in space silently.

Trevor: What, no audio?

DIANA: In space no one can hear you shout....

Trevor: Yeah! Yeah fine... no air to carry the vibration

DIANA: Affirmative. More missiles incoming... I have located the source...

Trevor: So how do I fight back?

DIANA: You can't! You are in an unarmed boat.

Trevor: Oh bother...

DIANA: Updating tags... we have 5 armed boats on our tails... marking with red.

Trevor: Can the defense turrets shoot down the enemy boats or at least disarm them?

DIANA: If you are close enough... yes...

The diamonds tagging the enemies now blinks in red, and also anytime a missile is fired it gets tagged red as well. Trevor uses evasive maneuvers... rolls, flips, and loops to evade the missile locks and fires while inching his way to the moon.

DIANA: Captain I am noticing that the enemy is being grouped by your actions.

Trevor: You think?

DIANA: They are in close proximity of each other and just a few meters away from you.

Trevor: That is the plan...

DIANA: I cannot compute the survival rate of this action.

Trevor: And they can't as well.

Just as DIANA reports, the armed boats are now grouping themselves.  The five boats are no longer in a formation and can't easily fire, Trevor takes this chance to try and attack some of the boats. Two of the boats have aligned with each other in front of Trevor's boat. Taking advantage of the situation he proceeds with a full throttle high-G burn while executing a roll slipstreaming in the middle of the two boats. Due to the reaction of their defense turrets, the boats fires at each other adding damage to what Trevor's boat did. Both ships explode as Trevor breaks away from the group.

Trevor: DIANA; get the ITALICA's bow aligned in front of me, and keep it in stealth.... Show me the firing lines of the plasma particle accelerating cannons.

DIANA:  Moving to designated location, t-minus 30 seconds... I am now showing the firing lines as tubes of blue light.

Trevor: I see them...  okay! Prepare to fire at my go!

DIANA: Charging.... 5 seconds

Trevor sees two large tubes of blue light in his HUD. Slowly adjusting and drawing the enemies to the firing lines as he now approach The ITALICA. The enemies now keep at his tail to prevent a repeat of what happened. At around half a kilometer away from The ITALICA, Trevor has perfectly aligned the enemies on the firing line, with him a few inches away from safety of the lines.

Trevor: Fire!!!

DIANA Fires both of the cannons as Trevor hard breaks and executes a half flip moving him effectively away from the beams. The main boat behind him reacts quickly but was unable to escape quickly enough and gets scratched by the beam. The other two didn't even get a chance to move and takes the full brunt of the beam destroying them in the process.

As soon as the beam ends firing DIANA moves The ITALICA in a range to starts scooping Trevor's boat. As soon as the Boat is docked and stowed, two corvette class ships appear from a FTL drive jump.

DIANA: We are being hailed, captain.

Trevor: Locate the safest and fastest world where we can jump to and prepare to jump there, tell me when you are ready.

DIANA: Affirmative!

Trevor: connect them.

Unknown 1: Subject 75! My name is Arthur Wilde; I am one of the lucky people who serve under Commodore Romanov.

Trevor: Ok, what are you, her man servant?

Arthur: I am a Flag Bearer of the Directive, a commissioned officer equivalent to a Sub-Lieutenant in your regular navy.

Trevor: Oh I though you are just a silly old man. Well, I am Tom it-Figures, a regular civilian defending himself from crazy people.

Arthur: You are warranted to an arrest for the following crimes, association to the traitor Rerillion Gapes, and destruction of 4 armed boats causing the death of 3 combat officers and their 12 support crew. Prove your innocence by surrendering.

Trevor: Well I am a very lazy man; I can just have this ship fire again since both your ships are in my firing line.

Arthur: What do you mean? Common's man?

Common's man: he is right sir.

Arthur: If you go ahead with that we will not have second thoughts of fighting back...

DIANA: Targets locked-on.

Common's man: We are locked-on to Flag Bearer.

Arthur: Commence lock-on.

DIANA: Warning multiple lock-on detected.

Trevor: This is a Mexican stand -off then?

Arthur: Your call!

DIANA: We are ready...

Trevor: Well Flag Bearer Arty, even if I like my odds in this standoff I'd rather have you chasing the sun. DIANA!

DIANA: Understood!

Suddenly a large bright hole appears in the middle of the three ships. The ITALICA dives in to the hole. As soon as she is gone the hole disappears.