This is the first part of The Exodus. Even though I never played Starlancer, I did catch on as to what actually happened, and this was just a random idea. Enjoy.



The Exodus


1
Flight Lieutenant John “Husher” Waverman stared at his board with disbelief. The Coalition was gaining ground, and there may be no way to stop them. Already the scum had conquered all Alliance bases on Mars, and were moving in on Phobos and Deimos, the last places of refuge for Alliance troops and personnel in the inner solar system. Soon, even those valiant people would be either dead or on the run at the hands of the Coalition. And those who would flee would still be dead anyway, the Coalition war machine was simply unbeatable with their new super weapon – the Black Curtain.
This deadly weapon simply disabled all actuating electrical power in a 50 kilometre radius, which would effectively black out an entire base or small town. In the cold of space, this weapon would be equipped on battleships to stop vessels dead in their tracks. This weapon would black out bases in space, and they would no longer be able to produce water, or oxygen, and the people would starve, to suffocate, or die from hyperventilation. The one downside you may ask? It was the size of a small island, and had a huge mass, making it difficult to move it through space without consuming ridiculous amounts of fuel.
It was widely known that the Coalition had placed one of these on Earth’s moon; the intelligence reports had verified that. What was only known to a few high-up officials at Coalition Command, and Husher, was that one of these weapons was on its way to Mars, and from their to Jupiter, last home of the Alliance forces. Sure, they could move farther and farther out into the fringes of space, but that would accomplish nothing, the Coalition would always return with a vengeance.
It was, then, Husher’s mission to bring the plans of the weapon to Alliance Control on Ganymede, and find a way to stop the advance of the second weapon. This would not be easy. The intelligence suggested that the weapon would pass into Mars orbit in only 7 days, which was only enough time to get there from their location from Jupiter, much less get there and back. Husher had only one choice, he had to send the plans in an unprotected transmission to Ganymede, and take his motley group of fighter pilots and engage the enemy, and hopefully destroy the weapon.
“Husher, Farcry,” came the transmission from one of his pilots, Farcry, “What’s the plan sir?”
“The plan is this,” sent Husher over the group channel, “send the transmission over an unprotected frequency to Ganymede, and engage the enemy before they have a time to re-fuel at Mars.”
“Husher, Starkiller. What kind of messed-up plan is that? Attacking that weapon is suicide. Even if we attack it from behind, where there are no defences, the escorts would shoot us out of the sky in seconds.”
“Starkiller, Husher. Look, if you really don’t want to do this, fine, go to Ganymede, but we’ll all die there anyway.”
“Husher, Starkiller. But sir, what about those sleeper ship they’re supposed to be building?”
“Starkiller, Husher. They won’t be built in seven days, Starkiller. Look, if we destroy this weapon, we may sacrifice ourselves, but we could buy the Alliance enough time to build those sleeper ships. If we don’t do that, we’re as good as dead anyway.”
“Fine, what do we do?”
“Well,” began Husher, “with those escorts there, as you mentioned, Starkiller, we have a serious problem. We may have to distract them, problem is, their range of detection is so great, that it is impossible to hide one group of ships while a distraction is on progress.”
“So what do we do?” asked CBrain.
“Simple, Farcry, you still there?”
“You bet.”
“Good, give me Intel on this region.”
“Fine. Hang on.” A pause. “Computer says there is a type 4 geomagnetic strom that will move into this area by tomorrow, and one asteroid floating to a close-encounter with Venus.”
“How far from the enemy will this asteroid be when the storm hits?”
“About 20 thousand kilometres.”
“Good, I see that we are in God’s favour today. The storm will reduce sensor efficiency; they won’t even know we’re there until it’s too late!”
“Fine, who distracts the enemy?” asked Farcry.
“Any volunteers?” As it turned out, there was one volunteer, Racetrack would go. He was fresh, had only been in battle once, but he was the best of the best at speeding in and out of the battlefield; he truly did deserve his name. He would do the trick, and most likely live to tell the tale.
“Alright, Racetrack, switch to private channel, all other pilots, maintain radio silence, I don’t want some curious Coalitionists to walk in on us.
“Farcry, signing off.”
“Starkiller, signing off.”
“CBrain, signing off.”
“Good, Racetrack, just you and me now, here’s the plan…”

2
Showtime. What a party this would be. Racetrack had only seen combat once, but he was the speediest guy in their squadron, and he as ready. The weapon, along with its escorts, were only a few hundred kilometres away, and Racetrack was ready. He put his hand on the throttle, he had only a few minutes before the storm came in, and the enemy would no longer see him. Sensors showed that every escort was moving in on his position, from directly ahead. So much the better. Husher and his group were behind the asteroid, and were, thus, invisible to the enemy.
Now Racetrack could see the escorts with the naked eye, moving in fast. Steady, steady, now! Racetrack immediately made a long burn, bringing his speed up to several hundred kilometres per second. He made as if to go for the Black Curtain, as though on a suicide run, the escorts fired at him, but too late, he had already turned to the left. He did several laps around the Black Curtain, with a few weapon spurts here and there, with the Coalitionists in very hot pursuit.
The storm moved in. That was enough, Racetrack moved off, towards Mars. The escorts, with full Coalition pride, could not take the damage to their egos that a single Alliance pilot escaped them, and they followed Racetrack, leaving the Black Curtain unprotected.
Husher moved in, knowing that these next minutes would probably be his last. Starkiller moved in from the right, CBrain on the left, and Husher from the center. They readied their missiles, and fired before the Black Curtain’s sensors could even detect the fighters. As the nukes headed for their target, Husher, CBrain, and Starkiller, veered off, on the unlikely chance that they could escape the nuclear blasts.
It happened. The first nuke hit the Black Curtain’s engine control pod, causing massive engine failure, and an uncontrolled lateral burn. The second hit the starboard fuel tank, destroying that section, and venting hundreds of bodies into space. The third and final one, hit the weapon itself, and the ship went up in a fantastic explosion which could be seen from Earth as a green star.
The sheer brilliance of the explosion was what blinded the three fleeing pilots; this pain of this would last only momentarily, as the shock wave of the blast hit. All three were killed at once. But they at least died, knowing that they had bought the Alliance enough time to build the fleet of sleeper ships.

has anybody actually read this?

hi, i read it. it's pretty good!

finally, i might write some more

Well, i took twenty minutes and wrote the next part, enjoy. By the way, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to post them here.



3
Thirty-two days had passes for Racetrack, with no sign of any Alliance presence at all in the Mars sector. He scoured the area, looking for anything, any sign of life. After two weeks of searching, it became apparent to Racetrack that the Alliance was gone from the Inner Solar System. He would have to head for Jupiter, on minimal power. Several times he narrowly escaped Coalition patrols, using his irradiated hull to disguise himself has a hunk of debris.
Racetrack sat as bored as ever, playing chess against his computer. He had lost, 1276 times in a row, but it at least kept his mind off his impending doom from starvation, suffocation, dehydration, of extreme cold, which seemed inevitable. As he pondered his next move, the computer spoke up,
“Radiological alarm!” somewhere near was a source of nuclear energy. Racetrack immediately ordered a full radar sweep of the area, and found a hunk of some irradiated material several thousand kilometres away. Of course, he had no choice but to go.
It would take several hours to get there, so Racetrack sat back, and spent some much-needed time to go over what had happened in his life. He was born during a battle on the Moon; his mother always said that she was pregnant with twins when their shelter was attacked by the Coalition. She was a soldier, but was in no position to defend herself. At the time, Racetrack’s father, Bernardo, was gone to Mars to meet with the leaders of the Alliance, but could not bring Marguerite, his wife, along for the ride. So there she was, all alone in a small partition of a bunker. A small force of Coalitionists barged in, and killed everybody inside, about two hours after Marguerite went into labour. They spared her, and one of them even delivered Racetrack and his twin sister, who never received a name, dying shortly after she was born.

They were brought to Earth, to Asia, where the Coalition had its roots. Racetrack was given a Coalition name – Racetrack - and he was raised to hate the Alliance. He learned from Coalition teachers, and had Coalition beliefs, even friends who were true Coalitionists. He was told that his parents were killed in a savage Alliance attack on Beijing, and that he was one of the few survivors of that decimating blast. He went to Beijing, and saw what was left of it; nothing. Five million people wiped out in a matter of seconds, another fifteen million in a matter of hours. It all seemed too real to be a lie.
Finally, one day Racetrack was brought before the Board of Loyalty, where every boy must go at the age of seventeen, to prove his loyalty to the Coalition. He must have been a special case, having Allied background. They brought in his mother, who had been in prison for the seventeen years since the raid on the Moon. They ordered him to live with her for a week, to see if he developed sympathies for her. He did.
As time passed, he did not believe his mother when she told him of his true heritage. He tried to explain to this half-crazed woman who he was; an orphan from Beijing. She told him an even more believable story than that. He knew in his heart that it was the truth, but he said nothing. She told him the story of how he was born, but although he honestly believed her, he said nothing. Treacherous people were killed if they failed examination by the Board of Loyalty. He passes the test, or so he thought. On the eleventh day of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour, in the year 2288, he was forced to watch her executed, a final test of the Loyalty. Why the eleventh of November at eleven o’clock in the morning was favoured for executions, was lost in the mists of the twentieth century.
Three tortured years passed, not a day went by when Racetrack did not think of his dead mother, and the sad truth, but it was obvious that they were watching him, so for the sake of life, he kept his mouth shut. At the age of twenty, Racetrack was an assistant for an important official in the Coalition government, when his father, a diplomat, came to talk peace. When Bernardo entered the office, Racetrack screamed, “That’s my father!” before he could stop himself. Almost at once, Coalition guards attacked him and Bernardo. They failed, and several Alliance Special Operations forces jumped in through the window, and rescued Racetrack and his father. It would be later revealed that Racetrack’s father and the Special Operations forces were there to assassinate the official Racetrack worked for.
They somehow arrived safely on Mars, where Racetrack was rehabilitated, and began his life anew. He now hated the Coalition; they had torn his family apart, killed his mother, and made him their loyal slave. He vowed to kill as many of the bastards as possible, and joined the air force, where he proved to have a real knack for flying. That was his life. Since then, he was a hardened man, bearing the scars of his childhood, and the devastation of Beijing, which he could not believe his new Alliance friends had wrought. He made no friends, no promises, just did his job, and he did it well, being honoured several times.
“Coordinates reached,” came the computer’s voice. Racetrack was struck out of his revelry, and looked outside. All over there were the carcasses of dead ships from a battle.
“Computer, how recently did this battle take place?”
“Judging by the radioactive decay, the estimated elapsed time is twenty-seven days, six hours, fifteen minutes.”
“Uh… thanks. Any indication of who won this battle?”
“Judging by the fact that there is no presence of Allied ships within a one million kilometre radius of this position, the believed victor would be the coalition.” That was bad news. What Racetrack had long believed was true; the Alliance had lost control of Mars, and soon Jupiter. He had to get to Jupiter and warn them about the Black Hand before it was too late. But he needed more energy…
“Computer, prepare an EVA suit.”