All the lasers fired AT ONCE directly at Captain Ipiloxlix and he veered sharply to the left and then sharply to the right and then SHARPLY UP to avoid all of them. He did. He avoided them. He spun a million degrees and then settled into a comfortable Assassinator’s Spin before unleashing a salvo of his own insane blasts into the enemies’ forward shields. A dozen or so of the opponents exploded in an awesome chain reaction of fiery explosions (made possible by the 100% hydrogen atmosphere henceforth known as the hydrosphere for the remainder of this reading experience). Ipoxlicoxl whooped in a whoop of whooping whooooooops and cruised his Kill Fighter through the flaming debris in a celebration that might have been shared by his wingmates IFFFFF they had not already been incinerated, which they were so the celebration was a solitary one.

“GET OUTTA THERE, BLACK 4752!” shrieked Ipoxlix in an urgent howl that his microphone did not pick up. It had been fried. These comm systems were delicate things and the intense heat of the dogfight had shorted them. Turned them into nothing but useless junk. Just junk. As a result Black 4752 blew apart. Now Iplosoxol was alone.

He locked onto another enemy Blast Boat and took it down with bullets. No lasers here. Lasers were risky. They could ruin your vision if you used them too much. Blackened up the viewports and turned your Kill Fighter into a blind missile. Worked if you wanted to die. IPlgoxoilx did not want to die.

He fired more bullets into the air, heedless because he was alone. If he hit anything now he knew it would be a good shot. What would he hit if he hit something? Enemies.

The last enemy Blast Boat erupted in a yellow rush and fell down into the canyon. Ipxolxlxl was shaking and sweating, and not that he was aware of it, but screaming too. Dogfights pulled those screams out of you. SCREAMS. Can’t fight em. Live it. Do it. Fight forever. Die or die trying. HAHA.

The Capistrona Mission!!! This fucking thing. Nobody wanted to do it. High Command knew it and assigned Blitz Squadron to the suicide plan. The espionage reports were coming in white and hot. Lieutenant Pager’s strike team was down there sending the green codes. No mistake: this is where the datasets had been hidden. Capistrona. If the Commanders could retrieve the datasets from the banks down there under the waves, they wouldn’t just turn the tide in this fight; they would blow the tide away. They would destroy the tide. The tide would be gone. No more tide. They would witness the tide receding and disappearing. They would never see the tide again. They would abandon this horrible metaphor because it wasn’t working. It wasn't. It just was not.

The FEDERATION was out of control. Corrupt leaders and incompetent corporations had run the Rim Systems into the ground, bled them dry of resources and manpower and womanpower. President Fuck bungled it, blew the whole thing wide open and spilled the truth onto the already suspicious populace like a cauldron of boiling hot creamwaste onto a black gargasranx!! He admitted the government had been soliciting funds from the Associate Worlds, trading money for weapons, weapons for secrets, and secrets for the alchemical reports from the Wizards on Capistrona.

Result? THE CAPISTRONA AFFAIR.

Lieutentant Pager and his espionage team were already in lightspace when the news broke. The conspiracies were true. No conspiracy wasn't true in the Rim Systems, it was just a matter of breaking them open.

Captain Ipoxocll floored it. He just absolutely fucking floored it and shot his Kill Fighter out of the hydrosphere. Had to refuel. Had to get back to the Grand Extinguisher carrier vessel and replenish his weapons and get a new squad. The battle wasn't done. The first three waves had hammered him hard. Now it was time to infiltrate the surface! THE REAL TASK.

"Pager this is Illopxoxol," he called over the comm, before the writer of this piece of shit could remember that he mentioned it had been fried by the lasers earlier in the scene. "Come on in Pager, we've got a clear zone from 347 degrees alpha vector on through till morning."

"Copy that, Iploxodk," Pager's tight iconic voice came back, nearly destroyed from the static compression but still there for all of it. Can't have too much compression especially on Capistrona where the heavy fog and impenetrable carbonimium layer make things complete fucking CHAOS in terms of having to get things done. Iplixoxol had to get things done. Cut through that shit. He was a captain because of his ability to do this!

"Status please."

Iploxooxis blinked because he didn't know if he'd uttered that line or if Lieutenant Pager had. Things were getting weird. Probably because he'd entered Capistrona's psychological exit shield. That was the whole point of Capistrona. That's why the datasets had been hidden here, to confuse any potential saboteurs. But wait, had the datasets actually been found? What datasets? Hold on a minute… what were datasets?

Ixploxisosx blinked again and shook his head. He couldn't remember if he'd dealt with this on his way in. Had he? His way into what? The thing, right? The thing he had dealt with. Right? Right? Right? RrrrrRrRrrRrrRrR Ixploxis had no idea. He was just a captain. Why was he in charge of the espionage mission? He was just a Kill Fighter pilot. So he wasn't in charge of that mission. Pager was. Pager was the espionage lieutenant. He was the one. Pager was.

"Pager, come in."

"PAGER COME IN."

There was silence. Of course there was silence. He was the only one left. But what about Pager? Capistrona's psychological exit shield must be interfering with his

"...losing..."

"....destabilized... over thirty... oceanside..."

"...debris..."

"... cleanup operation... still can't find..."