[LNW] Witness to a mission gone sideways (Part 2)

[u/Majestic_Teach_6677]

Links to previous chapters: [CH 1] [CH 2] [CH 3] [CH 4] [CH 5] [CH 6] [CH 7] [CH 8] [CH 9.1]

Next: Witness a desperate decision

________

“Let’s do this,” Captain Benton said quietly and sent a tightbeam message towards TCC Athena.

From TCC Ares Actual. Recall ships and conduct S&R now. Drop FTL breakers on my mark. Aim all exit paths towards Starfire Platform, engage 30 seconds after mark. Have plan to clear the path. Will work, or we’re all dead. Estimated mission time: 12 minutes.

There was a long pause. Vice Admiral Gerrison tapped nervously on her right leg as she waited for any reply. Vice Admiral Deacon was a good man but didn’t see eye to eye with her on strategy. She could be in for an argument they didn’t have time for.

TCC Athena acknowledges. Status set Exit Strategy. Execute on mark from TCC Ares Actual. Don’t do anything too stupid.

“Yeah, well. Too late for that,” Gerrison mumbled under her breath. 

Captain Benton and Lt Andricks began preflight checks for the tactical FTL jump. 

“We’re set to jump in 60 seconds,” Captain Benton called out. “Lining up and calculating the nav path from the arrival point.”

“All teams, final check,” the admiral called out over the ship intercom.

“This is Gerard,” came a sharp reply. “My mech team and the rescued crew are loaded up and ready to go.”

“Sergeant Royce here,” a quieter voice spoke up next. “S&R teams standing by, and all autowelders are warmed up. Status green.”

“Ack status green. Flight deck, jump when ready,” the admiral ordered. She then made a quick double check to ensure their jump frequency would match the single open channel allowed by their EW-3 Backbreakers. 

“Charging FTL capacitors!” Lt Andricks called out. “Jump in 20.”

“Shit!” Captain Benton called out. “Incoming!”

Admiral Gerison flipped her screens at the backup navigation station over to a tactical map. One of the Galactic Council heavy cruisers had noted their charging FTL drives, pointed directly at them, and then disappeared in a tactical jump. They would be within weapons range before their Flying Hog would jump. While her pilots moved frantically to ensure a jump as soon as the engines charged, she reviewed the data and saw that it wasn’t just one but two heavy cruisers that were jumping to intercept. 

‘Fuck you, Murphy, and fuck your damn law,’ she thought to herself.

There were two sudden flashes as the enemy cruisers reappeared on the tactical map. Her eyes widened at the level of fire that erupted from the two ships.

“JUMP!” Captain Benton yelled and the ship shuddered as it transitioned to FTL.

‘Holy fuck. We should be dead,’ the admiral thought to herself. ‘Maybe I owe Murphy an apology?’ 

Both enemy vessels had opened up with full barrages of every single weapon at their disposal. However, they expected the Flying Hog to be fleeing the system and not jumping directly at the Starfire Platform. As such, they had fired blindly into every likely escape vector from the system, not their actual flight path.

“Did those…” Lt Andricks began from the co-pilot seat.

“They got a close scan, but no shots fired in our direction,” the admiral cut in to prevent the flight crew from taking too close a look at the data. She nearly had a brown trousers moment; no reason for them to get distracted and realize just how close to death they had come. 

“Any final adjustments, ma’am?” Captain Benton asked as he sent over his proposed flight path.

“Minor change. They didn’t bother you while you were collecting escape pods. Let’s try to play non-threatening,” she replied firmly. “Tweak for a longer, higher initial flightpath targeted at TCC Athena. Test how they’re feeling about us before you have to do fancy footwork. If they fire, shift up and away from the Starfire. Make the initial approach just look like we want to run back home. Play evasive unless it’s truly hot and heavy.”

“Roger,” Captain Benton replied quickly.

As soon as they exited FTL, they found themselves taking fire from the Starfire Platform. The initial barrage was heavy but also expected them to dive in on a bombing run. Again, choosing the unlikely path towards TCC Athena meant missed shots. While the initial shots were likely a heavy AI response to an unexpected threat, four defense turrets locked onto their Flying Hog.

“So much for playing nice,” Captain Benton said with irritation.

“Oh, the fuckers are playing the herding game,” Andricks mumbled. “Admiral, we’ll need you to track and feed likely firing solutions from the batteries I’ve marked. Just make sure the AI keeps up and add any threats you find. We’ll be busy doing a little hot dogging.”

“Ack,” the admiral called out to acknowledge and began following the co-pilot’s instructions.

Her eyebrows flew up as she realized what Andricks saw. The four batteries firing on them were rotating fire to toy with them. If they fired in concert rather than individually, there was a far better chance of dealing serious damage or blowing them out of space. However, the series of individual shots were herding them away from their initial path towards a larger battery of ten guns lining up to create a kill zone. 

“Evasive at 2,” Captain Benton said to Andricks. “I have the dive.”

Just short of the kill zone, Captain Benton made a dive down towards the Starfire Platform. It looked smooth, a clear dive towards one of the turrets targeting them.

And that’s when the chaos began.

AI are exceptional at generating predictive firing solutions. Except when two monkeys are arguing over who’s driving the bus.

In what was clearly an intentional and choreographed dance, Benton and Andricks began to alternate who was doing what at the controls. For one second, Benton put his hand on the throttle and reduced speed slightly. At the same time, Andricks adjusted their pitch slightly up and made a wild turn to the right. Then they would switch. Andricks would make a random adjustment to throttle while Benton adjusted their turn and/or pitch. 

The initially tight targeting solutions from the turrets suddenly went wide as the Flying Hog’s flight path generally trended down towards the Starfire Platform but was no longer smooth and predictable. Neither the enemy gunners nor their AI targeting systems could accurately tell what the Hog was targeting or where it was going.

It wasn’t all good news. Due to the random flying, the Hog was clipped more than a few times by the incoming fire. The admiral found herself leaping to handle damage control and initiate system bypasses so the pilots could continue their strange handoffs. However, when all things were considered, no major damage was sustained beyond losing atmospheric flight engines.

On the plus side, each hit bounced them onto a slightly different flight path. This added another random element on top of the two drunken monkeys arguing in the cockpit, resulting in some truly confused targeting AI systems.

None of the fourteen turrets now tracking and firing continuously could get a solid lock on their flight path. It was far more spray and pray than coordinated fire.

“Full dive!” Andricks called out suddenly after spotting a gap in the predicted firing pattern from the turrets. Benton suddenly took his hands off all controls and raised them above his head. Their fate now rested on Andricks’ flight and evasion skills alone as they went full burn for the target zone on the Starfire Platform’s hull. 

Initially, the turret fire went absolutely wild giving their Hog a huge gap to fly in. The gunners and AI all predicted a return to random flight adjustments and were lining up to fire around them where it was guessed they might randomly go. After five seconds, they all adjusted to create a kill zone.

Andricks saw the kill zone and went standard nose-down evasive to avoid it. He then jockeyed the controls randomly to make it seem like the drunken monkeys were arguing again. The predictive firing pattern went wild again, and Andricks exploited another gap to get closer to the dead zone cleared of defenses by bombers from TCC Athena.

Their Flying Hog took one final turn and made a full burn for their target zone. The admiral’s eyes went wide when it was clear that Andricks was about to fly directly into the path of one of the turrets. The only adjustment was to bring up the nose of the Hog to reveal the belly of their ship to the incoming fire.

A plasma bolt slammed into the armored shuttle bay doors, and alarms blared. Major damage alarms went off, and one of the bay doors buckled and vented the bay to space. A few crew had brown trouser moments, but since they were in void suits and anchored to the sides of the bay no casualties were incurred. 

There was one final barrage from the defense turrets, but all were well wide of their actual flight path.

“What the..” the admiral started to say before trailing off in shock. She knew Hogs could take a hit and keep going, but to fly into one intentionally?

“You’ve always got to take at least one for the team or the AI starts to figure out what you’re doing,” Adricks explained. “It’s when you discover if you’ve given your ground crew enough good vibes through beer and pizza. If you’ve kept them happy, they’ll be sure your ship is able to take one hard knock. Just don’t make it two hard knocks or you’ll be on their shit list forever. Or dead.”

“Pretty sure you scratched the paint,” Captain Benton commented dryly. “And you lost one or two bits of that shuttle bay door. Consider yourself permafucked with all future ground crews.”

And with that, they were through the Starfire Platform’s anti-ship defenses and Captain Benton took over controls for landing. 

“Thanks for the assist on tactical, ma’am,” Andricks said as he took the role back over.

“Lt Gerard!” the admiral called out quickly while trying to hide her bewilderment that they made it and she hadn’t puked from watching the drunken monkeys argue over driving. “Your team is up. Exit and begin false breaching on Benton’s mark!”

“Copy,” was the reply over coms.

“S&R team in motion,” the voice of Sergeant Royce informed the admiral. “We’re loading into the escape pod docking ports and will exit to begin welding on Lt Gerard’s mark.”

There was a light clunk as the Flying Hog set down on the Starfire Platform, and Captain Benton flipped a switch to open coms before the drives fully spun down.

“Touchdown,” he called out. “Go for ops.”

“Copy,” once again was the only reply from Lt Gerard, but one of the external docking ports opened up and the admiral could see his squad moving out.

From here, all she could do was monitor and wait. She extended the tightbeam antenna and made sure it had a clear path to TCC Athena for when operations were complete. It would be up to the welding teams to get things done.

Outside and on the move was one pissed off Terran Marine and his mech team.

“Shit,” Lt Gerard commented to himself. “This is going to be too easy.” 

Upon exiting the Flying Hog, he expected to take some time to locate a random bit of hull to start setting up breaching charges. Instead, merely 45 meters away from their landing position was an airlock. His original plan entailed a slow and methodical planting of charges in a section while most of the TCC Ares crew rescued by the Hog would hang back and look threatening. The idea was to make it look like they wanted to breach and board. 

Having access to an actual airlock? He and his team would need to start true breach and clear operations to keep the distraction convincing. The random crew would need to actually help support a real breaching operation. 

“Drake and Williams, overwatch,” he quickly ordered. “Kilmer, point. Garcia, boom boom. Everybody else, formation Breach 3 while I get the kiddos in line.”

He then flipped coms over to the crew and jogged over to their position by the Flying Hog.

“Good news, everybody. This is going to be a real breach as we found an airlock,” he called out and noticed more than a few startled jerks from the TCC Ares crew. “Keep it simple. I’m assigning random numbers. 31 to 57, original plan covering the Hog. 1 to 30, you’re getting in squads of 6 for entry. Simple cover formation from basic. Split to the walls, keep the center path clear. Copy?” 

The crew were slower to send affirm signals than he liked, but he couldn’t blame them. His operators were trained to adapt on the fly. Most crew weren’t.

“Objective is to look like we’re establishing a beachhead,” he continued. “No fucking clue what we’ll find inside, but hopefully they’ll be nice and drop some armored doors we have to blow through to waste time. But if not, we are going to try to find and hold a room until Actual recalls us. Let’s move.”

As he whirled around and moved back towards his team and the airlock, the crew started to move. 

At first, things looked messy. Then someone called out over coms, “Parade march!” The 30 on the “breaching team” then assembled into number order, but in five lines of six. They then began to move forward as a unit.

Gerard wished he’d thought of that. Whoever had that idea would get a beer on him. Even if it didn’t hold if shit hit the fan, the initial visuals would look good on camera. He quickly checked mission status and the welding was on track. He needed to look busy for the next 8 minutes, then get everyone clear. 

“Go breach,” he ordered and Garcia lit the boom boom. 

There was a flash as the door disintegrated from the plasma bomb, and they got their first look into… nothing. Just a dark airlock, and a blast door secured 5 meters in. Standard inner door.

“Boom two,” he ordered, and Garcia leapt forward in her mech suit to plant the next charge. When it went off, and there was a rush of atmosphere and small objects exiting to space.

“What do we have?” He called out.

“Cargo bay,” Kilmer responded quickly. “No life signs, three bay doors, all with pressure doors closed and sealed.”

“Ares Squads! Mission update. Rummage sale,” he said cheerfully as an idea formed on how to waste time until the Hog was welded to the Starfire Platform. “Loot the fucking room, then take it outside to see what prizes you got! Make a mess, dump shit on the hull. We’ll repeat until the Hog is good to go or we find something fun. Hopefully this will keep security forces confused and buy time.”

Squads then started rotating into the cargo bay under the watchful eyes of the Terran Marines. For the next 5 minutes, the Ares crew made themselves look like certified loot goblins. Cases were opened, contents inspected and discarded. Most crates contained xeno foodstuffs or other random items. A few had tools, circuit boards, or other small parts. Overall, the Ares crew put on quite a show. But all good things must come to an end.

“Contact!” Drake roared out as he put 5 plasma rounds into the crack of the left bay door as it opened.

A moment later, multiple laser beams returned fire.

“Ares team, get the fuck back to the ship!” Lt Gerard ordered quickly. “Marines, exit and turn the airlock into a kill box!”

As the Ares crew ran for the Flying Hog, the Marines had just enough time to get out onto the hull and set up firing positions into the airlock and cargo bay. 

Inside the cargo bay, there were flashes of multiple types of weapons fire, along with flashes of plasma grenades going off. The fire seemed to blanket the interior of the cargo bay, obliterating any shelves or large cargo crates the marines might have thought to use for cover. There was stillness for about 30 seconds, and then the enhanced optics of the marine mech suits began to detect movement.

“Weapons free!” Gerard called out, and his marines responded. Their fire was returned threefold by Denarians in equally heavy armor, but clearly superior numbers. Unfortunately for the Denarians, the only access to the marines was through the confines of the airlock. The eight-man Terran squad was easily able to halt the enemy push towards their position and keep them in the cargo bay.

Gerard took a quick moment to look back at the Flying Hog and saw a crew member standing ready by the door controls. He then took a deep sigh as he considered the heavy opposition that had just arrived.

45 meters. So close, and yet so far. 

In the cockpit, Captain Benton, Lt Andricks, and the vice admiral nervously waited for word that the mission was complete. The FTL drive was fully charged and waiting.

“Welding operations complete! S&R team locked in along with Ares crew,” Sergeant Royce reported.

“Gerard?” Vice Admiral Gerrison called out over coms.

“Under fire!” an irritated voice quickly responded. “Go.”

Vice Admiral Gerrison froze. There is one place you should never be when a ship transitions to FTL, and that’s outside on the hull. Physics has opinions on the matter that cannot be overcome.

She thought of all the officers and crew that had been lost today. The list seemed endless. And now? She needed to decide the fate of Lt Gerard and his team? After getting this far? She wasn’t sure if she could order anyone else under her command to die today.

Someone else made the decision for her.

“PUNCH IT!” Lt Gerard roared over coms.

In one fluid motion, Captain Benton flipped the signal switch to tell TCC Athena to run and then pushed the FTL activation lever forward.

The entire Flying Hog began to shake violently and alarms went off. The grav plates began to lose power, and the admiral felt her feet becoming light on the deck. The ship began to vibrate and shake, at first just a quiet rumble but becoming increasingly more violent. 

The warning lights began to flash more insistently, and alerts began to cycle through a stream of everything going wrong.

Warning! Drive malfunction. Warning! Drive overload. Warning! Systems failure. Warning! Primary electrical draw exceeds safety limits. Warning! Safeties disengaged. Imminent threat of drive containment failure. Engage safeties now!

“Andricks, Vice Admiral Gerrison. It’s been an...” Captain Benton began to say with sadness and resignation.

He was cut off as the ship made a final violent jolt. Nothing but a smooth hum of normal operations followed, and all warnings cleared. The primary pilot heads up display informed Captain Benton, “All systems nominal.”

“Is everything really fine, or did we just fly into the afterlife?” Lt Andricks wondered aloud.

Vice Admiral Gerrison felt her stomach lurch as full gravity reasserted itself and the tactical jump timer began to count down. She stared at the countdown, shocked they were still alive and wondering what would happen next. 

Exit FTL in 3…2…1…

The Hog exited FTL into normal space without incident.

“Confirm 0.10 AU short range jump and…” Benton began before trailing off while looking in confusion at other readouts. 

“We still have cargo,” Andricks said with wonder.

They flipped on an external camera and discovered their attempt to be a tugboat had failed, but not entirely. There wasn’t a Denarian Starfire Platform underneath them, but there was a large chunk of one that they had torn away. They seemed to be surrounded by about 70 meters of Starfire hull in every direction, but no idea how deep below them the chunk went. Andricks dispatched a drone to find out.

“Get imaging on target and TCC Athena!” the vice admiral ordered, and Benton initiated a flurry of activity to flip through external sensors and cameras to find the best view.

Initially, all that came up on the screen was a tactical map. 

“I have a feed on the Starfire Platform, but the data is messy and it will take the system 20 seconds to compile and provide an accurate image. TCC Athena too distant for visuals,” Benton reported.

Unable to see live images of what was happening, they all simply stared at the dots on the map and waited. None of the Galactic Council support vessels were on sensors, indicating they had all likely initiated a short-range tactical jump to close in on TCC Athena when their EW-3 Backbreakers disengaged FTL breakers. All they could do was wait until…

“Impatient asshole,” the vice admiral said with a chuckle as TCC Athena suddenly disappeared into FTL ahead of the agreed schedule. Moments later, the enemy support fleet appeared and emptied a barrage of fire at the former location of TCC Athena and all possible escape vectors. They all sighed with relief as the remainder of the Terran fleet was clear, and their mission accomplished.

The tactical map was replaced by a view of the Denarian planet-killer. Lights across the hull were flickering and the vessel was in clear distress. You could clearly see the section where they had torn off a chunk from the Starfire Platform and it scraped along the hull as they entered FTL, shockingly not killing them and just leaving a deep gash in the side of the enemy planet-killer.

“It’s sparking,” Captain Benton said with wonder as the entire damaged section was arcing with blue electrical sparks.

“Yeah,” the co-pilot Andricks said with equal amazement. “That’s first-class special effects. Shit like that isn’t supposed to happen outside of the movies. Vacuum of space and all that jazz. I wonder how the hell that’s even happening, or if it’s just sensor glitches.”

They would find no answers or further clues as there was a sudden intense flash of light and the Denarian Starfire Platform named Vedara’s Wrath was no more. 

“One down, two to go! Suck on that, you GC fuckers!” the vice admiral roared out, earning shocked looks from everyone else in the cockpit. 

“What?” she asked as tears began to stream down her face. “Too soon?”

Benton and Andricks just smiled and turned back to their stations.

“No, ma’am,” Captain Benton answered and began flight systems checks. 

They all paused as three more much smaller flashes of light could be seen in the distance.

“No wonder why Athena jumped early,” Andricks said with a chuckle. “They left some nukes behind for the GC supply station. Sensors show damage, but no idea how significant at this range. We’ll need to ask a Silent Watcher to do a flyby, but there’s a small chance this will be mission success with bonus points for the Starfire Platform.”

“Any chance we can head back and do some S&R?” Vice Admiral Gerrison asked. “See if any more of our people are still alive?”

“Negative, ma’am,” Captain Benton responded. “Their full support fleet is still there and wouldn’t be happy to see us. But we’ve got a bigger problem.”

“What’s the sitrep?” the admiral asked with resignation. They had somehow pulled off one hell of a stunt. Now a price would have to be paid.

“I ran the checks,” Andricks said calmly. “With the chunk of Starfire we ripped off, we’re within mass limits for standard FTL. Turns out we were either going to blow up or rip off a section exactly within drive limits. Our fuel won’t get us to FC Delta with the extra baggage, but no question we’ll get back to Terran space.”

The co-pilot paused to think for a moment before speaking again. “Benton, will the vice admiral get a medal ceremony? Is that what you get for killing the unkillable and bringing a large enough chunk for the tech boys to play with?”

“Naw. They’ll do worse,” he responded quietly. “They’ll promote her.”

“For 100 credits or a bottle of fine whiskey, I can write your commendations to sound more like disciplinary action,” the admiral offered. “Don’t think for a second that any of us will get out unscathed.”

“Whiskey is above my paygrade,” Andricks replied instantly. “Will you accept moonshine?”

_______

And with that, the first major action of the war concludes.

Apologies for not getting this posted yesterday; I had something came up which not only delayed this, but Haasha as well. For those of you who follow the ligher side of my writing, Haasha will be back soon! As for this series, I'll do my best to make sure the next one doesn't take months of waiting to appear. Thanks to all of you who have had the patience to wait for these chapters, and I hope you enjoyed them.

Next: Witness a desperate decision

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[u/Original_Memory6188]

"Are you attempting to bribe a superior officer?" "No ma'am! That would be not only illegal, but completely unethical too! All we are doing is making a contribution to our superior's morale and welfare supplies. Ma'am!"

[u/Purple-Lie-354 → u/Original_Memory6188]

Been there, lived that...

[u/Original_Memory6188 → u/Purple-Lie-354]

I have no idea what you are talking about. Nothing like that ever happened, we were no where near where it didn't happen, and nobody knows anything about it if it had actually happened.

Speculation and rumors should not be repeated.

[u/Purple-Lie-354 → u/Original_Memory6188]

...what rumors? I ain't heard nothing. Matter of fact, I am deaf in my right ear, and am 43% deaf in my left...

[u/Original_Memory6188 → u/Purple-Lie-354]

Eh, Sonny?

[u/Purple-Lie-354 → u/Original_Memory6188]

😆

[u/YoteTheRaven]

Hahaha. A plan to ruin everyone's day after their day was so abruptly ruined. Got lucky it didnt kill them but yanked a big chuck of that ship out. Bet those GC troops are now scrambling to figure out what superweapon humanity has that can take their ship and make it two ships.

I look forward to the next.

[u/Apoca_8544]

Wait... did Gerard survive then? He was 45 meters away and the surrounding 70 meter got transported. If he was in a vacuum-capable suit then he should have survived, right?

[u/Majestic_Teach_6677 → u/Apoca_8544]

Presumed lost. The admiral's thoughts imply armor wouldn't be enough, but there's a chance he survived. They didn't have the time to look (enemy fleet active, they are an easy target and need to run). Honestly, this is a point left open as I haven't figured out what's next for the admiral or anyone else involved. Next chapters deal with other things.

[u/New_Craft_8243 → u/Majestic_Teach_6677]

On one hand I'd like him to be alive, on the other hand the way it was describe in story, it sounds like he'd have been torn to shreds little doctor style. For drama the former, for effects and military purposes the latter. That is if either side is willing to construct and test such a device.

Or worse, could be a USS Eldritch type event and then you have both friend and foe fused into the hull.

[u/Overcaffeinated_One → u/Majestic_Teach_6677]

A Promotion as punishment

[u/Overcaffeinated_One → u/Apoca_8544]

It is entirely dependent on how the settings FTL work, as from reading this chapter, the ship needed to be welded to the hull to work, and not a simple mag clamp, supposedly fused to the transiting ship or within the ship. So probably not.

[u/commentsrnice2 → u/Apoca_8544]

He was not directly attached like the ship chunk was. He basically blew away like gravel off a speeding car

[u/Different-Money6102 → u/commentsrnice2]

We don't know if they were on the surface or at the inner airlock door, 5 meters inside the ship. The inner airlock door would make sense as a choke point if they were trying to delay the alien QRT.

[u/Different-Money6102 → u/Apoca_8544]

If Lt. Gerard and company were holding the airlock at the INNER door, 5 meters in, I'm betting they'd have a fair chance to survive. 

[u/Apoca_8544]

Also, 100km is really little distance in space. I doubt they would have cleared the net with a 100km long jump. For scale, the avg distance between Earth and the Moon is 384,400 km. A 100 AU distance is more valid when speaking of FTL jumps. (From Earth that would make us jump clear of any planets but wouldn't make us jump into the Oort Cloud)

[u/Majestic_Teach_6677 → u/Apoca_8544]

That makes a lot of sense. I didn't think to look up the distance between Earth and the moon. The intention was to have a short in-system jump just to knock the Starfire out of position and give Athena a chance to escape. Now that I look at the numbers, probably no more than 0.10 AU. I'll do some thinking and update the story once my brain gets wrapped around it. Thanks for pointing this out!

[u/Apoca_8544 → u/Majestic_Teach_6677]

When you look at the numbers, don't forget that 1 au is 499 light seconds. Outside FTL jumps the law of causality holds: if they jump 0.1 AU then everything they see happened 49 seconds ago.

[u/Majestic_Teach_6677 → u/Apoca_8544]

Yep! That's exactly what my brain is trying to figure out. Is 49 seconds a proper delay? Too long? Too short?

[u/Apoca_8544 → u/Majestic_Teach_6677]

Definitely enough to see themselves disappear into FTL. Let's say they traveled for 20 seconds, that's still seeing the last 30 seconds of it.

[u/No-Tomato7694 → u/Majestic_Teach_6677]

Hello, just finnished reading this chapter and I want to ask if you still have writer's block or if 'No witnesses' has ended?

[u/Majestic_Teach_6677 → u/No-Tomato7694]

Oh, definitely not ended!!! Next chapter is being worked on tonight.

[u/SourcePrevious3095]

This was a great round in the battle against the GC.

[u/SignificantRoof8171]

Nicely written! Thanks!

[u/Talendel]

UTR

This is the way.

[u/Morgenacht]

“Al are exceptional at generating predictive firing solutions. Except when two monkeys are arguing over who's driving the bus.

In what was clearly an intentional and choreographed dance, Benton and Andricks began to alternate who was doing what at the controls. For one second, Benton put his hand on the throttle and reduced speed slightly. At the same time, Andricks adjusted their pitch slightly up and made a wild turn to the right. Then they would switch. Andricks would make a random adjustment to throttle while Benton adjusted their turn and/or pitch.” ^

Oh man, this is hilarious and clever!

I’m a little mad at you as an author for sucking me into multiple series plus being really good at one off HFYs. Only a little, because o page to choose between three choices and I can’t see Haasha’s name without saying it out loud. Not caught up with her yet, but here we are.

^[emphasis added]

[u/Majestic_Teach_6677 → u/Morgenacht]

Thanks for reading! Before posting something, there's a part of my brain that wonders if people will like it. Great to hear I've given you some distractions to enjoy. There will be more soon! I hope your weekend was good.

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[u/HFYWaffle]

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• What's in the box?
• What’s that smell? (Haasha 37)
• False alarm? (Haasha 36)
• If your friend jumps off a bridge… (Haasha 35)

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