Homecoming Part 4: Death Reborn

	"You are clear to launch, Lieutenant. The Neos are approaching on
base relative vector 98 mark twenty five. Two minutes until the frames come
though. Good luck."
	"I'm still the best damned pilot in the fleet. I don't need luck to
handle a bunch of Neo's. Now if they managed to drag that frigate in here,
then I might need some luck. See you back at the Normandy."
	Cookie pushed the fighters thrust to maximum and sped out to the
point where the Neo E- frames were expected to enter the interior of the
Oliver Band. He pulled his frame up next to a large asteroid and waited.
	"You'll be making contact in two minutes. We're done loading here,
we're getting all the personnel out on the base shuttle. We can launch in ten
minutes.
	"How long until the Monitor arrives?"
	"Fifteen minutes. Think you can clear the first wave of Neos by
then?"
	"Heck, I'll have cleaned them out by the time you launch. Radio
silence from here on out. See you on the Normandy, Captain."
	"Looking forwards to seeing it. Over and out."
	Cookie watched out the view port of his Exo-fighter as the Neo frames
pulled free of the Band and began running visual and sensor sweeps of the
interior. As they began moving toward the base Cookie accelerated and opened
fire. By the time he moved through the Neo formation he had already killed
two. He broke off to follow one while the other Neos regrouped and followed
Cookie while singing to his opponents. "Since you would not stop for Death I
kindly came for you!"
	Cookie fired several shots at the Neo he was following while dodging
the incoming fire. He decided to try a variation on an old flying trick. He
fired his retro thrusters. The Neos, well acquainted with this move, also
slowed down. Cookie surprised them by suddenly firing his maneuvering
thrusters and turning 180 degrees. He accelerated hard at the formation that
had been following him and fired two missiles at the frame in the center of
the formation. They both connected leaving nothing but a brief orange
fireball. AS he pulled through the hole in the formation he had just made he
pushed the accelerator again and turned hard.
	The Neos all accelerated away from Cookie. As he began to get forward
momentum again they broke formation, one peeling left, another to the right
while one climbed sharply and the last decelerated. The fifth Neo, the one
Cookie had been chasing, flew straight at Cookie and opened fire as the rest
of the Neos pulled off creating a firing line.
	Cookie Accelerated toward him and dipped to avoid crashing. He
climbed and accelerated as the four Neos he had been chasing opened fire with
their blasters. Then Cookie's missile indicator lit up. The four Neos each
sent a missile after him.
	Cookie continued to pull up and accelerate. As the missiles pulled
onto a course to follow him two of them crashed. The explosion detonated a
third missile. There was no time for Cookie to turn and try and shoot the
remaining missile down. Cookie watched the impact indicator countdown. As it
clicked off one he pulled up slightly and tilted hard, rolling on his left
wingtip. The missile couldn't maneuver well enough to match him and pulled
out in front of him. Cookie shot it down and turned back to the Neo squadron.
	They were moving in behind him and launched another salvo of
missiles. This time Cookie pitched hard and began firing as the missiles came
into his view port. He managed to shoot two down and the explosions took care
of the others. As he came out of the flip he fired two missiles at the lead
Neo. The Neos managed to shoot down one missile, but the other impacted
destroying its target.
	As he came in over the Neo formation he pitched again, this time with
his guns as the pivot point. The Neos momentum carried them into his
gunsight. Two of them broke to either side and took themselves out of Cookies
firing line. The remaining two were forced to fly straight to avoid a
collision. Cookie accelerated again pulling in behind one E- frame after he
shot the other one down with his guns.
	The pilot in front of Cookie managed to fly well enough to avoid
Cookie getting a lock on him. His two surviving wingmates pulled in behind
Cookie and fired all of their shoulder mounted missiles each. As the missiles
closed on Cookie he accelerated hard. He dipped under the Neo frame and
pulled up in front of him. The Neo was too shocked to fire. Before he could
recover twenty four missiles impacted the back of his frame. Cookie grinned.
	With only two frames left, and those low on missiles, Cookie relaxed
and pulled into a slow yaw while accelerating to try and pull behind them.
They split up, one trying to match Cookie with the other turning hard to cut
Cookie off. Cookie suddenly cut thrust and used his maneuvering thrusters to
spin and get the one trying to cut him off in his sights. As the Neo tried to
accelerate away Cookie fired his guns catching his target in its legs. The
frame spun out of control and Cookie fired again finishing it off.
	The one that was matching Cookie had managed to pull up behind him at
point blank range because of the movie Cookie had pulled. He narrowly missed
Cookie as Cookie accelerated and pitched and rolled hard at the last second.
As Cookie juked and tried to accelerate and decelerate away from his pursuer
he realized that this pilot could match any of his basic moves.
	Cookie decided to get cute again. He armed a missile but cut off its
engines. As he came out of a turn he launched it , decelerated slightly to
allow the missile to pull in front of him before dipping and accelerating.
Without its engines firing it slipped out of the launch tube and drifted with
only its inherited momentum. The Neo pilot flew right into it destroying
himself.
	"Radio silence is lifted. Are you ready to launch yet?"
	"We are, Lieutenant. Nice move. I don't think I saw that one before.
You just won me a week of your Captain Jose's pay."
	"Thanks Captain. He should know better than to bet against me."
	"Consider my lesson learned."
	"I want you to take the shuttles straight out, best possible speed.
Graves, you and Wilkins are to form on my wing. We're going to buy them some
more time. How long until the Neo's big guns arrive?"
	"Five minutes. One Monitor , three Sloops and two Corvettes. Plus
another ten frames. Are you going to try and kill them all?"
	"No ma'am. I just want to get you out of here and let the SID take
care of the rest. Limited radio silence from here out."
	"Roger that."

**************************************************

	Cookie activated his tight beam communications to Graves in his
aerial attack frame and Wilkins in the misnamed field sergeant frame. "Target
one is the sloops, they are solid guns and armor. After them I want you to
engage the frames, I'm going to rake the monitor's guns. Ignore the
corvettes, they lack the targeting systems to be useful against us. If they
launch a shuttle from the monitor I'll make a run at it then we leave.
Standard run and gun tactics. Crystal?"
	"Crystal, sir."
	"I'm clear on that Death."
	"As soon as the shuttle hits the band we regroup and do formation
fighting. Five minutes later we run. Radio silence now."
	Cookie cut communication and waited. His sensors showed that the Neos
had slowed down and would be three minutes later than expected. When the Neo
fleet broke free of the Oliver Band it became clear why it had slowed down.
The monitor had several impact marks on it and one of the corvettes was gone
altogether. The Olive band had done half of the work for them.
	"Break: The one word order began Cookie's wing's attack. Each of them
pulled away from the asteroid they were hiding on and targeted a sloop.
Graves and Wilkins both fired missiles to supplement their guns and scored
easy kills Cookie was low on missiles because of his earlier fight and wanted
to save them for use against the Neo frames. Instead he concentrated his fire
on the sloops engines, managing to disable them in his first pass. With the
sloop adrift he ignored it and turned through the formation of Neo e-frames,
following Graves and Wilkins and capitalizing on the chaos they caused.
Cookie fired one salvo through the formation, hitting and destroying one
e-frame.
	After breaking through the formation Wilkins and grave turned on the
six remaining frames. Cookie continued through and moved on the monitor,
raking its port side targeting the ships defensive batteries. The aft defense
batteries opened fire as he pulled past the ship. Cookie did a number of hard
G maneuvers causing the Neo guns to miss. He finally pulled into the fringe
of the Oliver Band taking him out of the line of sight of the guns. He pulled
back around and made another pass, this time targeting the batteries that
were targeting him.
	"We're in." Captain Reynosa reported.
	"Roger. Regroup."
	Cookie pulled away from the monitor and passing by and taking
potshots at the corvette. Wilkins and Graves joined him. "We have eight
remaining. The monitor launched a few more."
	"Roger that. I want you on my left and Wilkins above me. After we
re-engage them switch to the hi-low V formation."
	The Neos also regrouped and formed into two wings of four, flying in
the classic diamond formation. Cookie led his formation toward one group and
began firing at extreme range, forcing them to loose their formation. Cookie
chose to follow one group, pulling in behind them and killing one while
Wilkins took the other and Graves broke formation to harass the other two.
	Cookie and Wilkins then turned on the other group of Neos, Wilkins
fired two missiles that were shot down but allowed him and Cookie to alter
course and come in on the side of the formation, they each scored one kill
with their guns and Wilkins used the last of his missiles to take out another
one. "I just picked up a shuttle launch, sir." Wilkins broke formation and
began to move to intercept.
	"Ignore it Wilkins, reform on me."
	"Roger."
	Wilkins turned to move back into formation, but he had moved into the
edge of the monitors guns range. He was taken by surprise when the first
barrage narrowly missed him and did not react in time to the second salvo,
which included two direct hits, destroying his frame.
	Grave meanwhile had managed to take out one, but had allowed the
other to get on his tail. "I picked one up. Can't shake him."
	"On my way. I've got one on me too."
	Cookie pulled in behind the Neo-Sapien Command frame that was
following Graves while the Y-Wing remained on his tail.
	"We're going to double loop and take out each others problem.
	"Roger. Call direction"
	"Down"
	"Up."
	Cookie pitched down while Graves began to climb. They each turned
hard enough that missiles were useless against them. As they completed their
loops they faced each other. Cookie fired a missile into the canopy of the
Command frame while Graves fired his wing-tip missiles into the Y-wing.
	"Nice one, Death."
	"Ditto on that, Tombstone. We have more frames launching, I don't
know how, but they are already at max safe speed for the Oliver Band. Let's
intercept."
	"Roger."
	"Lieutenant, we are halfway through the band. Get out of there and
blow the base."
	"Confirmed, Captain. See you outside. Graves, time to run." Cookie
redirected his tight beam radio and sent the command that began the
activation o the SID.
	Graves, who had begun to turn back toward the monitor turned again
and accelerated toward the band. He did a quick visual inspection of the base
on his turn. "The shuttle has landed. One minute until the new Neo frames
reach the Band. Move it!"
	"I am!" Cookie accelerated hard. "I'm not sure I'm going to be able
to make it into the band before the Neos do. We may have to fight in there."
	Graves entered the Band ahead of Cookie and the Neos. Cookies frame
received the signal that told him the SID was ready to go. Cookie entered the
band before the Neos did and triggered the SID.
	The lab equipment activated as the Neos entered. One of them went to
report his finding to the monitor as the plasma flared with energy and
collapsed on it self. Their shouts were lost as they and everything else
within the Oliver Band suddenly merged into one object. There was no flash
and no sound. In one instant everything collapsed and became one small
object, the size of a golf ball.
	"Cookie, the shuttles sensors show that on frame got into the band."
	"I can confirm that, Captain. Graves, rejoin the shuttles and the
rest of the squad. I'll deal with our sole survivor."
	"Roger that. See you outside."
	Cookie turned toward where the Neo survivor had entered the band.
Minutes later he made visual contact. "Since you would not stop for Death,
I've kindly come for you!"
	"No, terran, it is you who shall die."
	"We shall see, Neo."
	"My name is Marduk."
	The two began circling each other, unable to get a clean shot. Cookie
broke the standstill by turning behind a large asteroid and getting Marduk to
chase him. He slipped between asteroids daring his pursuer to match his
moves. Marduk matched him move for move. Cookie lost his pursuer by turning
toward two asteroids that were colliding. He slipped through the gap before
they closed, forcing Marduk to break pursuit.
	Both of them turned around the colliding asteroids hoping to catch
the other unawares. As the two finally made contact flying toward each other,
one of the asteroids finally cracked from the forces, shattering into a
thousand pieces. Any thoughts of targeting each other abandoned.
	Marduk pulled away from the collision, speeding ahead of the debris
and arcing slowly out of its path. Cookie plunged through, rolling to avoid
debris hitting his wings and altering his course to avoid an impact on his
main fuselage. After pulling through he pulled away from the asteroids and
got on Marduk's six.
	"Excellent flying, terran."
	"You ain't bad yourself. I'll put that on your tombstone."
	Marduk tried to lose Cookie in the asteroids, but failed. He
eventually dove his frame into a crevasse where Cookie's much wider
Exo-Fighter could not follow. Cookie knew he had no choice but to allow
Marduk get on his six. Cookie peeled away and Marduk broke his cover and
followed Cookie, accelerating hard to keep up with him.
	"Nice thinking."
	"I was trained by Thrax himself."
	"Really?" Cookie said trying hard to keep the smile out of his voice.
"If you survive this be sure to tell Thrax his teacher was finally iced."
	"What?!" Marduk was stunned at that revelation.
	Cookie heard the shock in Marduk's voice. Hoping to capitalize on the
Neo's mistake he flipped his fighter nearly blacking out from the G-force of
the maneuver. As Marduk's frame came into sight Cookie fired. Marduk tried to
pull up at the last second but reacted too late, the blast hit and destroyed
one of his e-frame's legs. Marduk spun out of control.
	Before Marduk could regain control of his frame Cookie locked his
missiles on target and fired. "Never lose your cool in a fight, Neo. One last
lesson from a master."
	Marduk regained control just in time to see the missiles impact his
frame. His death shout lasted less than a second before it was cut off by an
orange fireball leaving nothing behind but debris and bitter memories.
	"Mop up complete. I'm coming to join you."