Meant to Live
Chapter 1: The Experiment
Location: Hanger of a Tarak based space station used for scientific purposes.
A man stood in front of a glass window that left an open view to the hanger of the ship. He was one of the generals of his army and was very skeptical of this new weapon that all the other high ranking officials simply described as "amazing."
A lower ranking officer walked next to his side with a full report of the abilities of the two jets. "General Markov, the XF-118E and SU-247R have either met or greatly exceeded all the requirements to do battle with one of the female's dread machines," he stated.
Markov smirked at this news. He knew what the officials were thinking when they started this project. The female's machines were far more advanced than the male's current models and the officials decided to put a large sum of money towards developing a jet that could do just as much damage or greater than that of a female model dread. They would not be able to build as much of them as the females, but they would rather have a small more advanced force that did severe damage than a large force of the same price that took severe damage.
Several spies had given up their lives to steal information and design specifications from the females and an entire fleet was destroyed stealing information from a group called "The Harvest." Markov didn't know too much about the Harvest, but from what he knew they were indeed a very advanced and dangerous group.
Two competitor corporations had volunteered to create a jet. Both had made their own design and now the military had taken two of their best pilots and was testing the designs in a targeting ground area around an asteroid belt.
Markov had gotten to the station slightly late and was not able to see either of the fighters before takeoff so when they landed it would be the first time he got site of them. The lower ranking officer pointed to the hanger doors that were just opening. "They're docking now, sir," he said.
The XF-118E, nicknamed "Nightshade," came in first and Markov was intrigued by the design. It was built around a cylinder fuselage (think of a pencil) as the center and had forward swept wings that were canted downward for maneuverability. At the tips of the wings they were bent straight down and mounted on them were particle projection cannons (PPCs) that had been stolen from the females. It had two engines that were built into the back part of the fuselage. At the sides of the engines were two tail wings that were canted outward for added maneuverability. The cockpit was at the forward of the fuselage. The jet was painted black to blend in with the darkness of space, but had a smooth blood red streak across its fuselage. Along with that the paint itself was absorbent to scanning equipment to make it not show up on radar, which the paint had been stolen from the Harvest.
As for weapons, the Nightshade sported two 50mm cannons mounted inside the sides of the fuselage, several missile packs could extend out on the underside of the jet where the wings met the center, and along with the PPCs was a large launcher that could extend out of the underside of the center fuselage that was able to fire a nuclear weapon.
The PPCs fired energy particles in a short burst of blue light and were self rechargeable. It was indeed a very effective weapon, however it built up too much heat when fired and that was why the females abandoned the project. The male's government was willing to forward the money to make a cooling system for it, while the females considered it a waist of money when their current weapons worked just fine.
The SU-247R, nicknamed "Chameleon," docked right beside the Nightshade. It was also built around a fuselage, but had a triangle shaped wing design. It also mounted two engines and two tail wings beside the engines. The engines were thrust vectored (will change the direction of the engine thrust for better turning in a combat situation) allowing it to turn sharper than the Nightshade. The cockpit was also placed at the forward fuselage. The Chameleon was also painted black, but had a gold jagged streak across it.
The Chameleon's weapons were all carried internally. It had a single 70mm cannon on the right side of the upper fuselage, several missile packs that could extend from the underside of the wings, large energy rifles that were mounted on the sides of the fuselage, and the same design of launcher for nuclear weapons on the underside. It also had a device that bent the light around it to make it completely invisible, thus earning it the nickname "Chameleon." This device had been stolen from the Harvest.
The energy rifles fired massive caliber rounds that had been charged with energy at an extreme velocity. They did more damaged than the PPCs, but they were ammunition based so there was a limited number of shots.
The differences between the two in performance were that the Chameleon was better in maneuverability, speed, and had the cloaking ability, while the Nightshade still met all the requirements it was slightly cheaper and did not show up on enemy sensors.
What the two aircraft had in common was their extremely tough armor and thought control system. The material of the armor was hard and light, but not strong enough for battle against a dread, so they folded the metal several hundred times as a samurai does to his sword to make it very thin and incredibly tough. The controls of both the aircraft were hooked up to the pilot's mind. Once the pilot connected with the plane it allowed for a split second reaction. Moving controls took slightly less than a second, but thoughts were instant. All the pilot would need to do was think of where he wanted to go. Getting in a fight with a normal fighter was like playing chess and you could make two moves on your turn.
Whether or not this equipment was actually a match for a dread was unknown. The military simply assessed the damage from the female attacks and set some goals that these fighters met or surpassed.
Two long ladders on wheels were rolled up to the side of each jet. The pilots climbed out of their fighters and slowly walked down the ladders. Much to the surprise of the general the pilot of Chameleon was only a 17 year old. He had sleek and well groomed dark blue hair while his eyes were gold. His clothes consisted of a dark blue jacket with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, light blue t-shirt and pants, and he had white sneakers. He was tall and had a lean muscular body frame.
Also to the surprise of General Markov was that the pilot of Nightshade was of the age of 16. He had red eyes and jet black short spiky hair and three long locks of it lazily fell forward into bangs. Everything he wore was black. His clothes consisted of an unbuttoned trench coat, t-shirt, pants that were tucked into knee length advanced combat boots, and tactical ops gloves. He was fairly tall and had a lean muscular body frame.
Both of them had emotionless expressions on their face. They soon walked away from the experimental fighters and were on their way to see the General. They began walking through the various twists and turns to get to the general's office. "So, that was quite a performance today wasn't it, Rezek?" said the boy in the blue jacket. "I was practically flying circles around you," bragged the boy.
"Are you bragging about yourself or your plane, Arksin?" replied Rezek. Arksin was second best to Rezek on the score board of previous conflicts and desperately wanted to be better than him. Every time he had done something better than him he would do his best to rub it in his face; most of the time it was because Chameleon was better in most areas than Nightshade. Rezek, however, didn't really care about Arksin, all that really mattered was completing the mission and destroying people that he was raised up to believe were evil. Killing the evil females was all that really mattered and aside from that, he loved the thrill of combat.
Soon the test pilots stood in front of the general's office. Markov asked them to come in and take a seat. As soon as they sat down General Markov threw them both files of a target. It was some sort of Mejale pirate ship. Rumor had it that there were traitors that fought along side the females on board the ship. There was also another rumor that the crew had been captured once, but then escaped. General Markov was held responsible for there escaped and ever since then he had wanted to destroy those women and the few men that ruined his perfect reputation.
Rezek and Arksin were under his command now that he had just arrived.
"I'm aware that you're unfamiliar with this kind of exercise," he said.
"Yes, we were not warned of any exercise that required an actual combat experience," replied Rezek.
"Well, there have been a change of plans," said the general.
AN: Please tell me what you think so far.