Cunjo guided his battle-worn Vulture Guardian to the outskirts of the roid field and plotted his course. This would be the last jump before he’d be out of hostile territory and back in Dominion space again. His prolonged expedition had taken its toll on him. In the months since he had departed Initros in pursuit of the small Akanese fleet, he had been without safe haven and short on supplies. His vulture was in a sad state of disrepair, the armor a patchwork of scarred plating, fused together in irregular patterns... he had to make due with what he had, and unfortunately he didn’t have another neutron blaster to replace the port-side one that kept overheating. His Comm was broken too, not that it would have done him any good behind the Itani border... Itani strikeforces would use the signal to find him before any Serco could respond to his message. Circumstances had been grim, especially since he had run out of Serco ale almost a month ago. He had survived on a mixture of sheer strength and determination, and what resources he could glean from the occasional planetfall or Itani confrontation.

On top of all his hardships, his exodus had been in vain. He had pursued a small fleet of Akanese warships from Ukari to Bractus, and then beyond. He had left an encrypted log buoy behind for his regiment to pick up before following the ragtag fleet through an uncharted wormhole and vanishing into the void. Jump after jump, he continued the chase, stalking the fleet from a distance, hoping they would reveal the location of their hidden base of operations... but they never did. After the fleet split apart, he chose to follow the smaller detail of fighters that broke off from the main group, and soon after he was discovered and confronted. He found himself in a desperate battle against the detail, which was made up of half a dozen Centurions, a Valkyrie and a trident. Plunging into a dense roid cluster, he drew upon all of his cybernetically augmented senses to outsmart, outmaneuver and destroy the centurions one by one. When only two remained, they took flight, and he gave chase, splashing the first as it tried to escape the labyrinth of rocks, and the second as it sped away into the open. Rocked by a sunflare off his starboard side, he spun hard to face the valk; sending a stream of fire back in its direction that caught the pilot off guard and damaged the ship severely. Dodging neatly to the side as another sunflare streaked past his cockpit, he closed in for the kill. With his Vulture heavily damaged, Cunjo turned his attention to the Trident, chasing it down he succeeded in crippling the light frigate. Boarding the vessel, he quickly dispatched the pilot and flight crew – his hands were the only weapons he needed against these soft Itani recruits. The battle won, he had taken what supplies he could from the ruined enemy ships and spent time repairing his own.

He never caught up with the remainder of the Akanese fleet, and instead wandered aimlessly, lost in the backwaters of uncharted space. Eventually he had found his way back to Itani space, somewhere in the vicinity of Pherona. A large fleet of Itani warships blocked his egress to grey space, and he had to fight his way through to Deneb. Unfortunately, the voyage had been a long one, and frequently impeded by more confrontations, most of them less fierce than the first, but more than one sent him back to repair and recoup, finding refuge in asteroid fields and raiding Itani villages for supplies, he terrorized the settlements all along his route. His last run-in had been particularly fierce, and he had spent considerable time in this Deneb roid field, stitching up his armor with scraps of plating he had salvaged from one of the warthogs he had destroyed. The powerpacks for both his EV suit and welding tool were nearly depleted, and he knew he couldn’t take another beating like the last without needing the proper facilities to repair, but he was close to home, just this one jump to go.... Activating his jump engines, he warped into Deneb B-12.

A blast greeted his arrival, and shrapnel glanced off his cockpit. Sighting a second rocket inbound, he slammed on his thrusters and evaded instinctively and took stock of the situation. He had jumped into the middle of a full-scale battle. To his right, an Itani Assault Cruiser flanked by two Teradon Frigates were closing on a Serco Cruiser, waves of energy fire ripping into its broadside. Ahead, another Serco Cruiser was unleashing streams of fire on a group of Itani bombers as its flight of fighters clashed above the hull with Itani fighters. Bearing down on him from the left was a wing of Itani fighters, the forerunner a warthog that was unleashing rockets on him. Turning to face the hog, he sent a stream of dual neuts lancing through the attacker’s cockpit, which erupted in an explosion as the hog broke apart. Turning away from the oncoming fighters he made a dash for the nearest friendly HAC, peering over his shoulder to watch as one of the Itani Teradons disintegrated under the fire of the other Cruiser and then squinting as the cruiser itself exploded brilliantly, its reactor gone critical. Weaving through the hairball of fighters above the remaining Cruiser, he sped for the docking bay, a stream of fire catching his wing and damaging the starboard engine. Smoke spewing from the hole in his armor, he entered the docking bay field at full speed and slid through the bay doors as the ship’s artificial gravity captured his fighter.

The bay crew ran to meet his ship and extinguish the atmosphere-fed flames as Cunjo leapt free of the cockpit. He didn’t stop to greet the crew as he raced from the docking bay and headed for the bridge – he had to find out what their situation was and see where he was needed. Arriving at the bridge, he was greeted by the security detail outside the door. One of the guards must have recognized him, for the door slid open and he was ushered through before he could submit for an identification check. "What’s the situation?" Cunjo demanded as he entered the bridge.
The captain seemed unduly calm given the intense battle against overwhelming odds raging outside the viewport as he turned and answered in a tone suggesting he was rather pleased with himself. "Two Itani cruisers and five frigates down, three squadrons of their fighters depleted, and only two squadrons remaining along with one cruiser and a crippled teradon. We have reinforcements inbound, which should be arriving momentarily to finish off the remaining Itani forces."
Stunned, Cunjo slowly descended the steps to the forward tier of the bridge. "what are our reinforcements?"
"Two frigates and a wing of bombers."
"ETA?" The enemy cruiser and frigate were closing...
"forty seconds."
Satisfied, Cunjo relaxed. "Is there a secure com I can use? I need to contact SkyCommand HQ."
The captain pointed to a holo-projector.

The projection flickered to life with a crackle as the link to SkyCommand was established. The general looked surprised to see him... as expected, they probably pronounced him KIA months ago. Wasting no time, Cunjo started, "I need to get in touch with Commander A-Dawg and my regiment..."
"SCAR was disbanded months ago." Returned the general.
"What?"
"A-Dawg was reassigned to the command of an extended patrol, the details of which I am not free to discuss. The rest of your guild was disbanded in your absence... we thought you were dead."
"Is there anyone left?"
"Nautargos has set up a post near the Initros border. I can give you the information to contact him."
"Do so."

As the battle ended, Cunjo made his way back to the docking bay. His ship was still there, and a wreck, nearly beyond repair. He figured he’d sign it back over to SkyCommand and get a new one. Asking a dock worker, he was shown to a Ragnarok. "How long before you can swap out the cannons for sunflares?"
"ten minutes."
"Do it in five."
Climbing into the cockpit and closing the hatch, Cunjo flicked on the com to contact Nautargos. By the time his ship was ready for takeoff (four minutes, as proclaimed by the beaming dock worker) He had learned that SCAR was poised for reformation, and now that he was here, they could proceed to do just that. They would meet in Geira to assist the fleet in Deneb and reform the guild.

It was good to be back... very good indeed.

SCAR was returning, and soon - very soon - he would fight alongside them once again.

A petty officer came to my cabin door, sounding the entrance chime. Stumbling awake, and ambling to the door, I whoever it was in.

"It's 03:00 hours!? It better be good." I growled, giving my chinbeard a quick pull.

"Its better than good, Commander-" the NCO paused, taking one last quick glance at the data pad in front of him. "Here, you'll probably want to read it yourself."

"Thanks. Couldn't it've waited until a better time?"

The petty officer just gave an expectant look in my direction, mixed with an obvious heir of nervousness, he must have been new on the Prometheus.

"Nevermind, dismissed." He did a perfect about-face and continued down the corridor as the cabin door hissed closed. Sitting down in my office chair piled with the usual recon reports and patrol logs I began to read the urgent message. It was a memo from SkyCommand, going out to all active field Commanders in the fleet. Cunjo had returned from wherever he went, from whatever he was doing, and had rallied Nautargos. The SkyCommand Assault Regiment was reforming.

I smiled thinking back to Cunjo, Mike, Viper and Naut, about all the things SCAR did. The family would be reunited again, minus one. I knew I wouldn't be heading back with my comrades. SCAR would still live on without me though. Commanding a HAC was different than leading a regiment, and proving to be just as satisfying. Besides, I tried many times petitioning SkyCommand to let me reform SCAR, each time I was rejected, until I gave up. Looks like whatever plans SkyCommand has for SCAR, don't include me. Most shocking of all, I'll be able to live with it.

Hitting the switch to open up the comm channel to Cunjo and Nautargos, I began to write:
"Congratulations on the reformation of SCAR. Its been an honour to serve with you all. Keep the Dominion proud, keep me proud."

Sending the message off, I raised from my seat, and with a sense of sadness, went back to sleep.

His agresso safely stopped in the dirty dock of Tunguska station in Odia.
He had only one thing in mind now: "We're back! Back into the goddamn killing business!"
He walked uickly to his large apartment on one of the upper decks.
"Only one place in this station that doesn't smell with Xith", he said to himself, as he was opening the bottle of best wien from Sol II...
...and sudenly the comm terminal showed one line of text:
"Another mission coming. You will know more after it's over."
So he sat down, glaring at the stars and thinking about nothing particular...
He knew that he will get the fruits of his actions very soon...

Mwaha, hare-splitting. Shouldn't the commandant of a HAC be a captain? And cleanly-shaved? This IS the Serco Navy, after all.

Let's see how this turns out, shall we?

OOC: It's Commander as in "commanding officer" of a naval vessel; captain just never seemed to jive. As well as I didn't feel the need to change the rank, making the assumption that Commander is probably higher in rank than Captain is in VO. As for the chinbeard, I added some realifeness in for fun, but don't worry, it's probably not as long as you're thinking. Just wanted an interesting feature to go with.

OOC

On the contrary, Commander is the rank just below Captain in naval terms. And this makes perfect sense in the VO universe as well, because no player-controlled ship in the game is large enough to warrant an officer as highly ranked as Captain. Find me a guild that is equivalent in size (personnel-wise) to an infantry regiment (>1000 Marines), and then the leader may call himself a Captain. As it stands, Commander is pushing it. Counterpoint, I don't think the U.S. Navy has any vessels small enough to be commanded by any less than a Lieutenant Commander (the Coast Guard has those), which is just one rank lower. A step under this is Lieutenant, that rank held by two of you of (almost) every guild.

Here is where I apologize for being in the military and telling you all these things when you probably don't really care. Also, don't anyone dare call me a member of the Navy.. I'm a Marine, we are responsible to know their rank structure too.

They do ferry you around, after all :D

Ahaha. Aramarth, you wish to pick nits and split hares?

Here is my reply to that. I think since we're talking Serco Navy here, not US, pretty much any mileage could apply. The devs are (hopefully) too busy to sort this out, but I think it's not the number of men you have under your command, but the size of the ship the bridge of which you issue your commands from.

A Trident frigate would probably have a commander as commanding officer, whilst a Teradon frigate would already require a captain. I think it would be justified that a Halcyon Attack Cruiser, the largest ship (!) known to man in the VO universe requires a captain, maybe even an officer of higher rank if it were an entire squadron of ships.

And I've been in the army, too, so let's not start pissing contests about that. Everyone's equal here.

ooc: get back ic damnit! this was a nice thread.
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