: “ Rebirth, Reunion, & Repentance ”

TCS Mistral Sea
Heading for the Sol-Sirius jump point
February 25th, 2681; 0715 Hours (CST)

If you look around the room, at this very moment, you would have no clue that this was a briefing room. Flight Wing number one's central core had been declared, by most of the crew, as the Gremlin's lair. Simply put, nothing had gone right there since it was constructed. At this time, the room was full of diagnostic equipment. Faceplates, which had been removed to get at the circuit panels underneath, were thrown across the room. A few circuit boards had been pulled, clearly burned out and scavenged for operable components. The ICIS display units, attached to the seats in the room, all displayed static. Nothing but static, not even a Confed logo, or another test pattern. On the podium, were at least ten different technical manuals, tossed on top of each other, opened to various schematics, the top two were swaying, threatening to fall off. The main ICIS console, next to the podium, appeared to be the only thing in the room that was not in a state of cannibalization. Instead, several canisters of coffee were leaning on it. If any of the senior staff came in here now they would have a massive coronary, but not before kicking the two culprits clear across Confed. Fortunately, for them, no one high up knew about this and the respective Wing Commander was not on board, to their knowledge.

One of the guys curses vehemently that coincides with a loud clang. He then takes another circuit board, sits it aside, and starts the attack the power regulator behind it with one of his many gadgets. His mumbling relaxes considerably after he slides the circuit board back into place, after doing some fine adjustments to the power regulator's output. "I think... I got it, sir."

The second person looked around the room, and a moment later the displays of static were replaced with the universal spinning Confed logo, AKA the testing and stand-by program. "Good. Now we can work on what we're supposed to," he said tersely as he pointed at a faceplate. "Start putting them back, will ya?"

The first person nodded and quickly replaced the plates with several quick snaps. The other typed several command sequences into the console. A dummy test program, in this case a full-scale fleet attack, to test the systems maximum load. The program loaded quickly into the system, from the tactical database. The screen, representing the master control, lit up, then nothing. The man responded with several more commands. Still nothing. After a brief string of curses, and chuckles from the other man, who was now loading equipment back on their respective trunks. The first guy loaded a diagnostic program. After a moment, it listed two probable malfunctions: router or hardware failure.

"Sweet mother of crap." He exhaled, loud enough for someone in the corridor to hear.

"What?" the other man replied after he walked over, standing behind the other.

"The power surges must have fried part of the program. Looks like we'll have to wipe it and reinstall," he said without looking back, in a low, tired, and pissed off voice.

"Can't. Each program is adaptive so we just can't download it from another one of the two other flight wings."

"Yeah, and I don't think the Captain would like it if we put back into the dock, or shuttle out the programming team."

The other man nodded and the two stared at the screen for several moments before one of them snapped his finger and looked at the man sitting at the control panel. "Can't we just cut and splice?"

"We're talking about programming here, not electrical work. You just can't bypass protocols that are vital to the system, unless..." He typed in several more commands and three file clusters flash up on the screen. "What do these clusters do?" He asks as he calls up each cluster coding, on a different screen, each displays a long list of numbers.

"I think these are registry numbers for the ICIS display units." He pointed at the screens, and at the blocks displaying no information. "The surges must have purged part of them."

The man in the chair nodded. "So now all you have to do is replace the registers and the system will go on-line."

"Me, sir?"

"Yeah, you, Lieutenant. Maybe these coveralls made you forget, but I am still your superior officer. Besides, this is your job. I was just lending a hand, and as much as it pains me, I have paperwork to do." He made a genuinely pained look, eliciting another chuckle from the Lieutenant as he stood slowly. He took a minute to stretch before striding out of the Briefing Room.

Squadron Commander's Office
0820 Hours (CST)

Lieutenant Colonel Shaun "Viper" Upton sighed in relief as he adjusted his uniform jacket. He was certainly glad to have gotten rid of the coveralls he had been wearing for the past several hours and trading them in for his standard issue Confed uniform. He turns, looking back at the honor board, a small replica of the behemoth plaque that absorbed much of the wall space in the Yellow Jacket ready room. It was a touching commemoration to the honor of the pilots that have served, as well as a reminder of what is commonly asked of pilots. He frowns at the length of the list. One hundred thirty-three names one hundred thirty-three people that were dead. He knew all to well that it was a small number compared to the losses in the first Cat war, but it still left him feeling numb and a single tear in his eye. He wondered how many people he'd have to add to the board, or who would add his name.

Upton broke himself from his thoughts and went back to the work waiting for him on his desk. More requisition forms, this time for swarmer missiles. He sighs softly and pulls up his master requisition form, that he uses for all these blasted forms, and quickly inputs the required information, filing it with the rest of the outgoing work. Next on the glorious list of paperwork was a fuel consumption report.

"Fuel consumption report?! What in the fuck for?" he muttered softly. "I don't have my squadron, or most of my men. So why in the hell do they send me this? God damned, stupid ass, moronic, ConFleet HQ..." He muttered a few more curses damning most of Confed High Command while writing the consumption report which consisted of "NONE" in flashing fifty-six type space letters, and tossed it into the file with the rest of the work he had done for the day. He finally noticed a sound that had been filling the room for about a minute now.

Laughter.

The cause of the laughter must have been six foot easy and wasn't trim, but not anywhere near chubby. The man looked at Upton as if waiting for something. Upton looked him over quickly, his eyes glued to his ranks. Shit, the boss, he thought as he stood up slowly. "Sir...?"

The man was up to his desk in two strides and extended his hand. Shaun took it and received a firm handshake. "Long time, Upton," Colonel Kenneth Edwards said, the name and face finally clicked. The two had met briefly, several years back. Then Upton had been a major, and acting commander of a small frontier depot, while Edwards was a lieutenant colonel, commanding a point defense squadron off the TCS Princeton. The Princeton had pulled into the depot to pick up a few spare parts and for a few days of so called leave. Edwards just kept popping up, just about everywhere, annoying the shit out of Viper. Now he couldn't remember why Edwards carried the callsign "Boomer." It was either the man's voice or his music.

"Yeah, it has," Shaun said quietly as they broke the handshake.

"What in the hell did you do to my briefing room?" he said loudly, without pretense.

Definitely the voice, he thought as he explained the problem with the ICIS until Boomer waved a hand to silence him.

"All right, all right, you can spare me your desk jockey techo-babble." He paused for a moment. "Obviously you've gotten back into the cockpit. So what's the story?" He grins. "You know, so I don't have to read your file."

Shaun sat back down in his chair and leaned back. "Well after your illustrious visit to the depot, I was cycled back to Sol Station, Admiral Parker's staff, until a squadron of Excaliburs opened up on the Endeavour. That lasted all of three months, and for reasons I'd rather not get into, I retired from Confed."

Viper paused, sipped on some coffee, and gauged the Colonel's look. He appeared to be interested, but was waiting for the beef.

6 months earlier. . .

Orestes Advanced Training Academy
The Orestes System
1038 Hours local time

Viper reaches over, activating the comm unit to his wingmen. It was a simulation, of course, but Border World Command dictated that their pilots hone their skills before they actually got their fighters, now that they could almost afford the time. That fell into the realm of several "top gun"-type schools that quickly appeared across the union, each set out with specific training. This one trained point defense and escort pilots, and currently used Banshees since it was believed that if the pilots could excel and survive in it, they'd do just fine in the other fighters that were coming on-line. Today was the final simulation before the rookies would get their real fighters. "Okay, people, report in."

"Mailman ready," Clifford Ames says in the mike, almost as a whisper.

"Darkman standing by," Mike Simms bellows out before a burst of laughter.

"Tiger here," Lynn Murphy says gleefully. "Say where are the rookies?"

Viper smiles and adds his own laugh. "Well, you see that big rock that we're hanging behind?"

"Yeah, of course I see it. I'm not blind," she responds sourly.

"Well, the plan is that in a few minutes Scorpion will lead his little minions through here on a recon sweep..."

Darkman cuts in, "And when they pass the asteroid, we jump them."

"Exactly."

Mailman, who had been pondering something, spoke up, "That isn't fair, Shaun."

Viper shrugs. "True enough, but they gotta learn to expect the unfair... pirates, Kilrathi, Retros... they won't smile happily and say 'can we please fight you?''"

The group of pilots chuckle and a few moments later a cluster of fighters start to approach from the edge of sensor range. Their formation was sloppy, two of the banshees bobbing and weaving in and out of formation. Viper was tempted to listen in to hear how Scorpion was dealing with this. No matter, there are always the logs to read unfortunately. He waits a few seconds and arms four heat seekers, smiling to himself as he counts down in his head.

"All right, arm your weapons, I don't care which ones, just make it interesting," he pipes into the comm. as he reaches over hitting an arming switch. "Point luck in twenty seconds."

Viper looks at his radar as he slowly nudges his fighter forward as rookies start past the asteroid. His fighter picks up speed as he completes the turn, locking onto the closest banshee and fires his missiles. The fighters fanned out, like a scared flock of birds, dropping decoys like mad, taking down three of the missiles. The forth missile detonates near it's target washing it's aft quarter in an expanding fireball. The HUD showed extensive armor damage, but that's it. A second Banshee fires, hitting the target in the forward shields, weakening them before breaking off. The two rookies, the bad formation ones, turned and fired their scatterguns at Viper's Banshee, taking down his shields and cutting lightly into his armor before he rolls out of the way.

"Phase two," Upton said quietly into the comm as he sent his fighter into a tightly looped spin, almost passing out from the maneuver and snapping out onto a straight course. Meanwhile his wingman was engaged in a similar maneuver, drawing the rookies in. The other two Banshees came in afterburners blasting, ripple firing their missiles. The region was full of decoys, but several missiles hit home on both sides; three Banshees tumbled away helplessly, including Viper's from engine failure. Each pilot's callsign lights up as they are labeled dead, but as a rookie closes in for the kill he fires one last cannon burst connecting to the cockpit, killing each other simultaneously. The simulator powers down but Viper waits a few minutes before exiting.

Outside the rookies were smiling, even though they had lost. The final kill score was three rookie, four veteran. Mailman was the only one who survived, and barely. He had dodged a classic deflection barrage and returned with on of this own, crumbling what was left of Scorpion's armor and according to the computer triggered a missile detonation. A fluke shot, no matter, because the simulation confirmed what Viper had already believed. His rookies are ready.

"All right, I'll keep this short and to the point," he starts saying, attempting to suppress the smile that is trying to form on his face. "You all did well, better than I expected. Though your formation flying was crap. Ferret, fighters have proximity sensors for a reason. Don't be afraid to get near your wingman. Rusty, the same goes for you. Remember that the controls on the real thing had a much finer touch. If you over correct like you were a few minutes ago, you'll end up pulling a loop and ramming your wingman.

The two young men nod and Viper turns to face a pretty little number that looked like she should be a model not a fighter pilot, and her emerald eyes were enough for her to get her callsign, Jewel. Darkman kept making fun of the way that she hangs around with Scorpion. Shaun really didn't care one way or another as long as whatever they did was on their time and didn't interfere with their jobs. "As for you... are you after my job? Must be considering how you kept shooting at my cockpit."

The group starts laughing and Jewel starts blushing profusely. Scorpion just grimaces, and stands near her. "I know I don't need to say anything to you, but still nice effort. Scorpion, go ahead and proceed with your briefing..." He pauses for a moment. "Oh, by the way, I've talked to the local home defense squadron commander. They've agreed to be targets for us. Fact is they need the practice as much as you..."

The intercom cut in abruptly, "Lt. Col. Upton, please report to Colonel Jackson's office."

Viper exhales noisily. "Congrats again, people." He quickly walks out covering the short distance to the Colonels office wondering just what he wants. The door was open and he walked in and proceeded to salute.

"Lt. Colonel Upton, reporting as..." His voice drops off as he looks at the person standing next to Jackson. The man looks about as he did the last time Viper had seen him, maybe with just a little less hair on his thinning scalp, and was wearing his Confed uniform, that in itself was dangerous even with the new treaty. Old feelings die-hard. The man looks like someone who hasn't seen his son in years, his hand was extended for a handshake but Shaun didn't take it.

"Admiral," Viper responds bitterly.

Admiral Parker's hand drops and his beaming expression quickly changes into something resembling a person getting kicked in the nads. "Hello, Shaun," he whispers.

Upton turns to Jackson. "My reason for being here... sir."

Jackson folds his hands on the desk. He had hoped that the reunion would have been a happy occasion. So much for that he thought. "Well, Viper, the admiral here was sent here looking for people to recruit for a pilot exchange program. He figured that he could get a few pilots from here once they complete their training cycles and well..."

Parker cuts in, "It's time to come home, Shaun."

"Excuse me if I decline. Good day, Colonel," he says quietly and leaves the office before another word could be said; leaving Parker and Jackson dumbfounded.

Viper's House
1801 Hours (CST) local time

Shaun opens the door to his home and steps in setting his briefcase on the desk and didn't get another two feet before he heard a high pitched cry of glee and a streak of color running at him. "Mommy! Mommy! Vipee's home!" The little five-year-old yells out as she jumps up into his arms, hugging, and kissing him on the cheeks repeatedly. Suddenly the events of the day just washed away and he stood there, looking at this little girl who was now looking at him with her big blue eyes, totally disarming him.

Viper smiles. "Now, when I left this morning you weren't speaking to me now this? So now I'm not a stupid doodie head?"

"No," the little girl says, smiling as Shaun tucks part of her hair back behind her ear in a fatherly manner. "Momma just said that all men were stupid and that I should forgive you. You can't help being a stupid boy."

A woman's head with sparkling blue eyes, and shoulder length raven black hair pops in from the doorway to the kitchen. "I never said such a thing."

"But, momma..." the little girl whines as she is put down.

"That's enough out of you. Go to your room and play," the girl's mother says tersely, and the little girl obeys quickly disappearing. The woman walks fully into the room and kisses Viper softly on the cheek. "How was your day?"

Shaun groans and broadcasts a look that could just possibly burn a hole through durasteel plating. He crashes down onto a chair and looks back up at her. "Oh, the training went well, but after that someone decided to let out a ghost."

She looks at him for a moment, rubbing his hand lightly. "Well, forget about work and relax. Dinner'll be ready in a few minutes." She goes back into the kitchen making a fair amount of noise. "Mike gonna join us for dinner tonight, like always?" She yells out, over the sound of water being drained.

"No..." Shaun replies back, half-yelling. "He's got paperwork to finish."

She walks backs into the room carrying a bowl of pasta, setting it down. Viper leers at it. "Pasta, again... damn it, Sam, I'm not a stick man. I need meat."

Sam rolls her eyes at him and goes back into the kitchen apparently unwilling to break the diet she has forced him to follow religiously. He was about to reply when someone knocks on the door. He stands slowly and walks over opening the door; a loud creaking of old swollen wood was easily heard. After one look at the man in the doorway Shaun slams it shut.

"Who was at the door?" Sam asks as she sits her daughter down to supper.

"The ghost," he replies quietly and solemnly mentally praying that the Admiral will just go away. "On second thought, I'm not hungry." He goes into his study, shutting the door, and sulks. Because the door is closed he did not hear Sam letting Admiral Parker in, and their brief discussion. Several moments later, Sam near silently slips into the study and stops bending down to get on a direct eye level with Viper.

"You really should talk to him," she says in the same tone that she chastised her daughter with.

"I have nothing to say to him," he blurts back defensively, with an anger indirectly targeted at her.

"Fine, you be a stubborn bastard..." Sam starts but is cut off.

"You knew that before you agreed to marry me." Her face turns deep red in anger and she storms out. A few seconds later Admiral Parker is ushered into the room, and the door is shut. The sound of the door being locked was made intentional.

"Fine, Shaun, be stubborn with him. I got time," she yelled from behind the door as Viper stood up, cutting on a light. Admiral Parker stood there in his usual every off duty attire, that hasn't changed in ten years. Slacks and a black button up shirt. He was cradling a parcel of medium size.

"Hello, Shaun," he says after an awkward silence, trying to break the ice.

"Admiral."

Parker steps closer and his voice takes the ire of someone pleading. "Jesse..."

"No, Admiral, not anymore. Not since we parted sides."

"Damn it, Shaun, we're on the same side now. The conflict is over."

Shaun looks at the admiral with a critical eye for a moment, thinking out his words. "The conflict will never be over."

"That's it, isn't it? You don't care about your reason for leaving Confed anymore. Only that you think I betrayed you," the man whispers slowly.

"Well, well, well, the Admiral gets a cookie."

"Shaun, drop your guard for a moment, and listen to me. I know you hate me for what I had to do, but damn it I had my own orders. You now I think of ya like a son, and you used to think of me almost as a father. So listen to my proposal, if not for Confederation, or even the Union of Border Worlds, but your family."

Viper turns slowly towards the Admiral, whom smiles inwardly. "Make it short."

Parker sets down the parcel on Upton's desk speaking as he opens it. "Well, for starters, that little incident was aborted soon after you left." Parker holds up the parcel's contents. A Confed uniform, Viper's Confed uniform. Everything was in place as he had it when he turned it in at the quartermaster's office. "It's time to come home, son. Confed is a different place now, new ships being constructed left and right, people in the government that know that they are doing..."

"Your point, Admiral?"

"Ah yes, your ever-present need to get to the point... I seem to have forgotten that. Well first off have you heard any of the publicity about the megacarrier project?"

Shaun leans on his desk, relaxing somewhat. "Only bits and pieces."

"Well one of the carriers, once on-line, will serve as a joint Confederation, Union of Border World operation. The first of its kind to be officially acknowledged and endorsed... since I don't know when. The three flight wings on board will be a mix of UBW and Confed pilots. I came here looking for pilots to fill out an interceptor squadron. It would be a damn shame if I didn't grab you up too."

Shaun stays silent for several long moments, pondering if the Admiral is telling the truth or is lying to him again. "The catch, Admiral?"

"You have to come back with me to Confed."

"Out of the question."

"Think of it, Shaun, this mission is the antithesis of why you broke away from Confed because of... give it... give us a chance. Take some time and think about it. You have time." The Admiral looks at him for any sign of his answer. All he can see is a puzzled look as he turns to leave. Good, at least he's thinking it over, Parker thought as he left the house, heading back to the base to enlist the rest of Viper's group.

Around midnight Sam slowly creeps into the study with her robe pulled around her tightly, expecting to see Shaun asleep at his desk. Instead he's standing by a window, concealed in darkness watching the stars. "Shaun?"

"Hmm?"

Sam reaches out for his arm, expecting his skin, finding cloth instead, and whispers. "Time to come to bed, Shaun."

He steps into the dim light, and Sam steps back in mild shock. "I thought you've never wear that again."

He looks down at his Confed uniform, talking softly. "The Admiral is right. I can't pass up this opportunity. But I don't want to stay away from you."

"Don't worry, dear, I knew you were a military man when I started going out with and decided to marry you. We'll be here. Just don't get yourself killed."

Shaun smirks menacingly. "Yes, ma'am."

"And that's the story, Boss," Viper said as he leaned back in his chair.

Boomer nodded and stood up. "I think I've taking enough of your time, for now, Viper. I'll see you around later.... after you finish this paperwork." The Colonel tossed the fuel report back at Viper. "Nice try, Upton, but I don't go for that. Even if it may be true." He grins and leaves Upton's office. Shaun shook his head, smiling as he went back to his duties, tossing the fuel report back into the outgoing box.

FINIS