June 6th, 3026

That was any normal day for Robin, Swift and his friends. Wake up, have breakfast, do a few competitive exercises, and be off. At least, it was normal until Raven got a letter. Opening it, he raised his eyebrows, and walked into the room where everyone was lounging around, and read it out loud:

"To those it may concern on the USS Vulger, You will be receiving two new crew-mates due to their ship being sunk under certain circumstances. Knowing you lot, you'll all try to give them these "Nicknames" you all call yourselves by, and frankly, we don't care, as long as they don't either.

Godspeed,
Captain Michael Wayfarer

"Well then," Said Ordan. "Let's think of a name!" And so the screw of the USS Vulger got themselves so engrossed in trying to name their new crew-mates that they didn't hear the light footsteps walking along the deck until their was a sharp knocking on the door. The men momentarily broke their huddle, and Lance walked over and pushed the door open to reveal two soldiers, packs over their backs, waiting outside.

"Well then, I take it you two are our new men?" Lance asked.

"Aye, sir, Private Timothy and Private first class Gerald, reporting for work on the USS, Vulger, was it?" one of them replied.

"Yes, and don't be so formal, just call me Lance."

"Aye, sir, I mean, Lance."

Lance inwardly slapped himself on the face before turning back to the rest of his team.

"Have we thought of anything yet?" He asked.

"Yeah, I saw a documentary on birds the other day, how about Sparrow and Falcon?" Robin suggests.

"Works for me," said Raven. "Fits my name too." And it was settled. Timothy and Gerald didn't mind, and timothy used to be a birdwatcher, so things worked out with that part.

June 7th, 3026

Lance was walking along the deck with Limbo, Sparrow was playing chess with Ordan, and Falcon was taking a nap, while god knows what Robin and Raven were doing with Swift at the carrier.

"And... Checkmate!" Sparrow moved his rook forward triumphantly as he completed a trap on Ordan, ending the game they were working on, when suddenly a bullet, out of nowhere, blew through the window and shot out the rook, quickly followed by more that tore apart the game board and all the pieces.

Sparrow ducked for cover while Ordan ran into the steerage bay and called out for Lance and Limbo on the radio. Sparrow crawled over to the emergency radio and sounded the alarm to the aircraft carrier, then stopped as bullets began to fly in again and ricochet around.

Seeing enemy planes flying overhead and hearing Ordan getting anxious on the radio, Lance and Limbo ran to the anti-aircraft weapons on the port and starboard sides of the ship, attaching ammunition belts and railing rounds off at the enemy planes, meanwhile receiving fire from said planes.

Ordan, having gotten over the fact that the ships were under fire, revved up the engine on the battleship and steered it towards the carrier, meaning to draw the fire from it to them to give the planes on the carrier enough time to take off. Unfortunately, only two were manning the 4 available turrets, and weren't getting much attention, until Falcon woke up to the screaming of a Machine gun firing Plasma shots through the hull and next to his bed, to which he hopped out of and put his boots on, then ran to the center of the ship, slipping on a loose cartridge sitting conveniently on the deck.

Getting up, he continues his dash towards the steps leading up, past the Steerage deck, and above it, where a missile targeting system was waiting.

The previous night Ordan had pulled out a blueprint of the battleship and went over almost every single part of the ship with Sparrow and Falcon, and what procedures were to be followed, such as in the case of what was happening now.

Reaching the third anti-aircraft turret, Falcon had the unfortunate luck to be spotted by an enemy fighter, who spun his sights toward Falcon and opened fire, stitching up the deck with bullets, one of them getting Falcon in the knee, who cried out and fell to the deck, just feet from the turret.

Robin, Raven, and Swift. The only three people not on their battleship when they struck, but when the fighters did come, needless to say, they were surprised. They were sitting on the edge of the ship staring out into nowhere, when a Fighter materialized out of thin air and dropped two bombs behind them, blowing sizable dents in the carrier, and sending Swift tumbling over the edge, who was caught by Robin, who then fell and was caught at the feet by Raven, who began slipping until 4 or 5 crew men ran over and caught him by the belt, and pulled the two soldiers back on board. They thanked the crewmen, who ran off to battle stations, and looked around themselves.

Planes were in the air everywhere, most of them enemy, but a few interceptors from battleships and smaller carriers as well, though it was a sorry battle for them. The invaders were well prepared, and were firing out deadly shots of plasma from their guns, melting holes into the planes' armor and sending them spiraling toward the water.

Robin called up the Vulger, and got a reply from Sparrow, but was cut off when he saw a fighter dive in and fire a quick burst where he knew the radio was, but seeing the ship still intact, he dove toward it, followed by Swift and Raven.

When they landed, Robin ran up to the control deck where Ordan was, steering the ship towards the carrier but making a zigzag path to avoid bombs and other fire from the sky. The radio on the bridge popped on and the carrier sent out a message: "To all battleships still seaworthy, make your way to the docking area to recover from enemy fire, we will have repairmen waiting to fix damaged hulls." Ordan ended his crooked line and went full steam towards the rear of the carrier, where the docks were. Normally A sheet of steel plating would be covering this weak spot, but on the captain's message the plating was raised and ships were trying to dock, though many were bombed on and destroyed before they could land. One would think that the Vulger Got lucky, but they were able to land under the cover of allied fire, and though their ship was only lightly damaged, repairmen came out bearing a new radio, refills on ammunition, and a new chess set. How thoughtful.

Suddenly part of the dock explodes in fire as a fighter barrels in and crashes, "Landing" on a nearby battleship and blowing up part of the dock, sending the repairmen flying, and sending the chess set trailing into the water.

"NOOOO!" Sparrow cried out as he saw the chess set fly into the ocean from his perch on the turret, but spied a pile of extra chess pieces and boards sitting next to the doorway leading to the rest of the carrier. Abandoning his turret for the most pointless thing on a battleship, he runs along the deck and hops to the dock. Sprinting past the fire and plasma eating away the ship's plating, he covers the 50 meters to the chess sets in 10 seconds flat, grabs a set, and sprints back to the battleship. hopping aboard, he tosses it into a cupboard and runs back to his turret, spins up the weapons, and resumes spewing fire from the barrels of his turret. Unnoticed by everyone, the cupboard where the chess set lies had begun to glow a soft blue, and if you were watching you would see the light spreading around the ship, onto the dock and towards the carrier, to which some of the crewmen notice and try to run away from it while others attack it with blowtorches, to no avail.

Sparrow had spent his last cartridge of ammunition and was running down to the deck to grab more when he notices the light covering the battleship. He begins walking away from the ever-growing light, and slips on a loose chess piece, ironically the white king. He falls over and cracks his head on the hard, metal floor and is out like a light.

Minutes later the battle is halted for only seconds as the carrier is enveloped in a bright blue glow, then the light grows brighter and brighter, until it snaps, sending a shock wave along the water, rocking the waves and giving massive turbulence To the enemy and allied fighters alike, sending some spiraling to the waves while others recover with just enough time to fly off and stay in the air. Anyone looking at the super-carrier when the light went off, which was everyone, was blinded, and when they looked back the carrier was gone, along with pretty much every ship docked on it.

Author's Note

The steerage deck, control deck and bridge are all the same place, I just cycled through three different names until I remembered the real name for it.