Gabatrix: The Terrorists of Batrice

"Well.....we made it," Mizu remarked.

"Yes.....thankfully," Hamiza said.

The space station's interior was beginning to take up the entire section of the camera feeds as it flew into the hangar facility. Unlike last time, Mizu was trying to be more professional with his flying. He knew that the eyes of the command staff, including the aliens, were upon this event even if it was not going to be a popular one. Anything that he did out of the ordinary, and it would have been a quick trip to the disciplinary review board. He could see the structures underneath as the landing pad in the distance was getting closer and closer. Unlike last time, a few more people in space suits were present near the two empty landing areas. These crew members seemed to be ensuring that everything was in pristine order for the ambassadors' arrival.

Hamiza said nothing as she watched Mizu's handling of the controls. Unlike his landing on the shipyard hangar bay, this one seemed to be much more orderly. The shuttle was moving extra slower as its vectoring thrusters kept it steady. She was barely feeling any type of acceleration. She was even giving nods of approval.

The shuttle finally reached above the landing pad. It used its vectoring thrusters to do a 180-degree turn as it used its rear thrusters to slow down to a stop. Hovering directly over the landing pad, Mizu started to activate the dorsal vectoring thrusters to push the shuttle gently downward. The magnetic landing gear was being deployed. Meanwhile, he could see another object coming into the hangar bay facility. This was a green-colored shuttlecraft. It had to be the ambassadors that were coming. It was not too far behind his shuttle as the massive hangar bay doors began to close up on both entryways.

It took less than ten seconds for the shuttle to tap the deck. The interior of the vessel shook lightly. It was enough that Hamiza gave a look of annoyance at him. She even scolded with her eyes at him slightly. Mizu tried to hold his laughter in.

"What?" Mizu replied with a smile.

"You did that on purpose," Hamiza said.

"Did what on purpose?" he played coy.

"Hmmm.....fine," Hamiza decided to drop it. "If you are good enough to do that purposely, then it shows that your flying skills are getting better and better. You managed to completely fly solo for the third time now. I admit....I am impressed."

Mizu let go of the control panel as he used his hand to start deactivating the shuttle's engines. The magnetic clamps held the shuttle firmly to the deck. He went and pridefully placed his hands behind his neck.

"Go on....." Mizu said with a grin.

"And....." she paused for a little while. "I see that you are fully qualified to fly the shuttles without me to get in your way."

Mizu held up his hands in the air in cheer. "Thank you."

"Ugh...." She remarked. "I hate it when you get like this."

He could see that the T'rintar shuttle was coming in near them. It was slow and very straightforward. The hangar bay doors had sealed entirely up. A sizeable overhead speaker was notifying all crew members that pressurization and heating were in progress. Massive air pressurizing building vents overhead were pumping mass sums of oxygen and air.

"Second time getting a chance to see the hangar bay getting pressurized," Mizu said. "You would think that it would take forever to turn the bay into a breathing center where you can walk without your suit."

"The warship center at Titan base is actually better than this," Hamiza commented. "They use three times the equipment then here.....but yes, the last time was when Chanvatey came to the station."

There was a communication from one of the control towers in the hangar bay. It came through the console of the shuttle.

"Shuttle Eugine Trinh," Flora came through the comms. "This is Control Tower #1. I just had the chief tell me that you guys are to remain in the shuttle until the ambassadors are inside the station. They don't want anything to cause interference with the arriving delegates."

"Roger that Control Tower #1," Hamiza spoke through the comms. "We will wait. Any idea how long before the bay is pressurized?"

"About a few minutes."

"Roger that. Shuttle Eugine Trinh out," Hamiza said as she undid the restraints on the chair. She seemed agitated more as Mizu decided to follow suit.

"Hey....at least we will be able to walk outside without our helmets for once," he told Hamiza.

"Yeah, that is true, but I am still stuck here with you for probably half an hour. Fuck."

"I am not that boring. Come on.....after that milkshake I got for you yesterday."

"Yes, but to quote your own words. 'What have you done for me lately?'"

Mizu shrugged as he undid the restraints. Hamiza got out of her seat as she stepped out of the pilot room. Trapped in the shuttle in the meantime, Mizu sat in the pilot's seat as he watched the T'rintar shuttle began to come to a halt over the empty landing pad. It perfectly hovered in zero gravity as it used its vectoring thrusters to start to rotate ninety degrees to the port side.

He remarked about the design of the Itrean shuttles. They were a better design than the UHN shuttles. They had a more blocky appearance, but they still kept the same cylindrical profile as the UHN variety. They stretched out to about thirty meters in length and carried six single CIWS gun turrets on the ship's mid and aft section. The pilothouse was on the top bow, but it had a pair of micro missile launcher boxes that were shaped like protruding teeth on the bottom bow. In a sense, the shuttles were more like mini capital ships or gunships than anything else. Mizu even wondered if the Itreans even bothered to have unarmed shuttles like the UWA utilized. There were four hatches on the shuttle, and they were closer to the rear than the midsection of the UHN shuttles. A Mark 13 UHN shuttle was perhaps the only thing closely on par with this thing if it was caught in a one-on-one fight.

The vectoring thrusters had the Itrean shuttle in perfect alignment with the center of the landing deck. It used its vectoring thrusters to perfectly place it to the deck as two large landing struts came out of the bottom and touched the pad with the gentlest thump that it could ever do.

"See?" Hamiza remarked in the center of the shuttle. "I didn't even have to look at the camera displays to know that was a perfect landing."

"Oh....I suppose you can do better than that pilot?" he mocked her.

"Ten times better."

"Said with such confidence. And you condemned me for being overconfident."

"I am not overconfident. I know it."

"So would I," he said.

"That is because you have me teaching you, dumbass."

"Ah, and for that, you are not getting a milkshake tonight."

"Ugh...I am going to go to take a nap. Wake me up when the ambassadors are done with the welcoming ceremony."

"You got it," Mizu said. He felt inclined to do the same thing as well, but it would be embarrassing if they were both caught sleeping. A part of him felt naturally curious as he stood up from the seat of his chair. There was a front window where he could see the ambassadors' shuttle more clearly and without the camera-fed displays.

The neighboring Itrean shuttle was at least fifty meters away. Its bow nose was pointed directly at the Eugine Trinh. This allowed the passengers to depart ideally from the shuttle's side to the neighboring service building where they would enter into the innards of Fort Batrice that would lead them to wherever they needed to go. The fleet admiral himself was probably all perfectly prepared to meet them. The carpeted floor and four service personnel stood in their spacesuits.

"Man.....pressurizing an entire bay just for a few individuals...." Mizu quietly said to himself. He listened closely to hear for the overhead announcement speaker. He was sure that the passengers on the shuttle were waiting to hear from the speakers as well.

A part of Mizu felt more curious as to the Itreans. Even though he had only seen a few of them on the space station, this would be a concentration of them. He hadn't thought about it too much, but these women were the oddest of an alien race if he ever saw them. The rumors about them were incredible. An entire society of nothing but women. It may have sounded like a man's form of paradise, especially for humanity to meet them, but it was something that came at a high cost. An entire disease had wiped out their male population. The Itreans had to force their own women to become 'male' by force just to save themselves from extinction. While the few Itrean women he had seen at least seemed gentle, he knew the Itreans on the scout ship a year ago were also crewed by nothing but Aksren women. They didn't give a damn about shelling the capital, and their savagery was all over the place. Even the Cipra colony's vague words were more than proof of their utter barbarity that these women did. Both the human race and the Itrean society both had a form of gender equality. To Mizu, the Itreans made their impression on the attack of Batrice last year. Nothing more had to be said about it.

"Pressurization is complete," the announcement overhead called out. "Temperatures are nominal. Oxygen levels are normal." Even a green light popped up in the shuttle's interior to notify him that it was safe to walk outside without a suit.

Mizu turned towards the cabin of the shuttle but didn't hear anything come from Hamiza. With the lack of gravity, it was actually easy to stand and fall asleep. There was no force being exerted on the body, and only the magnetic boots kept you clamped to the deck. The only thing that a person had to worry about was their body drifting. Regardless, it was simply the fact that space behaved on the body. Instead, he didn't think about it and folded his arms to watch the Itrean shuttle's main door open up. The hatch was uniquely designed. Being both of technological achievement and bioengineered, the hatch was designed to open and extend towards the deck. It formed into a smooth ramp that led to the bottom deck and, ultimately, the carpet.

The first set of individuals was a pair of two guards. Dressed in some ceremonial black and green armor, the raptor-like women were hard to tell from a distance. The armor completely covered their bodies, but Mizu could see that they were short in stature. Being naturally faster than human beings, the Yutilians of the T'rintar clan were the most common sight in their population. The armor itself consisted of pointed noses or snouts with slight protrusions from the back of the head. This was in due part to the fact that the Yutilians had feathers rather than the other clan members. They were essentially the same as human beings but had more reptilian features. They had four-digit hands and feet while having a long tail that protruded from their backs. They stood on digitigrade legs and walked around looking at the entire area to secure it. The armor made it hard to see the fact that the chests were protruding outward a little bit. With the black armor, the green-lit eyes near the dark helmets could easily be seen.

The guards also carried something with them in their hands. They were small assault rifles. Mizu didn't know enough about the firearms used by the Itreans, but supposedly, they were on par with UHN small arms. The rifles had two different barrels to them and could fire different types of munitions. There were also small silenced-looking pistols that were also magnetically attached to the side hips of the blackguards.

Upon seeing that the area was safe and secure with the other crew that was by the landing pad, the guards assumed a watchful stance by the shuttle doors. They worked in unison as they held their guns pointed upward and close to their chests. They then held still as they waited for the next set of individuals to come out.

Two individuals came out of the shuttle. At first, Mizu thought that this might have been the ambassadors, but they were both Yutilian. One of the ambassadors had to be human. These might have been aids or staff members that worked for the two ambassadors. They stepped out together as they walked down the ramp.

Each Yutilian was different, as Mizu noted. They were not wearing armor but wore some sort of blue and green extravagant dresses. They wore skin fitting but not enough that they tight on the body in the zero gravity. As they moved forward, the outlines of white and light blue flowed outward and to their backs. In many ways, the dresses were beautiful. It covered up most of their legs and arms, but not all of their tails. This allowed the feathers of their arms, faces, legs, and tails to flow naturally free in the environment. They also wore a pair of red magnetic wrappings on their feet to keep them anchored to the deck as they moved forward.

One Yutilian looked like most of the Yutilians that Mizu had at least seen so far. She had primarily green with a hint of blue scales for her skin. Her feathers were that of green and yellow. Supposedly, the Yutilians did their best to follow different fads and fashion statements from their cultures or planets. She seemed young, impressionable, and friendly, at least from what Mizu could see. He knew that he could be completely wrong about it. She was carrying two items in her hand. One was a pair of closed-up stick-looking objects, and the other was a small bag.

The other Yutilian looked almost entirely different. She seemed so unique that it had Mizu's attention. He wasn't even sure if it was a she, to begin with. For the sake of argument, he decided to go ahead in his thoughts and refer to it as a woman. While she wore the same style of clothing, her body type features were radically exclusive. Her snout protruded more outward practically to the form of a bird-like beak. It was difficult to tell too much from his range, but the eyes were even different. She had white scales with brown and green patterns. Her feathers were white, pink, and red. The tail feathers were more pronounced than the other, and this "woman" did not have breasts. She was flatchested, but it could have been possible that she was an ivon of some sort. Mizu didn't really bother with the thinking. Instead, he simply noticed that she was carrying two sets of bags in each hand.

It was becoming more and more evident that these were aids or fellow associates to the ambassadors. Perhaps it was the staff's tradition and aids to come out first in a welcoming ceremony like this.

The Yutilian with green scales was moving alongside her companion as she touched the deck. Without warning, as she walked forward, she didn't notice the rim of the carpet. Her taloned front feet smacked it and caused her to trip forward. It took many of the crew on the landing deck by surprise. The Yutilian with white scales came forward as she timidly tried to help her associate. One of the bags flew from her hand as her foot touched the carpeted floor and tried to magnetize with it. She staggered hard, but she looked slightly embarrassed by the whole event once she stabilized herself. She put her hand to her chest as she displayed shock of the bag that went tumbling forward in the zero gravity. One of the deck personnel tried to catch it, but it continued to move forward until it hit the building's door. Meanwhile, the recovering Yutilian's hand was gripping the pairs of metal sticks in her hand in hopes of preventing them from becoming lost as well.

"Haha," Mizu laughed a little bit. "Ah.....so much for the welcome mat."

Mizu turned his head slightly as the two Yutilians walked closer and closer to the open doors ahead of them. It was here that he finally saw the two ambassadors of the shuttle step out. This had to be them. While Mizu knew little of this Ambassador Kane or Ifra, they were obviously important in the peace brokering between the UWA and the T'rintar clan. Kane had a pale complexion to him. Most likely from Mizu's observations, this man was either from Cebravis or possibly Aphadus just by his pale face alone. He wore a blue and red formal suit with gold adornments on his wrists and belt. His brown hair was short, and he had a charismatic look to him.

The Ambassador that had to be Ifra was the common Yutilian, but her clothing was different than her fallible aids. It was a white and orange dress. It was skintight but had white flairs to them that moved as she walked in the zero gravity. She had gold bracelets and anklets next to the red magnetic wrappings on her clawed feet. She had light and dark green scales and had white feathers that protruded her head, arms, and tail. There was one thing that was clearly noticeable when Mizu looked upon her.

"She is pregnant?" Mizu remarked. He looked and could tell that her belly was distended. If she was much like a human, she was getting particularly close to delivering her baby. This confirmed more of what he was starting to see. The Yutilians and humans could have children together. The two ambassadors were holding hands as they walked together. It was evident that the two were a couple. While it was promising in some aspects, Mizu had a confused look at the scene. An Itrean and a human together? That alone was conspicuous. Some on the station would have found the concept to be repulsive. Any Itrean could be dangerous. As far as some felt, it was literally sleeping with the enemy. The T'rintar clan could just as quickly turn on the humans or the UWA. He was not particularly impressed with the scene and only remained quiet, but he couldn't deny that there was an aesthetic quality to these women either.

The two aides practically reached the door as he turned to watch the two ambassadors as they reached the carpet. They seemed happy, as if they were on a mission together. At least Mizu couldn't deny that part. They continued their trek as the music began to play in the hangar bay. It was difficult to tell what sort of music it was. His hearing could pick up the rhythm and, for most aspects, might have been a national anthem of some sort that belonged to the T'rintar clan. The deckhands saluted in pride in their spacesuits as they looked at the couple.

EXPLOSION! Suddenly and without any warning, the center of the shuttle blew apart. It happened so fast that no one could have been prepared for it. Mizu himself barely felt it but only saw the red and orange flames erupt like a pillar. Debris showered all through the area. Shards of metal, debris, and even remains of limbs went in all directions.......

Chapter 4: Catastrophe

Mizu naturally recoiled a bit in the pilot room as the front bow of the Itrean shuttle flew forward and went careening into the Eugine Trinh. Severed from within, the explosion tore the vessel in half. Like detonating a can, the remains of the forward section smashed into the shuttle. It knocked and damaged the magnetic landing struts as the Eugine Trinh seemed to hold barely. The wreckage went floating as Mizu gasped in surprise.

While the explosion wasn't that loud in the Eugine Trinh, it reverberated in the hangar bay like a sledgehammer. Without gravity to hold the blast in, the concussive shockwave went in all directions. Even the flame from the burst went out like a balloon. Consuming as much of the oxygen as possible in the vicinity, the flame bubble went out quickly. What was left was nothing but showering debris. Small shrapnel pieces would continue to fly in all directions until they met contact with a solid object. These shards of dangerous metal could kill anything and anyone that stood in its way. Even the Eugine Trinh was a victim as hundreds of tiny fragments bashed into the port side.

The rear portion of the Itrean shuttle's remains was slow but moved with ever consistency. It bashed into the dorsal section of the parked shuttle adjacent to it as the debris went upward. With the fire quickly out, what was left was nothing but alarms that went off in the Fort Batrice hangar bay. Mizu's jaw remained agape as he could see the scene. It was pure pandemonium. The explosion was so powerful that it ripped the lower deck plating below where the shuttle was, damaging the lower compartments below.