Master Sergeant Jefferey Kyle and Teider Pallan Rosestar floated by a shipping container anchored to the wall and watched as their respective squads danced across the warehouse criss-crossed with temporary structural members. As Rosestar understood it was a variation on a human physical competition called "football", though he had derided it slightly when he told her how it was played.
"Unless you're an American, football is played with... the feet and... a ball," he had groused in amusement as he tossed the obloid back and forth in his hands while he explained the game. "What you have here is 'hand-egg'. But I digress..."
Regardless of its provenance, Teider Rosestar had to agree it was an excellent method for training in null gravity, especially for the task they had at hand. The widely spaced crossbeams acted as points for a person to fling themselves along by hand or foot, and the nets at either end of the massive storage area made for strategic goals. Currently, it was human versus loroi, and suprisingly enough the loroi team was slightly ahead despite the greater physical abilities of the human soldiers and their familiarity with the game. Sanzai made for quick and clear communication between team members, and as the game had been slightly altered to "touch football (handegg)" rules the usual more brutal methods of play weren't available to the humans. Notwithstanding that a human would try to "accidentally" tackle a loroi every so often, eliciting penalty laps around the play field from Sergeant Kyle to keep things professional. Not that it had happened too much more after the teidars quickly showed they didn't like being touched in that way with some rather aggressive use of sanzai telekinesis.
Rosestar noticed Jeff staring out the nearest window with a furrowed brow. She was about to ask him a question when a good natured loroi shriek brought them both around. He sighed and shook his head with a smile.
"Touch, Teidar Lightsmith!" Rosestar shouted. A purple-haired loroi rolled her eyes and extracted herself from Private Wilson; slender, pale, with short cropped red hair and an interesting skin color variation Sergeant Kyle had explained were "freckles" which most of the younger loroi found fascinating. Naturally, he was the only soldier Rosestar's squad "forgot" to play by the rules with, repeatedly. Good natured ribbing from his squadmates brought a firey blush to his face.
"Five laps, Wilson," the sergeant said.
"What?! She tackled me!" he protested.
"Ten laps!"
"Fawk..." He began to swing around the outside of the room from bar to bar.
"She did, by the way," Rosestar said with a smirk.
"Yeah, I figured, but maybe now they can concentrate better with him off the field for a minute," Kyle said. He glanced out the window again. "Can we really do this?"
"I believe the idea is sound," she said. "Untested, and slightly insane, but feasible."
Capture an Umiak superheavy, intact. Even with whole teams of Teidar, it had failed every time it had been attempted, as the bugs would self-destruct the moment they understood their craft was about to fall into enemy hands. Now with a combined human/loroi team, it was believed to be possible; with the humans providing heavy firepower and the loroi providing technical support via technicians with the ability to interrupted the self-destruct sequence, the command staff on both sides firmly thought they could take one.
The plan was simple. Simple in the way that digging a tunnel through a mountain with a spoon was simple, but simple nonetheless. Stealth strike craft intended to appear as debris, propelled by a uniquely human invention. Their short time of experience with more technologically advanced drive systems meant they still relied on cruder methods of propulsion at times. Rosestar was shocked to learn some of their craft were even propelled by actual, luck defying chemical rockets. And the idea they had for a stealth drive was borderline insane. The principle of a reaction drive was the same across the universe: mass shoved one direction, craft goes opposite direction. So, some human who hadn't come down from the trees recently enough in Rosestar's opinion imagined, why not fling heavy stuff out the back of a craft at really high rates of speed with a shielded magnetic mass driver, and not give off any energy signature at all? And if it got going fast enough, and wasn't sensed by radar, then it could impact an Umiak ship and allow a boarding team to attack unawares.
Absolute insanity. Nevertheless, loroi scientists and tacticians had looked it over, shook their heads at typical human thought patterns, shrugged their shoulders, and gave it the go-ahead for a trial run. Thus the training, to better acclimate themselves to the interior of an Umiak spaceship, whose only firm layouts were known to be complex warrens of tunnels and low gravity, with no two alike. "So we only know for sure the hot stuff comes out the back end of it, huh?" was the way Sergeant Kyle had put it bluntly. However, the risk was believed to be worth it, and the TCA had agreed because the loroi had promised them full access to any captured Umiak vessel. Scout ships had even found a good candidate a few systems away.
There was just one problem.
"You're sure no Teidar can be trained to counteract the self destruct mechanism?" he said.
Rosestar shook her head. "Do you think you could train one of your men to overhaul a drive engine?"
He snorted. "I think rigging up a bootleg still is about their level. Grunts are grunts across the galaxy."
Rosestar and Kyle watched as a loroi engineer struggled onto the field, took the ball (egg), and was bowled over by a flying human in moments before she could make more than a single jump. They both sighed. The plan required speed. Forced entry, pathfind nearly blind to the engine compartment, override the self-destruct, and lock out any of the several hundred remaining Umiak. In low gravity, on a ship centuries more advanced than anything humans fielded which required the presence of loroi. Which in turn required the presence of decidedly non-combat trained loroi engineers.
Gallen Bastobar Fieldwind approached them with a less than enthusiastic expression.
"I apologize for the lack of training my Gallens have," she began.
"It is disappointing, that is certain," Rosestar said, cutting her off.
"Look, we can work around it," Sergeant Kyle said.
"No, we cannot," she replied. "Frankly this is inexcusable. The problem is we have been assigned colonial rear guard Gallens, who have obviously *not* kept up with their null-gravity training."
Jeff felt some pity for the poor loroi technician as Rosestar continued to berate her. He understood why they'd been given REMFs. Considering the high risk of their mission, Loroi high command hadn't been inclined to send the best and brightest on a potential suicide mission. He slowly passed one of the balls back and forth between his hands, and watched the awkward Gallen on the field try and fail to commandeer the ball from a passing human, Private Wilson as it turned out who had finished his punishment. Her grab at him turned into another "accidental" tackle to the sergeant's amusement.
"Gallen Briarwater, you leg spreader, touch! Touch! Not mount!" Rosestar shouted.
Sergeant Kyle snorted to keep from laughing. Private Wilson, amused and probably not all that upset about the loroi hugging him, pushed her away with a friendly shove then winced as her flirtatious smile towards him meant she failed to notice a crossmember coming up behind her head. He jumped to her as she drifted with her hands behind her head, bent over in pain from the impact.
A loroi Doranzer on the sidelines, until now unnecessary, waved at him. "Let me check her out," she shouted.
"I'll send her over," he hollered back with a grin, carefully aimed, then tossed the more embarrassed than injured loroi towards the medic before she could protest. Too far from any of the supports, and unlikely to catch herself anyways, the Gallen scrambled to turn herself over so she could at least see where she was headed. Unfortunately, she was headed at a rather decent rate of speed towards a Doranzer barely bigger than herself.
"Terrence, catch her!" Wilson shouted. A human soldier close to the medic pushed her out of the way before Briarwater hard-docked with her, and caught the flailing loroi in a gentle embrace.
"You okay?" he said. Briarwater, now turned almost entirely dark blue from a full-body blush nodded quickly, and he handed her over to the Doranzer.
Rosestar had covered her face in her hands at the whole scene. She looked up at Sergeant Kyle and was about to apologize when she noticed a strange look on his face. He'd stopped passing the ball between his hands, then as she watched he looked down at them, spread them out farther, and quickly tossed it between them with a flick of his wrist.
~~~~
"Fuck-"
THUNK
"-This-"
THUNK
"-Shit!"
THUNK
Master Sergeant Kyle wasn't sure whose voice that was, but disregarded the outburst as it matched his sentiments. The entire boarding party groaned in unison as each recoil of the "silent" drive slammed them against each other, loroi and human alike, helmets and armor crashing and clattering. Master Sergeant Kyle knew if they survived he was going to have a discussion with the team that came up with the idea yet failed give it any kind of inertial dampening system, especially considering the cramped berth. At impact there were multiple systems designed to protect the crew, but they were one-time, destructive use. The craft itself was expendable when it came right down to it; this was a win or die mission.
"Max vel-"
THUNK
"Velocit-"
THUNK
"-Locity"
THUNK
"In-"
THUNK
"Fiv-"
THUNK
"Four!"
THUNK
"Three!"
THUNK
"Two!"
THUNK
"One!"
Nothing. Every being on the craft held their breath for the next impact, but none was forthcoming. As a unit, they sighed.
"We better get hazard pay for riding into battle on a Pez dispenser," a human said in a voice of relief. That got a laugh from everyone. Sergeant Kyle smiled. Leave it up to humans to make these inexplicable connections, Teidar Rosestar had told him when he mentioned to her what the soldiers had christened the drive and explained what it meant. Some wag in the barracks had even come up with a unit insignia for them, a knight with comically oversized lance saddled to a giant candy shooter with a loroi riding behind him. After the master sergeant had spoken with the artist who agreed with his recommendation that the loroi needed to be wearing more than just a smile, Sergeant Kyle had turned the design over to the quartermaster to make them some patches for some good humored esprit de corps.
"Any response from the Umiak?" Sergeant Kyle said.
"Nothing, sarge," the copilot replied. "They don't even know we're here, for sure."
"Good, because that was one hell of an expensive trap."
Allowing the Umiak to think the TCA battleship was attempting to ram it out of desperation, the bugs superheavy had blasted it apart. Unbeknownst to them, it had been a partially completed hulk coupled to a makeshift drive, and the debris field it was about to push through contained several pieces accelerating towards them at armor piercing velocity, which, god willing, they couldn't detect. The worst of it was the complete lack of knowledge as to just when they would impact the Umiak ship; without active scanning, they had to hope they were in the right direction and could do little more than wait until-
CRUNKCRACKUNCH
Even before the sound reached everyone's ears the compartment had been filled with inertia dampening gelatin sprayed in at unfathomable speed. This time, rather than the repetitive abuse of the way in, the impact was barely noticeable.
"Move! Move! Move!"
The humans and loroi boarders pushed through the sticky mess and the entry team checked the forward hatch. "We got clearance!" one shouted, and the front half of the hull split open, exposing the ruined compartment. Many of the humans grimaced at the carnage in the room now exposed to vacuum, several of the Umiak dashed against the floor and walls by the penetrator craft. Even given their alien forms it was a gruesome scene.
"We have tac confirmation! One, two... Three! All four inside!" the pilot shouted over the radio.
"Lower the volume, and get them situated," Sergeant Kyle said. "Rose, location?"
"Forward sector, I think we might even be on the bridge. CONTACT!" she shouted as she fired several rounds towards a Umiak in a hard suit that had opened the door to the cabin. The humans responded swiftly in kind, and riddled the husk before it could even raise its weapon.
Stunned by multiple attack vectors and unknown yet surprisingly brutal alien invaders, the Umiak staggered before the assault, and two of the Loroi/Human teams made it to the central core area within minutes. Along the twisting path to the engineering area the other two teams stationed human soldiers every few meters. Already the Umiak defenders were starting to fight back harder, but Sergeant Kyle knew it was only a matter of time before they realized the hopelessness of the situation and triggered the self destruct. Their only hope was that it required some kind of command staff to implement, and in addition that a good portion of said staff was smeared under the hardened foamed-steel exterior of a penetrator hull.
"Alright, all hands: Hut, hut, HIKE!" he shouted the code phrase.
Even in the desperate situation Rosestar couldn't help but smirk at the sanzai'd fearful exclamations as the techs were flung along the passageways by the human soldiers positioned just so to make a bucket brigade of tossed loroi. Briarwater herself, who'd turned out to be a highly trained programmer if not a particularly apt handegg player, reached them shortly, and though slightly dazed immediately hooked up to the Umiak computer. A matter of solon later she turned to Teidar Rosestar with a grin on her face.
<It's ours!>
Master Sergeant Kyle put his hand up, palm facing Teider Pallan Rosestar, who after a confused look, returned his "high five".
"Now let's clear out the roaches," he said with a smile.
Post script: let's assume any mistakes in military... stuff is the fact I've been out for 20 years as well as that this is set two hundred years in the future, and as for any inaccuracy in technology chalk it up to plot flexibility
.
However, the "foamed" steel exterior (something that is actually a real thing right now and is very cool 
