"We're not heading back to the Shepard, Cag?" Viking-2 asked as he followed Viking-1.
"Not just yet, Preacher," Robert "Cag" Carrington replied, scanning his cockpit instruments. "We've got plenty of fuel left. Let's take a quick look around before we head back home."
"You're the boss," Matthew "Preacher" Carson answered with a chuckle.
"What's so funny?"
"You're the third Air Group Commander I've flown under and the first that I've ever seen fly escorts like this. The Cags on the Nimitz and Halsey only went out on the major missions."
"My Cag on the Alan Shepard flew everything his crew flew," Cag said. "He said it kept him sharp and gave him a better idea of what his people could do. When I took over five years ago I didn't see any need to change the practice. If you ever make Cag, you should consider doing the same."
"You make it sound like I'll never rank that high."
"Hell, kid, you might. Then again, you might not. I've never flown with someone who got drummed out of the Seminary before."
"It turned out I loved flying a little more than I loved the Almighty," Preacher replied with the air of a man who realized he would never hear the end of his pre-Space Force exploits.
"The way I heard it," Cag jibed. "You loved some skirt at a nearby college a little bit more."
"Well..," Preacher drew in a long breath. "There was that too."
Cag laughed at the admission, not unkindly. "Hell, Preacher, you might turn out to be alright for Space Force after all," Cag allowed. "What you say we take the long way back to the Shepard and see if we can find some bandits to read scripture to?"
"Works for me."
"Shepard," Cag switched over to the big carrier's frequency. "Viking-1 and Viking-2 are RTB. We're going to sniff around first, see if we can startle any snakes out here on the way back."
"Roger that, Cag," Shepard's Air Boss replied. "Good hunting."
The Shepard was one of six carriers in the United States Space Force fleet and the only one that only carried Viking fighters. She was holding station at the L2 LaGrange point, a little more than 900,000 miles from Earth. Her job was to protect shipping and help clear out any natural objects that threatened life on Earth.
Approaching its 100th anniversary, the United States Space Force literally owned the space between the Earth and its lone satellite. Other countries had tried to get their own fleets aloft, but did not have the resources to maintain them.
A few decades ago, they had pooled their meager fleets together to form a United Nations Earth Space Force, all of eight small ships and a dozen fighters. They patrolled the Eastern Hemisphere and generally stayed out of the USSF's way whenever anything major was happening. The UNESF's record at combatting piracy was poor at best and many suspected kickbacks were involved. So, on occasion, USSF pilots were encouraged to wander into that area of space and stir the pot.
With Viking-1 in the lead, the two fighters headed east as the Atlantic Ocean passed below and they approached a Europe that was just greeting the dawn of a new day. From his cockpit, Preacher looked around. The sunlight caught the side of Cag's ship, highlighting all of the decals affixed below the pilot's stenciled name and call sign. Cag was there now. A decade ago it had been Ghost Rider. There were four dozen decals below the name, each one indicating a "kill" by the pilot and all but six were the skull and cross bones assigned to a pirate ship. The other six were asteroid intercepts that threatened the planet or local shipping.
The pirate decals were normally black, but three of Cag's were blood red. Preacher, like everyone else in Space Force, had heard the story behind those three kills and why Cag had them painted on in that color. His wife, Barbara, had been Captain of a small USSF supply ship. She'd been ambushed by pirates and had done an incredible job in holding them off as long as she had.
But the pirates had the numbers and her ship could only absorb so much fire before her shields failed. Cag had been on his way but arrived too late. He'd found his wife's ship cut in half, the flight deck blasted open to space and her crew dead. The three remaining pirate ships had been too focused on looting their prize to notice the arrival of a lone USSF fighter.
The first two kills had come before the pirates were aware of the danger. The third pirate ship fled with Cag in pursuit. Slowly, like a cat toying with a trapped mouse, Cag crippled the pirate ship. First its engine, then its weapons pod. Then he struck the cockpit, popping the canopy open. The pirate was wearing a suit, but had only a limited oxygen supply.
That supply was short-lived as Cag targeted the O2 canisters and with a precision, low-burst shot, severed them from the pirate ship. The pilot began waving his arms frantically, dying a slow and painful death. Just as three more USSF fighters arrived on the scene, Cag slowly backed away from the pirate ship and opened fire. When he stopped, nothing larger than a penny remained, He returned and did the same to the other two pirate ships.
Barbara Carrington was buried with honors in Arlington National Cemetery, leaving behind a husband and one son who was in the USSF Academy at the time of her death. In the decade that had passed, Cag had never spoken about the incident and no one dared ask him about it either. The three blood-red decals said all that was needed to be said.
Young he might be, but stupid he wasn't, so Preacher wasn't going to ask about that day. But there was one story he'd heard about that he did want to verify.
"Cag?"
"Yeah, kid?"
"Did you really give your wife her call sign?" Cag's helmet swiveled around to look over at his wingman for a few seconds before swiveling back. Preacher was starting to worry he'd stepped in it until he heard Cag chuckle.
"Sure did. First week at the Academy. Looked right at her at the morning brief and called her 'Bugs' right in front of everyone in the room. She looked right at me, and I tell you kid, no woman ever looked as beautiful as she did right then, and asked me to explain myself.
"So I looked right back at her, right in the eye, and called her 'Bugs' again and said it was the only name that suited her. Then I told her what it meant."
"What was that?" Preacher asked.
"Boobs Under G-Suit. B-U-G-S."
"And she still married you," Preacher asked, genuinely amazed.
"Yep, God knows why, kid. But I knew the first day I saw her, she was the only woman I wanted to be with. We had twenty good years together and a great son to show for it."
Cag fell silent and Preacher didn't want to pursue the direction the conversation was going. So he changed the subject.
"Thirty years," he said.
"What's that?"
"You've been flying out here for thirty years. Longer than I've been alive."
"If you're trying to make me feel old, kid," Cag remarked dryly. "You're succeeding."
"I didn't mean it like that. I figured you'd have made Captain by now, maybe even Admiral."
"Heh, they tried to promote me a couple of times not so long ago. I threatened to retire if they did. I'm a wing and stick man, kid. It's all I ever wanted to do."
"How much longer do you think they'll let you fly?"
"About a month."
"What?" Preacher exclaimed.
"I put in my papers last week," Cag explained. "This time next month I'll be on the beach somewhere."
"Doing what?" Preacher asked, trying to process the surprising news.
"Beats me, kid," Cag admitted, scanning the area for any other ships. "I haven't planned out that far just yet."
"Going to be a different service without you around."
"Eh, it'll be just as good after I leave as it was before I joined up. And my son Matt can carry on the family name. I'm told he'll be transferred from the Nimitz and promoted to CAG on the Shepard after I stand down. If any Carrington is going to haul down a flag position, it'll be him.
"So don't go getting all weepy for me, Preacher
," Cag continued. "Or I'm liable to join up with the pirates and kick your butt."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Preacher replied only half-seriously.
"That's better," Cag took one last look around. "Well, it looks like there's nothing out here besides a couple of UNESF rust buckets. Must be some kind of pirate holiday. We may as well head back to the Shepard and call it a day."
The two fighters altered course, sliding toward the South Pole to get on course for the Shepard's current location. No sooner had they broken out of orbit when their radios flared to life with a call from their ship's Air Boss.
"Vikings -1 and -2," the gravelly voice of Karen Strycinski called out. "We've got a passenger ship reporting some type of asteroid just passing the Moon. They said they can't get a reading on it and only knew it was there because they damn near rammed into it. We're not picking it up either. The ship is holding station near it until you can get there and check it out."
"Roger that, Boss," Cag replied. "We'll head over and scope it out now. Viking-1 out. You heard the lady, kid. Let's go see what this cruise ship skipper stumbled across."
"Can't be too big if it isn't showing up on the screens," Preacher remarked as he punched his Viking to full throttle to keep pace with Cag as his ship hurtled forward. "Not to mention all of the satellites around Earth dedicated to finding these things."
"That's the first thing you learn out here," Cag said. "Just because it's impossible, doesn't mean it can't be happening."
They made contact with the passenger ship, the Norfolk, half an hour later. As the two fighters approached, neither of their sensor packages picked up anything beside the Norfolk even though both pilots could see sunlight reflecting off the surface of something roughly six hundred meters from the vessel. The Norfolk looked very much like the fuselage of the old 777 aircraft that flew passengers in the Earth's atmosphere, only with the wings clipped off and a single engine package in the rear. It also looked like a flea by comparison next to the asteroid.
"Holy shit," Preacher exclaimed. "Look at the size of that monster!"
"Settle down, kid," Cag chided, switching the com to the civilian channel. "Norfolk, this is Viking-1. Looks like you found us a big rock where one shouldn't be."
"You could say that, Viking," the Norfolk's captain replied. "We nearly rammed right into the damned thing before we spotted it. It doesn't show up on any scans. If my First hadn't been looking right at it when sunlight reflected off of it we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."
"We'll take it off your hands so you can continue on."
"With pleasure, Viking. Norfolk out."
The passenger ship peeled away as the two fighters took up position on either side of the asteroid, each roughly three hundred meters away from the monster rock.
"I can't get any readings from it," Preacher reported as Cag switched back to his channel. "This thing must be the length of four football fields."
"At least," Cag agreed as they kept pace with the asteroid. Something about the course it was on was bothering him. "Shepard, this is Viking-1. We are holding station-keeping on either side of this asteroid. Can you see us on your screens?"
"We've got both of you," Shepard reported. "But we're not seeing anything else with you. We're also getting some weird interference, not enough to keep us from seeing you but still not kosher."
"We're having the same issue here," Cag admitted. "Can you determine our current course?" "Stand by." An anxious three minutes passed in silence. It was broken by the Shepard's captain.
"Cag, if you are on the same heading as that rock then you are a collision course with the middle of the Pacific Ocean."
Preacher swore, and Cag didn't bother to chide him. The kid had a point.
"It gets worse, Cag," the captain continued. "Because no one saw this coming, we don't have anything in position to shoot it down before impact. You've got an hour at its current speed before it's too late to stop it. Do whatever you can to deflect it or destroy it. Anything that size punches into Earth's atmosphere…well, I think you know what that means."
"Yeah," Cag agreed. "Nothing planet side survives. Alright skipper, we'll deal with it. Viking-1 out."
"Good luck, Cag," the skipper called out before signing off.
"Ok, kid, lets back off of this thing and set up for the shot."
The two fighters peeled away to a distance of three kilometers. They could still see an occasional reflection of sunlight from the asteroid's surface even though the scans could not see it.
"Preacher," Cag ordered. "Target the nose of that thing and fire two sidewinders at it. Let's see if we can change its course."
"I'll have to target it manually."
"What kind of a Cag would I be if I didn't test to see how well you can shoot without help?"
"Gee, thanks," Preacher replied, setting up his shot. "Fox-1! Fox-2!"
The two nuclear-tipped missiles streaked away from the wing of Preacher's fighter and headed straight for their targets. But less than two hundred meters from reaching their destination, they suddenly shot wildly away. One headed off into space while the other headed straight back at the fighters.
"Abort them!" Cag ordered.
Preacher stabbed the abort buttons for both, destroying the missiles before they could hit an unintended target.
"That's interesting," Preacher remarked. "I've never seen that happen before."
"Same here. So, whatever is interfering with our scans is doing the same with missiles. Okay. Let's try our laser cannons. We'll do a strafing run. Same target, the nose. We'll see if we can nudge it that way."
The fighters hurtled toward the asteroid. Both opened fire with their nose-mounted cannons once in range. But as with the missiles, the laser projectiles veered sharply away from the target long before coming close enough to strike it.
"Cease fire," Cag ordered as he pulled away from the target. "This isn't getting us anywhere. Whatever that thing is made of it has a natural defense against what we can throw at it."
"What are we going to do? We can't just let it smash into Earth."
"No, we can't," Cag agreed, thinking. "Kid, I've got an idea that sounds a little crazy, but we just might be able to make work."
"I'm game. Besides, nothing else seems to be working."
"Good man," Cag said. "We're going to make a sandwich out of this thing. Get it directly between us. Once we're lined up, we're going to unload every missile we've got at it but we're going to keep the missiles locked on our respective ships. Once they get close enough, we detonate them and hope it's enough of a punch to move this thing. At this distance, we only need to nudge it a little to make it pass Earth by."
"You're right," Preacher agreed. "It sounds crazy. But it's crazy enough to work."
"Glad you agree," Cag said dryly. "To pull this off, we're going to need a lot of speed. You loop around the Moon, use its gravity to get a boost. I'll do the same around Earth. At the speed they'll be going, maybe they'll punch through whatever that field is and get the job done."
"Roger that, Cag," Preacher said. "Heading off now. See you on the other side."
"Roger," Cag replied as he turned his ship toward Earth, then switched to a separate com channel. "Shepard? This is Viking-1. Do you read me?"
"We read you, Cag," Shepard's captain replied. "And we heard that cockamamie idea you fed your wingman. No matter how much speed you add to your missiles they won't get past whatever field that thing is putting up. And they can't get close enough to move that monster so much as an inch. You want to tell me what you're up to?"
"There's only one way to get armed missiles through something like that," Cag replied quietly. "You have to manually fly them in. I'm carrying four sidewinders on my wings and one hull buster on my belly. I'll arm them and fly them right into the nose of that monster, no matter how hard that field tries to swat me away.
"
There was a long minute of silence.
"You got a better idea, skipper, I'm all ears."
Another minute passed silently.
"No, damnit to hell, Cag, I surely don't. You want me to pass along a message to Matt? I doubt we can reach him in time to set up a live conversation."
"He'll understand," Cag said. "Just tell him…tell him I'll say hello to his mother when I see her."
"Will do. Viking-2 is just about to go out of your visual range. If you start your run now he'll be on the other side when you… when it happens. Godspeed, Viking-1."
"Thank you, skipper. Viking-1 starting its run now. Out."
Cag wheeled his fighter around. Taking one last visual sighting of the asteroid, he armed all of his weapons and throttled his engine to full thrust. He only needed to make one slight course adjustment to hold his target on the asteroid's nose. Less than a kilometer away, he shoved his throttle forward, redlining the fighter's engine. It would only last a minute or two at that setting. Cag only needed it to last for thirty seconds.
"Cag! What are you doing?" Preacher yelled out, having cleared the Moon early and spotting Cag's run. Cag, focused on his task, didn't hear him. But the captain of the Shepard did.
"He's doing his job, kid."
As he neared the looming asteroid his ship began to buck, striking the outer edges of the field. Cag fought the stick, keeping his fighter on target right up until impact, dead center of the asteroid's nose.
****
On the dark side of the Earth a new blue Sun suddenly erupted, turning night into day for a full fifteen minutes before it faded away and the night sky reclaimed its rightful place. Within hours the entire world had heard of the sacrifice of one man. A man who had given his life to destroy an asteroid that would have cracked the planet’s mantle, perhaps even shattered the entire planet had it not been stopped.
In the Space Force area of Arlington National Cemetery lies the grave of one Barbara Carrington. Her body lies in rest under the ground in front of her marker. Next to it is a monument. The Earth, in gold and silver inlay, lies at the base of a platinum obelisk some ten feet high. At the top of the obelisk, a blue flame is eternally lit. On one side of the obelisk is carved an epitaph:
Space Force: Building The Legacy Page 7
