“I can see one not responding but not all three,” Borland said.
“Yeah, I don’t like it.”
“Raptor 4-1, this is Lighthouse 1. What do you have?”
“We’ve overflown the craft. Transports, two Swans and a Deca. Orion-flagged. They aren’t answering our calls. Transmitting ident information. Request permission to fire a warning shot.”
“Copy, 4-1. Permission granted.”
Before firing warning shots, Borland was about to hail a final time when one of the Swans peeled off. Maintaining orbit or leaving? She erred on the side of caution. “Let’s follow the straggler.”
The Swan did not attempt to accelerate away; it just continued in a lazy course away from the other ships, all three appearing as neutral blue dots on her scope. She tried to communicate with it again. No answer. She then received a call as she prepared to fire warning shots for non-compliance. She tried to decipher it through a raging storm of static, to no avail.
“Say again, Orion vessel,” Borland said. “Transmission garbled. Over.”
“The other ships are separating,” Walker observed aloud.
She consulted her scope and the other vessels’ trajectories. The second Swan had dipped its nose and was accelerating ahead of atmospheric entry. The Deca remained on course to enter the atmosphere in five minutes.
“We’ve been had.” She veered away from the Swan as she spoke. “Apprehend this vessel, Walker. I’m going after the other Swan.”
“Roger 4-1.”
She radioed Phoenix and requested a flight be scrambled to intercept the Deca. The Swan she chased flamed like a fallen star as it entered Verdant’s atmosphere, the ship already far ahead of her. Not fast enough to save you, pal. Moments later her Raven shook mildly when she made entry, the vibrations quickly ceasing as she descended into the atmosphere. She spotted the Swan descending sharply at a distance of thirty-five kilometers and rammed the throttles forward. Swans—particularly smugglers’ ships with modified high-performance engines—had impressive tactical speed for a mid-sized freight vessel, but it could not outrun her Raven. She bided her time and closed—
20 klicks
10
5.
The Swan continued its steep descent, finally leveling off at a thousand meters, streaking over the jungle at a swift Mach 2.
“Orion vessel, decrease to subsonic speed immediately. Over.”
No response came, though the Swan decelerated to Mach 1 as it dropped to 850 meters, barely clearing mountaintops.
Enough of this shit. She fired particle beam cannons, two warning shots that narrowly missed the Swan’s bridge, the blue-white bolts illuminating its energy shields. Maybe they would finally get the idea. Nope, the ship did not slow to subsonic, even after a second volley of warnings. “Orion vessel, decrease speed or you will be fired upon. This is your final warning. Over.”
Borland rolled and dove in the next instant, evading bolts of green laser cannon fire erupting from hidden gun ports on the ventral side of Swan’s hull.
Motherfucker! She pulled out of the dive but found she had lost visual contact. The Swan had disappeared behind a mountain, yet it remained on her scope, its speed now subsonic as it dropped toward the treetops.
“Lighthouse 1, Raptor 4-1, I am taking fire. Request permission to engage.”
After a brief pause, the voice came back, “Raptor 4-1, you’re cleared to fire. Splash the transport.”
Thank you! “Raptor 4-1, copy. Engaging.”
She circled the mountain, caught sight of the freighter and pursued. As she positioned behind the ship again, nearly back in cannon range, cargo doors on the Swan’s belly opened. Shining aluminum crates fell from the hold, plummeting toward a jungle clearing. Rocket activated parachutes blossomed from the crates as they fell.
“Lighthouse 1, Raptor 4-1, bogie is dumping cargo.” She marked the location of the insurgent cargo drop and transmitted it to the command.
Borland got back into cannon range. The ship’s gunners opened up again, forcing her to dodge and weave between the laser bolts. She returned fire, saw her particle beams energize impotently off the ship’s rear deflector shield.
Shit! That isn’t stock either.
The Swan then nosed upward and accelerated past Mach 3, bound for space and escape. Her reactor level hit thirty percent, but she still had a full payload of air-to-air missiles. At five thousand meters and counting, the ship continued to climb as the gun crews blasted away.
As green blasts discharged against her front deflector shield, Borland backed off from the thick laser fire, realizing she needed to try a different tact. Those shields will hold until they are clear of the atmosphere, and they will make a precalculated jump out of the system. The Swan continued to accelerate, eating up altitude. She put her visor-mounted pipper on the fleeing transport, achieved radar lock, and unleashed one of her eight air-to-air missiles from her Raven’s internal weapons bay.
“Raptor 4-1, Fox 1.”
She watched as the missile whisked away from her. As it closed the distance, the freighter’s laser fire intersected the projectile, causing it to explode in a pale orange flash.
They must want seconds.
She pushed her throttle forward to close the gap and gave them three more.
“4-1, Fox 1.”
Again the Swan’s cannons fired, destroying two of the missiles. The other flew into one of the Swan’s glowing exhaust ports and exploded in a fountain of sparks and flames. Black smoke streamed from its other exhaust ports as the ship banked to the right, lost altitude, and decelerated to subsonic speed.
Borland smiled behind her face shield as she eased back on the throttle and dropped to subsonic in a heartbeat as well, pushing her own aircraft into a dive. As she swung in behind and above the plummeting freighter, she kept well clear of the now silent laser turrets. Flames licked from the freighter as the Swan’s nose dropped into a steep dive. She circled the area as the wounded freighter plummeted to its death, finally crashing on a mountainside in a ball of white-hot fire and smoking debris.
“Lighthouse 1, this is Raptor 4-1. Splash one Swan. Confirmed visual ID,” Borland announced, followed by the coordinates of the crash.
Intel would want to examine the wreckage. Marines would be dispatched to the drop zone to intercept the shipment. She hoped they would arrive before the insurgents made off with the supplies.
“Nice job, ma’am,” Walker responded.
He sounds relaxed. Borland’s adrenaline remained high. “What’s going on up there?”
“I have a Swan who’s had enough. We’ll be escorting him back to Phoenix.”
“Did he fire on you?”
“No, he just surrendered. His radio started working after I fired a warning.”
Because he’s the decoy. My Swan carried the contraband. “Imagine that. And the Deca freighter?”
“Escaped, ma’am,” answered another pilot, one of those in her flight who scrambled to catch the Deca. “It broke off and made the shipping lane just before we caught up to it.”
“And you let it go?”
“As per regulations, ma’am.”
“Dammit!” I should have requested the flight go up the moment those ships didn’t respond. A few seconds might have made the difference.
“Two out of three’s not bad, ma’am,” Walker said.
“It’s not perfect either.”
“We’ll have to settle for good enough then.”
“Cut the banter, you two,” came the voice of Commander Starnes, their CO. “Walker, get that Swan landed in the inspection hangar. Borland, head back for debriefing. Let’s get this incident sorted out.”
***
For someone so allegedly eager to debrief, Starnes made Borland wait for over an hour before calling her into his office. He sat frowning over the holo-screen on his computer as she reported. After she’d stood for several seconds at attention, he turned his
attention to her, his scowl flipping to a smile. Borland didn’t like him for exactly that reason. Too emotional, too knee-jerk. Crawford, though a curmudgeon and harsh disciplinarian, had at least been consistent.
“Be seated, Borland.” But for a couple of lines on his forehead, he looked far younger than his years, like a black-haired, brush-cut ensign straight out of flight school. “I was just going over the camera footage of your kill. Nice shooting up there.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What’s that bring you to, six confirmed kills?”
“Nine, sir.”
“Outstanding. Alliance Intel is en route to the crash site, and a platoon of Marines has already seized the dropped cargo: weapons, ammo, and supplies. You saved a lot of lives out there, lieutenant commander. Well played.”
“What about the other Swan, sir? Was it carrying any contraband?”
“Not that we’ve discovered, at least so far. It’s loaded with components used for tridinium processing, as per its manifest. Our boys will tear it apart to the last nut and bolt though.”
“And the crew, sir?”
“They claim to know nothing, that they were convoying with the other ships just for security purposes.”
Yeah, right. “How do they explain not answering our calls, sir?”
He offered a smirk of annoyance. “We’re still questioning them, Borland.”
“And if we don’t find anything?”
He shrugged. “They’ll be released. They and their ship are Orion Republic. We can’t detain them without any hard evidence.”
So they fly out of here in a couple of days. Swell. “The flight I called up could have captured the Deca, sir.”
He shook his head. “Not in the shipping lanes, Borland. You’re familiar with the inter-system trade regulations. Again, evidence would have been required to apprehend or destroy that ship in an inter-system trade route.”
Now she shook her head. “That’s ten-thousand tons of supplies we’re bound to see again, sir.”
His friendly countenance darkened a bit. “I am aware of the realities. If you want to cause inter-system incidents once you become a captain, good luck to you. I won’t have it on my record. We do it by the book around here. Period.”
“Understood, sir. May I ask a question?”
He barked a brief laugh. “Go ahead. You’ve done little else.”
“Now that we do have hard evidence of insurgent supplies being dropped, what are the chances of getting another squadron from the fleet stationed at Phoenix? We don’t have enough fighters to monitor this entire moon, and it takes too long for fleet squadrons to cover us if we run into trouble.”
“You know the situation isn’t likely to change,” he said, obviously exasperated. “Our fighter strength on Verdant is already at max under the Frontier Deployment Pact.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.” Were you expecting something more? You’ve been around long enough to know better.
The genial Starnes returned. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, Borland. Maybe one day when one of us sits on the Joint Defense Council we can change it. Until then, we suck it up and deal. Now, is there anything else?”
You called me in here, remember? “No, sir.”
“Very well, then, dismissed.”
Starnes called to her as she departed. “I’ll have your after-action report in the next hour, and the XO is still waiting for your report on the close-air support mission the other day.”
“I’ll see to it, sir.”
“Yes, do that.”
She departed, still seething a bit. Starnes’ obedience to the treaties and the council didn’t bother her as much as the blithe fashion in which he observed them. Well, he is unpredictable. Maybe he rants and raves about having his hands tied when no one’s looking. She shook her head, not believing it. And maybe I fly a broom instead of a Raven. She also thought it would be wise to tone down her rhetoric when dealing with Starnes in the future. While she hadn’t shown him any outright disrespect, frustration had pushed her damn close to the line. It took nothing more to land on a CO’s shit list, as she well knew, having been on quite a few.
Borland headed to her quarters, dreading an afternoon of administrative duties.
“Sandra?” a feminine voice called. “Sandra Borland?”
She turned to find a tall, blond, athletic commander in a flight suit strode toward her. “Jocelyn…? How are you?”
Borland hadn’t seen Jocelyn Kelly, an old squadron mate, for several years. And the years have been good to her. They’d been commissioned at roughly the same time, yet Jocelyn had been promoted already, while Borland languished as a lieutenant commander. Forever at the rate I’m going.
“I’m doing great. You look awesome!” They embraced.
Oh please… “And you look better!” They laughed, though both knew it was true. Borland certainly did.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m with Raptor squadron, as a flight leader. How about yourself, ma’am?”
“Oh, stop it. I recently took over as CO for Viper squadron a few weeks ago when our old lady retired.”
CO! I can’t even get an XO slot! “If I had known you were here, I would have looked you up sooner. Congrats! You deserve it.”
“Thanks. We both know you are the better stick. How are Stephen and your kids?”
“They’re doing great!” The kids are, anyway. “I see you’ve gotten married. Congratulations on that as well.” Her name tape read ROTEN.
“Thanks. I didn’t land a doctor like you did, but how about an engineer?”
“I’d say you’re doing pretty well. Any children yet?” Surely not! The woman’s statuesque figure remained in mint condition, a far cry from her own child-ravaged body. It made her wonder if she had undergone any genetic or cosmetic enhancements.
“Two, a girl and a boy. We took a vacation just before the deployment—two weeks on Solaris. Let me show you.” She produced a holo-pad and showed Borland the pictures. The blond power couple, both tanned and divinely beautiful, stood with their tiny, towheaded children on a tropical beach, everyone all smiles.
Jesus, they’re perfect. She must have utilized an artificial womb. Sandra missed her pre-child body, but she had wanted to experience traditional childbirth.
When was the last time we took a vacation? Her last leave had been cancelled. She wondered, if she were a commander, would things have been different: leave granted, a leadership billet upon her return. But her pondering produced only ifs and buts. And it’ll take more than a week in paradise to bring Steve and I back together.
She played up how well her marriage was going, how well her children were doing in school. At least the latter was true. Jocelyn didn’t boast of how well her life was going; she didn’t need to. It was all painfully apparent to Borland, who cursed herself for feeling pangs of jealousy.
Stationed with Sixth Fleet, Jocelyn had ferried a newly repaired fighter down to Phoenix, a convenient excuse for her to get off ship and sightsee a bit. She would depart shortly on a shuttle to rejoin the fleet. “If you’re ever aboard the Resolute, we’ll have to get together for dinner,” Jocelyn said.
“Definitely. It’s great seeing you again.”
Seeing Jocelyn needled Borland after they parted ways. They’d always been good friends, and living well hadn’t changed Jocelyn. Living poorly has changed me. She looked forward to seeing Jocelyn again, even as she loathed the thought of it.
CHAPTER 20
Rizer slogged through a jungle bog, exhausted and wishing he were anywhere but there. Focus, god dammit! That was the problem: his mind often wandered, seeking escape from the heat, anxiety, and monotony of constant patrols against an enemy who rarely engaged in a stand-up fight, relying instead on snipers, IEDs, and hit-and-run ambushes. When the mind wandered, the body could quickly follow—straight into the grave. He’d seen it happen a couple of times, Marines killed by
their own boredom and complacency. He thought of SSgt Len’s words on his first night in the fleet: Remember, most Marines don’t die when they’re expecting it.
He’d yet to kill an enemy but fought in a few minor scraps over the last couple of months. The senior Marines called Rizer and his peers boots only rarely now and usually in jest, with the exception of now-Sergeant Baltazar. But Rizer didn’t care what his squad leader thought of them. To him, we’ll always be shit on his heel.
“Approaching the clearing,” announced Stiglitz, first fire team leader. “One hundred meters.” A corporal now, he had replaced Daz, who had recently gone home for good when his five-year contract expired. Lucky motherfucker.
“Fire teams, spread out in order along the tree line,” Baltazar ordered.
Baltazar, Rizer, Stubs, and Bach, along with Green and Billings from weapons platoon formed fourth fire team. Spread out at five-meter intervals along the edge of the burned-out clearing, they assumed prone positions on the squad’s right flank. Green carried the squad’s M-361 heavy plasma machinegun; Billings, loaded down with many ammo drums, was his A-gunner. Other Marines from weapons platoon increased Doom’s strength to twenty bodies.
They lensed the blackened clearing, scanned with all sensors for signs of the enemy.
Fucking idiots, Rizer thought as he surveyed the devastation: a swath of blackened earth and charred trees half a kilometer wide, stretching left and right for at least three klicks in either direction. He’d heard that General Hella, commander of the expeditionary force, had ordered the Verdant Guard to stop defoliating and burning tracts of jungle to root out the insurgents. The pointless tactic failed to hinder the enemy and forced Marine patrols to cross the open areas.
Some said the endless fires increased insurgent recruitment, which Rizer did not doubt.
Several yellow pieces of heavy equipment were visible on the recon drone feed, parked in the clearing a klick down on the right. Maybe the Guard cleared it for more mining. Rizer had learned early on that corporate orders usually trumped General Hella’s. Most of the Marines knew whom and what they were really fighting for, though a few idealistic service members—boots mostly—still believed they were bringing peace, freedom, and justice to the poor folks of Verdant.
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