by Isaac Stone
“Lt. Patrice Desinour,” the voice told me. “United Democracies Federation Navy. Don’t you remember? I did the tests on you last week. I’m the tall one.” There was a pause as he waited for me to respond.
Of course, the Goat Squad, although they hated that name. Captain mentioned they’d be running observations during the time we were in this system. He’d picked up on my sensations and wanted to talk about it. How he knew I’d flipped out of a vision was something we needed to discuss.
“Just a minute, Lieutenant,” I told him. “I’ve have to handle something first.” I looked at the image of Orlando in my helmet. "Orlando, I’ve found a fighter of some kind hanging back behind the smugglers. I don’t think they know its following them, but we need to investigate it. Could be another suicide run in the making. I’ll send you the coordinates. Tran, recalibrate for the new target. Give me a few seconds, I’ve a call on the line and need to address it.”
“Sorry I didn’t recognize your voice, Lieutenant,” I returned to the caller. “We just met and I never did get your names.”
“My companion was Lt. Hugo Ramirez,” he informed me. “We’re running observational studies on your performance. You found that Roka ship without the use of instruments. We noted it.”
“How can you tell that?” I demanded.
“There are ways. We picked it up a few minutes ago but didn’t think anyone had the ability to sift through its sign with the smugglers in front. You’ve shifted your attention to it and this tells us you found the Roka too. We were about to inform you of its location, but I see you know it already.”
“My attention? How the hell can you follow that?”
“We have a few people from our division here who can pick up on sensations, same as you. No, they can’t read your mind, no one can do that, but they are very good and noticing changes and patterns in a person’s attention. We were informed a change in your behavior a few minutes ago and decided it was time to put in a call.”
I seethed with resent. The knowledge that these Udies were measuring my brain didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t like the thought of someone deciding to have a peek inside. We’d talk about it later.
“So why the sudden interest in my head?” I demanded. “This isn’t the same game we played back on the Hard Rain. Does Captain know what you’re doing?”
“Captain Sophia doesn’t know exactly what we’re doing this minute, but we’ll keep her informed. Listen, we can help you. There are two other paranormal talents with us who noticed what the Roka fighter is up to at this second. If you work with us, we’ll all be able to take it out. No reason to place yourself in danger.”
“Negative on that, Lieutenant. We love danger. It’s what me and the boys do. I can handle that Roka fighter alone.”
“We understand, Corwin. However, this matter is now out of our hands. Someone much higher up has decided to intervene and there isn’t much you or I can do about it.”
I didn’t answer right away. Orlando had the location of the starfighter. Tran knew what gun to use against it. All that mattered was how we would do the job. I had a plan in mind based on the sensations I’d receive from the pilot of the fighter. There was only one pilot in it, but he had experience. If they were sending out experienced pilots on suicide missions, it meant the Roka were desperate.
“I think we can handle this one renegade,” I let him know.
“Sorry,” he responded, “but, as I said, the decision no longer rests with us.
Two seconds later, twelve UDF Navy Corvettes dropped out of hyperspace. They never even gave us a warning. Talk about overkill.
“We have a disturbance up ahead, boss,” Orlando shouted over the audio.
I watched the feeds on the screens in front of me turned several different shades of red. The energy needed to bring that many ships through at once was enormous. I was surprised they went with the lighter attack ships, but I think the corvettes were chosen because of the maneuverability factor. The Navy could deploy them around the convoy and not worry about too much firepower concentrated in one location. I watched as they swarmed out of the Insubstantia and headed toward the convoy.
“Kinda makes us redundant,” Tran spoke up. “Do they know about the Roka fighter? I’m guessing yes because they came out in between it and the convoy”
“Even the smugglers are changing course,” Orlando spoke. “As a matter of fact, they’re turning around. Can’t say I blame them. I wouldn’t want to fly into that shit storm either. Those corvettes will use them for target practice.”
The Navy had set this whole thing up. They never intended for us to merely patrol the lanes and make it safe. We were there to fool the Roka, make it appear safe to attack the convoy. My crew was simply part of a decoy plan they’d dreamed up in some strategic planning session. There would be no glory for the pack or us. It was a politically charged scheme to make the Hard Rain look bad, to pretend as if they hadn't needed us to save their asses before. Not on my watch.
“Sorry, again, Lieutenant,” I informed the UDF officer. “I’m not going to sit here and let that Roka fighter get away. I can see he’s changing his course pattern.”
“Corwin,” Lt. Patrice told me. “It’s not important. The Roka will pull out and we’ll get it later. Now they’ll know what kind of force we can muster should they attempt this again.”
I had some other ideas.
10
I didn’t know it at the time, but there was quite a file on me at Goat Squad Headquarters. It wasn’t an accident they’d decided to send the two officers to the Hard Rain for the interview. They already knew the answers they’d get; it was a simple matter of seeing me up close.
In fact, The Goat Squad had me under observation the day I was born.
I’d come of age in another ship, one called the Deep Dark. It was a sister pack to the one I was in now, both part of the Starwing Order. As I may have mentioned, every ship in the Starwing was organized around a core group of eighteen men and eighteen women pledged to each other. Plus, a group of children who were brought up to learn the ways of running a mothership. And the captain, always a woman.
My parents were told when it was time to make a baby and I was the result. As odd as it is for people not part of our order to understand, it’s not difficult to make a child when you are given the responsibility. So long as you know they’ll be cared for by everyone on the ship and sent off at the right age. My father, like a lot of the men on Starwing ships, was killed when his crew was ambushed by raiders in one of the locations they patrolled. I don’t remember much of him, just the few times I was allowed to go inside the FAS where he acted as gunner. I remember a large man who sat behind a console and tried to figure out why it wouldn’t work as planned. I was five standard years when we received the news he wasn’t coming back.
My mother was in charge of the propulsion systems on the mothership. I remember her sitting off to one side in the main hall crying when she got the news. She wasn’t the only one that grieved for him. Too much attachment to any one of your roster partners is considered unseemly by the Order. However, parents of children have a special bond. This can get complicated if there are multiple children and multiple parents connected, as we are still just humans after all.
I’d grown up in the children's section, moving up to help the adults out as needed when I became older. It’s not so much different from the extended families I’ve encountered in other arrangements. At any given time, there were ten to twelve kids on board and we got along with each other. You had to behave if there were thirty-four aunts and uncles who watched your every moment.
I was six when my abilities to sense what took place in the minds of others began to affect me. One of the other kids ran into a wall and I could feel the same pain that he did. I could tell what one of the adults needed done before they told me to do it. My aunts and uncles would tell my mother how good it was that I would arrive with a cleaning rag in advance.
I remember we were all tog
ether at one table one day when I knew an alert was about to take place. The way it worked was that the older kids were responsible for the younger during combat. Since all the adults were needed on the deck or in an FAS, the kids who were in their teens supervised their younger siblings and cousins. We’d taken in a few foundlings through the UDF but considered them part of our extended family. I was fourteen at the time, had all the children lined up, and ready to head to the secure room when the alarms began to wail. I managed to get them all into the room before the adults checked to make sure we were safe.
“How did you know, Corwin?” one of my cousins, a girl named Lilly, asked me. I think she was about nine.
“I just knew,” I told her. It was the only answer I could give her. I just knew the alert was on the way.
We stayed down there for six hours while the Deep Dark shot it out with four different intruders. I don’t even remember whom it was that we fought. When it was all over, the adults had us come back up on the main deck and checked us over to make sure everyone was fine.
Usually, you didn’t go down into the children’s section until you could walk. Babies stayed with their mothers to bond until they were moved in with the other kids. I’ve watched ship gunners firing on target while the newborns are slung across their chest. Someone once told me that a woman protecting her child is the deadliest creature in the universe. I’ve seen it up close and can believe it.
Later that day, I sat down with my mother and Captain Miriam to talk about how I knew we were about to be attacked. It was in the captain’s quarters and they asked me to describe my feelings the moment I knew it was about to happen.
“It’s hard to describe,” I told her. “I felt some fear and panic that came from outside me. It wasn’t a good sensation and I knew it meant an attack of some kind. So I lined the kids up and led them to safety. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”
“Yes, you are supposed to do that,” Captain Miriam confirmed. “But most of your cousins don’t do it until the siren goes off. I needed to hear it from you myself.”
It was then I knew there was something more going on than my hunches. Captain placed one hand on my mother’s shoulder and looked at her.
“It’s why I wanted you and Nikolai together, Ann,” she spoke to her. “You both tested higher than your parents. Corwin, and whoever he sires, will be higher yet.”
I still remember the way my mother cried as I left the room.
I came out of my reverie and snapped to attention. No, I wasn’t about to let this one get away. They’d brought me along to smoke out the hostiles, it was my to see those men fulfilled their mission. Without a meaningful target, we had no reason to exist. The UDF would find a way to get rid of the Orders and replace them with conscripts, one more drop in the bucket that one day could become a flood.
I wasn’t about to let it happen.
“You tell Captain we’re on this blip,” I sent back to the Latasha on the mothership. “We’ll be home in time for the next shift. I can’t afford to let the other guys do our duty.”
“You do it well enough,” she told me. “I’ve never complained.”
“Are you off duty soon?”
“In five minutes.”
“Who’s your next assignment?”
“Marcus.”
“Make him extra happy for me.”
I heard a chuckle on the other end. She’d keep the channel open until the next operator relived her. I had more important things to think about.
I looked at the screen in my helmet that showed Orlando while he worked the controls for the FAS. “Do you have a lock on that Roka?” I asked him. He was hard to read behind the helmet.
“He’s moving back,” Orlando spoke. “About sixty degrees from where he was the last time.” The fighter wasn’t as unobtrusive as he’d thought.
“Take it down ninety degrees from the last reading,” I let him know. “He’ll think no one’s following him and be caught by surprise. “We come up under him and he’ll be caught off guard.” Once again, we were near the gas giant that the colony orbited. With that gas giant as cover, the Roka starfighter could avoid us until he ran out of fuel.
This brought something else up to mind.
“Orlando,” I called his name. “How does the cesium tank look?”
I watched as he tapped a few screens that floated around him. You couldn't pile up too many of them inside your suit helmet.
“We’ll hold steady for the next four hours,” he replied. “After that, we need to get back to the mothership. It gets worse the more maneuvering we have to do. I’d give us three hours if we have to chase him around, two if he gets close to the planet.”
“Can we get the ship to send out a refueler?” I questioned. Hard Rain carried some remote supply ships in case an FAS was stuck away from base.
“Those things only work if there’s no interference around,” Orlando explained. “I don’t see them sending one if we get to close the planet.”
I did some quick calculations in my head. We had enough of a window to take out the starfighter, but not much. The risk was in getting too close to that planet. However, the starfighter was in the same situation. I couldn’t allow it to get away. My orders were to protect the convoy, and we’d already made sure that wasn’t an issue. My secondary orders were always to search and destroy hostiles. Did the Roka ship count as a hostile? Well, it did when it was headed toward the convoy. Given that it might carry a nuke, it was still as suicide bomber that represented a threat to the colony. So, yeah, we had an active hostile situation. Even Captain would agree with me on that one.
“We’re going in,” I let Orlando know. "Keep me updated on the fuel situation. Any problems with it and I’ll bug out, but not until.”
I had Orlando crank up the torch, but not too much. So far, the Roka ship didn’t know we were there. If I got close enough to it undetected, we had the possibility to take it out with something long range. The FAS ships carried long-range missiles that could do the job. Up close, the lasers were a better option, or the chain cannons.
Moments later, I heard from Medoro. “Missiles armed and ready,” he let me know over the audio. “Do you want me to chamber them up?” They were kept in a separate compartment until needed, then loaded into the launcher. They were kept away to avoid an accidental launch. Over the years, there’d been several instances of friendly fire inside an Order ship when the guns on an FAS accidentally discharged inside the hanger.
“Load it up,” I told Medoro. “We might need these boys in a second.” I watched as the lights changed from yellow to red over the missile icons.
“I’m increasing power ten percent,” Orlando let me know. “He’s sped up a bit himself.” I watched the enhanced charts appear in front of my helm that showed the progress of the Roka based on his current position relative to ours. The gas giant played a big role in the drama.
“Missile locked on target,” Tran spoke. “I can fire whenever you want. Estimated time to impact is thirty seconds.”
Thirty seconds? That wasn’t enough time for the Roka pilot to realize he was under attack. Yes, we could take him out in one punch, but we’d do it with a shot from behind. In essence, we’d have followed the villain in the story out of the saloon and plugged him before he even turned around.
There was no honor in such a behavior. If nothing else, Captain had stressed the importance of honorable fighting and behavior. It was a tight code that bound us all together better than any threat of punishment. Besides, the UDF was watching, and they knew I knew their intentions.
“Hold your fire,” I told Tran. “He doesn’t know where here. I have to give him the opportunity to surrender or fight.”
There was a bit of a pause in the FAS. They knew I wouldn’t cross Captain’s standing orders even if it meant a clean kill.
“What if he shows that he knows we’re here?” Tran asked.
“That would be different,” I informed them. “Then it would be a fair fight
.”
Tran made a few modifications on his panel. Two seconds later, the missile was sent on its way.
“I did not give you the order to fire!” I shouted through the audio.
“Sorry about that,” Tran informed me. “I seem to have misunderstood you.”
In horror, I watched as the missile was tracked on the screen on a trajectory toward the unsuspecting Roka fighter. There was nothing more that could be done as it arced over the screen in a pattern that would terminate on the Roka ship. There was only one thing I could do right now.
“Detonate the missile!” I ordered Tran. “Blow that thing before it hits the Roka from behind.”
“Sure,” Tran followed and made an adjustment from some simulated controls that floated over him.
I watched the screen as a red cloud blossomed where the missile was tracked. It was only at the halfway point when it detonated. The small explosion wouldn’t even register at the mothership, since it was on the other side of the gas giant. The AI informed me the missile's flight pattern was terminated. The Roka ship was still in flight, but there was no way it would’ve missed the explosion behind it. The missile didn’t carry a nuclear charge, but the blast would be picked up by the pilot.
Which is just what Tran intended.
“You meant for that to happen,” I concluded. I couldn't see much of his face since it was packed inside the helmet, but I could make out a smile.
“We're putting on a show for the UDF right?” he spoke with a smile.
The Roka starfighter was aware of us. There was no way it could avoid knowing about our location. I watched the enhanced image of the ship as it changed directions and began to descend toward the gas giant. The pilot wasn’t stupid; this much was obvious to me. I could tell that he’d wanted to lose us by using the planet as interference. He could turn around and engage us, but we out-gunned him. He might have more speed and maneuverability than our FAS, but, by the time he’d turned around to confront our ship, we’d have shot him full of holes. No, he wanted to survive this encounter as much as we wanted to take him out.
