Lieutenant Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 3)

by Timothy Ellis

  “Scramble,” I said again, and this time they leapt up, and ran through one of the rifts. The screens showed them jumping into their ships within seconds of each other, and suddenly they were all in space.

  Long Water left them behind.

  I kept my chuckle in, as I heard Norden giving speed orders. Instead, I looked at Jane out of habit, and realized I needed to talk to Long instead.

  “Can we have pilot head hollos on the console, please.”

  “Sure.”

  Eleven faces appeared.

  “Do their AI’s have faces?”

  “They do,” said Jane. “Part of the co-pilot initiative is, for those ships not running the two seater hollo overlay, or in a two seater when they come out of the shipyard, the new normal has the AI’s head on the console like this.”

  “So we could display both here?”

  “Yes,” said Long. “Want to?”

  “Do it.”

  “Side by side, or AI above and behind the pilot?”

  “Above and behind. And put you and I on every ship console like that as well.”

  The co-pilots appeared behind their pilots, and it did look like it would from a single cam looking at dual seats.

  “Done.”

  The Excaliburs had caught up now, and taken a formation in a circle around Long Water, level with the bridge, and far enough away there wouldn’t be a collision if I needed to change direction in a hurry, while not being too far away. The AIs would prevent a collision in any case.

  I let us continue on for a few minutes.

  “Any orders, admiral?”

  “Your discretion, captain.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “CAG?”

  The channel was open to everyone

  “Sir?” responded Norden, looking and sounding a bit out of his depth.

  “We’re going to do a dawn patrol, and practice deploy and recovery at the same time. Jump on board when you’re ready, and Long Water will jump somewhere. You’ll get a deploy order from Long each time we reach a destination, and you’ll jump out as a squadron, and form up in a formation of your choosing. At the end of our flyby phase, Long will again cue the recovery jump, and you’ll jump the squadron all at once on board, after which Long Water will jump to the next destination. Understood?”

  “Long Water to recover fighters, jump to destination, and deploy fighters to formation. Rinse and repeat until it’s automatic. Aye, sir.”

  “Let’s go,” I ordered.

  Ten

  It took six flybys before the jump out had the Excaliburs thrusting fast enough and hard enough to not lose any ground on the corvette.

  After two dozen, Norden changed the formation into an arrow, only with himself above Long Water at the point. I thought it was good he was feeling more comfortable about leading, but he still needed work. Another dozen later he changed the formation, again with an arrowhead, but this time with six on my left, and five on my right. It did sort of highlight we were now a fighter down.

  I considered asking Jane for my Excalibur back to make up the twelve, but it would be her or Long flying it most of the time. Which reminded me to check on what else we had in the hangar, if anything. I found a Lightning and a gig. The gig was probably standard equipment for any capital ship. And I could understand the Lightning in our situation. It added fast recon to our capability if jumping was not an option. They were one each on each hangar deck, but the bay for the Lightning was almost twice as large as the others.

  These patrols were pretty normal now, and the only thing keeping anyone interested was mixing up the order of the jumps. But now we had something more we could practice.

  After the next jump, I changed things up.

  “CAG, drill, enemy ahead, form a wall.”

  Norden gave orders, and while it took a little longer, they jumped into a wall formation instead of trying to fly into it.

  “Long has flight. Everyone strafe on your co-pilot’s command.”

  I found Long looking at me, and I nodded. She sped us up to combat speed, with the other AIs taking her commands through whatever link they shared, and the formation behaved as it used to with Woof in the lead.

  “Strafe,” said Long, and I hit the button, and started waving the nose around as if hosing our way through the middle of a cloud of Trixone fighters.

  Screens popped up, showing us the others strafing according to position in the wall, and started me wondering if the wall was the best formation now we had something big in the middle. I guess it was if the cloud was much larger than our wall covered. All the same, I thought maybe some modifications were in order.

  “CAG. Change the formation so all fighters can strafe outwards, assuming the enemy are in a much larger formation than we are. Long Water has the middle. Everyone else takes all the angles.”

  “Got it.”

  He started giving orders shifting them, so that just before we were due to jump again, they were arranged around me in such a way all directions could be covered outwards from the corvette.

  We didn’t get any time to test things, as they then jumped in, and Long jumped us to the next destination, where they jumped out into the same formation.

  “Let’s do that again. When we come out of jump, let’s be in a wall formation. If the location is clear, we shift into an arrow. If there is enemy ahead in greater numbers than us, we shift into what you’re in now. Anyone have a name for it?”

  “Melee?” suggested Haynes.

  “That will do. CAG, jump in again and start again. Go to an arrow, and then a minute later into melee.”

  “Doing it.”

  By the time we arrived back in Haven, and took up an orbit over the planet away from the stations, they had jumping and shifting formations down perfectly. Dinner was quite vocal, with everyone talking about possible formations, and how to do them in what conditions. I let them go, adding my thoughts when I had any, but my mind wasn’t on any of that. I was trying to figure out how we attacked a superior force now, and how the corvette changed our previous dynamic.

  Norden led the run around the track, which was exactly what Metunga had described, with one exception. The track was only wide enough for one, so we’d had to form a line, and keep a constant pace going so we didn’t collide with who was in front or behind us.

  At one point, there was a bright red arrow pointing to the left, supposedly on a tree, indicating where the track did a much more abrupt turn. We all made it around without problem, but we were going a lot slower than Metunga would have on his first run. Each lap, Norden picked up the pace a little bit, so on the last one, that turn became dangerous, but we were all ready for it.

  It was actually a much more enjoyable run than a standard track, but at the same time harder on the muscles. We had after all been running up and down across a dozen decks, and the track itself doubled back on itself in some of the lower decks so the actual length of a circuit was a lot longer than you’d expect for the length and width of the ship.

  We soaked in the spa in the wet area as usual after a run. I’d had to use some magic to fill the spa with warm water first, and conversation started to wane quite quickly after we got in. The living room had been set up the same as our one back on Haven station, so we sank into our normal chairs. But not for long. It had been a long day, and everyone left for their own rooms one by one as usual, albeit earlier than normal.

  As usual, Jill and I were the last ones there.

  “You sounded like a captain today,” said Jill.

  “How does a captain sound like?”

  “You, today.” She chuckled. “I thought Norden was going to choke to start with, but was glad he didn’t.”

  “He did great. I was wondering if he should be doing tomorrow as well so he gets a full day?”

  “He won’t want to. He got the hardest day, being the first one, and everyone else will build on that.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Not to me. But he looked complet
ely buggered when he went to bed. He’s probably asleep already. Actually I’m surprised you’re not too.”

  “Me?”

  “You’ve had a long hard day as well, and you were giving Norden orders.”

  “No harder than a normal day.”

  “Glad to hear that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it means you shifted up a level in your awareness and ability to command, without it stressing you out.”

  “I guess so.”

  I really hadn't thought about it.

  “We do need the twelfth fighter though, don’t we?”

  “I was thinking the same thing. I assume Jane is organizing it for when we’re ready to train someone else.”

  “Which I hope is soon. The patrols are going to get very boring, very quickly.”

  “True. We’ll get orders when Jane thinks we’re ready for them.”

  “Also true.” She rose, and looked down at me. “See you in the morning, captain.”

  She grinned, and left. I followed a few minutes later, figuring I may as well be alone in my own quarters instead.

  But when I walked into my living room, I found Serena sitting on the couch.

  “I’m not staying,” she said quickly, while getting up. “My quarters are two decks down and the other end of the ship. I figure Jane is giving me a message that way. And yes, I got the message today, loud and clear. I’m sorry how I reacted last night.”

  “It’s okay. We just have to pick our moments carefully, at least until we get separated enough for it to be alright at the admiral level.”

  “That’ll be a couple of years I expect.”

  “Could be right. But I get the feeling we’re being fast tracked.”

  “Hard to tell. Ensign to Jig is usually a formality.”

  “True. Do you like the term Jig? Seems a bit silly to me.”

  “Better than saying all three words all the time.”

  “I guess. We’ll see if it catches on or not.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, I’m for bed. I assume we’re going to be doing patrols of some sort all day tomorrow, and they tell me the captain of this tub is a perfectionist.”

  “You heard that, did you?”

  I grinned at her, and instead of answering, she pecked me on the cheek, and left.

  I took the time to shower, and change into sleep wear, before lying on my bed with the lights muted. There was a blank wall apposite.

  “Long?”

  “Bud?”

  “Can you display the navmap and HUD on the wall so I can see it as I lie as I am now?”

  “Sure.”

  Both came on as separate screens. Of course I could get both as popup screens anytime I wanted them, but the displays seemed better.

  “Can you add anything I need to know status wise to them?”

  “Nothing to add at the moment.”

  “Kill the displays when I turn the lights out, and bring them back when I wake, so I can see our status at a glance. Do the same in my ready room, opposite the desk.”

  “No problem.”

  “Any idea when the mark five will become available?”

  “Not that I’ve been informed. Jane might know. You want me to ask her?”

  “No. We’ll find out when we find out. Anything I need to know about before I try to sleep?”

  “No.”

  “Good night then.”

  “Good night. Bud.”

  I turned the light off with a thought, and the displays vanished as well.

  I was expecting sleep to elude me given all the changes of the day, but instead, I dropped straight off.

  Eleven

  The hangars were empty when I woke up.

  The moment I stirred, light flooded the room in the form of the navmap and HUD displays, and on the HUD, there was a warning about no fighters being on board.

  “What’s our status?” I asked the air, without getting up.

  “We’re getting the first Excalibur mark five fighters sometime this morning. Jane had the fours taken to the shipyard so the AI’s could change ships as soon as the new ones are ready for flight tests.”

  “Any idea when?”

  “No.”

  “Any changes to the five design?”

  “Minor tweaks. Why?”

  “Any orders for us?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. Can you dock us at Haven station in the military section, please?”

  “Sure. Any reason?”

  “I assume we still have our squadron spaces there?”

  “You do. The two space scrapers allocated to military personnel are nowhere near full yet. And even if they were, large sections of the station are still empty, even with the influx of civilians at the moment. So all military personnel have quarters on the station they can come back to, and all units have their own common space.”

  “Good. While we don’t have fighters, we can spend some time in our simulator. If you could check with Jane the latest tweaks are included, we can try them out in combat with Long Water. Can you get their AIs in the simulators, and yourself in the simulation corvette?”

  “No problem. I’m the only one needing to shift there. I’ll tell Jane I’m taking your simulator over.”

  “Probably a good idea. Anyone awake yet?”

  “Just getting up.”

  “Whisper in ears we’ll be docking shortly, and training where we normally do.”

  “Aye.”

  I didn’t bother with showering, but did the necessary in the bathroom, and changed into new underwear, before shifting into flight suit. I was on the bridge in time to monitor the docking, which Long handled herself. Which brought up the morning’s first challenge. How to get off the ship.

  It was the first time I’d been on one of these corvettes docked to a station by the main cargo bay airlock. The old design had a central airlock leading to a cargo deck down the middle of the ship. You went down to the deck via the stairwell, and walked out past whatever cargo was stored there.

  Well, the airlock was still there, as was a much smaller cargo bay, but at first glance, there wasn’t any way of getting to it, and it didn’t actually have any life support. When you zoomed in on the specs though, it turned out the way was via the running track, and through a door which wasn’t obvious as you ran. In fact, it had to be opened by Long, mainly because air and heat had to be pumped in there before anyone could go in.

  I requested this be done and the door opened, and once everyone was on the bridge, and docking was complete, I led everyone down to the track entrance, and jogged us along to the now open door. The cargo bay was almost full of pallets, containing food, drink, and magazines for the missile and torpedo launchers. Access paths for the cargo droids were all we had to get us to the other side and the airlock. Normally, this was not going to be an issue, but it would be a total pain if we had to board or evac the ship in a hurry. I put the thought aside for consideration later.

  Once in the station, we formed up into our normal running formation, only this time with Gitte in the lead, since she was CAG for the day. She jogged us to the nearest travel car station, and a car took us to the training floor. We went straight to the running track, and inserted ourselves into a gap between formations. Ten laps later we went straight into one of the courses, and spent a half hour fighting a battalion sized formation of Trixone in a forest.

  We had a quick communal shower in our wet room, before shifting to uniforms. We’d barely sat down to breakfast in the main mess, when someone appeared behind me and to one side, braced to attention, and saluted me.

  “Pilot Officer Judy Davis reporting as ordered, sir!”

  Everyone looked at her with mild surprise, not because of her presence, but because she was behaving like a raw cadet.

  “At ease,” said Gitte, before I could.

  Davis lowered her arm, and relaxed a little bit, obviously surprised at who’d spoken to her. Technically, we were all senior to her, even though she was a very experienced
pilot, so the order was valid, even though she’d expected it from me. Being busted did that to you. She was still looking at me.

  “Sit,” I said. “Gitte is CAG for today, so she’s giving most of the orders. We’re alternating as part of our own training.”

  She nodded, found a seat further down the table, and sat, dropping her duffle next to her chair.

  “What were your orders?” I asked her.

  “Put myself under your command, sir. Nothing more.”

  “Fine. We’re waiting for new fighters, so after breakfast we’re going back into the simulator to do some fighting in them. Whenever I get the word, we’ll return to Long Water and fly a patrol. How familiar are you with your co-pilot?”

  “Reasonably. I got a face on the console for the first time yesterday. It made a huge difference.”

  The butlers started serving us food, so I let the others talk to her while we ate. She was hesitant and self-conscious of having been busted back to a green officer, while being the oldest and most experienced person at the table. Well, maybe. I didn’t really know how old Fina and Dorm were, or what they’d been doing before becoming midshipmen, and wasn’t going to be asking any time soon. And I wasn’t even sure they aged the same way we did. Nor for that matter did I know about Metunga. For all I knew, eighteen for him was old age, or just a kitten. It needed addressing sometime, but I needed a way in which wouldn’t upset anyone.

  One thing which was established, was the new member of the squadron preferring to be called by her surname. No shock there. She claimed to have a handle on strafing, but not strafing immediately after a jump. Or jumping while strafing.

  In the simulator room we all shifted back into flight suits, and made ourselves as comfortable as we could in our own simulator. The next hour was spent getting Davis integrated into our normal formations, which were completely different to what she’d flown so far.

  The next hour was fighter combat without magic assistance. There were several collisions as pilots didn’t react fast enough to me changing directions abruptly, and we worked out the circumstances where AIs took control to avoid them. I monitored what everyone was saying, both in channels and to themselves, about how the fives were flying, and the difference having a nine punch of torpedoes made.