Retribution

by T. R. Harris

  “So, Captain, what do you think of the Summerlin Industries M-308 tactical starfighter?” the pilot asked through the comm. Zac could see the young man on a monitor in front of him, just as Zac’s image was visible to the pilot. His name was Mark Perry, a major in the Air Force, and he wore the same amused look on his face as did most hair-on-fire pilots when chauffeuring guests in their multi-million-dollar toys, hoping to find—or create—discomfort in their passengers. But Zac wasn’t a normal passenger. His expression remained neutral, almost bored.

  “Pretty nice, Major. How fast are we going?”

  “Mach nine, just under seven thousand miles per hour. That’s about as fast as we can go in the atmosphere. However, once in space, I could kick her into FTL drive, if I want. But for a short hop like this, it won’t be necessary. Flight time from D.C. to Groom Lake is only twenty-four minutes.”

  Zac grinned. “Hardly enough time to put the craft through its paces.”

  Major Perry frowned, a mischievous kind of frown. “You curious, Captain? It can get pretty hairy unless you’re used to it.”

  Zac felt sorry baiting the young man as he did; however, Major Perry seemed anxious to show off his new baby. “I’m game if you are.”

  Perry shook his head and fastened the oxygen mask over his face. Zac did the same. “I warned you, Captain. Get ready. I’ll start with some spirals.”

  Zac inhaled sharply as he was thrown to the right as the starship began a series of tight corkscrew spins before being jerked back to a level plane with a single, skillful correction of the control stick. Zac felt his body cascade slightly, releasing a minute amount of natural NT-4 into his system. The dizziness he felt disappeared.

  In reality, Zac recovered before Perry did. The pilot blinked several times before regaining his equilibrium. He frowned at the smiling image of his passenger on the screen.

  “How was that?” he queried, sounding more frustrated than curious.

  “That was fun. You got anything else?”

  All Zac could see of Perry’s face through the oxygen mask were his eyes and forehead, but Zac imagined him scowling. “More? Sure, I got more. But you’re not going to like it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The 308 suddenly shot straight up, reaching the outer filaments of the atmosphere a few seconds later. Then Perry pushed the control stick full forward, sending the craft rocketing back toward the surface of the planet. Zac was pressed back against the seat, his pressure suit working overtime to compensate for the increased G-forces. Zac didn’t need any help; his body was doing just fine, releasing a little more NT-4 into his system.

  Major Mark Perry didn’t fare as well. Zac watched with interest as the pilot’s eyes rolled back in his head a second before he passed out. Zac wasn’t worried. He knew ships like this had artificial intelligence backups that would right the craft when the time came, and sensing Perry’s condition, the 308 slowed and resumed a level flight path. A moment later, the pilot came to.

  He puffed out a series of quick breaths, forcing oxygen to his brain. After that, he looked to his screen, curious to see if his passenger had regained consciousness. To his surprise, Zac was smiling back at him, having already removed the oxygen mask.

  “That was pretty impressive. Are there any lasting effects when you blackout like that?”

  “You didn’t blackout?” Perry asked incredulously.

  “Not even close. Was I supposed to?”

  The pilot looked at his monitors. “We just pulled sixteen G’s. Most pilots pass out at nine or so, but I’m a g-monster. I can handle up to fifteen or so before passing out. Normal people go at about six.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  Perry continued to stare at Zac for a long moment before speaking again.

  “Isn’t Groom Lake where the REVs are stationed these days?” he asked. “Does that make you a REV … or something?”

  “Or something,” Zac answered cryptically. “Let’s just say I have a higher tolerance for things like this than most people.”

  “Higher than even an experienced fighter pilot, from the looks of it. Too bad you’re not a pilot yourself, then maybe you could use the 308 as it was intended.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t know?” Perry asked. “It’s just that the 308 was originally designed to be piloted by a form of advanced AI. Unfortunately, that didn’t work as intended.”

  “In what way?”

  “Artificial intelligence programs are great if they go up against standard combat scenarios; we actually tried some out on Menkar a few years back. But all it took was for the Qwin to do something unexpected and the AI pilot would go off chasing rabbits, devising game plans to counter what ended up being a series of diversionary maneuvers. The computers would extrapolate the hell out of a situation, right up to the point they got themselves blown out of the sky. It turns out the yellow-skinned bastards are too smart for us to rely on computers to fight our battles for us. What’s needed are good old flesh-and-blood pilots at the controls. The problem is the 308 was built for so much more than our bodies can handle. A lot of the ship’s capacity is wasted.” Perry then narrowed his eyes at Zac. “Too bad your REVs can’t be trained to pilot fighter craft.”

  The statement hit Zac like a slap to the face. Perry was right. He was also wrong. Once jacked up on Rev, any advanced training went out the window. It was all about emotion then, boosted by a ten-fold improvement in strength, durability and reaction time. Even so, Zac thought the prospect was intriguing.

  But even if it was possible, the major problem with this line of thinking was there was no time to train a squadron of REV fighter pilots. Zac had just spent the last month having the estimates drilled into him: Ninety days—at the outside—and the Antaere would be on Earth’s doorstep. Already, the Qwin were building a massive fleet out near Ortura. And after seeing the horrific videos coming out of Crious, Zac knew Humanity’s prospects weren’t looking that great.

  But the one thing Major Perry was correct about was that the REVs now operated out of the old Groom Lake Air Force Base, a place forever etched in folklore as the infamous Area 51. In reality, the base once served as a testing facility for advanced aircraft, rather than the site of alien visitations. At least it used to be. With the arrival of the Antaere fifty years before, there wasn’t much need for advanced aircraft after that. At the time, the Qwin were more than willing to provide the Humans with basic alien technology, and soon everything took a quantum leap, including the technology that powered the Summerlin M-308 Starfighter.

  Even so, Humans weren’t the type to leave well enough alone. Over the years, they modified much of the acquired Antaere technology—not a lot, but enough to make noticeable improvements, putting mankind’s stamp on the science. The 308 was a perfect example of that.

  “Major Perry, as just a piece of machinery, how does the 308 compare to what the Qwin have?”

  Perry chuckled. “There’s no comparison. The 308 was designed to run rings around any existing Qwin technology. We’re faster, more maneuverable and more heavily armed. We just pulled sixteen G’s back there, but structurally, the 308 can routinely handle seventy or more. Unfortunately, Human pilots can’t handle that, not even in brief spurts. And the Qwin have our same physiology, so they build their ships to accommodate their pilots and not some wishful-thinking supercomputers. As I said, most of the capacity of the 308 is wasted. It was a good idea at the start. It just wasn’t practical. So, to answer your question, Captain, it’s not the machinery; it’s our damn fragile bodies.”

  The statement sent Zac’s mind racing, so much so that he lost track of the next ten minutes, deep in thought. He recovered when the spacecraft began its final approach to the two-mile-long landing strip at the Groom Lake facility, lining up much as a conventional aircraft would in order to save fuel.

  By the time the 308 landed and taxied to one of the huge hangars off the main strip, Zac already had a plan worked out in his mind
. All he needed now was an expert to handle the technical aspects.

  “How long are you going to be at the base, Major?” Zac asked as the canopy lifted and the two men stood up.

  Perry snorted. “As long as you guys need me. I’m pulling shuttle duty until a game plan can be worked out against the Antaere. Right now, everything assumes they’re going to make it to the surface and then release their wild cats to rip us all to shreds. There’s more effort being placed on ground defense rather than space operations.”

  “In that case, I wonder if you could do me a favor?”

  Perry frowned. “What kind of favor?”

  “Can you gather up what specs you have on the 308 and meet me at Building 59 at sixteen-hundred hours? That’s the main admin building. I want to pick your brain.”

  “What for?”

  “Just something I have bouncing around in my head. Will you do it?”

  Perry shrugged. “Sure, why not. I’ve got nothing else to do, especially way out here in Bumfuck, Nevada.”

  “Great; I’ll see you then.”

  Zac didn’t wait for the ladder to be moved into place. Instead, he jumped the twenty feet to the tarmac and sprinted off toward the main administration building, not caring if others around him noticed his world-class sprinting speed. After all, this was a REV base. They should be used to it by now.

  2

  As Major Mark Perry entered the conference room, Zac saw from his grim expression that he didn’t come expecting to be part of a major briefing. He was still dressed in his flight suit and carried a single data tablet. He scanned the others in the room with suspicion, looking as if he’d walked into the middle of an ambush. Although he outranked Zac by a single level, he knew the Marine captain had to be some bigwig in the Running Man Division, the fanciful designation of the REV Corps. He rated a private shuttle flight from the capital to Groom Lake, and from the assembled officers and enlisted in the room, he was capable of calling a high-level meeting at the drop of a hat.

  Zac read Perry’s body language. “Relax, Major,” he said, leaning in closer to the Air Force officer. “You’re among friends. This is just an informal fact-gathering meeting. You’re here to help fill in some of the blanks in a plan I have in mind.”

  The two men took seats at the end of a long, but basic, conference table. Seated at the other end was General David Cross, the head of the REV program and co-inventor of the original performance-enhancing drug known as Rev. Over the years, he’d been responsible for most of the advancements in the technology that helped create supermen out of ordinary Humans. Zac had known him for over twenty years and hated him for most of that time. Recently, however, the men had reached a tense truce, and considering the pending demise of the species, this was no time to let past differences stand in the way of the common good. Even so, Cross didn’t look happy. He was a very busy man these days, and the information Zac was bringing from D.C. wasn’t news to him. He was intimately in the loop when it came to the defensive plans being devised by the top brass. But Zac had insisted the general attend the briefing. Why … Zac didn’t tell him.

  Seated next to Cross was Air Force Technical Sergeant Joanie Hollis. Zac knew the petite blonde quite well, having met the senior REV Controller a few years ago at the base on Borin-Noc. Over time, she and Zac developed a brief affair, but this was the first time he’d seen her since returning to Earth. His first month back on the homeworld was spent in medical rehab, recovering from the injuries he’d suffered on Enif. The next was a whirlwind of meetings and planning sessions. Having helped save the lives of both the President and the Supreme Military Commander from the Antaere and Ha’curn trap on Enif, Zac became a minor celebrity and was in high demand in Washington society. In addition, his special form of REV abilities became known to those in the upper echelons of government, and he was grilled as to what role his Deltas could play in the defense of the planet. Since there were only thirteen confirmed natural REVs, his answer was an emphatic: Not much. But still, everyone welcomed his input. And now he was at Groom Lake—the new headquarters for the Running Man Division—for the first time, here to give the senior officers and NCOs an update on the latest defense plans under consideration.

  Joanie and Zac’s eyes met and locked for a moment. With the very real possibility that the Human race had a mere ninety days left, there wasn’t a lot of time to rekindle the past flame. Or maybe that was all that was left. But now Zac had a plan, an idea, he thought was worth exploring. He felt his body cascade slightly, not from the sight of Joanie Hollis, but rather from excitement for his nascent plan. If it worked, there might be hope. Even so, it was a wild shot in the dark, and whether or not it was based in any kind of reality remained to be seen.

  Zac nodded to his two best friends, also seated at the table. They were the only other two REV officers in the Corps, First Lieutenant Angus Price and Second Lieutenant Keith Pierson. They were naturals—like Zac—and both had been instrumental in the events that took place a few months ago on the planet Enif. The men nodded back, although neither looked pleased to see him. Zac was sure it wasn’t him, but rather the situation, that painted the grim looks on their faces. Staring extinction in the face did that to people.

  There were also an assortment of other senior officers around the table, mainly liaisons with the REV Corps from the other service branches. Strategists and other technicians were represented by master sergeants and chiefs, along with two civilians dressed in grey suits. Most people in the room were looking at Mark Perry dressed in his flight suit and looking uncomfortable. He seemed out of place at the status briefing.

  A female enlisted stenographer ran the recording equipment.

  Honestly, Zac had no idea what to expect from the meeting. He was here to give a summary of the current defensive plans for the planet, after which he would spring his plan on them—if given an opportunity. But in desperate times, even the most out-of-left-field ideas had to be considered…

  “Major, can you sync your datapad to the main computer display?” Zac asked.

  The stenographer nodded to the pilot and set about tracing the IP address of his pad.

  Zac then stood up and turned his attention to Gen. Cross, addressing the senior officer in the room. “I want to thank you all for attending. I just arrived from D.C. with the latest thinking from CENTCOM and the Security Council as to what we’re facing. I have asked Major Mark Perry to attend as a technical advisor. He’s the M-308 Starfighter pilot who flew me here. We had an interesting discussion along the way, which I’d like to go over after the formal portion of my briefing.”

  Zac nodded to the stenographer, who activated the main screen on the wall behind him. He turned to the monitor, which showed a schematic of the Solar System and surrounding space.

  “As you know, thanks to the impromptu and timely presence of the civilian and commercial vessels in the system after the debacle at Enif, the Antaere and Ha’curn decided to divert their forces to Crious rather than continue with their attack on the Earth. By now, we all know what they did to ES-10, with the announced intention of doing the same to Earth once their forces are replenished. Intelligence reports show the Qwin are conscripting a thousand warships or more from their recently reacquired Colony Worlds. They’re not giving the natives any choice, so we estimate they will have about fifteen hundred of these vessels available at the time of the attack. They intend to throw these ships against the civilian screen and our remaining warships. That will leave their thousand or so ships-of-the-line, manned by Antaere and Ha’curn, for the cleanup. In defense of the coming attack, CENTCOM has begun to take a number of these civilian ships and turn them into either unmanned guided missiles or mines, to form a circular screen around the planet. Even with that, there’s no way we can stop the main fleet from reaching Earth-vicinity.

  “As you recall, the original thinking was that the Antaere would simply get close enough to the Earth to launch a few thousand nukes at us and wipe us out that way. However, since Crious,
we now know they intend to make landfall and send the Ha’curn out to slaughter as many Humans as possible.” He turned to look at David Cross. “To that end, the REV program has been stepped up dramatically. Thousands of AC-3 candidates are being screened, not only here, but around the world. We know from experience that REVs can hold their own against the Ha’curn. Even then, there will be more of the savage cats on the surface than REVs. That’s why the qualifying standards for the new candidates have been lowered. I regret this, but I also realize the logic behind it. We can’t be bothered with the long-term effects of the drug on marginal candidates, not if failure means the extinction of the race.”

  Zac then shook his head and scowled. “Unfortunately, even this won’t be enough. There are just too many Humans on the planet for the Ha’curn to take us out, even after a nuke attack to reduce the population, as they did on Crious. Therefore, Command believes the Qwin’s current plans are simply for propaganda, to give them a psychological victory—along with ample video footage to be used to scare any of their rebellious Colony Worlds. After that, they’ll return to Plan A and simply nuke the planet into oblivion.”

  “Excuse me, Captain Murphy,” Second Lieutenant Keith Pierson said formally. “So, what you’re saying is that we’re pretty well fucked?”

  “I believe I just said that, lieutenant.”

  “But there are plans in the works, aren’t there?” asked his other friend, Angus Price.

  Zac nodded. “Of course, that’s what Command does. But the thinking is now returning to the original effort—that of preventing the Antaere from entering the Solar System and getting close enough to launch their nukes.”

  “The plan which has already been deemed inadequate,” said the Army liaison, Colonel Jack Travis.

  “Yes, sir. And frankly, ninety days is not enough time to build a fleet of new warships, even with the entire industrial capacity of the planet working around the clock, as it is at the moment.”