“—two, one!”
“Ts away!”
Hundreds of blue lights streaked out of our big ships, as if they were clouds birthing rain. They looked slow motion in the distance, but I knew how fast they were actually ripping by, my mind filling in for the spatial sound vacuum, hissing ssss, ssss, ssss. By the time my ship came in range and torpedoes erupted out of our bow tube, the imagined sound was deafening.
In response to our attack, I saw Caelus’ red-colored torpedoes, or Ts as they were called here, emerge in the blackness like distant torches. Sebastian’s voice rang out, “I’ll be using maximum evasion for our ships since it doesn’t matter if we break formation. We got off the first volley and their Ts aren’t going to be able to reach us in time so don’t worry at all about holding position—just dodge and release into manual when necessary. Reiman, make sure your group protects the freighters with the bombs—jump in front, if need be. If even two of them get hit, it’s over.”
“All right, launch fighters,” said Brandon.
I pressed the release button and my ship was instantly detached and falling. I hit another button I thought was for the thrusters. It wasn’t. I swore and punched at the others frantically until my engines spouted slender blue flames, allowing me to pull up on the throttle and race to fall into formation with my squadron—which was already zipping away. Once I reached them, the control stick jerked in my hands and I figured Sebastian’s attack algorithm must be taking over and I could sit back until we got close enough that we’d have to evade gun batteries.
The Ts were faster than the big ships, which took coaxing to turn, but the fighters were faster still, and after a few moments we caught up with the blue payloads, slowing to remain behind them so that their energy signatures would mask us from the intercepting fighters already splintering off of Caelus’ main force. Their fleet had looked small from a distance because of its tight formation, but as we neared it I realized just how many layers there were, and how far back they stretched.
“Weapons hold. Wait till you’re close, till you’re really close. And only target engines—don’t shoot at any other system.”
“Fighters are going to be all over us in a few seconds. Do we have permission to engage?”
“Negative. Evade fighters, target only destroyer classes and larger.”
“Brandon, they’re going to tear us to shreds!” yelled an unfamiliar pilot’s voice.
“For the last fucking time, just do what he says!” Brandon shouted back.
At this point it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, since Sebastian was controlling everything, but it’d be disastrous if the other fighters didn’t buy in and follow orders when we went to manual. I guess that’s why you didn’t want pilots who were hard to work with. The apparent solution was just to tell them the larger reasoning behind why they weren’t deploying in a standard engagement pattern, which should be fine now that we were inside and there wasn’t risk of it leaking. But there were just so many intangibles to think about and clearly Sebastian wouldn’t be able to manage them all, especially considering this specific Box was brand new to him.
“What about their Ts?” asked someone else as the red torpedoes approached.
“I repeat, hold your fire. Save the missiles; let them pass. Our fleet is shedding formation; we don’t need you to break them up. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore,” said Sebastian, stressing each word.
As Caelus’ torpedo cluster passed to the right of ours, a fighter in the squadron ahead of mine broke ranks and started shooting pulses at the red Ts.
“Cabatz, what the fuck are you doing?” screamed Brandon, anger replacing annoyance.
“The fleet’s getting out of their way! We’re fast enough to dodge them without fighter engagement—that’s the whole point!” Sebastian shouted.
“Who the fuck said to go off auto-algo on the pattern?” another voice yelled.
“Fuck, fuck!”
“Fuck you, Brandon! You can’t spring this on us—freaking use comps for this stuff,” a female pilot shouted over the command channel. This must’ve been the reason the pilots hadn’t been briefed; sending them into the heart of Caelus’ capital ship formation was a suicide mission that would wreck their scores. Now they were beginning to realize it.
“That would’ve tipped off Caelus, dumbshit!” Brandon cried.
The commline devolved into screaming.
Comm channel 5 internal started blinking to my right. I clicked it and heard Pierre’s voice: “Aaron, shoot down Cabatz in Slingshot N42. Gotta send a message.”
“Copy that,” I responded, tugging on the throttle and breaking formation as I pulled up N42 on my targeting scanner, locked on with pulses, and fired before he could know what was going on. I’m sure he had a thousand times the Corinth Box experience as I did, but it didn’t matter; the Slingshot exploded like a vase against the blackness.
“No one else breaks formation!” Brandon yelled as I hit the booster button to get back into mine.
“This’ll get around, Brandon! No one will fly for you again!”
“What, that your wing won’t follow orders? Who do you think’s going to buy you when we post that on the board?!” Brandon shot back.
“Ladies, please. Calm the fuck down!” interjected Rhys.
“Incoming fighters on multiple approach vectors. I can’t isolate their attack patterns,” Fingers said urgently.
“They’ve got missile locks on eight Ts. Now on nine, ten . . .”
I couldn’t see them out the window—they were too small and too far away—but I could on my tactical screen: hundreds of little red dots, heading right for us.
“Protect our Ts—engage missiles, not fighters in anything beyond insulation. I’m going to fly you right past their formation so don’t go off auto,” shouted Sebastian.
We moved out from behind our Ts as they unloaded their decoy chaff and started firing pulses into the onslaught of oncoming missiles, painting them in such wide bursts that only a few odd ones got through. Jets of red shot past on the right, missing us, while our blue Ts continued into the center of Caelus’ incoming fighter formation. They dodged easily, but their break in alignment allowed us to power through.
Caelus’ capital ships were also parting, trying to evade the approaching storm of torpedoes. They’d have plenty of time to get out of the way but, like their fighters before them, it would temporarily cost them their formation and the use of their bow-side launching tubes. Sebastian’s plan was all about temporary cost; we would pay a high price to force the enemy into a series of actions that would be foolish for us in isolation, but collectively would deliver them in their most vulnerable state.
“Remember, disabling shots only on their engines. Keep my attack algos on and expect to get hit.”
“Even if we knock them out, they’ll have them up again in seconds.”
“Seconds are all we need,” Sebastian promised.
Pierre’s voice came over the commline. “Look sharp, guys. Every shot’s a ship. Whatever you do, don’t slow down.”
I pressed a series of buttons on the panel and the tactical screen appeared on my retinas, overlaying everything visible through the cockpit window with red and green targets. First up was a large, cylindrical carrier that was opening its hangar bay to spew out new fighters. I toggled through the targeting system, locked onto the ship’s engines, and fired four missiles to disable it.
The carrier’s gun batteries erupted with yellow tracers trying to bring down the missiles, as did those of an adjacent cruiser. They missed the first two but clipped the last ones. “Fuck!” I sighed and switched to the fighter commline. “This is C12, need mop-up on carrier marked Orange125 on the grid. One more should do.”
“Copy, I’m on it,” said a voice from a fighter farther back in our formation.
I targeted the frigate next to it and this time fired six missiles since Sebastian’s attack algorithm now had us moving so fast and with so much jerky, built-in evasion that ther
e would be no opportunity for mop-ups, let alone second passes.
Aiming was harder amidst the crossfire as we wedged ourselves deeper into Caelus’ position, but I kept disabling ships: a Z cruiser, an L cruiser, another frigate, a Titan-class destroyer. It was tough not making individual maneuvers, trusting Sebastian and his invisible, furiously typed keystrokes to which my little ship was only a rounding error. But I knew if we broke ranks and retook control of our own flight patterns, the attack’s edge would dull and keep us from slicing all the way through to tag the engines farther back.
For a while it didn’t look like we were going to make it. The screams of my wingmen rang over the comms halfway through as they were cooked in their flight suits. Our squadron leader, Garrett Reiman, lit up soon after. By the time I saw black space at the end of the tunnel of Caelus’ ships, I was the only one left in my squadron, damaged and out of ordnance. Fortunately, not every group had fared as poorly; a handful of fighters punched through with me, gasping as we zoomed out the other side of the fleet.
“Groups one to seven, whip up and around; eight and fifteen, you guys go under. Freighters are away!” Sebastian bellowed.
Every freighter approaching Caelus’ frozen ships was carrying eighty green, gelatin-like bombs that could together could punch through even the strongest enemy lightwalls. We had to protect them.
“Okay, folks, you’re on your own now; Seb’s through his algos. Time to go off script,” Pierre ordered.
I switched over to manual and swooped down just outside of the perimeter ships’ gun batteries, deploying chaff to confuse any tailing missiles. Along with a few destroyers and frigates left unfrozen, Caelus’ main fighter contingent was disengaging from the melee to intercept the freighters nearing his bigger ships, realizing that there was something amiss. The drifting Zs, Is, and Ls could still fire their gun batteries once the freighters came in range, but their main T tubes were facing the wrong way and they wouldn’t be able to breach their lightwalls in time.
Dispatching my remaining boost pack, I flew toward the freighter cluster, firing pulses at inbound missiles and Ts, while staying out of range of the three fighters who were tailing me. Another bevy of fighters was bearing down on the freighters farthest left and I rushed to intercept their missiles, hitting one and then another, but the last two shattered the freighter’s lightwall before I could reach them, causing a monstrous green explosion. I was enveloped in it for a second, as were the fighters behind me, but my aft lightwall bottomed out at two percent before my ship careened and somersaulted tip over tail into empty space.
My stomach lurched and I vomited over the mic and weapons wheel. “Freaking hell,” I panted as I wiped my chin. I’d never felt so dizzy before.
An onslaught of enemy fighters was nearly upon the freighters carrying the bombs and our remaining fighters were shouting over the commline, blitzing to meet them. With my lightwall drained and my vertical controls offline I’d be no help engaging, so instead I turned toward the destroyers and frigates, doing my best to evade the fire from the incoming gun batteries, braking left, then right, knowing it wouldn’t take the gunners long to grasp my intentions. Fortunately, it was too late when they finally did and I smashed into one of the frigates, exactly where its lightwall was weakest. The last thing I saw was the eerie light of a green bomb exploding as the lead freighter collided with the first perimeter ship.
I came to, shivering, in the cold, pitch-black chamber with sweat streaming down my face. I could recall everything that had happened, but it felt different, removed, like the world I’d been in and the world I’d returned to couldn’t quite clasp together. I had vaporized upon impact with the frigate and my body was trying to make sense of that and process not so much the pain, but the massive confusion of not knowing what feeling went where. After several woozy minutes, I staggered to my feet and hobbled out the door.
The dog outside was no longer barking, occupied with a carcass that oozed dark blood onto the tiles. Marquardt was nowhere to be seen.
An angry voice ricocheted off the wall. “How the fuck did you not notice them?”
“I . . . I couldn’t tell what they were. I had to look them up in the sup file, but by then . . .” The reply trailed off. I didn’t recognize either of the voices.
“You’re the freaking tech, you should be able to recite the sup stats Zeroed! Caelus’ll hang you by your tits for that!” came the snarled reply.
“You and him both,” Taryn said as he walked past, his face contorted and still marred by the huge black bruise I’d given him.
More of Caelus’ Blues came streaming by, signaling the battle wasn’t going well for them. It had probably been over once the first freighter exploded; by the time they’d realized how much damage the obscure explosives onboard them could do, there hadn’t been time to respond.
A few seconds later I was in a long, rectangular lobby lined with white chairs. I was about to sit down next to a couple of the pilots after spotting an open seat, but thought better of it and headed toward some Blues I recognized. It was too late, though.
“Hey, Cabatz, that’s the one. He’s the one who lit you up.” It was the girl I’d seen hanging through the cockpit window before we launched.
I swiveled around to see who she was talking to and, when I didn’t find anyone, I let my eyes follow hers right into a punch freight training across my mouth. I slumped back in my chair, swallowing blood and preparing to recoil if he came at me again, but I didn’t have to. Cabatz shook off the first and second pilots holding him back, but a third put him in a full nelson.
“Let me freaking go! That bastard suckered me,” he yelled, trying to sweep the shin out from the boy who had him in the lock.
“So you sucker him out here?”
“Cabs, we’re winning, dumbshit!” someone else shouted as they hauled him to the other side of the room.
Another pilot in an orange flight suit threw me a towel and I nodded back in appreciation. “And what will winning do to your scores?” I asked him.
“Send them soaring, even the ones that bit it at the start.”
“Even Cabatz and that girl?”
“Yep, they’re just too stupid to have realized it yet. You usually don’t get shit for personal points being pulse fodder or doing temp disables on engines, but you usually don’t get these kinds of wins, either.”
“The bonus from something like this is . . .” A splotchy-faced pilot made an expansive gesture with both of his hands.
“Haven’t won yet, Kellan.”
“We’re sure as shit not losing! Look at their expressions coming out of the Boxes!” Turning to me, he exclaimed, “Can’t believe you freaking shot him down, though! You’re not supposed to do that.”
“Just like you’re not supposed to ignore orders,” I responded.
“Says the Green,” chuckled another pilot, right as a few more Blues burst into the lobby, shouting, “The C3s got ’em two-to-one and scattering!”
Claps and cheers erupted from our corner.
The girl looked back at me. “You’re just lucky it’s working out,” she sneered. “Trust me, these guys wouldn’t have pulled Cabs off you if it wasn’t.”
Cabs is the lucky one, I wanted to say, but held back. I didn’t want to fight anymore. Especially since pilots and commanders were supposed to work together, not act like the mercenaries they apparently all were here.
There were a few flashes of blue as more cadets entered the room, and I spotted Pierre as he made his way back through the Box gate.
“Well, it looks like you’re staying with us,” he said as I walked over. “It’s just mop-up now. After the bombs went off, they tried to regroup and pick off our carrier unit, but our reserves made it up in time. Then we just squeezed. I rammed their flagship, so Caelus’ll be out here any second.” He paused and squinted, looking at my bloody lip. “Who did that to you?”
“Which that?” I asked, nodding in Cabatz’s direction.
“I’ll have
Brandon freeze his points and give ’em to his wingmates. Not that it matters. He’ll be blacklisted once it gets around that he pinged out on his orders.”
Caelus appeared in the corridor. His face was calm but his eyes were fiercer than they’d been the other time I’d seen them up close, the color blending with reflections from the lightpanels.
“Well done,” he said to Pierre coolly as he went by. He looked at me, and I could almost swear his lips curled into a smile for the briefest moment before he passed, pacing toward his wing.
Pierre swallowed. “He’s going to come after us hard. The more reserved and gracious he acts, the harder he’s coming.”
“You’ve seen it before?” I asked.
He took a big breath. “Yeah . . . but we’ve got plenty of points now, so at least you’ll be outta C2 tonight.”
I stared at him. “You don’t seem reassured.”
“We did it, we fucking did it!” Fingers howled as he pranced down the corridor. He gave Pierre a bear hug and lifted up, but could only get him an inch off the ground. Brandon and Sebastian were behind him, each hoisted on the shoulders of C3 Blues, all whooping and hollering as they approached.
“It’s the biggest upset Corinth’s ever seen,” cried Brandon as the Blues lowered him in front of Pierre and me. “Look at that guy!” he exclaimed, pointing at Sebastian. “Look at that fucking guy. Who would’ve ever thought?”
He put one arm around Sebastian and squeezed.
“How does it feel to bend the great Caelus Erik over like that, Seb?” asked another Blue.
Sebastian was smiling, but he was looking unsure, too—like he didn’t know where he was. This had to be what he’d dreamed would happen at Corinth ever since he was a kid and now that it was coming true, it was almost too much to process.
“I—I just don’t think you guys realize how close it was,” he stammered. “We almost lost a dozen different times. And even at the end, when they regrouped, they could have—”
“Yeah, but they didn’t! Now we’ll be even with the Fires for the first time since they got voted in. Pissing match tonight!”
Lakes of Mars Page 8
