Wings of Honor

by Craig Andrews

  True to Commander Coleman’s word, a second simulator had been installed on the other end of the room. Having been there late into the evening the night before, Coda had no idea how they had found the time to install it, but there it was, buttons glowing and waiting.

  The commander quickly separated them into two groups based on their barracks then muttered the ten scariest words in the English language. “We’re going to do things a little bit different today.”

  The commander had programmed four different training scenarios that escalated in difficulty, each one in the sequence adding a new variable. The pilots, broken into even smaller groups, took turns running through the simulation while the rest looked on. The largest variation between the day’s training and the one previous was that after the subgroup’s simulated run, they sat down with Commander Coleman or Commander Chavez to review their hop.

  Coda was pleased to learn that while the commander could be a hard ass with the larger squadron, he was calm and patient with their smaller number. He went from being their CO to their instructor, and they listened to him all the more closely for it.

  “Your approach vector is too shallow here,” Commander Coleman would say, pausing the simulation replay. “Tell me how you could have done it differently.”

  And they would tell him—then put their words to action in their next run, redoing the scenario until the commander was pleased.

  For three hours, they took turns running through the simulations, learning from their fellow squad mates and their combined mistakes. By the end of the first session, the vibe had shifted from exhausted frustration to positive excitement, and that carried over through breakfast and into their late-morning practice.

  “Where is the rest of the squadron?” Uno asked during one of their evaluation periods. The Simulation Room was still filled with only forty or so members, all from the same two barracks.

  “Class,” Commander Coleman said simply.

  “Class?” Uno asked skeptically. Minus the CAI—which in Coda’s estimation barely counted—they hadn’t had any class. “For what?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Commander Coleman said. “Now tell me why you flipped nose to tail here instead of altering course with a more gradual barrel roll.”

  The commander clearly wasn’t going to explain further, and Uno didn’t press the issue. He gave his explanation to the commander’s question instead.

  “It’s faster, yes,” the commander said, “and might have been a good maneuver if you’d had a Baranyk fighter on your ass, but at those speeds, the g-forces are enough to cause black out. Remember, these simulations are designed to help you learn to fly an X-23 correctly. Follow the flight rules until you know where you can bend them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But…?” Commander Coleman said, obviously hearing the unspoken question on Uno’s lips.

  “But the X-23 is equipped with inertial dampeners, isn’t it, sir?”

  “It is,” the commander said slowly. “Otherwise, you’d be ripped apart by even the most basic maneuver. But there are limits to every gravitic drive, even the most advanced, which I can assure you, do not come standard with the X-23.”

  “Which is why you’re juicing us up with steroids and experimental growth hormones, right, sir?”

  Coda and Squawks, who were in the evaluation group with Uno, shared a nervous look. That information hadn’t made it beyond their circle or been spoken about since their first dinner on the Jamestown.

  “Now where would you get a crazy idea like that?” Commander Coleman asked, the tone of his voice suggesting he was genuinely dismayed. There was something in his eyes, though, a hardness that hinted at his true feelings. Uno’s question had made the commander uneasy.

  Uno met Commander Coleman’s gaze, not backing down but not exactly challenging him, either. “I don’t know, sir,” he said, obviously deciding not to push the issue. “You’re right, though. It’s a crazy thought.”

  Commander Coleman nodded, returning to Uno’s evaluation.

  At the tail end of their session, the commander posted their evaluations on the display board. Because most of the exercises had been timed, it showed their time of completion, along with accuracy, precision, and other success metrics. Coda’s favorite was a calculated measure the commander called their “death probability,” which the commander explained as the likelihood that their flight paths, vectors, and speed would either kill them or get them killed by enemy fire. It all culminated in a final score that was measured out of one hundred. The highest score barely cracked fifty.

  Before Coda could find his name on the list, Commander Coleman called their attention to a red line separating a small number of pilots at the top of the list from the bulk at the bottom.

  “This,” Commander Coleman said, “is your failure line. Your training is about to get very real, ladies and gentlemen. I’m not interested in good pilots. I’m not even interested in great pilots. I need the best. The best of the best. And that means any pilots still south of this line at the end of the month will be excused from the program. Work hard, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll see you tomorrow at oh four thirty.”

  Coda strolled out of the Simulation Room to a mix of hushed voices. The commander had changed the rules, upped the pressure. The real competition was about to get started, and Coda had no intention of giving up. He was having too much fun.

  16

  Corridor, SAS Jamestown

  Alpha Centauri System, Proxima B, High Orbit

  After their morning session in the simulator, an officer escorted the pilots to a part of the ship they had never seen. Unlike their private section of the ship, the corridors here were occupied with the usual shipboard activity. Coda caught more than one confused look, though in true military fashion, nobody voiced their questions. Those conversations would happen over drinks or quietly over dinner, between shipmates, not out in the open.

  “Take a good look, ladies,” Squawks said loudly as he jogged past a group of female officers. “Heroes of the fleet, coming through. Heroes of the—”

  “Can it, Squawks!” Uno shouted.

  “I just want—”

  “I said, ‘Can it!’”

  “Geez!” Squawks threw him an irritated look. “What crawled up your ass?”

  “We have our orders. Follow them.”

  “It’s not like they won’t know soon enough, anyway,” Squawks said.

  “There’s a huge difference between ‘will know’ and ‘already knows,’ so can it.”

  “What’s the big—”

  “Squawks!” several pilots shouted at once.

  “Your mouth is talking,” Coda said. “See to it.”

  Squawks snapped his mouth shut and defiantly blew a kiss in the officers’ direction but remained quiet until they arrived at their destination. The classroom was like every other classroom Coda had ever been in, though like throughout the rest of the ship, the tables and chairs were bolted to the floor. And like the ready room, instead of the three-dimensional displays, the room was equipped with an aging digital touch board that took up the entire front wall.

  “Take your seats,” the escorting officer said. “Your instructor will be along shortly.”

  Coda found a seat with Uno, Noodle, and Squawks four rows from the front. Once they sat down, another group of pilots entered, Moscow at their lead. Seeing Coda, he smiled then nodded to his group. They found seats in front of Coda, but instead of sitting down, Moscow took a seat on the table, tossing a foot on the chair so that he was facing Coda.

  “Funny thing, O’Neil,” Moscow said in an amused voice. “I didn’t see your name above the failure line. I guess you’re just as much of a shit pilot as your father was.”

  The room fell into a hushed silence.

  Coda opened his mouth to speak, but Squawks beat him to it.

  “And your death probability was twenty-four percent. How about you do us all a favor and raise that up a bit, huh?”

 
Laughter filled the room.

  “He keeps talking, and it will,” Uno said. “Even if I have to shoot him myself.”

  “What was that?” Moscow said, his cool voice at odds with his coloring face. “Oh, hold up.” Moscow suddenly clutched his stomach and mock vomited in Uno’s face. “The only thing you can hit is your own boots.”

  Coda was on his feet before he knew it, lunging at Moscow.

  Squawks was on him immediately, grabbing ahold of him and pulling him back. “Simmer down, Coda. Simmer down. He’s all talk.”

  If Moscow was all talk, Uno wasn’t. He was on top of the table and diving at Moscow in an instant. The other man’s eyes widened as the human projectile crashed into him, sending them both toppling off the table. They hit the deck with a loud thud and had just enough time to get in a few wild punches before the other pilots separated them.

  Squawks let Coda go, and together, they pushed through the throng, making for Uno, then got between him and Moscow, who continued to shout obscenities at one another.

  “Officer on deck!”

  Years of military training took over, and Coda snapped to attention. Their instructor waited in the doorway, a tablet in her hands, watching the melee with a single raised eyebrow. She couldn’t have been much over thirty and was short with closely cropped black hair that was only slightly darker than her skin.

  “Someone tell me what the hell’s going on in my classroom,” she said in a thickly accented voice.

  “Just getting in a quick workout, sir,” Squawks said. “We’re ready to learn.”

  “Good. Find your seats then.”

  Coda navigated Uno back to his spot then took a seat. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Wasn’t doing it for you,” Uno muttered under his breath.

  “My name is Lieutenant Commander Naidoo, though you may call me Dr. Naidoo. And I am no more a teacher than you are an astrophysicist, but we will make do. I am here because among all of you, I am the only one who has ever seen a Baranyk in person—a mistake we’re about to fix together.” Dr. Naidoo turned to the door and nodded. “Bring it in.”

  A pair of men wearing white lab coats wheeled in a gurney, its contents hidden under a thin sheet. They stopped it in front of Dr. Naidoo then turned and left. She thanked the men then, in a single quick motion, ripped the sheet away.

  Half the class was on their feet in an instant. Many backed away, while others sat in frozen silence, hands over mouths. Lying on the gurney was a supine mass, flat black in color, with four legs, two arms, large lifeless black eyes, and a pair of thin antennae rising from a triangular head.

  “I am not here to give you a shot or check your prostate. I am not that kind of doctor. I am a xenobiologist, and aboard this ship, that means I am the foremost expert of Baranyk biology. An area, if I’m not mistaken, your training has largely ignored. Now, please, return to your seats so we can begin.”

  Only half of the pilots returned to their seats, though the other half, primarily those nearest the prone Baranyk, refused to move.

  “Oh, please,” Dr. Naidoo said sarcastically, slapping the Baranyk on its oval-shaped abdomen. “It’s not going to bite.”

  With the doctor making fun of the frightened pilots, the rest slowly made their way back, though if Coda wasn’t mistaken, many of the front seats that had been occupied before were now vacant.

  “Good,” Dr. Naidoo said. “Now will someone tell me what you know about the Baranyk so we can begin?”

  Uno raised his hand.

  “Yes,” Dr. Naidoo said, calling on him.

  “The Baranyk—or the ‘Astral Montodea,’ as they’re known officially—most closely resemble the praying mantis of Earth, though, of course, it’s much larger and more deadly than anything back at home. Standing above two meters, it has four hind legs, with two forelegs that are bent and equipped with spikes used to snare prey and pin it in place. Their long neck is flexible enough that it can spin almost three hundred sixty degrees, similar to that of an owl. But unlike their cousins at home, the Baranyks’ eyes are larger and can see in much clearer detail, though we’re unsure if they see as we do or in some sort of infrared.

  “Beyond that, they are thought to be tunnel dwellers since in our first encounter with them, they had primarily lived underground, going undetected for months. Since other Baranyk colonies were found underground, the evidence seems to support that theory. Unfortunately, since the fleet’s ability to probe belowground remains greatly limited, the Baranyk remain nearly impossible to detect, and that remains one of our biggest challenges with the war.”

  “Good,” Dr. Naidoo said.

  “Show off,” Squawks muttered.

  “But spoken as if read out of a book,” Dr. Naidoo said. “Tell me what you know, not what you’ve read.”

  “I… um…” Uno shifted in his seat. “I guess I don’t understand the question, ma’am.”

  “Tell me its strengths. Its weaknesses. Tell me what they want or why we are at war with them.”

  Uno chewed on his lip, his face making a pained expression, as if not knowing the answer hurt.

  “Anyone?”

  Nobody took the bait.

  “It’s okay,” Dr. Naidoo said. “We train you to fight, not to think. It doesn’t matter why we’re at war with them if those we are at war with threaten everything we know and love, does it?”

  Several pilots voiced their agreement.

  “But back to you,” Dr. Naidoo continued. “You were trained to fly a drone, to fight distantly, not hand to hand. If you were a squad of marines, you would have no doubt received something similar to what I’m going to teach you, but you didn’t. You didn’t need to. But if you are to be pilots, you will have a very real chance of meeting one of these things in person, and I’m going to make sure you’re ready.”

  “Ma’am,” Ginger said. He was one of the experienced drone pilots who had joined them from the front. “We’re fighter pilots. We’ll be blowing the Baranyk out of space. Why would we ever run into one in person?”

  “A fair question,” Dr. Naidoo said. “Have you been trained on ejection procedures yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, let’s just say if you’re successful, you may be moored on an alien moon or planet. And if you are shot down, you can bet it’ll be Baranyk-infested territory. If you want to survive until a rescue team can be assembled, you’ll need to know how the Baranyk think, how they hunt, and where they’re vulnerable.”

  “Understood, ma’am.”

  “Make no mistake,” she continued. “This is not weapons training. It’s far more important than that. So download the course curriculum onto your tablets, and we will begin.”

  An uncomfortable knot settled into Coda’s stomach.

  Learn to fly, Commander Coleman had said. Save the world. Reclaim your honor.

  No one had ever said anything about battling the Baranyk in person. One-on-one. Maybe Uno had been right all those nights ago. Maybe he should have read the fine print.

  17

  Barracks, SAS Jamestown

  Alpha Centauri System, Proxima B, High Orbit

  Coda returned to his bunk, mentally and physically exhausted. The two hours of class with Dr. Naidoo had been followed by four more with a different instructor. That alone would have been enough, but the advanced mathematics and physics lessons had been followed by an evening workout, dinner, and evening debriefing. By the time he staggered into the barracks, he felt as though he’d been run through the wringer, so his heart dropped when his tablet vibrated and he read its message.

  My quarters. 2100. And it was signed by Commander Coleman.

  The commander wanted to see him. Why? Even after performing well in the latest simulator scenarios, Coda was still below the failure line, but then again, so was everyone else in their quartet, and nobody else seemed to have received the message.

  The incident in the classroom then?

  That didn't make sense, either. It had been little mor
e than a shoving match, and between Moscow and Uno more than anyone else. Why would Coda be summoned and not one of them?

  Commander Coleman’s quarters were near the rest of the barracks in their semiprivate section of the ship. Coda stopped outside the door. He looked for a communicator, something similar to what they'd had at the academy, but didn’t find one and resorted to knocking.

  The door slid open, exposing a small room with a bunk set into the bulkhead. A writing table, bookshelf, and two chairs spaced around a circular table filled the room. Commander Coleman sat in one of the chairs.

  “Sir,” Coda said, stepping into the room and snapping to attention.

  “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Coda made for the second chair and sat down.

  “Dr. Naidoo said she walked into an issue in her classroom today.”

  It is about the scuffle then. Strange.

  “It was nothing, sir. A few pilots were jarring, and it got a little out of hand. Nothing to be worried about.”

  “Nothing to worry about.” The commander chewed on the words. “Dr. Naidoo said Lieutenant Krylov was at the center of it.”

  “I suppose, sir.”

  “There seems to have been a number of incidents between you two.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Commander Coleman took a deep breath, rose from his seat, then made for the small bookshelf where a bottle of brown liquor waited. He poured two fingers’ worth into a snifter, swirled its contents, and returned to his seat. After taking a sip, he exhaled through his teeth.

  “You see,” Commander Coleman said at last, “I've got a problem. My squadron is divided, and you and Moscow are at the heart of it. That's not going to work. The pilots of this squadron need to have complete and absolute trust in their wingmen. And I’m not talking about belief, Coda—they need to know that they can count on those they fly with. Do you think they can do that now?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I agree. Unfortunately, it seems you and Moscow are more than just academy adversaries.”