by Noah Barnett
Charlie balked. "Would you look at the price of a size-three torpedo? I shudder to think what they charge for a cup of coffee around here."
"I am in complete agreement. I barely have the solvency to fuel and air my fighter," Monty said from his console.
"Really?"
Grace, her expression ashamed, said, "It's entirely my fault. Monty pushed upon me his life savings, and I threw it all away in a fit of pique." She sagged as though she was about to pass out, but Monty caught her, pulling her into his lap.
"No, darling, this was an unforeseen circumstance, and we'll muster through as we always have."
Grace clung to him as tears threatened. "I'm so sorry, Monty!" she wailed.
"The good Lord hath provided me much. He hath led me to an angel and given me a purpose, but in my zeal, I spent much on upgrades," Tobias added, joining the conversation. Gadreel placed a hand on his thick arm and he turned, looking down into her mismatched eyes.
"You are a just and noble warrior. He will provide again," she said, in a tone of utter conviction. Her faith in the man was admirable, but Charlie didn't exactly think it would help them right now.
"Jen?"
Jen was on the other side of the room planning out her purchases. "I can probably afford the missile-rack after buying guns and ammo."
"You losers need a handout?" Remy snickered.
"Now isn't the time, Remy."
"I wouldn't ask for much," she said, grinning slyly.
"What was said in orientation needs to stand. We have to play this like a team and pool our resources. From there we can split the credits and buy what we need. I'm willing to throw in two hundred and fifty thousand."
"I have a hundred thousand," Jen admitted. She and Tobias had been new to Gun Meister before the beta, and while Charlie was glad they were here, neither had exactly been able to save much.
"My purse is light, but the Lord hath provided me with fifty thousand to donate."
"Ugghh… the feels are killing me. Right here," Remy said, pointing to her spleen. Everyone looked at her expectantly. "Fine, I'll pitch in… four hundred and fifty thousand."
"That's eight hundred and fifty total, one hundred and seventy thousand split five ways. With that, we can all get repairs, buy guns, and maybe splurge on a couple of missiles. Don't buy air right now. If you check the market price, it was only ten credits a few hours ago. Wait for them to fix those scrubbers or whatever," Charlie instructed. He sent everyone a trade request, and they quickly made the exchange.
Charlie sat at the console and called up the market page again. His first priority was the repairs to the fighter. That would let him know how much he had left over for weapons and fuel. After that, he decided on a pair of Vulcan 20mm Repeaters and two thousand rounds of ammo. The Vulcan’s rate of fire was only half that of the Gatling, but the bullets were faster and hit harder - plus the ammo was twice the size, so it filled up his storage space.
Then he bought the mount for size one missiles, and two Wasp SRM's. He technically had one hundred and eighty thousand credits, so there was just enough left over for two thousand liters of fuel, which would fill about twenty percent of his tank. He checked the final invoice before finalizing his purchase.
_________________________________________
Item Invoice:
Fuel Filter - 200c
O2 Seal [Pilot Seat] - 800c
Right Thruster Cowl - 13500c
Right Engine Vector Manipulator - 9500c
2x Dagger 20mm Repeaters - 50K
[2000] 20mm - 22K
4/1 Missile Mount [Pair] - 20K
2x Wasp [IR] SRM - 42K
2000L Fuel - 21K
Total - 179K
________________________________________
Charlie accepted the purchase order and watched his precious credits drop to a mere eight hundred and eighty two. He turned to see Elva sitting with the other companions, completely absorbed in the reading material. Complex math had never been his strong suit and he was already dreading the tedious homework. Nevertheless, he withdrew the datapad and started in on the lesson plan.
CHAPTER THREE
Day Two - Sim
Loading Star Nova Online_Closed Beta…
Logging into private test server…
A fluorescent light shone down a few feet from his face, illuminating the depressingly unpainted concrete walls of the bunk room. Five bunks filled the tiny, ‘private’ room near the hangar bay, and the empty bunk across from his meant that Monty and Grace must still be off exploring. Jen lay on the next bunk - still offline - while Alastair continued to study. Someone was in the shower - probably Tobias, if the oversized flight suit hanging on the hook was any indication. Remy was also missing, as was her new companion, so Charlie turned his attention back to Elva. She lay next to him on the small bunk, reading from a datapad.
"How are you doing?" he asked.
Elva glanced at him and sighed, tossing the tablet onto the mattress. She rolled onto her back and covered her face with a pillow. "It's so messed up. They use a strange mix of real formulas and fictional constructs."
"It's all on the net, though?"
"Yes, and they say it won't change." She pressed the pillow to her face, letting out a small scream of frustration. Taking pity on her, Charlie reached over to massage her forehead with his fingertips. She sighed gratefully. "I was doing the calculations for the attack plan, and it's a little scary how close to Earth we’re going to be fighting."
"I thought the Jaguar had a max velocity of one-third the speed of light. That would let us reach Mars in less than an hour."
Elva purred as Charlie rubbed small circles into her temples, practically melting into the bed. "Point-two-nine light-years, actually, and that's a theoretical maximum. We’ll hit about point-two-two before we’ll have to turn and burn towards Earth."
"Why do we need to slow down?"
"Well, we’ll need to engage them. If we didn't slow, both forces would just shoot past each other in a few fractions of a second. Instead, we’ll have to stop and then boost to match their velocity, but at least Earth's gravity will help us there. We'll have between forty and sixty minutes for the actual battle."
Charlie frowned. "So, we're going to let them shoot us in the ass?"
She shook her head. "Yes and no. Once we’re on the same vector there'll be plenty of room to maneuver, but they’ll be approaching us from behind."
Alastair looked up from his tablet. "I am more worried about the difference in weapon types. The Roth use lasers, which have a much more effective range. Our ballistic weapons aren't slowed by distance, but the muzzle velocity is only a fraction of a laser’s. Hitting a thirteen-meter target will mean practically getting into knife-fighting range."
"They did say that guided missiles fare better at long range."
The shower stopped and Tobias entered the cramped bunkroom. He gathered two uniforms, handing one to Gadreel, who was following after him.
"You ready for the first simulation?" Charlie asked the pair.
"I believe so. We are armed with conviction," Gadreel confirmed, zipping up her flight suit and helping Tobias squeeze into his.
Monty returned with Grace, and as the door opened, he said, "The food is as awful as advertised. I would rather chew boot leather than choke down another strip of so-called bacon." Grace, face green, sank down on her bunk in a faint.
"How are the other trainees doing?"
"Like a mob of unruly children. There are about fourteen hundred beta testers and they have a limited number of simulators, so each flight gets just two hours per day to train. Afterward, we are supposed to debrief and discuss."
Charlie tapped his datapad to check the schedule. "Our session isn't for another hour, but we could head down early to watch."
"I went down earlier but I didn't learn much. Once combat started, it was pure chaos. Several people have been keeping notes, and they say that the Roth change every session. Possibly to make things more
unpredictable," Monty shrugged.
Remy finally arrived, Eugine’s apathetic smirk firmly in place as he trailed behind. Jen sat up in her bunk and looked around.
"Am I late?"
"No, we were just about to head out." Charlie stood, leading the others from the room.
Ten rooms lined the hallway on each side, allowing a hundred pilots to train simultaneously. His team entered one of the training rooms, where they had ripped the cockpits from a Jaguar and mounted them on metal platforms. Several players were currently climbing out.
"You’re in for a treat," a woman with rainbow-colored hair grinned.
"It went well?"
"Hell no, we failed miserably. But it was fun! This game is going to be a fucking blast. Expect to sit in there for about ten minutes before anything happens. They have to go over the controls for every new batch," she added over her shoulder as she left the room.
"Shotgun!" Remy called, bouncing toward the first simulator. She climbed the stairs to the open gunner's cockpit and scrambled inside, while her companion walked more casually to the pilot's ladder. Tobias took the next pod as Monty helped Grace into her cockpit. The Southern belle reluctantly removed her outer jacket, revealing the skintight flight suit beneath, then took Monty’s hand and climbed into the pilot's chair. Monty folded the jacket carefully, draping it over the stair railing.
Elva stepped over to their simulator and held out her hand, blinking at Charlie expectantly. He took it long enough to turn her toward the pilot's cockpit, then swatted her rump to propel her up the stairs. She let out a surprised squeak and caught the lip of the canopy.
"You jerk!" she pouted, slipping her legs into the seat.
"I’m certainly no gentleman," he agreed as Elva rubbed her posterior. She stuck her tongue out, then pulled on her flight helmet. The opaque pilot's canopy closed.
Charlie climbed into the gunner's seat and pulled on the headpiece as his own canopy slid closed, plunging him into darkness. Hexagons blossomed across the walls like giant pixels as the simulator initialized.
***
The ship sat inside the brightly lit hangar bay as the technicians pulled the fighter toward one of the catapults. A box showing the face of Lieutenant Mansfield appeared in his field of vision. "The pilot of the Jaguar is responsible for starting the craft and maintaining the systems in-flight. The console on your left controls the ship's systems. Activate the two glowing toggles for main power and the system circuit, then enter 'one-one-one-one' into the keypad."
A shudder ran through the craft as the engines rumbled to life, and dim LED lights activated within Charlie's cockpit. Mansfield continued, "Your individual fighters will each have a special code, which we will give you before the mission."
"You don't want us taking off for a joy ride, huh?" Charlie muttered under his breath.
"After activating Main Power, you'll still need to turn on the Flight System to verify your location. Press the highlighted button and a technician will guide you through the process. While the navigation computer is booting up, the gunner may turn on their system."
The switch loadout console began to pulse and Charlie flicked up the red plastic cover, toggling it on. Green text flew past in a blur, and after a few seconds the main screen loaded, the radar buzzing with friendly dots. Mansfield was still instructing the pilots on how to reset the navigation computer, which gave Charlie time to play with the joysticks. As he did, the gunner’s seat, and the rear turret spun backwards.
"You are about to be launched using the base catapult. Do not thrust during this time or you'll rip the flight mount from the slide and slam into the tunnel wall. Gunners, we’ve already had two people destroy their weapon turrets, so wait until you are clear of the base.” Even through the video feed, Mansfield’s irritation was clear.
Charlie glanced one last time around the hangar bay, then returned the turret to facing forward. He was the middle fighter in the group of five, and the other pilots were visible through the glass canopies; Tobias easily recognizable by his oversized helmet.
The catapult clamped down on the bottom of the craft and the wall opposite lowered into the ground, exposing a long, sloping tunnel. A few seconds later, Charlie was jerked back and pinned to his seat as the fighter shot forward.
They were immediately swallowed by the concrete tunnel, which slowly angled upward as the Jaguar continued to pick up speed. Eventually, a tiny black window came into view and the catapult slammed into the release spring, spitting the fighter out into open space. The lunar surface quickly fell away underneath them.
"Your first task will be to plot a course to the highlighted objective. Use the navigation computer to select your destination," the lieutenant continued. The fighter rotated slowly until the Earth came into view, looking like a small blue marble. A yellow diamond was positioned just to the right of Earth's surface.
"Oh gosh, they had to make it hard." Elva sounded apprehensive.
"You can do this," Charlie encouraged.
"We do not expect you to remain in formation during the first day. Simply plot a safe course, and the scenario will continue."
The navigation repeater on his screen started to update as Elva worked. A green dotted line arced around the edge of the planet and numbers indicating time and fuel cost filled the display, forcing Elva to make corrections.
Charlie decided to test out his equipment while she was occupied. There were two joysticks on either side of his seat, so he pulled the right stick toward himself and the chair slowly tilted upward. At the same time, the twin-mounted turret followed his action. A hundred green rectangles floated into his vision, marking the friendly ships, while his wing made up a small cluster of numbered icons.
As he was playing around, another box appeared on his HUD, showing an exhausted-looking woman. "Today everyone will receive a default loadout. You'll have twin fifty-caliber Gatling guns and a mix of eight size-one missiles. You will earn credits based on your performance. Killing an enemy fighter is worth ten thousand credits, while destroying a dropship will net you fifty thousand.
"The turret is fired using the joystick’s trigger, and missiles are launched using the HAT switch,” she continued, her voice monotone. “To select a missile, you can either use your HUD menu or the touch-sensitive console to your right. Missiles may be fired in pairs, but they must be the same type. IR, or infrared, are heat seekers and will lock onto an enemy's engine bloom. Then there is EM. All ships generate some kind of electromagnetic noise, and EM missiles can lock onto that signal. CS, or cross-section missiles, will home in on a radar return. Each type has its strengths and weaknesses. Targeting a dropship with a CS missile may seem easy, but the enemy fighters are small and thinly-shaped." Charlie listened with one ear as he flicked through the missile list. A bouncing yellow circle surrounded the crosshairs in his vision.
"The Roth have not used missiles as of yet, but a friendly one might decide that you make a better target. If that happens, you’ll have only seconds to react. There are two buttons on the left stick, for Chaff and Flares. I'd suggest hitting them both," she smirked tiredly.
"After today, your simulated loadout will be the same as your purchase order, even if it hasn't arrived yet." As she continued, Charlie practiced selecting friendly targets and locating them with his turret.
"I think I'm ready to maneuver," Elva called to him.
"Okay,” he acknowledged, returning his seat to the center position. The ship angled to the right and the engine noise grew to a roar as the fighter shot forward. The dashed green line on his navigation repeater began to fill as the ship’s course took hold, their speed quickly climbing from .01 to .03c as the fighter accelerated.
"You know, the math says that we’re pulling about thirty-thousand G’s worth of acceleration. Both of us should be squashed flatter than a dime," Elva said through the comms.
"Ahh, the wonders of inertial dampeners. That’s the magic wand we get to wave around. Without it, we'd be crawling up to speed a
t just five or six G's." He gazed up through the canopy at the panorama. The stars were glowing brilliantly, a vast carpet of twinkling lights against a painter's palette of colored nebulae.
"Man, space is cool," Charlie murmured, almost to himself.
"I'd agree, except for the awful food and deplorable living conditions."
Charlie laughed. "It reminds me of our first week together in Gun Meister."
After a few minutes of flight, Lieutenant Mansfield reappeared. "Everyone has plotted a more-or-less safe course around the Earth to their destinations, so in the interest of time we are going to skip ahead. You'll be on an intercept course with the Roth forces, so prepare yourselves."
There was a shift in the simulation, and an alarm went off as the Jaguar's radar picked up several foreign ships. The Roth appeared behind them, the target list beginning to grow as more enemies were discovered.
