Starfighter (Strike Commander Book 1)

by Richard Tongue

   There was no time to run, no time to evade, no time for anything. No matter what they did, they'd be in the firing line for the next two hundred seconds, an eternity in fighter combat.

   “Leader to Squadron. Bandits dead ahead. Break and attack. Tally Ho!”

   Twelve missiles lanced forward as one, racing towards the approaching fighters, one brief advantage at their disposal. A quick glance at the sensor display confirmed what he had suspected. This had been a trap from the beginning, an ambush. Now they had to fight their way out of it. Two of the enemy fighters died in that first attack, a brief smile flashing across his face, but the board lit up with a host of new trajectory tracks as they launched their counter-strike, more leaping up from the fake tanker to join the fray.

   “Countermeasures!” Poole yelled. “Watch your countermeasures!”

   “Lambert, you've got three on you!” Alvarez said. “Take evasive action, now!”

   “Watch it, O'Brien, there's a pair on your tail!” Vasquez yelled, dancing with panic. “Drift across, I'll try and get them!”

   “Damn it, Scott, you've got one locked on!”

   The channels were full of chatter as the fight devolved into a series of brawls. Warning lights flashed on, missile tracks locking onto his tail, but he coolly ignored them as he fired his second warhead, catching a two-second lock on an enemy interceptor that passed in front of him. Kicking his engines to full, he dived for the tanker, smiling with satisfaction as he saw Poole, Sullivan and Vasquez try the same trick. He looked around for O'Brien, about to order her to follow, and cold realization hit him.

   One of his fighters had vanished from the sensor display. The record showed two missiles slamming into her midsection eight seconds ago, no chance to evade or dodge. Less than ten seconds, and he was already down one pilot. As he pressed his attack, swinging low towards the tanker, unleashing every countermeasures program he had at the pursuing missiles, he watched two more of his people die in front of him, Teddy Lee ramming into a warhead, and Poole losing the race for the tanker. For two years the three of them had flown together, and they died on the last day of the war.

   “Keep loose,” he said, ducking over the tanker as the two missiles on his tail slammed into it, unable to pull out in time. As bad as it was for his squadron, the enemy were faring worse, down to seven fighters. He saw Alvarez ahead of him, a missile on his tail, closing fast, and quickly locked on with his remaining warhead, sending it racing towards the deadly target.

   “Help's on the way, Ken,” he said. “Keep clear for ten seconds.”

   “Dive, Jack!” Sullivan yelled, and he turned to see a fighter swinging in behind him. He slammed on his thruster controls, slowing down just enough to spoil the targeting solution, a missile sliding ahead and harmlessly tumbling into space.

   “I can't get ahead!” Alvarez yelled. “Jack, I can't shake him!”

   “Three more seconds,” Conway said, but it was no good. His friend ran out of time, and died in a flash of flame. The screen was rapidly clearing, only eight fighters remaining on the board, four on each side. Along with debris that could only have come from escape pods, smashed into rubble. Deliberate kills, one final atrocity for the road. A dark knot of hate flowed inside, and he turned towards the crippled tanker, out-gassing from numerous hull breaches, locking on for a collision course.

   Behind him, Sullivan, somehow still alive, led Vasquez and Lambert in a final strike pass, their last missiles racing away. Conway caught them with his targeting system, guiding them in to their target with grim precision. The tanker finally cracked into fragments as the superstructure crumpled, and shrapnel rained down all around them.

   “Break for home,” he said. “We're on the outward curve. Move it.”

   They'd finished their pass, and finally were running back for home, leaving the few scattered enemy fighters in their wake. He let Vasquez and Lambert take the lead, shaking his head at the survival of the rookie when so many other experienced pilots had died. That kid had earned his drink, after all.

   “They're still coming!” Lambert yelled, as two of the enemy fighters turned, burning their engines at maximum. The warbook showed them as being out of missiles, unarmed, and it only took him a second to realize what they were doing. A pair of dots flashed onto the display as the enemy pilots ejected, turning their fighters into missiles in their own right.

   “Full thrust!” he yelled. “Maximum boost, now!”

   “I can't shake him!” Vasquez yelled. Conway fired his engines, surging forward, trying to get between the unmanned pilot and the survivors of his squadron, but there was nothing he could do. The two empty fighters found their targets, leaving only Sullivan and Conway, serenely drifting through space towards home.

   “To hell with this,” he said, rattling the controls on his navigation computer. The second squadron was closing rapidly, and he could still lock on for an intercept.

   “Jack,” Sullivan said. “Don't do it.”

   “Those bastards...”

   “The squadron's dead, and killing yourself won't bring them back,” his friend said. A blue light washed over his controls, his system taken over from outside. “I'm not letting you commit suicide when you have a baby waiting at home.”

   “Mo, I swear...”

   Sullivan cut the channel, and after a moment attempting to break the lock his friend had established on the controls, Conway slumped back in his couch, defeated. The faces of his friends flashed in front of his head, happy and cheerful the morning before, talking about what they would be doing after the war. All the plans were ended, all the hopes and dreams turned to dust.

   The computer brought the two of them back on board, while he sat at the controls, staring forward. Sliding up through the decks, he could see somber faces waiting for him, his wife standing next to Xylander, fresh tears on his face, stoic calm on hers. Mechanically, he opened the lower hatch, and dropped down to the deck, stepping forward.

   Waiting on the table was the jug of vodka, only two glasses left, Chief Cruz looking at them as though she might bring the rest of the pilots back to life through sheer force of will.

   “Jack, I'm so sorry,” Mallory said.

   “So am I,” he replied, trying to hold on.

   “We had the message we were waiting for,” Xylander said, darkly. “The war's over.”

   “Thank God for that,” Sullivan said, climbing down from his fighter. “Maybe now...”

   “There's more,” Conway said, looking at his wife. “Tell me.”

   She closed her eyes, looked down at the deck, and said, “There was a malfunction in the relay at the egress point. The Armistice took effect in this system two hours ago.”

   “Before we even launched,” Sullivan muttered.

   Holding his arm, she continued, “You couldn't have known, none of us could. There's no question of blame, just...”

   Shrugging her off, he walked over to the table, picked up the jug of vodka, and smashed it to the deck. He looked down at the shattered glass on the floor, then looked up at his wife.

   “Nothing. Ten of my friends died, and it was all for nothing.”

   “Jack...,” she began, but he walked out of the hangar deck, and didn't look back.

  Fifteen Years Later

  Chapter 2

   Ensign Nicola Morgan was woken by frantic knocking on her door, her eyes snapping open as her hand reached across for the coffee she had abandoned on her desk before falling asleep, regretting it as soon as she took a sip. She squinted up at the wall clock, cursing under her breath as she struggled to her feet, reaching for the uniform jacket draped over the back of her chair. The door opened, and Sub-Lieutenant Harry Bowman, her nominal superior, stepped in, shaking his head at her bedraggled appearance.

   “Come on, Nicky, I've been calling for ten minutes.”

   “Go to hell. Sir.” She waved a hand up at the clock as she tramped
over to the sink, splashing water on her face. “I'm not on duty for four hours, and I was up till oh-three-hundred last night working on those updated transfer requests.”

   “Not my call, orders from the commander.”

   “You can tell Old Man Hubbard that...”

   “I could,” Bowman replied, a smile on his face, “but I don't want to bring our careers to a premature end.”

   “What's it about?”

   “Don't ask me. Way above my pay grade. All I know is that he wants to see both of us in his office, right away.” He reached over, helping her on with her jacket, tugging it into position. “I'll buy you breakfast once we're done.”

   “That's supposed to entice me?” she replied. “Let me tell you, Karnak Station is never going to get into the Good Food Guide.”

   “I don't know, it's a unique experience.”

   Shaking her head, she stepped out into the corridor, and said, “That's the problem with you rookies. All of this is still exciting to you. I've lived on shipboard rations before, and it's always the same. After three or four months, everything starts to taste like chicken. Even the cornflakes.”

   As they walked past a pair of technicians, he replied, “Exciting this place isn't. That recruiting officer promised me high adventure, the eternal frontier, strange exotic wonders on worlds far away. Not six months spinning around a cold cinder somewhere to the right of nowhere.”

   “That cinder is the only thing around here that is interesting,” she replied, walking through the doors, selecting for the command deck. The elevator engaged, sending them up into the spindle at the heart of the rotating station, the gravity fading to nothing as they slowly began to drift to the ceiling.

   “Maybe to you, but that's your specialty,” he replied. “I'm an engineer, not an archaeologist. I still don't know why the hell they assigned me as scientific liaison.”

   “Someone had to draw the short straw,” Morgan said. “Those cities are ten thousand years old, Harry, and we're learning something new about them every day. At least, we would be if people didn't keep interrupting us.” Tugging out a datapad, she replied, “We haven't finished our analysis on most of this stuff. Why are they in such a hurry?”

   He shrugged as the elevator stopped, the doors opening as they spilled out into the corridor beyond, and said, “How should I know? The commander sends me the lists, and I just pass them on.”

   “Twice in two weeks,” she replied. “With completely different parameters. First I'm told to package everything up we don't need anymore, and then it all has to go back down into Storage so that the high-priority artifacts can be shipped out.” As they moved towards Senior Lieutenant Hubbard's office, she continued, “We're a fully-equipped expedition, Harry. A team of ten experts, of which I am the humblest member.”

   “Don't knock yourself,” he replied.

   “I'm just an ex-Espatier who took a degree in primitive anthropology,” she said. “I don't have any grand ideas about my abilities, and if it wasn't that there are digs going on all over the place at the moment, they'd never have dragged me back in.”

   “Little young to retire, though,” Bowman said, looking her up and down. “Not many people leave the Fleet after their first tour. Especially in the officer grades.”

   “I had my reasons,” she said, tugging her jacket into place. “Shall we get this farce over with?”

   The door slid open, and the burly Hubbard replied, “I'm interested to learn your assessment of my command style, Ensign, but I don't think this is either the time or the place.” He gestured for them to come in, where another officer, tall and rangy, lounged on the far wall, hanging on to one of the ceiling restraints. “Captain Blake wanted to speak with you himself.”

   “Indeed,” Blake said, moving forward, extending his hand. “I've been so busy over on Hermes that I haven't had a chance to meet the team that gathered the artifacts we came to collect.” He glanced across at Hubbard, and added, “Something I am very pleased to rectify right now. I'm sorry we've been pushing you a little hard over the last few days. Our lords and masters in the Admiralty are impatient gods.”

   Ignoring the warning glare from Bowman, she replied, “It's more that I don't understand the reasoning. More than half of the artifacts you are taking have yet to be properly analyzed, and you're taking some of our best samples home. We've got a great team here, more than up to the job, and better-equipped than anyone back at Mars to handle this.”

   “Ensign, it is not your place to question the policies of the Triplanetary Fleet,” Hubbard blustered. “If we are ordered to send home the results of our excavations, we do so.”

   “Research teams are waiting on Mars, Callisto and Titan to begin work,” Blake added. “I admit, this does seem a little strange, but your commander is quite correct.” Waving his hands in the air, he added, “Don't blame me, anyway. I'm just the truck driver.”

   “I'm sorry, sir,” she replied.

   “It's fine,” Blake said. “If I was in your place, right in the middle of a major discovery, I'd probably want to be left alone to get on with it as well.” He glanced across at Hubbard, and added, “All of this is truly fascinating. I had a look at some of the sculptures yesterday, while my crews were packing them for the voyage. There was some meaning there, somehow, even if they were so totally alien.”

   Nodding, Morgan said, “I know. It's strange, isn't it. I've looked at alien artifacts before, at the Dyson Museum, even in the field at the abandoned mines at Proxima, but these almost seem to have a connection with us. As though we might somehow be able to comprehend them someday.” Shaking her head, she continued, “Art history isn't my specialty, and that's one thing we could really use out here.”

   “We already have a full science team, Ensign,” Hubbard said.

   “Nevertheless,” Blake mused, “I'm willing to pass that on when I get home. It might be a different way to approach the problem.” Pulling out his datapad, he said, “This piece, for example.”

   She looked at the screen, where an image of a starfield was displayed, strange lines swirling around, connecting them in distorted constellations. A jagged crack tore down one side of it, as though some long-dead vandal had attempted to smash it to pieces.

   “A starfield, certainly, but not enough to really go on for the moment. The Starstone was one of our first discoveries...”

   “Starstone?” Blake said, raising an amused eyebrow.

   “It fits, doesn't it? Astronomical symbolism is one of the few things we can usually grasp when we encounter alien races, though more often than not it only gives us a good way to date the artifacts.” Reaching for the datapad, she tapped a series of buttons, bringing up one of her earliest reports. “We were able to do a partial fix on the positioning. That's how we established the age of the site.”

   “Ten thousand years,” Blake replied, shaking his head. “Longer than our entire history.”

   “Of course, that's only provisional. Accurate to within a few thousand years.”

   “Naturally,” Hubbard interrupted, “I have superior experts now working on the problem.”

   “That won't help,” Blake said with a sigh. “Not until we have more fragments to work with.”

   “We're still looking,” Morgan replied. “Though I think the seam's running dry.”

   Glaring at her, Hubbard said, “I think there are still discoveries to be made down here, Ensign, and we're going to keep looking.”

   Blake asked, “Be honest, Ensign. Are there any other major finds here?”

   “There are a lot of artifacts left to uncover, but I don't see any big breakthroughs coming. Our best guess is that this was a small outpost, a colony, on the fringes of their space. After ten thousand years of decay, a lot is lost.” She smiled, and said, “Naturally, we need to keep working for a while yet. I could easily be wrong.”

   “You can pass on to Counter-Admiral Knight
that I think we have significant progress yet to make,” Hubbard pressed. “She hasn't replied to my request for an extension of our expedition. Perhaps you could personally give her my report when you see her, as well as your own opinions of the project.”

   Blake nodded, and said, “I certainly will. And I think you've done a tremendous job for us.” With a sigh, he added, “I'm afraid, though, that this project will have to end prematurely.”

   “What do you mean?” Bowman asked.

   Out of nowhere, a pistol appeared in Blake's hand, and a crack echoed around the room as a patch of crimson blood appeared in Bowman's chest, the young officer looking up, his mouth open, the recoil tossing him to the wall, a puppet with all the strings cut. The second bullet killed Hubbard, placed between his eyes, and the assassin turned to Morgan, gun leveled at her.

   “You get to come with me,” he replied.

   Two years of combat training had taught her how to fight by the book, but two more years working in the dregs of Mariner Station had taught her how to fight dirty. Her legs slammed into his groin, sending him tumbling back, the gun dropping from his hands. Kicking off the wall, she grabbed the gun, but before she could fire, a pair of hands reached around her waist, and she tumbled around, firing a shot on instinct, sending her would-be kidnapper crashing into the wall. The force of the blast sent her soaring in the other direction, but her reactions were still good, and she pushed off, back into the corridor.

   The man she had killed was wearing a Triplanetary uniform. Her uniform. As alarms started to sound all around, she desperately swung from handhold to handhold, racing down the corridor, hoping and praying that this was all some sort of nightmare, something she would wake up from. The elevator doors were open, waiting, and she dived in, slamming the control for Operations.

   Her jacket was covered in blood, and she shrugged it off, tossing it to the side like unwanted vermin, the cold steel of the gun tight in her fist. She looked at the communicator, and briefly reached for the controls before snatching her hand away. If the Hermes crew were attempting a takeover, the internal network would have been the first thing they had suborned.