by Tony Healey
“Keg, is it a problem that this guy isn’t awake?” Michael checked for a pulse, and found one.
“Uhh. He’s been a mansicle for almost a hundred years… who knows?”
“Point taken. Green Wing, this is Dragon. We have the survivor and are on our way out, how’s it looking out there?”
“Get it off me, get it off me,” yelled Aaron.
“Too small, I’ll hit you,” responded Liam.
“Turn at me.” Emma did a good impersonation of an emotionless android. “That’s a Krait-II, you won’t be able to shake him.”
“Krait-II?” Aaron sounded rattled.
“Notice it’s only got energy lances on the side wings? Vertical stabilizers are half the size. They traded firepower for added maneuvering thrusters.”
“Not very fair, is it?” asked Keg.
“What?” asked just about everyone at once.
“Their little fighter has weapons that are dangerous. Mosquito has flashlights.”
Emma sighed. “They’re not that small, they just take finesse.”
“Why does that line never work when I use it?” asked Liam.
Michael clipped a tether to the recovered man, and pushed off the wall. With their route already explored, they made better progress on the way back through what remained of the Lewis & Clark. He tugged his passenger along like a boy with a balloon, moving through the zero-g environment at a speed just shy of reckless. Within two minutes, they were once more at the door they had entered from, urged on by the radio chatter of a roving dogfight outside. Without power, it was impassable.
“I think I have a key,” said Zavex, readying his blade.
Michael backed off, pulling the still-unconscious man away. A few swipes of the vibroblades detached the bulk of the door. This time, the kick launched the metal rectangle out into space. Michael’s Glaive had tipped to the side, one wingtip touching the ground, no doubt from the massive explosion earlier. It had not rolled so far that he considered it impossible to take off―just tricky.
He jogged out into the large, open chamber. “Dammit, I knew I should have moved it.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that just yet,” said Zavex.
Michael turned to ask him what he meant, but froze at the sight of a Draxx D-14 “Monitor” medium fighter floating up into view just past the end, aiming its particle beam cannons at the two men.
“Proc.” Michael slouched, seeing no cover that would withstand the blast. “We’re procced.”
Zavex glanced at him. “I hardly think this is a time to think about being with a woman.”
ichael pulled his sidearm, aiming at the Draxx fighter. He imagined the pilot laughing at him as the personal laser weapon fizzled into the hull. An orange glow grew deep within the bowels of the particle accelerators. Zavex bowed his head, muttering something the translator disregarded.
“Hello, boys!” cheered Liam, as the Manta bobbed up behind the Monitor.
A pip from one neutron beam hit the Draxx fighter straight in the left engine, detonating it and kicking the Monitor into a descending spin that sailed clear of the Lewis & Clark. The Manta pivoted, firing all four beams out of sight. The warm light glimmering over the dark blue hull confirmed the kill to Michael, and let him breathe.
“Excellent shot,” he said, running to his tilted Glaive.
“Will you hold still,” scolded Emma. “I can’t get this mole off your bum if you keep squirming.”
“He’s all over me.” Fear was audible in Aaron’s voice. “If I level out I’m going to get shot.”
“Funny thing about hornets, luv. They tend to get a bit cheesed off when you kick their nest. It’s almost like they know you did it.”
Aaron got some of his confidence back. “Tell, I’m swinging around wide, give you a broadside. See if you can do some laser surgery.”
“I’m already on the blighter, Liam has other problems.”
“What? I do?” He looked at the spatial targeting display, where two dots raced toward him. “Mung!”
Liam dove, the huge Manta sank out of sight from where Michael sprinted. A second later, two Kraits zoomed past. Climbing in to the Glaive proved to be a challenge at the angle, and it took him a moment to squeeze the survivor in the space behind the pilot’s seat. Every time a fighter whizzed past the open space to his right, he tried to move even faster. With the recovered man stuffed in place, he flipped his body horizontal and pulled down on the canopy edge to seat himself. A few seconds after the canopy sealed, the cockpit flooded with air.
Gingerly, he manipulated the left wing, extending it as a means to push the Glaive close enough to level to take off. He cringed at the metal-on-metal scraping sound that shuddered through his ship. Fortunately, with no gravity, the wing did not bear noticeable weight. The maneuver tossed the ship off the ground, and he activated the flight control systems, which kicked the ship into a lazy glide to the left. Once he had it under control, he tapped at the sticks and backed it out, mindful of hanging strips of twisted metal.
Zavex had a cleaner egress, racing backwards before flipping over into a dive in pursuit of Liam’s new friends. He went for a missile lock first, not wanting to risk a particle beam hitting the Manta by accident. As soon as he got tone, he loosed an AFM-13 “Hornet”, the smallest missile in the Fleet, but fast enough to chase down a Krait. The Draxx peeled up, off Liam’s tail, into a wobbly dance. The Hornet streaked out of sight, leaving only an orb of energy from its thruster visible as it pursued the panicking egg.
With a hundred meters to target, the thruster flared into a streak as the burst charge fired, doubling the missile’s speed to over 24,000 m/sec. It stabbed into the Krait from behind, detonating a fraction of a second after piercing the hull. The debris plume burst out of the nose end before the entire ship crumbled apart.
Emma snarled, sending a stream of curses into her helmet, but not over the comm. She pondered calling Aaron a lily, but decided against it in case she had to live with him after this was over. She fired past the Krait-II several times, her effort to hit it at least kept it from lacing Aaron’s ship with a fatal hit.
“Betty, compute a missile lock on the target.”
“Lieutenant Loring, we do not have any guided missiles mounted.”
“I’m aware of that, Betty, just do it.”
“Hunter, this is Sylph. You got any Hornets?”
“Yeah, four, but the damn thing is behind… Good idea.”
“Set a two second delay, drop it on my mark. Targeting data incoming.”
Aaron’s fingers flew over the controls, binding one of his Hornet missiles to Emma’s targeting computer. For all intents and purposes, it would be as though the Mosquito fired it. As tone squealed through both of their helmets, Aaron pushed the thumb switch. One of his four Hornets broke away from its mounting rail and sailed into space. He overflew it, as did the Krait-II and Emma.
Two seconds later, the thruster came on, and the homing missile zipped toward its mark. The Krait-II veered into a desperate turn, finally breaking Aaron’s tail. The Draxx super-light rolled through a torturous series of maneuvers, causing the Hornet to explode just far enough away to prevent major damage.
“Dammit,” grumbled Emma, having managed to stay with him.
As if flying down the inside of a tornado, she slid sideways in an orbiting helix, firing endless streams of pulse laser. The enemy avoided her. The little ship shimmied, the gesture told her the Draxx was about to roll off to the lower left. Just as she went to follow, the Krait-II exploded as a pair of particle beams smashed through it from behind and right.
“Damn thing,” grumbled Aaron. Several seconds of radio silence. “Thanks…”
“I’ll give you that, Hunter… You’re a good gunner.”
A wave of energy orbs flew past the cockpit, sending her into hard evasive maneuvers. “Where are they all coming from?” Emma looked up, left, and right. The number of Draxx fighters had not seemed to change despite their kills.
“Hold it together, Green Wing,” said Michael, swerving onto the tail of a Monitor gunning for Liam. Two blasts ended it.
Liam had all he could do to stay away from the cloud of gnat-like Kraits desperate to get a piece of the slowest, largest target they had. Emma ran interference, chasing them off his tail one by one and not staying with the same one long enough to inflict damage. A few lucky hits slowed one down enough for Zavex to dust it.
“It’s not like we have a home to run to,” said Emma, skimming just shy of an incoming Draxx missile. “We have no choice but to win.”
“Thanks for the pep talk.” Liam had run out of Monitors to go after, and did not fancy trying to pit his mediocre piloting skills against the task of trying to hit Kraits with a pig of a heavy fighter. Instead, he concentrated on evasion, leaving the shooting to Keg.
“Zavex, see if you can get some distance and start picking fleas off the Manta. Everyone else, get in close and don’t give them a good shot.” Michael joined the fray, going from Krait to Krait as they swung in for a shot on Liam.
The next forty-five seconds felt like an hour.
Michael rolled away from an exploding Draxx fighter, another victim of his particle cannons, and clipped another passing sideways with his lasers.
“Check one-nine-one degrees off the Lewis”―Michael glanced at his console―“seventy thousand meters approximate. What is that?”
“Another anomaly,” said Liam.
“Jump trace,” said Aaron. “Something found us.”
Michael punched the console. “Proc.”
A shimmering blue-white point of light appeared, promptly expanding into a vaporous cloud. The hole in space offered a view of a deep azure world, streaked with lightning and globs of energy. A long, ovoid Draxx ship slid through the rip, bristling with pods and antenna clusters. As the breach in hyperspace sealed, hatches parted along the rear sides. More Kraits launched.
“Attention, Green Wing,” announced Keg. “I’m reading a DCV-17 “Python” class corvette.”
“Thanks for the update, lunchbox,” grumbled Aaron. “It’s plain as day.”
The front end of the Python opened, four triangular panels bending away from a central hollow as a swell of energy formed at the end.
“Are those damn lizards seriously trying to hit us with a capital ship weapon?” Aaron laughed.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a giant proccing target!” shouted Liam.
True enough, the Python’s orientation shifted about as if it were trying to aim at him. Liam rolled the heavy fighter about, rotating until the derelict was horizontal. As large as the Manta itself, a sphere of energy coalesced at the front end of the corvette’s main weapon. Liam accelerated as hard as his ship would allow as the death orb leapt away from the Python, a fuming comet headed straight at him.
He cleared the edge of the Lewis & Clark, and the magnetized plasma swerved down, favoring the huge vessel. An EM pulse wave created by the impact washed over the Manta, knocking him into the dark and filling every display screen with static. As the stricken heavy fighter tumbled, everything inside jumbled about. Keg, already sizzling from the EMP blast, sailed headfirst into the iris door at the rear of the cockpit and crashed to the ground. He flopped about in a droid’s version of a seizure. When he went still, the LEDs on his face spelled one word: ouch.
Green Wing turned to pursue their drifting comrade. Liam pounded at the console, as if the force of his fist upon the buttons could somehow bring the systems back online faster. Panic rose in his gut as he prayed that the energy pulse only triggered an emergency degauss, and did not blow out any components. The Lewis & Clark blurred repeatedly through his field of spinning vision, stars were streaks rather than dots. He whimpered at the nineteen-meter wide glowing melt-hole where the weapon struck.
One screen came on, displaying the results of a system start up. The flight computer went off hard; it had never been completely powered down since the ship had rolled off the assembly line.
“Come on, come on. I don’t have a minute to wait!”
Keg twitched.
“You okay, little fella?” He looked back past his seat at the droid.
No reaction. He almost felt sad.
“Sons of”―he cringed as debris clattered over the outside of his ship―“Come on, hurry up.”
Michael’s Glaive flew around an expanding field of shrapnel, having just destroyed a Krait trying to shoot the helpless Manta. Liam’s communications came back, and the sounds of his wing-mates shouting tactics returned to his ears.
“I’m coming back online. Everything shut down from the EM blast.”
Liam froze with a bewildered look, smelling coffee. He whirled. Keg floated by the lavatory, waiting for the tiny coffee maker in the bomber-sized cockpit to finish filling his travel mug. Once done, Keg took hold of the cup and hovered towards the front at a slow drift, one spindle arm folded behind his back. LEDs at the top of where his ‘face’ should be lit up in an attempt to create the appearance of scrunched eyebrows and a thick moustache.
“You know what galls me, son? The way these damn Draxx think they own the universe.” Keg spilled a little coffee down his front as he tried to take a sip. “I’ve been out here for forty years, ten of them in command, son. Just what―”
Liam, smiling, brought his closed fist down atop Keg’s head.
The droid’s light-eyebrows dispersed in a pixelated cloud, returning to normal. Keg peeked into the cup and swerved to face Liam. “Made you coffee, Liam. Here.”
He took his no-spill shamrock mug back, planting the wide base in its holder with a click. “Thanks.”
Flight control came back online just as the Python’s main gun glowed again. Liam shoved the throttle forward. Keg, hovering, remained motionless in regard to space. As a result, he had a severe meeting with the rear wall. Pinned in place from the acceleration, he wailed.
“Ah ha, ha ha ha ha. Fools! You see, everything is going according to my plans.” With a grunt of exertion, he peeled one arm off the wall to point at Liam. “You, minion, return us to my lair at once. I have much work to dooooooo.”
Keg went headfirst into the back of the co-pilot seat as Liam hit the thrust reverser. The entire cockpit flooded with orange light for an instant as another massive plasma ball sailed overhead, too far away to hit.
The droid flipped up and over the seat, landing in place. “Good morning, Lieutenant Dalton. Did I miss anything important?”
“Keg, turret, please. There’s still fighters after us.”
He floated through the hole in the ceiling. “I shall obey, in accordance with prophecy!”
Emma went for the Python, ignoring both Michael and Aaron screaming at her to break off. She spiraled through a cloud of pulse laser fire, enduring one minor scorch to the left winglet before she broke past it to the rear. The large ship did not maneuver after her.
“Damn, I guess they’re smarter than they look,” she said.
Aaron laughed. “You didn’t honestly think they’d try to point that thing at you?”
“I did a little, maybe.” She flip turned, lighting up the Python’s engine nacelles with pulse laser blasts. A stream of fire puffs drew a glowing line across the back of the vessel, and several went into the end. “Maybe I can still get their attention.”
With one of three large engines sputtering, the Python did turn, but only enough to bring a cluster of heavy turrets to bear on the gnat behind it. A dozen particle beams opened up, filling the void around her with streaks of bright yellow. She accelerated into an erratic dive, right at the Draxx corvette. Emma squinted, angry at Betty’s incessant repetition of “pull up, pull up.” She did so, at the last possible second. Somehow, she had slithered through a curtain of particle beams alive, and gotten too close for any of the turrets to be able to reach her.
“You are either charmed or suicidal.” Michael thought back to his dream, the case of insignia pins. “I’m hoping it’s charmed.”
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br /> “Just trying to stay alive.” The Mosquito blasted over the Python’s nose, diving out of the firing arc of the main gun. Her gamble that they wouldn’t even try to hit such a nimble ship with it paid off.
“Now what?” asked Zavex.
Aaron jumped on the tail of a Krait going for the Manta, riddling it to death with pulse laser fire. “If she can keep the big boy distracted, Dragon and Zavex can get behind it. A couple of Widows up the tailpipe should take it down.”
“Now who’s talking suicide? Glaives couldn’t get close to it without getting shredded by the parti beams.” Emma swerved away from another barrage.
“I don’t think that would do us any good, it looks small from here but that thing is still a corvette. We could all land in its shuttle bay. Even widows will just tick it off.”
“Liam is wise. Does anyone have a better idea?” asked Zavex.
“I’m working on it,” replied Michael. “I’m working on it.”
ommander Robin Teague yanked down all four levers, and the sound of power manifested as a noticeable hum from nearby. After hesitating for a moment to ensure it continued, she replaced the floor panel.
“Hand me those locking nuts, Lieutenant,” she told Hardy. He passed them to her, and made short work of slipping them back into their designated holes, twisting them tightly back into place. “That’ll do it.”
“You know your way around things, don’t you, Commander?” Hardy asked.
She laughed. “Case of having to, in my experience. Comes in handy to know how everything works on a starship. Back in the Academy, I was known to spend evenings poring over schematics and technical manuals.”
