Contents
Title and Acknowledgments
Green Zulu Five One
The Birth of Icarus
Papa Sierra
Three Minutes Out
Quantam
Blood(i)ed
Ribbons and Funerals
Discoveries
A Single Step
Movement
War Stories
Commitment
A Journey Ends
White Oscar Four Zero
Shipping Over
Making It Count
Big Push
What Happens
A Promise Kept
About the author
Green Zulu Five One
(And other stories from the Vyptellian War)
Scott Whitmore
Published by 40 West Media
Copyright © 2014 by Scott Whitmore
ISBN 978-0-9886896-5-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The only exception is brief quotations in reviews. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover design by Norman Dixon, Jr. To learn more about this awesome writer and artist, follow him on Twitter (@normandixonjr) or check out his blog, www.normandixon.wordpress.com. Original cover art by Yvonne Less (Diverse Pixel)/Shutterstock.
Acknowledgments
This book came about because of a suggestion made by Furman Ashley in his review of my short story “Green Zulu Five One” as it appeared in the Space Jockey anthology (edited by Tara Maya and available at Amazon.com). The story has changed since then, but Furman’s steadfast support and encouragement have not. Thank you, sir.
For their generosity and insight, my deepest thanks go to: Tammy Salyer, Jeffrey Smith, Norman Dixon Jr., Kari Ann Ramadorai, David Lawlor, Katherine Whitmore, Lolly Caviness, and Glenda Brown. I’ve also benefited immeasurably from the continued support of authors Jill Edmondson and Aymen Khalifa.
Last but not least, love and appreciation to my wife, Cheryl; daughters Johanna and Katherine (I mentioned you twice!); and granddaughters Deilia, Jadelynn and Violet.
Green Zulu Five One
Tyko killed the first two Vyptellians quickly enough, sending bright green streams of charged slugs into fighters that were now millions of pieces of space debris. They had been bunched up, slow to respond, and then predictable in their evasive movements — easy prey for one of the Fleet’s top pilots. But the third one, that was a different story. The Vyp had experience, Tyko could tell, and the alien pilot took full advantage of his craft’s superior maneuverability to avoid the pulsating green lances.
Not his first rodeo, Tyko thought. It was one of the nearly sixteen-year-old’s favorite phrases, first heard in a vid about one of Old Earth’s wars and explained through archive research in the base station library. A smile crept across his face as the image of a scaly lizard atop a horse flashed into his mind. The only humans who’d ever seen a live Vyp were Expeditionary Corps ground pounders, but propagandists made the most of the enemy’s reptilian visage.
The Vyp twisted and turned, avoiding Tyko’s slugs while attempting to gain a position to return fire. He countered each movement, both hands and feet working his craft’s flight controls while targeting and status data streamed across the vid screen he faced. The sleek Vyptellian fighter, shaped like one of the arrowheads shot at Tyko’s ancestors centuries ago on Old Earth, was locked in the targeting reticle in the center of the vid screen, the elongated pinlights of stars and planets on a backdrop of pure black providing visual references of the enemy’s movement.
A warning indicator flashed in the corner of the vid screen and a warning tone warbled in Tyko’s headset. He dismissed both with a flick of his eyes. Not now, Tyko thought as he closed in on the enemy fighter. The Vyp suddenly decelerated and as Tyko compensated, relaxing his finger’s pressure on the thrust touchpad, the enemy fighter nosed over. Tyko followed the spiraling Vyp, holding his fire until he saw a flashing red circle superimposed over the enemy fighter.
Tyko grunted with satisfaction as a one-second burst sent two lines of green reaching out toward the Vyptellian. At the moment when the charged slugs should have slammed into the enemy craft the Vyp pilot again drastically slowed and evaded, spinning off to the left in a turn so violently and crisply executed that for the first time in hundreds of engagements Tyko found his jaw dropping with awe at the skill of an enemy pilot.
The warning and tone returned, brighter and louder respectively, as Tyko maneuvered to reacquire his target with a rolling turn to the left that was as sharp as his fighter’s controls allowed. The Vyptellian ship reappeared on the edge of his vid screen, smaller than before but slowly moving back into the center ring where it would lock in place.
“Green Zulu Five One, you have nearly exceeded maximal battle efficiency duration. Disengage and prepare for relief.” The voice of the flight control officer was calm but the tone provided no room for discussion.
“Control! A few minutes … I need a few more minutes.”
“Request denied, Five One. Disengage and prepare for relief.”
Tyko maintained his course, accelerating his craft’s thrust with his finger. The alien in front of him displayed skill exceeding the norm and Tyko suddenly wanted to destroy this Vyptellian more than any of the others he had faced. The engine status text on his vid screen turned red as he pressed the touchpad to coax out more speed.
“Green Zulu Five One!”
“Look at the roster, Control, see who you’re dealing with. I need five minutes.”
There was silence on the circuit and Tyko was sure the flight control officer was calling up the flight manifest and realizing the voice on the other end of the conversation was one of the station’s top pilots.
“Five One, disengage and prepare for relief or I will order an involuntary turnover.” A slight pause. “I don’t give a damn who you are, son. There will be just as many Vyps to kill in four hours and you’re not breaking the rules on my watch.”
Tyko muttered a curse under his breath and focused on the Vyptellian as the distance between his fighter and the enemy closed. A bead of sweat rolled past his eye inside the faceshield as he stared at the vid screen, willing the red target lock circle to flash.
“Green Zulu Five One Papa, this is Control. Stand by to execute involuntary relief of Green Zulu Five One.”
“Aye, Control. Green Zulu Five One Papa standing by.” The voice of the other pilot was unemotional.
Tyko applied pressure to the firing touchpad but with no target lock nothing happened. Gritting his teeth, he executed a rolling turn, sending his fighter away from the Vyptellian.
“Green Zulu Five One has disengaged, ready for relief.” Tyko’s shoulders slumped. “On my mark, five … four … three …”
His relief took up the count. “Two … one. This is Green Zulu Five One, standing by for vector to nearest target.”
Tyko’s hands dropped from the controls and he leaned back in the seat, head up but eyes closed. After several moments he reached down and loosened the straps holding his feet to the control pedals. Swinging his legs to the right, he stepped
out of the Fighter Control Unit (Remote), to find himself facing a small crowd of pilots and support officers, their faces upturned to get a better look at the large vid screens positioned over each control unit.
They watch the battles like my friends watched me play vid games in my parent’s front room, he thought, his head slowly shaking. No different than that.
The pilots in the crowd were a mixture of those coming on or off watch. Pilots whose ships were destroyed by the Vyptellians remained in their control units waiting for replacement fighters to arrive at the scene of the battle. With thousands of kilometers separating the base station from the fighting, it was standard procedure to begin launching replacement waves as soon as the shooting started.
Tyko lifted the helmet off his head and tucked it under his arm as he walked through rows of control units. Slotting the helmet into a bulkhead cubby labeled with his name on a small metal plate, his thoughts drifted back to his first days as a Fleet pilot.
Fighting in Old Earth’s wars was part of his family history, with one distant and long-dead relation earning the title of ‘ace’ for destroying five enemy flying vehicles in aerial combat (this ancestor’s total of eight kills seemed laughably small to Tyko, who doubled that tally in his first week). Born shortly after the start of the war, Tyko started playing net-based space flight simulations at an early age, facing down and killing hoards of artificial-intelligence Vyps.
On his sixth birthday an e-card arrived: a greeting from the High Council praising his mental agility and lightning reflexes. His mother cried for two days. The net games Tyko loved were provided by the government and there was a good reason why the humans were always outnumbered: with a birthrate three times higher than humans, the Vyps started the war with a vastly larger population and quickly replaced their battle losses.
Tyko’s draft e-notice arrived on his thirteenth birthday. Early in the war, pilots were deemed too valuable to risk in personal combat and with space-fighters relatively easy to fabricate — technology was seen as humanity’s greatest advantage over the aliens — ships were redesigned to be controlled from afar. Remote combat also meant pilots could be younger.
Considered a natural fit for the program, Tyko was accelerated through the training pipeline and in just four months reported to his squadron on the base station. From the onset Tyko loved everything about his service. He lost a few fighters during early sorties but that wasn’t uncommon; by his tenth mission he knew enough that it became rare for a fighter under his command to take serious damage from the enemy.
He relished every aspect of controlling fighters during space flight, seeking out and engaging the enemy. Tyko’s reputation grew with every Vyp fighter he destroyed.
Life wasn’t too bad off the flight deck, either. Pilots had the run of the base station with their own rec hall, a first-class dining facility, and vid center. Combat was near-constant but pilots operated on medically mandated cycles designed to keep every pilot at peak efficiency. Assisting in this were squadron support officers, older and specially selected for their mentoring abilities. Support officers ensured new arrivals acclimated to base station life and monitored the behavior and performance of experienced pilots.
Developed by necessity and refined after years of wartime experience, these protocols and procedures enabled Tyko and his peers throughout the Fleet to destroy tens of thousands of the enemy without ever seeing one.
As Tyko walked toward the flight deck hatch, he thought about having some ice cream and a nap in his quarters before returning for his next on-cycle. Passing the dark gray door leading into Primary Flight Control, known as Pri-Fly, he paused. Despite hundreds of confirmed kills, Tyko found himself bothered by the one that got away. The Vyp he was ordered to disengage from had been more skilled than any other he’d seen in more than two years.
Pri-Fly was off-limits to pilots and Tyko had never knowingly seen or met anyone assigned duty as a flight control officer. Keeping pilots and control officers separate prevented the forming of personal relationships that could negatively influence decisions. At least that was the official line. Inside squadron ready rooms rumor had it only washed-out pilots were assigned to flight control; command did not want those without the skill to fly and fight in space to mix with those who could.
Tyko stared at the Pri-Fly door, a sudden feeling of anger and bitterness washing through his body. For the past two-and-a-half years he faced thousands of the enemy and killed hundreds of Vyps. On duty two days for every one off, he logged thousands of hours in Flight Control Units, maintaining complete focus on the mission at hand while piloting fighters into combat to keep the human race from being extinguished. He did these things without question or complaint, and usually with a smile on his lips.
But the one time — the only time, ever — he asked for something, some leeway in the procedure, he was denied by a wash-out who wasn’t smart enough or adept enough to make it as a fighter pilot.
Before he even realized what he was doing, Tyko’s hand was on the door handle. He gave it a quick twist and shoved the metal door back. From the corner of his eye Tyko saw a support officer, her mouth dropping open with surprise, begin running across the flight deck toward him as he stepped into Pri-Fly.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” The voice came from somewhere to his left. Pri-Fly was dark as space itself after the brightness of the flight deck, the only lighting coming from rows of console screens lining the bulkheads.
“I want to know who stopped me from killing that Vyp!” Tyko stepped deeper into the room and puffed up his chest, allowing his anger to take control. “Which one of you wash-outs kept a real pilot from doing his job? Huh?”
Tyko’s vision began to adjust to the dimness and he jerked to a stop, his legs suddenly numb.
Sitting at the consoles were officers who were much older than Tyko expected, but that wasn’t what sent his stomach dropping to the deck. The men and women in Pri-Fly had been gravely injured at some point. In the gloom he saw thick, jagged scars causing deeper shadows on faces, necks and arms, and each had at least one, and a few several, prosthetic limbs. The officer at the console nearest the door swiveled his seat to face the young pilot, and Tyko numbly noticed the man’s detached legs leaning against the bulkhead.
He realized then these officers had experienced combat first hand, not through a vid screen thousands of kilometers from the enemy. Some of them may have been survivors of the war’s first space battles, men and women who flew fighter ships against the enemy and returned with injuries Tyko and his peers did not need to fear.
More faces turned to look at the young pilot and he willed his deadened legs to move. “I’m … I’m … sorry,” he mumbled as he slowly stepped back. “Please … excuse me.”
The legless officer shook his head and turned back to his console as the support officer reached through the open doorway and grabbed Tyko roughly by the collar and pulled him back onto the flight deck. He barely heard her admonishments and threats of disciplinary action, or saw the faces on the flight deck turning to watch as he was chewed out.
Told he was removed from flight status until further notice, Tyko left the flight deck and wandered into the dining hall. Dropping into a seat, he looked down at a bowl of melted ice cream that had been left on the table. Tyko glanced around the room, seeing his fellow pilots alone or in groups at other tables, laughing, talking and eating. He felt suddenly disconnected from reality, as if the artificial gravity units had failed.
Suddenly, a thought came to mind.
I don’t even know why we’re at war with the Vyps.
The Birth of Icarus
Taken from the Introduction of Furman’s Utopia Spoiled: New Earth’s War With The Vyptellians
Toward the end of the 22nd Century the peoples of Earth set aside their differences, put down their weapons, and joined together in planet-wide unity. Such political consolidation had been the ambition of dozens of tyrants and megalomaniacs throughout human history, but in t
he end it was achieved not because of warfare, but in spite of it.
People across the globe were tired of violence and destruction, and the divisions that caused them: religion, ethnicity, class, and political philosophy. Extremism was shunned, consensus and compromise became the orders of the day. It took time, of course. Trust was in short supply but the ancient proverb best sums up the situation: necessity is the mother of invention.
Changing the status quo was imperative.
Earth’s air was poisoned by industrial processes. Large tracts of land were uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout. Temperatures were rising, and with them the oceans. Scarcities of food and drinkable water led to chronic famine. Disease was rampant and increasingly resistant to medicines developed decades earlier.
The new Earth Union made steady progress reversing the damage caused by centuries of neglect and abuse, but within two decades of unification many began to worry the population was rebounding faster than resources. Strict birth controls were put in place while at the same time serious talk began about extending humanity’s reach beyond the planet. The Community Ship Project was the result.
In 2228 two fleets were launched, sending half a million humans on a search across the galaxy for new planets to peacefully colonize. Each Community Ship carried one hundred thousand men, women and children as well as animals, plants and insects — both alive and in the form of genetic code for cloning. Each ship was self-sufficient, with industrial, power generation and food production capabilities, as well as vast stores of the raw materials necessary for the creation of a new community once a suitable planet was located.
Hera Fleet traveled nearly two hundred years, on what is now known as the Long Exodus, before contact was made with the Hrustians, the first extra-terrestrial species ever encountered by humans.
An additional decade of travel lay ahead of Hera Fleet before they reached the twelve-planet system that would become humanity’s new home. It was the Hrustians who suggested this system, which had three planets compatible with human life.
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