by Evan Currie
Until then, there were things to break and people to kill.
“Someday, perhaps,” she said aloud.
“But not today,” Weston said firmly. “What are our orders concerning Imperial contact?”
“If they’ll talk, talk to them,” Gracen ordered. “Not that we expect you’ll be able to talk them down. Things have gone too far for that anyway, but any further intelligence you can gather would be of inestimable value. When talking fails, teach them they should have given talking more of a chance.”
“Yes ma’am.” Weston stood, saluting. “With your permission, Admiral?”
“Go on,” Gracen said, turning her seat away from him as he retreated from the office.
She looked out into the abyss beyond her office, eyes picking out the moving stars she knew to be part of the Swarm Constellation working tirelessly on her personal pet project. She hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but Gracen had long since figured out she hadn’t been born under a lucky star.
“Good luck, Commodore,” she whispered after her retreating officer. “We are all going to need it, I fear.”
Everything she knew told her that hell was coming.
Most thought they’d already been through hell during the Drasin onslaught, but as much as Gracen wished otherwise, she had a bad feeling those invaders were just the opening act. During her time in the service, Gracen had learned weapons were not to be feared.
The hand behind them, however? Well, that was another story, wasn’t it.
► Commander Stephen Michaels, known as Steph or Stephanos to his friends, walked across the flight deck of Unity Station, ignoring the big delta-wing shuttles as he focused on the ready squadron position where the new-generation Vorpal Space Superiority Fighters were resting.
Unlike his Double A fighter, the Vorpals had been designed primarily for space combat rather than adapted from an air superiority design. Ignoring aerodynamics in favor of pure design efficiency gave them an ungainly look, but having seen them in their natural element—or lack thereof, he supposed—Steph was comfortable saying he was impressed with their capabilities.
Still nothing on his Archangel, of course, but impressive all the same.
“Commander?”
Steph half turned, then grinned as he recognized the woman approaching him. “Chief!”
“Good to see you again, sir.” Chief Corrin grinned back at him.
“I haven’t seen you since . . . Hell, I think we were in the Forge.”
“I was assigned to the Bell for a few months,” she answered, “but it wasn’t for me, so when a slot opened up on the Big E, I took it.”
Steph was only mildly surprised. Most people in the current Black Navy would consider being reassigned from a Heroic to the only carrier in the fleet to be something of a demotion, but even he’d considered it in some of his weaker moments. Piloting the King was a thrill sometimes, but most of the time it was sheer drudgery. He was a fighter jock at heart, so the Vorpals called to him, and only the Big E carried Vorpals.
“They’re lucky to have you,” Steph told her honestly.
Corrin sighed. “Probably not for long. Scuttlebutt says the E is already being considered obsolete. We haven’t had an assignment out of the system since the invasion.”
Steph nodded thoughtfully as he considered that.
It wasn’t surprising, since the Enterprise was the second—and last—ship of the Odyssey Class. There had been three other hulls laid out, with more planned, but those three had been eaten by the Drasin during the invasion. Now there was no point in building more ships of a class that didn’t seem to have much purpose in the new Navy.
Without the singularity core of the Heroics or the stripped-down efficiency of the Rogues, the Odyssey Class just didn’t have a role.
“Well, hang in there,” he said finally. “Sooner or later, they’ll remember how much they need people like us. They always do.”
He chuckled and looked to the nearest Vorpal. “You know, I have to confess. I thought about requesting a transfer myself, just to get some time with one of these strapped to my back.”
She smirked a little smugly. “I understand that. They’re pretty hot rides.”
“I’ve seen the specs. They’re good,” Steph said with an amused look. “But I’m Double A, so anything else is like standing still.”
“Those sound like fighting words, Commander.”
Steph and Corrin turned, surprised by the new voice.
The source was a tall woman with medium-length black hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She had sharp features and a muscular build, neither of which detracted in the least from the glare she was sending Steph’s direction.
“Lieutenant Commander Black.” Corrin nodded, smothering another grin. “Meet Commander Michaels. Commander, this is Alexandra Black. Wing Commander, Excalibur Squadron.”
“Lieutenant Commander.” Steph nodded to the woman, observing her for a moment before deciding that she was only half-serious in her ire.
It was sometimes hard to tell. Tormenting other units was one of the primary pastimes of any military group—the more elite the group, the better—but a lot of people took it too seriously. They were fun to troll, but Steph wasn’t really in the mood at the moment.
A little honest ribbing, however, was just what the doctor ordered.
“You fly these toys, I assume?” he asked, smirking openly.
“Watch it, hotshot,” she countered. “Last I heard, you were pretending to fly that barge you call a ship.”
“Oh.” Steph mock winced. “That would really hurt if, you know, I hadn’t gotten a chance to make the ’Disseus dance in a real furball already. How many combat hours do you have?”
“We got plenty during the invasion and the Liberation battle,” Alexandra said, a little defensively.
With the Enterprise basically being system bound since the Liberation, Steph knew that her squadron hadn’t had as many combat hours as any of them would have preferred. With a real live star war going on, she and the rest of her squadron must be chomping at the figurative bit to get out there and mix it up with ET.
It was something civilians and even a lot of military just didn’t get about fighter jocks, pretty much all the Special Forces teams, and any group of dedicated specialists. Unlike your regular Joe, she and hers had spent a significant portion of their lives preparing for just this moment. Any unit that maintained that sort of dedication wanted to be in the middle of things with every fiber of their beings. Being told they couldn’t get out there and do what they’d dreamed of, trained for . . . it had to be infuriating.
Steph, for his part, just nodded in clearly mocking sympathy at her statement.
“Nothing wrong with notching some Drasin decals up on the side of your hull,” he told her. “My Double A still has all my decals painted on her.”
“Under all the dust, I suppose?” Alexandra countered swiftly.
She noted with some pleasure the brief but clearly pained look that passed over his face. She’d struck home with that one at least.
“Children, please!” Chief Corrin stepped between them, rolling her eyes. “No slap fights on my flight deck.”
Both officers shot the senior NCO dark looks promising retribution, but Corrin brushed them off with casual ease. She’d dealt with fighter jocks most of her career, every one of them outranking her in every way except the one that mattered. They knew better than to piss off the woman in charge of maintaining their rides.
Oh, she wouldn’t do anything to reduce the combat effectiveness of the wing, of course. That was just not on, but she could damn well make a pilot’s life a living hell in every other way if she chose, and Steph knew it too.
He recovered first from her jab, laughing openly. “Never change, Chief, but do keep in mind you’re not maintaining my plane anymore.”
“You really think I can’t reach out and mess with you on that big beast-ship of yours?” she asked.
Steph gave her a lo
ng look before sighing and putting his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll take you up on that.”
Corrin nodded, managing to be completely professional while still exuding a smug satisfaction that would have been worthy of censure had an officer been able to point to any related, concrete action. Steph had sometimes wondered if there was some senior NCO course covering that particular skill, but he figured she’d have to kill him if she told him, and so he didn’t ask.
“And from that exchange, I suppose that the Chief was much the same on the Odyssey?” Alexandra asked dryly.
“Hell,” Steph responded in kind, “I think she may have mellowed.”
If looks could kill, the one Corrin shot him would have had her up for a firing squad. Steph shrugged it off. If NCOs had a course on being smug to officers without getting censured, officers had a counter-course on pissing NCOs off by saying things other people on the planet might take as a compliment.
“If you two children are done,” she said, “I have work to do.”
Alexandra lifted her hands, palms out, not saying a word, while Steph half bowed with a flourish. Corrin rolled her eyes and stalked off, grumbling about “children” the whole way.
Steph waited until the Chief was well out of earshot before looking over at Alexandra and saying, “You’re lucky to have her.”
She snorted. “We know. Not going to tell her that, mind you.”
Steph chuckled, knowing exactly what she meant.
“Of course not,” he agreed. “That’s just not how things are done.”
The younger pilot smiled genuinely at that. “So what brings you slumming down here, hero?”
Steph let his eyes drift to the sleek, if not aerodynamic, hulls of the Vorpal fighters for a moment before he responded. “Just looking over the latest toys, Lieutenant. Ugly beasts, in the best possible military meaning of the words, of course.”
Alexandra understood what he meant. Sometimes military designs veered to the ugly side so much that they attained a practical beauty, and the Vorpals treaded on that territory with an unholy glee.
Not needing to be overly concerned with atmospheric lift, the Vorpals had long spars that mounted weapon hardpoints, fuel tanks, and modular scanner gear out and away from the main body for maximum efficiency.
It was a look only a person in the military could love.
“I heard the Odysseus is shipping out,” Alexandra said suddenly, bringing Steph’s attention fully to her again. “True?”
“Yeah, we have a few more hours before everyone is supposed to be on board. Probably twelve after that before everyone is actually boarded, but you know how that goes.”
Alexandra nodded, thinking for a moment before she grinned. “Since you’re slumming here with us anyway, AA-boy, feel like getting some space time in?”
Steph looked at her sharply. “Think you can swing that?”
“Please,” she scoffed, waving to someone across the deck.
Steph watched as Alexandra strode across the deck to accost an officer at least two grades her superior.
“CAG,” she said, calling the man closer as Steph followed her. “Commander, this is CAG, our CSG.”
“Pleased to meet you, CAG,” Steph said, shaking the man’s hand.
CAG was a throwback to the Blue Navy carriers, where the lead officer of an air group held the official title of Commander: Air Group. In the Black Navy, the title was officially Commander: Space Group, but even on the Odyssey, everyone had just called Steph CAG.
“Likewise, Commander Michaels,” the CAG said. “Your reputation most certainly precedes you.”
“Got most of it just following Raze where mere Angels feared to tread,” Steph said with a wave. “Dumb luck I lived through it all.”
“That’s usually how it goes,” the CAG said before looking at Alexandra. “What is it, Black?”
“We have a trainer ready to go? Figured I could give wing-boy here a taste of how the other side lives.”
The CAG stared at her for several long seconds, then finally gestured down the deck. “Trainer Three is tanked. We were scheduled for some puke runs, but the civilians missed their shuttle. You can sign that one out.”
“Thanks, CAG,” Alexandra said.
Steph nodded his own thanks as he followed along in the lieutenant’s wake. He, for one, had no intention of missing a chance to fly a fighter again. Shuttles and ships just didn’t quite count, unfortunately.
Shuttle Bay
► Eric met his first officer, Commander Miram Heath, at the designated shuttle bay to transit back over to the Odysseus. The statuesque blonde commander had beaten him there by several minutes and was locking down the shuttle as he walked up the ramp.
“Sir, we’re locked down and ready to depart,” Heath said as Eric nodded to the loadmaster. The man hit the switch to bring up the ramp and seal the interior.
“Thank you, Commander,” Eric said, walking past the rows of men and women settling in for the short hop across the black. “Get yourself strapped in, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Sir,” Heath said, taking one of the front jumper seats.
Eric made his way up to the open accessway to the cockpit and stuck his head in.
“Ready to go, sir?” the Marine lieutenant at the controls asked.
“That we are, Hadrian,” Eric said. “No one in the LEO seat?”
“Running light, sir,” Lieutenant Hadrian responded. “Still a lot of people not back from leave.”
“You mind?” Eric gestured to the LIDAR-and-executive-officer position.
“Have at it, sir,” Hadrian said as casually as he could manage.
He’d not have turned down any officer, commander or above, who asked, but Hadrian would have been a lot more formal with most. With Eric Weston, however, that almost felt like sacrilege. The man had been a Marine before the Block War and was one of the liberators of Iwo Jima. Everyone involved in that battle was a pure-blooded Marine legend, even the Navy pukes. Hell, even the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) walked tall in Marine tales of the second siege of Iwo, though that certainly had a touch of irony to it, he supposed.
Hadrian ran through his preflight as the commodore settled into the right-hand seat and strapped himself in, trying not to be too obvious as he shot glances out of the corner of his eyes at the man.
Apparently, he failed miserably, since Eric sighed.
“If I’m bothering you, Lieutenant, I can sit in the back.”
“No sir!” Hadrian shook his head. “Sorry, sir. It’s just . . . My dad was on Iwo, sir.”
Eric looked over at the young officer for a long moment before he spoke again. “Hadrian? Marshal Hadrian?”
“Yes sir.” The lieutenant was shocked that, just based on family name, the commodore remembered his dad, who hadn’t been an officer or even one of the survivors.
“Gunnery Sergeant Hadrian made one hell of an accounting of himself, according to a friend of mine,” Eric said seriously. “It’s a pleasure to see his blood run true, Lieutenant.”
“Never wanted anything else,” Lieutenant Hadrian admitted as he finished the preflight and casually flipped a bank of switches to bring all the shuttle’s systems to power. “Dad’s buddies didn’t talk much about most of the war, but they all talked about Iwo, sir.”
“Mostly lies, no doubt.” Eric chuckled. “I didn’t have much to do with it. I just came in on the last day. People like Gunny Hadrian, they were the legends. Your dad and his unit and what was left of the JSDF held that island for three weeks before we fought our way to them. Turning point in the war, I firmly believe.”
“Most people say that was Tokyo,” Hadrian said as the shuttle vibrated under them, powering up.
“Tokyo was a more strategically valuable battle,” Eric admitted. “Iwo was a worthless hunk of rock in the middle of nowhere. No strategic value at all, unlike what it had been back in the midtwentieth. There was no damn reason for all that fighting there, but the line had t
o be drawn somewhere.”
“Holy ground,” Hadrian said softly.
Eric just nodded, remembering what things had been like back then. The Block offensive had taken them by surprise, decimating the Fifth Fleet and driving American and Japanese military forces right out of Japanese waters. The JSDF had been mauled in the initial engagements, and being forced to fall back from their home island had destroyed their morale.
Not that anyone was doing much better in those days.
People had been war weary after decades of fighting one terrorist organization after another, and no one wanted yet another police action, to say nothing of a real war. The swift beating the Block Mantis fighters had unleashed on the old F-35s the Marines had still been running at the time had taken everyone by surprise. With air superiority, Block forces steamrolled every hint of resistance, driving the Navy, Marines, and JSDF before them like so much debris in a tidal surge.
At Iwo, the Marine commander had decided he’d had enough. Major Gib had written in his journal that he envisioned them running with their tails between their legs all the way to Pearl—maybe to the West Coast—if they didn’t do something.
Iwo was as good a place to make a stand as any.
So they dug in. Marines, Navy, and JSDF spent the two days’ lead they had on the Block offensive turning Iwo Jima into a fortress.
It made no Goddamn sense. The Block could have, no, should have just blown their ships and sailed around them, but Gib got on the radio and told the Block commander that Iwo was holy ground, and if he wanted it, he’d have to take it from their cold, dead hands. He taunted that admiral every minute for hours, days according to some stories, doing everything he could to rile the man up.
Damned if the Block commander didn’t take the bait.
The biggest battle of the war was fought over an island that no one but a Marine gave two shits about.
For three weeks, the defenders held off wave after wave of landing forces, fighting under a steel sky . . . and for three weeks, those same defenders stalled the Block offensive in its tracks.
