“You take the job?” He asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. The admiral said you have contacts for me.”
“Do you have your PDA? I can upload all of the information to you.
I pulled out the screen I had been given earlier and handed it over. He placed it on the desk which synced it automatically to the computer system. He typed a few commands and copied the files over.
“They are all sorted by wing. Every squadron, every flight and every pilot is listed. You’ve got names, locations and service records. Have at it.”
I began thumbing through the listings while still walking the halls back to my quarters. I glossed over names and units initially to read their quick biographies instead. Anyone with a history of violence, particular ruthlessness or extreme trauma got a bookmark. The ones missing next-of-kin data got two.
Before I started in on the complete roster, I knew I would have to pay Lieutenant Johnson a visit. I gave the young pilot my word and I was far letting him down. According to the roster, he had been relieved of duty on the Ninth Fighter Squadron after his injury. Since then he was shuttled around for treatments before being stationed with the 15th, guarding the carrier group. It was a flying gig with no action, little danger and nothing memorable.
I caught up with him as he returned from a patrol. I can’t say he was surprised to see me when he came in from the landing bay but he definitely looked thrilled.
“Grant!” Johnson exclaimed, seeing me from the edge of the hangar of their battleship. He left his docked fighter at a light jog with his gear still in hand towards me. The pilot’s gait was again steady and I supposed that he was nearly healed up from his crash. “You’re back!”
“That I am.” I replied, smiling as I shook his hand. “They promoted me to Commander Prime.”
“Really?” He paused, trying to unravel what he had just heard. “What are you up to now?”
“They haven’t gotten rid of me yet. Are you ready for a new assignment?”
His eyes gleamed. “You better believe it. Command pulled me from the active squadron after my crash. There isn’t jack for fighting to be done out here. The aliens wouldn’t dare attack the entire fleet.”
“I mean to change all that.” I looked him in the eye. “I’ve got clearance to start my own fighter squadron. Sixty men, brand new prototype ships from earth, the works. We’re gonna tear those freaks apart… We’re gonna be the ones who breach the inner system.”
Johnson’s high subsided and he came back to reality. It wasn’t fear I saw come over him but rather a greater understanding. “Suicide mission?” he asked with a voice that instantly sounded ten years older.
I nodded. “Without a doubt, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m going to need some help to plan it but I think we can pull it off.”
“How many volunteers do you have so far?”
“Including me, one, but I hoped you’d be two. Want to be my first flight commander?”
Johnson gave me a quick smile. “You know it, sir. When do we start?”
“Right now. I’m on my way to see the fighter wing commanders to see if they have anyone who is crazy or dedicated enough to join us.”
I began my search by speaking with the current wing commanders on board the capital ship. Between the information stored in my database of the existing commanders and the Rising-Captain Johnson’s personal revelations and experiences with their members, I was able to whittle my list down to under a hundred out of the original 350.
Things slowed down considerably when I started going one-on-one with the individual pilots, but still faster than I had originally imagined. I was able to tell fairly quickly if they possessed the qualities that I was looking for. Qualities like insatiable bloodlust, razor sharp skills as fighter pilots, and a lack of relatives at home who would miss them when they gave their lives tended to make them known.
By the time I finished the man-to-man interviews on the capital ship, my wing had a dozen members ready to fly. We were able to do some training, but mostly I utilized our spare time to get to know one another.
We set off shortly on our route through the human fleet. Our circuit took us to the two idle bomber squadrons, all of the fighter wings on each of the five surviving missile frigates and to more than a dozen smaller flights stationed on the gunboats. After watching how I conducted things on the first bomber, my original twelve began helping out with the interviews as we went along and by the time we hit the last fighter squadron our roster was overfilled. Although I had not voiced my intention it was just what I was shooting for; it gave me some leeway if one of them cracked up or was otherwise incapacitated before we deployed.
Before returning to earth I made a final stop at the carrier to bid the admiral goodbye and to thank him one last time. Again his exec met me at the docking bay but this time I had all the members of my new squadron in tow. I could see the other man’s eyes widen as we made our way down the loading plank. “I see you’ve had some measure of success in finding your victims,” he said without emotion.
“You might want to reconsider that.” I corrected him. “My victims are about to save your life. Where’s Heddings?” I diffused the situation and changed subjects.
“The admiral is in the main briefing room. I can take you there but not the entire squadron.”
“That’s fine.” I turned to Johnson who was standing to my side. “Keep everyone here. I’ll be back in twenty,” he complied.
When the exec and I entered the briefing room, we saw Heddings standing in a circle of multiple other lesser flag officers, drawing on an active map of the system. He looked up just as we approached and I saw a faint smile form on his face for the first time ever. The others turned towards us in turn.
“Gentlemen, if you’d excuse us for one moment,” he ordered and the rest of the group filed out including the exec who was nearly fighting off shock.
When we were alone he spoke again. “Commander Grant, I hope you have not backed out of your decision. Things aren’t looking well out here.”
“Far from it, sir.” I answered. “I’ve got all the pilots I need and we’ll be leaving for earth in a few minutes.”
“Excellent. Space Research is prepared for your arrival. How soon do you think you will be back and operational?”
“If I figure two weeks round-trip for travel, plus two more for training, at least a month. These guys are damn good but we won’t be able to sit down in new ships and be instantly combat effective.”
“I know, but every second we delay our enemy readies more forces. We’ve been able to limit their attacks and keep them uncoordinated, but it’s only a matter of time before they deal us a savage blow. We need… I need you to give us the advantage one more time.”
“I won’t let you down sir.” I replied. “Thank you for this honor.”
“The honor is mine.” The admiral reached out and shook my hand. “It’s time to finish this.”
“Keep the fleet together for three more weeks. After that, watch the inner system and be ready to move.”
He released my hand. “I will. Good luck Commander.”
The exec was already at the door as I exited and passed the officers as they shuffled back in. As we made our way back downstairs, he turned to me. “You’re absolutely right; this war rests on your shoulders. I’ve got something for you that might be of use,” he passed over a solid state drive about the size of a small stack of credit cards. “This drive contains the results of the latest sensor sweep and sky survey of the inner system. It lists every asteroid, every orbit; all of the weather patterns, everything you’ll need to plan your attack.”
“Thanks. I’ll do what I can to keep you alive.”
I took the drive as we approached my shuttle. The members of my squadron were seated on the ramp but stood when I entered. I scanned the group, looking each one of them in the eyes. Satisfied by their expressions I spoke, “Gentlemen, let’s go get our rides!”
I felt the tiniest apprehension a
s we departed the carrier. Maybe it was the fact that I was again leaving familiar surroundings or that we were now out in the open to attack for the entire journey home. I remembered Heddings’ warning that the aliens might be able to influence our jumps, but I kept the hypothesis a secret and only told the pilot to keep the weapons ready, not wanting to start a panic.
I finished my meeting with the gunboat’s crew on the bridge and took my leave. Captain Johnson was waiting for me at the main door. “Do you need something?” I asked.
“No, sir. I just want to know what the plan is, and what we should be doing for the duration of the voyage.”
“Well, Captain, one thing I need is to assemble the squadron into flights and decide on their commanders. Can you help me out with it? You did nearly as many interviews as I did.”
“That I can, sir. Do you still want me to take one of the positions?”
I looked over at him as we entered the main briefing room. “I certainly do as long as you want the job. Right now I know you better than anyone so I think it is the logical choice,” he nodded in comprehension.
Johnson smirked. “I accept. How many more did you want?”
“Six total, so four more. I’ll be taking one as well. If we have sixty ships waiting for us that will give us ten per flight.”
It didn’t take us long to find the other commanders. While all sixty of the pilots on board were exceptional, we settled on two majors from the 14th SFS (Space Fighter Squadron), a captain from the 8th, and a junior colonel from the 15th.
The colonel was a complete surprise to me. Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Black had been the 15th’s squadron commander for nearly a year and before that had flown nearly non-stop in every engagement during the taking of Sol Bravo. He had nearly as many confirmed kills in his fighter as I had on the ground and had absolutely no one waiting for him back home. Seeing and hearing him in our first interview I could almost see myself looking back in fifteen years.
The other three were excellent leaders in their own right, each having lead flights in their respective squadrons before. I only hoped that I would be able to keep up. I had only a fraction of their hours even sitting in a SR-1 cockpit not to mention flying one in combat.
That’s not to say I felt to be at a disadvantage. I had memorized the field manuals of each and every major weapon system in space, to include the fighters, and had added a number of works on strategy on top of that. Space war doctrine was still at the fledgling level, but as one can imagine much of it stemmed from humanity’s experiences with naval vessels on the seas.
Once we were in agreement, I sent Johnson to summon our new commanders so that they could be in the loop when we assigned the rest to their places. In general we attempted to keep those with similar histories together, but a great many of the men had never met nor served together.
It took us a little over an hour to place the rest of the pilots into their flights. With that task completed, I rounded up the entire squadron in our luxurious amenities – the secondary storage bay adjacent to the hangar which now doubled as our barracks. With half of the room full of crated up supplies and the other with my crew, things were cramped but I made it work.
Standing on top of one of the wooden crates I read off all the names and offered to hear any concerns. There were none. Once I completed my address and when all of the assignments were made I released the men to their individual flight commanders.
Two hours later we all met back up together and I began the training. I ran my crew ragged, running through the landing bay, hanging off the rafters above, pushing cargo crates, everything I could think of to break them down and get them into a stressed mindset. It took a few hours more before I lightened up on them and switched to teaching about space combat, my objectives and my expectations.
I didn’t spend much time on the space combat doctrine, since I was preaching to the choir. Not just the commanders but most of my crew had far more flight hours than me plus the whole bit about actually going through flight school. The colonels did give their fair say, as did a few of the majors, reiterating some of their experiences flying in Sol Bravo that the younger officers missed.
Thus progressed our five days trucking through space back to earth. Train, teach, strategy, repeat. I met with the flight commanders regularly to develop our possible attack plans given the latest intelligence that we had acquired. We kept open several different possible scenarios since we could judge the inner system’s conditions perfectly this far out, as well as having no information as to what our new fighters would actually be capable of accomplishing.
I limited our planning to what was already possible with the current-generation SR-1 fighter just to be safe. Anything more than that I considered to be a nice-to-have and nothing that I wanted to build a plan out of. I knew we would update it all on our return trip anyway.
By the time we arrived in earth orbit, my planning was nearly completed. It afforded me some time to observe the flight deck as we neared the planet. The sight of earth materializing out of nothingness was a welcome change, but to truly enjoy it we still had to land. As always, the dive through the steadily thickening atmosphere turned the ship into a raging fireball and twisted our insides as we plummeted to the ground. The blood rushed to my head as I stood watching the inferno tear away at the ship through the front window and I felt for the first time a tinge of fear that we might not even make it to the ground in one piece.
34
In utter contrast, I remember clearly to this day how beautiful it was to see a blue sky in the distance as we lost our speed and the flames subsided. We glided down through a few sparse clouds and the desert floor came into full view. Gradually our speed slowed and my heart rate began to slow. The blood rush to my head subsided and I relaxed my grip on the guardrail before me. Vast mountain ranges stretched in all directions around us. The ship’s plating began to catch enough of the landscape to reflect a deep blue off its surface. Far in the distance before us I caught a glimpse of our destination.
A few metal towers in the middle of nowhere marked my return to civilization. In what seemed like an eternity later, we were disembarking from the ship and stepped off at the edge of the runway nearest to Space Corps’ Headquarters, a vast complex that stretched from the base to deep underground and extending far out into the wilderness.
The operational wing was located along the main runway and consisted of several dozen large hangars, factories and foundries. From here nearly every ship I had flown in was researched, prototyped and produced. On the far side of the nearest mountain range, or I should say, through an extensive subterranean tunnel complex, was located the Space Research Wing’s Applied Science Directorate. We could only imagine what surprises they would have waiting for us, but for the moment I reveled in the simple pleasure of touching the ground one last time.
I descended the cargo ramp of the gunboat and felt an earthen breeze and the sun on my face. Gone was the constant smell of oil and metal in the recycled air we had lived on for the last two years. I had never expected to make it this far, much less return from all my trials thus far alive and physically intact.
A small contingent of uniformed men was waiting for us at the edge of the runway. I instantly recognized the Space Corps commander along with commanders of the Space and Battle Labs. The rest of my wing followed me off the ship in perfect rank and file, taking up a position behind me as I greeted the generals.
We burned a few hours in debriefings before donning our full service uniforms for my formal promotion to Commander Prime. The Space Corps commander gave only a few words of encouragement. There were only a few other people present, none of whom I recognized, at our gathering which was held in front of SC headquarters at the base of the flag. As far as promotion ceremonies go, it was nothing special, except for the signing away of my life. For me it amounted to little more than an asterisk on my current commitment. I doubted I’d live long enough to see my current contract expire, much less make a dent in the new one. M
y wingmen looked on from a formation, as ready as I was to get this over with and have our war.
I was not about to waste any time on pleasantries, speeches or chatter. Within an hour of receiving the oath of office, we were all back in our combat flight suits and arriving at the SR program’s foundry. We took a tram through the mountain tunnel back to the main section of the base, rounded the flightline and continued to a massive structure half buried in a nearby mountain. The development team’s lead, Dr. Douglas Jacobs, met us at the gates.
From the first time I saw Jacobs, he reminded me of the quintessential scientist. Definitely not mad, but walked the line between being personable and being deep in thought. He stood no more than five eight, wore no glasses but had a thin beard that matched his dark but slightly-graying hair. I guessed him to be slightly over fifty.
“Gentlemen!” he proclaimed as we disembarked from the tram under the shadow of the foundry, “I’m Dr. Douglas Jacobs, lead developer of the SR space fighter platform. Welcome to Space Research!”
I shook his hand and introduced myself as well. “Jefferson Grant, Commander, Crimson Elite Fighter Squadron.”
“Commander Grant, your reputation precedes you, as did your spoils of war,” he was beaming from ear to ear.
“I hope said spoils were of some use to you.” I answered, assuming that he meant the alien fighter.
“That it did, but I won’t spoil any surprises out here!” he looked back and forth between my teammates. “It’s good to meet the men who will be flying our greatest creations yet!” Jacobs turned and passed through a wide set of blast resistant glass doors. “Please follow me.”
We proceeded down a long winding hallway which overlooked the main runway and took us along the building’s outermost wall. On the opposite wall were hundreds of publications, plaques, photographs and timelines documenting many of the space programs that had taken place in the last 20 or so years, including the SR-1. I caught the good doctor’s pictures here and there along the way but didn’t dare turn my attention to what he was already saying.
MissionSRX: Confessions of the First War Page 27
