by A. D. Bloom
It looked like the QF-111s couldn't understand what was happening to them or how they were being outsmarted by the aliens. But Jordo and Snooze could see it. The flight of three Squidies that had just strafed the Dingoes now flew past the front of the pack on the same path as the first element and pulled away, luring the next Dingoes to give chase. And the Dingoes did. They dug in and pursed the bandits with a thousand shells a second and every bit of acceleration they had.
The fireballs and reactor flashes had barely cleared from the sky when the next flight of red bandits dove in like the one before it and came down on the next dozen Dingoes stabbing at them and holing them through. The Squidy pilots flew their massive, eight-element formation in a roundabout loop, taking turns chewing up the drones and then peeling away as the unwise Dingoes gave chase. They did it again and again. The alien fighters flew in a wheel that cut into the QF-111s' pack like a spinning saw blade.
A fifth of the drones were gone already. "I thought AIs were supposed to learn fast," Snooze said.
"Dingoes are closed systems. They don't learn at all."
He spun back on his jets and faced the Lancers. They still held station in a high column a third of the way out between Hardway and the massacre of the Dingoes. Jordo's helmet picked out Gusher and Holdout near the middle of the tower of fighters. As Snooze turned with him and followed Jordo into the formation with 42 other Lancers, he took some comfort in how it was impossible to fall in on anyone's tail without flying into the crosshairs of the F-151 behind him. It was a strong defensive formation.
"Look at 'em." Gusher said. "The Squidies are eatin' those drones up for breakfast."
Cleeg almost whispered his next words like he was afraid the aliens would hear him. "Gush, those drones can fly almost as fast and hard as the Squidies do and look what's happening to them. What the hell are we gonna do? We're screwed."
"Lancer 2-1 to all Lancer elements," Jordo said, "What happened to those drones will not happen to us. Those drones got ground up and spit out because they were dumb. We're smarter."
"You sure about that, Jordo?" Snooze said, "Because look where you are, man."
"Yeah, Snooze. I'm sure. And so are you."
Over the northern hemisphere of the gas giant, where the alien pilots were savaging the Dingoes, the reactor flashes stopped along the front edge of the pack. Jordo could still see almost fifty of the drones left, but the Squidies weren't firing on them anymore. They'd done all the damage they wanted to do and now, they were blowing past while what was left of the Dingoes lost time in the turn trying to follow. Then, it looked like the drones suddenly thought better of the idea because they peeled off and veered in another direction together, but Jordo knew it was only because they'd seen a sortie of incoming alien warheads to chase. Flying bombs always had priority.
The red bandits hadn't lost a single fighter yet. AGC Biko's voice spoke in Jordo's ear and told him what he could already see. "Hardway AT to Lancer 2-1, be advised the Squidy fighters are headed your way."
"Alright, people." Jordo said it like Burn said it. "We fly it like they taught us. Once I get Squidy off your tail, you return the favor fast. Keep them under fire and do it until you get a kill shot. Remember: they're coming into our column and they can't pick a target and pursue for anything but a snap-shot without showing a pair of Lancers their tails. Each Loose Deuce, pick a single Squidy. Split 'em up and dust 'em. Loose planes, form up when you see each other. You're stronger together. Now, let's get down and dirty."
The first trio of red bandits swung wide. They chased after Cleeg and Spit with their particle beams when they couldn't connect with their targets. "They're on us! They're on us!"
"Break! Break!"
Flight 9 split. The Squidies all stayed on Cleeg. Spit turned to come back for him. While Cleeg flew evasive, Holdout and Gusher dove on the Squidy flight leader's wingmen and split one off. They chased it, throwing fire in turn.
Jordo thumbed flight comms to Snooze, "Third one is ours!" They came around with it, but only two seconds after they split that bandit off the chase and followed it on a spiral up to the top of the column, the black vacuum around them erupted with crisscrossing rays. Alien fire drew streaking lines everywhere around Jordo and Snooze. He rolled and he thought Snooze rolled with him, but when the Squidies behind them overshot and ripped away to find a new target, Jordo came out of the roll and saw Snooze had slid further to port than he had. Now, his wingman was lining up a Squidy, but that same alien spun on its jets and turned on him. They opened fire at the same time. Snooze's cannon rounds flashed on the bandit's hull as Snooze rolled in on it, dodging and diving, circle strafing and screaming "Die! Die! Die!" into comms like it was the strength of his will that would determine which of them survived.
The rounds burrowed molten-edged holes into the red bandit slamming it so the stream it fired jerked in space and missed. The alien jetted flame from all its maneuvering nozzles and flew wildly out of control before its reactor lit the whole furball up with X-rays and gammas as it cooked off.
Snooze shouted, "I got one! I got one!" as a rapier beam caught the edge of his fighter. It gouged a meter deep wound across his maneuvering jets on the starboard side low. His fighter flipped and spun and molten hull came off it in globs.
"Snooze!" Jordo spun to point his nose at the bandit behind his wingman and blasted hard on the thrust. The gees came on so fast that the edges of Jordo's vision darkened like he was flying through a peephole. As the alien passed across his sights. Jordo hosed it, holding on to the jack-hammering sound of his own guns to keep himself conscious.
Blackness closed in. The sound of his autocannon echoed behind his eyes. All he could see were the flashes over and over and over in the same pattern, as if the sound of the guns echoed off his optic nerves. It seemed to go on for so long that Jordo forgot there was ever anything else.
"Jordo scores!" Snooze whooped in his helmet, and he was back. Where he was and who he was all rushed in at once. Zooming streaks filled the sky – fighters spitting death and burning rounds and streams across the black. Reactor detonations flashed everywhere. Drifting 151s melted down off the edge of the fight. He pulled to port with Snooze, and in front of them all he could see were alien fighters chasing down Lancers and running them through. On all sides reactors flared and winked and blinked out, and with each one snuffed a convict.
He didn't see the alien bandit that cut across his path until it dusted Jewels and Heiney. They didn't even have time to scream before the particle streams cut them out of their cockpits. They spun off together and detonated.
Everywhere in the furball Lancers were dying. Friendly rounds from somewhere pounded at his port side and Jordo rolled and looked in time to see the bandit zoom past targeting Gusher and R-Tee who got paired up somehow.
Snooze called, "High on my 2 o'clock!" and turned to cut right across the furball into a flight of unbroken Squidies – three of them, still in formation, bearing down on a pair of Lancers. Snooze followed Jordo in.
"Jordo, jink!" Snooze warned him just before the flight of three Squidies spun on him. Jordo whirled on his jets, hosed one down and turned his nose to chase, but the other two rolled away and under and pulled a move that must have been 65 gees for the alien pilots inside. It put him looking down their guns and when he saw the flash as they fired, Jordo jinked, but he kissed his ass goodbye.
Snooze's next shots tore them up the side. Two cooked off and caused the third to miss. Then, it unexpectedly broke away. It ceased fire and rocketed off towards the gas giant. "Yeah!" Snooze shouted, "You see that, boyo? I scared 'em away! That's right, you Squidy Fuc-"
The detonation flash to his port side where his wingman had been was so close that even when his helmet darkened to keep him from being blinded, he still saw it. Snooze was there, all smiles inside his helmet, in his cockpit. Then he was a skeleton. Then, he wasn't there. The whole fighter was just gone.
Jordo couldn't find him. It was simple, but somehow, he couldn't
process what had happened. He called Snooze on comms three times as he pulled his 151 up and down and under looking for him. "Lancer 2-2, where are you?"
"They're bugging!" Dirty shouted. "The Squidies are bugging out!" Every alien Jordo could see broke away from the fight. They pulled out, trailing rosy plasma behind them. But they weren't running. They weren't scared. They were headed straight for the 4th moon to attack Hobo and Lancer Flight One.
"We drove 'em off!"
"No we didn't," Jordo said. "They got vectored onto Shafter's flight. They're going after Lancer Flight One and Hobo." The alien pilots had turned their noses up at them and gone to protect the fourth moon once they figured out that the C-block pilots were little more than a distraction. Some Squidy had figured out they were probably being played. "Lancer 2-1 to Hardway AT, alien fighters are breaking off and making for the 4th moon. Lancers are moving to pursue."
"Negative, negative, Lancer 2-1. All remaining Lancer elements will hold position and intercept incoming alien warheads."
"The drones can handle that!" he shouted in frustration. The alien fighters' rosy plasma trails mocked him as the Squidies flew off around the hellish gas giant. "Hobo won't have a chance against all those bandits, Hardway. I'm taking my squadron after them."
"Negative 2-1, Lancers will hold position. Repeat: hold position. Acknowledge."
Jordo felt his blood boiling. "Lancer 2-2, where the hell are you? Snooze?! Snooze!"
"Lancer 2-1, this is Hardway! Acknowledge your orders!"
"Yes! Acknowledged! Fuck!"
He looked everywhere. There were only half as many F-151s as there should have been. The rest were gone. He kept calling for Snooze. All it took was one goddamn look around at how few of them were left and he knew exactly why Snooze wasn't answering, but it was like the fact wouldn't sink in. No matter what one part of his brain knew, he couldn't stop some other part of it from calling for his friend and searching the vacuum for him.
Across the blackness, a handful of warspite torpedoes blossomed across the alien cruisers' hulls.
Chapter Eleven
Colt and Jeana and Hortez came through the locks from bay 34. Two steps out of there, he felt the pitying eyes of the redsuits and the Staas Guards stationed there to fend off boarders. Twelve pilots had gone out that airlock. Only three had come back in. Jeana's legs gave out under her. She fell to the deck on her knees and her gloved fingers scrambled at the releases on either side of her neck. She tore off her flight helmet like it was her own bug-eyed head and threw it.
Otto said, "Help me get Holdout up."
"Don't you call me that," she said. "Don't you bloody call me that name ever again!" Then she vomited on the deck.
When he and Otto carried her to the forward hab module's mess where they were supposed to meet, there were only 23 Lancers. That's all that had come back out of 44. Every one of them wore the same face. It was the same face he'd seen on Three Card Monte losers...the face they wore right after they and their money had been parted and they knew they were suckers.
"What the hell was that? How could they send us into that?" Cleeg shouted it at Jordo as he came in, and Jordo didn't know what to tell him.
"They knew we weren't ready for that. They had to know!"
Then, they all started in. "They didn't even finish our training!"
"What was that even for? They just sent us in to get wasted!"
"We never shoulda' believed all their bullshit. We're not fighter pilots – we're rubes. Class-A suckers."
"Just fodder, man. Nothin' but fodder."
"'36 months and you're out'... 36 months... We won't last 36 minutes!"
"Why'd the Squidies even run? They could have dusted us all."
"They figured it out," Cleeg said. "That's why." He laughed and shook his head. "Shit. Now that's rich. The enemy figured out our squadron was a distraction before we did."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Gush didn't want to believe it.
"Don't you get it, man? This is how it was supposed to go. We were never supposed to have a chance. Our job was to zoom around out there like idiots and fake being pilots so the Squidies would shoot at us instead of the aces – instead of Shafter and them and the insertion team going to the 4th moon. We been pretending, man. We been pretending we were something we weren't. We're all suckers. That's all we are."
"No." Jordo said, "No," but only Otto heard him because he couldn't say it louder. It wouldn't come out any louder. Now, all of them were wise to what he and Snooze had known. What Cleeg said was true. But it didn't have to be. Jordo made for the hatch.
"Where you goin?" Gusher said.
"I'm going to see the man that got us into this. I'm going to see Harry Cozen."
Cleeg shouted, "Tell him I'm not goin' back out there! Fuck that!"
*****
Jordo followed the tube down out of the hab module to the hollow center of Hardway's spine. The spine intersected every section of the ship, making it the best way to get anywhere on the carrier. It was full of junk pilots and Staas Guards, redsuits and what he guessed were railgunners. He saw so many around him on that ship. They'd all survived. They hadn't been thrown to the Squidies like he and the Lancers had. Watching them while he rode an open car down the spine, he hated them all for that until he'd gone a hundred meters or so and seen the scarred, blackened, blasted parts of the spine where firestorms must have filled it at least once when enemy warheads hit. They'd died in those places.
The lift in the command tower's aft tube stopped long enough before the doors opened that Jordo knew he was being scrutinized by some kind of security. When the doors opened, he hoped he'd see company marines, but it was armed Staas Guards blocking his path.
Behind them, Hardway's bridge was smaller than he thought. Jordo had imagined something bigger – grander, but the bridge was only 15 meters on its longest side. There were only a few manned consoles and the command chair in the center. That's where Cozen sat.
Diamond-pane windows at least a meter thick stretched around the front and sides and looked out the rear, down onto all the ship's modules. Rising up from the console where the Air Group Commander stood was an in-air projection showing the entire planetary system. The hellish planet and its nine moons floated meter-wide and translucent in the middle of the bridge in front of Cozen and his officers. Hardway floated 20cm long and out of scale on one side of the planet. On the other, the enlarged 4th moon was now guarded by the fat vertical hulls of the enemy ships drawn to scale with Hardway.
The XO, Ram Devlin, stood at the Ops console near the center of the bridge. Without even looking up, Devlin told the Staas Guards to let him pass. The guards at Bailey Prison had been Staas Guards. Jordo had never met one he liked and he clipped the bigger one with his shoulder as he passed.
Dana Sellis said, "They're here to shoot at alien boarders, Jordo, not you."
He wanted to tell her not to call him that. Instead, he turned to AGC Biko. "Burn and Shafter...Topper And Dig.... Lancer Flight One... What happened to them?"
"No word from Hobo," Biko said. "And you don't need to report to the bridge in person."
"They're alive," Jordo said. The way Biko and the rest of them looked at him made him actually doubt it. "Why aren't we going after them? We've got to go after them. The Lancers will go. We'll do it." Now, they looked him like he was crazy.
"You won't survive," the XO said. "They'll tear you apart."
Cozen glanced his way just then and Jordo couldn't keep from blurting it out. "Mr. Devlin, it's pretty clear to us that we're expendable and that our survival was never an integral part of this plan, so don't you tell me you're not willing to take chances with our lives." Staas Privateers weren't like military vessels, but Jordo imagined what he just said was probably enough to get him thrown in a brig if they had one.
"Lt. Colt," Harry Cozen said. "It was my plan. And it failed. Whatever has happened to Lancer Flight One and the junk it escorted to the fourth moon has already happened. There's
no signal from the team on board or the crew or any of the fighters. It is probable that the Squidies got them. I gambled and we lost. It's over now. We can't win. The enemy fighters hold station over the moon. Even if our people are alive, which they're likely not, that means we can't land a search and rescue or extraction team to get them. Alien reinforcements will arrive. Even if Hardway takes on the cruisers and beats them, because of those 24 alien fighters, we still couldn't accomplish our mission. Even if I was willing to sacrifice all of you," Cozen said, "it wouldn't change the situation. If you attempt to engage the enemy fighters over the 4th moon, then you will die. You will fail and it won't change a thing. We failed. Now, we pick up our teeth and go home. The remaining 23 pilots of the 133rd Fighter Test Squadron will return to training and maybe we can salvage something of this."
"Training? With who?" Jordo almost laughed. "Who's left to train us? We're the only F-151 pilots left!"
"Would you rather go back to prison, Jordo?" Cozen turned away from him to face forward. "We're going to make a break for it in three hours, after SCS Araby is in position to cover our withdrawal."
"You can't just leave now!" It would mean they died for nothing at all.
"Lt. Colt!" Biko shouted, but Jordo couldn't hear him.
"Me and the other pilots from Bailey Prison. We are what we are, Mr. Cozen... But Burn....Shafter...they're not convicts like us. They're not prison fodder for you to throw away. They're pilots that trusted you not to give their lives stupidly or cheaply."
"Get him out of here," Devlin said to the Staas Guards behind Jordo. They seized his arms from either side and began to move him towards the lift.
Jordo said, "I thought we were the suckers for taking your deal, Mr. Cozen, but maybe it was Burn and them. What the hell was this even for? This was all your idea. Why? Just so you could throw our lives away?"
