by Danny Loomis
He stepped aside and revealed the small handful of his platoon still capable of standing. At an unseen command they came to attention and saluted him. A flood of tears coursed down his cheeks.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he husked, “you guys finally learned how to salute.” As the meager group gathered around their leader, Miyama backed up until lost in the shadows. Unfastening his mask he let it drop and bowed deeply towards all of them.
* * *
Watching the walls of the tunnel fly past at sixty kilometers an hour would normally be mesmerizing if Ian wasn’t so terrified. The small electric powered engine pulled ten cars, each able to hold one person and one hundred kilos of supplies. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the Edoan who was driving kept up a constant stream of talk through the intercom about past accidents and other horrific events that involved his diminutive train.
Eventually they came to a large, well lit cavern. “Final destination. Good luck,” the driver said. Ian quickly offloaded and slung his duffel over his shoulder.
“Staff Sergeant Shannon?” a uniformed Edoan asked. At Ian’s nod, he saluted. “I am Thomas 6-2, sent to guide you to the training facility for Wasp pilots. May I assist you with your bag?”
“No, thanks. Say, would you mind explaining your name? I read about how everyone on this planet was named, but it’s still kinda fuzzy.”
“Certainly, Sir. I’m the sixth Thomas with that name to still be living from Creche number two. Although we no longer use the artificial birthing chambers, we maintained our traditions from those days. Now if you will follow me?”
The facility was in a side passage less than fifty meters from the “train” station, and took up an area sixty meters by sixty, not counting the huge support columns that seemed to be everywhere.
“Over here,” a familiar voice called. Ian turned and saw Ensign Wilbert hurrying towards him.
“Well, I’ll be dipped! You made it, Anita—I mean Ensign. I thought your group had been cut off from the rest of us. Before he could salute she grabbed his hand and shook it. His escort saluted and moved away.
“It’s good to see you, Ian. No, our group made it through okay. Can’t say the same for about a third of our original force. We’re not sure if they were captured, or just cut off. Anyway, let me brief you up on what’s going on.” She led him to her communications console and urged him to sit.
“Your commander is Lieutenant Perry. The other surviving Wasp pilots are green as grass. This was their first mission away from their base. All of us are quartered in the two bays to my rear. Enlisted to the right, officers to the left. You’ve been given a gentleman’s promotion to Ensign, since they don’t trust Wasps to enlisted, so you’re with the officers. Each sleeping space is enclosed, which I’ve found very pleasant,” she said.
Ian nodded. “Any word on the two members of my squad who were captured?”
She sobered. “From what I’ve been able to pick up on the Alliance commo frequencies, they finished treating them in regeneration tanks. That means they’ll be coming down to the Central Headquarters in the next few days.”
A shiver of fear passed over Ian. If there was only—but there wasn’t. He shook off feelings of impending depression and smiled. “Thanks. If you hear anything new, please let me know.”
“Of course. Let’s get you settled, and you can spend the rest of the day going over the new spec manuals for the Wasp. That sound OK?”
“Lead on,” Ian said.
Propped up by pillows, Ian spent the last two hours after chow reviewing the new manuals in growing excitement. So many changes. Mostly simplification and reduction in size, but the way the newly created space was to be used was fantastic. He sighed, clicked off the reader and dimmed the lights in his cubicle. Time to get some shut-eye. Tomorrow he’d get a briefing on the changes, as well as an update on the tactical situation. Within seconds he was asleep.
NORTH OF VANPORT (DAY +43):
Next morning Ian dashed through breakfast in his haste to get his first look at the revamped Wasps. Disappointment was his first reaction when he entered the side cavern where they were kept. Still eighty meters in length, still looked like a spear with short wings.
“From the expression on your face I’d say you expected our Wasps to be lookin’ like sharks,” a voice said behind him. Turning, he was greeted by a huge man in the dirtiest coveralls he’d seen. “I’m Warrant Throop. Call me Chief an’ we’ll get along just fine,” he said with a smile. Shaking his hand, Ian was impressed with the latent strength he sensed.
“I’m Staff Sergeant—um, Ensign Shannon. Call me Irish.”
“Yeah, I know all about you, Irish. You cost me a bundle with that little number you pulled with the shuttle against seven Wasps.” He laughed loudly. “In fact you made more enemies as well as friends that day than you could shake a spanner at.” He turned to the Wasp, patting it affectionately on the wing. “This baby will be your best friend, Irish. Especially now. Lemme give you the ten-credit tour.” He waved at a figure staggering under the load of a large box. “Hey, Louie! C’mon over.”
Ian watched the smaller man carefully lower the box and trot to them. He knew him from somewhere, couldn’t place it though. Abruptly the man beamed in pleasure, and grabbed Ian’s hand, wringing it. “It’s a very great pleasure to meet you again, sir. My son and I owe our lives to you.”
“I don’t understand,” Ian said, taken aback.
“Of course not. How could you? I was one of the hostages. You told me to gather ten others and be prepared to run. All ten of my group made it. We are so thankful to you. Oh, and my name is Louis 2-19, sir.”
“Uh, glad to meet you, Louis,” Ian said, forced backwards by the enthusiasm. “Glad to see you were able to find something to do so soon.”
Throop threw back his head in a bellowing peal of laughter. “Find a job? I’m sure he would, since he owns the factory that did all the changes to the Wasps and shuttles. In fact he’s increased production ’round here ’bout twenty-five percent.”
“Let me show you what we’ve done,” Louis said, urging Ian over to a large desk. He keyed up a holographic display of a Wasp. “As you can see the particle beamers remain the same. However the Proton Accelerator, or blaster to you, now has a sixty thousand kilometer range instead of forty. We also reduced the space it takes up by almost forty percent. This enabled us to increase storage capabilities so you can carry twelve shrike missiles instead of the original six.”
“How’d you manage to reduce internal space so much?” Ian asked.
“We simplified and reduced the design of the particle beamer, plus other internal parts. Including your engine, which is twenty percent smaller with ten percent more output. Inertial compensators, the gravitic nodes, were easiest to work on. Not only did we reduce their bulkiness, but we increased their power by a factor of two.”
“Jee-sus,” Ian said with a low whistle. “Talk about an increase in maneuverability.”
“Not only that,” Throop said, “Louie also managed to put a shield generator on it. Or a cloaking generator, take your pick. And they can be changed out in minutes. Just a plug-in type of addition. This guy’s fantastic.” He slapped Louis on the back, staggering him.
Ian scratched his head, thinking furiously. “With all this increased firepower and generator usage, I’d think you would have a lot less than the six hours of operational time due to the drain on the fuel cells.”
Throop shook his head. “They’ve come up with a sweet idea to deal with that. The fuel cells were upgraded to allow it to have an 18 hour max time in flight. In fact, in stealth mode and not movin’, it can last a week.”
“Or longer,” Louis said. “The skin on the Wasps and shuttles has been changed. It now acts as a solar collector. We’ve put millions of small solar converters into a paint, which when put on a surface can convert sunlight to usable energy at about a 50% rate.”
Ian had become so excited he had begun pacing. “How about the sh
uttles? I see a lot of similar things that could be done to them.”
Louis smiled. “Of course. We’ve given them shielding capability plus cloaking. Their speed is about ten percent faster and the inertial compensators are also doubled in effectiveness. We’ve increased their number of particle beamers from two to four, and are still coming up with ideas for different combat load configurations.”
“How long will it take to make all these changes?” Ian asked as he ran his hand along the side of the Wasp.
“Already done with the original Wasps,” Louis said. “Only three more shuttles left to finish. Then we begin manufacture of our own,” he said.
Throop slapped the hull of the Wasp, making it ring faintly. “That’s where it gets interestin’ to me. They have such a sweet set-up in their factories that once tooled up they’ll be able to turn out one shuttle every three days, and a Wasp a week.”
“Tooling up is the problem,” Louis said. “We have to make our dies from scratch, so it will be at least another week to ten days before we can begin production runs.”
“And time is presently our enemy,” said a new voice. Ian turned towards the blue-clad figure approaching, noting the Lieutenant’s bars on his collar.
“Lieutenant Perry? I’m Ensign Shannon.”
“Yes, Ensign. Weren’t you supposed to report to me for a tactical briefing?”
“In half-an-hour, Sir,” Ian said. Time to tread cautiously, he thought.
“Yes. Well, you’re here now, so let’s get it over with. Follow me.” Lieutenant Perry turned and marched towards the far wall, where several offices had been established.
Once behind his desk Lieutenant Perry seated himself and stared a long moment at Ian, who’d come to parade rest. “Before we start the brief, I want to make sure you know how things stand between us. I realize you have some potential as a pilot, but you haven’t proven anything to me. Not until you’ve been cleared for actual flying, and been on your first mission. If you return from that one alive, I will consider you to be a Wasp pilot. Until then, stay out of my way and do as you’re told. Any questions?”
“Sir, no Sir,” Ian said, eyes boring a hole through the wall behind the Lieutenant.
“Good. Be seated, please. Presently we have stopped any further advances by the Alliance in its attempts to dig us out of the tunnels. In fact, they seem to have withdrawn to Vanport. This means they’ve collapsed their front lines as much as five kilometers in some areas. Captain Stanton smells a rat, as do the marines.” He tapped the desk with a pen, and shuffled some folders. “At present we’ve closed up to the city limits, and plans are being made for an eventual push into the city from an as yet undetermined sector. We’re to have attack shuttles and Wasps standing by to assist this push. With the added cloaking capabilities we feel our portion of the attack will be doable.”
He flicked a data cube across the desk towards Ian, who hastened to pick it up. “Here’s a complete version of this briefing. If you have any questions, ask someone else. I have better things to do than hold your hand. Dismissed.”
Coming to attention, Ian snapped off a salute, about-faced and quick marched out of the office. Once outside, he breathed a sigh of relief. What an asshole! Only known him for five minutes and already hate his guts. Oh, well. Didn’t feel as if the dislike was pointed directly at him. More of a general disdain towards anyone not up to his standards. He trotted back towards his cubicle, mind in high gear as he began planning how to spend a max amount of time in the simulator. Hopefully the techs had managed to re-program in all the new goodies the Wasp now had.
* * *
“Two bandits on your tail, Angel five,” Ian’s com said. In reflex he dove left and did a double barrel roll. He snapped back to the right and loosed off a shrike missile just as a bogie came into view. A flare marked its demise. The other was already in retreat, which left space clear for the moment.
“Shutting down program,” came Lieutenant Perry’s voice. Damn. Every time he interrupted it was to give him a lecture on tactics. At first Ian had listened, but soon found Perry was not helping. At least it wasn’t helping him. The simulator hissed open and framed Lieutenant Perry’s unsmiling face.
“Nice kill, Ensign Shannon. I think it’s time to show you what I’ve tried to drill in your head. We’ve added a program which allows the computer to team you up with another Wasp. Ensign Jones is the other pilot. You are the wing commander, and the two of you are to break through the Viper screen to a heavy cruiser and destroy it.” Without a further word he closed the simulator’s hatch. Seconds later a new simulation began.
“Launch in five seconds,” the neutral voice of the computer said. This time Ian was the second one launched. He was to be commander of this mission, his first with another pilot on his wing.
“Take position below me and fifty kilometers to the front,” Ian ordered.
“Rog,” Ensign Jones said, sounding a bit tense.
“Jonesy, I want you to continue forward until attacked. I’ll take the first one off you. The main target is at eleven o’clock as we are now pointed. You’ll dive and come up under it. If a Viper shoots missiles at you, chaff ’em. I’ll be back to protect you as soon as possible. Got that?”
“Wilco,” Jonesy said. “Uh, chaff it means to deploy anti-missile deployment flares, doesn’t it?”
“You got it the first time. Let’s go!” They sped straight for the oncoming Vipers, until a warbling tone filled Ian’s helmet. “Enemy missile lock,” the computer said. Four missiles sped towards them from two of the Vipers which had accelerated to battle speed.
“Now, Jonesy!” Ian dumped chaff and cut hard right while Jonesy dropped straight down. All four missiles followed the chaff left by both Wasps. The increased speed helped, and the anti-gravs made them seem like rubber balls bouncing around the sky. Ian cut left and fired his particle cannon at the Viper suddenly in front of him, no more than twenty kilometers away. As it flamed out, he dropped down to follow Jonesy. Just in time to meet two more Vipers who had Jonesy bracketed. Ian locked on and fired two shrike missiles.
“Break right and then up,” he said, concentrating on passing between the two exploding Vipers.
“I—can’t,” Jonesy rasped, and broke left as another Viper fired its particle cannon at him.
“Shit,” Ian muttered, and banked left to bring the Viper dogging Jonesy under his guns. A sudden warbling filled his ears, and everything went dead. “Destroyed by missile from the cruiser,” the computer said. Ian shook his head in disgust. Well, at least he’d gotten some of them.
“Both of you, be in my office in five minutes for a debrief,” Lieutenant Perry said over the com.
“Nice shooting, Irish,” Ensign Jones said, helping Ian out of the simulator.
“Thanks, man. But I got you killed. We’ll work on that one.”
Both were brought up short when they entered Lieutenant Perry’s office by the scowl on his face.
“Ensign Jones, what was that damn fool stunt you just pulled. You froze on the stick. Do that in combat and we’ll lose a perfectly good Wasp.”
“Y-yessir,” Ensign Jones stuttered, a scared look on his face. “I-I was waiting for an opening so I could attack the cruiser.”
“Read chapter twelve of the Wasp tactical manual. The one covering how to operate as a team. After lunch you and Ensign Shannon will be drilling on team tactics for the rest of the day, and tomorrow if necessary. Now get out.” As they both turned to leave, he gestured to Ian. “Not you Ensign Shannon. I’d like an additional word with you. Sit down.” Surprised, Ian complied. This was only the second time he’d been allowed to sit in the Lieutenant’s office.
“Ian, you are very good, at least in a simulator, when by yourself. This is the first time you’ve operated with someone else on your side, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Sir. I’ve read chapter twelve and looked up the references made in that particular chapter. The approach we used was a classic maneuver for attacking a cruiser
escorted by Vipers.”
“So you went by the book on this one.”
Ian was puzzled. “Commodore Van Wyn’s tactics if I remember correctly.”
“Good memory. However, that particular tactic called for the first Wasp in to draw as much of the fire to itself as possible, while the other one took any opportunity that showed itself to attack the cruiser. Instead, you elected to go to the aid of your wingman.”
“If I hadn’t he would’ve been destroyed for sure.”
“Read that reference closer. You’ll notice that’s what’s called an acceptable loss. Trading one Wasp for a shot up the kilt of a cruiser is tactically sound.”
Ian shook his head stubbornly. “That’s not right, Sir. You don’t just throw away your resources like that.”
“You do if it’ll win the battle for you. However, in our present circumstances I would have to agree. We’re resource poor, so that particular tactic shouldn’t be used. Why did you?”
“Uh, good point. Didn’t think it through,” Ian said.
“That’s why I want you to work for the next several days on team tactics. When you attack or defend as a team, your abilities are synergistically increased. Another thing I want you to work on is your leadership skills. You have the potential to be an excellent leader.”
“I hear a big ‘But’ in there, Sir.”
“Correct. You haven’t yet reached the point that you can overcome your instinct to go to the aid of others, even though it could be the exact wrong thing to do tactically or strategically,” he said. “Overcome that and I’ll be saluting you someday. Now get out of here and think on what I’ve said.”
By next evening Ian felt more exhausted than he had in years. Having to plan and think while in the middle of a tactical situation was foreign to him. For years he’d acted on gut instinct and training. He turned off his desk comp and gave vent to a full, muscle popping stretch. God, he was stiff. How long since he’d worked out? Much too long, he decided, changing into gym clothes. Padding two doors over, he entered the gymnasium. It was only two hours after supper, so there was still a scattering of people working on various muscle machines and a couple games of wall-ball.
