Galactic Axia Adventure 1: Escape to Destiny

by Jim Laughter

  The firepower of the long-weapon was many-fold that of the hand-blaster, and at a much greater range. It was most effective against fortified positions and low flying ships. Delmar enjoyed the feel of the long-weapon. It reminded him of a good game rifle but without serious kick. The targets on the range started at one hundred yards and went up from there. Delmar was able to master it quickly and qualified as marksman.

  The weapons training was at the end of their fourth month of training. As he started writing an answer to the letter, Delmar found it hard to believe that it had been so long.

  Chapter Nineteen

  This training exercise was different from any of the others Delmar’s training flight had been on before. They were well past the basic portion or their training, the part where they learned to march, make their beds, and fold their clothes. Now their training had moved to where they were actively using live, full-strength weapons with the possibility of facing their actual enemy, the Red-tails. And although their instructors had taken every precaution to avoid contact with their enemy, anything was possible in space, thus the service’s policy that the only good weapon was a loaded one.

  Delmar remembered his one and only encounter with a Red-tail, an experience he was in no hurry to repeat. He had told his friends in his training flight about the incident on the Malibu when they had come under attack while on their way to Mica. Only a few of the other men had ever seen a Red-tail and they all agreed they’d rather not encounter any ever again.

  Although Delmar’s flight had been on several training missions since starting their advanced training, this trip was a live-fire exercise that would carry the Alpha squad of Delmar’s training flight 775 of the 3703 Training Squadron to a moon base only a day from Freewater. Beta, Delta and Gamma squads were also on the exercise, but Alpha would be the aggressor this time. Their instructions were to think of and refer to the other squads as the enemy. Their mission, to seek out and destroy an enemy communications relay station on the second moon of the planet Melanor. Beta, Delta and Gamma would defend under the command of D.I. Buckner.

  D.I.A. Stoddard led Alpha squad. Delmar believed Stoddard could handle himself in a combat situation. He knew his equipment and his men, and was technologically sound. Delmar had learned that Stoddard was actually a combat veteran, having served in almost a dozen Red-tail incursion campaigns before becoming a training instructor. Delmar felt safe in his hands.

  The ship Alpha squad was on was ancient, which meant it was almost a hundred years old, well past retirement age for most military transports. Noise reduction dampeners were never installed on this ship because it was originally used as a cargo transport, so the whine of the ship’s drive could be heard even through the ship’s repulsion field. The seating on the ship was nothing more than canvas web strapping attached to the bulkheads, not the comfortable seating enjoyed by the other squads in their ship.

  It didn’t take long for Delmar to realize that service with the troopers didn’t always promise comfort. The most uncomfortable aspect of the seating arrangement was the shoulder strap that chafed unmercifully at his neck.

  Another aspect of irritation for Delmar was the fact that his friend, Stan Shane, had been transferred to the Gamma squad and assigned the task of systems analyst, which meant he would be monitoring the enemy squad’s communications network. Delmar cringed at the thought of having to try to get past Stan. He knew Stan was an expert computer analyst and had even been called on at the training school to debug the school’s computer system and workbenches. Getting past him was going to be very difficult, if not impossible.

  The ancient transport made its way into the Melanor system. The pilot set his directional controls toward the second moon. Their landing zone would be in the northern hemisphere where they would set up camp. The communications array being protected by the enemy squads was in the southern hemisphere, which meant Alpha would have to fly shuttlecraft or low-gravity flitters to reach their target. That’s one thing about being the aggressor, Delmar thought. Someone is always watching out for you.

  After the pilot made his announcement for all trainees to remain strapped in, he started his decent into the moon’s limited atmosphere. Delmar could hear the rush of the atmosphere against the outer hull of the large transport. He knew the ship’s repulsion field would keep them from overheating, but just the thought that only a layer of hull plating separated them from two thousand degrees of friction heat was unsettling to Delmar and the Alpha squad.

  After what seemed forever, the friction noise ended and everything became silent. With exception to the firing of the retro rockets, the great transport settled down onto the moon’s soft surface.

  In the southern hemisphere, Stan Shane monitored the communications array the Gamma squad was tasked to defend. Beta through Gamma had already been on the surface for two days. And although the moon had limited gravity and atmosphere, Stan was growing tired of the supplemental oxygen mask he was required to wear.

  Well, he thought, at least they didn’t make us wear the whole suit.

  When Stan had taken over the duties of communications analyst, he was amazed at the condition of the comm equipment. He doubted if any of the systems had undergone any kind of an upgrade for a least a decade, maybe two. The monitors were still green screen, not even color, and the keyboards were the heavy strike-key models instead of the easy-touch pads common in any elementary school. What was worse, none of the systems had voice responsive command functions, which greatly limited their usefulness in case of an enemy attack.

  Stan went to work upgrading the systems. First, he installed voice responsive command functions, which required replacing the motherboards on over a dozen systems. This upgrade did not set well with their supply officer since it required requisitioning every motherboard except one out of their War Readiness Spares Kits (WRSK).

  Next came the upgrade on the incoming tracking arrays. Stan discovered the arrays were completely out of alignment. He figured in their present condition he couldn’t have monitored a fleet of invading Red-tail ships if he could have seen them out the window. And if he knew Delmar and the other guys in Alpha squad, especially D.I.A. Stoddard, they would be working on some way to counter any precautions he would set up to ward them off.

  Stan pried open the panel on one of the ancient consoles and looked inside. How could Axia equipment have gotten into this kind of shape? He ran his fingers along the solid-state circuitry and could feel gaps in the circuits and components removed. He doubted if this equipment could intercept a clear signal from any kind of enemy transmission in this condition.

  Next came the antenna array itself. The first thing Stan noticed was that it listed sharply to one side, completely out of alignment with the poles of the planet. It’s a good thing this is just an exercise, he thought. I wouldn’t want to depend on this thing in an actual combat situation.

  Using the equipment available to him from their transport ship, and calling on every member of Beta, Delta, and Gamma squads, Stan was able to realign the communications array. At the objections of the transport captain and the supply officer, Stan even requisitioned every spare bedsprings rod from the limited WRSK to create an amplified transponder array. This, he hoped, would give them a fifteen-minute warning in case of enemy attack. D.I. Buckner didn’t understand Shane’s theory, but he assumed it would work. After all, he had saved several workbenches at the school from the salvage after systems crashes. Improvise, adapt, overcome, he thought.

  Stan looked at the chronometer on the console and realized that he had been working for fifteen straight hours without a break. He stood up, stretched his aching back, and tried to rub the soreness out of his hips and legs. This is going to be a long exercise, he thought.

  “Another hour ought to do it,” he muttered to himself. “Then it’s chow and some shut-eye.” Two hours later, he crawled back out from under the communications console.

  “Give it a try,” he instructed Trooper Trainee Thomas Bigga. Bigga, or
Big’un as everyone called him, was the largest man in Flight 775. Buckner had assigned Big’un to work with Stan on the communications array, but the truth was, Big’un wasn’t very technically adept. Stan figured Big’un would end up in the infantry where he would carry large weapons into combat against the Red-tails.

  Big’un pressed a series of buttons on the console. Lights on the panel began to blink and Big’un heard a fan rumble and begin to whirl. He stepped back away from the console. Stan stood up and examined the console.

  “Looks good,” he said. “Now if you’d be kind enough to call us a taxi, we’ll go get something to eat,” he kidded Big’un.

  Big’un suddenly reached out, grabbed Stan around his waist, hefted him up over his head, and laid him across his shoulders.

  “You wanna ride, hotshot?” he said. “You got it!”

  With absolutely no effort at all, Big’un ran with Stan on his shoulders across the compound. The limited gravity of the moon created extra long strides for the large man, allowing him to leap twenty feet at a time through the air with Stan laughing and yelling all the way. In only a moment, the two men were in line at the mess tent. Stan didn’t realize how hungry he really was. Big’un had no misconceptions whatsoever.

  Back at Alpha camp, Delmar and several of the other members of the aggressor squad were busy preparing for their attack on the communications array.

  “You don’t understand,” Delmar emphasized to the group. “I know the report says that relay station is defunct, but Stan Shane has been there for two days. I promise you he’s had time to fix it.”

  “Impossible,” said Tulie Greenwood, one of Alpha’s shuttle pilots. “That relay is so far gone it would take a month of winters to fix it.”

  “He’s right, Delmar,” interjected Joquax Tip, Alpha’s quartermaster. “I saw the report. All they have is a limited WRSK. It would take a complete overhaul to get that array up to speed.”

  “I understand what you’re saying,” answered Delmar. “But I’ve worked closer with Shane in the electronics lab than any of you guys. And I’m telling you that he will figure a way to patch that thing back together and they’ll be ready for us.”

  “Not a chance. Nope. No way,” answered the other men.

  “D.I.A. Stoddard, sir,” Delmar said. “What do you say?”

  Stoddard looked up from where he had been studying the reports on the communications relay.

  “It looks like it’s in pretty bad shape, Eagleman,” he answered. “But I agree with you that Shane knows his way around this kind of equipment. If anyone can jury rig, it would be Shane.”

  “Then how are we supposed to attack that array if they’ll know we’re coming, sir?” Tip asked.

  “That’s all part of combat strategy,” Stoddard answered. “You must expect the enemy to expect you, and then you work around him. If they know we’re coming, and you can rest assured they do, then we’ll simply not go.”

  “Huh?” everyone asked in unison.

  “We’ll just sit right here in camp, enjoy the view of the stars and let them come to us,” Stoddard answered.

  “But sir,” Delmar said. “Our mission is to take out that communications array. How are we supposed to do that if we stay here?”

  “We’re not,” Stoddard answered. “You are.”

  “Me sir?”

  “Yes, you,” Stoddard said. “Let me ask you this. Do you really believe Shane will have that communications relay up and running?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Long range or short range?”

  “With the limited supplies he has, probably short range,” Delmar answered.

  “That’s what I figure too,” the D.I.A. said. “So what we’ll do is send out a series of short-range pulses declaring an emergency. We’ll lure Beta and Delta squads away from their base camp. Then with only Gamma there to defend the array, you and a few others will attack and destroy the array.”

  “Sir, isn’t that playing dirty?” Greenwood asked.

  “Do you think for one minute that a Red-tail will care if he plays fair or not, trainee?” Stoddard asked.

  “No sir,” Greenwood answered. “Guess not.”

  “The only thing he wants to do is kill you and eat you, and not necessarily in that order,” Stoddard said. “So stop thinking like a human and become the aggressor.”

  Alpha squad spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for an attack they knew the other squads were expecting the next day. Except this attack would not come the next day, or even the next. Instead, they would let the enemy sit and wait and hopefully become lax or even start to worry about them.

  In the meantime, Delmar along with Greenwood and Tip and a few select others would take a shuttle, travel by stealth to the southern hemisphere camp of the enemy, and wait.

  Getting there shouldn’t be a problem, Delmar reasoned. Greenwood was an excellent pilot, having served as a merchant pilot before enlisting in the troopers. As pilot, Greenwood was naturally in command of the mission after they were under way.

  On the morning of the fourth day at first light, the shuttlecraft containing Greenwood at the helm, Delmar, Tip and a half-dozen other men lifted from the aggressor base camp and headed off at low altitude toward the southern hemisphere. Greenwood knew he would have to hug the surface of the moon in order to avoid detection by the enemy outpost they were going to attack. D.I.A. Stoddard had instructed them to maintain communications blackout but to monitor all transmissions. Tomorrow morning they would hear the emergency broadcast of the Alpha squad.

  D.I. Buckner and the squad leaders of Beta, Delta and Gamma squads gathered in the command center at the communications array.

  “They should have attacked by now,” Kenji Toopka said. “We know they left Freewater and two days after us and should have landed at their base almost a week ago.”

  “Maybe something happened and they didn’t make it,” Ronwell Brittin interjected. “What if they were attacked by Red-tails?”

  “We would have heard by now,” Buckner said. “Don’t expect the enemy to play by your rules. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “So we just sit here, sir?” Stan asked. “Just sit here and hope to pickup something on the array?”

  “That’s right, Shane,” answered Buckner. “We wait. Stoddard isn’t going to play into our hands. He’s a cagey old veteran that knows what he’s doing.”

  “Toopka, you and Brittin make sure your men are ready,” Buckner instructed. “Don’t let your guard down. We know the enemy is out there somewhere. Be ready.”

  “Yes sir,” both men answered as one.

  “Shane,” Buckner continued. “You and Big’un stay on that console. Let me know if you hear anything. And I mean anything.”

  “Yes sir,” Shane answered.

  A day passed, then another. Shane and Big’un took turns monitoring the comm console. Nothing. Not a sound for four days. Then on the morning of the fifth day, static began to crackle from the console speaker.

  “Stan!” Big’un exclaimed. “Come here!”

  Stan was lying on a pallet he had spread on the floor behind the communications console. Sleep had eluded him the more he thought of Delmar and the rest of Alpha squad possibly missing from the training exercise.

  “…crash landed…injuries…declaring emergency,” were the only words Stan could understand coming from the speaker.

  “Go get D.I. Buckner,” Stan ordered. Bigga ran from the communications center. His long strides carried him quickly across the compound to the command center. Within only a few minutes, he and Buckner were back at the comm center. Stan was laying on the floor with his hand up inside the console making an adjustment on a circuit board.

  Stan reached his free hand up above the console. “Hand me that modulator,” he said. “This one isn’t responding.”

  Buckner handed Stan the piece of equipment while Bigga monitored the console. After a moment, the static began to clear and a faint, distant voice crackled from the speaker.
“…need medical assistance…. Red-tail attack. Axia independent freighter Constance declaring …mergency.”

  Bigga picked up the microphone and started to answer the distress call when Stan placed his hand on Bigga’s arm. “Not yet.”

  “But,” Bigga started to say.

  “Could be a trick,” Buckner interjected. Stan nodded.

  Stan flipped several switches on the console. They heard the transponder come to life. He knew the transponder would recognize the incoming identification beacon of any ship in the solar system; particularly any that could be in close enough proximity to put out as weak a comm signal as the Constance seemed to be doing.

  Buckner, Stan, and Bigga watched the console monitor come to life as it began to display the schematics for the independent freighter Constance. It showed her relative position to be only two-hundred miles north of their present position. According to the readout on the screen, she had crash-landed in a dense mountainous region where the only access would be by taking the transport directly to the site.

  “Constance, can you hear me?” Buckner asked into the microphone. “This is Trooper-First Buckner from Freewater Training Base. Do you copy?”

  “Freewater?” a voice asked. “We just left Freewater. How are you picking us up?”

  “We’re not at Freewater,” Buckner responded. “At the moment, we are approximately two-hundred miles south of your position on a training exercise. Do you have casualties?”

  “That’s affirmative,” the voice answered. “Our captain is dead and our pilot is seriously injured. We have multiple injuries among the crew … hull breached. Can you help us?”

  Buckner leaned back in the comm chair and looked at Stan and Bigga. Toopka and Brittin, the other squad leaders, as well as a number of the other men had joined them.

  “What’s up?” Toopka asked Bigga.