Survival Strategy

by Anders Raynor

  Jason had never been so relieved to hear Red Jack’s voice. This starfighter ace had been promoted to lieutenant-commander after the Battle of Chloris, and he acted as wing commander in Jason’s absence.

  Both red dots vanished. “Bandits are history, and the sky is clear,” Radge said.

  Jason gave out a nervous chuckle. “You’re welcome to the party, guys. We can use all the air support we can get. We had a column of trilos on our tail; a few Tomahawks would help. Also, send a Griffin. I’m in an immobilized vehicle with civvies, and we can use a lift.”

  “Roger, boss,” Red Jack acknowledged. “Dropship incoming. Don’t miss your flight, or you’ll have to wait quite a bit for the next one.”

  Jason checked on the kids. They we shaken but unharmed, safely strapped in their seats.

  The ground quaked, and his thoughts returned to Varez. A ship was ascending, its thrusters blazing against the darkening sky. Its elegant aerodynamic hull shone with gold. He recognized the Golden Arrow, Varez’s personal ship.

  “Now I get it,” Jason said to him through the comm channel. “You came to Vega only to recover your precious Goldie.”

  Varez sniggered. “Love, cruel love! This ship’s everything to me. She’s unique!”

  “I hope you’ll burn, you and your Goldie,” Jason snapped.

  “See you around, Jase, and thanks for the assist!” The hundred-meter-long golden ship shrank to become just a bright dot in the sky.

  A finger-four of Tomahawks thundered above Jason, launching air-to-ground rockets at the hostile tanks. A series of blasts followed, and columns of fire rose from the city’s ruins.

  A Griffin-class dropship appeared seconds later. It hung above Jason’s vehicle and extended two magnetic arms.

  Meanwhile, Mortensen reported that the Lucky Lady had reached orbit. Smugglers were piloting it in Jason’s absence. They swore they knew nothing of their boss’s plans, and the marines didn’t press them. Getting everyone to safety took priority.

  Jason was waiting for liftoff, thinking the most difficult part was over.

  An explosion proved him wrong.

  The blazing wreck of the dropship crashed into the depot. The HUD map filled with red dots again—the Taar’kuun were attacking in force.

  Squadrons of Arachnid interceptors buzzed above the city, their trails crisscrossing the evening sky. Battlegroup Vega arrived, but couldn’t provide flak support without risking friendly fire.

  Jason’s stomach sank as he realized he was stranded on a planet occupied by the enemy, stuck in a wrecked vehicle with a bunch of terrified kids. The mistakes he’d made during this op were plain to see. He shouldn’t have left the blockade runner, and he shouldn’t have offered to get the children offworld.

  Riley was right about me—I’m no officer material. I’m too impulsive, too emotional to be a good leader. If I survive this, I’ll ask O’Neil to demote me to first airman. Red Jack makes a better Air Boss.

  A shooting star lit in the sky and grew brighter, falling straight toward Jason. The star turned out to be a transport ship.

  “Goddamn you, Jase,” Varez shouted. “I can’t leave you to die.”

  The Golden Arrow positioned itself above Jason’s vehicle and opened the door of its cargo bay. The vehicle trembled and lifted off.

  “No time to do it the usual way, so we’ll have to get creative. Hang on tight, I’m engaging the grav at two gees. It’s gonna be rough!” Varez warned.

  A hail of debris rushed upward, attracted by the ship’s artificial gravity generator. It felt as if the ground had been turned upside down, and everything was falling skyward. Jason activated his seatbelts and held his breath as the vehicle flew toward the Golden Arrow in freefall.

  Or freelift… We need a new word to describe the situation when one falls up instead of down.

  “Oh, my poor Goldie,” Varez moaned as tons of dust and debris pounded the bottom of his dear ship.

  Jason’s fall—or ascension—ended with a clang as his vehicle smashed into the cargo bay’s ceiling. Then it fell to the floor as the cargo bay doors closed and the ship started its ascent. The kids were screaming, which wasn’t necessarily a bad sign, as it meant they were still alive.

  Jason opened the separator door to check on them. They were shaken, but unharmed. “That was exciting, wasn’t it?” he said with a smile. “Just like a rollercoaster.”

  Most kids pouted and shook their heads, indicating they weren’t about to set a foot on a rollercoaster. Jason had ruined entertainment parks for them. Yet one boy gave him a little smile.

  Jason gave him a wink. “You’ve been very brave. You’ll make a fine pilot one day, young man. I’m very proud of you.”

  12

  For those left behind

  One year after the invasion, battle raged again above the fallen capital of the Alliance. Taar’kuun bioships and fighters converged toward Battlegroup Vega from all directions.

  Riley remained calm amid the storm. The Taar’kuun were not the most dangerous enemy—panic was. Under her leadership, the human ships had taken several enemy destroyers out of action.

  “Jump inhibitors are down,” Red Jack reported. “We have our escape window.”

  “Archer, plot a jump to the nearest system,” Hunt said. “O’Neil, recall fighters. All ships, escort formation gamma-three. Protect the transports at all costs.”

  “Typhon cruiser on intercept course, locking on us,” Mitsu reported.

  “Kumara, suppressive fire forward arc,” Hunt instructed.

  As Battlegroup Vega left orbit, its ships became easier targets for missiles.

  “Multiple deltas inbound,” Mitsu warned.

  The Remembrance jerked to the side in an evasive maneuver while the quick-firing blasters hosed space with streams of fire.

  A second sun illuminated the sky for a second. The Pericles was blazing, having sustained a direct hit. Fortunately, its forward armor had absorbed most of the damage, and its critical systems were operational. The Phenix was also in bad shape, its armor ripped by missile hits. The battlegroup wouldn’t last much longer.

  Riley armed four delta-class missiles and fired at the Typhon. The cruiser’s defenses shot down one of them, but the three others scored direct hits. Engulfed in plasma, the warship changed course and tried to get away, but Riley wouldn’t let it reposition itself for another salvo.

  “ACBs, fire at will at the designated target,” she ordered.

  The cruiser blazed with explosions that propelled shreds of carapace into space. Arachnid fighters bolted away from the disintegrating ship, some not fast enough. At high speed, even small fragments could punch through thin starfighter armor, damage systems, and kill the pilots.

  “The Megalodon and its escort has set an intercept course,” Mitsu said.

  “All ships, ordnance interception is priority,” Hunt called. “Stasis fields to maximum.”

  The gigantic battleship was closing in, its spore launcher tubes aimed at the Remembrance. That image brought to life a dramatic memory. Riley’s ship had faced a similar situation three years back, and had almost been destroyed. She knew her battlegroup didn’t have the firepower to defeat the dreadnaught. Even delta-class missiles with antimatter warheads wouldn’t pierce the monster’s carapace.

  “Time to play our last card,” Hunt said. “Mirage, uncloak and fire EMP ordnance at the Meg. Prevent it from getting a lock.”

  The frigate materialized behind the Megalodon and shot a swarm of EMP missiles. Space around the dreadnaught burst with blue flashes.

  “Jump!” Hunt ordered.

  During a long, frightening second, Riley saw a host of missiles and spore shells hurtling toward her ship. She felt like time slowed to a crawl, a common side effect of her reflex-boosting implants.

  Then everything disappeared, replaced by dark space.

  Silence. Emptiness. Peace.

  She knew the op wasn’t over, that the Taar’kuun would chase the battlegroup, but the very f
act that all its ships had made it so far seemed incredibly auspicious. The damage report appeared extensive; however, all ships were operational. Starfighter losses were also minimal, thanks to Hunt’s strategy.

  “Well, it feels like we’ve been through hell and back,” O’Neil said on the senior officer’s channel. “I’ll say it only once; I had strong reservations about this op, but we pulled it off. Captain Hunt, you impressed me again.”

  “I’m not the one who made that possible,” Hunt replied. “Our crews did. And we confirmed that human resistance is still active on our worlds, and that enemy defenses can be breached. We’ll come back for those we’ve left behind. That’s a promise.”

  *****

  Still sitting in the wrecked vehicle amid piles of debris, Jason called Varez on his direct channel. “Now would be a good time to return to my ship. We also need to get the kids out of here.”

  “Hmm… I’m not sure about that,” Varez replied.

  “What are you saying? Are we prisoners? Hostages?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On your CO.”

  Jason called Hunt but heard only static in response. “Don’t tell me you jammed the comms,” he said to Varez.

  “Just a precaution.”

  “I knew you hadn’t changed. You always have an agenda. You set up your smuggling network only to find and recover your precious ship.”

  “When the Biozi attacked Vega, my closest business associate took advantage of the chaos to borrow my Goldie. Without my permission, you see. I had to improvise and evac the planet on another ship, but Goldie has been on my mind ever since. My people searched everywhere, every system, every station, but couldn’t find her. I concluded she was on one of the occupied worlds and set up a smuggling op. One of the crews found my business associate on Vega, living with a group of survivors. He didn’t manage to get through the Biozi blockade, so he decided to hide Goldie and wait. When my men questioned him, he revealed her location, in exchange for his miserable life.”

  “That must’ve been tough for you, knowing where your Goldie was, but being unable to retrieve her. You had to go to Vega yourself, ‘cuz she wouldn’t let anyone else than you pilot her.”

  “That’s right. Goldie is not only a ship; she’s an advanced AI. Since my business associate tricked her, she became understandably suspicious, even of my own people. I’ve been planning a trip to Vega for some time, but when I heard about the murder, I realized I had to act immediately. I knew the authorities would investigate and find out about my interstellar enterprise. I took my personal ship to my base in the Nean Cluster, boarded the Lucky Lady—she was already loaded and ready for her next delivery—and set sail to Vega. You know the rest.”

  Jason glanced at the kids, who were sitting quietly now, exhausted by their recent adventure. “You know, for once you did something good in your life,” he said. “You truly helped those people on Vega. Deep down, I was hoping you’d changed, but I doubt it. You’re the same hedonistic and egotistic bastard who sold me out five years ago.”

  “Flattery won’t get you anywhere, Jase. Sit quietly for a minute, will you?”

  Jason sighed. He still wasn’t sure if Varez had saved him out some sense of camaraderie, or whether he simply needed a bargaining chip in his negotiations with the ASF. He received an answer soon enough.

  “It’s all arranged, Jase,” Varez said. “You’ll be my guest for the duration of the trip, and my invitation extends to the children too.”

  “I demand to talk to my CO at once,” Jason snapped. “I’ve got my blaster, and I know how to use it. If that’s not enough, I also have a missile launcher.”

  “All right, don’t get all worked up. We’re among friends here. Patching you through.”

  Jason heard O’Neil’s concerned voice, “Commander, are you all right?”

  “Affirmative, captain,” Jason replied. “A few bruises, but I’ve survived much worse. What’s the situation?”

  “Varez claims he rescued you. Is that true?”

  “Yes…in a sense. He’s the one who compromised the mission to recover his beloved ship. He should’ve told us about the Golden Arrow. We would’ve planned the op differently. But he’s always been paranoid.”

  “He wants us to escort the Golden Arrow to his base. He doesn’t want to return to Neo as he fears we’ll confiscate his ship. Captain Hunt is willing to provide escort.”

  “What’s the catch? He’ll be leading us to his hidden base.” Jason realized Varez was listening to the conversation, but that didn’t matter.

  “Maybe he doesn’t care about that base anymore, now that he’s got what he wanted,” O’Neil supposed. “He just needs escort to the Nean Cluster, then he’ll probably disappear into uncharted space.”

  The children grew agitated again. Some of them needed to go to the bathroom.

  “Captain, we must get the kids out of here,” Jason said.

  “Agreed. And I need you at your post. Captain Hunt and I hate the very idea of negotiating with a scumbag like Varez, but we’ll make a deal with him. We arrested the Lucky Lady’s crew. I’m sure he’ll agree to let you return to the Phenix, together with the children, in exchange for his people. He needs a crew to operate the Golden Arrow.”

  Varez agreed in exchange for the promise that the ASF wouldn’t attempt to capture the Golden Arrow. He threatened to blow up the ship if they tried.

  The transfer of prisoners happened without incident. Once on the Phenix, Jason took an autopod to his cabin to change and take a shower. The CO told him to get some rest, and he eagerly obeyed that order.

  The Taar’kuun battlegroup led by the Megalodon chased the human ships, and Hunt devised a plan to confuse the pursuers. He ordered everyone on the Lucky Lady to transfer to the Phenix and set the blockade runner on autopilot. The smuggler ship jumped to the nearest system, while the rest of the fleet went to a different one.

  This tactic worked. As Hunt had suspected, the tracker was on the Lucky Lady. Battlegroup Vega, together with the Golden Arrow, managed to lose their pursuers in the Shield Nebula. By following Varez’s gravimetric map, the fleet returned to the Nean Cluster without encountering any hostile forces.

  Predictably, as soon as they reached the smuggler’s base, the Golden Arrow jumped to an unknown destination, and ASF ships didn’t even try to chase it. Captain Hunt kept his word, and he had other priorities anyway.

  The smugglers running the base offered no resistance. Alliance authorities promised them amnesty if they surrendered peacefully, and they accepted. Hunt ordered the Phenix to remain near the smuggler base for a few hours while the rest of the battlegroup returned to Neo. Now fully rested, Jason resumed his duties as the wing commander. The idea of requesting demotion still trotted in his head, but he hadn’t acted upon it yet.

  Jason was in the mess hall when the ship’s tex reported, “Unidentified contact on scanners.”

  “Scramble fighters,” O’Neil ordered.

  Two minutes later Jason was already in space, racing toward the bogey in his Katana. His eyes widened as scanners indicated the ship was the Golden Arrow.

  He opened a channel. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon. If ever.”

  “Goddammit, how’d you manage to see through her cloaking?” Varez cried out.

  “ASF tex are good at detecting bogeys,” Jason replied. “That’s why no Biozi stealthy ship ever managed to reach Neo. What are you doing in the system? Have you decided to surrender to the Alliance?”

  “Not a chance,” Varez snapped. “Leave me be; I’m just passing through. I’m no threat to you or your dear Alliance.”

  “Sorry, can’t do that. Where are you headed?”

  “Delivering supplies to Vega.”

  Jason bit his tongue to repress a laugh. “I’m on duty, Varez; I’ve got no time for your jokes.”

  “I’m dead serious. I’m returning to Vega. I know you probably won’t believe me, but I need to do this. True, I
set up my smuggling network to find Goldie, but now that I’ve got her back… I thought about what you’ve said. For once in my life, I’ve done something I can be proud of.”

  “I’m not buying it. Where did you get the supplies?”

  “I’ve got another base in a system unknown to the Taar’kuun or the Alliance. I stashed meds, food, and things of first necessity there, just in case. Now I’m transporting all those goodies to Vega. Scan my ship—I’m telling the truth.”

  Jason’s scans confirmed the ship’s cargo bay was full of crates with food and medication.

  “I need to do this, Jase. You said I don’t deserve to be part of the new mankind. Maybe you’re right, but I want to change. Five years ago, you turned your life around; now’s my chance to do the same. Would you deny me that?” There was sincerity in Varez’s voice. Jason wondered if he could be telling the truth for once.

  He muted the channel with Varez and called O’Neil. “Captain, you heard the conversation. What if he’s sincere? He’s got enough supplies to live like a king for decades; he could’ve just disappeared into uncharted space. He has no reason to risk his life or his precious ship. Should we really shut down his operation? He may be a criminal, but the people on Vega rely on his deliveries. Do we have the right to cut that lifeline?”

  “I understand how you feel about this,” O’Neil replied. “We all want to believe that people can change, trust in the fundamental goodness of mankind. We want to believe that we’re fighting for a species worthy of survival. Maybe Varez is telling the truth, or maybe he’s lying. It doesn’t matter. We have a duty to the people on Neo. Unwittingly, the smugglers led the Biozi right to our doorsteps. We can’t take any chances; we can’t let them continue their operations.”

  “I understand, captain,” Jason said with heavy heart. “Are you ordering me to fire on the Golden Arrow?”

  “Affirmative, commander. I know it won’t be easy for you. Deep down, we all feel guilty for having abandoned our worlds. But we’re officers, and we can’t let guilt dictate our decisions. The Golden Arrow must not jump. Stop it by any means necessary. Permission to use force.”