Behind Ginny, her Falgan co-pilot, Dawndo, said, “You didn’t hear?”
Ester’s gaze moved from Ginny to Dawndo and back again. “Hear what? I was on sleep rotation, I’ve been out since morning call.”
Ester became aware of the rushed, nervous edge of the scene. There were generally pilots telling jokes, mechanics and flight crews making quips, all of them together chuckling away the specter of death. There was none of that now, however. Around them Stingers were rolling out. The long, wide hangar echoed with the ghostly distant “whoosh” of ships launching. Faces were serious, everyone quickly and silently finishing their preparations.
Ginny flipped a switch on the Stinger’s main console and the propulsion unit sprang to life with a low rumbling hum. She turned to Ester, “They hit the Warfield outpost, completely wiped it out.”
Ester’s face went slack, the wind knocked out of her. Oh my gods.
“The whole Rulgarlesh fleet,” Ginny explained while Dawndo made the last of his adjustments. “About twenty minutes ago. They just warped in and warped out,” she snapped her fingers, “like that. All gone.”
Behind them, a voice screamed, “Go, go, go.” Ester didn’t look. She knew the Flight Deck Commander’s voice.
It was loud in the hangar, growing more chaotic as Stingers pulled out and hatches closed and engines hummed and people shouted orders. Ginny grabbed the handle to her canopy hatch, “They picked up some residue from their warp, short range. Their best guess was they are coming he…”
Suddenly a ferocious explosion rocked the Warship Holmes, throwing crew to their knees and knocking spare parts and tools to the floor. Ginny’s eyes never left Ester’s as she closed her canopy hood and slid the visor of her helmet down.
Ester put on her helmet, not needing Ginny to finish her statement. They were coming here. A full surprise attack.
Chapter 2
Ester didn’t need Ginny to understand that they were now under attack and the entire EMD was in danger of being wiped out. She did however, need her co-pilot. Come on, dammit. She fired up the engine, set the fuel and oxygen levels and tightened her seat harness. Rocky, where the fuck…
“Ester, let’s go.” Rocky scrambled up the small ladder and into his seat behind her in the Stinger. She didn’t want to say anything but she was pissed and knew it was better to just get it out of the way before they launched into a melee that required the two of them to function in utmost harmony.
“Where the fuck were you?” she demanded, slamming the canopy hatch the moment his head was clear. “You were supposed to be on sleep rotation.”
She flipped on her transponder and gave the Deck Chief a wave. Roll us out, we’re ready to fight. Hoorah.
Rocky put on his helmet, “I’ll tell you later,” he said. “All I’ll say for now is I am sorry and smell my fingers,” he held two fingers in front of the tinted helmet visor, “smells like pussy and fabric softener.”
“Not funny,” she told him, “now is not the time.” Their Stinger jerked slightly as it was hooked into the tube. The engine revved and the signal on the wall outside beeped once, twice…the light moving from red to yellow…three times, four…the light flashed green and Ester jammed the control stick forward.
The Stinger shot down the pressurized tunnel, faster and faster, accelerating towards the darkness. “Just keep those lanky fingers,” Ester said calmly, her focus on the controls in her hands, “that smell amazingly of autumn rain and shame, on the trigger.”
The Stinger cleared the tube. Rocky’s pithy reply caught in his throat. All he was able to utter was a disbelieving, “What did we…” and immediately swing his swivel gun and fire, sending a spray of red laser blasts into the hull of a Rulgarleshian fighting disc. “Holy shit,” Rocky shouted, “what happened?”
Ester didn’t answer but he didn’t expect her to, both concentrating on the task at hand, on the raging chaos surrounding them.
Cigar-shaped EMD Stingers battling with the Rulgarlesh discs, laser blasts flying everywhere, ships on both sides exploding, spraying debris. In the distance, Ester saw at least three of the enemy’s larger battle cruisers, ships the EMD fleet had nicknamed “Hives” for their roundish shape and their purpose of housing large numbers of the hairy insect-like Rulgarlesh warriors.
The Hives were engaging the Holmes head on. Rockets and warheads discharged from massive guns, yet the series of giant explosions appeared tiny to Ester. She knew it was just scale and distance. One bomb from the Holmes could level half a city.
Ester flipped a switch on her console, opening communications with the rest of her squadron. There was lots of chatter on the line. Warnings and curses filling her earphones as her colleagues engaged the swarming enemy. “Gold Three on board,” Ester said into the com mic, “Ginny look at your backside, you got one coming on strong.”
Ahead, Ester saw Ginny’s Stinger lift suddenly and then slow, twisting around on stabilizing jets and getting aft of a rapidly advancing disc. Another voice—Ester recognized it as Tofro—in her earpiece, “Hold still, G-5,” Tofro said, “I got clean up.”
From the side, a Stinger swooped in and opened fire on the unsuspecting Rulgarlesh pilot. The laser blasts tore into the side of the disc, rupturing its shell and forcing it into a spin until another burst of firepower caused it to explode.
“Nice shot,” Ester said, jerking her control left, spotting an approaching disc.
Tofro’s Stinger climbed sharply, avoiding a cluster of lasers, “Thank you, ma’am,” he said over the com, “just doing what I was born to do. Hoorah.” Over everyone’s ear pieces there were scattered hoots and hoorahs as the Gold Squad plunged ahead into the raging dogfight.
“Over there,” Rocky suddenly shouted out, “bearing one-nine-eight. We got a couple Gold Squaders in peril.”
Ester checked her screen. He was right. Two Gold Squad Stingers were being pursued closely by a trio of Rulgarlesh discs. Ester slammed the throttle, speeding through dense clouds of debris as their Stinger came up on the discs fast.
On her internal com, Rocky’s voice rang out: “Kick us up about five and over about fourteen degrees and we can run a front-door back-door in three, two, one...”
On “one”, Ester climbed quickly, pivoting the Stinger to the left with a trio of hard right hull stabilizer pulses. The Stinger raised and pitched, coming right into the middle of two discs lining up for an attack.
Ester fired her prow guns, Rocky fired his stern guns. The two enemy ships careened into one another, their explosions sucking back into themselves in the vacuum. “I’m swinging around,” she told Rocky, “make sure you sweep it out completely, don’t leave nothing under the rug.”
“Will do,” he told her, adjusting the weapon joystick in his leathery brown hand and pressing a few buttons on the console with his thick fingertips.
Before Ester could make her maneuver, a loud series of low pitched chimes reverberated through their coms. The Holmes. Emergency frequency.
“Attention,” commanded a voice over the com. “Main Fleet immediate warp-jump to pre-nav coordinates three point five. Defensive squads rendezvous at coordinates four, eight, and final jump three point five.” Ester tried to keep this info in her head as she spun the Stinger hard, lining Rocky up perfectly with a disc. Bam. The disc erupted and Ester continued forward, spinning again. This time she took the shot. Bam. Another disc turned to radioactive dust.
Don’t forget. She spun her ship. Rocky fired, she fired. Discs were everywhere. So many. She pulled her trigger, laser blasts tore into the vacuum, ripping through a disc hard on the tail of Ginny and Dawndo. Don’t forget: four, eight, three point five. Make the jump, return to Fleet.
Suddenly an electric hum filled her com speakers. She flipped a switch, muting them for a moment. The Holmes began to glow, lighting up brightly for a split second and then it was gone. A massive empty spot where the full size battle cruiser had just been a heartbeat before. Warp-jump.
Ester whipped her St
inger to the right and dove sharply, just avoiding a barrage of laser blasts. She clicked the com back on once the Holmes was out of site. “Ears up everybody,” she said, “tell me when Main Fleet is clear.”
There was a few seconds’ pause. A bright flash caught Ester’s attention. Directly beside them, a Stinger exploded. Harlow. Harlow was an Academy friend of Ester’s. A good man. Harlow blew into space. His broken body collided with the canopy shield and debris from his shattered ship pelted their Stinger.
“Gold Eight down,” said Rocky over the earpiece.
“Confirmed,” Ester said, squeezing the trigger, her anger building. How many have to die? How long does this have to go on? When is it enough? When?
Tofro’s voice on the com broke her out of her moment of existential gloom. “The fuel tanker and the water tanker just jumped clear. Main Fleet has successfully jumped clear. Outward Fleet awaiting call-out orders.” Tofro’s announcement made its way around the thousands of dual-seat Stingers still involved in the dogfight.
Once all pilots had locked in their acknowledgement codes, the orange light on their warp console lit up. Ester flipped her Stinger upside down and gunned the engine, buzzing past a disc that was firing on her. She flipped back around and came in suddenly above it. She pulled the trigger. Again. Bam. She flicked the switch on her warp generator. It took a short three seconds for the light to turn from orange to green. Go. Warp jump ready to go.
“We’re good to go,” Ester said, not knowing it wasn’t the case. How could she know? It was impossible for her to know that a piece of Harlow’s Stinger, a small round washer that floated free from a small round bolt when the ship exploded, had pierced her own Stinger’s warp navigation bundle.
There was no logical reason Ester should know they were not good to go. All she knew was protocol. Once the Main Fleet cleared, 10 squadrons at a time would make the warp jump with a 30-second interval between each set of jumps. Gold Fleet always went first. They were the elite, the best of the best, and had to get back to Main Fleet as quickly as possible in case of any pressing emergency.
“See you on the other side,” she told her squad mates and pressed the button on her warp drive. Their Stinger began to glow, she felt the familiar vertigo stretching her senses as the warp engaged, as the ship became neither her nor there.
Then they were gone.
Chapter 3
Once Ester and Rocky emerged from their near instantaneous warp-jump it took Ester only another 2.395 seconds to realize something was horribly wrong.
“Holy shit,” she screamed, thick dark clouds rushing past their window canopy as the Stinger plunged through some turbulent alien atmosphere, “lower the dampers…” she yanked up on the control stick… oh shit, oh shit, oh shit… “Rocky, slow us down.”
Rocky flipped a switch and turned a knob. If the adjustments he made had any affect on their speed or stability it was not noticeable. Ester screamed again, “Rocky, gods dammit…”
“I did it,” he screamed back, the jostling of the ship and the whining scream of air filling the situation with even more tension, “but nothing’s happening.”
Suddenly, sparks and smoke from the consoles, then the controls went slack in Ester’s grip. Son of a…
Powerless, the Stinger plunged through the clouds, nose down and slowly rotating around the weight of its propulsion generator as it fell. Ester tried a few switches, cursed and tried to reboot the system.
Nothing happened.
She punched the dashboard and then the canopy, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Behind her Rocky’s voice worked hard to sound calm, “We’re ejecting, right?” Below them he saw a break in the clouds and through it a distant expanse of red-brown. He repeated, “We’re ejecting soon, right?” His worry was no longer muffled.
The Stinger broke through the clouds before Ester could answer. What she saw left her speechless. An endless stretch of reddish brown. Dry. Dirt. Dust. Mountain ranges cut through the empty desert but little else. Mostly long barren wastes, a massive western plain stretching as far as their eyes could see.
The sky around them was tinted a dusty copper hue and above it, the faintly glowing grey wall of the cloud bank they just fell through. The turbulence settled and for a moment the surrealist quality of it all was transcendent.
It’s beautiful. Ester was lost in the scenery, her breath frozen in her lungs, air whistling through the seals of the Stinger’s canopy…
Enough. Focus. She snapped out of her daze and reached beside her seat. The manual eject lever jutted out from the frame. “Confirm ejection,” she said. She waited for Rocky’s reply but it did not come. What the…? She tapped the side of her helmet, “Rocky,” she said, “do you hear me?” No response.
Shit, now the com mics are fried too. She turned as far as her safety harness would allow and gave Rocky a thumbs up. He patted her on the shoulder. She mimed ejecting, the Stinger crashing, the two of them floating blissfully in their parachutes. He patted her shoulder again. Got it. Good to go.
She grabbed the eject lever again and waited, waited… be patient, get closer, not yet, not yet… the ground rushed up at them. It looked sharp and hard.
Rocky patted her shoulder again and she turned to look. He was pointing east at a large rock formation. She looked but wasn’t sure why. Rocks. Dirt. What’s that?
She wouldn’t worry about it too much for now. There were more important things to do. Things like pull the lever in ten, nine, eight, seven…
Chapter 4
The sunset was inconsequential. Barely noticeable. The grey day became slightly greyer and then slipped gracefully and silently to black. The wind and cold that accompanied the sunset were an entirely different matter.
Their entrance was dangerously noticeable.
Ester and Rocky huddled close to the small nano-fire unit and stared into the orange flames. The self-replicating and self-sustaining combustion kit emitted just enough light and heat to prove adequate against the biting cold.
Beyond the narrow cave mouth the wind growled, rushed past in monstrous rushes, shredding the planet’s surface with tiny rocks and grains of sharp sandy dust. Ester rocked compulsively, the movement helping her relax.
“There’s no way we would make it out there,” she told Rocky, “I still don’t know how in the hell you saw this from way up there, but thank the gods you did.”
“Well,” said Rocky, digging a second meal pack from his pack, “thank you for figuring out we can breath the air. That’s happy news, huh? No helmets make eating these,” he held two meal packages up, “much easier.”
Ester would have laughed if it hadn’t been too soon. “I didn’t know we could count the accidental cracking of my helmet’s visor on an uncharted alien planet ‘happy news’ but whatever.” She grabbed the pack out of his right hand: “Meat Stew.” “I guess we shouldn’t be too picky about any luck right now.”
Rocky shook his meal pack vigorously. It began to heat in his hands. Ester did the same, shaking the pack faster and harder, faster and harder.
Rocky smiled and leaned forward, “You do that pretty good.”
She recognized that sideways smile on her co-pilot’s face. Shaking her meal pack, the fast jerking motion of her arm… pervert. Then she smelled it. Sweet spicy cinnamon. Oh shit. Pheromones. He’s beginning to have a pheromone attack.
Ester knew Falgan pheromones were potent and when they were triggered in concentrated doses they could be overwhelming. I have to stop it. I have to slow him down. She nervously laughed Rocky’s comment off, hoping to change subjects and pre-empt any sexual connotations.
“Fucking grow up,” she told him, “We almost died today, we’re stranded who knows where with no ship and no way out. You’re so clever, huh? Why don’t you figure out how to get away from here and back in the fight?”
The spark in his eyes grew into a blaze and she knew it was too late. She would have to ride it out. Rocky began to sweat, the intoxicating pungent aroma leakin
g from his pores and filling the cave. “Wow,” he said suggestively, unzipping his flight suit, “such poetry. You have a talented mouth.” He leaned closer to her, “What else can you do with it?”
She leaned away from him and tore the end of her meal pack open. “Keep your junk in your pants, Lieutenant,” she said, “or I can see a Falgan kabob in my near future. I can cut your cock up into what? Six, seven little pieces?”
Rocky chuckled and ate a large mouthful of food from his pack. He smiled, chewing methodically. “Nine and a half. Thick pieces, too,” he told her, adjusting the rising bulge in his flight pants.
Ester met his eyes. She blushed and quickly turned her head, adjusting her position on the cold stone ground, surprised by an unexpected warmth between her legs. Relax, just keep your cool. She should have expected this.
Sexual relations were multifaceted instruments on Falgan. They were part of the rituals and customs for pleasure, political, and social traditions. Blame it on the pheromones. Sex was a complicated tool for the Falgans but sometimes it was as simple as their general belief in comfort and pleasure, a healthy way to whittle away empty hours or stressful times.
Ester knew she could handle Rocky—he came onto her every couple of weeks when he was tired or stressed. She had become adept at deconstructing his advances and brushing off his touchy overtures with a joke and a friendly insult. I just have to put him in his place and let him know I’m not interested. That was generally easy enough. However, this was a different situation.
Rocky subtly edged himself toward her, the sweet scent of his skin strong in her nose. Laughing, she told him, “Easy on the advance, Napoleon, you might be spreading your troops a little thin.” She poured more of her food packet into her mouth, trying to remain neutral and disinterested.
Rocky came closer, only an inch away. His dark skin glistened like polished oak in the small flames of the nano-fire. His smell was strong and sweeter than usual. His pheromones are really kicking in. It’s just the near-death thing. She smiled, this time not turning away from the glint in his eyes. All that built up adrenaline, that emotion. Irrational and pure. Ester knew the science behind it, she knew the biological mechanics, but still… he smells so good. He looks so good.
Romance: Alien Romance: Simply Aliens: A Ten Book Alien Romance Collection (Paranormal Scifi Interracial Romance) (Fantasy New Adult Alpha Short Stories) Page 12
