They’d flown alongside the Geffers for several tridecs now without incident. Even at the battle of Nash-9 Blazer had saved, and been saved by, Galactic Federation fighters. The truce was an uneasy one, but it had held this long with minimal incident. “Do it. If I'm right we’ll need the heavy ordnance.”
Black Dog 001
“What do you think of fighting beside the Conts Tom?” The bomber pilot’s copilot asked.
Tom Klein looked over at him. In the dim red light of the cockpit interior the red highlights on his helmet disappeared to reveal a crude message written on the side of a growling black Pitbull. “It’s been odd Sayd. I won’t deny that. I’ve spent my whole life and career hating them, but these last few months. I dunno.”
“You don’t think it’s odd, them asking us for help to take care of this Gorvian problem?”
“You saw what the Gorvians can do. Do you really think they’d be satisfied with just taking the Confederation down? They’d come after us at some point.”
“I know what you mean, but I just can’t take it. Every time I see some Cont ship come into view, I just want to open on it.”
Before Tom could reply the enlisted technician seated behind him cut into the internal comms. “Sir. I’ve a Confed fighter group requesting bomber assistance at Jump Point Three.”
“Is there anything out there?” Tom asked Sayd.
“Nothing on my scopes. Think they’re just being jumpy?”
“Maybe. Sergeant tell them to stand by then patch me into command.”
“Yes sir. Monstero Nach Zero Three, standby.” Then a moment later. “You’re patched sir.”
“Birds Eye this is Black Dog One. I have a request from a Confed fighter group for bomber support at Jump Point Three. Are we clear to assist?”
“Black Dog One go to encrypted channel fourteen and roll frequencies on cycle Oscar.”
That struck Tom as odd but he turned back to the technician behind him and received a thumbs up. “Copy that Birds Eye. We are so encrypted.”
“Black Dog you are cleared to vector towards Jump Point Three, sending fighter escorts. Be aware we have new allied reinforcements inbound. Your IFF will update upon their arrival. You are to engage any and all hostiles as displayed. Do you copy?”
The strange nature of the orders piqued Tom’s interest, but he’d learned not to question such orders in the past. He exchanged a quick look with Sayd who just shrugged. “Wilco Bird’s Eye. Can you ID new arrivals for me?” He asked and regretted it in that same instant.
“You will know them when you see them Black Dog,” the controller bit back.
Monstero Nach 003
“Tell me you have something,” Blazer said as they dropped out of slipstream near the jump point.
“Nothing yet, but that gravitational reading from the jump buoy is increasing. Still within normal navigational bounds though.”
His gut still gnawing at him, Blazer watched the spherical jump buoy with great interest. Something still felt wrong. “Where are those bombers?”
“Inbound in four pulses. They have a few of those new Wildcat Fighters in escort too. Holy Shreg! I just lost the buoy signal!”
“What?” Blazer looked at the jump point and to his astonishment it began to flatten out and grow. The new boundary of the jump point rushed towards their fighter and he jerked back on the stick before slamming the throttle open to full and crushing his thumb down on the afterburner. “All units, Lead. Escape vectors! Arion?!”
“Already on the link with Command.”
Blazer’s HUD lit up with a phrase he didn’t even know was in its lexicon Gravity Disturbance. He rolled his fighter about and looked down at the stretched-out jump point as the first tip of the Planet Slicer began to emerge, with cruisers, corvettes, and fighters streaming out around it. Light shimmered off the surface of the behemoth as it shoved invisible hyperspace matter into normal space. The wash of hyperspace particles annihilated itself as it came into contact with any normal matter it encountered in a dazzling light show. A whole cruiser disappeared in one of the flashes, the amount of hypermatter the Planet Slicer had shoved out enough to wipe out a whole fleet. The light of the interacting matter grew so brilliantly that Blazer had to avert his eyes and check his radiation dosimeter. His shields fluxed and shone to the massive radiation burst.
“I want all scanners on that thing. We need to know how they’re doing this,” Blazer ordered.
The tone of a missile alert called out its shrill tome as Blazer rocketed away from the Planet Slicer. He scanned the sky for the warhead and it lit up on his HUD, but it wasn’t coming from the Planet Slicer. Without questioning it further, Blazer deployed countermeasures and evaded the weapon.
The G-Forces pressing down on him, Blazer vectored towards the missile’s launch point and found himself faced with one of the Galactic Federation’s new Wildcat fighters. The fighter shared a common fuselage with the older Tigercat fighter, but instead of the older twin engines, it had four engines on nacelles extending slightly away from the body. The cranked arrow wing also gave way to a diamond planform wing with a straight anti-fighter missile and gun loadout. The nimble little craft was a pure dogfighter compared to its older brother. The pilot of this one seemed determined to prove that.
Blazer keyed his link to the common tactical frequency. “Wildcat break off your attack. We’re friendlies!”
“Not anymore,” a terse voice responded before peppering Blazer’s shields with plaser fire.
Blazer sideslipped out of the way before his shields could collapse and brought his nose around to bring his guns to bear; squeezed the trigger. The Wildcat evaded, vaulting away from Blazer’s barrage. “All Units, Nach Three. Geffer reinforcements are hostile! Repeat, Geffers are hostile!” Blazer moved to pursue and lining up his sights on the renewed hostile squeezed off a burst into its backside. “Arion. Get on with Command…”
“It’s all across the system. The Geffers are attacking the fleet. They’ve caught us sleeping.”
“Shreg,” Blazer cursed as his IFF updated to display the GF fighter force as hostile. “What the Sheol are they thinking?”
“No idea, but half our fleets are still in dock. Frag me! There’s a general retreat order in effect. We’re abandoning the system.”
Blazer’s finger came off his trigger at the announcement. While Veglid was by no means a major system, it held a Cathedral Station and was the gateway to Gorvian space. Blazer had never heard of the Confederation ever abandoning one of those amazing bases before. To lose it in part because the Galactic Federation had betrayed them felt like bile in his mouth.
That acidity burned at him and he lit off two missiles at his attacker. The pilot evaded the first but vectored straight into Blazer’s sights. He poured fire into him before the missile detonated; sheared off two of its engines. The differential thrust sent the fighter spinning out of control before the pilot ejected.
His target eliminated, Blazer spun his fighter about to rejoin his flight. He fired his engines to cancel his momentum, and turned towards his new vector. As he slowed to a dead stop in space, he caught a movement to his right. A giant, jet black Valkyrie bomber bore down on him. His hearts froze, the bomber had him dead to rights in its forward guns, but it didn’t fire. It hesitated; fired over his head before it raced past. Blazer didn’t question the pilot’s actions, but keyed his afterburner and burned towards the engagement area.
“Blazer. I just got a hail from that bomber, text only.”
“And?” Blazer asked, trying to push the event out of his mind as he moved in to assist Fealgud and Zithe.
“It’s an apology.”
Blazer wasn’t sure how to take that. But he couldn’t dwell on it. “We’ll deal with it later. Let’s deal with these, then get back to the Mercy.”
“Copy that. What the Sheol!”
“What is it?”
“That munitions transport. It’s under attack, by, by Mikle and Acknit.”
Mon
stero Nach 013
“What are you doing Mikle?” Acknit hollered as Mikle unleashed a hail of fire into the freighter.
“Accomplishing my mission,” Mikle replied, voice drained of any of its normal cheer.
“What mission? Wait. It was you?”
“Afraid so,” Mikle replied and fired off a pair of missiles without guidance into the now unshielded rear of the freighter.
The revelation froze Acknit. He now questioned his whole life with this man. Mikle was his best friend. They’d grown up together, had travelled together, had joined up and trained together. They’d even had sex with the Morcarin twins together. Then all the pieces began to fall into place. The unexplained absences. The insistence on taking pictures and video everywhere they went. The absurdly large data packets he sent home. The incident on Cersei that had earned them their place at the academy…
The explosion of the freighter ripped Acknit out of his musings as cries of alarm from the other WSOs over the WSO network rained in. Acknit had to act fast. He dove into the fighter’s systems and attempted to wrest control. Attempted was the operative word. Acknit found himself locked out of almost every system. Even communications began to fade as he put out a distress call to the other WSOs. He scrambled to at least maintain the communications and isolated it from the pilot’s control panel. In the process, he found himself cut off from every other system.
“Mikle. Why are you doing this?” Acknit asked in desperation. He hoped if he got his old friend talking that it would distract him enough to not notice he had preserved the WSO link. Maybe then, the other WSOs could help him wrest back control of the fighter.
“It’s my mission.”
“But why? Why turn traitor against the Confederation?” Acknit continued, leaving the internal comms open to the WSO link.
“I’m no traitor. None of my family is.”
“What? Your family? But they’re mega-freighter pilots.”
“From the Greblin System. And just like Greblin, the Confederation is just abandoning this system.”
G-Forces slammed Acknit back into his seat and with no inputs through his WSO interface he withdrew from the shroud. Mikle had not only attacked the freighter, but he’d used the explosion to disable Chris’ and Gavit’s fighters long enough to make his escape. “What did you do to them?”
“They’ll be fine. I just installed a weapon’s and engine lock out on their fighters.”
“They’ll be easy targets for any Geffer or Gorvians who attack them. They’re our friends and you’ve killed them.”
“The Federation will capture and treat them well.”
“But why throw in with them? The Federation?” Saying the word almost hurt Acknit’s tongue.
“You should understand. You should see. Look at that backwater you and your family are relegated to. Working round the clock just to make ends meet. When the Federation liberated Greblin there were problems at first, but once they established order, it all got better. There was no want for supplies or services. They took care of us.”
“How did you get the lockouts in without the others noticing?”
“It won’t do you any good. Once they’re keyed, that’s it. Don’t you see Acknit. The Galactic Federation isn’t the evil monolith the Confederation makes it out to be. I took you into the Federation area of Cathedral Station. You saw how they were, how they invited everyone in.”
“How they oppressed their slave races. Relegated them to certain areas and hard duties, sure.”
“The system isn’t perfect. But you can’t tell me that you’ve ever liked working side by side with the likes of Bichard or Gokhead. You’ve touched their minds. You see how they think different and need to be segregated.”
The revelation that Mikle had such backwards, racist attitudes felt like a slap to the face. “But why now?”
“Because now we have a means to finally defeat and keep Confed in line.”
“The Geffers made a deal with the Gorvians.”
“Yes, the Federation did. Acknit. Come with me. Join us, be on the winning side.”
Acknit leaned over to see his friend. All he saw was the back of his helmet, but also the Galactic Federation carrier in the distance. “Are you planning to land us there?”
“You bet. They’re waiting for us. Look it won’t be nice at first. But, once you swear loyalty you’ll see what kind of benefits it brings.”
Acknit shot their objective to the others over the WSO link. “How do you plan to control the Gorvians?”
“Like I know that. But the Pharad have a plan. Hell, if the Confederation had just listened to the Pharad before we could have avoided this whole bloody war. Instead they just had to listen to the damned Donvarion.”
“I can’t do it Mikle. I can’t betray the Confederation.”
“Don’t be a fool Acknit. If you’re worried about your family then they’ll extract them. The Federation will get them someplace safe. Away from Confed.”
“No, this is wrong. I don’t know what they did to you to make you feel this way.”
“They raised and educated me. They showed me how purity is always the solution. Acknit please. Don’t make me your enemy.”
Acknit weighed his options. Whatever Mikle had done had cut him off from almost every system. He looked around for anything he could use and realized he had his sidearm. But he didn’t want to kill his best friend. Even if that friendship had been a lie. Even if it meant a big chunk of his life had meant nothing to Mikle. An explosion to the right drew his eyes. The ejection capsule of a Splicer 2000 rocketed away from the destroyed craft.
Acknit looked back down. The handle for the ejection system was right there. It was an isolated system from the rest of the fighter and checked before every flight. There was no way Mikle could have sabotaged it.
“Too late Acknit. Confed will kill me at this point. The Federation will treat me like a hero.”
Hearing enough, Acknit pulled the handle. Nothing happened. He pulled again but it remained fixed. He grabbed the secondary handles on either side of his seat and pulled. Again, they didn’t budge. “What did you do?”
“Molecular bonding strip. I put them on yesterday. Man, it feels good to say that. Day. You should try it. I’m sorry Acknit. Don’t worry. I won’t let them interrogate you. You’re still too much of a friend to do that. It’ll be quick.”
Before Acknit could ask, he felt a prick from the vitamin infuser on his arm. His eyes went wide and his hearts raced with the realization. He clawed at his arm, tried to undo the nanomolecular flap seal to access the device. Instead everything began to go dark. His vision fogged in an instant, his hands began to numb and feel heavy. But there’s no gravity, how can my hands feel heavy?
Monstero Nach 003
“No, Acknit, come back!” Arion hollered hard enough through the WSO link that his cries rang from his lips. “Gok. Can you get a solid life sign reading?”
Blazer’s nostrils flared and he felt all his focus turn towards that single fighter in the distance. He had made sure not to engage the fighter in an active target lock, as it would alert Mikle, but now, that wasn’t Mikle in there anymore. It was a traitor and his murdered WSO. Blazer’s eye narrowed. Nothing else existed in that moment. Nothing but the target and the rage.
“He’s gone,” Arion reported. “He killed Acknit.”
“Then there’s no reason to go lightly.”
“B. He’s still our friend.”
“No,” Blazer said, lining up his crosshairs on the fighter. “He never was. We were duped by him from the beginning.” Before Arion could protest Blazer open
ed fire. His left Plaser chattered away. The right vertical stabilizer and plaser blackened and deformed, where a burst of plaser fire from a Wildcat had breached his shields. The plaser rounds dazzled Mikle’s shields. Mikle jinked to try and escape, but Blazer was persistent. He wouldn’t allow Acknit’s killer to escape.
Blazer shot past Mikle’s fighter; flipped their fighter about to keep his nose on him. Blazer pressed on, thumbed his afterburner to zero out his inertia; threw their fighter down his new vector. Mikle flailed about as both Zithe and Fealgud engaged him. Lock alerts lit up Blazer’s threat display; numerous Galactic Federation fighters raced to the traitor’s aid. “Do not let him escape. Who know how much strategic data he’s making off with!”
Mikle’s shields failed a moment later and Zithe’s next shot sheared off his left wing. Blazer lined up his sights but before he could pull the trigger Arion called out. “Command wants him alive.”
Blazer checked his scanners; looked at the nearby carrier. Defensive fire reached out towards them. “Not possible,” he replied; squeezed the trigger. Plaser rounds raked the bottom of the fighter, peeling away the armor as Mikle attempted to evade. “Sorry Acknit,” Blazer all but whispered; fired off his bio cannons into the breaches. Plaser fire from a Gorvian fighter forced Blazer to break off.
Blazer whipped his damaged fighter about. The sudden acceleration shoved him back into his seat as he evaded the incoming fighter. He looked about for his attacker. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of light. The biocannon round had eaten through the protective casing of the traitor’s sharks and shattered one of the photon detonators. As the light subsided nothing remained of the fighter that his sensors could detect. Blazer turned to look at the spot: for just a moment a dark spot in his soul. Whether he wanted to admit it or not; Mikle and Acknit had been more than comrades. They’d been friends. Now they were both gone, with no trace but the memories they’d left behind.
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