by Tom Jordan
“That’s a fun story but I was minding my own business. I didn’t do anything to you before you fucked with me,” the pilot responded.
“Saito, is Tommy with you?” It was Marco’s voice, shaded with concern. Jade looked to Tommy, who watched her with wide eyes, his mouth hanging open. He pointed and silently mouthed Marco’s name.
“He must be, if you found me,” Marco said. “But it doesn’t matter. Please leave now for your own sake. Get Tommy and Freeborn out of here.”
“Henning’s not here, Marco! He left after you betrayed us and stole his ship!” Jade clenched her fists on the flight controls.
“You’re mine, Jade,” Stormwulf’s pilot spat, drawing out Jade’s name with a tone of disgust.
“Bakhti, let them go and we’ll finish up here,” Marco said.
So this is Stormwulf’s pilot. Bakhti.
“No! Two of my team are dead because of her,” Bakhti said. “No more loose ends.”
Marco started to raise a new objection, but his voice was cut off midsentence.
“I’m coming for you,” Bakhti growled, and then the transmission cut out with a squelch.
“This is trouble, Jade,” Tommy said. “Remember the EMP? She’s well stocked. We might be outmatched again.”
“The other option is to run,” Jade said. She checked her resolve, which seemed to be holding. Perhaps she was just emboldened by shooting down Bakhti’s missiles, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. “I don’t want to run. Are you still with me?”
“Always,” Tommy said without a breath of hesitation. “I’m with you.” Jade’s respect for Tommy grew. He’d been shot down in a firefight but was ready to go into another without a moment’s doubt. He was dedicated and wasn’t giving in to fear. Could she have done the same in his position?
Jade nodded. “Anything you can do to give us an edge?” She shot a quick look at him. He'd gotten a few days' worth of scruffy beard growth. Clouds shot by the canopy behind him.
He shook his head. “Nothing special. Just what you have in stock. Stay out of EMP range. A pulse would knock us out of the sky and we’d be goners. Do your best to get behind her so that you can line her up. Ghost should pitch faster in atmo because of the hull shape. Faster than Stormwulf, I think.”
“Got it.”
“Oh, and only use one missile until we know her countermeasures.”
“Right.”
“Jade, I…”
“Yeah?”
The sounds of Ghost’s thrusters filled the quiet.
“You can do this. We can do this.”
“Thanks.” Only he could make her smile at a time like this.
Jade checked Stormwulf’s position. The ship was still climbing, turning toward her. Jade stole a moment to close her eyes and stretch her limbs. She drew in a long breath and exhaled. She knew she needed to stay relaxed to get through this, and she did her best to banish any lingering tension or concern over what was to come. Her singular goal was to fly to the best of her abilities. She was committed to act, no matter the outcome, so worrying about the result would only hamper her performance now, in the moment.
Stick, throttle, pedals. You can do it.
The subtle vibration of the ship buzzed into her body through the flight seat. Her heart beat was a quick rhythm, and the tingle of adrenaline burned through her chest and limbs. Jade opened her eyes and noticed a holographic model of Stormwulf next to her map, courtesy of Tommy. It allowed Jade, at a glance, to see the direction and velocity of her enemy. The miniature glowing Stormwulf turned toward Jade’s ship, preparing to engage.
Jade didn’t want to kill anyone else, even this pilot, but this wasn’t a situation for half measures. She depressed the trigger and fired off a missile. In the same instant, Stormwulf climbed toward Ghost and unleashed its guns, spitting twin streaks of projectiles. In response, Jade worked her pedals and rolled her ship over to the right. Tommy yelled out as the horizon spun in a circle over and over. Jade used her thrusters to push the ship down while it rolled, resulting in Ghost of Jupiter weaving a corkscrew through the air and shaking off Bakhti’s aim. The shots streaked by, missing the ship.
Jade jammed her throttle forward to gain some distance from Stormwulf, and began a tight turn in an attempt to come up behind the other ship. She clung to the hope that her missile would distract Bakhti long enough to give Jade a chance to line up for a shot.
She looked left out of the cockpit and Stormwulf appeared in her view. Small pods, like tiny rockets, weaved in wandering trails away from the ship. Each left a trail of white as it flew.
“Decoy countermeasures!” Tommy yelled. “She has decoys!”
“Right,” Jade said. She had to concentrate to unclench her jaw and release the tension simmering in her. “Please try and stay calm.”
“My fault,” Tommy said, holding up his hands. “Sorry, Jade.”
Jade saw her missile come out of nowhere and slam into one of the decoys to explode in a cloud of fire and gray smoke. Pieces of the missile’s casing careened away and were pulled toward the ground.
Jade huffed. It was unlikely her missiles would outnumber the decoys the other ship carried. Would anything work? How could she disable Stormwulf? There was no way they could get the crate until she did.
She worked her controls, pressing on her stick and pedals to squeeze out any additional turning rate she could. Tommy was right—she could pitch quickly in atmosphere thanks to Ghost’s wing-shaped hull. Stormwulf glided into view in front of her.
Jade lined up Stormwulf and squeezed her trigger. The rail guns spat their projectiles, but Stormwulf weaved as though its pilot could sense Jade’s intentions. Jade’s shots went wide, and she adjusted her heading to counter her target’s weaving and stay on its tail.
“Look at the holo of her ship!” Tommy said, thrusting a finger into the hologram. “That missile launcher is opening again!”
Jade swapped to her particle cannons and squeezed the trigger, doing her best to slice the lines of energy fire into her enemy. She spotted a great puff of white smoke as two more missiles fired out of the tubes atop Stormwulf. Jade confirmed their presence on her map.
“Can you target the missiles and launch ours to counter?” Jade asked Tommy.
“I can.”
“Good. Do it. I’ve got to focus on flying.”
“Roger. Okay. Launching counter-missiles.” Tommy breathed a huge sigh as though trying to get himself under control.
“Calm down, try to breathe. In and out.”
“Okay, okay!”
The missiles dropped from the holds on Ghost of Jupiter’s underside, and their rocket propellant ignited, blasting them away to meet their designated targets. Stormwulf arced to starboard and Jade followed with a fierce turn. The ship’s thrusters rocked and vibrated the cockpit as gravity and atmosphere protested Jade’s attempt to turn faster than her opponent.
Jade’s harness bit into her torso as she was pulled left by the irresistible force of the turn. She spared a quick glance at Tommy, who had an elbow hooked around his armrest despite being similarly strapped into the seat. The fingers of his other hand danced over his controls, performing some unknown task. Stormwulf turned at the edge of Jade’s view.
Jade was gaining on the ship.
“Missiles detonated!” Tommy yelled. “Good effect! We’re clear.”
“Hang on!” Jade yelled.
“You keep saying that right before you do something awful!”
“Just cut the flight compensator when I tell you and be ready to bring it back online.”
“What? Okay! Waiting on you!”
“Brace yourself. High-g turn coming in three. Two. One. Now! Kill it!”
Tommy pressed a button. Jade cut her throttle, and her stomach rose as the ship sailed through the air like a thrown ball at the apex of its flight. Without the flight compensator it made no attempt to right itself. Jade punched her downward landing thrusters, giving the ship a boost of rotational force t
hat it needed to out-turn the other ship. Tommy groaned. She waited a fraction of a breath until Stormwulf rotated into her view.
“Okay, bring it back!”
“It’s on,” Tommy said.
The ship leveled as its supportive thrusters fired, bringing it back under control. It faced Stormwulf, and Jade matched the heading and angle of the other ship’s turn. Stormwulf was trapped in her holographic targeting box.
Jade squeezed her trigger and a stream of projectiles buzzed from the particle cannons. Stormwulf’s pilot seemed to anticipate the attack, and again rolled her ship out of the way. Jade’s shots went wide to port.
“God damnit,” she hissed. She steadied her breathing as best she could. She rolled the ship, causing the ground and sky to swap places, then fired her guns in short bursts, each time cutting a line close to Stormwulf but not connecting. Jade’s target lurched into a sudden dive toward the ground and Jade pursued, following Stormwulf as it cut back toward the landing-pad complex.
Dani put down her mug of sweetened black tea, then nudged it into the center of the coaster. She tapped her fingers on the desk, and then skipped a few songs on her playlist until she found something upbeat.
Other than the fear that the offworld folks who managed the complex would replace her with software, working out here at the landing complex on Obos had its perks: calm and solitude, allowing her to focus on the work of managing the ship pads and billing for docking fees. The moon’s ever-present silence was sometimes an enemy, sometimes an ally.
Yet something suddenly seemed off. She looked at her holographic picture frame of Myles, her youngest, at ease on his university campus, his back to its tiered fountain.
The frame was vibrating. But Obos was stable. No seismic side effects from terraforming. She put her fingers down on the clean white of the desktop.
The vibration was definitely there. There were two ships on-pad the the moment, and while the building didn’t move when ships launched, it wasn’t unusual for one of the pilots to fly a little too close to the tower for fun. It was probably that young guy with the big Sakharov. What was his name? Mark something?
She rose and walked to the window. White vapor trails curled high above, and the Thorsen had left its pad. Something odd was transpiring.
Her supervisor’s preference was to keep the insurance company happy by notifying system security of any odd activity, so Dani sat back down and said, “place a call to Eidera security forces,” craning to look up and out the window. Her workstation handled her request and the call connected a moment later to an automated system. She made the report, describing the odd trails in the sky.
A starship rocketed past the window, shaking the entire building around her and rattling her mug off the coaster. She jumped back with a shout, knocking over her chair as hot tea splashed onto her knee. A second ship chased the first, again rattling the floor-to-ceiling glass panes.
“Holy…”
Tommy was filled with a mix of nausea from Jade’s aerobatics and the heady rush of combat. This life-or-death commitment felt different than what he’d experienced on Balenos A. Despite the danger they’d been in on that fiery planet, he’d had a team, and he’d been unprepared for the whole thing. This time, it was just him and Jade, alone, and he’d known the risks going in.
No backup. One ship, one fate.
He had no regrets, but that didn’t mean he could stay as cool as Jade. He panicked worrying about the outcomes, felt the risks of every ship maneuver and firing attempt, yet Jade remained unmoved in the center of the maelstrom. A tree in a storm.
“I need options, Tommy. Give me something.”
Tommy was silent for a moment, searching his thoughts. There was nothing else he could do. He’d rushed to get supplies together while they were on Keillor, but they weren’t some military ship geared for a hard-core in-atmo dogfight. Not by a long shot. They had rails. They had particles. They had missiles. That was about it.
He didn’t want to tell Jade it was hopeless, but there was nothing else to be done.
“Tommy!”
“I…I’ve got nothing,” he stammered.
“Okay.”
Was her frosty tone just the result of her concentration, or something more? He was crushed to think he’d let Jade down. The press of that disappointment outweighed even the adrenaline rush of high-performance flight and the danger of an enemy trying to kill them both.
“I guess I have one thought,” he said.
“Now’s the time,” she said, grappling with the ship’s controls with both hands and feet.
So beautiful. So strong. So collected and firm. Tommy resolved to find a way to tell Jade his feelings if they got out of this fight alive. He’d tried a few minutes ago, but it wasn’t the right time. He couldn’t do that to her when she needed to focus on flying.
He thought about his response to make sure he explained himself as succinctly as possible. Now wasn’t the time for his tendency to overexplain and bog Jade down with details.
“Fly at her head on, and drop the last two missiles at close range so she has less time to deploy countermeasures.”
Tommy prepared to explain that they wouldn’t need the missiles for anything else if they didn’t make it out of this, and that if the missiles failed, Jade would have to commit to a turning battle, attempting to outmaneuver Stormwulf in order to line up shots to its d-fieldwhile Stormwulf came out with some trick to take them down.
“Let’s do it,” came Jade’s reply. “I’ll line it up. Prep to launch the missiles.”
“Roger that,” Tommy said. In the back of his mind, he decided to leave an update about this adventure out of his next vid to his mom.
Jade maneuvered. The horizon revolved end over end and the system’s star glared through the cockpit, throwing shadows in circles as Jade looped and rolled. Dried apricots bounced off the overhead canopy, and the sun illuminated the little suction-cup marks on its exterior from the maintenance robots.
Tommy lost track of Stormwulf. At one point during Jade’s endless effort to outmaneuver the other ship, his stomach reflexively clenched and brought up a small amount of bile. He wiped his mouth on one hand and his sweaty brow with the other. He was afraid he’d vomit and the smell would distract Jade from flying.
How come the games like Supremacy or Alien Fleet—despite being played in virtual reality—didn’t give him this kind of nausea? Probably because they lacked the flight-suit-wetting terror that came from being upside down and sideways while g-forces ravaged your mind and body and a SOL-SEC special-forces pilot tried to murder you.
Atmospheric and planetary flights were one thing. This was something else entirely.
“Ready the missiles,” Jade said. “Launch them at seven hundred meters and don’t wait on me to say anything.” She adjusted her flight stick with precision, resting her wrist on the chair arm for greater control as she lined up an approach to tackle the other ship head on.
He glanced at the display: nearly fourteen hundred meters separated the two ships.
“Understood,” he said, attempting to turn his nausea and fear into enthusiasm. He needed to try. For Jade. “I’m ready.”
“I want to fire everything. Make it work.”
Tommy linked the micro-rails and particle cannons into one system. “Main trigger. Whenever you’re ready.”
Jade slammed the throttle forward and squeezed her stick. Tommy watched out the front of the cockpit as Stormwulf rushed straight toward them.
Twelve hundred twenty-nine meters.
The particle cannons shot their twin streams of energy, and the kick from the micro-rails boomed through the ship repeatedly. Stormwulf fired rounds in reply. Jade worked her long legs and pressed her pedals in a frenzy, rotating Ghost end over end to avoid the streams of fire. She jammed the stick left and right, her expression hard. The pale ground swapped places with the sky in the canopy over and over again.
One thousand seven meters.
Tommy watched met
ers drop off the distance display by the hundreds as the two ships raced headlong toward one another. He squinted to avoid seeing the horizon and prepared to fire the missiles, his hand hovering over a button on the flight seat’s arm. The ships spiraled, unleashing the full fury of their guns while avoiding one another’s lines of fire.
Nine hundred meters.
A thrill electrified Tommy as he noticed that Jade had made a hit on Stormwulf’s aft hull. The ship trailed smoke, and particles of its hull danced into the air.
“Yes!” Jade hissed. “Eat it, you bitch! Fuck you! Fuck you! Eat it!”
Seven hundred twenty-six meters.
Tommy gripped the seat and was readying to press the button when he was rocked by a concussive blast. His head and limbs were thrown to the side, while the rest of him was held in place by his seat restraints. It felt like being shaken in a giant’s fist. His stomach rose as the ship was pulled down. He kicked his legs on reflex to press against something and counter the downward force, but there was nothing to be done. He examined the information display hovering in front of him.
“Jade!” he yelled. “We’ve taken hits! Top hull and port wing!” He had to shout to hear himself over the electronic klaxon. “Flight controls and thrusters are down! The important ones!”
“Not good,” Jade said. Cracks appeared in her focused demeanor. Her shoulders bunched toward her ears, she shook her head side to side, and she worked the hand and food controls at a frantic pace. “I can’t get control!”
Because Ghost was mostly shaped like a wing, they would normally be able to sail to a safe landing. With the damage to the flight controls and thrusters, whoever, Jade wouldn’t be able to make the corrections necessary to remain stably aloft as they descended, and they began tipping to port and losing altitude.
Tommy’s heart clenched. Memories of Balenos A came rushing back. Flashes of the fear he’d felt when his ship was hurtling toward the planet overtook his mind, and he was seized by terror. His eyes slammed shut and he clutched the seat arms. Jade was shouting his name. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
