MissionSRX: Ephemeral Solace

by Matthew D. White

  It simply read, “For the Cause. Space Corps!” Grant smirked wider at the message but didn’t dwell on who may have left it. He flipped the latches on the case and threw back the lid. Grant smelled the new paint and lightly oiled metal instantly. As he half-expected, inside were two new ZiG1 and M14 rifles, fresh from the rack. There was also a black polished sidearm in a holster with medium armor clasps and a dozen fully loaded magazines for each.

  A manufacturer’s notice attached to the barrel stated that the internal electronics had been adjusted and fully sealed against electromagnetic disruption. Grant shook his head. That had been a major oversight but was not something he wanted to dwell on at the moment. He unslung the weapon given to him by Jacobs and compared the two. As much as he admired both, the new arrivals would serve well as backups as the custom model was still clearly superior. And even though he would have preferred to.

  The rest of the rounds went into the fighter’s equipment hold beside the cockpit canopy. Beneath the rifle was the fifty caliber slug mod, which Grant attached to his rifle’s barrel before loading the remaining modules onboard with the ammunition.

  There was nothing else to do on the ground in the warehouse. The weapons were packed. Tools and support equipment, what he could carry, were in place. Grant knew the only thing that remained would be to get the weapons loaded. He checked his watch. Time was running short on him so he fired up the ship. For the first time in a while, he felt a tinge of happiness; the type that only came when he had a purpose in life.

  The woman’s voice in the fighter’s computer greeted him again as if he was an old friend. As he listened, the voice seemed to shift tones as she announced the positive results of various tests around the ship. It was distinctly different but at the same time eerily familiar; a voice he had not heard for years. The voice of someone Grant had lost, whom he owed his life to. He pushed the memory aside and gave the current task his total focus to keep himself from breaking down.

  “Don’t go there. Don’t go there. Not now,” he said to himself under his breath. Grant steadied his shaking hands on the dual control handles, gripping them tightly, and eased the ship out of the warehouse into the evening sky. There’ll be time for that later.

  Leading the ship on a gentle arc around the mountain range, he spotted the rest of the local fighter squadron on the far side tarmac. The ship’s display found them first, identified each one by call sign, and estimated their armament.

  “Huh,” Grant remarked. “That one’s new.”

  He brought the ship down low, nearly to a hover, and floated inside the hangar to within meters of the armory doors. Grant cracked the canopy, stood, and peered over the edge. The armorer was standing at the door frozen in place. “Hey!” he yelled down.

  “Yes-Yes, sir?” he stuttered.

  “Give me everything you can!”

  The armorer remained frozen for a moment longer before snapping out of it. He turned and shouted back over his shoulder, “Full SR-Series load! Move!” Three other soldiers followed his order and ran back into the vault to procure the munitions. Grant climbed out of the cockpit and opened the panels to either side that were used to load the main cannons and cluster of three gimbal-mounted Vulcan mini-guns up front.

  The rest of the loading crew returned in a minute with a flatbed piled with the various loading systems the ship required. It didn’t take them much longer to charge up each of the guns. The armorer gave Grant a thumbs-up as they finished and snapped the last panel down.

  “You’re good to go,” he announced. “Full loads on all the conventional weapons, energy cannons on the wings are already full and active, and we strapped a dozen tactical nukes to the wing stations.”

  Grant’s computer confirmed the installations. The fighters were only a minute from launch, so he brought the ship to a gentle hover again and glided out of the hangar onto the flight line beside the others. They performed a final systems check and accelerated up into the night sky. Grant took his time and fell in at the rear of the formation.

  He slowly slid the dual throttles forward, pulled back on the controls, and watched the edges of the horizon disappear behind him. The atmosphere cleared out in seconds and soon ships were flying silently into space. Grant kept the other ships in his field of view and looked out ahead. Far in the distance beyond the curvature of the earth he could just make out a few specks of light, brighter and closer than the stars around them.

  To the right waited a single battleship; Grant could tell what it was by the pronounced bridge that stood high above the shining metal fuselage. It was still only the size of a grain of rice in the windshield. As they got closer, he could make out a group of about ten or so shuttles and a few other small escorts. Twenty more fighters were also in the formation.

  The squadron commander was continually relaying orders back to the rest of the team, and Grant avoided getting in the way, so the transmission almost didn’t register: “Commander Grant.”

  “PFC Grant here. Go ahead.”

  “What’s the range on your radar? I don’t have an entry for your ship.”

  “Four times yours,” Grant responded.

  The commander stayed silent for a moment. “Good to know,” he finally replied. “Take high point from the battleship. Keep your eyes open. I’m giving you access to a dedicated channel to me and the battle staff onboard. Let us know when you pick anything up.”

  “Roger that. Will do,” Grant said, confirming.

  “Squadron, stand by to engage sub-light engines,” the commander ordered. “Await final go from the fleet.”

  * * *

  Major Kael heard the countdown for the sub-light engine ignition and breathed a sigh of relief. He had been seated at the conference table in the ship’s briefing room with the rest of the unit commanders for the last hour or so waiting to get under way. Hurry up and wait; it was the primary law of institutional warfare.

  They were the first unit to leave Earth. But that ended up not being to their advantage, as they were stuck waiting in orbit for additional forces to arrive far longer than they should have. Kael despised latecomers. He brushed a gloved finger over his helmet’s surface without raising his palm from the table. It displaced a few particles of dust that previously stood out to him in the artificial light. The conversation in the room had been constructive earlier, but for the past few minutes it had digressed quickly to his distain.

  The table in front of them displayed a map of their objective on Mars: the entire plane and the various outposts and structures that made up the Mars Alpha colony. The place was massive; far bigger than Kael had remembered seeing or reading about before. That, combined with the lack of detail on the mission, made him wary.

  A marker on the map clearly showed the crew’s quarters, but there was no real-time data on any enemy activity at all. Most of his men had pulled security details on occasion. Many had even performed assaults on blind objectives like this before, but that didn’t mean he had to like or approve of the situation.

  “I bet it turns out to be nothing,” one of the others stated. “It’s just a power failure and a chance to scare the locals half to hell.”

  “No way. They wouldn’t send so many of us for nothing at all.”

  “The Corps is just being overly cautious. They don’t want a few surviving aliens to come out of nowhere to cause a little more damage.”

  “Hey, something just hit Earth this week,” Kael responded, overpowering the others. “They didn’t take prisoners, and they didn’t leave a trace. That’s cause for a major concern.”

  The other major laughed. “Bring it. We’ve already killed them by the million. What’s a few dozen more?”

  Kael shook his head. “It’s not necessarily that simple but I’m not going to argue with you about it,” he said, turning back and continuing to study the display. The First Battalion had their work cut out for them. There wasn’t much more planning he could do by himself, so he decided to use the time to check on his soldiers. The
y were undoubtedly just as tired and frustrated as he was.

  * * *

  Sergeant Mason walked between the rows of soldiers that were spread out on the floor of their shuttle. While they were waiting for the launch, his men had taken turns sleeping on the deck to finish off their few hours of missed rack time. Most of the others were out as well, still strapped into their seats and slumped forward.

  As much as it pained him to do so, Mason began waking them up for the jump. “Come on guys, they just gave us the ten minute warning. Everyone up.”

  Most kept their comments to themselves and complied without incident. Mason felt as they did, but he hoped to get a few minutes to recharge on the three hour flight to Mars.

  When all of his men were vertical and strapped in place, he checked in with the flight deck. It was such a contrast between the environments. The dimly lit, industrial look of the cargo bay gave way to a relatively expansive control room with massive windows stretching at least three-quarters of the way around the platform.

  The navigator looked back over his shoulder as Mason entered. “Hey Sergeant,” he said in a greeting. “Are your men ready? Do you need anything?”

  Mason smiled slightly. “More or less. They’re catching up on sleep right now. We’re good, though. I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “It should be smooth flying. We’ve made a lot of Mars runs over the last few years. It’s an easy drop. And did you see the escort command gave us?” he said, gesturing out of the window.

  Mason followed his hand. Outside flew well over three dozen more fighters and small assault ships. Behind them floated their approaching battleship, now ready for the skip across the system.

  “They’re taking no chances, are they?” Mason asked rhetorically.

  “No kidding. We rarely pull these kinds of numbers for jobs this small.”

  11

  Slowly creeping back to consciousness, Scott opened his eyes. There was a stabbing pain in his head that dulled the rest of his senses but he took in his surroundings the best he could. In the darkness, bathed in red emergency lights, he barely recognized the shuttle’s service compartment.

  He twisted around, freely floating, and grasped at the grate above his head. Gravity was gone. Whatever had hit the ship had killed the generators. The gravity cells should have kept going for hours but for whatever reason, they were as dead as the rest. He must have been out for a long time. The air was still and his breath hung before his face. The air smelt of oil, electrical fires, and ozone. Life support must have been disabled as well.

  The only light was filtered through the grated floor from the emergency light above and provided only a fraction of what he needed to make out the scene. He felt about his uniform and found the small flashlight attached to his chest pocket and flipped it on. The crawlspace became bathed in red light. His immediate area appeared to have no dangers so he pulled himself forward and out into the lower hold. How long have I been out? He wondered again, scanning about.

  Equipment, tools, and cases floated freely in space all around. His tools. He remembered having them spread out around him while he was working earlier. Now a few dozen wrenches, pliers, and diagnostics pods were suspended in the still air. A few spools of wire were there, too, slowly unwinding as they tracked across the room.

  He felt something damp touch his forehead and brushed it away. Looking down at his hand, Scott saw it was stained bright red. Blood. He jerked his head back up and saw dozens of round floating droplets of it hanging above. Farther above him in the shadows he could make out the body of the copilot.

  Scott shined his light up, and then immediately away. The face was twisted and mangled, broken open from the impact with the floor. His heart instantly raced. Death was not uncommon in space, but this was far too close for his comfort. He slammed his eyes shut to avoid making contact with the lifeless man and pulled himself forward along the grated floor out of its way.

  He began to piece together what had just transpired. He had been trying to fix the ship. The pilots and passengers were getting impatient. Something hit the ship that left them completely dead in the water. Did they evacuate without him? No, no way, Scott told himself. The passengers wouldn’t just leave him to die up here.

  Scott reached the rear stairs and used his arms to pull himself along the passage to the upper deck. At least he still had an option: As part of standard equipment, the transport carried two escape shuttles, one on either side of the passenger compartment. Both were sealed shut and a red X glowed on the small status screens above each one. Scott’s fears were realized.

  It could be worse, he supposed, as he continued to guide himself along. It could always be worse. Somewhere in his mind he knew they were gone the second he woke up. The forethought softened the blow and helped him focus on his current situation.

  He reached the door to the bridge and found the controls dead. The door was sealed up without power to release the lock. Scott shook his head. Finally, being the lone technician worked to his advantage. He forced the control panel from the wall, reached an arm length into the wall, felt for the mechanical override, and blindly pulled on the metal tab.

  With a click, he felt the lock give way and a small handle popped out of the skin of the door. Rotating about, Scott braced his back against the wall and pressed against it with all his might. It slid over enough for him to squeeze past. As he imagined, the room behind was devoid of any sign of the survivors.

  There were a few dozen passenger seats towards the rear of the room. Scott floated past them and up to the command center at the nose of the ship. The blast shield beyond the glass was closed, isolating him from the emptiness beyond. All the consoles were dead, save a small diagnostics device plugged into the control board. It had a single light that flickered amber. No battery power, but maybe it would be enough.

  The silence was deafening. The only sound echoing in the room was Scott’s own breath. He exhaled hazy air through the beam of light as he searched for controls to the backup generator. If it only worked for a moment, he might be able to get a read on what was wrong with the ship, fix it, and get the hell out of there.

  He found the large flat button at the end of the board. Flipping back the safety cover, Scott said a silent prayer to whatever might have been listening and mashed the key in. Instantly, he felt the generator roar to life beyond some isolated panel.

  Screens flickered on all around. Most full of static, a few running lines of code, and the rest displayed faults. For a few moments, he even felt the life support kick on and exchange a few cubic meters of air.

  The diagnostic pad charged in a moment and began pulling data from the ship. It began listing errors for a few seconds before a larger warning filled the screen: Danger! Containment Breach! Imminent Power Loss!

  “Shit,” Scott mumbled, ironically, as the consoles died again as one. Back behind that unseen panel, the generator overheated and blew apart in an explosion that echoed throughout the small vessel, taking a chunk of the ship’s skin with it and jolting the entire platform hard to the side.

  Once again, Scott was left in darkness. Well, not completely, he thought. At least the diagnostic pad was still on. He scrolled down the list of malfunctions and formulated a plan in his mind to get the ship running again. It’d be difficult but far from impossible.

  12

  Grant watched the command filter into his ship and decode itself on the display: We’ve got the order from command. Jumping in 30 seconds to the far side of Mars. The other fighters acknowledged the order. Watch your targets. We’ve got five civilian ships unaccounted for and no intel on the enemy.

  “Coordinates confirmed. Preparing to jump,” the squadron commander announced.

  “Launching,” Grant said, confirming the order and igniting his engines. The world outside blurred as his speed ramped up, accelerating quickly past the other ships. It would only be a matter of minutes before they hit Mars’ orbit. He lifted his hands from the controls and flexed his f
ingers. The seconds ticked away, and Grant took a deep breath. He was ready for anything.

  * * *

  The pilot pushed his ship at nearly the speed of light all the way out to Mars. Even at sub-relativistic speeds, and at such a short distance, the inherent capabilities of the fighter were actually more efficient than the larger jump engines. This was especially true when including the time required for course calculations and corrections. Although the short distance could have been covered in seconds by the more advanced engines, the course corrections that would have been required would have reduced any perceived efficiencies as well as any element of surprise.

  He could see every star moving in real time before him, blurred only slightly from his speed, and rendered in an azure tone from the blueshifted light. Mars grew from a small glowing speck in the darkness to a bright red orb as he approached. His map couldn’t sense targets while in a jump, but it did give a distance to the objective. The number quickly dwindled down.

  Moments later Grant’s ship hit the rally point, and he cut the engines back. As the first ship, he would in a sense be directing the opening move of the assault. He held his breath as his systems refreshed and he took in the view of Mars before him.

  The time behind the controls of his fighter had served him well. Grant eyed six black spots against the backdrop of the planet seconds before his ship processed the scene. Five were known Aquillian vessels of medium size and range. The last one didn’t match anything in the database.

  Dozens of fighters poured into real space behind him and the ex-commander relayed his orders.

  “We’ve got six large targets at the edge of my range straight ahead. Make that six Aquillian, one unknown. Max tactical speed on approach and don’t give them time to respond. Watch for fighters and any other targets. There’s got to be more on the surface.”