by SF Edwards
Navigation markers appeared on his canopy before his instructor gave him his orders. “OK. Follow the nav markers to the rendezvous point and then establish yourself in a parking orbit about the academy,” Temblin ordered.
Blazer did as instructed by vectoring his fighter along a low fuel consumption trajectory towards the rendezvous point. Soon, the rest of the squadron arrived, each flight joining in the long line, one behind the other, with Joda’s fighter at the lead.
“All Elements, Nach Zero. Form up.”
The cadets followed instructions and formed up into a massive twenty-five fighter formation. Blazer was astonished at the maneuver. I haven’t seen a formation this large since the airshows back on Anul. After the last fighter moved into position a new set of navigation markers appeared in front of him.
Joda’s helmeted face snapped to life on his screen. “All fighters! As one, follow your navigation markers towards the landing fields.”
Blazer keyed his link twice to display his acknowledgement then waited for everyone else to respond. “On my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark!”
Thrusters and engines all around lit up the darkness as the squadron maneuvered towards the facility best known as the landing fields. In order to conserve fuel, they did not make a direct burn towards the facility but vectored through three different navigation points around the academy. The maneuver would save them fuel at the cost of a few pulses of transit time and Blazer knew that it was Joda’s way of showing the virtue of patience.
Blazer smiled when the landing fields came into view. He knew that the name was a complete misnomer and the history of the facility came to mind. Decades earlier, the academy had taken a large and particularly dense asteroid from the artificial shell and had carved it down into a 3000 metra-long polyhedron. Sixteen evenly spaced runways wrapped around the asteroid, running down its length.
Looking ahead, he targeted the sensor equipment and the RCOS booster communications antennae arranged among the runways. He squinted and looked for the gravity tether and then, by shaking his head, activated his optical enhancers. The line of artificial gravity generators snapped to life ahead of him. The units were in place to simulate a variety of gravity levels despite the academy’s location in deep space. Blazer felt tempted to activate the simulated atmosphere controls in his own fighter, but decided against it to conserve fuel. The system used his craft’s thrusters to mimic drag and weather conditions.
Joda’s sudden appearance on screen drew Blazer back into the moment. “As instructed in your pre-brief, all elements are to break and proceed to complete touch and goes on the landing fields.”
Blazer swallowed as Joda sped away. The elements broke formation one after another and headed towards their designated runways, Blazer glad to be out of the massed group.
In the lead of his element, Blazer lined up with the runway and crossed the threshold of the first gravity generator. He felt a familiar tug on his craft. He flexed his hand on the controls and checked his display. He noted that half a standard gravity pulled on his fighter.
Sighing, he selected the appropriate approach scheme for that gravity level and started through his landing checklist. He lowered his landing gear, sure to keep his trainer’s velocity vector on the near end of the runway and activated his de-grav generators. His hearts pounded, like they always did when he made landing approaches throughout his annura of flying. This time was no exception. Steeling his nerves, he adjusted his course and prepared to land. A moment later, he touched down, the de-grav generators keeping him hovering on a cushion of force half a metra above the runway while he sped down its length.
His instructor looked on in approval. “Good job! Go ahead and take back off.”
Blazer did as instructed and pushed the throttle to full again before lifting back off and raising his landing gear. He felt the software controls fight him, manipulating his thrusters to keep him down until he built up sufficient speed to generate “lift” in the airless void. Peering over the rail of his canopy he spotted his reverse thrusters opening just a slit to create the artificial drag.
The fighter climbed away and Blazer stole a look over his shoulder. He smiled watching Arion and trainers from Elements Two and Four cross the runway thresholds. Turning back to his own duties, he entered his trainer into a standard right hand traffic pattern. Maintaining this approach pattern was the key to safely navigating the landing field.
As he flew on the ‘up wind’ portion of his traffic pattern he looked over at the leader of Element Two, Trevis. Not thinking anything of it, Blazer waggled his wings at him.
“What was that?” Temblin bit back; annoyed by the move.
“Nothing, I was just…”
“You were signaling your buddy. Just keep your mind on the game.”
Blazer understood that and watched his position in the traffic pattern as Gokhead crossed the threshold in the opposite direction. He proceeded through the pattern, lining back up the runway and repeated the approaches through one gravity, one and one half gravities, two gravities, and two and a half gs. Each time Blazer had to maintain his thrust longer in order to keep his velocity vector on track.
Blazer was a bit off on his last landing and Temblin wagged a finger at him. “Not bad, but try and keep it closer to the centerline and don’t land so far afield.”
Blazer nodded. Like I need you to remind me.
“Come about one more time and prepare for a full stop on the next landing.”
“Escape vectors! Escape vectors! All fighters get clear!” Joda called out.
A new vector appeared on Blazer’s canopy and he pulled back hard on his stick before slamming his throttle full open. Thrusters all across his trainer fired, in turn, canceling his momentum forward along the landing fields as he rocketed away. He twisted about checking his sensors and looked for any problems, wondering what happened. Did someone collide or crash?
Before he could spot an answer, Joda came over the link again. “All units check in.”
Blazer waited his turn as Seri and then Trevis checked in before keying the link and checking in himself and then waited again as one by one the rest of the craft checked in.
“Nach Zero Eight. Nach Zero Zero. What is your status?”
Porc’s helmeted face appeared after a moment’s hesitation. “Uh, status is fine. Uh, Nach Two Three, what’s your status?” Blazer could tell by the twitching on his rodent nose that he was shaken up.
Bichard’s face appeared in response and Blazer searched the sky for his friend. “I have a blue board and am ready to go,” his muffled response came, the helmet cutting off the normal hum-click of his voice.
“What happened there, cadets? You came dangerously close to a collision.”
Two new faces appeared on the screen wearing only headsets like Temblin. “Sorry, sir!” the instructor under Porc’s face called. “The timing got off on the last couple approaches. I take responsibility.”
Joda shook his head. “I understand that. Nach Zero Eight, why were you falling behind?”
“My entire element was slowing, sir. I will have to look down and see what exactly happened.”
Two new faces appeared on the screen, knocking Bichard and his instructor off the monitor. “That would be our fart there, sir,” the instructor under Nach One Six relayed. “We had a bit of difficulty on the last two high gravity approaches and landings, should have relayed that to the group.”
Joda looked at the face of Nach One Six, with annoyed concern written on his face. “Explain, Cadet Nash.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I selected the wrong approach for the higher gravity and my vector was way off.”
Blazer could read Joda’s face as it turned to one of constrained anger when he stared at the face of Nash’s instructor and was glad he wasn’t him. “Explain yourself! You are supposed to be instructing and acting as a safety for this cadet. You are there to help and to prevent problems. This is their first flight and you nearly allowed an accident to occur. I do n
ot like to see accidents or near accidents on first flight.”
The instructor cadet slinked back in his seat. “I’m sorry, sir. I won’t let it happen again.”
Joda looked away for a moment. “No, YOU won’t. We will discuss this further after we return to base.” Joda looked at something off-screen before proceeding further. “All craft will now make full stop landings on the landing fields and then you will await further orders.”
The element leaders replied with their understanding then formed back up with their elements and vectored back towards the landing fields.
“Do we need to follow the standard approach path or can we fly straight in?” Blazer asked.
“Standby,” Temblin replied before disappearing from the screen and reappearing again a moment later. “Go ahead for a straight in approach. Joda will make the call in a moment.”
“All Units, Nach Zero Zero. Go for a straight in approach to your runways.”
Blazer vectored towards the middle of his runway before calling out to his element. “Element Zero Three. Nach Zero Three.” Arion and Gokhead’s helmeted faces appeared on his screen, the call numbers Nach One One and Nach One Nine displayed below their names. “I am vectoring towards the mid-field. Nach One One vector towards the 1000 metra mark. Nach One Nine vector for the 2000 metra mark. How copy? Over.”
Both of them replied their understanding and Blazer watched as they pulled away from him and twisted their craft about to land at the prescribed locations.
Blazer fired his main engines, propelling him towards the runway. Approaching, he flipped end for end, firing a breaking thrust before nosing back over to bring his fighter level with the runway. His velocity vector still dragged him towards the midfield point but at a much slower rate. He pulled up on his throttle firing his belly thrusters to slow his approach. He bit at his lip as his altimeter approached zero and fired one hard burn that left him hovering just a couple metra above the runway before pushing his throttle down to fire the dorsal thrusters and force him onto the runway. The trainer hovered there on the de-grav generators before he dialed them down and the magnetic latches in his landing skids locked him to the surface.
Blazer grinned when Gokhead and Arion completed their approaches, Gokhead having to fire his thrusters only once before executing a perfect landing.
Blazer grimaced. Arion fired his maneuvering thrusters a good dozen times on the last part of his approach. Come on Arion. That was super sloppy. No wonder you took so long to finish the sim quals. He was not a bad pilot; his technique just needed refinement.
Blazer sighed. Others had difficulty in the sims as well. The Explosions had the most troubled pilots, but the worst pilot was on his own team, Datt. His technique never seemed to refine itself and he was hesitant with the controls. How is Datt doing? he wondered, but his display would not give him any data on anyone outside of his element.
They waited for several pulses then Joda’s helmeted face appeared. “All elements will now proceed back to the academy. We will do so, however, via a circuitous route around the station by following these four nav points,” he explained, as a navigational plot coalesced in the cockpit ahead of Blazer. “Bonus points will be given to the element that returns with the most fuel.”
Blazer checked his fuel gauge, and noted the levels. It was lower than he would have liked. It was not to a dangerous degree but the thrusters firing to simulate an atmosphere had depleted the tanks more than he’d expected. The navigational plot retracted into his screen as a route plot appeared.
“Elements will take off at their discretion. Avoid contact with one another,” Joda recommended, forcefully.
Blazer keyed his link to his element’s private channel. “Element Zero Three, navigation plots?”
The element replied by sending him their routes. Both were good and better than what he would have come up with. His natural tendency was for direct thrust burns despite what he had told Marda the duwn prior. I wonder what Marda’s flight will be like; just like this one? Could she fly in my trainer? No way, if she’s going right after us then they won’t have time to get it ready.
“Blazer, are you in there?” Arion asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.
“I’m here,” Blazer stated as he examined the plots again. Gokhead’s was the winner. It would save them ten percent more fuel than Arion’s. “We’ll use Nach One Niner’s,” he declared and transmitted the course to Arion. “Gokhead once we have clearance I want you on-point. Take us down the runway and out of here.”
Gokhead’s reply was incredulous. “You realize that will require us to burn more fuel, do you not?”
“I do but most of the flights will rocket out straight. That’s going to create a traffic hazard and a lot more fuel consumption.” Blazer commented and Temblin nodded, impressed.
“All elements. Nach Zero Zero, you are cleared to proceed.”
Blazer’s guess proved correct; most elements took off straight from their landed positions rocketing away and almost into each other. Gokhead spun his fighter about to point down the runway. Then, igniting his engines, he crawled down its length with Blazer and Arion right behind him.
“One Niner, we do have a time limit on when we have to get back,” Blazer reminded him.
Gokhead nodded on the screen and applied more thrust. They cleared the runway, and Gokhead’s route appeared on their canopies before they vectored around towards the first nav point.
Blazer marveled at the first nav point as they approached. It was a large asteroid just inside of the asteroid shell. It was about half the size of the academy with a weak gravitational pull and Gokhead’s plot had them skim the surface to gain a bit of a gravity boost towards the next nav point. Blazer checked the course again and noted the gravity on the asteroid. While small, its density would provide a slingshot, but it would also affect the asteroid’s own orbit.
“Nach One Nine, are you sure about this?” Blazer asked.
“Is there a problem, Zero Three?”
“How badly will this affect that thing’s orbit?”
“If nothing is done to correct the orbit, the asteroid will fall in its orbit in roughly, say, fifty annura time.”
Blazer rolled his eyes at that. Fifty annura was plenty of time for the academy to correct the orbit of the rock considering the dark matter field holding the asteroid shell in place. “Copy that. Remain on vector.”
Blazer took point as the three trainers proceeded through the course Gokhead had plotted. He held his eyes open wide as they zipped along the dull grey rock only a dozen metra over its smooth surface. He sank into his seat when the element raced around it and gasped after they jetted out towards the second waypoint. Blazer hadn’t realized he’d held his breath.
Blazer sighed as his group approached the second nav point. Unlike the first, this one was in empty space, several thousand kilometra ‘above’ the academy towards what the cadets dubbed the north pole of the asteroid shell. There was nothing there to help break their approach or to slingshot around. We’re going to burn more fuel than I’d like, but I don’t see any other option. As they approached, the team twisted their fighters about to vector towards the third nav point and drifted through the empty volume of space. Passing through the nav point, they fired their thrusters, killing their previous momentum vector before they rocketed off towards the third nav point.
A realization overcame Blazer during the approach. Pulling up his navigational display, he zoomed out to show the whole of the asteroid shell to confirm his suspicion. “We’re headed towards the center of the shell,” he announced aloud.
His instructor laughed. “Do you know how long most cadets take to realize where you’re headed?”
Blazer shook his head.
“Better than half don’t find out until they get debriefed.”
“What exactly are we headed towards?”
Temblin laughed again. “You’ll see.”
“Seriously what are we headed towards?”
Bl
azer’s instructor looked off-screen for a moment then replied. “It’s known as Singularity Station.”
“What is it?”
“You can guess from the name. It’s a singularity.”
Blazer looked ahead at the object they sped towards. What he saw was nothing more than a solid, nearly spherical rock with a narrow band of asteroid debris around it. Blazer almost slapped his helmet realizing why this all looked so familiar. The whole of the asteroid shell resembled a shrunken down oort cloud like the ones that surrounded most solar systems and all of it orbited this Singularity Station. Craning his neck, he saw that even the academy orbited this central point.
“Wait! There’s a quantum singularity here. How big is it?”
“You tell me. You can read the gravitational pull on it even from here. Run the numbers.”
Blazer looked down at his display and began to run the calculations. Sure enough, it generated a measureable gravitational pull even at this distance. “Is it natural or artificial?”
Temblin waved off the question with a knowing smirk that said he had to figure it out himself.
Blazer had more important concerns as they closed in on Singularity Station. He put the calculations aside and prepared for his next gravitational slingshot towards the fourth and final nav point. Blazer guided his trainer in deftly to avoid the debris ring, and did his best to hug the surface of the rock-encrusted singularity. He noted the location of not only the asteroids ahead of him but the other flights and whether they were inbound or outbound.
Rocketing clear of Singularity Station, Blazer got his first good look at how everyone was doing. His group was the fourth flight in line. Not bad at all. We aren’t racing to be first across the line people. I’ll bet the group is front has wasted a lot of fuel.
Wait a cent, Joda’s taking us on a tour of the academy. The fourth nav point was the gunnery zone, a place where they would spend a lot of time in the tridecs to come. Blazer scanned the zone. The gravity generator floated in a low power mode, leaving the asteroids around it with their targets and painting lasers to hang in their orbits around Singularity Station.
