by SF Edwards
An epiphany washed over Blazer. “Balance, it’s what this whole team needs! Look at our elements. Mine is a primarily defensive element and yours has our best attackers. Gavit definitely has our best dogfighters while Seri’s element is probably the only one with any balance to it.”
“So long as we’re Seri’s unit we’ll never get there,” Zithe grumbled.
“No, she’s trying to show us that the way we’ve been doing things isn’t right. Why else would she put me in charge of the attack and you the defense? She wanted to put us out of our comfort zones.” Blazer thought for a moment. “The Explosions have it right. Each element of theirs has a defender, an attacker and a furballer.”
“I’m not sure I agree.”
Blazer wiped his face off to mask his frustration. “Think about it, a standard patrol uses a three-ship element. That patrol has to be able to handle anything it comes across.”
Zithe nodded.
“Now think about our exercise this cycle. For the attack, I used our furballers, our defenders, and our most rounded unit to draw the enemy away so you and our best attackers could come and hit them where it hurt. It was probably the best way we could have done it.”
“I still disagree,” Zithe replied, scratching at his chin.
Blazer saw a glimmer of understanding and pressed. “The way I see it, Zithe, you are an excellent strategist, a good leader and a great fighter but you have trouble meshing them together.”
Zithe gave Blazer a curious look. “I don’t get you, Vaughnt. You want command of this unit just as much as I do. So why are you helping me?”
Blazer gave a heavy sigh. Why does everyone assume I’m so eager to lead the team? “Because Zithe, I don’t want command of this unit.”
Zithe looked taken aback.
“Look, I’ll take command of this unit if it’s offered to me and if everyone wants me to take it. But I’ve been thrust into leadership roles my whole life and I want a break. You don’t and will make an excellent leader once you realize that a truly excellent leader is one who builds up their people.
“So I’m trying to help you cultivate that and bring it out just like I do with everyone on the team. Why else would I have nominated Gavit over Deniv to lead Element Three? I saw the leadership potential in him that Deniv does not possess.
“Guess what Zithe. All of us that graduate from here will be officers and leaders whether they are on this squad or in some other command. Each of us must possess the traits of a leader. I would have no problem if next flight Seri assigned the lead position to, say, Deniv! He’s a good pilot and a great friend but I would dread following him into battle.”
Zithe chewed over his words. “I get what you’re saying.” He looked away for a moment. “I forgot that the role of a pack leader is to ready your pack. I have to teach all of my pack mates how to hunt and lead in case they get separated. Total dependence on the pack and alpha are a determent to survival.”
It’s not the way I would have put it, but I see his point.
“But I also understand that somewhere within you, you want to lead this squad,” Zithe continued.
Blazer knew that somewhere inside he wanted to as well.
“I will endeavor to do better in the future and I think you might be right about changing up the elements. Perhaps we should discuss that with Seri.”
“That’s all I want, Zithe. I want to see all of us succeed.”
“Though not all of us will.”
“I try not to dwell on that point. Do you?”
“Every cycle I wonder who will and won’t make it. Honestly, I am surprised that we haven’t lost anyone yet.”
Blazer sighed. “Same here.”
“The true test will be once we start Special Ops Training.”
“We’ll see,” was all Blazer could manage.
UCSB DATE: 1000.278
Star System: Classified, UCSBA-13, Main Hangar
Blazer felt good after their last flight two cycles earlier. He and Zithe had finally reached some common ground. Zithe agreed to the element switch and discussed it with Seri before lights out. The three of them finalized it the next cycle. The new elements will take some getting used to but they make sense. Zithe’s element now included Deniv and Gokhead while Gavit’s contained Arion and Datt. Blazer’s held Rudjick and Chris. I’m not looking forward to having Rudjick on my wing but I’ll give the wild elf a chance.
“OK, chief, I think I’ve got it! Try running the BIT check now,” Blazer yelled from beneath the engine of a Feral Bomber.
“On it!” the chief replied as Blazer ran out of the way while Flind activated the Built-In-Test. The wing swung up and down between the inflight and stowed configurations--the issue that had prevented it from folding up no longer apparent. As the wing snapped back into the stowed configuration, the chief smiled broadly. Blazer felt quite proud of himself before alert sirens wailed to life across the deck.
“All personnel, prepare rescue craft! Repeat! All personnel, prepare rescue craft!” a voice shrilled over the PA system.
Chief Flind looked around annoyed at first. The Admiral had ordered a similar drill the cycle before without telling him.
“This is not a drill! Crash teams to the recovery deck! I repeat, crash teams to the recovery deck! We have multiple damaged birds coming in! This is not a drill!” The shrill voice continued.
Chief Flind pulled out his macomm in an instant. “I need a sit rep!” he called, hauling Blazer along towards the recovery elevators.
“We have a problem, chief! Squadron Eleven has taken serious damage. We’ve got confirmation of crews down and three pods out. The rest are flyable but are limping back in,” the on-duty deck chief explained.
“What happened?”
“Reports aren’t clear yet, sir.”
Blazer stood transfixed at the news. Squadron Eleven was Marda’s unit and something bad enough to kill crews and force three others to eject had happened, perhaps to her.
The chief looked over at Blazer. “Clear the deck!” he ordered.
“Sir, you’re going to need every able body you’ve got,” Blazer replied.
“Clear the deck, Vaughnt!”
“You’ve certified me, in crash recovery, sir! I’m not going anywhere!” Blazer replied.
The Chief’s breath came out in a hiss. “Fine. Get a suit on and meet me in the recovery area. But you stay away from Sciminder’s craft. Do you read me, cadet?”
Blazer nodded.
“If I see you lose your focus for even a pulse you won’t have to wait for the transport to wash you home.”
Blazer nodded again.
“Now, where’s your head?”
“On my shoulders,” Blazer replied.
“Good, see that it stays there.”
The two of them split up with Chief Flind running towards his office to retrieve his suit as Blazer ran to the emergency lockers. His pulse racing, Blazer threw open the door and pulled out the emergency pressure suit as a half dozen other techs joined him.
Unlike his normal flightsuit, the emergency vacuum suit he pulled on was a one-size-fits-all type. Smart materials and hardened limb segments acted similarly to the mechanical biosuit he was used to. Since the suit was not customized for him, it bagged at the joints. Blazer was glad he had brought his flightsuit gloves with him and that they were compatible. At least these’ll fit if nothing else in the suit does.
His mouth went dry as he finished pulling on the suit and launched himself towards the airlock into the recovery bay. In the low gravity, this close to centerline, it only took him one bound to reach the airlock. Sailing through the air, he watched the first Search and Rescue craft taxi towards the larger launch tubes used by the dropships and bombers. Is it going to pick up Marda? Her corpse? Or is she piloting herself home? Pushing these thoughts aside, Blazer opened the airlock and climbed in.
A great, gloved hand shoved itself through the door before he could close it and Chief Flind climbed in alongside him. Bl
azer was surprised that they both fit.
“The first birds are coming in now. They’re in the most serious shape. Guide them onto the elevators and get them down to the bomber deck. We’re going to vent the top two decks as a precaution and handle the damage there,” the chief ordered.
I still can’t believe it. If we’re venting the decks to space that means that some of the craft are combustible. We’re looking at fuel leaks, or worse. The airlock’s outer door cycled open and he saw the running lights of the craft coming in to land. He jumped out to meet the first craft at its platform just as the grappler beams pulled it towards the elevator.
Blazer took a quick look around at the craft coming in to land. Their tail codes lit up his display and he breathed a sigh of relief. None of them are Marda’s.
He turned to the craft as it landed ahead of him and got a good look at the damage. He couldn’t believe the extent of it. There was no armor left on the port engine. The docking latches were trashed and sparks danced on the plasma acceleration coil. Even the canopy was splintered. The cadet instructor had to have flown it back on sensors alone. The fighter’s elevator pad descended. Blazer leapt aside.
Blazer scanned the skies for the next trainer coming in and saw tail number 1108. This one was as bad as the last, its nose smashed upwards. The armor there hung in ribbons revealing the sensors and the destroyed thruster arrays. The landing gears descended, twisted and damaged, there was no way the nose gear could support the craft at normal gravity.
“We have a bent nose gear on 1108,” he reported and activated the lights in his gloves to wave the grappler techs to slow the descent.
As the fighter disappeared into the recovery area, Blazer again wondered what had happened and looked out past the trainers to space for the first time. Normally the asteroid shell hung outside the recovery area like an overcast sky at night presenting little more than a grey featureless expanse. To his amazement, he saw stars shining through. It was not the occasional individual stars shimmering through the moving asteroids but a gash of stars cut into the shell like a knife wound. What could have plowed through the shell with such force and violence?
Blazer thought hard about the training exercises the first annura cadets were practicing. They were all doing escort runs like his squadron had two cycles before. Before he could think on it more the chief called out to him. “Vaughnt, we’re sending another one your way.”
Blazer looked back to find the elevator pad in front of him again as the next fighter limped in. The destruction here was not as extensive but scoring and pitting of the armor told him enough. Several high velocity rocks had slammed into this trainer, exploding on impact. Judging from the streaks along the starboard wing, one of them punctured a fuel bladder.
He looked up again after the craft before him disappeared into the station as the grapplers towed more trainers onto the other elevator pads. His eyes flitted back towards the gash. Had one of the behemoth freighters they escorted gone off course and plowed into the shell? The automated freighters had maintenance checkouts every cycle to ensure that they were safe. If one were to malfunction and made a full burn run into the asteroid shell the situation would become dangerous. What if an asteroid impact had ruptured the tanker’s fuel tanks and it exploded? That might account for what he was seeing.
As the next trainer came in to land on the lift pad next to Blazer’s he looked over at it. It was 1106. Marda. He had to resist the urge to run over and check on her. He tried to calm himself by noting that the damage to her craft wasn’t severe. She’d just lost the starboard wingtip sensor pod. Telltale scorching along the wingtip showed where the explosive bolts had fired to separate it from her ship.
He gazed into the cockpit. Is she all right? As Marda’s fighter came to rest, she turned toward him. There was no way that she could recognize him in the maintainer’s space suit, yet she raised her hand to the canopy. Is she signaling for help, or are her abilities as a medium allowing her to recognize me?
She mouthed something. He took a step towards her. A voice in his head asked,
“On my shoulders,” he replied without thinking as he watched her trainer descend into the hangar.
“Say again?” Chief Flind called back.
“Nothing, sir. Head’s on my shoulders. Ready for orders.”
“Good. Keep it there. The rest of the trainers coming in aren’t too bad off. Ride down with the next one that lands and assist below. We’ve got fuel leaks.”
“Copy that,” Blazer replied. He had become well versed in handling fuel.
He guided the next trainer in to land and stayed as he rode down with it into the hangar. Unable to help himself, he scanned the brightly lit bomber deck for Marda’s ship. His searched was in interrupted as his link crackled to life and the first reports from the SAR craft came in.
“We’ve found the pods,” the SAR team reported. “They’re intact. Crews are responsive.”
Blazer breathed a sigh of relief. The crews hadn’t had to leave the relative safety of their cockpit escape capsules.
The report from the second SAR craft was not as welcome. “We’ve found craft 1111. The cockpit’s been completely crushed by asteroid debris. No survivor.”
Blazer cursed under his breath as he heard the report and hurried towards the first craft leaking fuel. He grabbed the foam sealant off the crash cart as he bounded by and began spraying before his feet hit the deck. The sealant spurted across both the wing and deck. It reacted with the fuel in an instant, solidifying into a hard resin.
He confirmed the seal and moved on to the next craft. The low gravity here assisted him, turning each of his steps into a bound as he got the situation under control.
As Blazer worked, he caught a glance at Marda’s ship. Her cockpit sat empty. He looked around, but couldn’t spot her. The direct concern of the fuel leak pulled him away and he began spraying it with vigor. As he climbed up on the wing, he found that the leak in this trainer wasn’t as severe. The foam sealant wrapping the fuel bladder had done its job well. Blazer reinforced it before looking up again to find Marda.
He recognized her by the caricature on her helmet. She was bent over one of her injured comrades putting her field medic training to good use. Even from where he stood, Blazer could spot the massive gash across the cadet’s forehead. The silica-steel dome of the helmet had been smashed in where the poor man had slammed into his console, judging by the damage. Blazer wondered why the cadet wasn’t asphyxiating and noticed that one of his tinted visors had descended and sealed over the breach. Marda nodded to two technicians on the plane with her and turned towards Blazer as they pulled the injured man free of his cockpit.
Blazer’s link crackled on again, Chief Flind. “Leaky bird coming in on Elevator Three. It’s bad. You’ll need at least two bottles.”
Blazer cursed his luck as he grabbed two more sealant bottles from a cart. Elevator three was on the other side of the deck. He nodded to Marda and bounded off. He had a job to do.
***
Marda felt her stomach fall away as Blazer raced across the deck. Noting the two bottles of sealant, she nodded, relieved. He’s doing his job, going off to help and save others, too. I can’t have him waste time on me now, but later...
She stopped as that thought occurred to her. Why do I need him? We haven’t made any serious commitment to each other. Our dates have been fun but light, like our study dates. Why do I suddenly feel like I need him then?
She watched him as he reached a descending elevator. It wasn’t even halfway down before he leapt up onto it spraying foam before he touched down. He isn’t even considering his own safety, he’s just helping another.
Marda sighed; she couldn’t mask her feelings for him anymore. That was a topic for another time though and she turned back to her injured comrade.
The gash on the man’s forehead was nothing. He was lucky that his suit had kept him from breaking his neck. Still, it needed dressing. “Get him in an airloc
k and slap this on his wound,” Marda told one of the techs after she pulled a med patch out of her survival vest. The technician made to say something but she pointed across the deck towards another pilot that lay prone on the deck. Technicians were running over with a litter to collect her. “The med teams are at least another five pulses out and I have to help her,” she explained and leapt off to help her squad mate.
As she leapt through the air, Marda looked back at Blazer. His arms were deep in the engine of a trainer. “I am in so deep with him aren’t I?” she asked herself before she landed.
UCSBA-13, Dorm Room 305
It was nearly lights out by the time Blazer made it back to his room. The news about what had happened to Squadron Eleven had spread over the academy like a virus. He slumped exhausted into the chair in front of his desk and tried to put the image of the last five fighters out of his mind.
Arion watched Blazer for a long moment, assessing his mental state. “Are you all right?
Blazer nodded slowly. “I didn’t expect to see something like that here,” he replied.
“I don’t think anybody does. How bad was it?”
“Two dead. They collided cockpit to cockpit. There wasn’t much left of them. Another one was seriously wounded. His pod smashed into a rock and his acceleration comps failed.”
“How bad?” Gavit asked.
“I’m not sure…” Blazer remembered the way the woman’s body had sagged as they’d pulled her from the craft. “She was crushed by the impact. It’ll take nano-therapy to rebuild her. The other two who’d ejected are fine. The rest of the squad only suffered minor injuries as far as I could tell.”
“Does anyone know what happened yet?” Bichard asked.
“Yeah,” Gavit replied. “I spoke to one of the instructor pilots before they’d locked ‘em down. Freighter Brave had a problem.”
Blazer looked up at Gavit. “What? What happened?”
“There was some kind of engine malfunction and the freighter took off at full burn. It smashed into Freighter Alph, which went into the rocks. It all went to Sheol from there. The two of them tumbled through the shell before the engines on Brave went critical and blew. It completely disrupted the rocks in the shell and got pretty ugly after that.”
