Threshold of Victory

by Stephen J. Orion

  “At your service,” came the self-impressed reply.

  And he wasn’t alone, as soon as Phillips saw Silver’s emergency beacon was live, he knew what would be following. Again and again the Mauler formations split and reorganised, and each time another pair of Snowhawks descended from above, like moths attracted to the brilliance of a lamp.

  All fifteen of the Undying’s pilots had been out on patrol, or in ready reserve, and all fifteen had come to his aid when he needed it most. They were his children, and seeing them come together behind him made a lump rise in his throat. Till all others fall.

  “Alright Undying, we have Mauler fighters ahead. You’re going to attack and destroy them while I tag the marked target.” He thumbed the key to tag the Mauler cruiser with its spinning ring.

  “And the primary is what, exactly?” Softball asked.

  The answer, to the surprise of everyone, except perhaps Silver, came from Wraith. “It’s a gateship.”

  “Okay, and does the spinning ring mean it’s about to jump out?”

  “This deep in a gravity well?” said Errant. “Unlikely.”

  “Either it’s gating itself out,” Wraith said. “or its gating something else in.”

  “I’ll take care of the gateship,” Silver said, his voice reaching Phillips by way of a private channel as his lone fighter began to pull ahead of the loosely formed squadron. “You guys handle the fighter screen. Whatever else happens, just stay on the fighters.”

  ****

  Constellation Carrier CNS Arcadia

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  “I’ve never sat here waiting for someone to come back from a flight sortie,” Kelly admitted.

  “A first for me too,” said Rease.

  The pilot snorted a laugh and swished the dregs of coffee in her cup. “Probably this whole seer thing’s a load of crap. Probably just an excuse to fly a Snowhawk again.”

  “He one of those ‘flying is in my blood’ types, hey?”

  “I suppose he might be. He was a commercial pilot before, kicked ass at the academy, but it was all aggression, no… heart.”

  “Very poetic.”

  “I guess. Ultimately the Constellation didn’t have enough planes to fill a full squadron, so we got fifteen, he was the sixteenth man. He certainly didn’t seem so keen on flying after that.”

  Carefully Rease pried Kelly’s cup out of her hands and replaced it with her own barely touched one. “So if he doesn’t like flying, why did he join the Navy?”

  “Well no offence, but if the Navy does its job right, there isn’t a need for arcoms and tanks.”

  “No offence, but the Navy rarely does its job right, does it?” Realising immediately it had more sting than she meant, Rease smiled wanly. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

  “No, you’re right. It’s a nice idea though.”

  “A brilliant one, if it worked,” said Rease. “So Tarek, he’s one of those ‘make a difference guys’ then?”

  “It’s not about being this thing or the other thing, people have facets. Depth. Complexity.”

  “Maybe.” Rease glanced out the window as she heard the thrum of the carrier’s engines increasing in volume and tempo. “Or maybe, out here, it’s the final count that matters.”

  “Isn’t the count made up of people.”

  “Absolutely, but if you start looking too closely, you lose the bigger picture. You try too hard to save a friend because you know he’s got three kids, and you end up sacrificing two others you don’t know. Except then it turns out they had kids… and parents and wives and siblings, and the fact you didn’t know at the time doesn’t bring them back later.”

  Kelly smiled and cast a sidelong glance at the arcom pilot. “You sure are asking a lot of questions about Andrew… considering he’s just another number for the final count.”

  “I came looking for Tarek, but that’s not why I’m still here,” Rease admitted. “Every time you look out that window I think: here’s a colleague I don’t know, who needs someone to talk to because waiting alone for your friends to come back, or not, is the worst kind of alone.”

  “Funny, that’s exactly why I’m still here.”

  ****

  Search Grid Charlie-One-One

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  Tarek was flying through the gaps again.

  It was just like dodging AA on Grimball except much, much harder. The gate had opened in its dramatic fashion and the first enemy destroyer come through to rain flak across his flight path like a hellish storm of fire and steel. Fighters came at him from all sides, staying clear of the flak clouds but adding a deadly crossfire, narrowing some gaps, closing others and making his route a twisting, roiling tunnel with perilously close edges.

  He could do it. He knew that because the card required it, and Rease’s hand-to-hand class had proved he’d never see a card for something beyond his abilities. That solid certainty was the only thing that allowed him to hold his nerve because, while this might not be beyond his abilities, it was everything but. The G’s assaulted him. His breath was short, and a couple of times he’d almost blacked out. He clung to the edges of consciousness as his body was ground between the restraints and the acceleration couch.

  When the destroyer stopped shooting, he knew he was clear. He now lay between it and the gateship, and it wouldn’t dare fire for risk of destroying what it sought to protect. That didn’t stop the fighters though. In many ways, they became more dangerous now that they could fall in tight behind him without fear of being demolished in their own flak field.

  A moment later he was following the card in a gut-wrenching hard right. The air he’d just left was shredded apart by a wave of flak from the gateship’s own defence weaponry, catching two of Tarek’s pursuers and ripping them apart like tinfoil. He’d never seen the Maulers fire on their own ships like that – whatever they’d found, the enemy would stop at nothing to protect it.

  Their new determination meant it was no longer possible to fly straight for his target, but he was still committed. He pulled hard left, dove, climbed, hard left again, reeling in the gateship by increments as it lit up the sky around him.

  You said you wanted to save Clumsy, the thought popped into his head just as the gateship ring began to spin up again. You didn’t say you wanted to survive it.

  As though summoned by that treacherous thought, the card directed him to pull him into a dive once more, and this time there was no gap, he was going straight through. He’d have balked if he’d had time to think about it, but the demand for instant responses meant he followed the card instinctively, bracing as soon as he realised what he’d done.

  Cannon rounds from a Scarab overhead strafed his fighter from tip to tail. He saw the first rounds perforate the nose and then the canopy to his left shattered as a round punched through just inches away from his arm. He was saved from the lacerating web of glass by the explosive decompression. The canopy blasted away in pieces as the Mauler rounds traced their way up the rest of the ship. A scream that might have been his own was lost beneath a sound like a tin can forced through a shredder.

  ****

  Constellation Carrier CNS Arcadia

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  “So tell me about Tarek’s reasons for joining, in all their deep, multi-faceted, glory,” Rease said.

  “Hmm…” Kelly drew a circuit around the lip of her cup with a fingertip. “Okay, but this is in confidence, and even I don’t know all the details.”

  “I’ll try to avoid putting in on the notice board.”

  “When I said he flew commercial, I don’t mean like small fry. He was lead pilot, ‘Captain’ in civil aviation, and not of some little sub-orbital hopper. We’re talking interstellar, we’re talking White Ivy Liners.”

  “That sounds made up. No way someone that young flies the Council.”

&nbs
p; “The council and anyone else who could afford to buy their own planet,” said Kelly. “He was driven, let me finish and you’ll see what I mean.”

  “I hope this story has zombies. I love zombies.”

  Kelly gave her a flat look until Rease sighed and waved for her to continue.

  “So Tarek had this girl, and they’d been together since school,” Kelly said. “Been through everything, but they were different. I guess she’d gotten herself into a career she didn’t like and she spent money to stay happy, she spent a lot. When he tried to broach the subject, she’d respond with elaborate apology gifts which, of course, cost more money.”

  “You mean he was rich and got himself a gold digger. Cry me a river.”

  “No, this was before he really made it big, and they were barely keeping their heads above water. Then two things happened: she lost her job and he made it to the final round of interviews for the White Ivy positon. Thing is, because of their clients, they have to be unimpeachable. They can’t have debts, can’t have ties to people who have debts. It’s ‘leverage’.”

  “So they’ve been through everything together, and he cuts her loose to get a better job.”

  “Like I said, multi-faceted.”

  ****

  Search Grid Charlie-One-One

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  As the Snowhawk cleared the barrage, Tarek was still frantically gripping the card in his mind. His primary drives were out, but he was already moving at speed and heading straight for the spinning ring of the gateship. His pursuers pulled away, the flak stopped, whether they thought him dead or didn’t want to risk hitting the gate was no longer particularly relevant. Without primary engines, his ballistic trajectory was going to end only one way.

  The most immediate risk was the rapidly spinning ring which he was seconds away from flying into. More on instinct than anything else, he kicked the portside manoeuvring thrusters and was rewarded by a jolt of momentum that jerked his craft to the right, just in time to avoid the rushing wall of metal.

  He was close enough to hear it activate over the howl of wind off his helmet, it was like every thunderbolt he’d ever heard was merged to create a sound so violent, so complete, that he felt it in every part of his body. The sky ahead of the ship tore open to show a whirl of stars from god knew where, and the bow of a second Mauler cruiser as it began to bull its way through.

  Can’t let that happen, Tarek realised, that’s what the card is for. If this thing comes through, the Arcadia will be cornered and everyone aboard will die. Maybe the card would kill him, maybe it wouldn’t, but there was only one way to see this through now.

  He kicked the manoeuvring jets again, shifting the fighter to point down towards the spoke towering from the hull of the ship to the ring. Up close it was not the fragile conduit it had seemed before, it was a structure as broad as the Snowhawk’s wingspan with a quilt-work of interlocking armour plates.

  He armed one of the heavy missiles he’d had ground control fit to Clumsy’s fighter. He put his thumb on the trigger and waited for the moment.

  ****

  Constellation Carrier CNS Arcadia

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  “…but that’s not the end of the story,” Kelly said. “He met that girl again, two years later, just before he joined the Constellation Navy.”

  “Is this the bit where I find out he has a heart of gold, and I have to forgive him?” Rease asked with no small irony. She’d acquired a marker from somewhere and was drawing a pair of arcoms on the heavy plastic table, adding elaborate wrestler’s outfits to them.

  “No one’s asking you to forgive him, just take the chance to understand him.”

  “Well I’m apparently a captive audience, so hit me. He meets this girl again…”

  “Some dinner, I don’t think he even remembers where, he’s trying to woo some new girl, and I guess it’s working. She’s probably too smart for him, but it’s nice to be treated like a princess once in a while.”

  “I not much of a princess girl myself.”

  “You shouldn’t be afraid of it, sometimes it’s nice to be pampered. Anyway this… group of homeless are passing by the restaurant, and they stop to look in through the glass wall. They’re loud and obnoxious and probably just hungry. Anyway she’s pretending to ignore them, but it’s clearly making Tarek’s date uncomfortable, so he gets the manager, who gets the police, and in ten minutes they’re literally using water cannons to wash the street clear.”

  “I guess the Enforcers are pretty rough everywhere in the Constellation. I used to think it was just us on Cadence.”

  “Anyway that causes a bit of a disagreement; see his date has some middle-class guilt over what just happened, and he doesn’t. They leave early and find this woman in the gutter outside, she’s got a broken leg from the water cannon, but cops just left her there.”

  “And this was Tarek’s old squeeze?”

  “I think if it had been nothing would have changed. No, I have no idea who the homeless lady was, the EMT who was helping her though, from the charity clinic, that was her. Her who Tarek thought would never amount to anything and was now fixing a person he’d broken and left for dead.”

  “Serves him right.”

  “I agree, but the man who was there shattered like glass that night. He quit his job, sold everything he owned, and put it into some war-orphan fund.”

  Rease raised an eyebrow at that. “Mauler attack survivors?”

  “Apparently. He signed up not long after, and things improved. He was a hell of a pilot, and I think he realised he might have found a place he could finally do good. The instructors knew the look in his eyes though.”

  “Someone looking to go out with a bang.”

  “That’s what they thought. He refused to believe it, but I could see them clip his wings every opportunity they had. When there weren’t enough planes for a full squadron, they sidelined him into the support wing. I think it was entirely the wrong move though. Now it’s like he’s got a car that he can’t think of a use for, so he just lets the Navy have it.”

  “Except it’s his life. With an attitude like that, it’s a miracle he’s made it this far.”

  “Yeah… miracle.” Kelly looked back out the window. “I hope so because, otherwise, I might have just broken his legs and left him in the gutter to die.”

  ****

  Search Grid Charlie-One-One

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  Tarek fired. It was a one in a million shot, the sort of shot that you couldn’t possibly make unless you somehow knew exactly when to shoot and at exactly what angle.

  The M-12 Siegetower missile wouldn’t have penetrated the cruiser’s primary armour, but when the explosive bolts separated it from the Snowhawk, it unerringly found a critical weakness. It slammed into an attitude control engine barely as wide as the missile. Carried by its weight and velocity, it smashed it through the small thruster and burrowed deep into the tower.

  A moment later it detonated, not in a dramatic blast that annihilated half the ship, but in a discrete flare. The force was just enough to push a package of molten metal deep into the target, destroying key electronic and hydraulic lines, fusing them all together into a lump of useless amalgam.

  The greater effect was instant and far more impressive. The portal snapped shut like a cleaver coming down. The emerging Mauler ship was guillotined apart, two thirds of it lost somewhere beyond the sealed portal and only the lead end now dragging slowly towards the crushing surface of the planet as it slowly tumbled away.

  It’s done. Tarek’s grip on the flight stick relaxed slightly. His fighter, however, was still heading towards the bulky hull of the Mauler gateship.

  But if he was honest, he didn’t really want it to end at this. He’d said it to Kelly, it wasn’t about the one action that made you a hero, it was about every act
ion after the first. That included taking the actions to prolong your life, to give you the chance to do more good tomorrow.

  Alright card, if you have anything left, now is the time.

  And it did, perhaps only because he wanted it to – because he’d always wanted it to. With the carefree ease of someone who has nothing else to lose, he kicked the fighter around to face the gateship and realised his ballistic course was taking him towards a hangar door. He waited one more heartbeat and then fired every weapon he had, a full loadout less the one missile.

  The barrage had two effects, firstly it vaporised the hangar door and much of the superstructure that had supported it. Secondly it created a pressure wave that decelerated the wounded Snowhawk to something approaching a reasonable landing speed, albeit in the most harrowing way Tarek had ever experienced. The fighter bucked and jolted like he was trying to ride the edge of a hurricane, which in some respects he was. Debris scythed into his already crippled craft, seeming to strike every surface bar the pilot. Somehow, he found a path through it all and, in three breaths of absolute terror, wasn’t minced apart.

  As he cleared the shredded portal, Tarek dropped the gear and leaned on the retro-thrusters for all they were worth. The Snowhawk hit the deck and bounced, then came down hard again and found purchase. The far wall raced in like it had a deadly intent of its own, only to veer away at the last possible second as the fighter turned out with a tortured squeal of its tires and a frightening tilt of its weight.

  From start to finish, the attack on the gateship had been barely two minutes, but every action had aligned perfectly to allow him to make his attack and land him in this hangar. Indeed, for anyone who hadn’t been privy to the abject desperation that Tarek rode most of the way down, it would have no doubt looked like one of the ballsiest stunts in the history of the Constellation. His chest throbbed, his heart beat like a hailstorm, and for the very first time he missed the idea of flying logistics in Warhorse One.