Threshold of Victory

by Stephen J. Orion

  She wanted things to help her, but she didn’t know what, and she struggled to stay patient with caring staff who couldn’t provide them. She struggled to accept that there was nothing they could do to bring her back and only so much they would devote to someone beyond help.

  Somehow it was easier when she was upset because her anger and frustration echoed his own. The times that nearly broke him were the moments that she was almost herself. In those moments, she was everything she had been, and more than anything, she wanted to fix the sorrow and consternation she saw in those around her. She apologised for herself, made jokes, expressed appreciation for his coming, and tried to make plans for a future she would never see.

  And then she would disappear back into the battle like a drowning sailor, able to surface only for a few quick breaths before a new wave crashed over her.

  She’d written a letter to the Undying which he couldn’t read because he knew he could never share. There was no longer such a squadron, and his recommendation had been one of the reasons for its disbandment. It seemed useless to try and tell her that, so he smiled at her sentiment and pocketed it. Rease had apparently helped write the letter since her own hands were no longer reliable. Kelly assured him that the he and the arcom pilot would make a great couple. “Better than we ever did at any rate.”

  And she gave him a gift he hadn’t expected because she was wise like that.

  “You think you killed me,” she said, “but you didn’t.”

  She lapsed into silence, resting to speak again. “I was going to die on that patrol. You took my place, remember?”

  Then she smiled a smile as bright as the most radiant stars in the Constellation.

  “For a whole day, I got to cheat death. I wrote to my family and saw what they had written to me. We can’t avoid every cruel happenstance, Andrew, even those of us who see the future. But we can give each other days, and you, you gave me the best day.”

  And then she was asleep, deceptively peaceful, but Tarek knew – as only a seer could – that she had spent the last of her energy. She would not wake again. He realised he had kept her waiting, fighting death for hour after hour, just so they could have this talk.

  In a silence broken only by her breathing, he realised how lonely he was, how far he had drifted from everyone his life, and how much he’d relied on her to be his emotional resting place. In the pause between each breath, he caught himself waiting on the edge of his seat for the next, until they came no more.

  He wept for them both, for sorrow and for anger and for fear. He wept that the universe could have lost so much and seem so unmoved by the fact. He wept because, in a hundred light years, she was the only person he’d taken the time to get to know.

  Somewhere in the night, the med staff removed her from the room, but he had remained, sitting in the half-lit ward, wishing that his power over time could somehow take him back to the past instead of pulling him always to the future. Eventually he became aware of the door opening again. He could barely bring himself to look up for fear it was another orderly come to claim the room or well-meaning psych-doctor come to reassure him.

  But it was neither of these.

  It was Lieutenant Kyra Rease, and not as he’d ever seen her before. In place of her soldier’s fatigues, she wore a civilian’s casual clothes, jeans and a shirt, but with a paramedic’s jacket over the top. The well-worn jacket was tailored for a man, and it engulfed her like a hug. The name badge read ‘M. Rease’.

  She carried with her a flute case, not the one he’d given her, but one of her own, one weathered from use but covered more recently in a year of dust. Without a word she opened it, assembled the instrument, and began to play. She wasn’t perfect. It was about the only thing Tarek had ever seen her do that she wasn’t perfect at, but she played.

  She played of a philosopher, brilliant and clumsy, smart and Kelly. She played a eulogy for someone whom words could not encapsulate, and she played it free-form with tears in her eyes. She played of hope and of loss and sympathy, and when she finally felt bold enough she began to play of the past. Of her past.

  She played of a child under a table, watching through a half-collapsed door as her family were tossed about like rag dolls amongst monsters she couldn’t comprehend. She played betrayal at the absence of the soldiers and governments and men with guns that were supposed to prevent it all from happening. She played days of fear and hunger and wondering if anyone would ever come. She played helplessness, powerlessness, shame and revulsion until she had to pause to choke back her own sobs.

  And then she played never. Never again. Never with such vehemence that it burnt everything else away and reinvented the whole world from scratch. Never that would kill as often as it had to, and Never that would kill without remorse. Never be weak, Never stop fighting, and Never forgive this world for what it did to you.

  When she was done, she gave him a hollow smile, disassembled the flute, and placed it back into its case.

  “Sometimes we resent gifts because they’re inappropriate,” she said in a voice so soft and broken he couldn’t reconcile it with the warrior he’d known since Box Grid. “But other times? Other times we fear them just for how true they are, for how they force us to shed the lies we use to stay in one piece.”

  She stood and executed the bow of one whose culture uses them frequently. Then she left without another word, leaving the flute in its tired old case on the table behind her.

  ****

  Constellation Carrier CNS Arcadia

  2nd Moon of Inimicus, Unknown System

  30 April 2315

  The morning of what was being called ‘the big attack’ saw work teams doing everything they could to ensure the Arcadia and her air wing were as ready as they could be. For all that, the crew – and particularly the pilots – were of unsettled moods. Even among the Cold Sabres, the idea of disbanding the Undying after they’d been through so much seemed like a raw deal. Fear and the oft-mentioned sense of ill-omen contested strongly against the chance to finish the Maulers off for once and for all.

  When they arrived at their hangar alcove, the Undying were now Charlie and Delta flights of the Cold Sabres. But the support crew who were quickly packing up their tools to go were not the normal flight crew. They were not, in fact, a flight crew at all, but rather the techs for Rease’s arcom company.

  Their handy work was in evidence everywhere. The Cold Sabres’ emblem that had been applied the previous day were gone, and on every tail was once more the Styx Ferryman of the 109th Undying. At the centre of the alcove was, of course Kyra Rease. Back in her arcom fatigues and looking very pleased with herself from where she leant against the hull of Tarek’s Snowhawk.

  He knew it was his because, amid their other handiwork, the arcom techs had evidently found the time to spray it black and paint a dramatic hawk in shades of reflective silver across underside.

  “Cock-blocking my readings again, Lieutenant?” Tarek said, a little more seriously than he’d meant to.

  Rease pushed off the aircraft and swaggered up to him. When she spoke it was a whisper just for the two of them.

  “I know it was you that pushed hardest to get this squadron disbanded, and I know why. There are a lot of ways to kill yourself, Tarek. And not all of them are physical. This is the gift you fear, embrace it.”

  Abruptly, she started reaching into his flight suit pockets, attracting much cat-calling and laughter from the assembled pilots. After a short search, she pulled out Kelly’s letter, and slapped it meaningfully into his palm. Bringing it with him had been less of a choice and more the result of limbo – he couldn’t read it, but he also couldn’t throw it away. Now he wasn’t sure if he was happy to have it or not.

  Rease gave him a threatening look and, with a gesture of open handed surrender he unfolded the page and began to read Kelly’s words aloud.

  “So, I’m dead… that sucks,” the opening line brought a bittersweet laugh, as she’d no-doubt known it would.

&nbs
p; One of the good things about it though is I get to criticise the brass and get away with it.

  Aristide was wrong. He loved us, all of us, too much, and so he called us the Undying. Perhaps somewhere there’s a war where no one is called on to make that sacrifice, but this isn’t it.

  This war makes that demand daily, and it made me realise who the real Undying are, and it’s not always the ones who make it to the finish line alive and unharmed. The Undying are the ones who we’ll never forget because of their valour, their compassion, and their willingness to take extraordinary risks, so others don’t have to. Their memory will outlive the oldest veterans, and when this war is nothing but an ancient legend, people will still remember that it was won by a few peerless individuals. Whether their names are known or not, their spirit will live on.

  So if you truly want to become the Undying Squadron, you can’t lay down against defeat, no matter how it may have reduced our ranks or burdened our hearts. There are people, companions, families, who need you still. Who need pilots of courage, valour, and will to protect them. Their survival may demand sacrifice, but they will repay it with eternal remembrance.

  Adai Ucoo. That is the name of the first true Undying in our squadron. She knew what they’d do to her if she raised the alarm, but she did it anyway. No one on this ship will ever forget that. Were I flying with you, I would proudly wear her call sign and carry it forward until I passed it down to the generation after and ever onwards.

  But I won’t be joining you out there today. Instead I ask that one of you, one of the best among you, carries her spirit and that whenever someone dares to face the Undying, they will always see the quietest of the Constellation heroes on her ghost tipped wings.

  Till all others fall.

  “Till all others fall,” the squadron echoed back.

  Even Rease, who had hated them for what they’d cost her, even Phillips who was otherwise struck silent as he stood at the side of his Sabrecat.

  The Sabrecat’s paint job had been altered, ever so slightly, to fade the white hawk motif to a ghostly suggestion as it reached the wing tips. The pilot plate by the cockpit now read: Lt. Comm. Aristide “Eternal Wraith” Phillips. It was a small change and it meant everything.

  Most battle speeches end on a note of strength, but this one had not. It didn’t need to. What needed to be said, had been said. And though everyone was quiet as they moved to their ships, they had a certainty they had not carried before. It no longer mattered if they won or lost, what mattered was who they fought for and why. What mattered was that they accounted themselves worthy of the sacrifice of those who had come before.

  Tarek watched Rease dash away to join her own people, and not for the first time, he was in awe of the way she used her power. This time she’d not torn the cards for the future from his hand, she’d just taken them and made them better.

  And when he turned to climb into his fighter he caught the name plate: Flt. Sgt. Andrew ‘Clumsy Silver’ Tarek.

  ****

  “We’re about to leave the moon’s shadow, radio silence from this point forward,” Hardsix instructed.

  Though he had refused to take part in the planning sessions, the CAG, the real CAG, was still needed in the cockpit. So long as he was flying with the air wing, there could be no argument over who would lead it.

  “Final course correction then main engine shut down,” he added a moment later.

  The comm line went silent, and Tarek reached out and flicked the switches to disarm his Snowhawk’s main engine. Out his window he could see the rest of the fighters from the Undying and the Cold Sabres making their last course corrections, easing into their trajectories and their lights winking out one by one.

  The problem with sneaking up on someone in space is that there’s nothing to hide behind. This, paradoxically, doesn’t mean that space is empty. Indeed, the gravity wells of planets and stars tended to be surprisingly busy with small rocks that they traded back and forth and occasionally annihilated with atmospheric friction or cataclysmic impacts. That being the case, there was a lot of white noise sensor techs had to filter out, and mostly they looked for two things, EM signatures and controlled movement.

  By running without power, the strike force would betray no signal. The trade-off was they were also blind if something came to intercept them, and it took critical seconds to bring a fighter back to full life. The Arcadia had line of sight to them for most of their route and would alert them if anything got too close, but the nearer they came to their target, the less warning they’d get.

  Avoiding controlled movement detection was a little trickier. In the first instance, it meant they couldn’t make even the slightest course correction, so a small mistake when breaking cover could translate into a massive off-shoot by the time you reached the target. The prospect was further complicated by the fact that you couldn’t plot a course that would take you directly to the target, since even the most basic sensor package would alert the operator to something on a collision course. The trick was to plot a course that would bring you as close as possible to your target without tipping off the other party. It required more precision than dogfighting, more patience than patrolling, and more guesswork than crossing a minefield on foot.

  Settling into his dark seat, Tarek watched as Inimicus emerged beyond the cratered horizon of the moon. He caught himself wishing he was at the back of the formation, in the heavy bomber with Maize and Walters. Much as he hated Maize’s inane babble, it was a step up on being imprisoned in a dark cocoon with his own thoughts.

  He felt more uncertain going into this battle than any other since discovering his power. He held no fear of dying, with the cards he could only die by his own choice. But something had changed, Kelly’s words, Rease’s words, somewhere, somehow, the need to win the battle wasn’t as important as the word ‘Clumsy’ printed on the fuselage just centimetres from his left arm. Win, lose, live, die, none of it mattered compared with earning the right to carry that name, a right that couldn’t be earned through supernatural tricks and precognitive prowess.

  He didn’t care what these other pilots thought of him when they saw him fighting his own battle, but he cared what they thought of Clumsy. Valour was more than winning. Courage was more than being in the right place at the right time, and compassion could not be peddled out to the ‘greater good’.

  “Strike Group Raptor this Arcadia control.” The voice on the comm was sudden and explosively loud after long minutes of silence. “You have multiple enemy contracts closing fast bearing zero-seven-nine by three-five-five. You are cleared to engage at your discretion.”

  “All ships power up,” said Hardsix, “and standby for further instructions.”

  Tarek hit the ion drive toggles, as around him the running lights of the Snowhawks flickered into life like stars emerging from behind a cloud. He ran a systems’ check while he waited for confirmation on their next move, it was a make work job for a seer, but it kept his mind off the unexpected anxiety he was feeling for the coming battle.

  “They are hauling ass,” Softball said over the Undying’s frequency, “bringing the heavies too, so I guess that’s good.”

  Tarek checked his own screens. The full Mauler fighter formation, now sixteen ships, was coming at them at full burn with the destroyers not far behind. He said nothing, the cards had said it would be okay, so this hitch couldn’t be deal breaking.

  “Wasn’t there a part of the plan where they didn’t come after us until we hit the assembly?” Maize pointed out.

  “Who cares, if they’re eager to fight let’s oblige ’em,” Candlelight said.

  “Belay that,” Hardsix’s voice overrode the general discussion. “The enemy is still too close to the gate, we’re going to go under power and try and pull them away a little more before we engage.”

  The squadron made some quick course corrections and set to a full burn, blue ion trails stretching out behind them as they surged forwards. They held that pace for another minute or so
, the G-forces of constant acceleration oppressing them as they burned rapidly through their fuel stores for little gain. The Maulers had always been faster than Snowhawks in a straight line, largely because their unmanned design could endure higher G-forces for longer.

  “Alright this will have to do,” Hardsix said finally, pulling his fighter ahead and then leading the strike group into a broad about-face. “Odyssey, your Cold Sabres are to engage the enemy fighters, Undying and the bombers wait until we’ve got them pinned and then flank out and engage the destroyers.”

  As the Cold Sabres split into fighting pairs and swept forward to attack, Tarek battled the sudden urge to blast in after them. He could, he knew, shoot through the enemy formation rather than flanking it and hit one or two Maulers on the way. He could give them a better edge.

  “Hey Clumsy Silver,” the voice belonged to Eternal Wraith, “feel up to following orders today?”

  Tarek took his hand away from the throttle and flexed his fingers. “Thought I might give it a try,” he replied, “for something different.”

  ****

  “Predator, please give final pressure seal confirmation,” the voice of the Arcadia control officer droned into Rease’s ear.

  “Predator One-One, confirming no loss of pressure.”

  When you were loaded into a tiny metal coffin about to be fired across a gulf of space, the last thing you wanted to be thinking was that the pressure seals might fail. Evidently, in an effort to alleviate that, the Navy required a verbal confirmation of the pressure gauge at every other step before launch. It somehow only managed to suggest that such failures were spectacularly common, and adding the word ‘final’ before the last one didn’t really help either.