“I met with Wing Commander Roberts and Flight Commander Stanford this morning,” Pinochet told her. “As of the end of this meeting, you are officially reinstated to active duty. These sessions have gone well and you’ve got back on an even keel far faster than I expected, especially given how long everything was neglected.”
The pilot didn’t leap to her feet in joy, but it was a struggle for a moment. During her exile aboard the Reserve Flotilla Station, she’d barely spent any time in space. Finding out, on her return to Avalon, that she was grounded until she got her issues squared away had been frustrating.
“You will,” Pinochet continued, her tone sharper, “still be required to meet with me for twice weekly sessions. We’ve made immense progress, my dear, but your mind and heart aren’t healed yet. Do you understand me, young miss?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Michelle replied crisply. “Thank you,” she continued, more quietly. “I was starting to think, well, that I was going crazy.”
“My dear, if it takes me four weeks of chemical, nanite, and talk therapy to get your head back on straight, you were going crazy,” Pinochet told her bluntly. “We’re done with the first two, thank God, but let me know if you have any issues or concerns, all right? We’re booked in for your next appointment in four days, but you’re on a priority list that the ship will let through to me at any time of day or night. If you need me, do not hesitate. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the younger woman repeated. “When do I get back to work?”
“You have a meeting with Stanford in his office at noon,” Pinochet told her. “Your implants should be updating with your new schedule now.”
As the doctor was speaking, Michelle ‘heard’ the soft ping she’d long ago associated with a data update to her in-head computer. A quick skim of the data, in a blink of an eye, confirmed that she was back on active flight duty, and assigned to Stanford’s squadron. The meeting with the Flight Commander was on her schedule, but nothing later that that.
“We’re done here,” Pinochet continued. “I’ll see you in a few days. Good luck, Michelle.” The doctor offered her hand.
Flight Lieutenant Michelle Williams took it with a smile.
#
Williams was early for her appointment with Commander Stanford, arriving easily ten minutes before she was supposed to be meeting with Avalon’s senior squadron commander. Nonetheless, as soon as she arrived at the door to his office, it slid open for her and the pale-haired officer waved her in.
She hadn’t been in Stanford’s office since returning the carrier, and was surprised to realize that it was the same office he’d been in before. Being the senior squadron commander, Stanford should have been able to move into Randall’s old office, which was much larger.
This office, though, seemed to fit her new commander like a well-worn glove. The Flight Commander had served on Avalon for two years now, and the office showed it in the peculiar organization of the files and screens. Nothing was quite the way regulation would have it, with desk screens forsaken in favor of using the entire wall-screen as a working space.
As Williams entered the office, she caught a glimpse of what looked like her file on the wall, then Stanford wiped the wall to a view of outside Avalon with a sweep of his hand. Turning to her, he offered his hand.
Michelle returned the gesture with a firm handshake and nod, wondering once again how short the Commander was – she’d forgotten over the last year that she over-topped Stanford by an easy fifteen centimeters.
“Please, Flight Lieutenant, have a seat,” he instructed. He watched her carefully as she obeyed, clearly taking in her cleaned up appearance and ease of motion. “It’s good to see you looking better,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault, boss,” Williams told him. “They say I owe you my life.”
Stanford made a throwaway gesture. “A lot of people were involved in that,” he said quietly. “I should have acted a year ago, and to hell with Randall or Larson.”
The younger pilot shook her head. “Without someone other than those two on station, I don’t think that would have ended well for either of us,” she told him. “Let’s leave the past in the past, Commander,” she continued. “We have a job to do.”
Stanford visibly shook himself.
“So we do,” he agreed. “The CAG has shaken up the squadrons quite a bit,” he told her. “I’ve taken charge of Alpha Squadron, and about a third of my personnel are from the two squadrons Roberts brought from Alamo. You’ve been slotted into my squadron structure since we did the reorganization.”
“You’re assigned as the pilot for Alpha Six,” he concluded. “You’ll be in our second flight, flying under Flight Lieutenant Pritchard. I know you’re senior enough for your own flight,” Stanford told her, “but you’ll forgive us for wanting to ease you in at least a little bit.”
“I understand, sir,” Williams said calmly. She hadn’t been senior enough to lead a four ship flight – the combat sub-unit of a fighter squadron – before her exile to the Reserve Station. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of commanding one on her return to active duty – and now she did consider it, she was glad she was being ‘eased back in’.
“In that case, let’s introduce you to your crew,” Stanford told her. His eyes made the small sideways flicker of someone accessing implant data, and then he smiled at her. “They actually just arrived, their timing is perfect.”
Behind Michelle, the door slid open and a man and woman, both with the two silver carets of Junior Lieutenants. The woman’s carets were over a silver cannon, marking her as Michelle’s gunner, where the man’s were over a wrench, marking him as their engineer.
“Flight Lieutenant Williams, meet Junior Lieutenants Hans Garnet and Christine Devereaux,” Stanford introduced them.
Michelle eyed them for a moment. Garnet was a black man of her own height with a shaven head and a physical pudginess not quite at the limit of regulation. Devereaux, on the other hand, was taller than Michelle and whipcord thin, with blond hair and a feminine athleticism that would have intrigued her were the woman not her subordinate.
“Mr. Garnet, Ms. Devereaux,” Michelle greeted them. “I look forward to working with you.”
“I suggest you take some time and get to know each other,” Stanford told them. “You are booked for an all-squadrons drill at thirteen hundred hours.”
Williams glared first at her squadron commander, and then at her implant clock.
“In that case, sir, as you say – we should take some time.”
In forty five minutes, after all, she was going to have to lead this pair into simulated combat in front of the entire flight group.
New Amazon System, Castle Federation
13:00 August 4, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-001 Avalon – Flight Deck
There weren’t enough simulators aboard Avalon for all forty-eight of her starfighter crews to be in them simultaneously – an oversight corrected in later designs, but there’d never been enough space to retro-fit any more into the first carrier.
Fortunately for the ability of the carrier’s fighter group to train as one body, the starfighters themselves could be used as simulators. Stanford watched from the deck next to his own Falcon as the crews climbed into their ships.
He spotted Michelle at her fighter’s dock, only five away from his own Alpha One, and made a point of picking out the other squadron commanders. He did not, however, see Wing Commander Roberts anywhere.
At least, not until his giant of a CO slapped a meaty hand on his shoulder.
“How you feeling this morning, Michael?” Roberts demanded cheerfully.
“Good, sir,” Stanford replied hesitantly. “The Group is shaping up well.”
“I agree,” the big Commander told him. “Which means it’s time to start throwing wrinkles into the mix.”
“Sir?”
“My crew and I will be taking over the OpFor for this exercise,” Roberts tol
d Stanford. “Unless I misread my chain of command this morning, that puts you in command of SFG-001.”
“Good luck,” the Wing Commander finished with a wicked grin.
With another boisterous clap on Stanford’s shoulder, Roberts walked off towards Avalon’s Starfighter Control Center.
Stanford looked after him for a long moment, then turned back to the ladder, meeting his gunner’s gaze.
“What do we do, boss?” the younger man asked.
“Get in and jack in,” Stanford ordered. “Then we show the CAG we’ve been paying attention in school.
New Amazon System, Castle Federation
13:10 August 4, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
SFG-001 Alpha Six – Falcon-type starfighter
For the first time in months, Michelle took her seat at the center of the small cockpit of a starfighter. Behind her, Deveraux sat on her right and Garnet was on her left. All three of the seats were recliners, easily set to whatever was most comfortable – once jacked into the neural interface, you weren’t very aware of your body. While the starfighter had a small bunkroom and kitchenette for long flights, combat could require as many as five or six hours jacked in – and completely unmoving.
After a fight or intense simulation, that reclining function was often the only reason starfighter crews could walk.
“You know, Lieutenant,” Deveraux said quietly as they all reclined back, “if you’re feeling rusty, I can fly us. I’ve been checking out on the simulator, I almost have the hours to apply for a switch to pilot track.”
Michelle pursed her lips, knowing the gunner couldn’t see her. The offer was probably genuine, but it was also a subtle undercut to her authority – after all, if the gunner could fly the fighter, why was the pilot in command.
“How many simulator hours do you have?” she asked after a moment.
“Two hundred and eighty-three,” Deveraux answered with pride, and Michelle smiled.
The gunner was telling the truth – with three hundred simulator hours in under a year, she could apply for a transfer to pilot, and it might even be granted. For now, though…
“I have four hundred in the last six weeks,” Flight Lieutenant Michelle Williams told her subordinate gently. “Over four thousand total, and fifteen hundred live flight hours. Your offer is appreciated, but unnecessary.”
“Jack in,” she ordered.
As the chair’s systems extended the leads that connected to her flight suit, Michelle smiled to herself. From the moment she’d been brought aboard Avalon she’d scraped every hour of simulator time her ‘invalid’ status would allow her. She was grateful for the practice, as it made the Falcon feel like a familiar warm blanket as the leads jacked home, and her mind slipped into the computers.
“Garnet, check the simulator interlocks,” she ordered over the starfighter’s internal net. She could feel the flight deck around her, the Falcon’s sensors feeding directly to her brain.
“The Deck Techs should have done that,” the Junior Lieutenant complained, though the net told her she was obeying.
“Do you want to be the fighter that accidentally fires the engines or – stars forbid – the positron lance because the simulator lock-outs failed?” she asked rhetorically. Firing the starfighter’s antimatter engines for even a fraction of a second would make a mess of the flight deck – firing the fifty-kiloton-a-second main gun would gut the carrier.
Of course, with the fighter’s zero point cells disabled and the little ship running on ship-fed power, that shouldn’t be possible. But it had happened. Once. That was more than enough.
“Interlocks confirmed,” Garnet responded after a few seconds. “All systems are disabled, control input is feeding to the simulation. We are cleared to enter the sim.”
A single thought-command from Williams later, the starfighter was suddenly in deep space. The other forty-seven fighters of Starfighter Group Zero Zero One surrounded them, but beyond the starfighters, local space was empty.
They weren’t the last into the sim, she noted, watching as more ships lit up slightly on one of her mental displays. Easily twenty seconds passed after Alpha Six’s arrival until the entire Group was fully jacked in.
“All right everyone, this is Wing Commander Roberts,” a voice said directly in her ear. “Flight Commander Stanford will be leading the group for today’s exercise. I am commanding the Opposing Force, which will be arriving… now.”
A massive burst of blue Cherenkov radiation announced the arrival of a starship exiting Alcubierre-Stetson drive, and then Michelle swore aloud.
Emerging from the blue starburst was the massive bulk of a Commonwealth Resolute-class battleship.
Chapter 8
New Amazon System, Castle Federation
13:12 August 4, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
SFG-001 Alpha Actual – Falcon-type starfighter
Stanford stared at the immense bulk of the battleship for a long moment. The warship was a thousand meters from her rounded prow to the flat edge of her engines, with the smooth lines of her oval hull swelling to a three hundred meter bulk at her center of mass.
She’d been designed so that no matter where his squadron approached from, they’d be facing roughly half of the battleship’s guns – easily thirty ninety-kiloton-per-second anti-starfighter guns backing up the nine megaton-per-second positron lances of her main battery.
The ship’s deflectors were also much more powerful than his Falcons, which meant that Wing Commander Roberts could start picking them off from almost twice the range at which their own main guns could hit the starship’s hull.
If Avalon had been present in the scenario, the battleship could likely have ended the entire battle in a single salvo of her main guns – though the old carrier’s new arsenal would probably have put enough antimatter and missiles in space to ruin the Commonwealth commander’s day.
Missiles. Even as Stanford finished his first gasp of shock at the presence of the battleship, a plan popped into his head.
“All right everyone, you see the big boy,” he told the Group over the radio. “Wedge formation, Echo Squadron on point. All ships, fire a full missile salvo on the battleship. Interface your AIs, get me maximum vector dispersals – I want a shield, people, not a spear.”
Of the other four squadron commanders, Stanford knew at least two would have objected to his order putting them in the brunt of the fire. Rokos simply grunted as the starfighters sprang into action around Stanford. Every one of the forty-eight ships fired four Starfire XI missiles. Even as the Falcons began to blaze forward at five hundred gravities, the missiles shot forward at just over a thousand.
“Echo Squadron, Foxtrot Squadron,” Stanford continued as the assault began. “You’re the ECM shield. Keep their sensors distracted – and as you’re doing it, keep throwing missiles at them.”
“Once Echo and Foxtrot are bingo on missiles, Charlie and Delta will move up to cover us all,” he ordered. “Once you’re bingo, Alpha and Bravo will move up – that should get us to one fifty kilos.”
The warbook in his computer insisted that at one hundred and fifty thousand kilometers, the Falcon’s fifty kiloton-per-second positron lances would burn through the Resolute’s magnetic deflectors. He hoped they were right, because he wasn’t sure how many ships he’d have left by that point.
“Go,” he murmured softly, knowing the computers would carry his words to everyone in SFG-001’s tactical net.
They’d been en-route for sixty seconds, and barely begun to close the range even at five kilometers per second squared, when the first positron beams started to flicker out from the battleship. Between the electronic counter-measures being thrown out by the missiles themselves, plus Rokos’ squadron’s support, all of the missiles and fighters survived.
That, Stanford knew, wouldn’t last.
“Random-walk, people,” he ordered. “Keep them guessing!”
Roberts had to be using AI routines to run most of the battle
ship’s weapons, even in a simulated environment. That meant a little human randomness would throw them off, possibly carry a few more of them through.
By ninety seconds in, the Resolute had shredded more than fifty missiles. Echo and Foxtrot squadron fired again, adding another sixty to the shield bearing down on the battleship – a threat the warship’s defenses could handle, but also one it had to respect.
Eighty second later, the first ships died as more missiles fell – and positron lances began to smash into the front wave fighters. Echo and Foxtrot held under fire for another ten seconds, salvoing more missiles to continue covering the Group’s advance, and then fell back as Charlie and Delta swept forward. For a moment four squadrons worth of counter-measures filled the space around SFG-001 and even Stanford couldn’t make out his ships.
When the chaff cleared, the exchange was over – two fresh squadrons spearheaded the charge, and the eleven surviving fighters of Echo and Foxtrot’s sixteen fell back inside the cone held by Alpha and Bravo.
Charlie and Delta weren’t as lucky. Stanford watched, as calmly as he could, as Lancet and Zhao’s squadrons writhed in the battleship’s defensive fire. Their deflectors brushed away most of the light positron lances – but enough hit home to wipe away half of both squadrons by the time they were running out of missiles.
Then a lucky hit from the main guns took out Lancet’s ship, and Charlie squadron’s tactical network collapsed. It took precious seconds to restore – seconds that Wing Commander Roberts didn’t give his people.
“Alpha and Bravo, moved forward to pick up the slack,” Stanford ordered sharply. “Echo and Foxtrot, support us with countermeasures. Full missile salvo – everything we’ve got left!”
Not a single ship of Charlie squadron remained as twenty-seven other starfighters surged forward. Only two of Delta’s eight starfighters remained, and Stanford watched grimly as the intimidating bulk of the battleship lunged towards them.
Space Carrier Avalon Page 8
