by J Palliser
J. Palliser
Knight Squadron: Ambush 01
First published by J. Palliser in 2002
Copyright © J. Palliser, 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
Second Edition
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Contents
Cast of Characters
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
1
Cast of Characters
Knight Squadron:
Commander Aiden Hunt (Human male from Korsica) Flight Commander and co-founder of Knight Squadron. Romantically linked to Major Ajax Tiara.
Colonel Ares Crane (Human male from Tarsus) Executive Officer of Knight Squadron. Formerly of the Khawarij Starfighter Command. Defected to the Luftwaffe after the destruction of Tarsus.
Major Jarro Fenn (Human male from Korscia) Original member of Knight Squadron. Friends with Aiden Hunt and Hanson John.
Major Hanson John (Human male) Original member of Knight Squadron. Friends with Aiden Hunt and Jarro Fenn.
Captain Otto Kitt (Human male from Korscia) Former smuggler turned Luftwaffe starfighter pilot after the destruction of Tarsus. Mystica sensitive. Married to Mira Raines-Kitt.
Major Jace Borne (Human male from Thula) Major in the Thula Defense Corps. Former pilot of Knight Squadron. Former leader of the Thula resistance.
Kriegsmarine and Reich Intelligence:
Admiral Karl Raeder (Human male from Earth) Commander of all Kriegsmarine forces in the Rim Worlds.
Major Ajax Tiara (Human female from Contruum) Major in the Waffen-SS. Romantically linked to Aiden Hunt.
General Werner Marcks (Human male from Contruum) Commander of Reich Intelligence for the Rim Worlds.
Captain Udo Wulf (Human male from Pantolomin) Viper Leader. Member of Reich Intelligence.
Lieutenant Duke Max (Human male from Sluis Van) Viper Five. Member of Reich Intelligence.
Ru Larado (Human female from Cilpar) Former pilot of Knight Squadron. Resistance leader on Artemis III. Member of Reich Intelligence.
Titus Quinn (Human male from Ord Mandel) Former Mercenary trooper in the Khawarij Empire. Resistance leader on Artemis III.
Supporting Characters:
Captain Mira Raines-Kitt (Human female from Korscia) Married to Otto Kitt. Former smuggler. Father is Dallas Raines, smuggler and Captain of the Prometheus.
Captain Dallas Raines (Human male from Korscia) Captain of the Prometheus, a captured Khawarij Hamas-class Destroyer. Smuggler and father of Mira Raines-Kitt. Surrogate father to Otto Kitt after his parents were murdered.
Captain Amara (Human male from Thula) Captain in the Thula Defense Corps and commander of the Duetchland-class heavy cruiser Pyrrhus.
Khawarij Empire:
Prefect Natal Tanweer (Human female from Fondor) Khawarij Prefect for Artemis III. Omar Samra is her lover.
Admiral Omar Samra (Human male from Commenor) Admiral in the Khawarij Navy. Commander of the Jinn-class Destroyer Abraxas. Prefect Tanweer's lover.
Lieutenant Jarice Kryton (Human male from Daraa) Khawarij Navy Lieutenant and Executive Officer aboard the Abraxas.
Lieutenant Tahir Hashir (Human male from Saluja 4) Former Doctor. Khawarij Navy Lieutenant aboard the Abraxas.
Admiral Tobias Duras (Human male from Qatif) Khawarij Navy Commander of Qatif Fleet. Has secret profitable dealings with Dallas Raines.
2
I
Daraa - Year of Our Lord: 2523
The canopy of Aiden Hunts' Bf-109 Valkyrie opened with a hiss, releasing the atmosphere from within. He removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his sweat-matted brown hair, reveling in the cooler air of the hangar. The whine of the impulse engines cut through the hangar and the smell of hydraulic and cooling fluids rose to his nose. There was a chaotic flow of people throughout the hangar common when a squadron arrived. All of this was familiar to him and more than a little comforting. There was no place that he felt more at ease.
A technician put a ladder up against the smooth gray surface of his Valkyrie. Tucking his helmet under one arm, he clambered up and over the side. As he descended the ladder, he glanced down the side of his ship, at the long lines of kill silhouettes stenciled there. They ran most of the length of his cockpit in several rows. The technicians who painted the tiny ships had long ago given up trying to represent each and every fighter that he had shot down, so each fighter represented a squadron's worth of kills.
Running alongside the fighter silhouettes was two Executioner representation and more than two dozen half and full capital ships, including several Khawarij Destroyers. But to him it didn't show that he was an exceptional fighter pilot; instead they symbolized the many years that he had been fighting for the Luftwaffe.
Too many years, he thought.
"Commander Hunt?" Sadiah, Knight Squadron's Arcadian chief mechanic, approached him from the rear of his ship, walking across the hangar towards him.
"Did you have a good trip, sir?" she asked. She ran her hand along the stabilizer of the lower stabilizer wing, watching as her techs started to go over Aiden's ship. When he didn't reply right away, she turned to look at him. "Sir?"
"Hmm? Sorry, I was just thinking about how many years I've been doing this." He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. "Yes, everything went smoothly. Very routine. Quite dull in fact."
"Good. That means less work for us, then." She smiled, but when Aiden didn't return her smile, she leaned in closer and looked straight into his eyes. "Have you been performing self-diagnostics while stuck in gravity-drive? I have heard that humans have a tendency to over think things."
She continued to look at him intensely with her dark ruby colored eyes, and Aiden resisted the urge to take a step back. "There's nothing wrong with a little self-evaluation. And speaking of diagnostics, could you look at the port horizontal booster and power couplings? I got a yellow light on the flight back."
"Yes, sir, I'll have someone look into that immediately." She turned around, tossing him a casual salute, and moved on to the next fighter. He had clearly wanted to change the subject and she knew better than to press the matter.
Aiden started towards the exit that led to the rest of the facility, deciding to skip the chaotic pilot locker room in favor of the quiet of his quarters. The main base on Daraa was one of the largest in the Reich, with some of the best amenities he had experienced in his career as a fighter pilot. The base spread across dozens of immense buildings, housing not only hangars and operation centers, but also a large part of the military logistics personnel. It was on this base that Aiden had living quarters that he currently called home.
Crossing the hangar, he nodded to Ares Crane, Knight Squadron's executive officer. The Colonel nodded back, confirming what they had discussed before landing. His executive officer would take care of the squadron details and send the report to him later
for review.
Aiden glanced at some of his pilots as he headed out, trying to gauge how they were feeling. Over the last few months they'd been reduced to escort duty when they really should have been out in the thick of things, taking an active part in the defense of the Reich. For the foreseeable future, they would continue to escort freighters from one backwater system to another and shuttles from fleet to fleet. The squadron been very effectively pushed into the background, and only Aiden's return to their ranks had brought their morale back up to acceptable levels. He had been away from the squadron for a total of eleven months, leaving Ares in command.
I was off playing Commander with the big ships.
It wasn't until his return to the squadron a few weeks ago that he had realized how much he'd truly missed flying. While in command of various battle groups or capital ships, his time in a cockpit was limited; and even when he did fly, it was usually in a shuttle or transport. At some point he had begun to reconsider the direction his career was taking, and had thought long and hard about it, going around in circles for days before finally ending up back at the place where he had started. Knight Squadron was the only answer.
He had asked—no, begged-General Ryk Ryker to return him to what he was best at, the command of a fighter squadron. Since no new assignment had been found for Aiden, the General had been forced to agree to his proposal, more than likely with a view towards it being temporary. After a brief discussion with Ares, Aiden asked to be transferred back to Knight Squadron.
And here I am.
Aiden was fiercely proud of the Knights and all they had done throughout their short history, even during his absence. Since he had rebuilt the squadron that he and Johann Badum had founded, they had accomplished much, including the defeat of Yazmin Jaza, and their almost single-handed taking of Daraa, the Khawarij Empire's second most important planet next to Khawarij Prime. After capturing Daraa, Yazmin Jaza had escaped to Thula, and the Knights had then freed the Tetram VX3-producing planet from her cruel grasp, averting a genocide that would have killed billions. The Knights had been the elite squadron whose name alone put fear into their enemies, who had been given the perilous missions, missions that some said were impossible.
He smiled at the thought of Konrad Bauer, the youngest pilot in his group, stating in a briefing before yet another difficult mission: But impossible is Knight Squadron's stock in trade!
Aiden's smile died as another of Konrad's comments came to mind. Now we're baby-sitting.
Some of his pilots had taken their current duties as an insult, while others couldn't comprehend why they were being so underutilized. Aiden tended to agree a little with both. And he didn't feel that way because he was Aiden Hunt, Hero of the Luftwaffe. He knew that his people could be much more useful if they were out in the thick of things, making a difference in the war against the remnants of the Khawarij Empire and various Prefects and Warlords. Others may think that was egotistical, but he knew it was the truth. He knew that his pilots were capable of more, and deserved better than this.
Aiden noticed Captain Otto Kitt climbing down from his fighter. He was speaking to a nearby tech, making sure that his mech-droid, K7, made it safely to the ground. Next to his wife, Mira Raines-Kitt, there was nothing that Otto was more protective of.
Otto was about the same height as Aiden, which was a shade shorter than average. His light brown hair and intense green eyes made him one of the more hologenic of the pilots in the unit. He had been through a lot in his time with the squadron, but it had led him to his wife and to the truth about his heritage. Otto's grandfather had been a Korsican Knights Templar, and he had discovered that the "gut instinct" he had often relied on was his own growing Mystica.
Lieutenant Owais Omar, Otto's wingman, crossed from his ship to talk to his friend, so Aiden kept walking towards the hatchway, giving them a casual wave as he passed.
Continuing on his way out, Aiden saw Konrad Bauer climbing up and over the side of his fighter. He felt a dull ache in his chest as he saw the expression on the young man from Remus III's face. It had been well over a year since the death of Amira Sehr, the Zinji pilot that Konrad had planned to spend the rest of his life with. He made a mental note to speak to Ares on what to do to try and get Konrad turned around.
Aiden smiled at, and returned the salutes of, several other familiar crew members before reaching the exit. Overall he had to admit that he was relieved at what he saw. His pilots seemed to be in relatively good spirits despite their current disappointing duties. Of course, the five consecutive days of downtime they were about to enjoy couldn't have hurt either.
Aiden finally reached the hatchway and returned the salutes of the Kriegsmarine guards posted there. He kept his gait casual, but he couldn't wait to get to his quarters and strip out of his sticky flight-suit.
As he walked down the corridor towards the turbo-lift, he ran a hand across his face, scratching at the stubble on his chin. He felt weary all over, more than he should after such light duties. He was amazed how tired he could feel after sitting in his cockpit for hours doing very little. But it wasn't only that. There was something more.
Sadiah was correct in her assessment that he had been doing a lot of thinking during transit. On his way back to Daraa, something surprising had occurred to him. Today was his twenty-third birthday. He had completely forgotten about his own birthday, and as he sat in the solitude of gravity-drive, he realized that the more he thought about it, the more turning thirty was really starting to bother him.
Am I getting too old for this?
It was a thought that kept coming into his mind more and more often of late. His birthday was just the latest event that had turned his mind to that subject. After all, being a hotshot pilot was a job for the young.
And just when did you stop thinking of yourself as young?
He knew that being too old to be a pilot wasn't the really root of his problem, especially since there were pilots in his own squadron, and of lesser rank, who were older than he was. It almost seemed an excuse for other feelings that he wanted to suppress.
Feelings of regret?
Aiden had been with the Luftwaffe for his entire adult life. He had smuggled for them and actively joined them after his parents had been killed when he was fourteen.
That's nearly ten years I've devoted to this way of life!
He'd lost everything that had been important to him on Tarsus, leaving a void that had been hard to fill. Smuggling, then joining the Luftwaffe, had filled it to a point, giving him a sense of belonging that he hadn't even realized he craved. But now Knight Squadron was the only thing he had left that he really and truly cared about.
He shook his head to try and stay clear of those thoughts. Feeling sorry for himself wasn't something he wanted to do. He had chosen to join the Luftwaffe—no one had forced him—and he could have left at any time had he really wanted to, and he hadn't. But there was no denying that he was unhappy. He just hoped that it didn't show on his face, and he prayed that no one had figured out that it was his birthday.
Like most pilots, Aiden didn't like to celebrate his birthday—it was a superstition that stretched back millennia, he was sure. And there was no group more superstitious than pilots. The problem with birthdays was that they celebrated life, and it served to remind every single pilot that there were many comrades who never again would celebrate another birthday.
Not to mention you never know if you'll be celebrating yours again.
No, he decided he just wanted to be alone for a while.
Aiden stopped abruptly in the corridor. "I must be losing my mind!" he said aloud. "Yep, people will be saying 'Remember, Commander Hunt had that breakdown? That was really sad. He seemed like such a nice, stable man.'" He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then resumed his course towards his quarters, shaking his head most of the way.
