Horizons

by Donald B McFarlane

  “We need to keep moving.” The Sentinel Commander said without a sense of urgency or alarm. “The fight isn’t over yet.”

  22

  When the 389th and 391st Fight Squadrons had taken off from Mountain Home Air Force Base, every pilot and weapon systems officer knew what they were up against. Reports of 400 hostile drones descending through the atmosphere had sent chills down the spines of the aircrew as they raced towards their already prepped aircraft.

  The fifty F-15E Strike Eagles were accompanied by twenty aircraft from the 9th Fighter Squadron of the Italian Air Force flying the Eurofighter Typhoon. The Italians had been training in Idaho for the last month, and when word came that an enemy fleet had jumped into the system, the Italians had readied themselves along with their American counterparts for battle.

  The pack of fighters entered Canadian airspace just north of Colville, Washington, and then turned due west on an intercept course towards Vancouver. At a cruising speed of Mach 2, the jets had reached the combat zone quickly and were already detecting a storm of activity between Vancouver and Lasqueti Island.

  “This is Big Top.” The 366th Fighter Wing commander, Colonel Vincent Sims, was riding in weapon systems officer seat of the lead F15 and was in tactical command of the attack until the Canadian F18s from the 409th Tactical Fighter Squadron could join the fight from Cold Lake in Alberta. “Enemy forces are operating between 100 and 500 feet. Begin descent to 1000 feet.”

  Sitting in front of the colonel was First Lieutenant Martha Rogers, who started to point the nose of the plane towards the ground. As the aircraft began to break the clouds, thoughts of what was lying ahead were already running through her mind. There were only seventy fighters against a reported four hundred enemy drones. Those weren’t the kind of odds that gave her much comfort.

  Each F15 and Typhoon had been loaded with eight 120 AMRAAM missiles, giving the attack force more than enough weapons to deal with the enemy threat, assuming the missiles worked.

  As the group flew over Cultus Lake Provincial Park, Big Top came back over the radio. “All aircraft, weapons free. Engage the enemy with 120s. Fire when ready.”

  It didn’t take long for the seventy aircraft to quickly find targets of opportunity, and fire their missiles. Martha had picked a drone directly over Vancouver with her first shot and watched as the rocket raced away from her aircraft at Mach 4.

  There was a collective holding of breath as the first salvo of missiles raced towards the enemy ships. And for a moment it looked like they were going to be the force-multiplier that they needed to shift the balance in their favour, but as Martha watched the track of her missile as it neared its target, she noticed the slightest variation in the flight pattern before the missile went off her screen entirely.

  “Sir, I have a negative impact.”

  “Roger that.” Big Top had followed the missile track on his systems and had noted the same result. “All aircraft, fox three.”

  Martha again fired another missile and watched it race towards a point in the sky above Vancouver, whose skyscrapers were getting bigger in her heads-up-display every second.

  There was no change this time, as the missiles just seemed to vanish from the screens in all the aircraft. In reality, they had all been jammed twenty feet from impact, and lost all power and dropped out of the sky. Some exploding on impact with the ground, others just broke apart when they landed.

  “Attack group, missiles are not effective.” Big Top leaned to his side and looked past Martha towards the growing city to his front. “Use your guns. And remember, fortune favours the bold. Flight leaders, you have control of your elements. Good hunting.”

  The Colonel cut the channel to the rest of the attacking force and tapped the channel for the flight that he was leading. “Flight 2-4, this is Big Top. We’ve got enemy bogies at our 12 o’clock. I want everyone to stick with their wingman, and follow my lead. We’ll make a gun run on the airspace over Vancouver, then head to Lasqueti.”

  Lieutenant Rogers, call sign Buck, had switched to her ships 20mm Gatling gun and had her finger hovering above the trigger as the big F15 cut through the air towards the swarm that seemed to be following no coordinated movement over Vancouver. From her position, it appeared that some of the drones were stationary at 500 feet providing top cover, while some other drones were strafing the city centre, while the bulk of the drone forces were located further west, over Lasqueti.

  When the first drone came into range, she didn’t hesitate and let loose a ten round burst of high explosive shells that screamed forward at 1050 metres per second.

  For some reason, the drone she targeted didn’t move. It just floated in the air until the rounds shredded it, causing it to burst into flames and fall to the ground. Unbeknownst to Martha, the drone had tried to use it electronic countermeasures suite on the incoming rounds, thinking that they would be affected just like the 120s, but when the system failed to work, the drone just stayed stationary and took its destruction like it had been programmed to do.

  And in less time than it took Martha to blink, the drones that once appeared to ignore the attacking aircraft suddenly turned from their previous distractions and launched an all-out counter-attack on the jets. The data that the drone Martha had destroyed had been disseminated to all the other drones, and they now knew that the cannon fire presented a real threat, and their passive defence became active with the flip of a switch in their neural nets.

  “Incoming!” Martha shouted over the radio.

  Looking down at his radar, Big Top could see that the swarm over the city had shifted and quickly began to converge on the approaching aircraft.

  “All aircraft, scatter!”

  As soon as the order had been given, the colonel looked past the pilot's seat to see a flash of light hit the nose of the aircraft, shearing it clean off, sending a piece of shrapnel through the front of the cockpit into the chest of Lieutenant Rogers, and with the broken canopy, blood started flying all over the inside of the compartment. Without thinking twice, Big Top pulled the ejection levers and was fired out of the aircraft at a tremendous rate, but before the ejection seat could even have time to release its parachute, a blast of laser fire vaporised the colonel, leaving on the remains of the stricken F15 falling from the skies over the suburbs of Vancouver.

  23

  The roar from the two sets of quad pulse cannons atop the PCS was deafening, even when Doctor Ji-woon and Sarah Chan had placed themselves in the centre of the top deck, two hundred yards away from the weapon systems that had been firing almost non-stop since the first enemy drone had come into view, making it almost too loud to speak. The automated systems had been joined by a pair of Light Sentinels, both armed with standard weapons in an attempt to keep the hostile force at bay.

  Miraculously, they were proving mildly successful. It appeared to Charles Ji-woon that the quad energy cannons had a much further range than those mounted on the drones, and with one system covering the front of the ship, and an arc from 9 o’clock to 3 o’clock, and the other covering the opposite area, they had prevented a concentrated attack on the moored ship.

  Sector Prefect Dinalis had joined the two on the top deck, along with the ever-present cameraman Jose Berenguer, who was filming the entire battle from the comfort of a swivelling chair that Dinalis had provided.

  “So, Sector Prefect, any commentary on the status of the fight as you understand it?” Chan asked, for once conducting her own interview, microphone in hand, shouting to be heard above the weapons fire.

  With the aid of a floating translation device to assist the broadcast, Dinalis tried to put a positive spin on a fight that had never been in their favour, and now was entering its final stages. “Well Doctor, it is hard to have a proper grasp of the situation without having communications with our ships in orbit. Since these drones are still active, we must assume that there is an enemy carrier in orbit and that our forces are endeavouring to neutralise that threat.”

  “I’m just
receiving news that the entire air force relief mission that was heading this way has been totally wiped out.” Chan looked at the Prefect. “Would you care to comment?”

  “Doctor, bad news, but I am afraid that Coalition technology is vastly superior to anything that can be found on this planet, and I would implore all civilians to leave the combat zone as soon as it is safe to do so.”

  “That brings up an interesting question Prefect, now that the Coalition knows where Earth is, what is outside the combat zone?”

  Before the alien could answer, a drone that had been skimming the water's edge suddenly raced over the top of the ship, firing bolts of blue energy along the deck, hitting the Light Sentinel standing closest to the humans in the torso, boring a massive hole through the thin-skinned machine, dropping it to its knees for a second before it collapsed on the deck, inert.

  Sarah stared wide-eyed at the destroyed machine before looking back at Dinalis who looked calm and composed. “Shouldn’t you alert someone to this?” She asked.

  “No. The ship will have recorded this units destruction and will send a replacement if one is available as soon as possible.”

  Dinalis’s level of calm didn’t reassure Sarah Chan. She had cut her teeth in war zones around the world and had heard plenty of bravado in the past from soldiers and warlords who turned out to be on the losing side of a battle or a war. She was hoping that she was wrong on this occasion.

  Thinking it was time to get the perspective of her colleague, Sarah shifted in her chair towards Charle Ji-woon just in time to see him light up a giant blunt.

  “What is that?” She demanded loud enough to get Jose’s attention. The cameraman swinging his camera down from the sky to catch the Korean scientist taking a long drag off the now burning smoke.

  Ji-woon slowly let out the smoke and sighed. “It’s medicinal!” He shouted over the roar of the energy cannons.

  Sarah lowered her microphone, gave the camera a quick glance, then reached out and snatched the joint from the man sat next to her, brought it to her lips, and took a long drag.

  She handed the smoke back and relaxed in her chair and let the smoke slowly exit her lips. “Yeah. Medicinal.” Noticing that the camera was still focused on her, she pointed to the sky, still filled with the swarm of drones that were waiting for their chances to make an attack run on the ship.

  Closing her eyes, Sarah attempted to relax among the roaring noise that she was surrounded by. It had been a long time since she had been on the front lines of a news story, but she enjoyed the sensation that a little bit of danger brought.

  Looking over a Doctor Ji-woon, she put out her arm for the joint and waited for him to take another drag before passing it back to her. She closed her eyes again and took another deep drag, holding the smoke in her lungs before exhaling slowly. Sitting there, with the world moving about her at a thousand miles an hour, she felt calm and at home.

  By the time she had taken her second round on the joint, it had attracted the attention of Sector Prefect Dinalis who had leaned towards Sarah and was eying the joint up. “May I try that, Doctor?”

  Sarah blinked her eyes open and looked down at the joint, and then at Dinalis, who had a look of curiosity on his face. “Hope you can handle it.” She said with a wide grin on her face as she passed him the tightly rolled cigarette.

  Sarah watched as the alien took the blunt, but before he smoked it, he pulled out a datapad and quickly typed away on the holographic keyboard before nodding a few times to himself, and inserting the joint in between his lips. She couldn’t help but giggle as she turned away as the Floxian attempted to smoke the joint.

  Closing her eyes again, she relaxed her neck and listened to the thunderous noise of the cannons on either end of the top deck continue to pour fire skywards, while the distinctive sound of the lone Light Sentinel and its rifle was joined by a second, a replacement for the dead, she thought. Isn’t that what we all are on some level? Just replacements for those that have come before us. Placeholders in time.

  24

  Keegan wasn’t sure, but he was pretty sure that Pullo Obo’s left arm was broken from the way the Ship Master was holding it, and the stillness of two of the crew members inside the command centre gave him the impression that they were dead.

  The first hits that the Rock of Cromarden had taken had knocked out her jump drives, and half of her weapons systems. Obo knew that his head on attack posed many risks, but he also knew that the result of the battle would depend on decisive action, and while his ship might have already taken a pounding, it had destroyed the enemy frigate that was in Earth’s orbit, and also succeeded in taking out a huge swath of drones and fighters that were swarming RG 25 and the light carrier which was making a run for shelter behind the moon, its own drones and fighters already overwhelmed by the onslaught of Coalition forces.

  Lysa had slumped to the floor when the first impacts sent a shudder through the ship and hadn’t spoken a word since. Looking at the three-dimensional rendering that hovered above the command centre, Keegan could tell that RG 27 was making a second attack run on the Keeper, and its success was the key factor in whether or not the Earth would be subjected to the terror that was currently happening over Vancouver.

  Keegan was well aware that the enemy carrier had sent down a sizeable force to the planet’s surface, and from the 3D model, he could tell that a significant portion of that force was centred on downtown Vancouver. He didn’t know the specifics, but he assumed the worst.

  “What is the status of that final destroyer?” Obo demanded. His powerful gaze caught the gaze of one of his aides.

  “It is closing down on the 27 rapidly.”

  Obo looked towards the exit to the room and out onto the bridge of his ship. His head lowered for a split second before glancing at Keegan, then down at Doctor Jannsen who was huddled on the floor. His dark pale blue eyes met Keegan’s and a smile crept upon his face.

  “Scary, isn’t it human?”

  Keegan cleared his throat. “What is?”

  “The prospect of death.” He replied with a smile on his face before looking to his second-in-command who was standing at his side. “Bring us around for an attack run on the cruiser.” His voice was filled with confidence, it hadn’t waived since the battle had started.

  “Sir.”

  Keegan looked down at Lysa who sat motionlessly, knees tucked up to her chest. Lowering himself into a squatting position, he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a gentle kiss just above her ear. She looked up at him with a vacant expression on her face, then back down to the hard deck on which she was sitting.

  Standing back up, Keegan walked over to one of the stations now occupied by a corpse and looked at the station's screen. It showed a real-time telemetry projection of where RG 27 was, the planets of the system, plus their moons, and all the ships, friendly or otherwise. Keegan noted how the small dot that represented the 27 kept inching towards the red dot that represented the Keeper.

  From the image shown, Keegan could tell that the Keeper was trying to run from the 27, but was rapidly being overtaken. The sleek old Alliance warship was making its second run on the Keeper, and with the approaching enemy destroyer bearing down on it, it was a matter of all or nothing at this point.

  Tilting his head to the side, he was mesmerized by the screen, oblivious to the sounds that were reverberating within the room, and for the first time since the battle had started, Keegan felt almost calm, and tranquil as if hypnotized by the dots as they moved around the screen that represented the Sol System.

  And when the miracle that needed to happen happened; to save him, the ship, and possibly humanity, he blinked twice, and tilted his head to the other side, not sure what had just disappeared from the screen he was so intently watching, but confident that something had in fact vanished. Bringing up his finger, he scanned the screen for red dots and realised that there was suddenly one less than there had been a second ago. The Keeper ship was no longer represented on
the screen, which could mean one of two things: there was a glitch in the tracking system, or that it had been destroyed.

  “Pullo!” Keegan yelled, eyes still fixed on the screen. “Pullo!”

  The room went silent when the insolent human had the gall to shout out the first name of the Ship Master.

  “Human.” Came a parched, but a stern response.

  Keegan whipped his head around to face the ship's commander and simultaneously brought his finger up to a point at the screen that had grasped his attention.

  “I think something has happened.” Keegan responded sheepishly.

  Obo moved his gaze from Keegan’s head to the screen that the scientist was staring at, then down to the 3D image that was in front of him. It didn’t take a physiologist to read pleasure on the face of a creature when it leapt onto the face of Pullo Obo when he realised what had just transpired.

  “Send to Reach Command the distress call. Now!”

  Pullo looked back at Keegan with his grin still intact, allowing the human to see his ferocious looking teeth. “It seems like fortune is smiling on us today, human.”

  “How long until a rescue team arrives?” Keegan asked, almost worried that the answer would bring down the elation that had suddenly filled the room.

  “In human terms, sixty seconds. There is a strike group ready to deploy at all times from Jaxos, the closest world.” Obo shook his head. “And I thought today was a good day to die.”

  Keegan looked over to Lysa who had brought her head up when she heard the good news, and a small smile had managed to make its way onto her face. “There is always tomorrow, Ship Master.” She said making her way to her feet.

  25

  While the tide may have turned in favour of the Alliance, Joe was still faced with stiff opposition on his path to the Planetary Command Ship. Word had come from the ship that the USAF attempt to provide relief for Vancouver had failed, and with more enemy Sentinels in between their current position and the ship, there was no time to mourn the dead.