SODIUM Trilogy Part One

by Stephen Arseneault

  Once A3 was safely away, the remaining four Defenders then again rallied behind the security of the moon. The Tacticians were busy with their scheming. After fifteen minutes of conversations between the crews, commanders, and Planners, a new battle plan was put forth. This time A1 would be going in alone.

  We watched intently, wondering what this new suicide strategy was with only one Defender on the attack. I hoped it would not be a reactor detonation, as that would not bode well for the rest of us. No one wanted to be a kamikaze. If that was to be our new strategy, then they should at least limit the crew to a single person. Wasting four lives at a time was not very practical.

  As A1 raced in toward the fighter at near-full throttle, I cringed at the thought of what might be coming. At the last second, the Defender fired a couple rounds and then veered off and slowed as it sped away. The alien craft quickly pursued.

  As the fighter slowly gained on A1, I wondered why it was not going to full throttle. I soon got my answer. After our day-one scenario, one of the technicians evaluating the data had gotten the idea of putting an active skin onto one of the nukes. A1 had dropped the unseen missile on its path away from the alien fighter. It had taken precise timing for the detonation, but the outcome was a complete destruction of the alien fighter. Cheers arose immediately, but then quickly quieted.

  A1 had laid a trap and lured the fighter to its demise. The techs had added a picoreactor to the missile to power its active skin. Once the skin was enabled, there was no communication with the missile, so a timer had been preset, telling it when to blow. The Tacticians had timed it perfectly.

  Upon destruction of the single alien fighter, the four remaining Defenders then headed for home. It was just as well, as two of the other alien craft had changed positions and were fast approaching the area.

  Squad one came in hot, slowed at the last second, and came to a stop facing straight up. The four craft then tilted to horizontal and moved in perfect formation back into the hangar.

  Even with Ensign Braswell pumping calming agents into my IV, the stress of the battle had been enormous. And I was just an observer. The mission had been accomplished, but not until after the loss of eight good crewmen and two valuable Defenders.

  The Battle Planners and Tacticians would be working late into the day trying to discern what had gone right and what had gone devastatingly wrong. The coil guns had been largely ineffective. These new alien fighters had evidently been upgraded since the previous battle thirteen years before. I guessed it was only inevitable.

  Whip's dropped-nuke strategy had been our only bright spot. We would need better weapons and better tactics if we hoped to have a fighting chance when the full fleet arrived. Two years was not a long time to prepare, and the clock was ticking.

  After listening to Command and their staffs arguing for hours, we decided it was time for us to get back to our DSim. We weren't learning anything of value watching everyone scratching their heads, pointing fingers, and yelling. As we walked out of the Battle Command area, I couldn't help but look around at everyone outside. They were all going about their daily chores as if it was just another day.

  I was not quite so happy that I had been invited to watch. I reasoned that sometimes it was better to not know everything. I would have difficulty focusing on anything except how easily we had been beaten in our first encounter. I hoped a few extra scenarios would break me away from the unpleasant thoughts.

  We chose to continue with level-one missions, and even though we triumphed over each of them, the previous high spirits of the team had been crushed. Within the week, we finished our level-one training and proceeded to level two. Red was relentless in making certain we knew explicitly the details of every little mistake we made.

  His ears were a constant red, but this time it was from anger, not embarrassment. He did not want his crew to make mistakes. For the first time in my life, I was taking my new education seriously. I had at least three other people counting on me directly, if not the fate of the entire world. The seriousness of it all was humbling.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  On our first free day, Bigg went looking for his son. He reasoned he might be able to learn some of whatever it was he was doing and at the same time get in a good visit. Whip had sought the company of one of the Battle Tacticians. She wanted to discuss some of the events from the attack earlier. Specifically, she wanted to talk about potential uses for the active-skinned nukes.

  Pop had his handler set up a meeting with two of the engineers who worked on the reactors. It left me to fend for myself. Ensign Braswell was available each and every day, so I asked her to assist me in running scenarios. My focus would be on navigation and maneuvering. I had no interest in fighting without my team by my side.

  We chatted a bit about our lives before our current duties as we walked toward the DSim. She had been born and raised in Kansas. Wichita was still a hub for small aircraft manufacturing; it had piqued her interest in flying.

  Unfortunately she had a vision problem in one eye that had kept her out of the pilot’s seat during her still-young career in the USAF. When the opening for the USAC came before her, she jumped at the chance. Just before joining the air force, she had received a PhD in physics. That feat had been accomplished by the age of twenty-two. I marveled at her intelligence and determination.

  I then told her of my days in the high school band and then of my six years in college to receive a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. I had spent too much time farting around and not enough focusing on my education.

  My degree was in something I wasn't even interested in. If not for David Brenner being in the family, I quipped, I would probably be washing dishes at some small-town diner. Even though I was not deserving of my current post, I was very grateful of the honor.

  When we arrived at the DSim, Red was waiting there to assist. Paige connected me to the ship's systems and Red put together practice scenarios. I spent the day flying, conducting maneuvers, and pushing the limits of what the DSim would allow me to do.

  When the day came to an end, Red walked into the crew cabin and put his hand on my shoulder. He told me that if I continued my training with the attitude and yearning for knowledge I had shown that day, I could easily become one of the top pilots, if not the top pilot, in the Corps.

  As I walked back to my personal quarters, I felt a sense of resolve in what I was doing. It was the first time I remember really having pride in who I was or what I might become. I was a fighter pilot, on a mission to save the world. It was an exciting and yet humbling thought.

  The following morning, I couldn't wait to rejoin the team. I hoped they had each had similar experiences on their free day, as it would help tremendously in lifting our spirits. Whip was the first to tell of her day. She had been with the Battle Tacticians and had asked questions about the tactics employed. She wanted to know what other methods or weapons Command might have up their sleeves.

  One of the key things she had come back with was that the alien craft had comm systems that functioned similar to ours. In the darkness of space, they were limited to the speed of light for their communications, just as we were.

  We had captured transmissions from their ships. It was heavily encrypted as well as in a language we couldn't understand. Our cryptologists had worked day and night to crack the codes, but had yet to make any headway.

  When fighting in space, where the distances were potentially huge, communications could take minutes, if not much longer, to reach their target. Whip discussed this fact with Paige during our entire morning break. Paige was giddy having someone to talk physics with. During their discussion, I felt lucky I was able to understand how to tie my own shoes.

  Pop had come back beaming with ideas for reactor upgrades. For now he would be stuck with only modifying his sketches. He had hopes of one day being able to apply those mods to our craft. He was a sharp guy, but none of us looked forward to being a guinea pig for his experiments.

  Big
g had spent the day with his son Chris. They had been going over repair prospects for Defender A3. The damage had been significant enough that it would be permanently grounded and only used for spare parts. The sensor arrays were shot.

  It would take more time and expense to remove and repair the damaged rings, sensors, and their housings than it would to build a new craft. Besides, parts were in high demand.

  I still wondered how they got the craft from the chamber to Regents Field and back. I reasoned it was possible that Regents was right on top of us. Of course, with the speed the Defenders could move at, we could also be a thousand kilometers away.

  After getting once again connected to the DSim, we were ready to start level-two scenarios. Level two would involve more alien fighters and a few out-of-atmosphere runs. The week was spent running through and conquering level two. My favorite mission was scenario 2.8. After clearing out a pod of drones, we were sent to inspect a warehouse.

  Upon arrival everything looked peaceful. After flying slowly around the warehouse, we were attacked by about a thousand alien tripods and several hundred drones at once. The doors and windows of the warehouse flew open, and the alien tripods and drones came out like angry ants from an anthill. They were everywhere, and we were taking heavy fire.

  The battle lasted an hour before we finally had the alien sims on the defensive. Red then told us that this could possibly be the type of scenario we would be facing when their main fleet arrived.

  If the fleet was as big as it appeared, the thousand-tripod scenario might have been a minimal effort. Either way, it was more like a video game than a real mission. The one thing that always stuck in the back of my mind was that it still was not live. We would not be at risk of actually dying that day.

  The following day, a second real mission had been scheduled. We were again invited to sit in on the effort, as we had completed DSim levels one and two without another death. This time they would be going after the one previously damaged alien fighter.

  The fighter had taken up position over Japan. Each of the major cities had a massive battery of coil guns run by the United States. We were unwilling to give up the technology, so agreements had been reached where we would provide the manpower and technology.

  The soil where the battery was located had been deeded to the United States for so long as the battery was to be in operation. It was designed to prevent rogue regimes from trying to claim sovereignty over it and take the technology for themselves.

  It was complicated, and there were always political complaints, but the peoples of the world were largely happy to have them. It was also the only thing keeping the current set of visitors at bay.

  Real mission two began just as the previous one had. The lost crews and fighters had been replaced, and a strategy for the mission had been practiced in the DSims for the previous week.

  The Defender squad was launched and then raced out to a location a hundred million kilometers away... almost to the planet Mars. The squad had taken the heading toward their rendezvous point and turned off their BHDs at the halfway mark. It had been determined by our Intelligence Corps that the aliens had no way of tracking a Defender when the BHD was off.

  Without the BHD running, it was hoped the Defenders could take up position near Mars and then fire off seven of the active-skinned nukes in a pattern. The trajectories had been plotted and replotted so the nukes would travel around Mars while using its gravitational pull to slingshot the nukes back toward Earth, and specifically back toward the damaged alien fighter.

  Since the aliens had taken up stationary positions, it was hoped the nukes would round Mars, return to the position of the alien craft, and then detonate. It was an ingenious plan if it worked. The timing was critical. The nukes would have to be armed with a timer, their skin activated, and the nukes then fired at Mars.

  Since the launching of the active-skinned nukes was a detectable event, it was hoped that the alien craft would not be able to determine what the Defenders were doing from their distance. It was bold and ambitious and was also the only idea that had been brought to the Battle Planners that did not significantly endanger our crews.

  The nukes were fired, and if all went well, the outcome would be known in precisely forty-seven minutes. As a diversionary tactic, the squad then split, with three Defenders going in one direction and the remaining four heading another.

  The forty-seven minutes soon became twenty-five, then five, and then one. A timer ticked away on everyone's screen. When the nukes were within the final few seconds of their target, the skin would deactivate and the nukes would detonate.

  The Planners were all on edge because one major drawback to the plan was that if the seven nukes detonated late, they would sink through the atmosphere and detonate just off the coast of Japan.

  Since no other nation of the world was currently involved in the mission down in the chamber, it was feared it would cause an international incident. But, our Command thought those fears were easily justifiable when it came to war with the alien craft.

  No other nation knew of the Defenders or our active-skin technologies. When the previous mission had concluded with a nuclear explosion destroying one of the alien fighters, the nations of the world had been screaming at us to know what had happened and exactly how it had been done. Our response had been anything but revealing.

  When the counter hit ten seconds, I could sense the nervousness in the room. Moments later, the seven nukes detonated right on target. There was a momentary bright flash in the night skies off of Japan that could be seen from the Philippines to Korea to deep inside mainland China.

  The target had been destroyed, and the diplomatic phones at the State Department were soon ringing off their hooks. The problem for the State Department was that they had no knowledge of what was happening. Our entire program was still as covert as a program could possibly be.

  A statement was soon released through the White House with minimal details. Another alien craft had been destroyed. They were now down two. The media was in a frenzy trying to get details, but none were forthcoming. We were at war, and that information was privileged.

  As a consequence of our small victory, the remaining two alien fighters soon joined forces. They also began making random movements. Our active-nuke strategy was now useless. I wondered how it was the Planners had not foreseen that event.

  It had seemed such an ingenious method for taking out the remaining three, and it had been largely wasted on one. When we left the Battle Room, that was the exact discussion going on between all the Tacticians. Some of the words being exchanged were very heated.

  We returned to our DSim to continue our training. Level three brought with it a new twist. We would be competing blindly against another crew. Level three had 126 scenarios to choose from. The crew with the most points would earn credits to be used at a later date. We weren't told what those credits would be for, but we were assured they were indeed useful.

  The first DSim scenario selected was called Moonbase Run. We would lift off to a designated point, at which time we were to put into action our own battle plan. The Moonbase Run scenario consisted of first getting past an alien fighter and then attacking an alien base. More specifically, it was to destroy a designated drone factory on the moon.

  We had no idea if the aliens even had such a factory, but it was thrown into a scenario, and we wanted a chance to destroy it. We had been paired up with crew A33, who were much further along in their DSim training than us. I was excited by the chance to take on another team but wondered if we were being set up. A33 had just finished level five.

  The moon base itself was backed up against a steep crater wall and was defended by much more powerful gravity weapons than the ones on the alien fighters. We had been given two hours to plan our strategy before the scenario would begin. After scratching our heads for most of the two hours, we were left with no real plan of action.

  We would be winging it as we went. This earned some grumbles from Red, but he
had been directed to stay out of our way. It was a test not only of our skills of flying, but of thinking on our feet. As the scenario began, I tried to assure the others we were going to win. All I received in return were empty stares.

  When both ships had reached their initial rally points, the scenario began. There was not just one alien fighter, but one for each of us to do battle with. As soon as we headed toward the sitting alien craft, it began to move in a random pattern. Whip had one active nuke ready, so we decided to take a potluck shot with it.

  As soon as the nuke was launched, the alien fighter turned hard in our direction and came on at full speed. I flipped our ship and pushed the throttle to full. We slowed dramatically and then began a rapid acceleration. In level-three scenarios, we had use of 50 percent throttle. But our spur-of-the-moment plan was not well thought out, and the alien fighter came within striking distance before we had a chance to flee.

  Its first shot took out all five rings of our BHD, and the second shot, from less than a kilometer away, overwhelmed the active skin. We were dead within one minute of the scenario's beginning.

  Crew A33 was much more prudent in their approach. They kept a distance while laying out three active nukes. They then attempted to draw the alien fighter in to where the active nukes were lying. The strategy failed, and crew A33 spent the next hour simply running around trying to keep their distance from the fighter. The timed scenario ended with an alien victory because neither target had been destroyed.

  The scenario was run three more times, and each time it ended with a similar result. We would engage and run while A33 played keep-away. It was on our fifth try that Bigg had a suggestion. Once at our rally point, we would launch an active nuke. This time, however, the nuke would stay stationary next to our ship.