by J. S. Morin
Tanny shrugged, lifting the local approximation of an old Earth stout to her lips. “What would you expect from a lab rat?”
“I’m sitting right here,” Adam protested.
“Hey kid, we all start somewhere,” Tanny replied. “Not all of us are proud of where.”
Viper Four, come about to two-six-oh mark one-five, and intercept.
Roger that, Viper One.
“Those guys aren’t half bad,” Carl remarked, staring up at the holovid globe. He absently tipped back his drink, never taking his eyes from the action.
“They’re just little hologram flies buzzing around each other,” said Esper. “How can you tell?”
“The blue squad’s just faking it,” Carl replied. “Bunch of passengers getting a chance to sit up front for once, and play-acting being pilots. They’re flying around like cockroaches, not thinking, just reacting to their environment. The red team, the ones calling themselves Viper, is the real deal. I’d bet my take from our salvage job that these guys fly together.”
Roddy snorted. “Big spender.”
“No takers,” Tanny added. “I can kind of see it, too. They either fly together, or they practically live in this joint.”
“Pack hunters,” Mriy agreed.
“So who’s with me?”
They all looked to Carl.
“You didn’t …” said Tanny.
“We’ve got winner,” said Carl. “It’s going to be that Viper team. Look, they just went ahead by a ship. Anyway, I put Team Mobius on the list for tonight, but I need a roster. They’ll come up with odds for us once I tell them who I’m flying with, and we see who we’re facing.”
“Can I?” asked Adam, looking to Esper, not Carl.
“Sure you can,” Carl replied.
Tanny gave him a withering look. “You can’t seriously think the kid can fly against those guys?”
“Think you can do better?” Carl asked. As soon as Tanny opened her mouth to reply, he cut her off. “Good, because I’m counting on you as my wingman.”
Roddy held up his lower hands. “Don’t look my way. Those human-sized cockpits are no place for me.”
“Fair enough,” Carl replied. “How about you, Esper?”
Esper choked on her drink, spluttering half a mouthful back into the glass.
“You OK?” Carl asked. “I was just joking. Come on, Mriy. It’ll be like hunting, but without all the running and mess to clean up.”
Mriy yawned and stretched, her arms spreading wide enough to span the whole table. “This looks better than the games on the ship.”
As his squadron extracted themselves from the table, Carl took advantage of the momentary distraction to lean in and whisper to Mort. “Bet everything you can scrape together on us. This’ll make up for the scrawny haul.”
# # #
Carl’s eyes glazed over as the referee gave them instructions on both the battle setup and the basic controls of the simulator. He resisted the urge to tell the jumped-up waiter where he could shove his “new pilot tips,” but he needed to keep his cool to let the odds drift up. Besides, Adam probably needed the help, possibly Mriy, too. Tanny would be fine. Piloting a marine transport wasn’t like handling a starfighter, but she’d been through flight school—at least what the marines passed off as flight school.
As he climbed into the cockpit of the simulator labeled Blue Two, he felt a wave of nostalgia. Underneath the scent of beer and the rickety canopy whose hydraulics could have used an overhaul, it was still a Typhoon III simulator. It took Carl back to his academy days, not the first go-round as a cadet, but the second time, as a flight instructor teaching dirt-booted pilots how to fly the Typhoon IV. The differences between the two ships only mattered to sticklers and bureaucrats; it was even running the same UI and training programs.
Analog toggle switches were scattered across the inside of the cockpit. Without even giving it a second thought, Carl flipped through them in a standard pre-flight check. Most were stiff with disuse, a few sticky. It took Carl until he was halfway through the check before he noticed that none of them were functioning. Someone had dumbed down the simulator to diner-patron simplicity. The flight yoke was loose and free though, and had just the right amount of resistance to feel stable. Reaching behind him, he found the helm for Blue Two and plunked it down over his head with a grimace. He hadn’t watched who had last flown in the unit, but now he smelled the foul chili-pepper concoction his predecessor had eaten prior to playing.
Once he had his helmet on, Carl was bombarded with comm noise.
This is great! We’re going to win!
My ears are squashed against my head.
What’d she say?
Never mind.
All right, when we start, just follow my lead.
The comm was low-end and fuzzy and flattened the voices so badly that he could only tell the speakers by context. He should have realized that Adam wouldn’t be able to understand Mriy. Mort could have loaned him his translator charm; the old wizard understood azrin well enough without it. In the end, of course, it didn’t matter anyway. Let the diners laugh themselves silly until the fighting actually started.
Contrary to whatever instincts screamed in his head, Carl kept silent. The betting period would close once the simulated fighters launched. Hopefully Mort was letting the odds drift to their high point before placing his bet. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Mort was the only one placing a bet on the Blue Squadron.
The heads-up display showed a countdown, starting thirty seconds out. Carl cracked his knuckles.
At twenty seconds, he tilted his neck back and forth, working loose any kinks.
At ten seconds, he took a long, slow breath.
Then the countdown hit zero. Carl punched the throttle to full and was first out of the simulated hangar. In flight school, it had always been a point to brag about. The simulators didn’t accept any inputs before the countdown finished, so a partially opened throttle was a recipe for a slow start. His Typhoon III rocketed out into the hologlobe battlefield, which was different from the one the Mobius crew had just watched. Carl didn’t need the nav display to know that it was Frontier Station Bravo, an unusual place for a dogfight. A working (albeit fictional) space station, Frontier Station Bravo was swarming with civilian traffic at the start of the simulation. In flight school runs, it was meant to be a defense against a raid, with the defense of the civilians paramount.
All right, everybody, you see them on radar? Let’s get there before they know what hit them. Full throttle, and everyone aim for the guy on the far left. Adam’s strategy was straight out of the pre-adolescent belief that heroes were bold and brave.
Mriy’s ship followed as Adam continued to pour ions out of his thrusters, but Carl hung back, easing off his own throttle. Tanny was smart enough to follow suit. Shield flashes marked the opening salvos from both sides, Adam hitting several times from beyond his cannons’ optimal range, and Mriy connecting once or twice with marginally effective shots. The Viper squad waited until they closed range with Adam and Mriy, and Blue Leader and Blue Four exploded in short order.
“Blue Two to Blue Three: Tanny, mind taking up position on my six. Let’s show these guys some flying.”
Roger Blue Two. Try not to get us both killed.
Carl laughed over the comm. “Don’t worry; it’s just a game.” He opened the throttle and veered toward the civilian shipping lanes, where a thirty-four ship convoy was headed for the safety of the station’s docking bays.
Carl, what are you doing?
The Viper Squadron turned to give chase, but their lines of fire were spoiled by congested ship traffic crossing between the two squads. Carl fought with an under-used switch on the side of the flight yoke, one not too many civilian sim-jockeys would bother with even if they realized it was there. He flicked it on and off, working the switch loose, the simulator’s hydraulics bucking to mimic the shuddering that alternating the flight control assist on and off would cause. He left it i
n the “off” position and pivoted his typhoon to aim the guns back at Viper Squadron. Starfighters were complicated enough to fly without needing to perform advanced physics calculations on the go. The flight control system made the ship compensate for existing momentum in executing turns and rolls. With it turned off, Carl had the freedom to spin his ship and fire his lateral and vertical thrusters to angle in any direction he liked—but he had to worry about managing the ship’s momentum himself.
Of course, now he was flying mostly backwards and a bit to port.
Tanny dove out of his way as Carl opened fire. He tracked one of the Viper Squad, shooting it just before it passed behind a medical evac ship, then again once it emerged on the far side. The target’s shields sputtered and died out, as Carl’s shot hit at the spot where the generator was most vulnerable. Tanny swung around and put in two quick shots to destroy it.
“Nice shooting.”
You’re a fucking maniac!
Carl grinned, turning his flight controls back on and slinging his ship through the station traffic. He headed for the far side of the station, Tanny taking up position behind him.
Where are we going? They’re the other way.
“I’m a good shot, but there’s still three of them. Rather string ‘em out and pick ‘em off.”
The station’s defense cannons fired, but it was all for show. Unless someone had really monkeyed with the programming, they would never aim anywhere near the combatants. They were just meant to make cadets feel like they were in a live-fire situation. Avoiding a fleeing passenger liner, Carl swung through the interior of the ring-shaped station. Checking his radar, he saw that the three remaining members of Viper Squadron were closing in, spread wide to take up multiple firing angles.
As soon as he broke line-of-sight with them, Carl switched off the flight assist again and spun his typhoon.
Stop doing that!
Tanny looped around in a standard turn, but didn’t have her guns around by the time Carl opened fire on the first of the Vipers to emerge from behind the station’s bulk. Using his vertical thrusters and pitching downward simultaneously, he maneuvered his craft to keep its aim on the Vipers while backing out of the path of their turn to intercept him. One exploded in a hail of withering fire from Carl’s cannons, but the other two changed tactics and focused their fire on Tanny. Her long, looping turn had left her exposed with nothing but her shields between her and the two Vipers. Twisting and rolling, she tried to keep them off target, but she was blasted out of space.
Carl found himself alone against two opponents. He breathed a sigh of relief, careful not to have his comm open. With a growing grin, he fired his directional thrusters and looped around to give chase.
There was any number of ways that flight school cadets would react to unexpectedly finding themselves on the defensive. Carl had seen them all. The ones destined to wash out just panicked and froze. Others would scatter for cover, which was always a low-percentage play in deep space; not many real battles would take place in congested regions like the simulator. The good ones regrouped with their squadron and adapted to the flow of the fight. Carl had found a pair that wanted to go out in a blaze of glory; they both turned to fix their plasma cannons on his typhoon.
Carl turned on his comm and laughed out loud. He knew they couldn’t hear him inside their simulator cockpits, but he taunted them anyway. “You lunar ferrymen couldn’t hit your own mouths with a toothbrush. What are you even aiming at? Are you trying to blow up the station or me?”
Frontier Station Bravo had innumerable contours, from sensor arrays to small ship docking arms, gun ports to reactor nacelles. Carl knew them all as if he had built the place with his own two hands—not that it actually ever existed. He wove his way along the surface of the station with his ship’s momentum carrying him along backward, firing his guns at the pursuing Vipers and his thrusters to keep from crashing. It was a failing grade in any simulator run to splatter on an inanimate target, so he had always loved challenging cadets to chase him through the hazardous region.
“If you haven’t already, can someone please set the display area to a quarter kilometer? You’ll get to see what I’m flying through up here.”
Carl spun around forward and pulled up, leaving the vicinity of the station and re-entering the traffic flow. The two Vipers were keeping a cautious pursuit, wary of Carl’s free-form flying and reverse angling of his guns. He slowed to allow them to close the distance, and plowed head-on into the line of ships headed for the station. In his imagination, the two enemy pilots were swearing up a storm in their cockpits, and were probably to the point of blaming one another for their inability to finish off the lone survivor of Blue Squadron.
There was a point in the simulation coming up that was meant to test cadet reactions to unexpected turns of events. There was a corvette in the middle of the convoy that was supposed to get frustrated at the slower ships blocking its way to safe harbor. Carl angled his ship right into the impending path of the corvette, and … he passed through as the corvette veered … now. One of the two Vipers slammed into the corvette as its pilot swerved from the orderly line of fleeing ships. The trailing enemy ship flew through the debris field and right into Carl’s gun sights as he spun again and hammered a full five volleys into the Viper ship before its pilot could bring its own guns to bear.
The simulator went quiet, and a humble “VICTOR” appeared on the heads-up display.
Carl tossed the reeking helm on the back of the seat and hopped out of the simulator as all the cockpit canopies opened in unison. Mriy was busily unmussing the fur around her ears. Tanny had the disapproving-but-unable-to-form-a-legitimate-complaint scowl that she’d had during most of their time as husband and wife. Adam looked up at him in awe. The Viper Squadron, across the diner, was less diverse in their opinion of Carl’s flying.
“You filthy cheating ass!” one of them shouted. The three pilots storming across the establishment in the walking equivalent of squadron formation appeared to share his view. “There’s no way a typhoon handles like that.” He turned to the referee. “I want him disqualified.”
Carl was a rich man now—at least by his personal standards. He was in a jovial mood and more than willing to rev up a hotheaded loser. “Funny, none of my wingmen think I can set a chrono by myself.”
“You had a collision avoidance hack, auto-hit targeting, and I’m pretty sure decoupling the maneuvering thrusters isn’t allowed in combat.”
“You’re just sore because you’re used to picking off tourists and freighter jockeys,” Carl replied. “I bet you’ve played dozens of battles in that thing. You learn the tricks of each simulated combat zone, and take advantage of pilots who don’t know any better.”
“Dozens?” the Viper leader scoffed. “Try hundreds of hours logged in these things. There’s not a pilot on Delos with more flight time in a typhoon simulator.”
Carl smirked. “I’ve never set foot in a Typhoon III simulator before today.”
“Bullshit.”
Tanny slid up beside him. “Are you looking to start a fight here?” she asked Carl. “If so, you can fight it yourself.”
He looked to Mriy for backup. She yawned and looked away. There was always Mort, but admitting he’d brought a wizard with him was as good as admitting that he was a cheat. Carl held up his hands in mock surrender.
“Fine, you got me,” he said. “I’ve never flown a Typhoon III, but I have seventy-two confirmed kills in my old Typhoon IV, plus another few thousand hours teaching advanced techniques to cadets on a Typhoon IV simulator. Only differences between it and this one here are about five percent more thruster power, an updated targeting computer, and the Naval Academy’s simulators didn’t smell like barbecue sauce.”
“You think you’re some hot shit, liar?”
“Love to stay and chat, boys, but I don’t care if you believe me or not.”
“Ref, who’d this guy sign in as?” the Viper leader asked.
The refe
ree consulted his datapad. “Says here: Manfred von Richthofen.”
Carl fell in with the rest of the Mobius crew and headed for the exit. “I’ll save you the trouble. That’s not my real name,” he called over his shoulder.
“Ooh, you lit a fire under that rube,” Roddy said. “He’s gonna be bitching to all his friends on the waste reclaim freighter that he got robbed.”
“Speaking of robbed, Mort, how’d we do?”
Mort cleared his throat, but said nothing.
“How much did we make?” Carl pressed. “What kind of odds did you get on us? We must have been at least ten-to-one underdogs.”
Mort patted him on the shoulder. “Let it go.”
Carl stopped in his tracks. The rest of the crew kept walking. “You didn’t place the bet.”
They stopped. “Tanny caught my eye, reminded me about our little talk.”
“You know you shouldn’t be gambling,” Tanny said, using her wife scold. “And you were planning to bet our shares from the last haul?”
“It was a sure thing,” said Carl.
Roddy gave him a friendly swat in the chest. “I believe in you, buddy. If it’d been up to me, I’d have let Mort bet our hard-coin on that game.” He took a swig from a glass mug of Earth’s Preferred that he had smuggled out of Duster’s.
“Come on,” said Tanny, “We’ve got somewhere to get. Somewhere with real money in it.”
Esper gave Carl a pitying look, and he knew he was on his own. It was time to be responsible and go bring Adam home.
# # #
The Mobius drifted through space, on their way to the edge of the Delos system. Of course, drifting was relative. Looking out a window, there was no sense of proper scale, nothing like the blood-pumping speed of the combat simulator. In actuality, the Mobius was traveling a thousand times the speed of the digital Typhoons that Carl and the other pilots had flown.
Carl reclined with his feet up on the common room couch, a bacon bar in one hand, datapad in the other. Roddy and Adam were watching an animated holovid comedy, but Carl was fixated on researching Berring LX-4 transports, trying to figure out who might be interested in buying surplus escape pods. He had hardly spoken a word to Tanny since lifting off from New Melbourne and had said even less to Mort. His pockets hurt just looking at either of them.