Star Nova Online

by Noah Barnett

  "You're going to be leaking air constantly," he muttered, almost to himself.

  "Is there a way to shut off the pump?"

  "Not completely. Your exhaled breath is sent into the cabin, then recycled." He thought for a moment, before adding, "The pilot can isolate your feeds, but you'll still have air loss."

  "How much?"

  He shrugged. "Half as much time, more or less."

  "If we win, Elva can pilot the fighter back. If we lose, I'll be dead before the four hours are up anyway," Charlie said, pulling the canopy over to them. Ramirez didn't look happy as he connected the wires together, but they quickly replaced the bolts and the canopy slid into place, sans the gasket.

  "By the way, what did you mean by zero-sum techie?"

  Ramirez flinched as if struck. "Not everyone gets full access to the databases. There aren’t enough resources for that, so some NPCs sort of fly on autopilot. It’s not a big deal most of the time and I shouldn’t have said that."

  "Is that fighter ready yet?" a hard female voice asked from below. The technician came to attention again, slapping his forehead with the ratchet.

  "Ow! Err— Yes, ma'am," he said, rubbing the red spot.

  "Good, help them with the next set of planes. We're moving the command wing into launch position," she ordered, before storming off into the chaos. Ramirez gave him a small, sloppy salute and a wry smile before jumping down from the fighter and following.

  "You stupid fucks, are you trying to kill us all?! Disconnect the fuel lines before you move the fighter!" he bellowed, dashing toward the hangar bay workers. Six men, flushed with embarrassment, leapt toward the fighter to disconnect the fuel and air, then rushed over to plug them into Charlie’s Jaguar.

  Charlie shook his head, climbing into the gunner’s seat. His canopy slid closed, though without the reassuring hiss from the pressure seal, and he settled the helmet over his head. An orange cart raced toward the fighter to connect to the frame, just barely waiting for the lines to be pulled free before dragging the craft toward the launcher.

  He settled nervously back in the seat, pulling the helmet over his head, and their five ships rolled toward the launch tubes.

  The hangar bay went into overdrive as carts zipped past in the chaos. Tobias’s fighter slid into the slot next to Charlie’s and he turned to see the big man giving him a thumbs up through the canopy.

  "Charlie, can I tell you something?" The hesitance in Elva’s voice made him turn to look at her through the glass separating them.

  "What's that?"

  "My stomach is doing little flips and I feel like throwing up lunch."

  "That's fear, baby, and we all experience it," he said into the comm. "You've faced everything with me so far. Now, let's make those aliens regret coming here."

  Yellow lights around the hangar flashed on and all the workers rushed into a pair of side airlocks. The air was sucked into the holding tanks and the flashing bulbs turned red, vestiges of oxygen condensing along the edge of Charlie's canopy before freezing into ice crystals. His gray flight suit responded by tightening down on the cuffs and collar, and the same tired-looking woman from before appeared in a small window.

  "Misfit One, this is Command. Your fighter code is nine-nine-one-two."

  Seconds later, Elva activated the engine and it roared to life. Charlie reached over and flicked on the command and loadout consoles, green text scrolling down both before they settled down. There was a loud warning and an orange outline circled the gunner's canopy, so Charlie tapped it a few times to silence the console. He navigated the HUD menu until he had the rest of his wing on closed comms.

  "This doesn't seem very efficient," Jen commented.

  "They have multiple bays and I'm sure they never expected to fight aliens. The base was made for space superiority over Earth. Anyone coming out of the atmosphere would have been seen in advance," he said, toggling his command console into two screens. The first showed his full force, while the other would allow him to plan his strategy.

  He glanced over at the four arrow-shaped Jaguars that made up his wing. He had to admit, they did look pretty badass under the bright lights of the hangar bay.

  "Misfit One, you will be launching in ten seconds."

  Charlie only half-listened to the woman as he continued to watch the air pressure in his cabin slowly drop.

  "Three… two… one," she finished, and he was knocked back into his seat. The tunnel swallowed the Jaguar and they rocketed down the passage at close to Mach One. The black square of space grew in size until they were fired out into the vacuum like a cannonball.

  The five Jaguars coasted in a loose formation and Charlie was greeted with the sight of the sun coming up over the moon’s horizon. Dark shadows covered the ground, filling the many craters like pools of black ink. The bleak, beautiful lunar landscape rushed past for another few seconds before Elva aimed the fighter upward and the darkened craters gave way to a brilliant view of the stars. As he looked up at the night sky, he felt almost like a boy again.

  "Come to heading one-five-five by three-six by three and vector toward Earth at twenty percent thrust," a voice instructed over the comms. Elva slowly rolled the craft over and his wing lined up on his Jaguar in a loose diamond formation. More and more fighters were being ejected from the small craters, each wing rising into space to slide into a ragged line.

  Slowly, over the course of an hour, all twelve hundred fighters assembled on the same vector. Their engines roared to full power, their speed beginning to climb. Charlie glanced at his readout, which was racing past .1c. While they burned towards Earth, a window opened on the HUD, Commander Blake's wrinkled face appearing, and spoke without preamble.

  "I have no fancy speeches today. You’ve all worked hard, and by now you know what to expect from the coming battle. Unlike the training scenarios, you will have to wait while your fighters travel to their destinations. It will take roughly four hours, so you can log off during that time; your clone will still be traveling while you're offline. Just be back before the battle. Once the flight closes in on the Roth, individual formation orders will be issued."

  He paused before continuing.

  "There is one more thing. Anyone who survives the battle with their Jaguar intact will keep that fighter after release, but only if they also join the Terran race." He closed the window, a second one immediately replacing the first on Charlie's HUD. He felt the old man looking directly at him and straightened in his seat.

  "May I ask what your plan is?" Blake's voice was gravelly from lack of sleep and exhaustion. Charlie had formulated several options, but his information on the Roth was still sketchy.

  "I was going to use three staggered lines again and put the highest-rated flights in reserve," he admitted, and the Commander nodded slowly. He looked off to the side for a second, then back at Charlie.

  "Very well. The fate of humanity is in your hands," he said, before terminating the connection.

  "No pressure or anything," Charlie muttered.

  He waited for what felt like an interminable amount of time, wondering how real fighter pilots did this. His gunner's seat was cramped, and aside from the navigation screen there wasn’t any way to mark the ship’s progress. No feeling of wind, nor sight of the ground rushing below. The only thing that visibly changed was the blue marble of Earth, growing in size at a snail’s pace.

  Finally, they slid past their home planet at a small fraction of light speed, America looking like nothing more than a green and brown blur. The fighter turned once more as Elva pointed them out toward a point in space.

  The next two hours dragged on like molasses, but the delay did give him time to work on the plan. He had twelve flights of Jaguars to use in battle, so he decided to keep things simple. The first engagement would set the pace for the rest of the fight and dictate when he needed to push in reinforcements.

  He sent five groups ahead as a screening force in order to stop the Roth from advancing further. After that, four fligh
ts would stage five minutes behind the front line. The last three would be a reserve group consisting of their best pilots. When things got dicey towards the end, he could send them in to turn the tide. He himself would sit back with the reinforcements and watch the battle from a few minutes out.

  Soon, the formation turned and began a slow, long arc towards the Roth. They would never quite reach zero relative velocity; instead, Earth's gravity would do the work of bringing them onto the Roth's vector.

  Charlie glanced at the display before accepting his plan and the small green icons began to spread out as the orders were relayed via the onboard computer. More time passed as they merged onto the predicted enemy vector, a wave of information rippling back toward him from the advancing line of fighters.

  Almost a thousand Roth began to speckle the long range radar. He’d seen worse odds, but his first line was at a two-to-one disadvantage. The ball of enemy fighters slammed into his first formation, and he smiled upon seeing the results of the initial pass. Huge chunks had been taken out of the human formation, but in doing so the Roth lost most of their force.

  The neat line disappeared as the humans merged with the Roth. The actual battle was far enough away that he couldn’t even see the flashes of laser fire, though the command console continued to update as fighters were damaged or destroyed. Humanity was losing ships, but not nearly as fast as the Roth were.

  A sprinkling of new contacts appeared on his long-range plot. The next wave would be here in minutes, and it too was a thousand fighters strong. Charlie selected his second line, pushing them forward and sending them curving around the current battle to run straight into the next wave of enemy ships. Four hundred fresh fighters streaked toward the Roth, plunging into the chaos.

  He chewed his lip as he watched the two separate battles unfolding. The first defensive line was slowly cleaning up the Roth, while his second line struggled with the new wave. He wanted to keep up the momentum, but he worried that the second force was getting bogged down. After a moment’s consideration, he selected half of the Jaguars in the first wave, ordering them to push into the second battle.

  The second wave of Roth was more skilled than the first, but even so, humanity's missile advantage was keeping them at parity. Charlie swallowed hard as more and more fighters blossomed crimson and winked out. Finally, he sent the surviving first wave forward as soon as they finished their battle.

  Up until now, he'd been content to let things play out, but a new force suddenly appeared on the fringes of his radar. The final wave of enemy icons forced his hand. They were accompanied by a massive, unknown object, which had to be the Roth Super Carrier. At this range, he could see that it was more than three kilometers long, its stern facing the moon as it decelerated.

  Seconds passed as details continued to fill in, and Charlie finally understood how the Roth had managed to field so many fighters. The thing was a floating fortress. The alien fighters looked like a cloud of fruit flies next to it.

  Charlie swore under his breath. Both the first and second lines would be low on missiles and it was taking longer to secure kills. The battle continued to rage in a flurry of bullets and lasers as he committed his final ships.

  He tapped at the command console, selecting his reserve groups to push them into the fray. Elva turned and plunged the fighter toward the battle lines, the rest of the Misfits following on his tail. He armed one of his IR Wasps but didn't bother targeting anything right away. Instead, he focused on the carrier, considering their next move.

  As it closed in, his sensors slowly began picking out new targets. The dropships, which had been absent until now, were hiding in the shadow of the massive carrier. It looked like there were thirty-four of them, their primary targets, if they could only get into range. Without them, the Roth would be unable to land troops or shuttle supplies to their ship.

  "Watch your six, Charlie," Jen called, and he was thrown back into his seat as the fighter jerked left, a laser sliding past their belly.

  "On him."

  He spun the turret just in time to catch sight of his tail, the red dot weaving back and forth erratically. Jen's first missile missed the nimble craft, but the second one slid right up its backside.

  He targeted another Roth, turning to face the enemy ship head-on. The craft was weaving, but it was headed away from him, so he sent the heat-seeking Wasp after it before turning to scan the battlefield again. He couldn't afford to fixate on shooting down Interceptors.

  His worry, however, had been misplaced. With the fresh fighters entering the battle, the Roth were dying again. They had gotten sloppy after the first wave of ships had run out of missiles. Out of habit, he selected another Wasp, but turned first to his command console to check the status of his troops.

  He had roughly eight flights out of twelve hundred left and less than half of those had missiles left. The odds looked good except for the addition of the capital ship. He quickly rearranged the damaged Jaguars into a box formation, putting his most capable ships in the middle, then activated the command channel to the entire force.

  "All wings, good job, but we still have a big nut to crack. Reorganize your formation and converge on the carrier."

  As the Jaguars descended toward the carrier, the Roth fighters surged on his scanner like a school of piranhas. The thousand Interceptors cut in across one corner of his force, several flights turning to chase after them.

  The human formation continued to descend on the capital ship, and as they did, the Roth wheeled about to come at them again. Charlie gritted his teeth as another forty fighters were destroyed, the enemy fighters continuing past them in a long turn. His formation—minus two corners—continued to drop toward the Roth carrier, but he feared this was a lost cause. Half of his force was gone and they hadn't so much as scratched the enemy warship.

  Then his radar caught sight of the dropship formation hiding just behind the capital ship, and he was reminded—it wasn’t the carrier they needed to destroy.

  He opened a comm channel. "All fighters except Wings Eight and Nine are to close on the dropships with ballistic weapons."

  The carrier grew in size as they approached, point-defense lasers beginning to lick out from the vessel. The human formation closed on the dropships, which attempted to hide behind the mothership in order to use it as cover; one daring pilot even trying to skim across the carrier's path. The capital ship, however, shifted slightly, and while the Jaguar left a long black smear, there was no other perceivable damage.

  Charlie selected a random dropship near the bottom of the list. It was burning hard after the others, and as it dropped below the belly of the carrier Elva twisted the Jaguar, pushing the engines hard in order to catch up.

  He rotated the turret until his crosshairs hovered over the ghostly ring, but he'd just barely started to fire when Elva twisted the craft away. A Roth fighter zipped past them, so he highlighted it and sent the missile screaming after it instead.

  His Wasp raced after the craft, but it ducked around the side of the carrier and the missile slammed into the armored plate, leaving a small, blackened hole in the armor. The Roth fighters were mixing in with the dropships, making it difficult to differentiate between the two on his screen. He tried targeting another dropship, but it was quickly lost among the red icons.

  Okay then, if he couldn't get a shot at the dropships, he'd take a few swings at the carrier.

  "Elva, I'm switching to Needles. Target one of the carrier's weapons emplacements."

  He reached over, tapping the missile selection, then rotated the turret back to center as both Needles activated. Elva dodged two more lasers, spinning the craft past a long antenna array. The crosshairs slid over an emplacement and he managed to squeeze the trigger just as Elva flipped the fighter to dodge the laser-point defense batteries firing on them.

  The near-miss boiled the black paint away from the side of the Jaguar as Charlie tracked the missiles with his turret. The first one slammed into a protruding armor plate, but
the second hit home, striking a weapons emplacement and sinking into the laser blister. Something inside exploded and Charlie pumped his fist at the small victory, but he knew there was no chance he had enough weapons on his own to destroy the behemoth.

  He flicked open a fleet-wide message. "Do we have any fighters with size-two missiles or greater?”

  "Aye, sir!" a female voice called back. He selected the flashing icon and the team leader for Wing Eleven appeared on his HUD, her rainbow-colored hair just visible through the clear faceplate.

  "Are you close enough to make a run on the carrier?"

  He could hear the frustration clear in her voice. "I’ve lost most of my wingmates trying to do exactly that. It’s a right hornets nest, between the AA guns and the extra fighters. I need some protection."

  "Roger. We’ll carry you in."

  Elva must have been listening in because the fighter suddenly spun hard toward two friendly fighters. Charlie opened the comm to his own wingmates.