by Aer-ki Jyr
Dan and Brian drifted to the left in response, Jack to the right, but the incoming helicopter gunships didn’t alter their straight-line trajectory towards the convoy.
“Ok…” Randy commented. “That’s new.”
Paul glanced down at his navigational display, seeing his fellow skeets as small blue dots and the approaching VTOLS as red squares just as a yellow blip appeared between them…then two more.
“Missile turret!” Paul yelled as he accelerated to full speed and dipped low to the ground and dropped into one of the canyons.
The missile tracking him lost contact and continued on a straight trajectory trying to reacquire the signal, passing 100 meters over his head as he hovered up against a steep rock wall. Twelve seconds later it ran out of fuel and fell from the sky.
“Report!” he asked as he rose up out of his hover and started getting some lateral speed down the canyon before he popped back up into view.
“Turret down,” Jason reported. “Randy got it, but the VTOLs are on top of us.”
“Copy that,” Paul said, seeing the red squares reappear as he cleared the top of the canyon wall. They were broken up and moving about like a swarm of bees along with the now five blue dots…one of which winked out.
“Dan’s down,” Brian reported. “They’ve got seekers.”
“Damn it,” Paul swore in a whisper as he approached the aerial brawl. The skeets were maneuverable enough to avoid the straight firing missiles, but the ones that could home in on the target were hard to evade.
“You want help?” Megan asked.
“No, stay put,” Jason immediately responded. “We’ve got this,” he said, firing on one of the VTOLs from the flank as it fired a pair of missiles at Jack. The rear rotor disintegrated and the gunship fell in a chaotic spiral from the sky.
Jack pulled up immediately, then just as the missiles redirected he slapped his skeet back down hard, causing the missiles to overshoot by a handful of meters…but after they passed by they arced around in a long curve and continued to pursue him, catching up rapidly.
Now behind him, he knew he didn’t have a chance of causing them to overshoot again, so he accelerated hard towards the nearest VTOL, fired one shot at it, then flew underneath it as close as he could, causing one of the pursuing missiles to hit the friendly target.
The other missile missed and hit Jack’s skeet in the tail, blowing it into simulated bits and causing him to careen out of the sky, but before he hit the ground he managed to kick up his vertical thrust and partially null out the list. Limping heavily, his skeet wobbled its way down into a canyon and disappeared from the rest of the 2s’ scanners.
Sitting in a slow moving hover near the convoy, Emily’s sensor board suddenly lit up with two additional contacts far from the combat and directly ahead of the convoy.
“There,” she said, feeling vindicated at having resisted the urge to fly out and help her teammates. “Two VTOLs.”
“And tanks,” Kip noted as four small triangles appeared on the road ahead, about 3 kilometers up the road from the convoy, coming out of a hidden base just prior to the LZ they were heading to.
“Kip, take the tanks,” Megan said, already accelerating ahead of the convoy. “Emily, Ivan…you’re with me. Get those choppers before they get within firing range.”
“Lefty first,” Emily said, quickly closing on the not so far off targets, which immediately sprouted missile plumes.
Ivan went to the deck, ducking down into the safety of the terrain while Emily peeled off to the left and ran along the ridgeline, pulling the missiles her way momentarily before ducking down as well, leaving Megan with a free run at the VTOLs. She fired both shots into the left chopper, downing its lightly armored bulk with a pyre of smoke pouring from its slagged engine compartment.
Ivan popped back up into view, much closer than where he’d disappeared, and shot the second VTOL, hitting it twice in the bow, knocking out one of its missile launches, but not taking it out of the fight. Emily took care of that a moment later, then got her hull clipped by a shower of tungsten shrapnel from the hidden base.
“Turret!” she announced, still flight worthy but with a reduction in electrical power. The shrapnel must have hit one of her 3 power cells.
“I’m on it,” Ivan said, heading that direction along with Megan.
“Tanks first,” Kip reminded them. “They’ve got heavy armor.”
“Right,” Megan said to herself as she reversed course. Only one of the four triangles had disappeared from the display screen.
3
The road through the canyons was partially obscured by rocks and trees, but was open from directly above and Megan could see Kip making another strafing run against the tanks. They returned fire with short range automatic weapons, but otherwise didn’t stand much of a chance against the skeets…if they were careful enough about not getting too close. The tanks were, however, a major threat to the convoy, which was now less than a kilometer away and closing fast.
Megan flew up from behind the tanks, flying over the carcass of the destroyed one and passing by Kip as he finished his strafing run. She held off fire on the rear tank and the middle one, then emptied both laser blasts into the first, hoping to add to the damage Kip had already done.
Smoke filled the air above the first tank, but it did not stop moving as Megan flew past and began a long circle to come around again after her capacitors recharged. It did, however, mark the position of the tanks with a black plume coming up out of the trees, making it easy for Ivan and Emily to see where they were without having to rely on the intermittent sensor screen.
Ivan raced forward and finished off the first tank, delaying the others as they had to move around and/or dislodge it to get past. Emily, on reduced power, flew up slowly from behind and shot the rear tank, daring it to turn around. Its machine gun turret swiveled about slowly, forcing Emily to fly off over the trees before she could fire a second salvo.
Her first shots had melted through the armor on impact, but only a hole the size of a fingernail, exploding out some of the surrounding armor but not hitting anything vital inside. Trouble was, with an impact point so small, it was virtually impossible to retarget the same hole, and thankfully the skeets’ lasers were powerful enough to penetrate on one shot, else the tanks would have been next to impregnable.
“Anyone know where the best place is to shoot these things?” Megan asked, not all that familiar with the interior design.
“Go for the treads,” Kip responded. “Easiest way to slow them down.”
Megan took his suggestion and aimed for the port side of the frontmost tank on her next pass. Her first shot hit the armor plating, melted through, and did a small amount of damage to the rotating metallic treads beneath. Her second shot did better a few meters aft, suddenly causing the tank to seize up and twist to the side.
“Good advice,” she said, thanking Kip, “but we’re out of time. The convoy is almost in range.”
“Tell them to hold up,” Ivan suggested, shooting the first tank in the ‘head’ as the second one passed it by.
“They won’t do that,” Megan complained. “Once in motion the convoy doesn’t stop until the next waypoint.”
“They would if this were real,” Ivan argued. “They’re just being stubborn.”
“And we’re about to lose,” Emily reminded them, shooting the back tread of the now lead tank, then pulling up out of sight before she literally ran over the second, sitting in place on the road with both its weapons still intact. Machine gun fire followed in her wake.
“Not today,” Jason’s voice interrupted as he and three other skeets flew in from the north and angled around as a group for a strafing run, passing over the lead convoy vehicle just before they fired into the enemy tank. Eight shots went into its armored head, some of which hit the internal magazine. The top of the tank popped off like a child’s toy in the resulting explosion and fell into the trees beside the road.
“One left,” Em
ily reminded them, hovering back into view and firing off a single shot into the aft of the tank with no effect.
Megan and Kip came around and skewered it again, but it wasn’t until Ivan’s pass that the last of the small triangles winked out. Thirty seconds later the convoy snaked its way into view and skirted around the edge of the smoking hulk.
“Did someone say something about a turret?” Paul asked.
“Up ahead, tucked into the terrain,” Emily reported. “Hard to see.”
“Randy?” Jason prompted.
“Climbing,” he said, getting back up to his previous aerial perch. “Alright, I’ve got it. Just looks like one this time. Best approach is from the west.”
“ETA?” Paul asked.
“Looks like about 2 minutes,” Megan guessed.
Paul smiled. “Any other targets, Randy?” he asked as the others were already pulling hard towards the west.
“Nothing on the board…the LZ looks clear.”
“Copy that,” Paul said, heading off with the others but gaining some altitude as well so he could keep an eye out for surprises as his team quickly took care of the last threat to the convoy.
A few minutes later the simulation ended and Paul’s cockpit screens went blank blue, indicating a successfully completed challenge. Their scoring stats flashed up in a grid, which he studied for a moment before lifting the top hatch and climbing off the pommel that he’d been riding for the past 45 minutes.
“Ouch,” he muttered, stretching a bit when his feet hit the floor. Dan was waiting for them in the center of the simulation room as the rest of the team climbed out of their individual capsules.
“And?” he asked.
“We won…but our score wasn’t the greatest,” Paul answered.
“I agree,” Jason echoed. “I think we need to try again tomorrow.”
“Should be able to scrape up an extra 100 points if we don’t get sloppy,” Emily added, cracking her neck loudly. “Jack, how did you not go down?”
“Guess you don’t actually need a tail to fly,” he said, walking up to the semi-circle they were forming in the center of the room…typical 2s’ post-challenge debrief. “I kept it off the ground, but couldn’t do much more than float and sputter.”
“That avoided a penalty,” Randy pointed out.
“The 7s were what, 30 points better?” Megan asked.
“34,” Jason answered, “but the 6s haven’t gone yet, and I don’t want to spot them an easy score to match.”
“Tomorrow it is then,” Brian confirmed for everyone, checking his wristwatch. “We’ve still got 35 minutes before training session 2. I’m going to go grab a snack, unless you want to hit the gauntlet run again?”
“I think we’ve had enough seat time today,” Jason admitted, feeling a bit saddle sore. It’d only been two weeks since they’d been introduced to the skeets and their unusual seats, and none of them had quite gotten comfortable with them yet.
“Well, see ya,” Brian said, heading out of the simulation room and to the nearest of the 24 hour cafeterias that served the population of Atlantis, which had been growing steadily with each passing month. At present, the city was about 75% staffed, but the population would more than double when Atlantis went fully online and accessible to the public as Star Force’s primary spaceport, as well as a tourist resort and mid-Pacific transport hub.
Paul and the others broke up, each heading off on their own errands. His morning training session had been spent on hand to hand sparring with Morros, one of the busiest of the martial arts instructors, so Paul headed over to the track to get in his daily run. When he arrived there were eight other trainees already running laps, most of which he never usually crossed paths with. He looked at who was available and sized them up by what he knew of their speed scores, then jumped into the flow running alongside Morgan, who was about dead even with him in the running challenges.
“Hey,” she greeted him as he fell into step outside her as they moved into the first turn. “Congrats on breaking into the top 10.”
“Thanks…what are you set at?”
“7:15…I’ve only got three laps left. Don’t usually see you down here at this hour?”
“Darth Mo has a busy schedule. I had to skip my morning run,” Paul said, keeping on Morgan’s shoulder and subconsciously trying to avoid stepping on the green running lights moving along the lane 1 boundary lines, visually marking where she should be on the track to maintain the desired pace. The moving square lights were buried in the track with nothing above the surface to trip on, but for some reason Paul didn’t like stepping on the continuously moving dot.
“Your challenge scores in that area are solid,” she said with a note of approval. “Are you going specialist or trying to scrape up a few more points?”
“I’m just tired of getting my ass kicked by the Black Knight. Don’t worry, your points lead is safe from me,” he said with a joking smile.
“At least until you learn to swim,” she argued, not entirely kidding. Had his free swimming scores even been average, his overall rank would have easily been in the top 3.
“Don’t hold your breath,” Paul said with the intentional pun as they swung out into lanes 2 and 3 to pass by Sam who was following his own pair of blue light markers, set probably at 8:00 pace if Paul had to guess.
“Where did you just come from?” Morgan asked, her short ponytail whipping back and forth with each step.
“Simulator room. We finished up a few minutes early.”
“Have you heard the news?”
“What news?” Paul asked, frowning.
“I’ll take that as a no…they just announced an hour ago that all the naval challenge scores are going to be nullified and we’re going to have to start over again.”
“No, I hadn’t heard that. I don’t like them reneging on the points but it’s about time they did something. Did they give any specifics?”
“Yeah, there’s a brief posted. Looks like they’re going to give us access to the sims so we can design our own ships to meet mission requirements.”
“Really…did they give any examples?”
“They gave the rundown on the first team challenge, V-4A. It’s a recreation of the Naboo blockade. We have to figure out how to lay siege to a single surface city from orbit.”
Paul’s curiosity immediately perked up. “Now that sounds better. Anything about the individual challenges?”
“Not yet. They said they’d have more info within the week, but we’re scheduled to start the team challenge on Thursday.”
Paul sensed a hint of concern in her voice. “You worried?”
“If it’s fair, no…but my confidence in their workmanship is lacking at the moment.”
“If they’re resetting the points, how does that affect your total?”
“Negligible,” she said, allaying his own rising concerns. “We all got nearly perfect scores so no real points gain or loss should occur.”
“So what’s eating you?”
Morgan glanced over at him, surprised that she was letting it show as much as his ability to pick up on her mood. Her 6s teammates knew her well, but the others not so much. “I don’t like them changing things up as we go along. Makes me feel like they don’t know what they’re doing.”
“They don’t,” Paul declared as if it was common knowledge, which in the case of the naval challenges it was.
“They did until recently…either that or they hid it really well.”
“With our help they’ll get it sorted out sooner or later,” Paul assured her.
“That’s just it, they shouldn’t need our help. They’re supposed to be training us, not the other way around.”
“Why is that a problem for you? I mean, besides the obvious.”
“It makes me wonder if what we’re doing is important or just playing games. Until recently I’ve believed that each challenge we’ve faced had a purpose behind it, but when the naval challenges started it all started to feel wrong.”
“Just the naval, or are there others too?”
“No, just the naval, but it makes me wonder about the wisdom in the design of the others.”
“Gamer/designer issue?”
“Exactly.”
Paul considered that for a moment and didn’t respond until they completed the homestretch. “I suppose the problem might lie in the fact that we’ve…by we I mean Earth…have never fought in space. They have no reference material or experts to call on, so we probably know as much as they do.”
“You’d think the V’kit’no’sat knew a thing or two about it,” Morgan differed.
“True dat,” Paul said colorfully, figuring the Aussie wouldn’t catch the reference. “But until they give us records access or cover it in class we have no way of knowing what’s really buried under the ice.”
“I wish they’d let us inside,” Morgan complained. “Even if it was just for a day or two.”
“Same here,” Paul said as they approached the finish line for the second time.
“Last lap for me…you want to keep the pacer?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“All yours,” she said, accelerating into a hard run when her foot hit the line and easily pulling away from Paul. He watched her accelerate again on the backstretch 100 meters later, then again at 200 meters before finally reaching a full sprint over the last quarter of the lap. She coasted past the line, arcing around to the right and slowing down to a walk, leaving the track before Paul even caught up to her.
The pair of green lights flanking Paul eased ahead of him a few centimeters as he came into the first turn, prompting him to accelerate slightly to catch back up. 7:15 mile pace was a challenge for Paul, given that his normal cruising speed was 7:30, but at the moment he was feeling good and decided to stick it out for the remaining 22 laps of his 10k with him being the fastest trainee on the track now that Morgan was gone.
Ego aside, he always seemed to have a little more energy available whenever he was the top dog, and he certainly didn’t mind showing off a bit when it resulted in a better workout.