by Robert McKay
"Yes, Lieutenant!"
"Now clear the hell out of here so that I can enjoy the rest of my lunch and not have to fill out the paperwork required to lock your asses up in the brig!"
To their credit, the airmen grabbed their lunches off the table and dumped their mostly-full trays without hesitation on the way out of the mess.
Beatrix stalked back to her seat and sat down before her body began to tremble. The adrenaline of her righteous anger had burned off and left her as weak as a kitten. People were still watching, so she kept her eyes up and ate her mashed potatoes methodically, barely tasting them.
"Damn, rookie, putting the grunts in their place already?" asked a blond man taking the seat across from her, most of his food already gone. "I like it. Gotta keep them in line or they'll think they own the place."
Beatrix surreptitiously eyed the stripes on his jacket and found them to be the same as hers. A lieutenant. Someone she didn't feel the need to pretend around. "It was stupid. I have no idea if I even had the authority to do what I just threatened them with. If they go to their commanding officers—"
"They'll be scrubbing out toilets with their own toothbrushes. They got off light and they know it. I doubt you could have gotten them tossed in the brig, but they don't know that. The name's Luther, by the way," he said, holding his hand out for her to shake.
"His name's Torch," said one of the others. "I didn't even know his real name until now."
Beatrix took his hand and shook it firmly, smiling automatically at the energy he exuded. His accent made his consonants soft and his vowels elongated. She liked him immediately. "Beatrix."
"Bea. That's quite fitting, considering the sting you just gave those airmen. I think we just found your call sign."
"Bee doesn't seem like much of a call sign," said Beatrix doubtfully. "Doesn't exactly strike fear in the hearts of men."
"Not Bee, silly, Sting!" Luther gestured to a few guys a couple of tables over and they all joined them at Beatrix's table. "Everybody, I think I just figured out the rook's call sign. Her name is Beatrix, and after the sore asses she just gave those grunts, I have dubbed her Sting. What say you?"
A chorus of agreement went up all around and brought the group to their feet. The silliness of the pun on her name reminded Beatrix of her father and grief washed over her briefly. The clapping and hooting of Luther and his friends helped her to push it aside quickly enough. She even managed to smile when they finally sat down to catch their breath. "Alright, I guess it's decided. I shall be called Sting," she said, taking on a tone of mock authority.
CHAPTER FOUR
Two Years Later
Beatrix was jarred from a sound sleep by the siren blaring just outside her bunk. She sat up so quickly that she tore the page of the book she fell asleep on. She winced. It was an expensive text on the biology of the Colarians. The diagram showing the layout of their internal organs—very similar to that of a human with the addition of a second heart—was washed in the ruddy light. She glanced sleepily over at her bed and the small shelf above it. On it sat a battered horror novel with a bookmark three-quarters of the way through it. Next to it was a metal urn that still confused Beatrix. How could a whole person be put inside something so small? She knew the science of it, of course, yet her mind still rebelled at the idea that all that was left of such a vital person as her father fit into something the size of a loaf of bread.
The siren continued to blare, but her sleep-deprived mind wrote it off as unimportant. Her gaze turned back to the book. It sat there as if mocking her. It was the book she had been reading when the Colarian murdered her father. One day, when she finished her vengeance, she would finish that book. Until then, she had promised she would do nothing, read nothing, that didn't further her goal of avenging her father. Tears welled up in her eyes and that was enough to finally bring her out of her sleep-dazed state.
The red light and siren. They were under attack.
Sleepiness was washed away on a tide of adrenaline. She threw on her boots and clomped down to the flight deck, only pausing to tie them when she nearly fell down a flight of metal stairs. The Harbinger was a heavily equipped warship, capable of handling itself in most cases, even without the aid of the six Flights of Talons on board. A red alert was standard procedure for any battle situation, and therefore nothing to be overly concerned about. If it was just a small raiding party they might not even bother deploying the Flights. Beatrix felt bad for hoping it was a larger scale attack so that she could get out there and do some shooting.
Searching through her pockets, she found a black elastic band and tied her dark brown hair back at the nape of her neck. It was already longer than she usually allowed it to get. Having to tie it back irritated her. Having it rub her neck when she put on her flight suit was worse though.
The last locker room in the hall before she entered the flight deck was buzzing with activity. Most of her Flight was there, in various states of undress. It was the middle of the night, so a good many of them were stripping out of bed clothes to put on the typical tank top and light cloth pants that were worn under flight suits. She smiled at all the nudity, now only slightly embarrassed. Her first trip into the unisex locker room had been quite a trial. It was a learning experience. Every bit of space on a warship was utilized, as Torch told her quite a bit later. There just wasn't room for modesty. She didn't know until that day that it was possible to blush with your whole upper body. The Flight that day was torn between teasing her and expressing concern that she had some sort of rash.
Beatrix was already wearing her flight clothes, not having changed out of them before she fell asleep. She no longer blushed and would have stripped without hesitation had there been a need. Times like this reminded her of how far she had come from being her father's little bookworm, hardly leaving her room. Her adventure stories had given her hope that one day she would leave her country home and explore Nedra and the rest of the galaxy. How many times had she argued with her father that she couldn't get out into the world fast enough?
"Come on, Sting, you still asleep?" asked Hands, pulling Beatrix out of the mire that were her thoughts. "Get your suit on."
"I may be asleep, but you know I'll outshoot you anyway," quipped Beatrix, grabbing her flight suit. The rubbery feel of the material sent a shudder through her body and by the time she had the first leg of her suit on she was completely in the zone.
"You wish," said Hands. "They don't call me Hands for nothing." He waggled his fingers at her provocatively.
"Yeah, from what I hear, you really know how to handle your stick." She made a vulgar motion in front of her crotch. "Must be from all the solo practice."
Hands put his fist over his heart. "Oh, now you wound me."
Despite his "wound" he went back to dressing his tall, muscled frame. As much as she liked to tease him, Hands was just as good as she was, and if she was pushed to say it, she might even say he was better some days. Their rivalry for most kills was known across the Fleet. The only thing that was more hotly debated than who was the better shot was where Hands' call sign had come from. Most people assumed it was because he really did have amazing shooting hands. Beatrix thought it had something to do with the antique pocket watch that he carried with him at all times. Nobody ever got a straight answer from him and nobody knew who gave him the name, not even Torch, his best friend.
Within a few minutes all forty pilots of Flight 1230 were dressed and on the starboard flight deck, waiting for the deckhands to clear them for flight and for Torch to fill them in on the situation. The other five Flights would be doing the same on the main and port flight decks. Beatrix danced lightly back and forth on the balls of her feet, unable to contain her nervous energy. She was only ever nervous while she was waiting on the deck. Once she was in her Talon, nothing could stop her. It was like an extension of her own body. The controls were just as familiar to her as the freckles on the back of her hand. The inside of her Talon was the closest thing she had left to
a home. Much more than her bunk, or anywhere back on the whole planet of Nedra. It made sense. She logged way more flight time than she did anything else.
"Captain on deck," someone shouted, and the Flight snapped to attention.
Torch was worried. It wouldn't be apparent to anyone other than Beatrix and Hands. They shared a look. Hands rubbed his upper lip, signaling that he saw it too. Torch curled his upper lip when he was nervous. To most people it looked like a snarl. He did tend to bite off more than a few heads to cover how he felt. Always appearing calm was one of the many things that made him a great Captain.
"This is an all hands on deck situation. Every available pilot is to be ready and in line for the launch tubes within fifteen minutes. That does not mean you cut corners. Make sure you hit every item on the pre-flight checklist, even if you have to do it sitting in the launch tube. I don't need you killing yourselves with stupidity, but I do need you out there as quickly as humanly possible. Faster than that would be better.
"Now that I've impressed upon you the need for urgency, let me tell you what you're up against. It appears we have stumbled upon what could only be considered a Colarian invasion fleet. Approaching us are five of the largest ships we have ever seen. Each one of them could land five of the Harbinger on their main flight deck."
Torch continued from there, but Beatrix caught very little of it. She knew that individual assignments would be given once they were out in the air and in formation. All she could focus on was the sheer size of the ships they were talking about. Their ship, the Harbinger, was massive, even by Crown Fleet standards. It housed some five thousand crew members to run and maintain its various systems and weapons complements. It could hold a few hundred Talons, each a single person fighter six meters long. To think of a ship that could hold five of the Harbinger, just on its main flight deck, was mind-boggling. If those ships were packed with Raptors, the Colarian equivalent to the Talon, there could be thousands of them. If that were the case they didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell, and that wasn't even taking into account the battleships themselves. This wasn't a fight they were going to win. They would only be trying to slow them down to give Nedra more time to prepare. Time to prepare for its likely demise.
CHAPTER FIVE
Beatrix hurdled down the launch tube, the black of open space drawing closer at blinding speed. She readied herself for the initial vertigo of being thrust into space where the concepts of up and down had little meaning. Her fellow Talon pilots swarmed around her and formed into their flight formations, each one led by a Captain. Torch was in his position in front of her, and Hands was just to her right.
"Alright everyone, stay tight to Harbinger. We don't stand a chance without her artillery fire. If you venture out too far, you're liable to get hit yourself. Hands, Sting, I want you working the perimeter to keep them from getting through the artillery zone. I want Gadget and Pickle with me circling the main body of the Flight, watching for missiles aimed at Harbinger. The rest of you, keep standard dogfight formation as best you can. Shoot everything that's not a Talon out of the sky. This is going to get damned hairy. Keep an eye out for wreckage. If you get low on ammunition, sound off."
The radio was silent for a moment and Beatrix could imagine Torch running his hand over his face, trying to find the right words of encouragement.
Hands broke the radio silence. "And try not to get your asses shot off!" Beatrix could almost here the wink in his voice.
"Close enough," said Torch, a genuine laugh coloring his tone. "Weapons hot and fire at will."
They didn't have to wait long. The five massive warships were upon them almost immediately. Beatrix glanced at the other Flights visible around the impressive bulk of Harbinger. She could only see the occasional glimpse of a Talon on her far side. The enemy ships were surrounding them, so everyone would get a pretty equal taste of the action. The battleships were staying outside of artillery range, as expected. Strangely, though, they hadn't launched their Raptors before approaching.
"Hold steady," said Torch over the radio. "We lose every advantage we have if we go outside of Harbinger's range before we take care of their Raptors."
Beatrix shook her head at his feigned optimism. She knew he was laughing at himself as soon as he let go of the broadcast button. She didn't buy it, but she was a realist. The majority of the pilots she knew were optimists, feeling like the war was already won in their minds. They just had to do their best and see it through. It was for them that Torch was speaking. If he talked to them like they had a chance, they would believe it and by some miracle, they might survive. As for the pessimists, they were fucked either way. If you went into war with that kind of mindset, nothing would save you. Sooner or later you would find some way to prove yourself right and die horribly.
"I've got dibs on the grey one!" shouted Hands over the radio as he edged up next to Beatrix and gave her his biggest grin.
"They're all grey, you moron," said Beatrix, rolling her eyes.
Then there were the delusional; to them, the war wasn't really happening. They were just out playing a really crazy game of make-believe where anything that wasn't them was a blip inside a computer's hard drive. Nothing could ever harm them. They had as many lives as they could buy game tokens. Or something like that. She was never really sure which one Hands was, but she preferred to call him a silly optimist rather than believing the alternative.
"I called dibs, so I guess the rest of you will have to find something else to shoot at."
There had been a lot of conjecture over the years as to the lack of deviation in the enemy's ships. Every single one of them was a uniform slate grey with no external markings to differentiate them. The Talons were mostly uniform in shape, but they all had a different number on the tail to mark them, making repairs easier to track. There were also slight variations in models. Some older pilots preferred to keep their original Talon as long as command would allow, eschewing the latest technology for absolute familiarity. They firmly believed in the mentality that you don't mess with success. Then there were the paint jobs. Each Flight of Talons was painted differently so that communications channels could be color coded to make inter-Flight communication easier. The dominant color of Beatrix's Flight was blue with little yellow accents on the wings and tail.
The fact that none of the Colarians' ships had any of these things was baffling. It was one of the questions that was always asked in interrogations of the few prisoners Nedra had managed to take over the years. The Colarians never answered. They never answered a single question, even when they watched their fellow captives executed before them. It was clear they understood. Some of them even leaned their head toward the gun that was going to be used to execute them. They just refused to answer.
While the Colarians as a whole were one big series of question marks, they'd been pretty consistent in their methods of battle. They fought hard, fast, and recklessly, with little consideration for self preservation. Not to say that they were stupid. Far from it. They just seemed more than willing to sacrifice themselves to gain small strategic advantages. But this time, Beatrix couldn't puzzle out their play. They were just sitting there.
Beatrix unconsciously started to edge toward them, to be quickly chided by Torch. "Sorry, Cap, this is just too damned eerie," she said. "Why in the hell are they just staring at us?"
As if on queue, the bay doors to the two nearest battleships' flight decks opened. The four ships that heaved out were very different than anything seen before. They didn't so much look like ships as they did strange four-legged animals. They were still uniformly grey, but hanging on the underside of each of the massive ships, easily as large as the Harbinger, were four large arms that bowed out and formed a semicircle. Adding to the animal-like appearance were the huge cables, wires, and hoses wrapped around each arm, resembling muscles and sinews. Flying beside each of the new ships was a full complement of Raptors, but it was hard to even pay them attention. "What the hell are those things? How would they
even land?"
"Focus on the big dogs," said Torch, obviously seeing the same resemblance that Beatrix did. "We know what the Raptors can do. I'm sure those things will be worse. Newer is always worse."
"Except for me," chimed Beatrix, her battle grin sliding into place.
"How many kills do you figure each one of those beasts is worth?" asked Hands.
"One, you greedy son-of-a-bitch," replied Beatrix. "But if we both are tagging it, we'll both get a kill unless the other concedes."
"You two need to stop squabbling over your hypothetical kills and get ready for some actual killing," said Torch. "Forget the perimeter circling you were going to be doing. You're joining me, Gadget, and Pickle on Hound patrol. It looks like each battleship has four of those damned legs. Stay clear of the things. I don't know what they do, but I don't like the looks of them."
While Torch gave out orders, the Hounds and their Raptors drew closer to the artillery line. The Raptors made a defensive shield around each of the Hounds and headed resolutely into the slaughter of Harbinger's artillery, seeming content with their roles as meat shields for the Hounds. Not one of them broke formation. Harbinger's artillery was completely devastating the Raptors, but the Hounds were another story. They were hardly phased. There were five of the Colarian battleships, each probably carrying two Hounds. That meant there were likely a total of ten Hounds. That left six Hounds for the other four Flights stationed around Harbinger. Beatrix's Flight had yet to take out one of the four they faced. Things were looking grim.
The Talons swooped in to fire on the Hounds, taking out stray Raptors as they came across them. Each of the Hounds had taken several direct hits from Harbringer's heavy artillery rounds and were still moving. It didn't seem likely that the energy rounds from their Talons would do much. Still, Beatrix and the rest of her Flight fired intermittently, hunting for any weakness to exploit.