“So she's not real, then?”
Jack taped the holographic screen in the corner and it disappeared. “No, she's a computer-generated artificial intelligence.”
“Interesting. She looks pretty realistic.”
Jack wasn't sure if her expression was wary or unimpressed. “What's wrong...?” he asked.
“You have a girlfriend,” she pouted.
It struck him seriously which tore at his heart. But only for a moment. “Ooh, you little minx,” he scolded, his eyes narrowing, “you're messing with me.”
She smiled wickedly, “Yes, I am.” Her expression shifted and her eyes changed to a vivid purple, “Do you want to punish me...? she purred.”
It was Jack's turn to smile wickedly. “Lady, if I could climb through this screen, you'd be in big trouble...”
Her head tilted coyly, “What would you do to me, husband...?”
“I um...” Steele looked around in the darkened room, knowing full well he was alone but feeling a pang of nervousness just the same.
“We are on a secure diplomatic channel,” she reminded him. “I want to play...”
“Woman, you never cease to amaze me.”
Alité pointed at him, “But I don't want that bitch showing up and ruining things,” she hissed in mock anger.
■ ■ ■
Commander Paul Smiley was watching the squadron screens in the flight tower, waiting for the Conquest to clear the gate, the ship at yellow alert - a standard precaution when entering a system not considered strongly-held UFW territory. “Two flights ready to go?”
“Aye, Captain.”
Paul listened in on the bridge communications between the ships. “The Westwind is clear...” he announced, checking the roster then glanced up at the vid screen again. “Revenge too. Both ships reporting poor visibility. Tell our flights to take it easy, sensors are impaired...”
“What do we have out there?” asked the launch coordinator.
“Heavy clouds of dust, like smoke. High metallic content,” replied Paul. “Ok, we're clear. Go for launch...”
“Launching...” Two flights of four fighters launched simultaneously, one flight on each side of the ship. The kachunk of the launch sleds could be heard throughout the ship in rapid succession as they hit the end of their rails, ejecting the fighters out into space.
Pappy keyed his mic, “Bridge, do you have any scan data for us?”
“Our scans are severely hampered Captain, the Revenge is pushing ahead looking for a break in the conditions.”
“Copy that.” Paul turned back to the tower controller. “Launch a Zulu to escort the Revenge. Inform the flights on patrol to reduce the distance on their routes by half.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And I want two more flights on standby and two more suited up...”
■ ■ ■
On the bridge of the Revenge, Lieutenant Commander Brian Carter was pacing the bridge watching the big screen. Seeing, well... nothing. “Anything..?”
“Nothing, Skipper.”
“Zulu moving up on our Starboard side, sir.”
Brian chewed on his lower lip. “Anybody ever seen anything like this before?” He got a few glances but it was obvious this was a unique situation for all of them. “How about any ideas on what could cause something like this..?”
Ragnaar turned in his seat, “There are no notations on UFW records or updates on the charts of any anomalies like this in this system, Commander. It may be something relatively recent. It is not a heavily traveled system... it may have gone unnoticed until now.”
“How long to the gate?” Brian squinted and could make out the shape of the Zulu off their starboard side.
“At this pace, Rikovik's Reef gate in about seventy-six hours.”
“This is going to be a long seventy-six hours,” mumbled Brian.
“Direct communication, coming in Commander,” said a decidedly female but artificial voice.
Brian had almost forgotten about the eGo-h on his wrist. “Go ahead, TESS.”
Paul Smiley's face appeared on TESS' holographic screen. “How's it going over there, Commander?”
“Blind as a bat, Pappy.”
“Yeah, us too. We sent you a Zulu escort and we've got two flights out with two more on standby. You've got the most advanced sensors in our group so press ahead, but don't go beyond the reach of our current sensor sweep. The bridge is forwarding you our numbers.”
“We saw the Zulu...”
“Good. It's fitted with the sensor magnapod, so piggyback your sensors - let's see if we can improve our results.”
“Will do, Pappy.”
■ ■ ■
Commander Dar Sloane looked back and forth, out across his wingtips to see the faint outlines of the rest of his flight as they flew through the smoke and ash drifting through the system... so dense he might as well be blindfolded.
“Say Commander, aren't there supposed to be a couple planets in this system?”
His headset chirped as the comm ended. “Several,” he replied. “It'd be nice if our sensors could cut through some of this stuff so we don't fly into one...”
“Am I imagining it, or do I feel buffeting?”
Sloane keyed his mic, “Yeah... seems to be a current of some sort. I can't tell which way it's moving though.”
“Oh good, I thought I was losing my mind.”
Sloane switched over to SPD, Scanned Phase Doppler Radar, and narrowed the beam, slowing the sweep. “I'm getting the best results on SPD, although that's not saying much...”
“Same here,” chirped the speaker in his helmet. “MPB,” Magnetic Pulse Beam Radar, “just shows a wall of white.”
“I've got a blob ahea... WOAH!” Sloane yanked on the stick and kicked his rudder pedals hard, firing maneuvering thrusters as the chunk of rock the size of a building materialized in front of him. The Cyclone reared up and rolled, the left wing catching a massive outcropping of rock, barely missing the cockpit perspex, the screaming sound of crushed, tortured metal and shattering of composite armor vibrating through the fighter's frame. The Commander slammed hard against his harness, his vision going gray as the mangled wing ripped from the fuselage was flung outward. The engines still under power threw the Cyclone into a wild cartwheel, venting the oxygenated fuel gel with quick blobs of flame flying through space in all directions. The cockpit alarms were screaming at him as the confined space filled with tangy, metallic, electric smoke. His visor shield slammed shut and the wash of pure oxygen in his suit snapped him to his senses.
The rest of the flight, in a delta formation had passed the monster rock on either side and they tried to track their crippled flight leader.
“Stay on him!” screamed Santine. “Don't lose him in this stuff!”
“Commander! Commander! Cut your engines! Cut your engines! You have fire!”
Santine switched channels, “Red Flight to CFC, mayday, mayday! We have a midair with debris, we need rescue out here!”
“Conquest Flight Control, copy Red Flight. Launching emergency recovery. Please feed us your flight path numbers...”
■ ■ ■
Captain Smiley was scrutinizing the holo-chart in the flight tower. “Chart, zoom fifty percent.” The table obeyed silently, bringing the flights, ships, coordinates and flight paths closer, allowing a more detailed view. “There it is,” he pointed, indicating the debris location, fed to the tower from Red Flight. “If Rescue follows their exact path, they should be able to walk her around the debris...” Smiley straightened up and looked down through the glass to the flight deck below. “Tell her to take it easy, no hotdogging. We don't need any additional casualties. And have White flight join up with Red, we're calling them back after this...”
■ ■ ■
Lieutenant Maria Arroyo and her copilot Lieutenant JG Myomerr, were strapping into the cockpit of Rescue Two, running as fast as they could through their preflight checks as the medical and rescue personnel raced across the deck
toward the boarding ramp.
“I'm in!” called Lisa, beating the rest of the team.
Maria looked over her shoulder, “No you're not, get out.”
“I want to go...”
“No! This is not amateur hour. There's no room for you.”
“But...”
Maria keyed her mic, waving and getting the attention of the Marine on the deck at the base of her ramp. “Get her off my bird. Now!”
Without saying a word, the Marine grabbed Lisa around the waist and hauled her bodily off the ship's ramp, the ramp retracting and the hull door scissoring together with a clank.
“Goddammit! Put me down!”
Maria looked out her side window at Lisa on the deck and shook her head no. “You'll get your turn kid, just not today,” she mumbled.
“Cleared for stern launch,” announced Myomerr.
Maria twisted the anti-grav throttle and Rescue Two went buoyant, bouncing off the deck like it was floating on water, a gentle blue glow under its landing feet.
Lisa stood on the deck with her hands on her hips and watched the craft rotate smoothly under direction of the deck controller and sail out through the shimmering blue stasis field with an electric hiss, moving out over the fantail, with her landing legs retracting as she retreated out of sight.
■ ■ ■
Commander Dar Sloane was wrestling unsuccessfully with his crippled fighter to get her wild cartwheeling under control. Snatching the throttle to zero he toggled off the engines and punched the fire control system button. Fire retardant foam sprayed across her engines and injected into the fuel systems sealing the broken lines and snuffing out the fire. Gobbets of foam and dwindling streams of fuel slung out into space in long ribbons. “C'mon baby,” he breathed, “settle down...” He punched an emergency all-stop button which fired all maneuvering thrusters simultaneously for a long blast, the Cyclone shuddered under the force, her damaged frame groaning. “Mayday, Mayday, can anybody out there hear me?” The fighter rolled slowly, still drifting.
“You're signal's weak but we're tracking you Commander. Rescue Two is in route, is your fire out?”
“Fire's out, controls are dead. I've got nothing.”
“Just sit tight. We'll find you but these asteroids are all over the place.”
Smoke was still pouring out of the vents and Sloane couldn't see a damn thing. “Canopy's gotta go,” he breathed, reaching for the release handle. He heaved but it wouldn't budge. Two-handed and it still didn't move.
Santine was weaving carefully through the drifting asteroids, the remainder of the flight waiting safely outside the field. “Commander, I've got you in sight.” Smoke and ash drifted through the asteroid field obscuring his view. “Brother, I think you've got a problem...”
“Yeah, my canopy's jammed.”
“Then you've got two problems. You're drifting towards a big one, flat up on your Z axis.”
A spike of adrenalin shot through Sloan, in the smoke filled cockpit he could barely see the canopy perspex. “How far?”
“You've got about thirty seconds as far as I can tell,” replied Santine.
It was either get out, or become an ingredient in a Cyclone pancake. “Ejecting!” He reached back and pulled the ejection loops on either side of his headrest, the canopy's explosive bolts firing slowly, one-by-one...
Santine eased closer, his shields bouncing a gently drifting chunk of rock away from his Cyclone's nose. “Get out Commander! Get out!” All he could hear in response was a string of epithets and static.
■ ■ ■
Maria was probably flying a little faster than she should, following a tracking line on her HUD, fed by the computer and the waypoint tracking calculations received from Red Flight. “I can't see a fucking thing, can you?”
Myomerr's feline features twitched, her eyes locked on the scans and sensor readouts, “Me neither.”
Maria keyed her mic, “Rescue Two approaching final waypoint.”
“Two birds ahead,” said Myomerr taping on the screen, indicating their location.
“Back it down, Rescue Two, you're running hot. This field is a drifting obstacle course and you can't follow a tracking string, so shut it off.”
“Copy, tracking off,” Maria replied as Myomerr reached forward and typed in the command to end the computerized sequencer.
“Entering Asteroid field,” announced Maria. “Keep your eyes peeled, people,” she called to the rest of the crew. She nosed the ship down, passing underneath the first of the asteroids.
“Trees,” pointed Myomerr.
Maria looked up at the underside of the rock then glanced over at Myomerr before switching back to the task at hand. “What the hell are trees doing on an asteroid..?”
■ ■ ■
Dar Sloane was panicked, swearing, beating on the canopy above him. The bolts had blown but didn't clear the canopy from its rails and the seat didn't fire. He couldn't tell if the radio was still transmitting, because it sure as hell wasn't receiving. Thirty seconds had to be ticking down and he was out of ideas. He couldn't believe he was going to die without being in a fight. If he had to go, that's the way he had wanted it... Fast and furious. He sat back to wait, folding his arms across his chest... son of a bitch.
The .45 caliber, 1911 semi-auto, charged particle blaster, like Admiral Steele's, was neatly tucked into his shoulder holster. Its performance was the talk of the ship and the Freedom's Chief Engineer had been producing them in the machine shop for anyone who wanted them. He'd decided to get one on a whim.
■ ■ ■
Santine hadn't been aware that he was screaming at the top of his lungs into his mic, urging the Commander to get out. It was obvious there was something wrong and he was feeling monumentally helpless. He was fifty feet off the fuselage of the crippled Cyclone, staring at the jagged remains of the missing wing, guts hanging out, blackened, trailing fuel and gelatinous white goo. The asteroid was alarmingly close and he was going to have to brake, letting the Commander's crippled fighter go.
The flashes in the cockpit caught his attention, hot streaks of glowing crimson exiting the edge of the canopy, crossing past the nose of his own fighter. “What the hellion..?” One after another in rapid succession, a steady cadence, one or two deflected by his shields as they sailed his way. As abruptly as they began, they stopped, the canopy moving then lifting, floating free.
■ ■ ■
Sloane shoved and the canopy broke free, floating above him. Jamming his new favorite firearm and best friend back into its holster, he unbuckled his harness and ripped his cords free, standing up in the seat. Shoving the canopy out of the way, he climbed out over the fuselage and propelled himself with all his might away from what should have been his coffin. But he wasn't safe yet; his suit would only have enough air for about five minutes, max, if he stayed calm. And he wasn't, his heart was pounding like a jackhammer. But at least he wasn't alone, he could see Santine's fighter through the smoke and floating ash.
■ ■ ■
“Ping me, Red Leader,” said the voice in Santine's helmet.
“Copy, pinging. How far out are you Rescue Two?”
“Fifteen minutes. I'd love to tell you it'll be less but I can't, this is like a friggin maze.”
“Copy.” Santine knew Sloane didn't have that much time. With his engines at zero he crabbed his bird gently sideways with maneuvering thrusters, easing his way toward the Commander who was drifting toward him. He watched in all directions for anything that might be coming in his direction. Convinced there were no immediate collision threats he reached forward and flipped off his shields.
■ ■ ■
Sloane watched as Santine's Cyclone approached him sideways, the wingtip facing him, growing slowly larger, clearer. What the hellion was he doing? The flash behind him meant what was left of his ship had rammed itself into the asteroid but he couldn't turn far enough to see it. What a stupid way to lose a ship. It would have been a stupid way to die too. He reminded
himself that he wasn't home yet.
The wingtip missile poked through the gloom and he grabbed a hold of it as he half-collided with it, climbing over it, arms and legs wrapped around it, holding on. Now what? Illuminated by the screens in the cockpit he could see Santine waving him toward the cockpit.
Holding tightly he positioned his feet and pushed off, parallel above the wing, careful not to touch the surface lest he drift free. It wasn't until he leapt that he wondered what he was supposed to grab onto. Crap.
Santine closed his visor and grabbed the cockpit lever releasing it, warning lights and a tone chorusing a blast of air venting out into space as he slid the canopy back on its rails all the way back to the lock-open position. Extending his arm, he caught Sloane's free hand and pulled him close, the Commander grabbing onto the canopy and cockpit frame.
The gold coated visors meant they couldn't see each other's faces, but there were always hand signals. Santine nudged the throttle, easing them towards the area where they'd entered the asteroid field. “Red Leader to Rescue Two, about face, we'll meet you in clear space near the final way point.”
“What? How...”
“No time to explain, Rescue Two. Just do it. Red Leader will be communications dark for five minutes, starting now.” He unplugged his umbilicals from his suit and handed the cords to Sloane outside the cockpit who would be nearly out of air. They would buddy breathe, easing themselves through the asteroid field. Slowly, carefully, without shields, a rescued pilot riding a fighter piggy-back to safety.
CHAPTER SIX
GEORGIA, CHESTER'S TRUCK STOP : BFE
The rancher and his wife were nice enough to let Chase get cleaned up, washed his clothes and fed him something solid. But he didn't trust them. It was too easy. Too convenient. Sure, they were nice enough, friendly, welcoming, sympathetic. They seemed genuine. Everything that he needed... and it felt too arranged. They accepted him without asking much about his circumstances – not that he would have told them anything anyway. But at this point he didn't trust anyone as far as he could throw them. Realistically, if you met someone in his condition, wouldn't you ask what happened to him? Where he came from?
Wings of Steele 3: Revenge and Retribution Page 8